And it has been really, really bloody wet. For over a week now. At times it’s really intense, so yesterday when we were driving home from school, we were looking at this….

Country roads resemble small rivers, so this morning we decided to give Izzie a day off school, weather forecast for next 3 days looks a bit more optimistic.

I baked some doughnuts today, the recipe is already on the blog, exactly the same, I took my time though, all the lights were on most of the day, as outside is grey and dark- I ended up with one of the best ones ever. They are disappearing quickly too.

And a few days ago I fancied kotlety mielone. I had some minced veal, which was a first for mielone, normally it is pork. I added lots of chopped, fried onions, some stale bread soaked in milk, a handful of parmesan, seasoned them well with salt and pepper. Tossed in breadcrumbs, panfried, served with truffle mash, as you do, when it rains and one can be bothered! They were fantastic, I might make them for the dinner with Blackmores in 2 weeks time.

Anna, the lovely lady who lives next door, has given me 2 bowls full of veggies from their garden. The day before we had lunch together in our place, just to thank them for being so lovely to us from day 1. Nadia and Cristian came too, as did Anna’s husband, Francesco, largely responsible for growing all this fantastic produce.

The big tomatoes are on the windowsill for the colour to develop, but the little, sweet datterini were not kept waiting. I turned them into a lovely tomato sauce, spiked with a bit of chili, with lots of onions and garlic and a touch of fresh mint too. We had it with penne, a bit of aubergines and crispy guanciale completed the picture.

With our apetitivo we had some bruschettas, the best ones were those with stracciatella and datterini, the others with Anna’s aubergines, panfried with shallots and garlic. We devoured them with a glass of Santa Cristina bianco.

Next spring I will attempt growing some veggies, the neighbours and Steve set the bar really high!

Nicoise onion tart, which I have first come across while browsing Rick Stein’s book “French Odyssey”. When Moka was here last week , we’ve made one together for lunch one day, but I knew from the first bite that I will be making it again MY WAY. 🙂

This was our joint effort;

We had the ready made pastry from Esselunga, Moka has prepared the onions, I put the whole thing together and baked it. It was very tasty, made a great lunch, but the onions could have been softer. Moka panfried them and wasn’t interested in adding fresh bay leaves or thyme from the garden ( I smuggled some through at the end for garnish), which I found rather surprising.

So yesterday, on a first rainy day in over a month I made the pissaladiere again. My onions were cooked under cover for over 40 minutes with a generous bouquet garni. This made a huge difference. Once I removed the herbs, I gave it another 20 minutes uncovered which made the consistency almost spreadable.

Black olives on top take the 15 minutes in the oven well, anchovies don’t. These should definitely be added after the baking.

Excellent light supper alongside Greek salad and some good chianti.

Molly and Enrico invited us over to dinner last night. As usual it was lovely to catch up with them and spend a few hours with their lovely kiddos, who not only know how to behave at the table, they also eat everything that’s served (salad??!!) and are simply a pleasure to be around.

I offered to make the dessert, sponge cake with whipped cream and fresh pineapple, this time however I’ve made the sponge from a different recipe than my mom’s, I used Dorota’s from mojewypieki.com. 3 whole eggs, 3 tbsps of plain flour, 3 tbsps of potato starch, 6 tbsps of sugar/vanilla sugar and 1/4 tsp of baking powder. After less than 30 minutes in the oven I ended up with a perfect sponge.

I have no picture of the ready thing, sadly, but it was enjoyed and some was left for today, to Elio’s delight!

I tried homemade caponata for the first time and I loved it. And I can’t wait to make it myself this weekend. Sweet and sour, served with crusty baguette and prosecco sfuso. Life is good!

The main were wonderful, light, soft, pillowy gnocchi with pesto. All made fresh! Just how they should be. Might also make some one of these days!

Or, as Marion called it in her video, a Japanese butter garlic fried rice with a mystery ingredient. I saw this video previously and while stocking up on my Asian ingredients last week at oisshiiplanet.it I have added some KewPie mayo, just to try.

Whether this was Japanese, errr, not so much. My rice was a shortgrain, all purpose rice from Conad, but I rinsed it prior to cooking and followed Marion’s tips, so for a mug of rice I added a mug and a quarter of water, so less than I normally would. And texture was perfect, no less! Once it was cooked I tossed it with 3 tbsps of that KewPie, a first for me, but not the last, it gently added to the flavour. I had 2 eggs in the bowl, cracked and gently whipped, 3 cloves of garlic finely chopped and also some peas, as this was going to be our lunch today, so I needed a bit of something more.

A generous knob of butter into the pan, the garlic, not for too long, just to soften it slightly. Rice in. A good splash of soy sauce. After a minute or so, the rice was shoved to the side of the pan and the eggs went in, to scramble nicely, then tossed together with the rice and peas. Marion added some parsley at the end, I opted for finely chopped spring onions. Salt, to finish with, a bit more soy( never enough for Izzie, who would have it in the glass if she could) and we were done.

Nice and simple little dish, I’m thinking it would go well with chicken teryiaki skewers. I invited the Blackmores for Sunday lunch next Sunday, so might just go down that route. 🙂

Oh, and that pretty bowl the rice is sitting in- Maison du Monde. Thumbs up.

How the blog has been neglected! 🙁

Busy times though, as we are preparing to move to Casa Banks in Torcigliano, there is barely time to sit down and enjoy a cup of tea, read a book or cook something really nice and write about it. Last weekend was another one when we dragged two Ikea bags to the car in the morning, filled with stuff so that there was less for the traslochi, then a few hours of work, painting, tidying up the garden, then, as a reward to ourselves, a nice meal at Grumpy’s , as zero energy was left to cook. Grumpy always gives us a discount now and makes sure we have noticed, how he gave us a discount! 🙂

This morning I was awake at 5 am flicking through internet and found this nice little recipe from GialloZafferano. A few hours later in Esselunga I was buying some fresh green peas and made it for us this evening, while thunderstorm was raging outside. Nice little dish, all the Bankses enjoyed it.

First I crisped up some guanciale, which even Dustin likes, but raw, then drained the meat and used the fat to fry up a shallot, half a courgette and a small bowl of peas. Then a bit of chicken stock and after a few minutes the whole thing was ready to puree. Made a risotto usual way, with chicken stock and Santa Cristina, kept on adding the green puree and then a good handful of fresh peas towards the end. Right before serving crispy guanciale went on top and it was ready to be enjoyed. With the remaining Santa Cristina, ovviamente! 🙂

Liz and Ian came over to spend a few days with us over Easter. Together we have eaten very well, drunk an ocean of wine, ate out a lot. There was lots of Pizza Alice, vongole at Grumpy’s, gelato at Gelatarium, there were sensational gnocchi with asparagus and blue sauce in Florence – I should have taken a photo, but I was too busy enjoying it, but on Monday evening Ian and I cooked a nice meal for everyone, and on Ian’s request it was veal marsala. The photo doesn’t do it justice!

The veal cutlets were seasoned with salt and pepper and very quickly pan fried, as very thin. Then they rested while we made a wonderful sauce, I can’t wait to be making it again, maybe with some chicken?

On some butter chopped shallot and lots of fresh cup mushrooms were panfried, then some garlic too. A good splash of marsala and some chicken stock. The recipe suggested we reduce it all by half, what we did instead, we thickened it with some cream and flour mixture, adjusted seasoning, some chopped parsley on top and the veal could go back in. We served it with roast potatoes/carrots, green beans, broccoli and some good wine. Everyone but Evelyn enjoyed it a lot, nothing was left- no veg, no meat, no sauce. Lots of marsala waiting for more cooking. 🙂

There aren’t many things I miss from the UK. If I could walk in to Waitrose now, I’d get a handful of things; some salted French butter. Their scones. Some sourdough. Scallops. Wotsits. Lady Grey tea. Spicy Tailor curry kits. Mature cheddar. But I have been thinking for a while that I would happily destroy a portion of fish and chips. I have not had a good portion of chips in Italy so far, but that’s ok, they excel in other things. But fresh, lovely fish is available in abundance and this morning I brought from Esse some nice, small fillets of cod, consulted Marion and made us a calorific and tasty supper this evening.

Chips were rubbish. They were cooked in the oven, oven at Via di Poggio 34 is shite and I can’t wait to leave it behind in a few weeks time.

But the fish was delicious. I started with the batter, as all of the ingredients had to be cold, so flour, salt, baking powder and a touch of turmeric were coolong in the fridge while I prepared the fillets. Got rid of the bones, seasoned well with salt and pepper, dusted with corn flour. Then added some cold beer and soda water to the flour and stuff, aiming for the loose cake batter consistency, dipped my fish and quickly deep fried, until golden and crunchy. Once out onto the paper towel, a sprinkle of salt and we were good to go. Mayo with sriracha sauce was an excellent addition, as well as some sweet peas. Now- peppermint tea. 🙂

For a long time I had no idea what to do with aubergines. Here in Italy they are available all year long, cheap and everywhere. I’ve tried a melanzane parmigiana the other day, it went down quite nicely, but this here was what youtube suggested yesterday and I made these for lunch. Nothing was left!

First, a few delicious cherry tomatoes were roughly chopped, some fresh basil added, some garlic, salt and olive oil, all combined and set aside. Aubergines sliced about 2cm thick, scored, seasoned with salt and a little drizzle of olive oil, into the oven for about 10 minutes, 200 degrees, till slightly coloured. Then the tomato salad on neatly on top, some breadcrumbs mixed with parmigiano and a tiny bit of mozzarella, back to the oven for 15-20 minutes. Very Italian, very delicious.

🙂

Marion’s, for a change. Not from the book, from her food channel.

I made it this evening and divided the crowd slightly. I expected Izzie to be more enthusiastic, as she is a big citrus fan, but I got a look and a comment- “mama, lemon, yessss, but lemon with chicken??”. We both liked it, although I must say that the dish is great immediately off the pan; as it cools, the sauce gets slimy and not so great in texture.

I started with marinating my chicken breast pieces in some soy sauce, shaoxing and an egg white and left it for about 20 minutes while getting on with the rest.

The sauce- chicken stock, sugar- which I adjusted in the pan, soy sauce and lemon juice plus some zest. That juice was to be added towards the end, to keep as much of its freshness as possible.

Nice idea for pieces of crispy chicken; the meat with the marinade went onto the plate with flour, lots of it, well tossed, well coated and then deep fried and dried off on the kitchen towel.

Wok was getting nice and hot, some oil, chopped garlic and ginger, sauce goes in and cooks down for a couple of minutes. Lemon juice and zest, cornflour with water. Once happy with taste – I added more sugar- chicken goes in to be tossed in the sauce nicely. Sesame seeds, spring onions, rice on the side. I think next time less lemon juice, I’d have it a bit more subtle.