It’s been too long since our last risotto, so I bought a piece of pumpkin this morning ( what a lovely idea that you can buy them in pieces) and made us a lovely, creamy risotto this evening. I might have chucked in a few ingredients too many ( a handful of sweet peas for Izzie and 2 girolle mushrooms for the balance, I didn’t want it too sweet), but I took my time and it was worth it.
Started with roasting off the zucca, alongside a shallot and a few garlic cloves, while repotting a few plants. Then, for the risotto I first opened a bottle of white Santa Cristina and poured myself a lovely, chilled glass. Chopped a shallot, those girolles and sauteed them. 200g of arborio rice in, then, after a few minutes, a glug of wine in. Usual procedure, some wine, some chicken stock, I kept adding that roasted zucca and shallots, then the peas. Once I was happy with the texture, grated parmesan went in, a small knob of butter and we were ready to eat. Pumpkin soup next, sometime soon. 🙂
I ran back to that small grocery store this morning and sure enough- they had some lovely mushrooms for me. Not cheap, not cheap at all, but hey, I was deprived of this pleasure for 20 years while living in the UK, plus I won’t be buying them every day. I bought 6 large lovely ‘shrooms, one went to the freezer, 2 sliced up and dried on the windowsill, one made us a small bruschetta for lunch and 2 were turned into the most wonderful sauce in the evening, to accompany gnocchi.
For bruschetta I simply panfried a small chopped shallot, added thinly sliced mushrooms, generously seasoned with salt and black pepper and when on the bread, sprinkled some of that lovely fresh thyme I got given in the shop. An absolute delight.
In the evening I took a bit more time with the sauce, I’ve been wanting to do this for months. Chopped shallot, some garlic, butter, mushrooms. Chicken stock, lots of seasoning. Some fresh cream. Once cooked down, gently blitzed in, so that the texture was soother, thyme and gnocchi in.
Izzie kindly gave it 8,5 out of 10, for me it was a knockout.
Quite simply! What my mum grows in her small greenhouse on her allotment is also a force to be reckoned with, but the abundance of tomatoes I have here makes me very, very happy indeed. I took my time in Esselunga and had a good look at what Mutti have to offer to the lucky Italians and found this –
Wonderfully sweet datterini tomatoes that make a sauce out this world.
While in Garfagnana we had a supper of Conad’s lasagne with veal ( wow!), which then inspired me to run back for some minced veal to make ragu. They had none minced, sadly, so I ended up getting 4 small veal burgers and made my usual ragu, but- with fresh tomatoes and those datterini. Exceptional and will be made again very soon.
Ron has booked his tickets for early November, with lasagne being his most favourite thing to eat, I do wonder if he will love the veal version too.
Now it’s September and I’m looking out for fresh porcini mushrooms. First thing I’ll do when I get some will be mushroom sauce with some gnocchi, some porcini will be dried, a few will be frozen. The chap in a grocery shop in Via Santa Croce told me to come back tomorrow morning and I might be in luck. Fingers crossed!
So many things to get used to. I said goodbye to my spacious, comfortable kitchen in Winchcombe, where everything worked, nothing leaked, there was lots of space and it was spotless, including all appliances. Before I write any more – Florek would say- anymore moaning- I know this is a temporary place to live. But still, when on the same day I realize the sink is still leaking, the washing machine the landlord left for us is filthy and only 1 programme works decently and there is no way I can clean the mould off the shower cabin ( mould inside the glass, so to speak, even my trusty Dettol is helpless), it was hard to keep the straight face. So I had a quick and intense meltdown and it helped. We went to Brickocenter the next day and the sink got fixed. We dug deep and ordered a nice, new, awesome washing machine, another Samsung like the one left in the UK, but a new generation. The next thing will be a coffee machine- yes, we did the unthinkable and had to leave our beloved Krups behind, we gave it to Keava and Simon as it simply did not fit in the already full car.
Shopping for food here is a delight. Filling my own fridge ( so many people back in the UK thought I was insane taking my fridge to Italy, I love it!) with things like guanciale, now available anytime we fancy carbonara, like delicious Italian yoghurt, Sicilian grapes, truffle sauces from around the corner in Via Fillungo, this feels great. Izzie helped making truffle bechamel and then sat at the table and ate the pasta coated in it straight from the pot, that’s how chuffed she was!
Carbonara had to be made, no brainer. Also, when making a nice tomato sauce for gnocchi I fried some guanciale and when crispy, chucked fresh, skinless tomatoes in and cooked them down in this wonderful, flavoursome fat. Miky told me a few days later that amattriciana sauce is made that way, only a good handful of pecorino romano cheese needs to be added too and black pepper.
And at Grumpy’s recently I went for pizza Capricciosa, with the most amazing, soft and delicious artichokes and black olives.
Having written all that, the scales actually is quite kind to us both! We eat less, as it’s hot, but also carrying shopping onto the third floor and moving a lot more really helps. Good stuff!
My mom is a big fan of veal, I never have been, but this is about to change. In the UK it’s mega expensive and I’m not sure if worth it. But having chatted to Michele, my food buddy from Ubon days I felt like polpettini and Miky said veal is the way to go.
I bought some ground veal, added some grated parmesan, an egg, lots of chopped parsley, a grated clove of garlic, a white bread roll soaked in milk and seasoned it well, before combining. While the simple tomato sauce was bubbling away I quickly pan fried the meatballs and then finished them off in the sauce. Served with penne, as per Izzie’s suggestion, less messy than spaghetti and cooks faster!
All went down a storm with some local Vermentino- another winner, 6 euro for a bottle of wonderful, light, Italian wine. Thumbs up!
Youtube flashed this video at me this morning, I happened to have all the ingredients needed, there were no excuses. I first made some pesto for Floro and Iza, I knew they would not be interested in what I was about to be cooking.
Started with some chopped spring onions, some chopped ginger, a sprinkle of sea salt and pounded it into a nice chunky paste in my mortar. Heated up a little bit of oil and sesame oil and when it was hot, I poured it onto the spring onion mix, it sizzled and smelled amazing.
While the spaghetti was cooking, I got cracking with a generous handful of prawns. Onto the oiled pan went some chopped garlic, then prawns, a sprinkle of chili flakes and salt. A drizzle of soy sauce. Oyster sauce. A little cooking water from the pasta to loosen it. In went the pasta, it all got tossed together resulting in a dark, beautiful and very promising dish. To finish, the spring onion mixture, some mixed in, some on top.
March has been mega busy. And when I write this I have a massive grin on my face, as Things Are Happening and we are moving to Italy in summer.
The house is on the market, we’re trying to agree a good removal company to take all our stuff to Lucca, a new school for Izzie has been agreed, all sorts of logistics are being seen to, but yes- we are doing it! Later on this year we will be living full time in the land of the most amazing food ever.
I popped in to Co Op this lunch time to pick up some mozzarella and some cat food, but I came across the first asparagus of the season, early this year, due to a spell of fantastic weather for the last 2 weeks. I hope Italians have asparagus at least as good as the Brits here in the Cotswolds, to be discovered next spring.
I also made a batch of hazelnut macaroons, which I stuffed with the remaining coffee cream- remaining from a really good pannettone we had after Christmas. Hazelnuts and coffee, anytime!
Even more pancakes? Yes, these deserve to be mentioned here, as they really were delicious. I hardly had time to take some photos, they were disappearing so quickly! Raymond Blanc’s recipe, a definite keeper!
210 ml of milk, 3 large eggs whisked together, to this 90 g of strong white flour. 30 g of butter melted and taken to the point of beurre noisette. 15 g of sugar, I added vanilla sugar. Zest of some lemon and orange- a revelation, it all smelled amazing when on the pan. Pinch of salt. All this well whisked together and left in the fridge to rest for over an hour. This amount of batter made about 7 pancakes, we had them with whatever we liked- plum conserve, hazelnut cream, lemon juice. Will be made again, most likely as soon as this weekend. 🙂
Recipe from souschef.com. I’ve made 4 of these for lunch today and I was very pleased that a certain child, a big fan of pancakes had all of hers and did not complain too much, she did however mention that next pancakes are to be NORMAL.
For 4 pancakes I made a batter out of 100 g of plain flour, 15 g of icing sugar ( recipe asked for 25, but I’m doing really well on cutting down my sugar use altogether), 1 tbsp of matcha, 1 whole egg, 250 ml of milk, all of this well combined. I fried them on a tiny amount of oil, which made them nice and light, served with blackcurrant jam. Nice little recipe!
Today marked 21 days of my commitment to Choda’s daily workouts. 3 weeks. Every day. Without any massive whinging or having to force myself. I do 20 minutes a day on the mat, today I wiped the dust off the “Scalpel” dvd and did 45 minutes. It felt really good. I thought that I’d love to reward myself with a bowl of steamed mussels, but I didn’t. The budget is normally close to zero on a Sunday, moules mariniere are made with cream, which I have not had for over a month ( a very loud applause!!!!) and finally, the weather really sucks these days, gales, rain and general shit outside of the window, not a day to get dressed and go out eating. Instead I’ve made us some delicious, light lunch, which we both enjoyed a lot, but I’m sure we’ll be hungry in about 2 hours- too bad, the fat will not go by itself.
I ordered some lovely Italian cured meats from Camisa again last week, mortadella is long gone with Izzie’s enthusiastic help, parma ham was enjoyed yesterday for lunch, today I used the remaining 3 slices, two kinds of salami still waiting to be opened. I made croutons out of my remaining halloumi bread, very flavoursome, when pan fried. Rocket, olives, cherry tomatoes, avo, feta, sweetcorn, that parma, croutons and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic. Simple, delicious, light.
