I have a magnet on the fridge that says “Kitchen is my happy place”. It certainly was today and it showed on the plate in the evening. While making soup for lunch I started making the filling for ravioli- we decided yesterday that it’s a disgrace we’ve not used our pasta machine in a year or so. We did today. I built that filling nice and slowly, tasting, thinking, adding, tasting some more. Started with frying a shallot and a small piece of leek, a good amount of chopped brown and white cup mushrooms, a handful of porcini, a knob of butter. Some chicken stock. I nicked a cooked, soft potato from the soup I was making for lunch, to thicken it and add texture. A handful of grated parmesan. Seasoning. Then I blitzed it all into a thick, lovely paste and decided to add 2 tsps of truffle paste from San Giminiano. Initially the sauce was to be made with truffle paste, but having chatted to Miky, my Sicilian buddy from Ubon, who cooks and eats with pleasure as much as I do, I decided to do a simple, sauce, so make the pasta shine on the plate- though heavy and calorific with butter, a big fried cup mushroom, double cream and parmesan. Ewa Chodakowska would not approve!!! 🙂

Florek made the pasta, I made the ravioli and the sauce, finished it with some chopped parsley and we all enjoyed it immensely, even Izzie had 4 ravioli, which made me very happy. A glass of Rioja went down nicely with it all. We must make fresh pasta more often, that was superb.

Recipe from Waitrose magazine I picked up at a service station last weekend on the way to Suffolk. I knew I’d be making it even though I’m not crazy on relishes and chutneys, but I love cheese, a good cracker and a glass of red with that. So I made the relish, very much enjoyed making it and gave a jar to Wiola, fellow cheese lover. A text came late in the evening, that it’s been a long time she’s had something that delicious and flavoursome. Shared the recipe straight away. 🙂

4 jars got washed and rinsed clean, then stayed in the 180 degree oven for about 10 minutes upside down. A method new to me, but simple enough. Left to cool, while I finely chopped a big red onion, grated 10 g of fresh ginger, added about 250 g of dried cranberries and sultanas, a juice and zest of 1 whole orange, a tsp of cinnamon and a half of that of allspice, 150 g of caster sugar, a pinch of chili flakes( genius!), 150 ml of cider or white wine vinegar- I used cider. All this into the pan and gently heated up for about 15 minutes to dissolve the sugar. While that was happening, I peeled and finely chopped about 500 g of pears and added them in. After roughly and hour I had my relish, whacked it into the jars, turned them upside down and left to cool.

Enjoyed last night with some dolcelatte and extra mature cheddar. Yum.

It really pays off to check my recipe folder every now and then. I just found this little gem, simple dish that all 3 of us liked a lot. Not perhaps particularly light, but very tasty. Conchiglie were cooking as long as they were to cook according to packet instructions, while I finely chopped a shallot, fried it on olive oil, added some roughly chopped nice ham, a handful of frozen peas and then a good, generous splash of double cream. A tsp of English mustard. A generous handful of grated mature cheddar. Seasoned. A few broccoli florets go in with the pasta for the last 3 minutes of cooking time, then onto the pan with the rest of of stuff, well coasted in creamy sauce. A sprinkling of parmesan is never a bad idea. Simple and delicious.

I spotted a post on Italian pizza onmojewypieki.com and with one look at the photos I had to try. It proves for 6 hours, so it’s nice for a lazy Saturday. For us it was Friday, the dough was made before lunch and rested till 6pm. A bit of a project, but well worth it, we all loved it. What was unusual for me was the tiny amount of yeast used, alongside lots of salt, but it was the salt I guess that made this dough really tasty! I used 300 g of 00 flour, a bit less than 300g (grams, not ml) of warm water and as little as 2 g of fresh yeast which I melted in 3 tbsps of that water and left it waiting, while the flour and water worked in the kitchen aid. After 20 minutes of it resting I added the yeast and 8 g of salt, worked it more, covered with cling film and left for an hour. After an hour Dorota recommends giving the dough a bit of a stretch and leaving it further, for the mentioned 6 hours altogether. It is to double in size and when prepared to go into the oven one is to stretch it rather than roll it out, I did a bit of both. My oven tried really hard last night and actually heated up to 270 degrees.

Simple pizza there was, excellent sugo, some Milano salami, ham and mozzarella for Izzie, pine nuts, parmesan. I think Gennaro’s recipe might now go into retirement, this one is really tasty.

Steve and Christina are coming over this weekend, so we splashed out and placed the order with Wagyu House again. There will be burgers on Saturday. But I also ordered a piece of their sirloin, 300 g of it, a bit of luxury. I cooked it this evening, alongside roast potatoes and some greens. The meat was waiting to be at room temperature, then placed onto a hot pan, no oil or anything, cooked, left to rest and only then seasoned with flaky salt and a touch of pepper. Phenomenal flavour. And the credit card £80 heavier. 🙂

First ever, how I managed to avoid ever making one of these, I don’t know. We get through 18-24 fresh farm eggs in a week in our house and yet it took “Remarkable places to eat” on the BBC to make me want to cook one. Excellent mini series, I must say, there was an episode in Venice ( “Venetians are thieves”, said our Tuscan host Marco last month), in Edinburgh- loved it, as it featured The Kitchin, one in Paris and one in San Sebastian, which is where the tortillas were made.

I used a simple recipe from BBC Good Food, with half a white onion chopped and slowly fried in quite a lot of oil, till softened but not coloured. 2 medium sized potatoes chopped quite small, cooked until soft. Then most of that oil had to be drained before 4 beaten and generously seasoned eggs were added. I also chucked in a few cherry tomatoes from the green house and some green peas leftover from Izzie’s supper. It cooked under the lid for a few minutes then with a help of a plate I turned it upside down to finish the cooking. I served it with crusty baguette, a green salad and some parma ham. We both liked it, but I would put some more flavour in it, chorizo maybe, garlic, something strong.

Last Saturday we braved the rain ( summer’s been cancelled this year, by the look of it) and went to check out Daylesford Farm near Kingham, a place recommended by Christina. I knew nothing would be cheap there, but we still went and blew 60 quid. First thing I noticed on the car park was a Tesla charging station, that said it all about the clientelle…. 🙂

It’s all organic in there, apparently, nothing wrong with that, there’s a lovely selection of bread, there’s butcher’s, some fish, cured meats- at eye watering prices- as well some lovely stuff for home. My favourite place was a little cold cheese room. We got some of their own organic cheddar, some blue cheese and a small piece of a phenomenal truffle number imported from Italy, called Moliterno.

We had most of those cheeses on Saturday evening, laughing out loud in the face of the diet!!! But last night I grated the remaining piece of the truffle cheese onto the pizza, alongside mozzarella di buffala and parmesan. And finally, almost exactly a year after purchasing it, I used up one of my whole truffles from La Bottega di Tartuffo in Lucca. Time to do that was high, as I’ll be there next month again. Beautiful pizza, earthy with mushrooms, simple, cheesy. Top marks!

Hands down the best curry I’ve ever made. While flipping the pages of the latest Good Food I saw this recipe and wanted to make it straight away. Today I did and we both loved it, Izzie ate some too, but only because she was promised a dessert. Florek had seconds, I didn’t, I’m being good. Over 500 kcal according to the magazine, so I wasn’t pushing my luck. Worked out at 4pm though, needed to earn my curry!

2 garlic cloves, a chunk of ginger, 2 large shallots blitzed into a nice creamy paste. 3 chicken thighs chopped roughly and quickly browned off, then out of the pan, the onion paste in for a few minutes. This followed by dry spices- 1tsp each of cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and paprika. 2 tbsps of tomato puree. 2 tsps of sugar, 1 of salt ( could be skipped, 300 ml chicken stock was salty enough). 0,5 tsp of chili flakes. Once all this was happily combined in the pan and smelling phenomenal, chicken went back in, chicken stock too and slowly it cooked for about 30 minutes before chopped potato and a sweet potato went in. They were not in the recipe, but I love spuds in my curry. And some cauliflower too. And peas, added towards the end. 150 ml of double cream was recommended to be added by the end, but I used coconut cream half way through.

Toasted, flaked almonds, fresh coriander and naan breads from Sainsbury’s completed the picture. Very, very good indeed.

I have a new cookbook, Tim Anderson’s “Tokyo Stories”. The first recipe that screamed “MAKE MEEEEEE!!!!” at me was the hanetsuki gyoza. Made it accordingly, but skipped the crispy”wings” made with soaked cornstarch. I was starving, so was Florek, I left it out. Gyoza itself was super tasty, Florek, who’s not crazy on any pork dish had all all of his plus 3 of mine- I was pushing it already in terms of my diet…. :-/

Anyway, 250 g of fatty minced pork from Toby’s, 80 g of very finely chopped Chinese cabbage, 4 garlic cloves and a 2cm piece of ginger, grated. A handful of chopped chives- replacement for nira, I had no idea what nira was, but google did have an idea. Seasoned with salt and white pepper. All this nicely combined and wrapped in gyoza wrappers, gently panfried, then covered and steamed for 3 minutes to make sure the pork inside was nicely cooked. Served with a simple dipping sauce made with 4 tbsps of soy sauce, 2 tbsps of rice vinegar, a splash sesame oil and – not in the recipe, but I thought ponzu would work here nicely- good splash of lemon juice.

Excellent, not too complicated and will be made again.