Back to Tuscany we went almost 2 weeks ago. Stayed in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in a stunning villa, dined in new and old places, went back to Lucca to shop and eat, went to Forte dei Marmi to splash about at the beautiful beach.  Foodwise, tomatoes out of this world. I mean, my Mum’s tomatoes are fantastic, but they’re home grown, while In Italy it seems to be a standard- every packet in a supermarket I’ve bought was full of sweet, delicious and flavoursome tomatoes.

We went back to eat at Marco’s in Bagni di Lucca, the place is now called Keep Calm.  Simple menu, messy and a bit random place, great host. We sat by the river on the terrace and enjoyed 3 lovely meals there.  Marco brought out once something we’ve never tasted before, a farinatta; chunky fried polenta with chopped vegetables                          ( cauliflower), herbs, all well seasoned  and deep fried. I will have a go at it one day, I think. Very filling.

Iz particularly enjoyed tagliatelle al ragu.

Then, in Lucca I had some beautiful gnocchi with an ok gorgonzola sauce and then, a great place of spaghetti alle vongole.  Tasty, simple, lovely clam flavours.

Florek’s favourite pizza this time was at Ponte di Maddalena, best dough, he decided.

And finally, what does one find, when one picks a lemon at a supermarket? A lemon from Amalfi coast, no less. It smells and tastes truly luxurious.

Italia, ti amo! xx

On a visit to Whole Foods yesterday I had a peek at their macarons display and saw champagne flavoured ones, which inspired me to try something a little different. We’re not big champagne drinkers, Florek and I, I do like a glass of prosecco every now and then, but we hardly ever have bubbles at home. What we do happen to have is a handsome bottle of Disaronno. I’ve made a Disaronno jelly out of 100 ml of the liqueur and a gelatine leaf, while the perfect batch of macarons were baking.  I also replaced 65 g of almonds with toasted and ground walnuts in the original recipe, but I can’t say it massively revolutionized the taste.  The jelly was nicely set, enough to cut it out with a round cake nozzle, but in the end I just spooned it out onto the shells.

Onto those I added a ring of chocolate ganache. As the shells were perfect today, they needed no time to soak, they were good to eat pretty much straight away. I have to say- exquisite. The jelly is very strong when tasted on its own, but with the ganache and meringue makes for a real treat.  Another door opened, getting ideas for the festive season in 3 months time. 🙂

A breakthrough in my pizza making. I had Gennaro Contaldo’s book sitting on the shelf for a couple of years, had a look through it yesterday and came across a recipe for ” La vera pizza napoletana”. Just what I needed after a few of my recent pizzas having a serious quality issues, especially the dough.  I picked up some mozzarella this afternoon and made us 2 small pizzas, that were simply the best ones I’ve ever made.  And on Florek’s request I added some pepperoni to tomorrow’s Ocado order, as there will be more of that awesome pizza made this week!

For 2 pizzas I used 250 g of 00 flour, 0,5 tsp of salt, 5 g of fresh yeast, 160 ml of warm water, Kitchen Aid worked it for a few minutes, then it proved for an hour in a warm oven cooling after creme brulees.

Rolled out as thinly as a thick pancake, the pizzas went onto an oiled tray, a freshly made tomato sauce onto it, but not as much as I used to do, less, I didn’t want another soggy pizza. Fresh basil. Mozzarella, a good sprinkling of parmesan. 7 minutes in the oven heated up to 250 degrees. Simply fantastic!!!! 🙂 Good evening that was!

Lisa’s having us for drinks this afternoon, I volunteered to make something sweet. There’s Bailey’s cheesecake for the grown ups and 2 types of Christmassy macaroons, both from mojewypieki.com.  The only change I made was the lemon filling I used- Dorota suggested mint one for the trees, I’m not a fan. Snowmen could do with some more finesse, but the trees I love. 🙂

Now awaiting the bright red food colourant from Amazon and there will be more macaroons.

Last Wednesday Florek took us for lunch to Bar and Wok, a small Chinese restaurant on the dodgy end of High Street, that I wanted to visit in a long time. Pizia and I had random stuff, like calamari and spring rolls, while Florek took a bowl of udon noodles with beef. I had a taste, it was far too hot for me, but the other flavour, sort of smoky, deep one I loved. The chap who served us said it is done by heating up the wok to the very smoky point, which can’t be done at home, but it’s normal in a restaurant. I’d cry my eyes out if I had a bowl of Florek’s noodles, but I left the restaurant inspired and determined to try to make my stir fries better.

I looked up some recipes and made a little sauce, that covered the whole dish. It consisted of a generous of tsp of chili garlic sauce, 2 tbsps of rice vinegar, 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1 tsp of sesame oil, 2 tbsps of brown sugar, 2 cloves of crushed garlic,  1 tbsp of  finely chopped ginger, plus just a splash of teriyaki sauce. My prawns were sitting in soy sauce most of the afternoon and I have to say I got them spot on this evening. They were crunchy and succulent. The veggies I first added to the hot work were a shallot, sping onion, mange tout, bean sprouts, green bell pepper and some cup mushrooms. Noodles- udon, the best I guess. Finishing touch was a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

Easily one of the best stir fries to date.

I searched for a nice pancake recipe after Ocado failed to bring any baguettes (out of stock), that I always have in the pantry. As the weather sucks and going to the bakery to get some rolls was a bit much to ask of me, I thought, ok, pancakes then.

This Nigella’s recipe has great reviews, so I gave it a go.  They were indeed lovely and will be made again, but with bacon and some blueberries,  of which I had neither, so we had them with maple syrup or with apricot jam.

For 2 people I used 120 g of plain flour, 1/2 tbsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp of sugar, 1 egg, 15 g of melted butter and 150 ml of milk, all whipped into a nice, thick batter. I fried them on oil, quite quickly, flipping when the bubbles appeared.

They’re quite light, soft and enjoyable. And will be made again.

The recent GF magazine had some ideas for bbq pizzas. I have no bbq, I have an old, shitty oven, that’s not even mine and can’t be scrubbed properly inside no matter how much Mr Muscle Oven I spray at it. But I liked the idea of pizza topped with grilled veggies and fresh, homemade( the only way!)- pesto.  So while my dough was proving, I made pesto and griddled  some courgette, aubergine and red onion. Additional topping- mozzarella, chilli, cheddar, cherry tomatoes. Next time it will be blue cheese, it needed a lift of some sorts. We pigged the whole one regardless.  It’s been raining all day, so we now have a fire burning and thinking of some dessert.

A guest recipe by Florian

We always make our own Pizza dough. This recipe is particularly good!

You will need this lot :

240 g Strong white bread flour
Some yeast (We used Allinson dried active yeast)
1 table spoon tbs (8 g) olive oil
Some sugar for the dried yeast.
A pinch of salt
Some water

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