Yesterday we visited the market in Bourganeuf, which – thankfully – had a little more produce then the previous two markets. We had quite a large group so making decisions is always a little bit harder when there are 8 people with opinions… lol… But Jan-Willem was to be the chef of the day, so he had the final say in what we were gonna buy. The idea was to check what produce was available and with a reasonable price, buy that produce and in the afternoon come up with a menu.

Busy cutting

We have a large white board where the ideas are written down and once we all agree that is what we are going to make; we create a mise en place list and tasks are being divided among whoever wants to help in the kitchen that particular day. Not everyone is cooking every day; there are other activities being offered, so there are also people who prefer to go painting some days and work in the kitchen another day. So that means that the kitchencrew varies. Which is fine but it can be a little messy and unorganized as not everyone has cooking experience, but it makes it fun at the same time.
We ended up with a menu that went something like this:
Antipasti the french way (we had rillette, baked terrine of duck, tomatoes with mozarella and basil and grilled veggies)
Salmon tartar with lemon mayonaise and a sort of pesto (I ended up making it with salad (initially the idea was to make rocketpesto, but we forgot to buy rocket)
With a piece of Conquer eel
Roasted chicken with home made french fries, fresh green peas steamed with sjallots and saladhearts
Clafoutis with strawberries and mango

The chicken was from a local farm so a really good one and ofcourse; who does not like good fries…
The group of people that had to be fed keeps growing as a few family members also arrived, so in total we had 16 people at the table.

I was not too impressed with the fish; really too much bones and not enough flesh. So as good as the shark was the day before, as bad as the eel was… O well, it can’t all be perfect right?

Steamed green peas with sjalots and saladhearts

Tonight there is going to be an additional 6 people that come for a table d’hote (basically it’s paying customers) which makes it kind of scary, but also fun to be cooking for “real” customers…. We’ll see how that turns out!! I’ll keep you posted!

Checking to see if the fish is fresh

Fresh shark (yes, that is me and Mathijs)

I apologize for all the french people out here for not spelling the above  title correctly but it kind of sums up what we are doing here perfectly. I was planning on posting something here yesterday but…. unfortunately the internet connection was lost. The wifi was connected only the day before yesterday and we are sort of in the middle of nowhere (biggest places Gueret is 20 km from here and Limoges is I think about 80 km so not exactly close) so any regular connection is not existing. Rob had a special antenna placed so there is at least a better internet connection then via a telephone line, but it’s still a bit shaky.. But if you can read this; that means we had a connection plus it has its charms to be out in the country right?

Yesterday we had planned to go to the market in one of the little places around here but one of the markets was not there and the other was so small that we only bought some goatcheese and nothing else. So we ended up going to the Carrefour again.

We bought loads of fresh produce and then once back we had to come up with a menu to make.

Smoked shark with rocket and lemon mayonaise

The menu for yesterday was as follows:

Soup of roasted peppers with creme fraiche and basil

Smoked shark with rocket and lemon mayonaise

Beefstew with red cabbage, pear and mashed potatoes

Pannacotta with mango

Now I don’t know about you guys but I had never had shark before (called saumonette in french and apparently it is sold as sea-eel in some countries)

and I totally totally loved it.

It was first rubbed in seasalt and left to rest for about 30 minutes, cut into portions and patted dry with kitchen towel. Then it was put into the big green egg with Jack Daniels wood for smoking…

Absolutely delicious; the lemon mayonaise it simple. Fresh mayonaise, with some lemon zest and about the juice of half a lemon and you’re good to go. The french mayonaise is quite good, so you can use that as a base or simply make fresh mayonaise from scratch.

The beefstew was maybe my favorite…. We used a large piece of beef (I think it was 2 kilo in total but then we are with 12 people) and first removed the tendons where necessary. The beef (at roomtemperature) was then marinated for about 30 minutes at least in red wine. Briefly sauteed in various portions (if you put all the beef in a pan at the same time, you end up cooking it, instead of frying it. That is not what you want!) and then we put it in the oven with all the marinate. The beef was seasoned with salt and pepper during the sautee part. We added some whole cloves of garlic (including the skin), onion and a little later in the process some mushrooms and crispy bacon bits. In total it simmered in the oven for about 2 hours (in a crockpot) but just check when the beef is done, as you do not want to overcook it.
I seriously think it was the best stew I have ever had and combined with the red cabbage and mashed potatoes it was a delicious meal.

The pannacotta was just big enough. The previous day we had made two cakes (one lemon and one chocolate ) and while delicious it was a bit tooo much after a rather heavy meal! So the pannacotta was a better portion and delicious as well. As a base for the pannacotta I used this recipe and then just substitued the cranberries for the mango. The sugar got reduced to 90 gr (for 3 portions of the recipe) and I mashed some of the leftover mangoes into the cream before pouring into their forms.

Beef stew

After such a meal it was time for some of us (…) to stretch their legs in a battle of tabletennis. And did I already show you our gorgeous sleeping room, which is in an old cowstable and one of the best things is that – while it is pitch dark inside with no windows – it is fabulously cool!! Totally love that… plus… we have no mosquitos!!

Our stable room!

Almond nut butter

I am nuts about nuts… Love them all, although I have a slight allergy for them. Ever heard of the most common allergy which is apple, raisins and walnuts? Well, I have it.. Really nothing serious; but whenever I eat a raw apple or walnut (once used in something I’m fine) my throat, ears and chin start to itch and if I make the mistake of touching my eyes before I wash my hands…. the fluids in my eyes start to swell up making me look like something from outer space.. I’ve only had that once but it was not a pretty sight! Ever since I make double sure to wash my hands immediately after eating an apple. Yes, I still eat them. I like them too much and the itching is something that passes quickly.

Lately though I have noticed that the allergy seems to have spread to other nuts besides walnuts… Hmm…. I’ve always thought I wasn’t “made” properly.. too many weird allergies, but thankfully nothing all too serious. So… I was quite happy to read about the challenge for the Daring Cooks for this month.

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

Almonds

When I was reading through our various options for the recipes I really wanted to make the Asian salad as that just sounded perfectly for the current hot weather, but… Tom didn’t feel like eating any salad. For some weird reason he always feels that dinner should be positively warm. Even if the weather is +30°C, he still insists something should be served hot. He’s ok if it is only a sandwich, as long as it is one prepared in the oven and eaten hot… How weird is that??

So I do tend to eat my salads for lunch rather then dinner, although I do occasionally just ignore him and prepare a salad for dinner. I mean seriously; what is wrong with a salad??

But for this particular challenge I really liked all four of the options so I decided to please my guy and made the chicken with curried tomato almond sauce.

Making the butter is really a breeze. Just pop everything in the magimix and keep on grinding until it becomes smooth and buttery. I did add a bit more oil as almonds are by their nature rather dry. I did not roast them beforehand but I can imagine that it would be an enhancement to the flavor. The nuts were unsalted to begin with, so I just added salt to the final dish prior to eating it. Which worked fine for me as I felt it would be easier to adjust the levels of saltiness when doing it this way. The finished dish was also very flavorful.

I do tend to forgot to read recipes very thoroughly, so what happens is that I scan through it, check my ingredients and then just start cooking. I sure do check the recipe occasionally but as it turns out; I also forgot to do certain things that are spelled out. Simply because I do not read it thoroughly enough.

In this case I sort of forgot to make it a smooth sauce, as I just chopped the onion into fine bits and left them in the sauce. There was no way I would have been able to remove them anyway and I liked the final result. Not a smooth sauce by any means, but very tasty nonetheless. The almonds you could taste very well in the dish but not in an overpowering way. Really loved the dish!

Chicken tomato almond curry

Chicken with Curried Tomato Almond Sauce
Yield: 4 servings

Recipe notes: Substitute the protein of your choice for the chicken. This is a smooth sauce, so the onion is removed before serving. If you prefer, dice the onion and leave it in the sauce or substitute a bit of onion powder.

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
4 (6 oz / 170 g) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
Salt to taste

Spice Blend:
1.5 tablespoons (20 ml) garam masala seasoning
1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon (1 ml) black pepper

Sauce:
4 tablespoons (60 ml) butter
1 large onion, cut in half pole to pole
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (15-ounce/425 g) can tomato sauce
⅓ cup (80 ml) almond butter
⅓ cup (80 ml) milk
½ to ¾ cup (120 to 180 ml) chicken broth or water, more as needed
1 cup (240 ml) frozen peas (optional)

Hot basmati rice for serving
Chopped parsley (optional garnish)
Sliced almonds (optional garnish)

Directions:

1. Cook the chicken. If desired, pound chicken to ¼ inch (6 mm) thickness to promote even cooking. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Heat 1 teaspoon (5 ml) olive oil a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken; sauté 3 to 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Cook the chicken in 2 batches, adding more oil if needed for second batch. Dice chicken into bite-sized pieces; set aside on clean plate and keep warm.
2. Prepare spice blend. Stir garam masala, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper together in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. Melt the butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook gently for several minutes to infuse the butter with onion flavor. Keep the heat low to avoid burning the butter; a little color is fine. Add the spice blend and garlic and cook for 1 minute or till fragrant, stirring constantly. Add the tomato sauce, stir well, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Whisk in almond butter and milk until thoroughly combined with tomato sauce. The almond butter is thick so it takes a while to make a smooth sauce. Return to simmer. Add broth (or water) to sauce to reach desired consistency; return to simmer. Add more broth (or water) as needed to thin sauce as desired.
4. Remove onion from sauce and discard. Stir frozen peas (if using) into sauce. Transfer sliced chicken to sauce. Simmer gently for a few minutes until peas and chicken are heated through.
5. Serve chicken and sauce over rice. Garnish with chopped parsley and/or sliced almonds if desired.

Fettucine with lots of veggies

It doesn’t really happen very often that I use a recipe to make pasta. To me it is just the perfect meal when we need something quick, tasty and want to use whatever we have in the fridge or closet. So that is also the way that this fettucini came to live…. It’s hot here at the moment, which I am sure you heard me say on more then one occassion by now. So while perfect for strawberry frozen yogurt or mango icecream; that is not really very sustainable or fit for an evening meal. It’s also not the kind of weather where you would like to stand in the kitchen or near a stove or oven for longer then absolutely necessary. Since I used fresh pasta for this recipe, cooking the pasta is just about 3 minutes and the rest is as easy as can be. Because I used smoked chicken, rather then raw chicken; it’s even quicker to make. I will try and list the ingredients that I used for this pasta but really… it would work with lots of other things as well!

FETTUCINI WITH PEAS, SMOKED CHICKEN AND SUN DRIED TOMATOES (serves 2)

Fresh pasta for two

2-3 sundried tomatoes

3-4 fresh tomatoes, cut into large chunks

1 onion, cut into chunks

1 clove of garlic

roasted bell peppers (about 2)

200 gr peas, frozen (obviously if you have fresh peas, you can use those as well)

handful of rocket

200 gr smoked chicken

garlic pepper, seasalt

Italian herbs (basil mainly)

Parmesan for grating

100 ml of double cream (I think I might have used a little less. It was really just a dash)

Bring your water to a boil and keep at a simmer. You want to have your ingredients done already before cooking the pasta, as that literally takes 3 minutes when using fresh pasta. If using dried pasta with longer cooking times then you might want to cook it straight away, as the preparing of the sauce is very quick.

Cut sundried tomatoes and roasted bell peppers in small strips. Cut the chicken in cubes.

Put a pan on the stove at medium heat and add some oliveoil. Slowly fry the onion until soft, add the garlic and bake for a short while. Ad the chicken and briefly fry before adding the sundried tomatoes and bell peppers. Add the fresh tomatoes and let it simmer shortly until the tomatoes start to fall apart and form a sauce. Once you have that, add the cream and mix. Taste and add Italian herbs, salt and pepper where needed. I’ve used garlic pepper which is great and very tasty. Add the frozen peas at the last minute and warm through.

To serve put the fettucini in a bowl, add a little grated parmesan on top and a handful of rocket.

Enjoy!

The heat has struck again here and guess what I decided to do this afternoon? Remove all the weed from the garden! Really a fabulous idea when the temperatures are soaring way above 30 (can’t really tell exact numbers… I don’t have a termometer in the garden) but at least it’s starting to look like a garden again. It’s weird really, that no matter how dry it is, weed always seems to survive, while the regular plants, the ones you really want to survive struggle! When we came back from Italy our private jungle was a little too realistic… It’s cut down a bit and hopefully it stays down as we’re having a gardenparty next week and I would hate to start all over again. O well, I am really not complaining (oo, did you think that was what I was doing??) as it is finally summer!!

Mango icecream in cookie cup

So obviously after the delicious Strawberry icecream I had to make another flavor and this time I wanted to make a cream-based icecream instead of yogurt based. We have friends coming over tonight and upon asking my friend what flavor of icecream she would like, she instantly called out ‘ mango!! ‘ Now you have to know that we do have mango’s here but in general the ones you can find in the supermarket are really terrible mango’s. Unripe when you buy them and tasteless once they are ripe. Not sure where they get them from but it sure ain’t a good source. But I was lucky this time as I found some really good  looking very ripe mango’s that I had to transport very very carefully as they do bruise easily in this state. I bought four of them and needed only two for the icecream, so guess where the other two went… They were gone before you know it. Now eating a mango is not something you want to do in public, at least I don’t want to do it in public, as it gets incredibly messy. I have not mastered the art of eating a mango and keeping my clothes clean at the same time. Any tips or hints are welcome here (and I have tried most of them so you have to be original!)

Making the icecream was ridiculously easy. I’ll give you the recipe below but you can almost not call it a recipe as it is so simple to make. I do think I am ready for more difficult types of icecream now, as I have not made any containing eggyolks, which is apparently quite normal. I need to make icecream based on creme anglaise, sorbeticecream, semifreddo (but I understand you do not necessarily need an icecreammaker for that) and ooo, the flavor options are just endless!

I gotta think a while what I will be making next, so stay tuned and in the meantime enjoy this lovely icecream! I would like this particular recipe with a little more tang to it. I would have added more lemonjuice but the friend that is coming tonight dislikes lemon so I left it out, but had it been for me I would have added maybe a little zest and some extra lemonjuice. I think that would work really well with this mango taste.

MANGO ICECREAM

500 gr mango, cut into chunks

100 gr sugar

300 ml of double cream or whipping cream (I used whipping cream)

tbsp on lemon juice

splash of wodka

Put the mango chunks in a blender and blend until smooth. If you don’t own a blender I am sure this will work equally well in a magimix or similar machine or handblender.

Once pureed, add the sugar and cream and mix the lot together until smooth. I did this by hand as I was a little afraid that the blender would start whipping the cream into another consistency, but maybe that doesn’t happen. I don’t know.

Add the lemon juice and wodka and cool in the fridge for at least an hour.

Once cool; put in your icecreammaker according to the instructions of the manufacturer. Mine took about 25 minutes to finish.

Check out more mango recipes via the below link to Foodista!

Mango

Strawberry yogurt icecream

Some of you might actually remember that I got an icecream machine for my birthday in february…. And finally, finally I have made my first icecream!! Why so long you wonder? Well, the thing was that our regular freezer has drawers and the icecream bucket or however you call it needs to sit in the freezer for 10 hours prior to use. So I could not put it in the freezer… But this weekend we finally bought a little extra freezer. One of the kinds that loads from above so plenty of space to put thing upright plus we now have extra freezer space. It was a constant battle between Tom wanting to put in fishfood (….) and me wanting to put in normal food. He sort of confiscated the bottom drawer, but that is a lot of space in a small freezer! But finally…. the problem is solved and I can make icecream!!!! I have to confess that I wasn’t really aware when I got it that you have selffreezing machines and non-self freezing machines but this one works absolutely fine. And now that we have the space to keep it in the freezer permanently; no issue whatsoever (until we run out of freezer space again that is..). It’s a Magimix something; if you want to know the exact type I will look it up.

Strawberry icecream

I chose a simple recipe to start with as I have never made icecream before and well, I figured it made sense to get familiair with the process first before diving in head first (which – admittedly – is what I normally do..lol) I got the recipe from David Lebovitz blog, which is a great source of information for making icecream. And I am definitely going to order his book  as that has tons more recipes in there and I’ve already heard many good things about it.

I picked a yogurt based recipe as I figured that would be a little lighter then cream based and it was..

It was a breeze to make and when tasting the final result I already new it would be delicious. And it was. After about 25 minutes in the icemachine (I forgot to time it, so I just checked if it was ok after having chatted to the neighbour for an x-amount of time, so I am not sure if it really was 25 minutes but it’s something like that) I took it out and both Tom and I had a little bowl of the icecream. The rest I put in the freezer to photograph today.

I loved, loved, loved the taste of this icecream; it was not so heavy due to the yogurt but the overall smell and taste of the strawberries was fabulous. I now seriously wonder what on earth they put in commercial icecream as I bet it is certainly not the amount of strawberries that I used. You can find the recipe for this icecream on David’s site, so I am going to point you there to check it out.

I have a friend coming over on thursday and I already promised to make her icecream as well. She loves cream so that will be a creamy version, just have to figure out which flavor I will be adding and how I can make it extra creamy. We have a very famous baker in Amsterdam who makes icecream that is partially whipped cream. I mean; when you eat it, sometimes you only have a bite of whipped cream instead of icecream so it is very very creamy. Too much so for me, as it is literally an entire meal but I would like to recreate a similar effect but maybe with less cream. So if anyone has any suggestions please let me know!

Endive salad with nectarines and haloumi

I am not sure how the temperatures are in the rest of Europe but here in Holland it has reached rather high numbers. Yesterday was the worst with 37°C  (98°F) and while today is a little less hot; it’s still in it’s thirties… Not even Italy was that hot! And the problem here is that it tends to get really humid and sticky. Dry heat is easier to cope with I think..

Since I got back it’s been really crazy with work, so this is the first day I get to actually do nothing and cook something! Or maybe cooking is not the right term when it comes to a salad, but it’s definitely the perfect thing to eat on a hot weekend summer day. Tonight it’s gonna be BBQ time and I seriously hope that the weather gets a little cooler. But then again; at least the sun is shining right? So no more complaining!

I didn’t even tell you yet that I have won an award for my wedding photography! It’s the Weddingphoto Award 2010 which is held every year. There were 5 categories and I won in the free category with the below photo. As it turns out I am also the only female photographer that won… Not that that makes any difference; I just thought it was funny. And no dad, I did not win 10.000 euro (sort of the first thing he asked when I told them I had won!) but it’s good publicity and ultimately that is what counts right?

The winning photo

It was also the first time I have ever entered in any contest since I’ve become a photographer and maybe I should do it more often as it’s definitely good exposure. I am just always one of those people that only notice a contest after it’s already closed..lol… Guess it won’t hurt to keep up more with what is going on!

I’ve got some interesting projects going on that hopefully will be successful….

But on to my salad of this afternoon….

I had bought the endive yesterday and with the temperatures right now it was already wilted before I got home. But 15 minutes in an icewater bath did miracles and revived the vegetables completely. The original recipe comes from Delicious magazine and was with goatcheese. I didn’t have goatcheese at hand, but I did have some haloumi left in the fridge that I wanted to use and thought would work perfect with the nectarines and the endive. And it did… Lovely combination! The dressing was made of some sjalot, garlic, white balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Add salt if you want but really the salt in the haloumi is enough for the entire salad.

Here is the adapted recipe! (original Delicious Magazine July 2010)

ENDIVE SALAD WITH NECTARINE, SEEDS AND HALOUMI (starter or lunchdish for 4p)

Small bunch of endive

1 clove of garlic

2 sjalots

100 ml extra virgin olive oil

4 tbsp of white balsamic vinegar (you can use white wine vinegar or apple vinegar)

2 ripe nectarines, washed

75 gr pumkin or other seeds

couple of tbsp of oil (for frying the haloumi)

150 gr haloumi, cut into cubes

Cut the endive into small strips of about 2 cm en leave them in icewater for about 15 minutes. Dry with a saladspinner.

In the meantime fry the garlic and onion in oil until they are supersoft. Put them into a bowl and add the balsamic.

Cut the nectarines (leave the peel on) around the pit into small parts. Roast the pumkin seeds in a tbsp of oil and fry the cubes of haloumi. Ones golden brown take them out of the pan and put on kitchenpaper to remove most of the fat.

Mix the endive in a salad bowl with the dressing and add pepper and salt if you want to.

Divide across plate and put the nectarine and haloumi on top and sprinkle with the seeds to finish.

Dessert in Pienza; lemon cake with wild strawberries sauce and chocolate

For most of our trip we have been eating in small Osteria’s, Trattoria’s or even little cafe’s; as much as possible enjoying the local food. Being surrounded by Italians is usually a good sign when you’re entering a restaurant or trattoria. But when we came into Pienza, one of the first restaurants we came upon was a lovely place called La Terrazza del Chiostro  with a gorgeous view over the entire valley.

A beautiful outside terrace (it was a hot sunny day) with a little wind, so we just had to book a table for later that afternoon for lunch.

But first we had to go in search of the famous Pecorino for which Pienza is quite famous… Did you know there are endless varieties of pecorino?? I only knew the one kind we can find in our supermarkets (and not even a regular supermarket) and the ones I had tasted sofar where too salty for my taste, but I’ve learned a whole lot more about pecorino and have been eating far too much of it…

Pienza

Now do you see that cheese in the photo above with the straw on it? It was actually worse when you saw it ‘live’ and combined with the strong smell…. let’s just say that my adventurous mind came to a rest when I saw that cheese. It’s probably lovely and in actual fact I might have eaten it but the whole cheese just looked a bit too much for me. One of the disadvantages of traveling in one car with four people is that space is rather limited when it comes to bringing stuff back home and since we have already bought a lot of wine, parmesan and some wonderful sausages… there is only a tiny bit of space left. Tom does not like cheese and the smell of pecorino makes him sort of ill, so no pecorino home for me. Unless I can find a place where they vacuum pack like they did the Parmiggiano Reggiano… That’s the only way we will be able to take smelly cheese back home. The meat we bought is dried so that should be ok and it’s certainly not smelly so far (we don’t keep it in the car unless traveling from one place to the other)

Lunch in Pienza

And then our lunch…. it was certainly not the best meal we have had (those where usually the ones in the little trattoria’s and osteria’s) but it was definitely the best looking lunch for sure! And the best place to sit too, which has got to be worth something.

And here I am wanting to write in this post about Siena as well, but it’s already long so I’ll leave it at just Pienza…

Dinner in Radda, icecream in San Gimignano, Verraza

I am not really keeping a chronological order when telling you of our Italian adventures but I am sure no one will mind. We are at the moment still in Ca’Penelope, but will be leaving tomorrow. The weather is still not really fantastic but at least today has been a little drier then the last two days, so we actually got to see something outside rather then inside. But because of the weather I do have the change to write a little bit about our adventures sofar and bore you with more pictures of fabulous food and beautiful surroundings.

As you know we traveled from Alba to the coast where we visited the Cinque Terre and stayed in a coastal town called Levanto. I have to say that we all thought that Levanto was rather disappointing, but it was conveniently located so we could visit the places we wanted to go to easily. And since we were so close to the Cinque Terre, that was high on our list of places to go to… However; maybe because we had heard so much about it, or maybe it is just far too crowded with tourists…we found the Cinque Terre disappointing. Sure the surrounding area is beautiful and when you hike along the coastal path, some of the views are indeed breathtaking (see photo above on the right), but the groups of tourists (busloads full) are just far, far too many. And we are not even visiting in the high season, so I can only imagine the drama it will be in July or August! And I guess not all things are for all people. It became quickly evident that our preference lies in the smaller towns and the more personal approach of little places.

Famous Macceleria in Greve in Chianti

We stayed for a week in Tuscany itself in a tiny little village called Macie, which is close to Cavriglia (also not big) and very well located between Florence, Siena and the Chianti route. Our bed & breakfast was called Amoliv and unfortunately this did not live up to our expectations. It started with receiving a text message while we were already travelling that the appartment we booked for a week was not available, but she had a “beautiful appartment for us as an alternative. But then when we arrived the woman in charge had – by mistake – given that to someone else already, so we were rushed into our car to basically chase the other people out of ‘our’ house… I guess it was a combination of things with which I will not bore you, but if she had only handled it differently we would have felt completely different too. The house was big but just barely finished with piping still coming out of the walls. I mean; don’t get me wrong; we had a great week, but that was not in any way due to our hostess!

Tuscany itself was fabulous and the whole area is gorgeous. I had heard so much about it that I was afraid it would be a let-down but it wasn’t at all. The only thing maybe that we did not like as much as we had expected was Florence itself. Sure it is a beautiful city, but again; very very busy and loads of tourists. To be fair; it was pouring rain on the day we visited Florence and that certainly did not help our opinion of the city, but we had expected a little bit more then what we got. (Although the market was great in Florence!!)

San Gimignano is also very touristis but we loved that place and the medieval centre of town. Ah well so much has happened that I cannot possible tell you all…. I will write a little more about Tuscany in my next post about Siena and Pienza… But first a few shots of the market in Florence.

Market in Florence

The finished dish 'Gnocchi al soffritto'

As I told you yesterday we got to watch Lorna at work in the kitchen today and we even managed to help a little (or maybe stand in the way rather, but ok… ) We started at around 10.30 (while rain is still pouring down outside) and at first we sort of watched but very quickly the men got the important job of removing the skin from the potatoes we were gonna use for making the gnocchi. Lorna was still busy removing the hard parts of  the beef that would be used for the salad later on.

Lorna preparing the beef

Thankfully Emily, an American student, was also present for some necessary translations every now and then, but mostly we got along fine with a combination of English and Italian. I promised not to give the recipe of the gnocchi, so I will not do that but let me just tell you that it is made with little more then flour, potatoes and some very special eggs. O and a little bit of milk.

I am sure Lorna was wondering what was going on in her kitchen this morning, as it was quite crowded with the four of us, Lorna herself, her boyfriend who came and filmed the whole thing and Emily. As it turned out it was a perfect practice for Lorna, who will be starting to teach cooking lessons here in September as part of the Slow Food Movement. So if you would like a real fabulous teacher who is fun and patient (mixed in with a real Italian temperament) then you can always ask for Lorna through Ca’Penelope and I am sure they will be helping you further. Of course this was not a planned cooking session but rather we were assisting for the lunch of that day, so the work needed to be done at a certain time. Imagine what you can learn when you get to watch Lorna for two days!

Tom and Marc started to roll out the gnocchi mixture, which is a very important task. Emily told us that Lorna manages to have an exact same weight for each three pieces of gnocchi. That alone is an art in itself I would say.

At first the rolls the guys made were …eh… less then perfect, but soon especially Marc became very good in rolling them out. “Fantastico”, according to Lorna.

After cutting the gnocchi they were separated into portions for two people. The gnocchi itself were spread out across plates with a little flour so that they would not stick together and kept in the fridge until ready for cooking. The cooking part is the least amount of work as that literally takes seconds to prepare. Of course; then there is the sauce to think about, but that recipe…. we have not been told.

Gnocchi a la Soffritto is one of the most famous and ancient recipes from the area of Modena and this particular recipe was passed down to Lorna from her grandmother.

Preparing the gnocchi

All in all this was a fun way to spend a very rainy morning and we got to eat the end results ourselves for lunch. And while I am writing this is has almost stopped raining, so maybe we can even spend some time outside. Our plan is to also visit one of the Balsamico museums which is not too far from here, but yesterday Tom and I went out by car in the pouring rain and literally the mud came sliding down the hills, so not really a good idea to start driving in that kind of weather. But it does look slightly better now, so maybe… we can actually go outside.