Just Like Mamma Used to Make! What could be better on a cold wintery evening than a big steaming bowl of pasta? The ultimate in Italian comfort food, surely? Add in a few spicy meatballs and it becomes the perfect Italian-American supper. I usually go for Nigella’s recipe for pasta & meatballs from Nigella Bites, [...]
{ 7 comments }
I was catching up on my ‘mentions’ over on Twitter the other morning when I noticed that the Italian chef Antonio Carluccio was a member on there, naturally I clicked to follow him. Not only did I click the follow button but I clicked the profile button too; a dangerous thing of course as it then [...]
{ 4 comments }
Bread is often called the staff of life and it is not difficult to see why. There are so many varients out there, different flours, different blends, different optional extras and different baking styles; need I go on? I love bread and I love baking bread Focaccia is the ultimate sharing bread and very easy [...]
{ 21 comments }
March 20th marked the first day of springtime but until yesterday the whether hasn’t been at all clement and so I haven’t really felt like cooking springtime food, preferring to stick to warming, comforting dishes instead. However, with the arrival of some warm sun yesterday (I’d like to add here that it disappeared today and gave way [...]
{ 15 comments }
For the non Italian readers on this blog, the title means “What are we having with the bread?” A lovely expression which shows just how much the Italians value their bread. Maybe it’s a tourist or restaurant thing, or maybe I’m just an old romantic but I envisage a basket full of bread on the [...]
{ 38 comments }
Yesterday I made my first ever batch of cheese, goats milk ricotta cheese to be precise. The recipe for the cheese came from a fabulous book The Home Creamery: Make Your Own Fresh Dairy Products, Easy Recipes for Butter, Yogurt, Sour Cream, Creme Fraiche, Cream Cheese, Ricotta, and More! by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley. Not only does this delightful book [...]
{ 14 comments }
“Eat your greens” is something we hear rather a lot during our lifetime, if it isn’t our parents during childhood, Government guidelines (e.g. 5 a day project), it’s nutritionists/medics via the media telling us how good they are for us and how we need to eat more. Sadly despite all this advice many people still [...]
{ 18 comments }
The lovely Miriam from Hong Kong inspired dinner tonight, she’d sent me a large pack of lovely noodles along with various other goodies and they were screaming out to be used. Combining these with the new purchase of Chinese Food Made Easy (Ching-He Huang) and the necessity to use up two crabs which I’d defrosted, meant only one thing: Chilli [...]
{ 15 comments }
Last Christmas my lovely friend Carlotta from Bologna sent me a copy of Bolognese Cooking Heritage by Barbara Bertuzzi, it really is a lovely book full of history, great photographs and above all stunning recipes. I love books like this that have little quotes and snippets of information by the recipes and notes on variations [...]
{ 19 comments }
Lobsters have become somewhat a luxury item haven’t they, and this seems to have caused some need for chefs to get ultra-creative with them, why??? What is wrong with cooking them simply so as to enjoy their own natural flavours and sweetness to the fullest? It is one culinary thing I just don’t understand. So having brought plenty [...]
{ 11 comments }
Apologies firstly for the corny title, but hey it’s good to have a bit of fun isn’t it and poetic licensee and all that Last night we had Nigella Lawson’s Greekish Lamb Pasta from How to Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food, (which, side tracking here, is actually shown in the Nigella Bites TV series) although I’d cooked [...]
{ 11 comments }
I absolutely love to hear from you all, so please do get in touch!
