Franci

@JoNorvelleWalker, sorry, I just saw your message now. The pot looks very nice but in my opinion, I’d invest into it only if you plan to eat a lot of polenta...and you need to cook also a decent amount. Not that the polenta it will not last, you can eat the leftovers for days. My kids really love polenta but I don’t think I would invest in the pot now (I think I returned the pot I had back then to my mom or sister because it was round and with the italian wattage). Really good quality polenta made in the proper copper pot on the wood fire is a totally different experience but I often buy the polenta moretti lampo, 5 minutes mixing (you can find it on Amazon, I believe). I would not trust the polenta here anyway...how fresh is it, is the quality really good? Regardless of using regular polenta or instant, I never read the ratios polenta to water written on the packages, with time, I just learned when to stop pouring the polenta to my liking. I’d rather pick how much water I want, so, how much/little polenta I decide to make. I try the water saltiness before pouring in the polenta. I stop pouring when I can see the vortex in the middle when whisking, I don’t know if make sense ☺️ Since in Miami I cook less polenta because it’s warm, although still leftover grilled polenta is quite good no matter the temperature.

Last days in Sarasota guys, moving to Naples tomorrow. Tonight we managed to take out steam crabs. Pretty happy

Thank you for the tip, will be in Naples 3-4 days, so maybe we’ll have time for it.

The most of the time I don’t expect restaurant to be great, only hope to be not that bad 🤣 We’ll be going down to Naples next week, so, no Tampa this round That’s really true and they are in season.

Wow, @KennethTthat rendang looks incredible, the new lazy me can only admire the effort you must have put into it. Our second day in Sarasota. Yesterday we had Trader Joe’s pork pot stickers, too tired to go out. But tonight we were in the mood for oysters. Sorry I didn’t take a picture of the oysters. They were kind of tasteless...And the rest of the menu was pretty bad too. The old saying that also shoelaces are good fried it was not true this time. But I liked the location, it was a good open space and relaxing and atmosphere was good, but the food was not that good. The Trader Joe’s frozen pot stickers of yesterday were better 🤣

Congratulations @pastameshugana! We are trying to clean the fridge, last day tomorrow and we are out for two weeks when they are doing construction in the house. Tonight super simple: pan barrel fish, zucchini and peppers, some focaccia.

Thanks🙏 I am not sure about the pizzaioli in Naples but in my neighborhood possible 😁

Yesterday evening, the dough from the refrigerator was divided into 5 balls (150g each). I kept them covered in single containers in the fridge. Took them out from the fridge 1 and half hour before cooking them today. Cooked 4 pizzas with the combo method. I use a debuyer crepe pan on the stove and the pizza steel under the broiler to finish.

Ok, guys, I am back for more advice. We’ll be out of the house for the next 2 weeks starting Monday for some renovations. We are taking advantage and having someone build raised beds while out. My husband was thinking something simple, like a one line brick raised bed (with a lighter color brick, similar to our backyard floor), something like this. We got instead a proposal for a cement little wall, covered with the same tiles of the backyard. Cost is very high. We went back asking what is wrong with the little brick wall... and the guy insists that we will not save that much and it will not look as good but gave us an alternative of using water flow wood (I guess is a wood resistant to humidity), filled with durock and covered with the same tiles, for half of the price. I am not sure how this wood is treated and the durock and since I am going to plant vegetables, I want to make sure to use no toxic material. Any thoughts?

Adding a picture of another dough I have in the fridge. I made a double batch yesterday. I think in the past, I wasn’t letting the dough rise enough before putting it in the fridge/my previous house fridge was cooler, my house was cooler, not enough yeast for what I needed, or a combination. When the dough is out of the fridge, after a series of folds need to rise in 3 hours, if not check the yeast quantities and folding and closing the dough.

@ElsieD, same recipe as here. I think I am getting better with handling the dough and spreading it. Edit to add: I am keeping it for multiple days in the fridge, with whichever flour I have in the house. I use the same dough for bread or pizza napoletana (which I am cooking with the mix method of pan and broiler), I love how easy is this dough to make.

Very pleased today with my pizza in teglia, super thin, nice crumb and crunchy

@shain I would be happy to eat your vegetables any day @BonVivantno, I haven’t tried steaming fish roe. Steaming is not my husband preferred way of cooking, especially fish. But I fill look for your previous posts🙏 yesterday, mung bean salad and short ribs, cauliflower and a tomato salad

Today we had two almacos, decided to try a recipe of Maangchi for fried snapper and came out quite good, the second fish was simply broiled. The husband came home with another pound of mahi-mahi eggs, thinking I’d like to venture into bottarga making but after asking to a Sardinian guy, that makes his own bottarga, I am unsure, here is so hot and humid 🙄 I pan fried some of the eggs and covered in the same sauce for the fried fish (more for tomorrow). White rice and rapini.

How long I didn’t have joongzi, that’s wonderfully @Dejah! I don’t know if I have the patience. Maybe just make the steamed sticky rice instead? Love the tagines too!

If you do, don’t feel bad, because I bet you’ll use a lot! This doesn’t belong to my regrets pile 😁

I’ve seen (and tried) recipes with yeast and baking powder at the same time, with cream as liquid, a mix of milk and water, with oil or lard or a combination. You’ll have a very different result (more similar to piadina than bread for example) also some people prefer them empty inside, with a pocket, some people only get a full crumb. This is maybe not the typical tigella flavour but I like that way: 520g flour, 2% salt, 8-10% extra virgin olive oil, about 260-270 water, yeast depending on your time. I let it raise, divide the dough into 40g balls (about 21) and since I cook in 3 batches when I get to 7 balls I roll them out with a small pin to fit the holes of the tigelliera and go on so I have the first batch ready (rather than making 21 balls and rolling all of them at the same time). I let them rise again about 20-30 minutes covered. Meanwhile I preheat the tigelliera. Cooking in very fast, about 2-3 minutes on one side, 1-2 minutes on the other. I’ve seen on Amazon.de you have the tigelliera 2 torri, the one with 7 holes is the best for me. I make tigelle once a week for years, I keep them in the freezer and are an amazing snack. My kids love them.

@Duvel, we made same plans for dinner! I made a classic of the house, the duck in plum sauce (it is from Sunflower food galore, one of my most loved chinese food blogs, unfortunately she doesn’t write anymore) but decided to pair Italian, with tigelle instead of steamed bread. Some sauté carrot and broccoli stalks (I always do when I collect enough broccoli stalks in the fridge). My son did the peppers, sweet and sour. And photo of his tigella 😁

I am becoming a very lazy cook. I was tempted to go out and buy some new books but decided instead to create a Pinterest board, so much info out there...in a book maybe I will keep 4-5 recipes if I am lucky! Anyway, yestarday some sauté napa cabbage, sauté cauliflower, bruschetta with my bread, a hanger steak and short ribs.

Now I am curious which bread you buy! BTW, I don’t know if anybody is interested but I find the only bread doesn’t give me the gluey effect (needed bread for meatballs for example) when I was in Brooklyn was to use friselle from my Italian deli. There are many kinds of friselle, some are really crusty and whole wheat, I am talking about the plain one, white flour. Good thing is that they are dry, so you can keep long time, just need to soak with some liquid.

@ambra, you know I never had ribollita? For me it’s one of the few things that I totally understand you need to have in Toscana, with the right bread to get it right, so I would not even attempt to do at home. Soon or later... We are never been big on chicken but we discovered we really like this heritage chicken from our frozen food market, so I think we are going to establish a chicken night from now on 😁

Thank you, guys! Definitely will follow your recommendations. We are going to start building the brick raised beds next week, I guess...in the meantime we are likely going to be out of the house as they are doing some major drilling for replacing some pipes. While this is done, we have time to plan for what we want to plant. My husband doesn’t seem very concerned but I worry about the iguanas as well. I don’t know if we should cover all the fences with a tight metal net.

We will get the soil from that coop, here and most likely ask for a second consultation. See what we can do with the lemon tree! Ah, ah, my husband is too optimistic on spacing the plants :), given how inexperienced we are it’s great to get advice from you

We got a consultation from a guy in the second link I posted with the list of veg to plant and he advises against citrus, they is a lime tree a little more resistant but they get sick very easily. I was dreaming of having a lemon tree! In the more shady areas the guy suggested papaya or a mini banano tree. I’d like a mango or my daughter love pitaya

@KennethT here you can see a list of winter vegetables. This is prime planting season.