Franci

Tomorrow I need to do some shopping for vegetable and protein! No, charcuterie we are covered 😁 I baked some bread and some pizza bianca in teglia, made mung bean salad, stir-fried broccoli stalks and carrots, marinated cucumber, edamame, and a small piece of sockeye salmon and of picanha.

Childhood food, I just need to find decent frozen peas, because these were not good

I know Bien Cuit very well. I was renting my kitchen at the corner from them. 20 second walk. And I lived in the neighborhood. Not saying that their stuff is not good, far away from it, but with all my friends in the neighborhood (especially the French) we had a nickname for them 🤣🤣🤣 Trop cuit. I’ve always preferred Runner & Stone over Trop Cuit, not to talk about their prices.

So, the other day that I shopped at the Spanish store, I didn’t know my husband placed a big order, again, at Smooking Goose. But he knew I went to the Spanish store! So we now have an abundance of charcuterie 😁

No, I’ve never been! It’s not too close to where I am but I’ll check the online store. Loooong time, I’ve not been into a World Market and didn’t occur to me. Thanks!

Happy birthday @scamhi! Looks very good. Big crab fans in this house. Yesterday dinner I fried some calamari and french fries and since I was frying and I needed to consume some soft tofu I did the flour/egg/panko on it and fried it as well. Since I don’t eat much fried food, the healthy nut I am, I did some shiritaki noodles for me with some of the squids. Really tasty...and I love the texture of shiritaki. Tonight, big migrane, not in the mood for cooking. I had lentil soup leftover from lunch, that went to husband and son, daughter got 2 hot dogs, my buns were in the freezer, some crudités and my plate, the only one I took a photo: endive, a chickpea burger from the freezer (last one! tomorrow I need to make something different to keep in the freezer), cave aged gruyere from Cotsco, those wonderful arbequina olives I got from the Spanish store the other day and a little of Serrano loin.

@TicTac I learned that as well from one of my landlords. We, city people, started to grow zucchini using his garden and we got a lesson from him because we were to impatient picking flowers 😅. If you have extra in the future, zucchini flowers freeze really well! You can have in plain winter. I learned the trick from a wonderful lady at the vegetable market in Ventimiglia, Liguria. You need to freeze in a hard container, so they don’t get crushed and dip in the batter and fry them from frozen. I love zucchini flowers! My father would bring bags from the market growing up! These pictures for a two day ago. Take out sushi...not the greatest but not bad. These days take out sushi is an exception for us. Yesterday I made some picanha, not in the picture, some toasted potatoes and peppers, tomato salad, some salumi and olives. Nothing special really but still good.

Thank you, @kayb! Oh, the CSO I want it back! Not sure the F. Blumlein stands up to it. Definitely if I have to pick prefer the CSO as space to a microwave!

Curls, yes, Key Biscayne has a island vibe, so different than South Beach. I like it a lot! We have impact windows plus shutters. I have to test it but that is a big plus for me because, I looooove a total blackout in my bedroom for sleeping and those shutters look like that will do a pretty decent job for hurricane and sleep 😃

The mini is pretty small, only 1 pizza at a time and 1kg bread. Max pizza diameter is 33cm or about 13 inches but it’s $1200 vs the ZioCiro 100 dual fuel where you can cook 4-5 pizzas at a time and costs $4800. Honestly, I am not that much into pizza and it’s just our family consumption, I don’t see myself cooking pizza for a party of 20 people that requires a similar upgrade. I am not a pizza fanatic. This is already a splurge for what I’d need. I like more the modern look of this kind of oven than the all brick look.

I For what my husband is telling me flooding/hurricane insurances are government mandatory in Florida. Definitely we are in a Zone 1 risk, so any hurricane we need to evacuate, we know that. And most likely properties will have no value down here at a certain point but hopefully we can sell and go before that happens 😁

I had a good experience with induction. I am always multitasking and honestly, really loved setting a timer on each burner and been able to exactly replicate the cooking for something I cook regularly. It was so, so great for cooking with the pressure cooker. Yes, I could build a wood fire pizza oven. But they are expensive. The zio Ciro has some options for dual fuel, wood and gas. For how much I like the idea of wood cooking there is a learning curve and it requires more time for the oven to get to temperature and also my husband will get one Argentinian style grill to cook with wood. I like the ZioCiro mini.

Ah, I understand now but I don’t know how much this matters in Florida, for what I understand is that we are sitting on limestone and there is no assurance there...Because we are moving to Key Biscayne, which is an island and because of the hurricanes, we would be in the zone with higher risk of flooding. The new regulations are much stricter on the elevation the houses required on the island, I will double check how elevated “our” is, but I guess is something our agent considered, definitely not as high as the new regulations. We would be 3 minutes walk from the beach and we have a big condo as a shield, just in case 😆 Everybody has a flooding insurance.

So funny, looking for an oven for me, I bumped into this old post. How did it go with your oven @Barrytm. Do you know that you could Have purchase a disc to put on top of the Cadco oven fan to make the air less strong? I know because, I used this oven for long time for baking cakes and the disc made a huge difference!

😆 I had to ask my husband what where you talking about. I am going to live on a island, so I guess plenty of water there 🤣🤣🙃

@lemniscate thanks! Good to know for when Amazon doesn’t have. I always get the finely chopped polpa, it looks cheaper on Amazon but still good to have an alternative!

Thank you, @ElsieD, I will check it out! Sound great.

I need your help guys in organizing my thoughts. It looks like we are going to be moving again, still in Miami this time. The only difference is that we are buying a place for the very first time after 20 years of moving around. It feels premature to me to add picture because, we haven’t signed a contract yet, we only made an offer and it has been accepted. Of course, I am already thinking of what I need to buy for the kitchen. I am not going to renovate the kitchen. It is honestly not the ideal time and even if it’s not my dream kitchen, it has been done 2 years ago. We have an outdoor patio and I am hoping to do a lot of cooking outside, especially at night. So, I am telling you what I have and what for sure I’ll be needing. The cooktop looks vitroceramic and the oven I don’t remember which brand it is but definitely I will replace it. I don’t know yet if I can get gas there but I had one experience with an induction cooktop in the past and it was great. It was Sauter, which is common in France. It was something like this and I wouldn’t mind something similar. So, first induction cooktop, I don’t have a clue of prices out there, if I recall correctly, I spent 500 euros at the time. Second, oven. Let talk about ideal. In this house I have a Wolf oven which allows me to go to 550F, which is really cool so I can make some pizza in teglia. I had a couple ovens in the past that I loved for different reasons. 1. I had a tabletop Cadco oven (Stefania), half sheet 120V with manual, external steam injection and it could reach 550F. Because of the manual steam, it was awesome to make bread with that oven and to make pizza in teglia again. So sorry I sold it for little when I closed my business. But honestly it’s not the first choice for home use, not too pretty or practical to have on the countertop. 2. I had the CSO and I really loved it but doesn’t solve the problem of making bread or pizza in teglia. Now the outdoor I was thinking either the ZioCiro mini , which is really like a miniature brick oven, differently than the Ooni which is another candidate, you can use also for cooking bread or small round trays of food. The Zio Ciro anyway is not big enough for pizza in teglia. I wish I can get an Effeuno honestly. So, I see myself wanting 5 ovens at the same time 😁 A pizza oven for the outdoor but don’t want to spend 3,000 for a bigger ZioCiro. A CSO, a steam oven for bread and an Effeuno for pizza in teglia and and air fryer if it’s not too much to ask 🤣🤣🤣, you got the situation. Ok, I need to make choices. And no, I don’t have a budget yet because it will depend on the final price of the house and some extra work we are doing from a room and a bathroom. And finally, yes, I want also a vacuum chamber, thanks, and would really love to have a irinox blast chiller. I know I am very reasonable The kitchen is not huge and I cannot start cluttering it with my stuff. Maybe something like my Wolf oven that reaches 550F plus a steam function with bread. And a CSO for daily use? Ooni outside or I cannot resist the ZioCiro anyway. Does it should more reasonable. Do you have such an oven to suggest? Thanks

Yesterday I was checking on Amazon, it was weeks without Mutti tomatoes available. Yes, they are back! Although it’s not the best of the best it’s the equivalent to tomatoes to what De Cecco is for pasta in my mind. Good basic stuff and perfect for pizza 😁

Today I took the kids to the dentist and decided to stop at Delicias de España. Great because at this location there were very few customers in the store section. I got lomo, coppa serrana, sobrasada, chorizo, olives, some tomatoes in jars, legumes and some frozen items (croquettes made on the house, frozen fish) and 5 liters Spanish extra virgin olive oil. Then my husband received a couple things for morning congee

I made triangoli alla marmellata from Omar Busi. This is a leavened dough with sugar/egg/butter and laminated. Instead of the jam, I filled them with frangipane. My boy turning 13 today, no party but he got a special breakfast

Pizza in teglia tonight with some ‘nduja from Smoking Goose.

Soup with pasta, grilled Belgian endive and zucchini plus some smoked salmon and all the leftover odd pieces of bread I could find in the freezer

Our comfort food: spaghetti aglio e olio. Noodles for the kids.

My husband said he was going to buy for my birthday a black board to hang in the kitchen. Today chez Franci 🤣🤣🤣 I threatened to leave him with no food if he dared. I find that the satisfaction I get from a meal really can make my day much better. I am maybe weird in this but I hope everybody really is enjoying his/her meal at the table, so I really glad you had a similar approach @heidih. Of course, as mom, I will make sure my son diet doesn’t consist only on croissants and bacon just because he really likes it but that’s different 😁