Franci

I never thought this would be possible but often a full beer is able to ruin my next day...my husband complains no end that I am no fun, cannot drink anymore 😁 red wine, I cannot even sniff it anymore. Anyway, my cooking has become a little unstructured lately. I often don’t have a plan and one hour before dinner I start thinking what are we going to eat. No, not completely true. I alway defrost some protein the night before. It was some time that I thought of making hot dog buns (Ann’s recipe) because my daughter is the only one eating hot dogs. So, I made the dough yesterday night and baked the buns tonight. I also made some crispy tofu in the oven. We all love it, except the girl, she had her hot dogs...since I had some eggplant in the fridge, I decided to cook it like the tofu. Really tasty, I will make it again! And I had some shrimps that went on the cast iron grill. Ah, and I made some minestrone for tomorrow lunch so I had a little bowl, no pasta or rice in it.

I made hot dog buns with a recipe of @Ann_T, I’ve been using this recipe for quite a few years already. Thanks Ann! I also made with some of the dough mini burger buns (13g of dough each, little snack for the kids and always very popular at parties)

I am still on my pizza kick 😁 This time 24 Hours dough,18 hours in the fridge plus 6 hours room temperature. 1g fresh bakers yeast over 500g flour. Still combo cooking, debuyer crepier on the stove and convection broiler to finish. I also made some fried cod, baked vegetables, 4 small panzerotti with onion filling

Husband felt the need for a ribeye, I am not much into meat lately. I made also a salad, some green beans and broccoli, grilled vegetables and olives. Still plenty of pan de cristal and pizza in teglia in the freezer

I see now, I would they are oven proof!

For this I normally don’t follow a recipe but I do track all my food consumption and when I like it, I save the recipe. The power blend is a mix of frozen kale/chards/spinach if I remember. I made 9 burgers. I smash some of the cooked chickpeas but not too much because I like the texture, I microwave the frozen vegetables and let cool, squeezing some of the water out and the miso should be a teaspoon. I try to make them very nutrient dense 😁

I have a lot of tacos from a jamón my husband bought...he said he is taking a break from it! Good. He found another local Spanish store and he was going crazy ordering whole jamones. This last leg was not very successful with the kids and me, quite salty. So I made with it some “sugo finto” literally “fake sauce” like a ragú no minced meat but prosciutto, or better jamón. I can see some croquettes in the near future

I use it in vegetables burgers all the time and in some quick breads where I use vegetables in it or in savory muffins. It’s a way for me to add a bit of flavor and protein without much fat. I use about 12g a recipe. I will only use for baking.

Wonderful vegetables @FauxPas!

No stress dinner 😁 Some roasted vegetables, a frittata, the wonderful local mozzarella I find at my regular supermarket. Kids shared some noodle in chicken stock.

Weird mix of stuff tonight. I made the duck in plum sauce that I often make for the kids, some steamed volcano rice that I wanted to finish, plus grilled eggplant/zucchini/mini peppers. But 2 days ago I started a recipe for pizza napoletana and I had to bake it tonight. I cooked it with the combo method: blue steel pan on the stove and oven broiler. Too much dough for my pan, next time less dough. But the taste was good. I made 2 only red and two no sauce.

I don’t mind chewy and flavorful, my butcher in Monaco had great Charolaise beef. I guess it’s a matter of aging meat. In Italy meat it’s so fresh that for me tastes really sour. Not talking about good Piemontese meat or Chianina but meat my relatives/parents have access in their everyday shopping.

my son reaction when we go back to my hometown in Puglia is that he can finally smell the fruit and vegetables 😍 but I almost eat no beef when I’m Italy 😁 much better here. Pick my battles

Simple salad with the pan de cristal just out of the oven

First attempt at pan de cristal. This bread is very high hydration. After 15 hour in the refrigerator I portioned it on a bed of flour and immediately baked, no further shaping. 3 out of the 4 small loaves had a huge bubble. Wondering if there is a way to avoid it or just pop it. The bread is very nice

I have 3 Debuyer mineral B. I got the mineral B because you can use on induction, which I don’t have anymore but did at the time I bought them. The bad thing with the mineral B is that they advice you not to keep in the oven more than 10 minutes and with a moderate oven temperature. It’s just the handle the issue.

Yesterday I saw some baby artichokes at the supermarket. I couldn’t resist. I fried the majority of them for my husband delight. Sorry, forgot to take a picture. But I left 3-4 for me to make a Roman dish that I was craving, it’s called vignarola, made with artichokes, fresh favas and peas. I had to use frozen peas and edamame. The whole flavor was sooooo disappointing. I really miss the produce I used to buy at the Ventimiglia market when we lived in Monaco, the difference it so big that I don’t even know where to start. The spiky artichokes there where so fresh that you could eat carpaccio style, here forget, tasteless little things, not even fried 😩

@liamsaunt have you ever tried this recipe from Ottolenghi? It’s always a crowd pleaser. I make it every time we have a party. But my favorite way it’s what I call twice cooked sweet potatoes. I bake them in foil, leaving them a little al dente, then peel and drap in plastic wrap (you can slice and freeze them at this point too). When cold are easy to cut, and then I pan fry, bake or broil with some oil or butter, flipping only when they make a crust. This is my MIL favorite dish in the world, I’ll make for her all the time now that is going to move with us. Also my mom has serious problem holding herself with these. I always mix types of sweet potatoes: Japanese/Korean/purple/orange flesh. My kids and husband detest sweet potatoes or orange squashes, pumpkins so they never get cooked just for the family.

I have a kitchen use for them. Someone will recall I have mirror kitchen splashback, I know it’s genius...very very difficult to keep clean. The wipe takes any residual grease that I’m not able to clean with the sponge and then I pass the window cloth and magic. When my kids were little I started to suspect on the ingredients on baby wipes 🤣🤣🤣😆 they were magical for many cleaning jobs.

Grocery shopping day. Sunday afternoon it was good because it was not too busy but a lot of things missing. No flour but I could believe my eyes all that fresh yeast 🤣🤣🤣 it’s a little blurry as I keep my phone in snack bag 😁 easier to disinfect

I had in the freezer some baked millet from a couple weeks ago, as I thought, it’s really nice with an egg on top, a corn fritter from yesterday night, salad with whole mustard and I finished the tagliatelle left from the kids 😁

Nothing special for yesterday dinner. Very little vegetables left in the house. I made a cous cous with broccoli stalks, carrots, a couple mini peppers and chickpeas. In the end only my son ate it 😁. I made again the corn fritters, they held much better this time. Not in the picture a sockeye salmon on the cast iron grill for the girl and a salad for me.

Gnocchi sardi with chickpeas and shrimps, crispy baked tofu and sauté escarole.

@Norm Matthews, I think you can go and ask for a referral discount 😁, I shared the link to my husband and I can see a package coming this way too 😆

Tonight a simplified minestrone, duck legs confit and potatoes, plus salad with some Comté (how happy I am that Costco is carrying the 15 months Comté! 😁)