Franci

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! 😁)

Son’s lunch: noodles (shin ramyun) but with the Kirkland chicken stock (have you tried it? We like it for when I don’t have fresh stock), tea egg and some pork from yesterday. Me salad and cod and 2 pieces of pizza bianca not in the photo. Husband had a clean the refrigerator lunch and my daughter some minestrone (that I made a couple days ago) and 2 baos from yesterday

@weinoo and @BKEats have you ever tried Un posto italiano in Park Slope? They started as a tiny place making just pasta but since I moved I see they opened a café too. I put my hands on them, truly obsessed on pasta quality and ingredients

I wish to visit California again soon. So many years without visiting! Genders are hard, immagine that in Italian to confuse more people “lo” and “il” are both masculine definite articles, you use one or the other depending on the initial letters of the noun. An there are words like egg, for example that are masculine when singular and become feminine in the plural 🤣 (l’uovo singular is le uova plural). My husband keep saying how much easier Chinese grammar is.

Al pesto, pesto is masculine. One of my kids favorite...I rarely make it! Here even more than NY the basil is so big, expensive and with a strong anise flavor. I had my share of pork for lunch. So I had one of the chickpea burgers I made the other day, some cime di rapa and salad. Kids had more Chinese roast and bao, zucchini and salad

🤣 I have left overs, let’s see if they let me take a picture at dinner 😉

I am sure this came up at certain point but can we talk again about deflating baos? I made 24 today. The first batch of 12 deflated, the second batch no. These are the second batch, sorry I didn’t think of taking a picture of the first. I think first has to do with the strength of the steam and second of letting the bread rest covered right after cooking. I big change in temperature from outside the basket lifting the cover immediately will make the breads deflate. But let’s say I need the baskets because the second batch will over rise...tricks, thoughts?

Char siu, steamed buns and salad

One of my favorite breakfast, snacks. Wasa light rye, good culture whole milk cottage cheese, sliced cherries (or other berries), just a drop of honey and some roasted salted pumpkin seed

I made tagliatelle and ragù for kids and husband but I didn’t feel like it. So I went for something they don’t like as they call it “my healthy stuff” but I really enjoy: wild cod, very little tomato, zucchini (but often I do with peppers or/and potatoes), olives, capers, some Turkish biber, shallots, a little olive oil and a splash of fish oil. I have a microwave with sensor cooking on fish. No mess, very quick. Served with steamed rice. I couldn’t be happier 😁