Franci

Thanks, ElainaA for the suggestion. I didn't buy the cucumber seeds from Renee's garden. I got these http://www.neseed.com/Italian-Cucumber-Seeds-Carosello-Barese-p/50140.htm But there are other varieties, I also love the barattieri. They look like small green melons but they are very crisp and sweeter than cucumbers. In the summer they are always present at the table in Puglia. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of gardening space. I've already exhausted my space for the summer.

I've bought this year from Renee's garden some Zucchine trombetta. I'm so excited. Since we moved away from Monaco, where there are called courgette trompette, we have not eaten them. I really hope they are going to come out. I also managed to find some special Italian cucumbers that are from my area of origin and basically unknown in other parts of Italy. I also hope they will grow.

Do you know Italian, or at least you are comfortable use google to translate? Look for our Egulleter Teonzo blog. Pinella loves very much French pastry, but look for her tags of Italian pastry chefs: Maurizio Santin, Luca Montersino, Gianluca Fusto, Iginio Massari, Luca Mannori, Loretta Fanella. You can also google for these chefs, there are books on Amazon it. Cristina has some good recipes, again look in her tags for Italian names.

Smithly, This. I used sweet butter but I can totally see the demi sel. It's a cake very very easy to make, with days passing doesn't feel as boozy as the first day My husband, which doesn't like cakes at all, loved so much the pistachio version with no alcohol.

Gateau Nantais. Another almond cake, soaked with rhum this time. I also tried with pistachio, soaked with orange simple syrup and a glaze of powdered sugar and orange blossom water. Love them both.

Today I wanted to try the Queen of Sheba from A. Medrich . Since I've never had teff flour I decided to try her recipe from her new book Flavor Flours. This cake also has almond flour as my Caprese from a couple days ago, that's also a reason I wanted to try it. Oh, boy, what a crumbly mess. I don't know if I should have cooked at much lower temperature (as I normally do my other cakes with almond flour) or because I did something wrong in the execution. But it's a cake I could not serve to anybody, very crumbly, moist but sandy. Anybody else tried this particular one?

The hazelnut is gone but I'll take a good picture soon. Here is the chocolate

I made a chocolate caprese, which is likely my favourite chocolate cake And again the Piedmontese hazelnut cake

Straight into the oven, I already proof after dividing and forming a round.

Castagnaccio is out right, still nut tree? Not a cake but something like nan-e nokhodchi, the persian chickpeas cookies? Water chestnut cake? Just the steamed stuff I don't like...but fried it's a whole different thing. I find it delicious (I have a tried recipe if you want). Chinese glutinous rice cakes? I love them. As for nut flours, you can find easily nowadays sunflower seeds flour. I never made recipes with no eggs. I would think also of a sort of polenta cake. ... Also, something like a sbrisolona with rice flour and cornflour (substituting almonds with seeds) or a millet pudding

Thanks Mick, I'm with you. I tried on that blog her life changing bread and for my own taste I thought it was awful...These crackers are instead very good, everybody who tried them (nobody eating a gluten free diet) found them very good. The focacce converted with sourdough and longer rising can be only better. I'll go back to wild yeast soon or later...I miss that.

Thanks! For about 10 focaccine you'll need 500 g flour 70 g of potato flakes (I used Bob red mill) about 450 g of water 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt (more kosher or fleur de sel to spinkle on top if you like) 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 2 teaspoon instant yeast 1 teaspoon sugar I knead everything in the mixer for about 10 minutes. Let double in bulk and divide in 10 pieces. Let proof again for about 15-20 minutes on the bench sprinkled with flour, Flatten with your hands and make small indentations with the tip of your fingers and wet the top with a mix of extra virgin olive oil and little water, sprinkle with coarse salt and herbs if using. They go in a preheated oven at 425 F for about 15-20 minutes. Here some picture of how the dough looks like.

Thanks CatPoet!!! They go on my immediate list of to try stuff. Love to have crispbread around Mick, I have one more suggestion for you. These crackers also have no gluten, if you use certified no gluten oats. I love them. I tried them with seaweeds, aniseed and dates, rosemary an raisins, plain.

CatPoet, would you have a recipe to share for the Knäckebröd? I used to buy the leksands crispbread in my local wholefoods and they don't carry it anymore.

I've made both pastiera and casatiello, actually the bread without the eggs is called tortano. This is an old blog of mine of when I still lived in the UK. You can find my recipe and pictures for tortano. Many years have passed and I find myself less petulant, maybe just age, ah, ah.

They look pretty good to me, CatPoet.

I made grissini and the skinny grissini torinesi Edit: I have some sandwich wrap from webstaurant store, I sealed the sides with the food saver and packaged the grissini. I'll see if it helps keeping them longer. I already tried with madeleines and after 5 days they were still decent.

Yesterday I made a savory "sbrisolona" with grana and pistachios. My cheese adverse family complained to no ending.

Today I made a crostata with almonds and amaretti

Buona Pasqua! Mm, your asparagus look fantastic. I miss so much the white asparagus abundance I was used in Monaco and many other things. I'm nostalgic these days.

We had lamb chops, fennel salad and collards

I also have the 615 and we like it a lot. We buy whole coppa, speck, salame etc and slice what we need daily. I also use it for carpaccio and for slice beef for jerky and roasts.

For my daughter birthday I made a double ganache, One on the outside, just as pouring ganache and a whipping ganache inside. Here a picture and this was the recipe and I used about 60% of that recipe for a 23 cm cake. For inside the cake I made a white chocolate, strawberry ganache, but it was too solid after rest in the fridge, so I ended up using only 300 g of of it and mixing with 350 g of whipped cream and then was perfect. I hope it helps. P.S.: giving the cost of white chocolate, I highly recommend for both ganache to use a stick blender for them. I almost lost them...if I didn't pull out the stick blender, or be very mindful with temperatures.

One more question, if you can answer. If you use a container like the one you show rotuts, cleaned with bleach etc, how sure it is that the eggs don't get contaminated again, after pasteurization? I'm planning to use the eggs for some frozen desserts and tiramisu, where I want to have another option beside pate a bombe and/or a hot meringue.

ops, I put it back in the same carton. Thanks, Rotuts!