Franci

I generally like pink liver (rare if it's beef) but it's still going to be tasty and nice if you also braise it a little bit This was done just with one duck innards. I cut a tiny bit of onion, let it sweat gently, added half an apple brunoise, the offals cleaned and cut in appropriate size, Saute' briefly and deglazed with sherry and added a little bit of a duck jus that I was able to find in my freezer. Cover, reduce a little and done. It was delicious.

I would say a pizza di visciole roman style with ricotta or cream, like this Or a Gateaux Basque aux griottes

I make pecan or walnuts with cayenne pepper using a mix of techniques. I took the advice of Eileen Yin-Fen Lo to boil the walnuts 2 times to avoid that unpleasant tannin taste that walnuts can have. I boil 250 g of walnuts in 1 Liter water for 5 minutes. Refresh and repeat. I put in a pot 1/3 cup water and 4 tablespoons sugar, boil for one minute. Add the walnuts and let the syrup consume. I add 1 tablespoon and half oil, mix. Add cayenne pepper taste, mix. Spread on a tray covered with parchment or silpat, sprinkle with fleur de sel and bake for about 45 minutes at 300 F, stirring every 15 minutes. When they are nice and golden and fully dry inside they are ready. With almonds I've used the egg white method and I like it better, but for walnuts that is my way to go recipe.

I find that life gets much easier when I have my staples around. To make it possible, I need to have always some stock around. At the moment I have beef and chicken stock in the fridge. I also have always some tomato sauce and bolognese ragu' in the freezer. Also home made buns and often I have a crepes in the fridge. My children like soups, especially clear soups and if I have a good beef stock ready, it takes only minutes to put together (broken angel hair pasta, cooked 2 minutes in water, or rice noodles). Or I often make minestrone (without pasta or rice, that I add to it only to the quantity we are eating, don't like overcooked pasta or rice). My children don't like veloute soups and it's a pity. I try to cook a roast (or a stew) that is served as it is for one or two meals at most and then becomes croquettes. I often make more risotto than we would eat, so I add one egg and with the ice cream scoop I make rice cakes pan fry and those reheat quite well. Often I buy pork loin (we don't eat a lot of chicken) and do breaded cutlets in the morning and I keep in the fridge to cook as needed. Always have some vegetables washed and ready to cook. They usually takes minutes with the wok or pressure cooker. This thinking is useful also for me to recap my strategies. Soups ready with just pasta/rice to add Roast or stew ready Meat/vegetable croquettes, rice cakes ready in the fridge just to saute' Boiled eggs in the fridge Vegetables: crudites ready to eat or vegetables already washed and cut. Pickled vegetable with rice and sugar, Asian style My home make buns for hot dog for when I'm stressed. Or whole foods naans for a cheat quick pizza.

Salad and beef hot dog with the dog as bun (applesgate's grass-fed beef), stuffed with kimchi. I really like this idea, not mine.

Lucky you! I know how good some fishes can be in the UK. I lived for 4 years on the other side of the street from Billingsgate mkt, I could roll out of bed and get home with a nice box of live langoustines. Also skate wings benefit from some aging...unfortunately no nice flat fishes to be seen around here unless I really go out of my way to look for them. Prawncrackers, my husband would LOVE your fish, me too. BTW, Pranwcrackers, Hurray or Liuzhou, I need your help for a couple of chinese fish dishes, hopefully you know something. I'm going to post in the Chinese forum.

I made some sour cherries bars today.

We had left over minestrone, some pork shoulder braised, celeriac purée, sauté Bruxelles sprouts leaves

Ann, I was thinking about it yesterday! It has being ages I haven't had one. This is street food for me, only we call them "panzerotti". Your panzerotto looks perfect, thin skin, not doughy. The one thing that I like is to use a runny sauce, with makes more difficult to close without getting the panzerotto to open during cooking and seriously scorching while eating. My neighbor back home used to make them also with onion, capes, olives and canned tuna (in oil) which were very good. Unfortunately, my husband doesn't share my love for this stuff. Sometimes I get sentimental, miss some kind of food that is going to be just my memory.

I agree. It was a last minute decision of my husband. Yes, c Oliver, I tried in the past with a nice French label rouge chicken.

I should have presalted the chicken...

Tigelle are know also as crescentine, tigella in reality is the pan. John, funny you had tigelle in Brindisi, because they are not typical from the area, in Brindisi they make wonderful "puccia". I know that well because I come from Taranto which just next to Brindisi. In the past tigelle were baked in between two terracotta molds, like this on Wikipedia but nowadays I think everybody use the cast iron pan...well, to be honest they are not well know outside the Modena/Reggio Emilia/Bologna areas. Some people also have an electric stone grill. I have the 7 "holes" tigelliera here. It's cast iron. I'm sure you can make without but I'm not sure if they really come the same. I couldn't find the pan in the US on line. The dough is just flour, salt, yeast and usually a fat (lard or oil) and milk (I use water), I let it rise, then roll it and use a round pasty cutter of the right size. Let rise again before cooking in the preheated pan. 3 minutes on one side, 2 on the other. The most typical way to eat them is with a lardo pesto. Reduce to a cream some Italian cured lardo with chopped garlic and rosemary. But they are usually served with cold cuts and also nutella, for people who like that stuff. Anna, I always freeze and defrost in the defrost function in the microwave, it's a quick and easy breakfast and snack for my children. And with 1 pound flour I get about 30 pieces. They don't keep well otherwise they are best cooked and eaten, that's why I freeze immediately, that way they are almost like fresh. Also, some people like them hollow in the middle (like a small pita), just make them thinner before the 2nd rise.

Tigelle

Yes, our house is a mix of Italian and Chinese style. On this particular aspect I go more Chinese, unless my parents come to visit or I want to offer a formal Italian meal.

Grilled radicchio and shitake, radish tops and chickpeas, roasted potatoes and a short rib

spaghetti side chitarrina side on the side

I cut the potatoes in thick slices and boil them starting from cold water for maybe 7-8 minutes, drain and let to dry a bit in the colander. Meanwhile I preheat my oven at 400 F with a cast iron pan inside (I use a staub hexagon pan) and a couple minutes before adding the potatoes to the pan I add some fat to it to get really hot (duck fat/tallow/bacon fat/olive oil). I also pour some hot fat over the potatoes and mix before adding them to the pan in a single layer. I wait until they form a nice crust before turning them. Fleur the sel just out of the oven. I hope you feel better soon

One hour before dinner I was at a Whole Food nearby my house. They only carried one type of tagliatelle, at 7.99 a box, I preferred to make my own. I'm sure it's possible to find bigoli somewhere, Eataly, Buonitalia... My thick spaghetti were not as good as the bigoli I ate in Verona but good enough for me. I use a chitarra. One side is used to make the squared spaghetti alla chitarra. The other side traditionally is for "chitarrine" a short tagliatelle eaten in pasta and legumes (chickpeas, beans) dishes. But normally I use it for tagliatelle. These spaghetti are very quick because I run the pasta sheet only a couple times in the thickest setting of my pasta machine. I only left to dry 15 minutes before cutting it on the chitarra. And I freeze the surplus.

I was in the mood for bigoli con l'anatra, no bigoli to be found around here...so I made some very thick spaghetti alla chitarra with duck sauce

Tonight to eat along our beloved Shelsky's blue fish, two Ottolenghi's dishes a really like. Charred cauliflower (I omitted the capers, used some black garlic besides regular garlic) And the fennel and tarragon salad with pomegranate seeds (I omitted the feta)

When I was growing up my parents would spend their lunch siesta cooking a large meal. They worked in a major sea town, drove 20-30 minutes and prepared a large meal for lunch, every day. I especially remember the seafood: clams and mussels, the small fry fishes, the fresh sardines and anchovies my father loves so much. Also so much lamb and lamb offals. Or wild vegetables with dry favas and focacce to die for. I was not picky at all. I don't remember to be forced eating anything, I was a very willful child, pushing something would just get the opposite effect. In fact, I tried prosciutto crudo at 18 years old because of that. At the time, I couldn't understand how my parents could devote so much of their free time to food. I wished my mom could rest more. Ironically, now that they are old and have all the time they want, they have lost interest into food. My husband is born in communist China, he couldn't be picky. Now he is much more particular on how he likes his food than me. My two children are very different on the food aspect. My son at 6 months didn't even want me to get closer to him with a spoon, he decided to feed himself and what. At 11 months he could eat risotto with a fork alone and would spend hours at the sink washing vegetables with me. Both my children love vegetables but my son is very picky on textures. He wants his vegetables cooked in a certain way. We like fatty meats and gelatinous cuts. He likes very lean meat. What, force on him bone marrow? Now at age 7 he decided he needs to try food before saying he doesn't like it. My daughter at 3.5 already does it. So, as adults we are really into food because we must have had either terrible or great experiences as children in relation to food, that is my idea. I want my children to grow up with a positive image of food.

Torolover, can you google traslate this? too bad " Chimico" the nickname of Dario on Egullet, doesn't partacipate anymore

I paid attention tonight, they stayed at the table for 40 minutes.And tonight lazy dinner: steak, salad and a plate of crudités. I was able to find the freshest, best fennel at TJ's today that I ever got in the US. Everybody loved them, I need to buy more. I also sliced a little home made roll for the kids, my son learned in the US to dip bread in oil...I found it amusing he asked for it. It's not really typical in Italy or France.

Hi C Oliver, I've used quinces that are more ripe. Simply add them later on in the cooking and don't cut them too small.

We tried! No luck, there, yet... I didn't expect to find all this talking about feeding children today. As Rotuts was saying it's not just about food. The social aspect of food it's very important to us. We love food, they are member of this house. They will grew up loving it too and they will learn to cook. I do not worry about it. We lived in many places and we are a multicultural family, they have been exposed to many foods that most children could not even imagine. It takes 0 effort to me to cook that extra piece of salmon. I value more they get what is good nutrition in my mind.