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To continue my week of overpriced (but bloody delicious) Italian vegetables, tonight we had a baked delica pumpkin stuffed with farro, Comte (not canon but it’s what I had), dried chilli and parsley. This was a recipe in the Saturday paper and really appealed as a veg driven sharing dish that blew the remaining Christmas cobwebs away. It was a fantastic dinner, it’s the second time I’ve had one of these pumpkins and I absolutely love them. Will definitely be making it again. If anyone follows the linked recipe (and you should), I had to extend the first part of the cooking to another 30 minutes at 180°C convection as the first 30 at 160° did nothing. These delica squash are cured for quite a while to dry them out so that might be a factor. But plan a bit of leeway into your timings.

Love it, @weinoo - beautiful looking greens and shrimp, and that minestrone looks perfect 👌🏻

Ha! Who knew such a thing existed! Can see why though - it’s not a hard job to do by hand but it takes ages. ETA - it was absolutely delicious in our soup tonight. My sixteen year old (elder kitchen porter) made us a great soup with some bacon, a few white beans, a couple of old Parmesan rinds and the lovely leafy parts of the puntarelle. The head wasn’t overly cheap (about £4) but it was in great condition and we’ve had two great meals from it.

Staff note: This post has been moved from the Endive recipes topic. Managed to get hold of a lovely head of Puntarelle for tea tonight. Did it with this dressing and it was beautiful. Thanks @weinoo for the pointers. As a bonus we’ve now got the outer leaves leftover for tomorrow's soup.

I would live on mint sauce if allowed. It’s a non-negotiable with lamb in our house. Great looking meal @Dejah

I shall look at these, I've a couple of bottles of Fee bros bitters but not any orange... Regans I don't have an haven't seen over here yet but will try and find 👍

Despite myself I love a carbonara pizza - how are you doing this one? Looks great

Last-minute Sunday evening meal at chez roid tonight - roast chicken thighs with 'nduja, baby new potatoes and celeriac. I realised as I pulled the tray out of the oven that it all looked a bit same-y so added a salad of radicchio, celery and red onions. Youngest kitchen porter finds the 'nduja we have a little on the "warm" side so his tray in the background with just salt and rosemary:

Second try (good job I don't work on a Monday): Same ratios as before (save for a single dash of bitters) but stirred in a glass vessel, this time we went from 68g to 88g so now have a dilution of 29%. This gives a final abv of 31.1%. I like this better. Orange bitter flavour much less intrusive and the slightly less fiery mix is nicer too. Fascinating how a small change like the material of the stirring vessel can impact on the end product. @weinoo, I didn't check temps so maybe that's something for the next round of experiments!

Here we go then... 60ml Botanist gin 46% abv 16ml Noilly Prat 18% abv 2 dashes angostura orange bitters Stirred over ice in a metal vessel then strained into a chilled coupe. Initial weight was 68g, after stirring 82g so just a 20% dilution. Using the calculator from the OP this works out at 33.5% abv. Thoughts: nice balance though I'll try with a glass stirring vessel next time to see if it gets nearer the 25%, I like the orange bitter addition but it's possibly a bit much, will try just a single dash next time. I foresee some fun experiments! Though I do wonder how rigorous the scientific method will be after a couple of these...

Having read and re-read the copper cookware topic on here I'd been lusting after a Falk saucier for some time. Father Christmas was kind enough to bring me one of their 18cm versions a couple of weeks ago - it's really lived up to everything I hoped it would be. Such great quality, really nice balance and feel, it's heavy but not TOO heavy and, most importantly, it cooks like a dream. So far we've tried sauce reductions (very good - rapid, even, controllable), a bernaise over direct flame (excellent) and a couple of times my favourite variety of scrambled eggs - the French ones from Keller's Masterclass videos. Previously I've been doing these in a larger all-clad saucier which has been fine but I'm much happier with them in the Falk. Whisked, chinois-ed eggs into a cold pan with some cubes of butter, over a nice low heat. The evenness of the heat from the copper is great, makes it very easy to get a perfect consistency without overcooking.

I’ve spent a very enjoyable Sunday morning reading through this thread, thanks for the original article @weinoo I love a good martini, but have had/made some which have been transformative and some which have left me underwhelmed. The science behind why this might be is really appealing to my control freak nature. My current favourite gin is a Scottish one made on Islay - Botanist. This is 46% so similar to tanqueray, I’m quite a fan of stronger cocktails so will try one at 32-33% later (10am is a little early for a martini, right?). Very interesting about the different dilution with a tin vs a glass, I normally use the former so will measure what dilution I’m getting…

Brilliant link! Love it. I think I might have to go seed shopping…

We had a gorgeous salad of bitter leaves at our night away between Christmas and new years. This had curly endive and castelfranco (which I find the most beautiful vegetable), and was dressed with exactly this type of sauce. Alas, no pictures as I was too engrossed in the pomerol we ordered but it’s definitely on my list to try and recreate. Regarding proportions, what sort of ratio of garlic to anchovies to oil are you using in yours?

The fight we have is always about how cooked people like it. Half are happiest with it cooked medium but the (wrong) half insist on well done. This year I ended up splitting it into a two rib roast and a one rib version. Which was fine, but loses some of the drama of a big three rib piece

More expensive doesn’t necessarily mean bad value - I’ve always been very happy with the price/quality balance. But that’s quite an individual thing I guess.

We do most of our food shopping via Ocado. They have a really good selection of fresh food and are generally the best quality of the big online supermarkets. They carry speciality items from Natoora too which is useful if you want something a bit unusual. if you’re after things direct from the grower then you’ll find plenty of farmers markets I'm sure. Bristol is a great town - a real foody place with lots of really good restaurants.

@Duvel, beautiful looking spread - where to even start! That foie looks perfect and I bet is gorgeous with the pain depices. Sauternes jelly? Yes please! The main looks right up my street - proper wintery fare, the sour cream seems a great addition. Tell us more about the Balearic red though - which island/grape? Not sure I’ve had much wine from this part of the world. You have a very lucky family - happy Christmas!

Me too. Sad thing is the equivalent model to ours is now roughly three times the price it was when we bought it 😳 For this reason alone I can never move house.

We have had Miele ovens for the past ten or so years. They are absolutely brilliant mine still holds its temp within a degree or two (as measured by my ThermoWorks probe and logger). It gets super hot at the top end and will happily chug away at 25 or 30°C if that’s what you need. We've had great aftersales service from Miele too - never had an issue with the ovens but they’ve come and fixed out wine fridge and tumble drier when needed. You’re going to love it!

I feel the same about our magimix - it’s a great solid machine but it’s such a pain to get out and the clean up after I hardly touch it. A smaller one would probably suit me better for those things that the small jars on the vitamix struggle with - salsas, curry pastes etc. if I had infinite counter space I might feel differently but it’s stuck in a cupboard and rarely sees the light of day.

He did a great one when cooking a meal for then prime minister, Tony Blair. Seem to remember it was something like sea bass fillets, sliced potatoes, mushrooms and was dressed with salsa verde afterwards. Like you I’ve made it a couple of times but not in years… must fix that

We buy jarred Spanish beans all the time - absolutely love them. As you say, they’re really nice and creamy - so much better than canned beans which I usually find very chalky. Out online supermarket carries the brindisa brand - chickpeas, white beans, gigantes and lentils. They’re all lovely and really make a meal. Just wish they weren’t so expensive! About £5-6 a jar here.

We had our Christmas party last night. Pies and Puds on the menu - cheese and onion in a shortcrust case with a puff pastry top and beef and ale in a steamed suet pudding.

Lovely set of flavours - I adore the nuts/cheese/bitter leaves combo.