Spring...

...is doing its best. The crocuses arrived en masse several days ago, and all over the garden narcissus are raising their heads - often in rather unexpected places, as I only hazily recall where I planted all the bulbs in the autumn; I kept having to make abrupt halts when cutting the grass the other day and repeatedly realised I was about to massacre yet another clump of flowerheads.

The mass planting is done - all except for three more large rhododendrons, needed to hide from view the deeply unbeautiful corrugated-iron sides of the compost heap. All fruit and nut trees in their serried ranks (and the new almond trees already dutifully in blossom); the soft fruit, bedded down (all I have to do now is cordon off that area of the garden, as the four-footeds seem drawn to it like a magnet, and tender strawberry plants fare badly under canine attention); and even the raised asparagus beds have been finally sorted out, and now nestle at the side of the old orchard like a couple of hastily assembled coffins. On closer inspection, I discovered I had twice as many asparagus crowns as I'd expected, which ought to increase the chances of a decent crop...

Signor Tempestini, with Omar, his moroccan sidekick, came and pruned all of the old fruit trees last week, since when I've been dealing with the mountains of debris they left in their wake - apples, apricots, plums, pear and peach trees, all of which had been neglected for the past four or five years, and were in a rather bad way as a result. The plum trees were on the verge of bursting into blossom, and dotted around the house now are vases stuffed with the things, like ikebane on speed, as the Technical Department describes it. Most of the branches have been destined for the garden shredder, though, as there's just too much of the stuff to deal with to be concerned with the aesthetic aspect of it all.

Onward and upward!

Tonight's dinner:

Squid, stewed with Peas and Tomatoes.

Fiorentina, with Rocket and Parmesan.

Chocolate Tarts.

Recipe: Ricotta Pudding

I'm going through an Elizabeth David phase. Such a pleasure - the writing, so authoritative and splendidly pithy, and the images she evokes are of a world within memory, but which in reality has now pretty much gone. Sometimes, the passage of time means one has to 'translate' certain parts of her recipes to fit today's reality - last week, for instance, I made her excellent Duck Terrine, but had to substitute for pig's-foot-aspic a combination of gelatine and duck broth (I can't remember the last time I even saw pig's trotters for sale - in the past, I used to get them at the little butchers at the southern end of Berwick Street, but that went the way of all flesh - literally - decades ago and was replaced by an Ann Summers, I think). Equally, I suspect ED's ducks were of a more mature variety than those we get today (which, in fact, are generally really 'duckling' rather than 'duck'), and so her terrine would have had a significantly gamier flavour than the same recipe produces now.

Anyway...Ricotta Pudding, or as ED calls it 'Budino Toscano'. I first came across a version of it in a recipe by Anne Willan for a ricotta cheesecake, where the mixture given here was baked inside a deep pastry shell, with a crisp and delicious lattice top - I can recall turning out dozens of the things for buffets when I was cooking for my living. With or without pastry is equally delicious - the pastry version is a more elegant presentation, I suppose, but the pastry-less one is lighter, and even simpler to produce. All-told, about five minutes to make the mixture, and then a further thirty minutes in the oven. Simplicity itself.

Ingredients: 12 oz ricotta; 4 egg yolks; 2 oz ground almonds; 4 oz sugar (or equivalent volume Splenda); a handful of mixed dried fruit; 2 oz finely-diced candied orange peel; 1 tsp vanilla essence (or, if you can get it, 'Fiori di Sicilia', which immediately lifts the flavours to a whole different level); finely-grated zest of a lemon.

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. In a bowl, beat together the ricotta, yolks, ground almonds, vanilla, and sugar. Fold into this mixture the dried fruit, peel, and zest.

3. Turn into a greased 8" baking tin. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, until the top has started to colour and the inside shows done when a knife tip is inserted.

4. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for ten minutes or so before inverting onto a plate. Cut into slices to serve.

It's tempting fate to say it...

...but it feels as though the cold weather might actually have finished for this winter. The forecast for the next ten days or so is warm and wet, and yesterday was the first really good gardening day of the year - so I took advantage of it to dig the first of the raspberry beds, where we'll soon be constructing the fruit cage, at the far end of the South Garden. For one bed of raspberries and another of strawberries (the climbing variety) I'll use local stock, but for all the others I plan to bring plants from London at the beginning of March; the general Italian attitude to gardening is a bit unevolved, frankly, in comparison with the UK, where I can be confident of getting a reliable range of early and late-fruiting varieties. With plants available in garden shops here, it's always a bit of a pig in a poke (unless sourcing them via Signor Tempestini - but I haven't bothered him with requests for soft fruit, amongst all the other things he's sorting out for the Santa Caterina garden).

As long as the weather holds, I'd like to get the asparagus beds prepared and the crowns actually in the ground within the next couple of days; two long, narrow beds to go along the side of the old orchard. I think eighteen crowns should be enough to keep us satisfied during spargel season, over the next few years. All I need is for the Technical dept to drag himself away from his current project of restoring the floor tiles in the library, so that he can construct the frames I need for two raised beds (to be made from 4 metre lengths of scaffolding planks, that we've been using as makeshift kitchen counters while waiting for the welsh slate to arrive ...)

We were discussing yesterday what we'll miss from this house after we've moved, and concluded that the thing above all that we'll miss is the way the sun streams into the kitchen and dining room first thing in the mornings. Yes, we'll get it also up at Santa Caterina, but not quite so dramatically, I think, and it won't have have the reflected light from the lily pond which glimmers seductively at times up onto the kitchen ceiling. Oh, well - swings and roundabouts...there are so many things I'm looking forward to about living in the new house that I certainly won't regret the change.

Tonight's dinner:

Lamb Salad (with leftover cold lamb, roast with garlic & anchovy, that we had when Barbara & Miche came for dinner the other day)

Saltimbocca alla Romana; braised fennel.

Orange Soufflés.

Recipe: Red Mullet with Orange

Or Triglia alla Siciliana, more properly called. The basic recipe came from Alan Davidson's excellent 'Mediterranean Seafood' and is one of those splendidly satisfying throw-it-on-the-grill dishes where the fish has had almost nothing done to it beforehand. You can either use fish which are small enough for it not to be necessary to clean them, or - for a more elegant result - use the fillets taken from a smaller number of larger fish. Whichever you do, the end result is both simple and delicious.

For two.

Ingredients: 12 small Red Mullet (approximately 3" in length); Salt & Pepper; 1 tsp Peperoncino (ground dried red pepper flakes); 3 tbs Olive Oil; juice and grated rind of 2 Oranges; juice of 1 Lemon; 3 tbs Stock (either light or dark); 3 tbs White Wine; 1 cup Butter, finely diced. Finely-chopped Parsley, for garnish.

Method:

1. In a shallow dish, coat the fish with half of the Oil, along with the Peperoncino and Salt & pepper. Leave to sit for half an hour, while you make the sauce.

2. Combine all the remaining ingredients (apart from the remaining Oil) in a double boiler or simmertopf, and heat gently until the Butter has completely melted. Whisk gently to amalgamate all the ingredients.

3. Heat a heavy frying pan or iron griddle over a high flame and add to it the remaining Oil. Once very hot, quickly fry the fish for about a minute on each side, and then transfer to two heated plates to serve. Ladle the sauce over the plated fish, and sprinkle with chopped Parsley.

Serve.

A fine day...

At last! And although there are some 'minus' figures in the Tempo Italia forecast for the next week, they have a tendency to disappear as the days in question approach. This morning, the garden was flooded with sunlight, and the various church spires visible through the leafless branches of the plane trees on The Martyrs' Square looked like the backdrop to a springlike Van der Heyden or de Hooch. Bizarre, really, given where we are.

The planting programme began this week, with about a third of the new fruit and nut trees having gone in (peaches, pears, cherry, hazelnuts, walnuts...) plus two small camelia japonica plantations, and a very robust new Magnolia Stellata. I'm not sure what's supposed to be in the next shipment, but I know that in addition to the remaining fruit and nut trees, we have cyprusses, poplars and arbutus trees coming at some point, along with some more plantations of Rhododendron, Hydrangea, and japanese azaleas, as well as enough lavender plants to line the causeway which runs through the centre of the garden. All very satisfying. Indoors, the brazilians proceed apace, and have made great progress with the ceiling beams in the salone. We're off to London this afternoon for a couple of days, but haven't told them that we're going - it's the sort of information that immediately means they focus their attention elsewhere, and their rate of work inevitably dwindles to nothingness. As it is, by the time they notice that we aren't popping up to bug them any more, we'll have reappeared and everything can continue as normal.

The new kitchen seems to be turning into a reality - carcasses are all in place; the slate work-surfaces are being shipped from Wales in the next couple of weeks; ovens, fridge and warming drawer are all ordered and somewhere in the pipeline; floor tiles are due to be delivered next week. All the doors we found in the freezing cold recupero in Imola two weeks ago have now been delivered and are waiting to be installed (we suspect they've all been ripped out of old farm houses in Romania, and shipped down by the truckload - nothing as rustic and agricultural has been seen in Tuscany since at least the seventies, I should think!). Current planning is for us to be able to move into the house in about a month from now.

Tonight's dinner:

Risotto of Funghi Porcini (yes, I know it's against the current regime, but we'll be just off the plane in London, and Sarah's turning up for supper, and there are limits to what is practicable - and given that we already fell off the regime yesterday evening when the Cini-Gamberonis came to dinner & I served Prune & Armagnac tart for dessert, then a small risotto isn't quite such a heinous crime )

Pork Chops with Lemon & Sage. Braised Celery.

Apple Strudel (Sarah's bringing it)

Losing weight....main courses

And here are the main courses which formed part of the January diet (which the Technical Department has suggested continues for several more weeks, in the interests of a further reduced waistline - his, rather than mine). As with the starters, links are given through to the appropriate recipes, where I've already posted them:

Double-roast Lamb Shanks; Roast Beef; Boned Chicken, roast with butter & herbs under the skin; Lemon Sole, with Marsala & Parmesan; Cod with Basil, roast wrapped in Parma Ham; Salmon with Celery & Walnut Cream; Duck Confit; grilled Duck Breast; Hamburger; Chicken Burger; Guinea Fowl with Garlic & Lemon; Fiorentina; Rabbit with Garlic; Rabbit, boned and stuffed with Fennel & Salami; Roast Veal; Spezzatino; Veal & Lemon Stew; Involtini with Leek & Parmesan; Pork Chops braised with Lemon & Sage; Lamb Shoulder, stuffed with Anchovy & Garlic; Chicken paillettes, with Orange & Cardamom; Quail with Cauliflower & Walnut Mash (the link is for potato mash; just replace with cauliflower for a low-carb version); Duck legs in Red Wine; Pork Loin with Emmental; Osso Bucco; Blanquette of Lamb; Moussaka.

Tonight's dinner:

Spinach Soufflé

Salmon fillets, steamed in Radicchio, with balsamic vinegar; Fennel braised in stock.

Almond Bavarois.

Recipe: Onion Tart

Or, more accurately 'Pissaladière Nicoise' in this instance, and not to be confused with the version from Alsace, which omits the anchovies and olives, and is all the poorer for it. This is a dish which can be made using either shortcrust or phyllo pastry - and in the interests of low-carb dietary soundness the version given here uses phyllo. I have to say, though, that I probably actually prefer the version with shortcrust pastry, which acts as a better foil to the inevitable oiliness of the onion filling. The flavour, whichever type of pastry you use, is wonderful!

For two individual tarts.

Ingredients: 2 x 12"x6" sheets of Phyllo pastry; half an oz of Butter; a tablespoon of slivered almonds; 3 large Onions; 2 tablespoons Olive Oil; 1 teaspoon dried Thyme; Salt & Pepper; 5 fl oz White Wine; 2 Anchovy fillets; 2 stoned Black Olives, each sliced longitudinally in four; Goat Cheese (equivalent to a couple of tablespoons in volume).

Method:

1. Melt the Butter, and use it to brush the sheets of Phyllo. Cut each sheet into two squares, and use these to line double thickness two individual tart tins, distributing the slivered almonds on top of the first layer of Phyllo in each tin, and before adding the second layer of Phyllo. Bake for ten minutes in a 180 degree C oven, until crisp and brown. Set aside.

2. Peel and finely dice the Onions. Heat the Oil in a pan which has a good fitting lid. Add the chopped Onion to the Oil, along with the Thyme and light seasoning. Stir everything together, put the lid on the pan and sweat the Onion in the Oil over a low heat for about an hour, stirring regularly. At the end of this time, the Onion should have collapsed completely and just started to colour.

3. Add the wine to the Onion, raise the heat under the pan and cook, stirring constantly, to reduce the liquid almost to nothing. Check and adjust the seasoning.

4. Divide the Onion mixture between the two pastry shells. Slice each Anchovy fillet longitudinally and use the thin slices to make a cross on the surface of each tart. Divide the cheese so that there is a small piece in each quadrant on the top of each tart (these don't have to look beautiful at this stage, as they will melt anyway in the course of cooking), and top each piece of cheese with a quarter of a Black Olive.

5. Put the tarts back into the 180 degree oven, and bake for twenty minutes or so, until the cheese has started to melt and has begun to turn brown at the edges.

Allow to cool for at least five minutes before serving - the filling will be very hot when it first comes out of the oven.