Budino Toscano

Loosely adapted from Elisabeth David's Italian volume (where she sometimes gets it right, and sometimes ...let's face it...falls a little short of the mark). I seem to be on a ricotta kick at the moment - I don't know why; perhaps the onset of the truly hot weather invites light eating, and ricotta functions so well as a vehicle for interesting flavours and textures, but without imposing itself very much in the process. In any event, I find myself regularly these days turning out ricotta and spinach gnocchi (which I love), or else torta di ricotta, with its excellent flavours of mint and basil...And, of course, this.

Ingredients:
420g ricotta; 50g ground almonds; 3 medium eggs; 55g diced candied peel (mixed...orange, lemon, apricot, pretty much whatever is available); 55g sultanas; grated zest of a lemon; 112g sugar (or equal quantity-by-volume sucralose); half tsp each of orange flower water and vanilla essence (and almond essence, if your ground almonds are of only middling quality).

Method:

There is almost no method to making this, so as recipes go, it's a bit of a frost. 

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease a 20cm false bottomed tin, and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2.Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, with the aid of a hand whisk - don't overmix, just enough so that everything is properly mixed in, and holds together.

3. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, and bake for 45-50 minutes (until the top has started to brown nicely). Let it cool in the tin for twenty minutes or so before you un-mould it, and place it on serving dish ,

Lemon and Amaretti Semifreddo

Simplicity itself. And extremely delicious. The raspberries came from the garden, as did the lemons  - well, strictly speaking they came from the tree which overhangs from the Priest's garden, next door, but it's much the same thing, and the fruit would go unused if we didn't help ourselves. With an eye half-closed, it could be argued that this is a sugar-free recipe...but, in fact the condensed milk comes 'sweetened' (whatever that means, in practice). Certainly, the end result is easily sweet enough.

Ingredients: juice and grated zest of 4 lemons; 1 x 397 ml can of sweetened condensed milk; 300 ml whipping cream; 100g amaretti biscuits (by preference, the soft 'Tuscan' kind, rather than the brittle sort which you find more usually...if the latter are the only kind available, than so be it.)

Serves 8.

Method:

1. Prepare a one-and-a half-pint loaf tin: grease the inside, and then line the base with a strip of foil, which overhangs the two ends; place in the freezer for ten minutes or so, to get good and cold.

2. In a large bowl, add the condensed milk to the lemon juice and zest. Mix them together - alchemy will ensure that the mixture thickens quite naturally.

3. Separately, whisk the cream until fairly stiff, and then fold into this the lemon mixture.

4. Crush the amaretti. They need to be in 'scatterable' form.

5. Layer the amaretti and the cream mixture in the prepared loaf tin: a quarter of the crumbled amaretti followed by a third of the mixture, finishing with a layer amaretti.

6. Freeze for at least four hours. Unmould by running a knife blade down the two long sides of the tin, and once upended onto the serving plate, pull on the exposed ends of the foil.

7. Serve with fresh raspberries.

A Morning in June...

Looking towards the South Lawn

From the house to the well...

Looking south, on the Quercifolia path

The Paoli are coming to dinner. Al fresco, with a nod to social distancing. Probably only a nod, though...

Tonight's dinner:

Devils on horseback

Chicken Livers and Mushrooms, in  sauce of ginger, cream and marsala, piled into phyllo and almond pastry cases

Pork Loin, pot-roast with pancetta and radicchio di treviso, served with peas a la creme

Raspberries in Passito jelly, with a creme anglaise flavoured with passion fruit

Chocolate and Orange Cheesecake

The latest discovery in the TD's weight-loss programme (at last count, down nearly 22.5 kilos, and a reduction of three trouser sizes since January!). This is a flourless cheesecake, which works as well with artificial sweetener as it does with sugar,and tastes rich and satisfying - and substantial - even while respecting the low/no carb rules. Highly to be recommended.

For one 8 inch cheesecake - serves 8.

Ingredients: 125g dark chocolate; 3 eggs, separated; 4 oz sugar, or 1 cup sweetener (I use Canderel 'Yellow', which is the name which what used to be called Splenda now goes under); 600g cream cheese; 90g mascarpone; grated zest of two oranges.

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Grease a spring-clip tin of the right size and line the base with greaseproof paper.

3. Melt the chocolate in a simmertopf or double boiler, and then allow to cool slightly

4. With the egg whites and half the sugar or sweetener, make a meringue (if using sweetener, beat the egg whites until stiff, and then beat in all of the sweetener in one go; if using sugar, beat the egg whites until they being to stiffen, and then gradually add the sugar as you continue to beat the egg whites to full stiffness).

5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar or sweetener, and then beat in the cream cheese and mascarpone until thoroughly mixed.

6. Add a third of the cream cheese mixture to the chocolate and mix in thoroughly.

7. Mix the orange zest into the remaining cream cheese mixture.

8. Fold two thirds of the meringue mixture into the cream cheese/orange mixture, and then fold the chocolate mixture into the remaining third of meringue.

9. Use the chocolate mixture to make a layer in the base of the prepared tin, andthen carefully spread the orange mixture in a layer on top, making sure not to press the top layer too firmly down into the layer beneath.

10. Bake in the pre-heated  oven for one hour, and then leave in the oven with the heat off and the door ajar until the oven has cooled down.

The result is splendid!

Lockdown over (I think)...

As far as we're concerned (travel to London notwithstanding...who knows when that will be on the agenda once more!) it's pretty much Life back to normal. The 'mask' and distancing rules still apply at the supermarket, but since there haven't been any queues to get in to go shopping for weeks now, then the mild irritation of the mask-wearing is merely that. No schools, and so our World continues in blissful silence, without the normal background sounds from the schoolyard beyond our northern boundary. Summer is advancing and all looks set fair...

Tonight's dinner:

Courgette gratin

Lamb chops fried in parmesan batter; artichoke hearts

Banana souffles

Foie Gras with pears, in balsamic vinegar and honey.

I suppose anything with Foie Gras is considered 'incorrect' these days - but I've decided that I'm now of an age where I'm too old to change. And this recipe is deeply, deeply splendid. It's a slight re-working of the version in Raymond Blanc's 'Blanc Vite' which was his healthy-eating volume, after he'd had a cardiac event, some years ago. There's an overall emphasis throughout the book on low carb, and so it  plays well into the only kind of 'reduction' regime that will work in this house (the dessert section is a bit ho-hum, apart from his chocolate and/or lemon 'pots' and his recipe for chocolate and raspberry cake, but the rest of the volume more than makes up for this deficiency). TD decided in January that he needed to lose weight, and a low carb menu regime began there and then - with the result that in four months he has managed to lose all-but twenty kilos (and with still consuming three courses for dinner every evening, and with not having compromised on his pre-dinner prosecco and his half-a-bottle-of-wine with dinner, either...happiness all round!).

For two:

Ingredients: four generous slices of foie gras (about 100g per person); 2 ripe pears; 2 tbs balsamic vinegar; 25g butter; 2 tsp clear honey; 200 ml chicken stock; a splash of lime juice.

Method:

1. Peel, core and quarter the pears, and cook over medium heat in the butter, using a frying pan. Cook the pears for two or three minutes on each side, until they have clearly softened.

2. Add the vinegar to the pan, raise the heat, and continue to cook until the vinegar has all cooked away - keep turning the pieces of pear from time to time during this process.

3. Add the honey to the pan, and turn the pears in it as it melts and mixes with the cooking juices in the pan. Remove the pear pieces from the pan and keep to one side.

4. Add the stock to the pan and reduce by half over high heat; add to the reduced liquid the lime juice, and continue to reduce until the mixture in the pan is noticeably thick.

5. Return the pear pieces to the pan and stir to coat them thoroughly in the sauce.

6. Heat a separate small frying pan until it is very hot, and then sear the slices of foie gras, one minute on each side. (Keep the fat which is given off, and use subsequently for roasting any vegetable such as potatoes or celeriac).

7. To serve, divide the pieces of pear between two heated plates, and place the foie gras slices on top. Pour the sauce over the top of all.

And then, luxuriate.

Gardening

The House, submerged in Jasmine,
as viewed from across the Agrumi Lawn

Tonight's Dinner:

Poached Egg on Ratatouille

Roast Lamb Shanks, with roast celeriac

Peach timbales