New Year's Eve Dinner...

 And the menu was:

Aperitif was sake on-the-rocks, with a stick of fresh cucumber, served with crunchy, deep-fried fave beans. 

To confuse matters, two swedish wines were served with the first seven courses (the swedes make wine? Who knew?) Immalan 2020, followed by Aniara Renessans 2020. And then, because the Pauli had brought a splendid 2003 Barolo, we abandoned the warmed sake we'd intended to go with the Oden Stew, and defaulted instead to Italian vintage. For dessert, I'd lost my nerve anyway (I don't actually like Japanese desserts - to my mind, the mouth-feel tends to the 'woolly', and flavour ranges are too chestnuty for my liking...) and so, we had ginger ice-cream, which was light and rich and creamy, with just enough bite.

I'd worried that we might not last until midnight, but in fact we were still ploughing through Oden Nabe (stew, in other words, of  beef, chicken, potato, fried fish balls of shrimp and merluzzo, fried tofu, salsify - because I couldn't source any Konnyaku, and salsify seemed a good substitute - and hard-boiled eggs, all cooked in a complicated broth) when the fireworks began to explode in the distance. This four-footed, unlike her two predecessors, was spooked by the noise, and she ran around being alarmed for a good five minutes, until she was corralled again, under the table. And we could then wind down into the final course, and try not to worry too much about what 2023 might bring!

Tonight's dinner:

Da capo. The fridge is stuffed with leftovers, and we'll be dining 'alla Nonna' for at least several days to come.

Cool Yule...

Christmas morning...

Christmas afternoon...

More Christmas afternoon (spade, out of picture)...

And attendant extra-terrestrial!

Tonight's dinner:

Smoked salmon and pumpernickel (in homage to E.David)

Moules Marinieres (just because...)

Steak frites (as a self-inulgence)

Christmas Pudding (required)

 

Getting stuck in...

 Perhaps optimistically, I blithely promised our geometra  - which is essentially means 'surveyor', but most importantly in this context it means the person who will be filing our planning application with the Comune - that the ruin would have been entirely cleaned out (by me) before capo'd'anno. Which means addressing the fifty years and more of accumulated neglect since the roof was removed from the structure after it had last ceased to be lived in: toppled stonework; beams that had crashed to the ground as floors had given way, over time; broken floor tiles; and mountains of earth and greenery, with three or four trees, of varying degrees of maturity, which had seeded themselves and by now generously over-topped the structure. It doesn't help that it's barely stopped raining ever since we completed the purchase, and so available working days have been limited.

It's been an archaeological voyage of discovery...

Fallen roof-beams, and weeds

Once the worst of the greenery had been removed...

What we'd thought was a blocked-up doorway, turned out to be a hearth - complete with a hook for an iron pot - and a ruined chimney...

.

Progress! Ancient flagstones unearthed as the floor to the eastern room

And ancient terracotta as the floor to the western room

The base of the staircase, emerging from the mud.

And the remains of the (18th Century?) wood stove.

Onward and upward...

Tonight's dinner:

Endives gratin

Sausages in dry marsala buttered spinach

Pear & chocolate clafouti

Pastures new...

We completed on the purchase last week...

 

 

There's debate about how long the work will take. The more optimistic amongst us think we'll be in within a year...and the less optimistic think it will be twice that.

Tonight's dinner:

Portobello Mushrooms, roast with balsamic and herbed breadcrumbs, served with gorgonzola sauce

Fennel-seed hamburgers, with salsify

Pear Tarts

Galette of Sweetcorn and Peas

                                                 

Just off the plane from London yesterday: dinner was required, the fridge was glaringly empty, and I had neither time nor inclination for anything that wasn't quick and simple.  Sweetcorn galettes as a first course was a perfect solution - with half an hour to let the batter rest, the actual cooking time is little more than five minutes, and the ingredients are all store cupboard staples. The recipe is a simplified version of a Roux Bros tried-and-trusted.

For two galettes.

Ingredients:

40g flour; 1 egg; 85 ml milk; salt; 1 tbs oil; 40g canned sweetcorn 2 tbs peas (defrosted frozen is perfect).

Method

1. Whisk together flour, egg, oil, salt (to taste) and milk, and then stir into this the sweetcorn and peas. Leave the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

2. Heat to a high temperature a small (approx 8" diameter) heavy frying pan, and then film the base with oil. Place a 6" metal ring into the pan (heavy enough that the batter doesn't leach out once filled), and into this ladle half of the batter.

3. Let the batter set over a high heat - perhaps three minutes - then run a knife round the interior of the ring to free the galette from the ring, and (using tongs) remove the ring from the pan. With a large metal spatula, turn the galette over, and finish cooking on the other side for a further minute.

4. Remove the galette to a heated plate and keep warm, while you repeat the process using the rest of the batter to make the second galette.

Serve.

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake

 

This presents as a lot more decadent than it really is....as long as you substitute sucralose for sugar, at any rate, and since sucralose works just as well, then why wouldn't you?

This is from the pages of a book rather unimaginatively called 'Chocolate Bible' by Christines McFadden and France, which has been languishing un-regarded on the bookshelves in London for the past few years - I must have bought it on a whim, at some time, and then forgotten that I had. Anyway, it got included earlier in the year in a shipment that was being sent from London - more as ballast than anything else - and it was only after it had got to Italy that I settled into it properly, for the first time. And it is treasure trove! 

This particular recipe was tried, and got a massive thumbs-up, early on - of the 'this alone justifies the purchase of the book' type of accolade - and it was then repeated as dessert for the TD's birthday dinner.

Rich and dense in texture, the addition of cinnamon in the base and sour cream in the cheesecake itself both give it a beguiling edge. And served with a simple raspberry coulis, it is heaven! 

Serves 8 (ish, depending on greed)

Ingredients

275g plain chocolate; 1.2 kg cream cheese; 1 cup sugar (or sucralose); 2 tsp vanilla essence; 4 eggs; 3/4 cup sour cream; 1 tbs cocoa powder; 200g chocolate biscuits (i.e baked with chocolate in them, rather than chocolate-dipped); 6 tbs butter, melted; 1.2 tsp ground cinnamon.

Method: 

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line the base of a springform tin which is 9 in x 3 in with greaseproof paper, and grease the sides of the tin.

2. Process together biscuits, butter and cinnamon, and press into the tin to make the base of the cheesecake. 

3. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

4. Beat the cream cheese with the sugar and vanilla, and then beat into this the eggs, one by one. 

5. Mix the sour cream with the cocoa powder, and then add this to the cream cheese mixture, before folding in the melted chocolate. Once the chocolate is properly incorporated, pour the mixture into the tin and bake for an hour.

6. Leave to cool in the tin, and then remove to a serving plate. (Best to run a thin-bladed knife around the edge of the cheesecake before relaxing the spring, in case part of the cheesecake adheres to the tin.)

For maximum indulgence, serve with raspberry coulis.

And after her birthday dinner...

 

A dog has to stretch out on the window-seat, and contemplate life...