I have been making an effort to use up all of the grains and legumes in my pantry. I am a bit of a shopping addict when it comes to foods, wanting to buy everything in sight. Just think of what I could do with this or that. So inevitably I have jars filled or half filled with barley, wheat berries, various rice grains, lentils and more. I haven’t cooked with barley in a while... View Article
Poached pears are a classic desserts and I have posted recipes for poached pears here before. In that recipe I poached them in red wine and they were beautiful. Poached pears was also one of the desserts I found on almost all of the menus in Italy recently and I got to indulge myself in this lovely finale to many great dinners. The other day I found little honey belle pears at our local produce... View Article
I have been on a roll since the weekend making pate a choux, or cream puff dough. I am trying to pipe the perfect eclairs but something is going on because they come out of the oven nice and puffed but not perfect, some cracked on top, others a bit lopsided and overall rather annoying. I am persistent though so I will keep trying. While I pipe the elusive eclairs I always make a few... View Article
Continued from here. There is more to Naples that we were able to experience in our short stay (don’t miss the Veiled Christ sculpture, remarkable) but I did manage to go on a foodie tour (of course) and had a bit of an insider look at the Naple’s food scene that I am happy to share it with you. I booked a tour with Food Tours of Naples. It being off season we ended... View Article
I have been cooking red lentils for a long time but never thought of cooking them “dry” meaning, without boiling them in water. Who knew? The other day I came across an image on the internet that looked intriguing. I followed the links to a blog called A Brown Table and found the recipe for braised cabbage and red lentils. The blogger, Nik Sharma comes from a North Indian and Goan family and offers wonderful... View Article
Feature image above used by permission from David Killick, NZ Before we left for our epic trip to Italy we had a lot of conflicting advice about Naples. Some said you must go there if only for the pizza, others said, don’t go, it’s Mafia country, dangerous, crowded, polluted and there are pickpockets everywhere. I almost considered going there with a guide. In the end, I decided that I feel at home in the world... View Article
Thai cuisine is one of my favourites after everything Mediterranean. I don’t have a large repertoire in Thai dishes and the few things I make are simple and we tend to enjoy them now and then. This is a simple soup with abundance of fresh vegetables suspended in a lime flavoured coconut broth. you can serve it on its own or spoon it over brown rice in a soup bowl. Top it with Thai basil,... View Article
Continued from this post. My second visit to Testaccio was on a food tour with Eating Italy. On a rainy day in January we took an Uber black car to the meeting place in Piazza Testaccio and met our guide Bethany who was keeping dry under a blue umbrella outside Zi Elena Bar Gelateria. Bethany is an America living and working in Rome, fluent in Italian and usually does the tours in Trestevere where she lives.... View Article
If you love food and cemeteries you are sure to like Testaccio and that’s because Testaccio has the most delicious, authentic Roman food and a very beautiful and interesting non-catholic cemetery where famous people are buried. Testaccio, considered the “working-class” neighbourhood of Rome, is situated across the river and south of the famous Trestevere but doesn’t share in the tourism that Trastevere attracts and this is a good thing. Wedged between the river to the... View Article
I have written about street food in Rome in this post. The two most popular street foods are pizza bianca and pizza rosa. Last night I made pizza dough just for fun and let it rise in the fridge overnight to develop flavour. today I thought I’d make pizza rossa to remind me of what it was like to have it in Rome. A dough based on 3 cups “00” flour made 4 elongated pizzas.... View Article
Mercato San Ambrogio is another market in Florence that was designed by Giuseppe Mengoni in 1873, the same architect as Mercato Central and the famous Galleria in Milan. The market is located on the opposite side of town from Mercato Central in a residential Piazza Ghiberti. It is not far from Piazza Santa Croce where Michelangelo and other luminaries are buried inside the magnificent cathedral. Because of the less central location the market serves more locals... View Article
This is one of my favourite ways of using eggplant – roasting and combining the flesh with tahini paste to make a traditional mediterranean style salad, or I call it a spread or a dip. Get a shiny, plump eggplant without bruises. Make a few cuts on top for steam to escape and place in the oven on a foil lined baking sheet. Roast for a while (30 minutes or so) at 400F until it... View Article
