Saturday lunch.

On Friday night, I got a package of Basmati rice as a present (yes, I know people who give me rice as gifts), and decided it would be part of my Saturday lunch.
It was simple and delicious.

First, I prepared whatever vegetables I had on hand, and added some cheese:

 

Clockwise, from left to right, we have: pecorino cheese, tomatoes mixed with avocado, carrots, red and yellow peppers, olives. The dressing was simple salt and olive oil drizzled on top.

Then, I added the cooked rice:

I can't believe something so simple was so delicious! I am doing this again, only I think I'll use sesame oil.

Sunday breakfast: Apple Cinnamon muffins

For my Sunday breakfast I decided to bake these apple-cinnamon muffins. I think apple and cinnamon is a match made in heaven, I am sorry only I discovered it a bit late, in my twenties, when I went to the US. This is a recipe I copied from who-knows-where when I was in the US (it's written in english, with english measurements), and modified as the time passed.
For measurements, since I don't have the cups, I use yoghurt container: it is 125ml, which means 1/2 cup.

First, I peeled and diced two apples and soaked in grappa. You can use brandy, or lemon juice if you want to avoid alcohol.
Then, I soaked abou 1/2 cup raisins in grappa - here you can use lukewarm water.
Then, I started with the dough. You will need:

1/4 cup butter
1/2 sugar
2 medium eggs (or one large)
some liquid - milk, white yoghurt, or I used the grappa in which I had soaked my raisins an apples
2 cups of flour
a pinch of salt
cinnamon as much as you like (I like it a lot!)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda

First, I beated well the eggs, sugar and softened butter:

Then added the apples, raisins and their liquid to soften the dough. At this point you can use milk or yogurt instead. And, of course, cinnamon!
Finally the flour, baking powder and baking soda (I actually used my little bag of pre-mixed baking powders)

Put it in the muffin pan, and cook 20 to 25 minutes in a pre-warmed oven.

Here they are!

And they really were delicious!

From the "Ricettario" - Moka cake.

Let me introduce my Ricettario - which means nothing else than "recipe book".

It's a notebook I wrote when I was 16 (which means 20 years ago!), where I copied recipes found here and there.


Today's cake is Torta Moka (Moka Cake). In Italian, the word moka is usually referred to something containing coffee, since at home coffee is made with a so- called moka machine.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients*:
250 g flour
100 g unsalted butter
200 g sugar
2 eggs
1 small cup of strong coffee
1 small bag of baking powder

First, I made coffee with my small moka:

Then, I mixed the eggs with the sugar:

Added melted butter, coffee:

Flour and baking powder. I usually substitute part of the flour with maizena (potato starch) which makes the cake softer. So I used 150 g flour and 100 g maizena.

Beat it well, until all the lumps are gone, then pour the batter in a cake spring:

I make my cakes this shape because I find when I use the standard springform the center doesn't cook very well, or the edges come out too cooked.



My variation: since I think coffee and dark chocolate are a match made in heaven, I sprinkle some dark chocolate drops on top:

Put it in the oven at 180 °C (360 °F) for 40 minutes.

And at this point... my oven screwed up big time. And I was busy doing other stuff, so I didn't check the cake while it was baking.
It came out more like a giant cookie than a nice and soft cake. The result was not pretty enough for the world to see. But it was delicious nonetheless - besides, these are "experiments", and not all experiments give good results.
I promised myself to make a new one and check the oven very often as I cook it - and of course take pictures of that one.

*Note on measurements: I'll try to put up a conversion page soon. In the meantime I am sure you can find conversions between grams and cups on the web.
Italian eggs are usually  smaller than the american counterparts, so consider my eggs to be medium sized.
In Italy they sell small bags of prepared backing powder - that's what I use. It corresponds to 1 tsp baking powder + 1 tbsp baking soda.

Sunday breakfast - French Breakfast Puffs

I like to bake during my weekends, especially because this way I have some very good stuff for breakfast during the following week.
I found this recipe here, on a recently discovered blog.
They looked delicious, so I decided to make them.

I made some changes from the original recipe. I didn't use nutmeg, because I don't really like it. I put lemon rind instead. And I didn't use milk, because I don't drink it. I replaced it with some liquor - don't worry, all the alcohol evaporates at the oven temperature, so the puffs were not "alcoholic"!
Here are the "wet" and "dry" ingredients before mixing:

 And the resulting dough (I expected it a bit runnier, but it was ok)

 These are the puffs as they came out of the oven:

 

Beautiful, right?

Then I prepared the butter and the cinnamon-sugar mixture for the topping:

I dip the puffs in the melted butter, then in the sugar. 

Look!!!

Yummy!!!

Saturday Lunch: pizza with mushrooms and gorgonzola cheese.

I usually make some kind of pasta for my saturday lunch - but today I decided to use some pizza dough I had, and made pizza with mushrooms and gorgonzola cheese (pizza bianca con funghi e gorgonzola).
When in Italy we say bianca (white) referred to a pizza, it means it doesn't have tomato sauce on it. Unless I am eating Margherita, I prefer my pizza bianca.
I bought  rolled dough at the supermarket. They sell it in the fridge aisle. Mushrooms too came from the supermarket. Any kind of mushrooms will work.

So, I cut my mushrooms (after washing them well, of course).

Then I spread them on the rolled pizza dough, added some salt, parsley and olive oil:

Put it in the oven at 220 °C (high) for about 10 minutes. Then put some gorgonzola cheese on top. This was a very strong gorgonzola - again, from the supermarket:

After 5 more minutes in the oven, my lunch was ready!

I completed my lunch with arugola salad, an orange and a square of 85% chocolate with my coffee. It was really good!!!

My Kitchen!

Hi everybody. This is a journal of my culinary experiments...
My love affair with cooking started when I was 16, during the summer. I was bored, so I started baking wiht the help of my sisters the most elaborate stuff - including cream puffs, made from scratch, with four different kind of filling (still proud of that one).

So, I think the best way to start is to show you the place where everything happens: my kitchen.
Here are two views:

As you can see, it's really small - plus, my only tools are a couple of baking pans, a muffin pan, bowls and a wooden spoon (plus microwave, oven and kitchen stove, of course). But I don't really need anything elese, really - may be a whisk.
This is a detail of my fruit cart:

Yes, I live alone, and that fruit bounty is almost all for me.
It's actually my beauty secret - when people tell me I look much younger than my age, I know it's because of all the fruits and vegetables I eat.