Saturday 23 February 2013

Truffle and cream sauce with Lagonae pasta

I was in a hurry to get out the mountain bike one night this week, but I wanted something really nice for dinner before heading out into the cold.
A perfect opportunity to try some of my new pasta, and to use up some cream I had left in the fridge.

Ingredients (for one)

Butter (25g)
Single cream (you decide how much!)
A handful of thinly sliced mushrooms
1 teaspoon of Truffle Paste
175-200g of long strip pasta such as Lagonae 

Cooking Method

  1. Boil a kettle of water, and transfer to a pan. Add salt, and keep on simmer
  2. Add your pasta, gently bending the strips  until all the pasta is submerged in the water.
  3. Take a small saucepan and add the butter, once the butter has melted, reduce the heat to medium and add the sliced mushrooms.
  4. Once the mushrooms begin to loose their water and brown nicely, add the truffle paste and stir in. Then pour in the cream, reducing the heat. 
  5. Keep stirring the pasta to separate the strips and ensure they cook evenly.
  6. Once the pasta has cooked for the time on the packet, drain into a colander.
  7. If your cream sauce is too thick, add a little of the pasta water to thin it out.
  8. Plate up the pasta, and pour on the sauce, and enjoy!


Thursday 5 July 2012

Visit to Tuscany - Summer 2012

Day One

It's funny, normally when I’m in an airport I have this horrible, unearthly feeling that I'm going to die. My tummy turns over every thirty seconds, particularly when I hear the sound of a jet taking off overhead, and if I should happen to see the tail end of any of the 757's I'm likely to break out in the cold sweat of fear.

But today, I don't feel any of that. In fact I am the epitome of calm as I sip a freshly pulled pint of peroni and test Andy on his language skills. I think it's because I'm not thinking about flying today, I'm just thinking about going back to Italy.

Our journey is smooth and efficient. We have hardly any turbulence, arrive a good thirty minutes early and are the first off the plane, onto the little airport bus and first into the car rental queue.

If only the next twelve hours were so easy!!

One thing we have learned in our first two years of marriage is that I should not book anything. When I do, something always seems to go horribly wrong and this was one of those occasions. In my defence, I’ve never booked a car rental before so I didn't know the exact requirements. It's fairly simple enough - you just need a credit card - but when we arrived at the airport without one and they wouldn't take cash, we were well and truly stuck. For over an hour we tried everything we could think of but the final solution was that we needed to contact the brokers who had sold us our rental agreement.

Who opened at 9am UK time.

But it was only 11pm Italian time.

Despite our tiredness and frustration, we did not have a huge argument in front of the Italian receptionist and calmly found a hotel to spend the night in Pisa. There are some things that happen for a reason and this seemed like one of those times. It was a little more expense, and would cost us one morning of waking up in our pretty little cottage that was waiting for us in the Siena province, but sleep was almost upon us and any bed at that point would be welcome.

Besides, an adventure always gives you something to talk about and an opportunity to practice your Italian!

Our hotel was in the heart of Pisa, the cheapest we could find that was still taking calls at close to midnight. We grabbed a taxi and, completely disorientated, ended up outside a fairly shabby but quaint building five minutes and ten euros later. The hotel manager, with barely any English, showed us to an apartment around the corner from the hotel reception. The first thing I saw were the bunk beds, and being of a larger size with a clumsy decorum, silently prayed that there would be another room with a double bed otherwise Andy risked being thrown from the top bunk on every turn I made!

Thankfully, the room did have a double bed, and an extra single next to it, all cramped together behind the kitchen counter with sparse looking sheets and pillows and very little furniture. Desperate for sleep, I crawled into bed as soon as the front door closed, grateful for the air conditioning whirring into life at full speed and the chance to stretch out on a cool sheet.

Andy was to lay awake worrying for most of the night but I managed to sleep like a log until 10am local time, when the call centres would be finally open in England and we could hopefully begin to enjoy our Italian holiday.

Sunday 20 May 2012

Its a Tomato

It became apparent a week or so after my last blog that I have a tomato vine growing, and not a chilli plant.
The vine is now at least double in size, and smells amazing, in the picture you can see a smaller vine sprouting right where I left the tomato under the soil. Not sure why that one suddenly decided to sprout, its been under the soil a good couple of months now!


Hopefully we shall have some warmer weather and sunshine in June to help this thing sprout some fruit.

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Chilli or Tomato?

I set a large pot on my windowsill earlier this year after the old chilli plant of three years that lived in there finally withered up over the winter. I put a Sicilian Cherry Tomato under the soil, and this plant has sprung up.

I

It sprouted right at the side of the pot, rather than the centre, so now I am unsure if it is a stray chilli that has been dormant under the soil, or if its going to be a tomato vine. 
Time will tell, or can you?
Leave me a comment if you can...





Saturday 28 April 2012

Two Saucy Tips


I was cooking a sauce for dinner today, and thought it was a good chance to demonstrate two tips I have for cooking, or Pigliar due piccioni con una fava, as you might say in Italy.

The first I will mention is around canned tomatoes. Why do some brands cost more than others? 



You will notice on the lining inside this can of Cirio tomatoes is white, or enamelled, rather than metal. This prevents natural acids/sugars in the tomatoes from reacting with the metal, so not to tinge the flavour of the tomatoes. Very cheap tinned products do not use this lining.



This brings me to my next tip. When I have put a tin of tomatoes into my pan, I like to wash out the can with some red wine, so that I get all the wonderful tomato juices into my sauce.


Add a drop into the can


Swirl round the wine around the can to remove all the tomato sauce


Then pour the thick wine liquor into your cooking.


And there you have an almost clean tin ready for recycling ,with all of the tomato and wine goodness in your sauce, I would usually get more of the sauce out, but the sauce was needing attention and had to put the camera down! It is worth noting you can also do this with jars of sauces as well as tins, just put the lid on and give it a good shake.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Fare La Scarpetta

I found this little phrase earlier this week, which means to mop up the sauce from your plate after finishing a meal, and have carried out this practise until full.

Lovely! No need to wash the dishes afterwards either!!!