What's Cooking?

[ness]

Just home from two weeks in Italy. In addition to the fantastic pasta, beef, seafood, pizza, etc. at restaurants, we cooked a lot of our own meals at the three different locations we stayed. Here come some photos:

Our first place -- a farmhouse in Tuscany -- had a welcome basket waiting for us with enough to make a meal that night. Whipped up a quick pasta with jarred sauce and a salad. Pasta and sauce were Barilla  but I doctored it up some.

Threw together a pasta e fagioli the next day to eat later. That's basically a bean & pasta stew with a chicken broth base with some tomato. At least the way I cobbled it together it was. Interesting that the tomatoes come in a glass jar and the beans came in a paper carton. 

The fruit was fantastic every where we we went. Loved the prosciutto and melon we'd had at a restaurant, so we bought the stuff and had it about three more times at the house. Recipe: 1) cut up melon, 2) lay on some prosciutto. They don't cube the melon and wrap it like you'll see here, so we didn't either. 

The welcome basket also had those flat peaches -- I learned they're called Saturn or donut peaches. Those things might just be the best fruit I've ever put into my mouth. Deliziosa! We had to stand over the sink to eat them because the juice would just flow when you bit into them.

Made sorta-bolognese, but I cant find the picture in the 350 or so I took on my phone. Basically a meaty sauce with red wine, herbs, a little tomato. Will add later. It wasn't the long, slow cook real thing like RPS did, but it was really good. Served with fresh parpadelle pasta we bought.

Got home and still wasn't tired of pasta. Watched Nick Stellino make pasta with a 'white sauce' so I copied that last night. Garlic, onion, carrot, celery softened in oil with red pepper. Add white wine and reduce to nothing. Add ground beef, basil, sage, parsley, bay leaf and chicken stock. Simmer, reduce and toss pasta in it with a knob of butter. 

Best meal I ate was a Bolognese with tagliatelle pasta in Cortona. Dang -- so flavorful -- wish I new what all they had going on in there! And the tender pasta -- it's the reason I'm buying a pasta machine. Kathy's favorite was at the same restaurant -- pici pasta with oil and truffles. Best pizza was at a place in Villa a Sesta -- done in a wood-burning oven. They rolled the dough -- which I know is a no-no in the Neapolitan pizza circles -- but it was excellent. I'll be rolling mine from now on. Still got a nice edge, just not huge and puffy. Sauce was just tomatoes, and the cheese was mozzarella di bufala. Perfect amount of topping.

Also had pizza at a highly-recommended place just down the street from our apartment in Florence that bragged of using all the ingredients and technique for a real Neapolitan pizza. (Neapolitan DOP; the right flour, tomatoes, cheese, etc. In Italy, food, cheese and wine are subject to strict laws if you're gonna use the name designation, like 'Chianti', etc.) They just blew it. They oversauced it and it was soggy. No way you could pick up a slice, and it was barely possible even if you folded it. The cornicione (edge of the crust) was 1/4 of the pizza and too puffy. Just bad.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Ness!!  That food looks yummy, but show us some more pictures of your trip!

 

[ness]

19 minutes ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Ness!!  That food looks yummy, but show us some more pictures of your trip!

 

This is a fishing forum, man.

[snagged in outlet 3]

23 minutes ago, ness said:

This is a fishing forum, man.

Do you fish??

[ness]

1 hour ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Do you fish??

I just put up a fishing report in March man!

[snagged in outlet 3]

8 minutes ago, ness said:

I just put up a fishing report in March man!

2019??

[Johnsfolly]

@ness and @ness'lady congrats! Looks like a great trip! I hope that the rest of the trip matched up with the food. I bet that some pepper on the prosciutto and melon would have complemented the saltiness of the ham and the sweetness of the melon😁.

[ness]

1 hour ago, Johnsfolly said:

 I bet that some pepper on the prosciutto and melon would have complemented the saltiness of the ham and thw sweetness of the melon😁.

Hah! Wouldn't soil a melon with pepper!

So -- this is how they sell tomatoes. I guess the closest thing here is crushed tomatoes. No spices, herbs, skins, seeds, just pureed tomato pulp. And they are freakin' delicious!!

And..the beans I mentioned:

As in America, they've often got a dizzying array of choices and I sometimes end up with a little surprise when I get home from the store. Can you spot the slight oversight I made when buying milk for coffee?

[ness]

I made a list of things you don’t see in the US. Just for fun I’ll share this one...

A bidet...........

.....with a lizard in it 😄

Lots of these little guys running around outside our place. It was cool and breezy enough that we'd leave the door open some. Apparently one got in and got stuck in the bidet. I ran a bunch of water, flushed him down and pulled the drain plug shut for good measure. Abut 10 minutes later Kathy says, 'He's back!' I guess the little dude held on for dear life and made his way out through the overflow hole. Impressed with his will to live, and not really wanting to kill him anyway, I scooped him into a pot and released him back out into the garden. 

I'd bet @BilletHead would have found a way to cook it!  

 

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

3 hours ago, ness said:

Hah! Wouldn't soil a melon with pepper!

So -- this is how they sell tomatoes. I guess the closest thing here is crushed tomatoes. No spices, herbs, skins, seeds, just pureed tomato pulp. And they are freakin' delicious!!

And..the beans I mentioned:

As in America, they've often got a dizzying array of choices and I sometimes end up with a little surprise when I get home from the store. Can you spot the slight oversight I made when buying milk for coffee?

Yes, I see the problem.