Tomatoes alla Nonna Nuccia

In the green house I still have a few plants of tomatoes ripening now: for the first time I have been able to make this recipe, one of my favourite memories of summer lunches at my Nonna Nuccia’s house:

4 Tomatoes
2 Cloves of garlic
1 bunch of parsley
Oil
Salt
1 hard boiled egg

Place the tomatoes on a cutting board, cut them horizontally and deseed them.
Put a little salt in each hole and leave to drain upside down for a few minutes up to half an hour ( if I am in a hurry I don’t bother with this step!)
Chop garlic and parsley with a chopper, then fill each hole with a pinch of herbs.
Warm up some oil in a frying pan, put the tomatoes  skin down in the pan and let them sizzle for a few minutes then cover with a lid lower the flame and let cook for about 15 minutes, basting them with their juices every so often. If they dry up add a little water.
In the mean time hard boil an egg  and slice it  into thin slices.
When the tomatoes are very soft but still keeping the shape put on every half a slice of egg and baste one more time with the juices. Increase the heat and let the water evaporate without the lid and switch off.
Serve straight from the pan.

Summer is still here…

A surprise to find still courgettes flowers in October, these last few weeks of sunshine have made the miracle, I fear it will soon be dark and cold and wet though…

Quiche with Chard and courgette flowers as in my book My corner of Italy, with the addition of decorative courgette flowers filled with ricotta:

300g chard
1 clove of garlic
Oil
Ready-made puff pastry 1 packet
2 eggs
Bechamelle sauce
Choice of cheeses

Fry the garlic in oil and when it starts to brown add the chard. Add some salt and close the lid. When all the vegetable water has come out take off the lid and finish off the cooking until it has gone.
Prepare a baking tray with a rim and lay in it the puff pastry, covering the sides.
Prepare the bechamelle sauce.  Beat the eggs, add the bechamelle sauce, the vegetables and the cheese and pour into the baking tray. Sprinkle generously with parmesan (or other cheese) and bake for 40 minutes at 160°C.
This recipe works as well also without the pastry crust.

Zucchine trifolate from my book “My corner of Italy”

500g courgettes
1 clove of garlic
A bunch parsley
Oil
Salt

Cut the courgettes into chunks.
Fry the oil and parsley until sizzling, then add the courgettes with the salt and stir for a while until all the pieces are turning golden on all sides.
Close the lid and cook until tender, making sure they do not run dry and start to burn. The way my mother does them is so soft that they melt in the mouth. To accomplish this they need to cook a bit longer uncovered, stirring them often and they will sort of caramelise.

Sourdough danish pastries

I followed Korena’s instructions to make these Sourdough danish pastries.. delicious and fun!
I just wonder if one can avoid putting the industrial yeast at all?

Week 3 – Making Sourdough Bread

This week I tried the washing of the culture that was too sour and I managed to make a mixed seed bread with the culture after 12 hours of proofing.

I started a new culture as well after the kilner jar broke and I was worried of glass shards in my bread.

The Challa 3 is the first result.

The question is how to keep the cultures over Shabbat… it seems the wrong thing to do to feed a culture during Shabbat, it seems appropriate to rest the culture in the fridge, but then it takes 12 hours to make it active again, so no bread till Sunday night.

Friday 26th April – Making Sourdough Bread

Today finally the results show, the Challa came beautiful (maybe a bit dark on the crust).

I also made Rosemary bread and muffins.

I put the white and a dose of the whole meal cultures in the fridge, I am keeping out a dose of the wholemeal because I want them to be active.On Sunday I will try to reactivate the white cultures and try making bagels.

Week 2 – Making Sourdough Bread

Spelt bread: Finally the yeast culture is growing and having read the book of Ed Wood, I have made a proofing box and I have improved the kneading technique.

First wholemeal bread

After about 5 days of growing the culture I tried a bread with the amount I was discarding. I cooked it in the Le Creuset pot at 200 degrees for about 45 minutes. I don’t know why it had such a big bubble at the top.

Sourdough Experiments

I have consulted and followed three or four methods do far:

Week 1

1) Just put a cup of flour and 1 cup of water stirred on top of tumble drier, stirring for 3 days and feeding the mixture twice every 24 hours. First bread was not very risen but I had not let it raise for 8 hours but just 5.

2) Also made Challa good but threw away first culture from which it was made.

3) Made new culture following method from Stevethebreadguy on youtube: after 2 days it was lovely and bubbly, left it for another day in the kitchen, but did not stir, just put it in the fridge at the end of the three days.

4) Activated it at 7pm last night with a cup of flour, it did not rise and bubble a lot, but made the bread all the same leaving it to rise all night. Not very risen and when cooked it was a bit doughy like previous attempts.

5) I started growing a full grain culture according to the method of http://youtu.be/dpwFM_YRdwc

The video is a what, how & why of a sourdough starter. Cooking first bread after 3 days of adding flour.

6) Bought a book by Ed Wood “Classic sourdough”. He stresses the importance of the temperature it has to be kept during growth stage, so I bought cooler box and kept the  temperature at 25-26 with sock full of salt. I put whole meal culture in it.

Week 2

7) Started a new culture with his method and will see….

8) I will try to feed Steve’s culture out of the fridge all night and see if it is better tomorrow

 

Hello world!

Welcome, my name is Laura and I make in very different ways.