briciole

pane di mais fatto in casa in lievitazione / homemade maize bread leavening

The magic of bread One of my favorite bread-making books is Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf. If you open my well-used copy, you'll probably be hit by a small cloud of flour coming out of the pages. It's a beautiful book, full of very nice recipes, photographs and stories. I wrote a review of it for the Daring Kitchen site. Here's the relevant excerpt: Another interesting recipe is that for Maize bread (page 73), whose ingredients include polenta and corn flour. I had tried making bread with corn flour once before and was not successful. The photos of this bread made... Read more →

gelato di pesche arrosto / roasted peach ice cream

After roasting strawberries (and using them to make gelato and frittata), I turned my attention to peaches, which is easy since I get them in my weekly CSA box. The peaches from Neukom Family Farm are justly famous. Having a steady supply of them throughout the season means that I can carry out experiments like the following one. I started with the idea that I would roast peaches and use them to make ice cream. The inspiration for the custard part came from the recipe for Peach or Nectarine Ice Cream in my beloved (and recommended) ice cream book: Frozen Dessert... Read more →

insalata di pomodori, avocado, cetriolo limone e melone / tomato, avocado, lemon cucumber and cantaloupe salad

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] Remember the beautiful Blush tomatoes from my recent roasted corn salad? I didn't use the whole basket then, so I came up with another combination where the pretty pomodori could shine. The suggestion came from this week CSA box, where once again I found some lemon cucumbers (they are pretty too, aren't they?) and a perfectly ripe cantaloupe. A short detour. Since I heard the word cantaloupe for the first time, I have been curious about its origins. An online search returns a lot of pages, but a couple of sentences recur... Read more →

insalata di fagiolini viola e pomodori / purple wax bean and tomato salad

Last Saturday at the farmers' market, I made a number of nice purchases. I have already talked about the beautiful Blush tomatoes. I also got pretty purple wax beans. Unfortunately, the photo, taken before I washed the beans, does not really do them justice: the color, described as "dark mauve," is brilliant and intense. And, as you can see, the inside is bright green. When I plunged the beans into the boiling water, however, the original color disappeared almost immediately and the beans turned green. I contemplated a traditional combination with potatoes (albeit ones with red flesh), when the tomatoes in... Read more →

neufchâtel fatto in casa (in bianco e nero) / homemade French Neufchâtel

The magic of cheese A few days ago, I made a batch of French Neufchâtel while the previous one was still ripening. Each batch resulted in three cheeses, one of which is heart-shaped as a result of using the traditional mold (see this post for details). The age difference between the two cheeses is 13 days. When I took the photo, the cheese on the right had been ripening for only two days, while the one on the left had been ripening for 15 days. Penicillum candidum and Geotrichium candidum are the molds responsible for creating the velvety layer that makes... Read more →

prima variazione sul tema insalata di mais arrosto / variation I on a theme of roasted corn salad

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] This week, I received four ears of corn in my CSA box. I bought two more from the same producer (Neukom Family Farm) at the farmers' market yesterday and then roasted all six of them (I call this being energy-efficient). I used the kernels (chicchi) from two ears to make a second batch of the salad I wrote about recently (the rest will be turned into a soup: more on that in an upcoming post). Of course, I didn't make the salad exactly the same way. First change: instead of Sun Gold... Read more →

insalata di mais arrosto con cuori di palma, pomodori ciliegia e cetriolo limone / roasted corn salad with hearts of palm, cherry tomatoes and lemon cucumber

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] As a child, I ate corn at most once a year, if we happened to visit a family of friends, who grew some in their garden, on harvest day. They would build a fire and we had roasted corn for dinner. I was an adult the first time I had a salad made of corn; the other ingredients were hearts of palm and diced Emmenthal cheese. So, in today's recipe, I pair the two memories I just described: roasted corn and a corn salad that includes hearts of palm. The center of... Read more →

semi di papavero / poppy seeds

Three years ago, I bought some poppy seedlings and I have had red and purple poppies in my garden every year ever since. Of course, after the first time, they sprout in surprise locations, but in the context of my serendipitous garden, that is perfectly fine. The best part of having poppies in the garden is to see them bloom in real time. Harvesting the seeds is the second best part. In the photo above, you can see the pores beneath the stigma disk from which the seeds come out (the capsule is dehiscent by pores beneath the stigma). I let... Read more →

libro di fotografie / photo book

It is a small book, but it is special to me as it is the first time I have had a set of my digital photographs printed on paper. Using the Kodak Gallery website to create an online archive of photos and then to design the book was very easy and enjoyable. I chose a set of photos from the last 16 months or so and loaded them into my account, organized into albums (album). I then selected 20 photos for the book and the system created the first draft. The next step was rearranging the photos in a sequence and... Read more →

frittata con fragole arrosto e neufchâtel fatto in casa / frittata with roasted strawberries and homemade French Neufchâtel cheese

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano] Yes, you read correctly and, yes, it sounds quite strange. It sounded strange to me too, when the idea formed in my mind. In fact, I resisted it: I tried to come up with reasons why it would not work. Then, I yielded: I suspended my disbelief, ready to resume it, if necessary, after tasting the result. You see, after the success of my gelato with roasted strawberries, I became obsessed with the idea of using roasted strawberries in a savory combination. My first attempt (a pairing with roasted new potatoes) was... Read more →