Roasted vegetable Lasagne

If you..
..turn left when you come out of our building and continue down via Mastro Giorgio, walk past the market and the flower stall, then turn right into via Allessandro Volta, just before you reach the junction with Via Mamorata you will find a tavola calda called Volpetti Più.
It’s a simple, self-service canteen-like-establishment, spartan and [...]

Happy together

Olive oil, garlic, peperoncino, anchovies, tomatoes, capers, black olives, parsley and spaghetti.
Spaghetti alla puttanesca.

There are several stories and myths as to the origins of this happy combination of ingredients commonly known as spaghetti alla puttanesca which literally translated means ‘Whore’s spaghetti.’
Are you sitting uncomfortably?
One story suggests that the dish was invented at the beginning [...]

Thick and thin

Slow roast pork, roast potatoes, braised red cabbage, apple sauce and bread sauce.
Bread sauce, I know, a little out-of-place, but someone insisted.

It had been a while since I’d made a stoutly English Sunday lunch, roast meat heavy, roast potatoes, two vegetables, gravy, appropriate sauce and trimmings accompanied by plenty of red wine and eaten in [...]

Yet again

Soup….
Potato soup this time or zuppa di patate if you like, with very large parmesan toasts.

I know I swore off writing about soup and soup-like-things for a while.
Is two weeks a while?
Actually I’m not really sure what I was thinking anyway, not writing about soup! It wouldn’t feel right around here, it certainly wouldn’t feel [...]

Not quite wordless Wednesday

Saturday lunch

and Sunday lunch

I spent a nice chunk of last weekend reading and cooking from Richard Olney’s Simple French Food.
On Saturday we had Baked fish (sea bass) with potatoes and red onion. Then on Sunday Grape Harvesters Soup ( which is a simple onion soup really served over bread) followed by warm slices of potatoes [...]

Lunch

Spaghetti with braised cavolo nero and ricotta

I shouldn’t really be here.
Sorry, let me rephrase that, I should be here, meaning I should be sitting on this wonky chair in front of this ancient computer tip typing away with 3 fingers, I just shouldn’t here here as in racheleats here talking to you about my lunch [...]

Pears poached in red wine

A couple of weeks ago
I posted about prunes poached in Marsala and spices and I rambled on – again – about how much I like poached, gently stewed and baked fruit, especially quinces, those prunes and pears poached in red wine.
Then I realised it had been rather a too long…..So long in fact that I’d [...]