Tiramisu

Giorgio, Terre di Nano

We made this in our cooking class in Italy. It is delicious, and simple.

250 g mascarpone
strong coffee, cold

3 eggs, separated

8 large spoons sugar (heaping spoons and it was a small serving spoon he used)

splash brandy

savoiardi Italian ladyfingers

Combine egg yolks with sugar.

Whisk egg whites in mixer until stiff (nothing falls off the whisk when you lift it out of the bowl).

Add mascarpone and a splash of brandy to the egg-yolk mixture. Gently fold the egg whites into this.

Dip each ladyfinger quickly in coffee and put in a square casserole dish. Do this until you have a layer covering the bottom of the pan. Then cover the ladyfingers with half of the cream mixture. Next, dip more ladyfingers in coffee the same way and layer, but alternate the direction of the ladyfingers this time. Spread the rest of the cream mixture on top of this.

Sprinkle cocoa power through a fine sieve to create a solid dusting covering the whole top. Refrigerate for the better part of a day, or, if making it in the late afternoon, freeze for about an hour, then put in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi-- with our homemade pesto-- is what our son has requested for his birthday dinner almost every year since he was two. And all because we happened to take a cooking class a year before he was born when we were on vacation in Tuscany, at a place called Terre di Nano. It was an "agriturismo;" they made wine and olive oil there in addition to accommodating guests. Our cooking class focused on making potato gnocchi and tiramisu the traditional ways and I'm so glad we learned! (I don't know if it was just to impress us, but Giorgio seemed authentic when he kept mentioning as he gave us little tips that this was the way his grandmother taught him to make it.) 

Gnocchi couldn't be simpler to make, but simply takes some time-- boiling whole potatoes until tender, and then once they are cool, a good hour or more to mash, knead, and shape the gnocchi. Gnocchi is fun to say (gn = /ny/), and freezes beautifully. (After the gnocchi have frozen hard on a rimmed baking sheet dusted with flour, I scoop them into a freezer bag to save until ready to cook them.) When ready to enjoy, they are simply dropped into boiling water and cooked until they float, then scooped out with a slotted spoon and combined with tomato sauce or pesto or other sauce, or sauteed with butter and combined with other ingredients. Serve with caprese salad or any salad, or with anything you might have with pasta. This is a family favorite that is worth the effort every once in a while. 

Cooking class with Giorgio in Italy, 2009

My son's birthday dinner, per request

Potato Gnocchi

from Giorgio, Terre di Nano

potatoes (approximately 1 medium per person)

flour

salt

an egg if needed

Boil potatoes with peels until very soft. Remove from boiling water and cool slightly. Remove skin. It comes off in big patches when you just peel it back with your fingers. Remove any blemishes.

Mash potatoes thoroughly with a fork on countertop. Add a little salt. Begin kneading flour into the potatoes. With a scoop, generously sprinkle flour all the way around the pile of potato, then work it in bit by bit as you knead, then repeat. You have to work a lot of flour into the potato. He said you know you have enough when you can poke your finger into the ball of dough and it doesn't feel sticky on the inside. If it becomes too dry, you may need to knead in an egg (we never need to add the egg).

Cut a chunk off the mass of dough, roll it into a snake about 1/2-inch thick, and then cut the snake into small, squarish pieces.

With a fork in one hand, pick up each small piece with your other hand and, with your thumb, push it down the tines of the fork. This creates the ribbed texture of the gnocchi. Collect gnocchi, not touching each other, on a lightly floured baking sheet.

Next, either cook it to serve or freeze it. To serve immediately: drop gnocchi into pot of boiling water and leave it just long enough for water to return to a boil and gnocchi to pop to the surface of the water and float-- only a couple of minutes. Skim them out individually or in groups as they float to the surface. Toss hot gnocchi with desired sauce and serve. OR, put baking sheet in freezer for a while until gnocchi pieces freeze individually, then dump them into a freezer bag or other container and freeze until ready to use. Once frozen they can be prepared as described above.

Panzanella

from Gourmet, August 1993

I had never had this Italian tomato-and-bread salad until our Italy trip in 2009. We ate it at La Grotta, where we had one of the best meals of our trip. It was perfectly seasoned, cool, and refreshing. I looked for recipes when I got back and found this one that I love to make in the summer. It is more rustic than the restaurant version, with the ingredients in bigger pieces. It's always really satisfying and maybe even more delicious the second day. La Grotta's panzanella:


This version:

3/4 lb. day-old crusty peasant-style whole-grain bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 C)
2 large tomatoes (about 1 pound), trimmed and cut into wedges
3/4 C sliced cucumber
1/2 C sliced red onion (I use other onions)
1/2 C e-v olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
10 fresh basil leaves, shredded a bit
coarse salt and pepper

Stir together all ingredients in a large bowl until combined well. 

Italy Trip, 2009

We went to Italy in June/July 2009. Since some time after that, I've had these next few posts about Italian food sitting as drafts. It was an amazing trip. It really was as beautiful, or more beautiful, than those Tuscan landscape paintings you see. That was the view pretty much everywhere we went in Tuscany-- which we visited along with Rome, Venice, and Florence, and was our favorite of all those places. Our next trip to Italy will be a trip to Tuscany alone.

I had read once that there is no other country as large in its influence on world cuisine for its size geographically. These are some things we learned about Italian eating, or generalizations we made after about ten days there:

• Italians take a long time to eat. Dinner out, even at a casual restaurant, always took upwards of 2 hours. They just kind of leave you alone and expect you to linger.
  
• Pasta everywhere we went was homemade.
• Breakfast is brioche (a croissant) and cappuccino.
• Breakfast is eaten sitting in the bar where it is purchased (rarely, as it is a lot more expensive to sit) or standing at the counter. We didn't see any paper to-go cups the whole time we were there.
• Italians have espresso in the late afternoon. In Siena we enjoyed seeing a nun and her friend standing at the counter in a "bar" in Siena having their afternoon pick-me-up.
• Bread is bad. Or at least it wasn't my thing. The bread in the basket at dinner everywhere was stale.
• Risotto is just rice there, not necessarily the cooking method and the creamy texture that you think of as risotto.
• They always have wine with dinner. Fully enjoying one's meal is not a special occasion.
  
• Seemingly all Italians know how to cook. Some of our best meals, and the wonderful gnocchi and tiramisu we were taught to make and ate, were prepared by a man our age who ran our "agriturismo" (a place that is farmed-- in this case, for olives and wine grapes-- and where they also host guests).

A few favorite recipes we learned on our trip to follow.

I can't wait to go back someday. Napa Valley (another favorite food and wine and idyllic-lifestyle destination) is on the horizon for this spring as a sort of fifth-anniversary trip...so maybe Italy again in five more years!

About Me

 Hi. My name is Amanda Ehret. I write this blog. I find inspiration in trying to cook and garden to feed my family well.

I live with my husband, Gordie, and our son, Willem, in an old house in New Hampshire.  

When Willem was born, everything about how we lived, including how we ate, suddenly mattered so much more. I want my son to grow up with good eating habits and know how to take care of himself, as I think we all should know how, in the garden and the kitchen. This gives me lots of motivation to try to make delicious things. 

I think everything tastes better when it is made from scratch. There isn't always time for that, but if you plan for it, food from scratch can be more of a way of life.

When I was a kid I thought berries were the most luxurious food imaginable. (I still do.) I knew where to find each kind as they ripened throughout the summer, and didn't mind a few scratches on my arms to get them. The seasons were just so short!

 

I had Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit. I loved the ending: "But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper." The idea of having a meal that was as divine as to have a big bowl of summer berries at its center has always stuck with me. I still wish for good, fresh things that have grown close to home to be the stars of of every meal.

As a grown-up, I think tomatoes are another luxurious food. I love everything that grows in my garden. I love cheese. I love wine and have been lucky enough to do some traveling with my husband and my sister and brother-in-law focused on the incredibly fun task of wine tasting.

In our household we eat meat once or twice a week. We did not set out to be "flexitarians," it's just what makes sense and feels like a natural fit for us. I seek out well-raised meat and appreciate it all the more for less frequent appearances in our diets.  

I love to cook. It took me a while to embrace cooking as a thing worth spending time on, but now I allow myself to enjoy it rather than feel burdened by it. I try to focus on doing it well and actively finding routines that allow it to happen. I get joy from learning new techniques, feeling more capable, and becoming more intuitive in the kitchen. 

The Blog

I have been keeping this blog since 2008 as a way to store recipes and share them. It started out as a simple, just-recipes blog, and that was handy for me. These days I've branched out a bit and the blog gives me an outlet to have some fun writing. 

You will find here recipes of all sorts, but I especially love seasonal and vegetable-based, great salad combinations, and warm dishes of pasta strewn with tomatoes and topped with shaved Parmesan. I make some pretty great desserts from time to time, and desserts were how I began in the kitchen. What you won't find here is anything, ever, featuring mushrooms; it is the one food I detest.


Sometimes, I fill this space with thoughts on gardening or preserving or wine or feeding a family. A few times a year I post about a tasting extravaganza-- a tasting event of multiple courses featuring food or wine or both that we usually orchestrate in conjunction with my sister and brother-in-law, who are both chefs by training. (One of these tasting events we have called "Apple Weekend" for about the last ten years. We do it almost every fall and make a scrumptious meal featuring all the wonderful things available in late September. There's some (usually) friendly competition involved as well.)

I think we all should gather at a table every day for good food and conversation while setting all else aside for a bit. Food that you eat slowly and savor tastes better. 

Thank you for visiting! 

Contact

amanda [dot] ehret [at] gmail [dot] com 
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