italy on my mind

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- Press
Recipes
Classes, tours & workshops
Cookbooks & Italian Travel
- Travel in Italy
- My cookbooks
Blog
Contact me

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Recent posts

Savoury Easter Pie – Torta Pasqualina
Polenta shortcake in the time of a pandemic
oven roasted tomato pesto
Tiella cozze e riso – rice and mussel bake – a Pugliese classic
Intorchiate – lemon and almond twists

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The simple things: figs on this windy Sunday. Toda

The simple things: figs on this windy Sunday. Today I will switch off the news and listen to Bill Withers on repeat; read a bit and probably cook a lot. I might even get out my sketch pad and draw

Puglia - an image from last year’s tour and a ti

Puglia - an image from last year’s tour and a tiny image of Giuseppe on the left. We may have missed this year’s tour but planning for 2021

A recipe for the simplest of dishes - an onion dis

A recipe for the simplest of dishes - an onion dish that doesn’t really have a name. I saw it somewhere, I don’t remember where, many years ago. I make it often, and it is a good one! The sweet/vinegary soft fried onions are eaten with sausages (and mustard) or on top of crusty bread with a slice of semi-hard cheese like Montasio or Piave. Here is the recipe:
2 medium sized brown onions, peeled, sliced finely into rings
3 tablespoons EVOO
2 tablespoons brown sugar
60 ml balsamic vinegar
40 ml red wine vinegar

Place the oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. Cook for 7 or so minutes until just starting to brown, stirring regularly. Add the sugar and the vinegars, stirring well. Simmer on low heat for 7 or so minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion mix is thick.
Can be served hot, warm or even cold from the fridge. Store in a lidded glass jar in the fridge for up to a week

Armchair travel to Bergamo, a town that has experi

Armchair travel to Bergamo, a town that has experienced so much sadness and loss this past month. We spent half a day there last May; it was cold, wet but beautiful. So much love to its people

The best bread recipe without a sourdough starter

The best bread recipe without a sourdough starter - Jim Lahey’s no knead bread. You can be a complete bread novice and get this right; a chewy charred crust and beautiful crumb. I made it on Friday/Saturday and posted it on my stories; so many of you asked me for the recipe, so here it is:
Start making this at about 6pm the night before if you want your loaf to be ready in the late morning of the following day. You will need a large lidded Dutch oven (or a cast iron or enamel lidded pot) for this recipe.
4 cups good quality plain flour
1/2 scant tsp instant dried yeast
2 tsps fine sea salt
2 cups tepid water
Fine semolina for dusting

Place the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Pour in the water and stir until combined. It will be quite a shaggy dough. Cover with a lid (the original recipe says cling film) and place in a warm spot in the kitchen to prove for 12-18 hours (I rested mine 14 hours but it depends on how warm your kitchen is). The next morning at about 8am, lightly flour a work surface and scrape the dough from the bowl (it should have puffed up nicely). Lightly flour your hands and fold the dough onto itself a few times. Cover with the upturned bowl and rest for 15 minutes. (At 8.15am) With floured hands, shaped the dough into a ball (it should be soft, not sticky). Dust a cotton tea towel with plenty of semolina and place the ball of dough on top, seam side down. Dust with more semolina and cover with another clean cotton tea towel. The dough now needs to rest in a warm spot for 2 hours (until about 10.15am). After 1.5 hours (at 9.45am), turn the oven on to 230C and put your Dutch Oven in there to warm up with its lid.
At 10.15 am, carefully tip the dough into the hot pot seam side up. Don’t worry if it falls a bit unevenly. Replace the lid on the pot and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 20 minutes.
Carefully remove the pot from the oven (it will be super hot and heavy!) and place on a heat proof surface. Remove the bread from the pot with a tea towel or tongs and place on a wire rack to cool for about 30 minutes before slicing. Listen to it crackle while it cools down.

Polenta short cake - based on a Marcella Hazan rec

Another day full of pasta making possibilities - l

Another day full of pasta making possibilities - last night it was orecchiette, who knows what shape or colour today will bring

Those perfect days of two weeks house sitting in K

Those perfect days of two weeks house sitting in Kyneton where the daily routine was feeding the dogs, then the chickens, collecting the eggs, cooking most of the day and enjoying a dinner under the canopy of vines - and then there was the rose garden and checking on the horses while the sun was setting. I knew what the next day would bring. It was less than two months ago but things have changed so much since then, it seems like a world away

The small things: fresh figs to enjoy before I sta

The small things: fresh figs to enjoy before I start looking at the news to see what has happened in the world while I was sleeping

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