Pastella per crêpes, Crêpes ai funghi and Crêpes al proscuitto e fontina

Nothing for who knows how long, then three recipes at once! Well cheating a little... translated this is just a basic crêpe recipe and two types of crêpes. 

Crêpe batter, Crêpes ai funghi and Ham and fontina crêpes to be exact!

Thought I'd get one more post in before I have to pack away the Silver Spoon for the big move... but I may potentially be kitchen-less for a while - here's hoping it's not for too long!

These were full on - batter for crêpes, ingredients for crêpes, cooking of ingredients for crêpes, cooking the actual crêpes, making a Bechamel sauce, filling and rolling the crêpes, then finally baking the whole lot! Totally. Worth. It.

First up: crêpe batter 

Ingredients

Mushroom filling

Cooking soooo many crêpes - started out thick, and got thinner as I got more confident!

The finished product - so cheesy and gorgeous!

Uova fritte all 'Americana

American Style Eggs

No blog posts for weeks (absolutely no excuse besides utter laziness) and now two at once! Went to Borough market yesterday and had a few yummy bits in the fridge, so thought what better to use them on than catching up on my blog.

Sunday morning - Pancetta in the fridge and a section in the Silver Spoon called "fried" - what more could you want?!

Ingredients

Eggs look a bit weird cause the recipe says to "use a wooden spoon to flip the egg whites over the yolks to cover"

So naughty but so yummy

Really yummy but I'm now drinking a heap of tea to try and soak up all that grease! Worth it though.

Cappesante in salsa di zafferano

Scallops in saffron sauce

So I think i kind of messed this one up a bit. A couple of reasons... 

1. I'm assuming that these scallops are poached, but after I'd simmered the wine for 10 minutes there was no liquid left!

2. The sauce didn't look nearly as lovely as it did in the picture (think I had the heat too high - so the carrot coloured up a bit and in turn coloured the sauce).

and finally

3. L didn't like it at all.

Oh dear!

But still I thought it tasted really lovely. Scallops were soft and plump, sauce - although brown and slighly weird looking - was creamy and went well with the scallops. And who would have thought to put carrots with scallops?!

So here it is... complete with jazzy pictures taken on a Cannon G11 borrowed from a lovely friend - thanks H!

Scallops in saffron sauce

Simmering the liquid

Mmmmm

I cheated here and added a bit more wine... which also cooked off!

The finished product

And there we have it - my first Silver Spoon fail - ah well!

Pasticcio di bacon e patate

Weirdly translated - Bacon and Potato Pie - cause this really isn't a pie at all! But more on that later...

Firstly I have to share this weird fact: I randomly picked a recipe - as per normal - and can you believe, it was the one and only recipe I'd ever cooked out of this book before I started "surfing"! (chocolate cake in case you're wondering!)

Anyway back to Bacon and Potato Pie... which isn't really pie! No crust, no top (as a proud Aussie, I know... pie's have tops!)

Ingredients ready to roll

In the oven

The finished product

But in saying all that this recipe was really great! With bacon, onion, butter, eggs and potato - all baked in the oven- so simple.

Now I'm really getting worried that this blog is going to get very repetitive - seems like I write: "simple fresh ingredients - great recipe!" every week! Ah well, I'm having plenty of fun making and, more importantly, eating them all!

Spezzatino di coda di rospo con riso alla curcuma

Or Monkfish Stew with Turmeric Rice.

I'm still trying to use up all my cupboard staples - so this week I picked a recipe at random but just had a quick read to check I had most of the ingredients - not really cheating! 

Ingredients ready to go

Recipe #4

In progress

The finished stew - so colourful!

Monkfish Stew - doesn't sound very appetizing at all! But yet again the simplicity of the flavours were amazing. Plus I got to drink the rest of the bottle of wine - no complaints there! Comments: I added too much turmeric so the rice was slightly spicy - but otherwise yum!

Zuppa di pane e lenticchie

That sounds so posh! Translated it is Bread and lentil soup! 


So I have to admit, I cheated this week. We're (hopefully) moving house soon so my very bossy baby sister told me I wasn't allowed buy any weird ingredients for my recipes. So I dug down the very back of my pantry, found some lentils and scoured the Silver Spoon for a good recipe.


I promise after we move, I'll be back to randomly choosing recipes and when friends come over - I'm making the dinner party recipes - can't WAIT! Bring on the new kitchen for lots of Silver Spoon adventures!


So, back to Bread and Lentil soup...

Recipe number 3

Lentil soup boiling... and boiling... and boiling

The egg bread - oh so good

Ladeling soup onto the egg bread

The finished product

So a super simple but super yummy soup with extra naughty egg bread on the side (and underneath!). Needs lots of pepper but besides that, hearty and yummy. Will definitely be making this and freezing for lazy winter evenings.

Insalata di peperoni e farro

Or Pepper and farro salad (capsicum and farro salad for us Aussies)

Farro?... I'd never heard of it! So I googled it, then hoped that my gourmet shop around the corner would know what I was on about when I asked for it! The woman there assured me that it was simply spelt – so taking her word for it (?!) I took the "farro" home and off I went.

Lots of boiling (the farro) and chopping (the peppers/capsicums) later I had a very colourful looking bowl full of salad.

Recipe number 2

Lots of chopping ahead

And lots of oil

All done

A surprisingly yummy recipe for such simple ingredients. I've decided I'll be making it for Christmas this year in place of Mum's tabouli - sorry Mum!

And comments would be - just a touch less olive oil and to chop the pepper (capsicum) strips in half - but besides that it's pretty much perfect!

Uova affogate ai carciofi

Or translated: Poached eggs with artichoke hearts

So this is my first attempt at a recipe out of this huge encyclopaedia of a book. I decided last week that I'd flick the pages, randomly picking a recipe to cook once a week. Luckily for me, my finger landed on a relatively easy one to start with. I was a little scared of the artichokes though so off I went to Borough market with two friends - both of who had much more artichoke knowledge than me! I also got a few strange looks on the tube ride home as they were in a clear carrier bag!

The very first recipe!

Panchetta

Artichokes before

The fuzzy stuff

The artichoke carnage... after a quick youtube tutorial

Not quite like the picture...

...but It was edible!

A few notes

So all in all a success! My notes for next time are: A little less artichoke and also less panchetta (it made it very salty), perhaps an extra egg each and L said "more sauce"!

Til next week...