Apple butter, serious ham and cheese

The spiced apple butter is well underway and although the sound of it bubbling away on the stove rather sounds like someone with a bad case of gas, it looks and smells amazingly. I'm going to post a video today of the first steps in making it; it's not hard but it is labor- and time-intensive. The use of a food mill precludes the necessity of peeling and coring the apples before cooking them which is worth the entire price of the mill. Six pounds of apples is more than you think, so I felt extremely fortunate to do nothing more than wash and chop them before commencing the process. This recipe is a seriously excellent one and, if you're interested, it's posted under Jams and is called Spiced Apple Butter. Delish, and this time of year is a wonderful time to make some.

While in Florence, and, incidentally, the same night I enjoyed that ridiculously wonderful pasta with the cream-speck sauce, we had as an appetizer coccoli con stracchino e prosciutto which is the beautiful Italian way of saying ham and cheese. This was no regular ham and cheese though. No! Coccoli are these incredible little salty, hot, olive oily balls of bread, and I can never quite get enough of them. They paired with a giant platter of these a plate of prosciutto and a bowl of melted stracchino, a wonderful cheese. In a casual yet highbrow way, you made your own mini ham-and-cheese sandwiches. I don't like ham and I don't love prosciutto but I gobbled these down. Holy hell! Today I made my own, and I'm going to tell you that they turned out WONDERFULLY. I'll post the very simple recipe soon.

Snoozy Saturday

Not snoozy in the sense that we got to sleep past 6am, but snoozy in the sense that it's a beautiful day and has actually been relatively lazy. For my family at least. I made a double batch of beignets (like 30 beignets) which the boys wolfed down seemingly instantaneously. I got two, Tom maybe had four. So, that was thrilling, and then we watched Batman & Robin as a Saturday morning family flick and truly, it is such a horrible film. Wow. The boys thought it was cool, but T and I were just baffled by how bad it was. Fortunately, before its end, Tae Kwon Do beckoned, and the boys and I headed out. Jack did a fine job, and we then went to the market and then back home for lunch. Presently, I'm on the couch working (just posted the marvelous mushroom ravioli recipe from last night!) and the boys are playing in a box outside. It's a police car and although Oliver is a builder (and for some reason were boxer-briefs over his shorts), he is working with Officer Jack (who for some reason insists on using his voice changer as he drives) to catch Bane. This morning, the box was a boat and also a cave. Seriously people, why do parents ever buy toys for their children? I'm so terribly guilty of toy over-purchasing but they are pretty much always equally or more happy with a plain old cardboard box. 

I have some big plans for pear jam and apple butter today but they remain theoretical for now because this couch is comfy and the kids aren't running around like loons so I'm going to stay here until I am forced to move. Yay!

Pasta wow

Oh my goodness, readers, this dinner was beyond. In Florence last week, my last supper included a wildly indulgent ravioli in a cream sauce flecked with speck, an Italian bacon. My sister and I were to share this plate, and we did so, but grudgingly. In honor of that meal, I made some fresh pasta tonight and stuffed it with a mixture of mushroom duxelles, shallots, pancetta, parsley and Parm. Just look at the color of those yolks!

Then, I sauced it with a cream-blue cheese-Parm-pancetta sauce (no, not good for you, but simultaneously, good for you!). Oh.My.God. I will work out this recipe and then post it because it was amazing.

I also had some leftover leek confit so made some ravioli stuffed with that and Bûcheron. Not as good but still good, you know?!