We made dinner again tonight, since I had a call at 6:30 pm and other work to do (despite actually haven taken vacation time this week). This time we got our tortellini (manzo and spinaci) at the butcher-pasta shop next to Penny Market. I was hoping the produce stand would be open in the parking lot, but he wasn’t there. Also our gelato store, Blu Matisse, is closed… I hope just for its holiday vacation. It looked very closed though, not just closed for the day.
Isabella loves my tomato garlic pasta sauce creation. Here is the recipe she wrote down:
chop 6 cherry tomatoes (the cherry tomatoes here were pretty large)
chop 4 cloves of garlic (the garlic cloves were huge too)
sprinkle in some ground pepper and basil
put a good amount of olive oil in a pan
put in the cherry tomatoes, pepper and basil and the garlic (actually, i put in the garlic first, after warming the oil, then the pepper, then the tomatoes, then the basil — dried and fresh)
Fry until garlic and tomatoes are soft. Put some on pasta or bread and ENJOY.
For bread tonight, I got some focaccia, drizzled our excellent olive oil on it and melted stracchino with fresh basil from the basil plant we got today. The fried cheese on the pan was really good…
The salad of the evening was red lettuce, yellow peppers, scallions, peaches (the pears were from Chile, besides I am really loving peaches more these days), and gorgonzola. With olive oil and balsamic vinegar, of course.
Tomorrow’s goal: exercise!
Just missing David and Jon… At least Jon comes back next week!
Bella has been begging to make brownies since we walked in the door yesterday. She crashed right after dinner last night, and when she woke up this afternoon at 3 pm [!] the first thing she wanted to do was… make brownies. I printed out the recipe from our previous attempt in February and wondered how I ever made this without a scale??
preheat oven to 150 Celsius melt 200 grams of butter (4/5 block)
beat 4 eggs until uniformly yellow
beat in 400 grams of sugar beat in the melted butter
stir in 125 grams of cocoa carefully!
stir in 50 grams of flour
200 grams of butter??? That’s almost 2 sticks, or half a pound. I suppose I figured out the proportions since everything is sold by the gram but still, that was a lot of butter. And then 400 grams of sugar?? No wonder they’re so gooey. This time I used 2 coffee cups worth, which I think worked out to maybe 350 grams. Still, probably too much. I also used less cocoa, maybe about 2/3 cup (about 75 grams). And I did use more flour, about 100 grams (1 cup). They smelled like butter the whole time they baked. And they do taste really good… But I think next time we’ll try for a slightly lower fat version.
We’re definitely having salad for dinner tonight.
My favorite airline… it’s one of the best parts of getting here! Real washcloths to start off the flight!
This street in Lucca has the most amazing houses on it. We drive down it every time we go between our apartment and Lucca. Today though, not having been here for 6 weeks and in the midst of molto traffico, I missed the turn! So we drove ALL the way around the walled city. Took an extra half hour!
On the way home we picked up some tortellini from our favorite store, Self Service, and fried up a tomato with olive oil, garlic oregano, and black pepper. Yum! Now for a walk…
We took a new route from Pisa airport to Lucca and went through San Giuliano Hot Springs… Hmmm, maybe after pick Jenn up on Saturday we can check them out!
Tuscany has cool bridges…
Ponte delle Catene, Fornoli
Ponte Sospeso (Suspension Bridge) in Popliglio
Ponte Vecchio, Firenze
Ponte della Maddalena (Devil’s Bridge), Borgo a Mozzano
Amy, Bella and I happily sleeping on the couch 🙂
