Do not look if you are on a diet! LOL!
I've been doing quite a bit of baking/cooking in the last few weeks and it's been fun (everything was edible and was well received).
Two Saturdays ago I baked some little Chantilly cream pastries
and some Ricciarelli
to take to Jill and David's house-warming tea party (they have moved from one of the cottages on our road to a much larger house, 10 minutes away).
The Chantilly cream pasticcini reminded me so much of home where they would be part of a large tray of dainty pastries for special occasions.
That batch of choux pastry didn't puff up as expected but I did much better when I baked the profiteroles for the individual croquembouches that were part of the 'Papal lunch' the following day.
We had invited Michael and Chris for lunch on the Sunday. Inspired by both a TV programme and a book we have at home, I designed this Papal menu
and cooked all the food (I also made some 'carta di musica' - a very thin flour and semolina Sardinian bread - using a new manual pasta machine I had bought a couple of weeks before).
Adrian set the table beautifully as always
(this bouquet had been sent to Adrian by an 'admirer' for Valentine's day)
(4 glasses for the aperitivo and the different wines for 3 the courses).
The lunch turned out really well and it was great fun. Our guests were not poisoned and were very appreciative of the food and the 'concept'.
On Tuesday evening I used the new pasta machine (an Imperia) to make what we call bugie in Torino, fried Carnival pastries.
I made some plain ones and some filled with my mother's cherry jam (they looked like fried ravioli)
We kept a tray for ourselves and one was taken by Adrian to his Italian class.
Roberta - the teacher - said that the bugie were 'fantastiche'. Maybe Adrian was teacher's pet for one night! LOL
Our lovely friend Ricardo is visiting for a few days and yesterday I decided to make a small croquembouche again.
He was very impressed and loved the white chocolate and limoncello creme patissiere/whipped cream filling.
Needless to say all this food is not doing my figure any favour... I guess I'll just have to go on a slimming diet at some stage before the beach holiday at the end of June. Or perhaps not: I'm too old to care! LOL!
Two Saturdays ago I baked some little Chantilly cream pastries
and some Ricciarelli
to take to Jill and David's house-warming tea party (they have moved from one of the cottages on our road to a much larger house, 10 minutes away).
The Chantilly cream pasticcini reminded me so much of home where they would be part of a large tray of dainty pastries for special occasions.
That batch of choux pastry didn't puff up as expected but I did much better when I baked the profiteroles for the individual croquembouches that were part of the 'Papal lunch' the following day.
We had invited Michael and Chris for lunch on the Sunday. Inspired by both a TV programme and a book we have at home, I designed this Papal menu
and cooked all the food (I also made some 'carta di musica' - a very thin flour and semolina Sardinian bread - using a new manual pasta machine I had bought a couple of weeks before).
Adrian set the table beautifully as always
(this bouquet had been sent to Adrian by an 'admirer' for Valentine's day)
(4 glasses for the aperitivo and the different wines for 3 the courses).
The lunch turned out really well and it was great fun. Our guests were not poisoned and were very appreciative of the food and the 'concept'.
On Tuesday evening I used the new pasta machine (an Imperia) to make what we call bugie in Torino, fried Carnival pastries.
I made some plain ones and some filled with my mother's cherry jam (they looked like fried ravioli)
We kept a tray for ourselves and one was taken by Adrian to his Italian class.
Roberta - the teacher - said that the bugie were 'fantastiche'. Maybe Adrian was teacher's pet for one night! LOL
Our lovely friend Ricardo is visiting for a few days and yesterday I decided to make a small croquembouche again.
He was very impressed and loved the white chocolate and limoncello creme patissiere/whipped cream filling.
Needless to say all this food is not doing my figure any favour... I guess I'll just have to go on a slimming diet at some stage before the beach holiday at the end of June. Or perhaps not: I'm too old to care! LOL!