ITALIAN FOODIES

A friend of ours was home from Luxemburg for the weekend, he came home to vote, we live here and although we had intended to we never made it. The joys of running your own business and caring for a 6 month old! We're job-sharing the bambina minding so one of us is at home with her all the time so basically she's spoilt rotten by "mamma and papa'". We had a busy week in the shop and about 2 hours sleep for the week(ok I tend to exaggerate a little) so on Sunday we decided to off load her to Nonna(grandmother) and go out for dinner with our "amico"which we rarely do these days!!

There's been a little explosion of new hotels in Limerick in the last year - The George, The Absolute, The Hilton and most recently The Marriott. To be honest I find hotel food a bit hit and miss, we had tried The George and The Absolute so we said we'd try the Marriott. It's only been open a few weeks so unfortunately we were the only people there but although it lacked atmosphere we had a very good meal. I have to say I had one of the best fillet steaks I've ever had in Ireland. It was aged Angus beef and the price was not for the faint-hearted at €38 but it was worth it, it was like butter to cut through, so tender and so tasty and the most important thing was that it was cooked rare, a problem I have every time I order steak. The boys had lamb which also got the thumbs up and we finished off with a mouth-watering chocolate fondant!!

Then to finish off the meal we ordered 3 Illy espressos, now I have many pet hates but one of my biggest has to be "SUGAR LUMPS",  I know in the grand scheme of things this is ridiculous but I have to share it with you. I've talked about coffee so many times at this stage I'm sure you're getting bored but I have to talk about sugar. SUGAR LUMPS should not be served with espresso!! The whole point of espresso is it should be hot, the sugar should dissolve quickly and it should be drank in a couple of mouthfuls. SUGAR LUMPS prevent the natural consumption process because you have to wait for it to dissolve and you have to keep stirring it like a crazed idiot so you can get the sugar dissolved before the coffee goes cold. Are you beginning to see how this can affect one's life??

In Italy they actually use a very refined sugar, it would be like Castor sugar here. We use Castor sugar ourselves at home instead of granulated sugar for our coffee. We have Italian sugar sachets in La Cucina. If there is anything worse than SUGAR LUMPS it's SUGAR STICKS but that's another day's rant. Anyway they serve Illy coffee in the Mariott with SUGAR LUMPS, the coffee itself was a little disappointing especially when they are using such a good brand(one of my favourites, I love their image) but other than that I would recommend it for dinner!!

Now that my rant is over back to Italian food, a few people have asked me for a traditional Italian lasagna recipe. I have already posted the bolognese recipe so this is the recipe for besciamella and I will post the lasagna recipe later in the week! Once again we make this in huge batches in La Cucina so we would never make it at home so I'm going to give you the recipe from the Silver Spoon which is the same way we do it anyway!

WHAT YOU NEED:

• 50g butter
• 50g plain flour
• 500ml milk
• salt

WHAT TO DO:

 - melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat

 - mix in the flour to make a roux

 - pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until it starts to boil

 - season with salt, lower the heat and simmer for about 20 mins until the sauce thickens. The most important thing is to stir occasionally so you don't have any lumps. We use the whisk to stir, it keeps the sauce lump free!

Ciao!!

Whoever said babies get easier with time LIED, they obviously decided to omit the whole teething phase, we're getting less sleep now than when she was 2 months old!While I'm writing this she's climing up on top of the fireplace, I take her off and she gets right back up again, defiant like her mother!!

Orecchiette actually mean "little ears", I've mentioned before that they are a speciality of Puglia. In this region they are made by hand using an egg less pasta dough which is pressed between the thumb and forefinger. I'm afraid my culinary skills don't quite stretch to making my own orecchiette so the best I can do for you is stock the dried version in La Cucina. We love broccoli and have it at least once a week, for this dish I used broccoli florets which have a nicer flavour than regular broccoli!!

WHAT YOU NEED:

• broccoli florets if you can find them I get mine in Superquinn, if not regular broccoli is fine - cut off stalks
• 1 garlic clove - finely chopped
• 1 chili - finely chopped
• olive oil
• orecchiette
• parmesan or pecorino cheese

WHAT TO DO:

 - cook your broccoli in a pot of boiling lightly salted water until tender and drain.

  - cook your pasta in a pot of salted boiling water until al dente, stir occasionally so the pasta doesn't stick together. 

 - cover the base of your pan with olive oil and add your garlic and chili and cook gently for a few minutes until softened.

 - add your broccoli and season with salt and pepper and toss for a few minutes.

 - mix with the pasta and serve with grated parmesan on top.

Buon Apetitto!!

p.s. this is my submission for Ruth's PRESTO PASTA NIGHT!!

Big news - my sister got engaged on her holidays in Maratea in the south of Italy and is getting married  there next year - yahoo!!Her boyfriend a.k.a "our hero" got down on one knee by the cliff in the photo on their anniversary and they celebrated with a bottle of Moet! - how romantic! Hmmm Bruno???? 

Another excuse to go to Italy next year, like we needed one!I still haven't forgiven her for ringing me at 12am last night to tell me after it taking 2 hours to put the bambina to bed!

We have just started to stock a new range of cantuccini "Cioccobelli" for cappucino and "Lemonbelli" for tea made by Ficiobelli. and I'm so addicted!! I mentioned before that we have cappucino and biscuits for breakfast every morning, not very healthy I know but it beats musili hands down!! Plus, they always say the meditteranean diet is the healthiest in the world after the Japanese and the Italians have cappucino and something sweet every morning so that's my excuse, Bruno's cousins never eat cereal only when they come here because they love Irish milk!! Then I wonder why I'm not size 0!!Ah well I wouldn't be happy anyway!

Cantuccini originate from Tuscany and it is common to finish a meal with almond cantucci dipped in a glass of a strong Italian sweet wine, Vin Santo. They need to be dipped into liquid to soften them and make them easier to eat. Don't forget the perfect cappucino should be no bigger than 150ml consisting of 25ml of espresso and 125ml of milk and the most important part of espresso is the "CREMA".