In My Kitchen: January 2025

We just got back from three glorious weeks in Italy, so here is the first IMK of the year - reviewing my Italian kitchen in December

Gorgeous produce..

Fresh artichoke hearts

These radicchio look like flowers to me - intricate little fingers 

We often had this salad - radicchio, orange and fresh walnuts cracked just before the meal, such a fresh combination

Yellow datterini tomatoes  

So... much... pasta... 

Spaghetti with clams

This was my breakfast every time we ran out of bread - spaghetti with parmesan, olive oil and fresh ground chilli pepper, so delicious and so simple! 

Risotto with radicchio, with a huge new grana padano that we just opened. Did you know there are even ads for grana on TV in Italy! 

This was the best gnocchi I've ever had - so soft and pillowy, they melted in your mouth in literally one second!

Just a bit of baking...

My MIL has one of the sons of my original sourdough so I baked with him over the break. 

I became a bit obsessed with baking high hydration focaccia, I had a good crowd to feed it to and lots of italians to give me feedback!

This was the best one with fresh rosemary from my MIL's garden - 100% hydration is the best ratio

I made a gnome for our Christmas dinner, we ate him warm with baccala mantecato, a traditional smoked fish dip/spread from the Veneto region

Here he is watching us while we ate our dinner!

Other random things we ate..

Gelato... so much glorious gelato! Too bad the weather was cold and I only made it to the gelateria a handful of times, but I was delighted that they had seasonal Christmas flavours like panettone and nougat

This arancini place was doing a roaring business near the Christmas markets. We got some for lunch one day and they were really good, like having a really flavoursome risotto but deep fried 

Our favourite shop to buy panettone from is Pasticcheria Giotto, a strange idea sort of - here the chefs train prisoners to make the panettone! This one was peach, apricot and lavender. 

We ran out of panettone so we had to get some more - one was pear & chocolate and the other orange & chocolate

Soft shell crabs from the Venetian lagoon that we ate on a daytrip to Pellestrina

A tiramisu S' sister made 

Curveball time...

Our little monster turned one on New Year's Eve and we had a little party for him with S' family. I made him a sugar free cake that was pretty gross - it was basically like a banana pancake texture/flavour, that I layered with mascarpone. The poor adults that had to eat it.. He enjoyed it though and picked all the blueberries off his part before he demolished the cake. This time in Italy has made us reflect a lot on how much our lives have changed - in the space of just over five years we have gone from two single people to a couple and now the three of us. 

And a bonus curveball, where else would you see Santa on gondolas but in Veneto? 

Sending this to Sherry for our monthly IMK series - thanks for hosting Sherry and happy 2025 everyone!