SMALL RICOTTA CAKES DRENCHED IN HONEY AND HIBISCUS SYRUP

It's the last days of November but still I can hear and see bees busily working on the flowering trees on the plot next to where my car is parked. I have completely given up on remembering what they are called but if the weather is good and the bees can do their job, these flowers turn into yellowy orange fruits with big, black kernels. They are quite delicious and I often sneak over the low wall and gorge on them when they are ripe, I am the only one around here who eats them it seems but that leaves them all for me.



On my walks around here I have found a small conglomerate of beehives on a olive field not far from here; when we moved here, my nearest neighbour used to have a couple of hives on the hillside in front of my kitchen but he gave up when they got ill and all died. And we used to get bee swarms on the run as well, once they even decided to enter our house do but fortunately I saw them in time and only about a hundred of them entered. And quickly exited when I angrily chased them out through the door. But in recent years, the Italian bee population have been hit hard by illnesses so it feels good to see them buzzing and to find these new beehives. On one side they just look like boxes but the sunny side, they have been marked, as you can see on, with bright colourful symbols to help the bees to find their way back to their own queen.



All this honey making inspired me to make these honey drenched cakes, to add a bit of colour I decided to make a honey and hibiscus syrup. I couldn't resist the temptation to serve them with whipped cream and I suggest you to that too because it was nice!






SMALL RICOTTA CAKES DRENCHED IN HONEY AND HIBISCUS SYRUP
10-12 small

cakes:
3 eggs
300 g/7 oz sugar
100 g/3,5 oz unsalted butter, melted
125 g/4,4 oz fresh ricotta
150 g/5,3 oz pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder

syrup:
1000 ml/ 4,2 cups red hibiscus tea
8 large tblsp honey
3-4 tblsp rum, optional

- To make the syrup, mix all ingredients in a pan and simmer until reduced to half, more or less. The liquid has to be a bit syrupy but remember that it thickens when it cools down.
- Whisk egg and sugar fluffy.
- Press the ricotta through a sieve and add it to the batter, add the melted butter and mix it carefully.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and stir well.
- Spoon batter into cupcake forms or a muffin pan and bake in a pre-heated oven (200°C/390°F) for 8-10 minutes.
- Prick the cakes with a thin bamboo skewer or a spaghetti and then spoon the syrup over them to drench them as best it can. For the best result, use hot syrup and it is a good idea to keep the cakes in their forms so that they can take a 'bath' in the excess syrup.
- Leave to absorb and cool down and then serve in bowls with the remaining syrup and whipped fresh cream.

Future - Present

The Future. We stand there, peering towards it



looking through the entrance at a wall that always prevents us from seeing, knowing what will happen



forgetting to look where we stand and walk and thus often missing the beauty of where we are

SAVOY CABBAGE PARCELS WITH CELERIAC, RICE AND PANCETTA

Savoy cabbage is in my opinion one of the best cabbages there is, it has a sweetness to it that makes it a pleasure to eat and it is really such a versatile vegetable; you can eat it combined with most things and you can eat it steamed, braised or raw with the same pleasure. And it is beautiful too isn't it? I have to say that most vegetables and fruits are beautiful when you start looking at them, sometimes you have to create a special surrounding to make it more evident, they are really the best of still life subjects! And you can learn a lot of photography by taking photos of them, you learn how to use highlight and shadow in order to show the form at its best. And the colours, think of all the interesting colour combinations you can make if you don't want to just let the beautiful colours speak for themselves.



The lovely green shades of the Savoy cabbage leaves don't fade if you just steam or cook them quickly but if you braise them for long, they tend to turn into an undefined light brown, not very attractive but completely forgiveable when you taste the incredible sweetness that the cabbage develops with long braising. But today we have brilliantly green leaves as you can see.






SAVOY CABBAGE PARCELS WITH CELERIAC, RICE AND PANCETTA
5-6 parcels

200 ml/0.85 cup rice
250 g/10,5 oz celeriac
150 g/5,3 oz pancetta
5-6 leaves of Savoy cabbage
white wine
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Cook the rice.
- Take one cabbage leave at a time and put them into boiling water and let them simmer for a minute or two, they have to soften. Take them up, rinse with cold water and put on a towel to dry.
- Cut the pancetta into dice and cook until golden.
- Peel the celeriac and cut it into thin strips or small cubes and cook them slowly in some olive oil until soft and even a bit golden. You can cook it in the pancetta fat if you want.
- Cut away the thickest part of stem on the cabbage leaves so that you will not have any problems folding them. Some people bash them instead to soften them, you choose which way to do it.
- Mix rice, celeriac and pancetta, check if it is salt enough and put about 2 heaped tblsp, maybe more, maybe less, in the middle of each cabbage leaf, it depends on how big the leaves are. Maybe you have small leaves and make 10 parcels, then you have to divide the rice mix in 10 arts instead of 5-6.
- Fold the leaves so you end up with cabbage parcels, I usually fasten them with a toothpick or two.
- Braise the parcels in a pan with a little olive oil and white wine, if you want you can throw in a sprig of rosemary.

SWEET COUSCOUS WITH PINK GRAPEFRUIT AND PINK PEPPER - Retro alla HotM

When I was thinking about which retro dish I would create for this month HotM, I obviously had to think backwards and that lead me to consider the strange habit we have to divide our past into decades and even manage to fit it into descriptive schemes. Time doesn't exist or rather, time is a way to measure that we have invented, it is not inherent in our universe. Or at least I don't think so but the infinite rejects any measures by its own definition so it cannot really exist as we see it so on the whole it seems a bit silly to do these decennial divisions but what can I do, they are there and they help you when you have to come up with a retro dish so what am I rambling about really.



Another thing that I couldn't help noticing when I had decided what to do and was about to shoot it, was that I see these decades tinged in certain colours, to me the 70's are very much about the colours in the photos below. Brown, olive green and orange are the first colours to come to my mind and I have to confess that it took me until this decade to reconcile myself to the colour orange. One reason to it was that it was my youngest daughter's favourite colour for many years and it thus gained a positive quality for the first time in my life. Nowadays I find it a beautiful colour even though it is not my favourite one. Yet. See how the persimmons and the orange tinged leaves stand out in their beauty, they light up any grey autumn-winter day and all the old leaves, showing an array of yellows and orange, line street and paths, showing us the way.



BUT I am supposed to post a recipe here, not go on about time and colours. For some reason grapefruit came to my mind when I thought about doing something from the 70's, maybe I am wrong but I remember it being very much in vogue then, at least in Sweden. Unfortunately I don't own a ordinary cookbook from that decade, earlier and later ones yes but not a 70's cookbook so I cannot verify this but retro is a state of mind anyway so I will go for it.
If you want to know more about how to submit an entry to the HotM, please take a look here.






SWEET COUSCOUS WITH PINK GRAPEFRUIT AND PINK PEPPER
4 servings

3-4 pink grapefruits, it depend on how big they are
1 tblsp honey for each grapefruit (3 tblsp if you use 3 grapefruits and so on)
1-2 tsp pink pepper corns
200 ml/ 0,85 cup couscous, the fast type

- Cut out the flesh of the grapefruit and put it in a small bowl.
- Squeeze all the remaining juices over it and add the honey and the crushed pink pepper corns. Stir and leave it to marinate for 30-60 minutes.
- Strain the grapefruit of the juice that you measure, if it reaches 225 ml/ 1 cup pour it into a small pan, if not-add water until it does and then pour it into that pan.
- Heat up the juice and when it begins to simmer, take the pan off the heat, add the couscous, put on a lid and leave it to get absorbed for 5-10 minutes.
- Fluff up the couscous, divide it in the bowls you want to serve it in and top with the grapefruit.

SMALL LASAGNE STARTERS WITH MUSHROOMS AND RICOTTA

The other day when I was listening to a radio programme on my mp3 while stumbling along a path in the woods with my dog, I was suddenly struck by how lucky I am, as a woman, to have been born when I was, obviously I intend the Western part of the world and maybe even only Europe. I realize that it has been building up over the last couple of weeks because for some strange reason I have been listening to a lot of programmes where they have talked about the fights that women had to go through in order to be where we are now and even though we all know that there are still a lot of gender discrimination (and that includes men as well), the courage of these women of the past who fought for our rights make me quite grateful to them. And I am not only talking about the suffragettes fighting for voting rights and more fundamental rights, I also include the fight for the right to have short hair, not to wear corsets and figure enhancing contraptions, the right to further studies, paid maternal - leave well the list would never end if I mentioned them all so I let you fill in the rest and hope that you will send a thought to these incredible women, known and unknown.



So let us celebrate them with this starter (or primo if you feel like it but they are a bit small), instead of one big dish of lasagne, I have turned it into small servings that are perfect to begin a meal with now when the chill winds are blowing.





SMALL LASAGNE STARTERS WITH MUSHROOMS AND RICOTTA
4 servings

fresh pasta in sheets, enough to make 8 small and 8 bigger circles. You can also use dried ons and cut the circles after cooking them.
250 g/ 8,8 oz mushrooms, I used pioppini mushrooms
1 small onion
1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
3 tblsp (heaped) fresh ricotta
3 tblsp fresh cream or milk if you want
parmesan cheese, freshly grated
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Take a muffin pan or use double paper cup cake forms and then you need to find one glass that fit the lower part and one that fits the upper part/opening of the forms. Cut out 8 smaller circles and 8 bigger ones and put aside.
- Chop the onion and the mushrooms and fry them gently in a little olive oil together with the rosemary. If you want, put aside a few mushrooms to use as garnish later on.
- Mix ricotta, 2-3 tblsp parmesan and cream, add a little salt and stir well.
- Cook the pasta circles.
- Grease the forms and start layering the lasagne: put a small pasta circle in the bottom and then cover it with a layer of mushrooms. Put a small amount of ricotta on top and sprinkle with parmesan. Put another small circle on top of that and press gently, now repeat the layers until you have filled the forms with 4 layers.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven (200°C/390°F) for 10-15 minutes.
- Let them cool down a little before you gently take them out of the forms.

Sunday links and photos

I haven't done a Sunday's link for quite some time now so it is about time now. I will begin with the non-food ones.

If you follow me on a more regular basis you might have noticed that I have a certain fondness for the outer space and that I often include a link to some astronomy related site. So it is this week too, these space sounds makes me happy and they conjure up lots of different images to my mind when I listen to them, try it yourself and see what they mean to you!

Not long ago I talked about blogging and then I found this link over on Andrea's blog colouring outside the lines (excellent blog by the way) that led me to a not that new post over at 11D that analyses how blogging has changed since she started blogging 6 years ago, I cannot but agree even though I have only blogged for 4. And despite it deals with another type of blogs, I think it can be applied to food blogs as well.

Now here I have a link to link to the food related section of this post, a bit silly maybe but I have to say that if this is how solid potato salad makes you move, I would eat it every day! The action starts about one minute in!



Now first out here has to be the BloggerAid - Changing the Face of Famine Cook Book that you can read more about over at Cook Sister! where Jeanne writes about it in more detail but I can quickly tell you that 130 food bloggers have contributed with recipes and that 100% of the proceeds will go to a project that feeds 22 million children each year. Buy it!

I love meatballs, I think they are great and definitely should get a higher status because there are few meat dishes that can be varied as much as meatballs can! Over at 80 Breakfasts, Jo gives us the recipe to her version of Asian style meatballs, they look and sound incredible I have to say.

If you love food and photography you must read Eating Asia, I know I have said this before but I could say it every day actually so just be grateful I just do it now and then.

And to conclude on a light note but still useful, have a good time over at Science of Cooking!

CINNAMON AND VANILLA PANNA COTTA

First of all I need to thank you for you reassuring comments to yesterdays post, I am very very happy it all works so well this time! The best thing though was that several of you readers delurked and I got to know you and your blogs! Thank You all!



Yesterday when I was driving back home on our road after doing some errands, it was blocked by two young men in red who told me that nononoNO, I was not going to be able to drive on as there was an emergency training thing going on in connection to the liquid gas depot in the one of the valleys below us. I had noticed a lot of police and carabinieri around but thought they was after some criminal or have had a sudden spurt of energy which made them move. Or maybe it was the beautiful sunshine I thought but I was wrong. Anyway, I got really angry because no one had told us beforehand but it didn't help. And why take it out on those poor guys anyway so I turned around and went down to our local thrift shop do take a look. We are lucky to have one because they are rare around here. In Sweden, me and my mother often used to make trips to thrift shops just for fun and I can feel her shadow walking next to me when I visit the one in our village, I even point out things that she would have liked and I am so happy that there are not that many people around because I don't want add on to their opinions of me. Yes yes, I will get to the point which is that I found these great steel ice cream bowls that you see in the picture so on the whole that emergency exercise it was not that bad after all! I fell in love with them immediately, partly because of the shapes, they are round inside and angular outside, and partly because I have never seen anything like them before. And I rarely can resist that.



I was planning to make a cinnamon and vanilla panna cotta anyway and while washing the cups, I decided to use them immediately. So here we are, my new versatile ice cream cups filled with a beautiful, slightly Christmassy panna cotta. Talking about that, I wanted to tell you that in the latest issue of Saveur, there is a lot about Swedish Christmas baking. I subscribe to the digital version of Saveur, what a great idea that is, that is why I know it, you can check it out here.





CINNAMON AND VANILLA PANNA COTTA
4 servings

300 ml/ 1,25 cup fresh cream
3 tblsp sugar
200 ml/0,85 cup milk
12-15 g/0,5 oz gelatin, it depends on how firm you want your panna cotta
1 cinnamon stick
1 pinch ground vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla essence


- Prepare the gelatine the way that is prescribed on the package (leaves soak in water, powder is mixed with the right amount of water).
- Put milk, vanilla and cinnamon stick in a small pan and bring to the boil. Take it off the fire and leave it to cool down a little.
- Pour the milk through a sieve to separate the cinnamon part.
- Heat up the cream, add the still warm milk and then the gelatin and mix well.
- Pour into the cups, glasses or ramekins you are using and put these in the fridge for about 4 hours.

Attention Please!

So, I have done it. I have been fiddling and googling and bothering blog friends like Helen of Tartelette who I thank for her help, in order to redirect www.lucullian.blogspot.com to my own domain name www.luculliandelights.com. I did it a couple of months ago and it didn't work but this time, this time it seems to work so keep your fingers crossed! I have already changed the address in Feedburner so now I hope that it works there as well so that you will not have to change your feeds. If you never see this in your reader (which means that you might not be reading this at all but in case you do), please tell me so that I can check it up before you make a new 'subscription' in your reader.
I would appreciate if you could tell me how this works for you, I am pretty nervous about it after the last time....

BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND CELERIAC CAKES WITH SALAD AND PECORINO TOPPING

I have decided to give another try to redirect Lucullian to my 'new' domain name tomorrow, Thursday. I have been asking around and it seems as if you should get the redirecting page only if you use the old url so after you have been redirected the first time, please change your bookmarks and/or make a new 'subscription' to the new domain name in your rss-reader, that should work! I hope. I don't believe it until I see it, I find that the best way to live this life because you avoid a lot of disappointments!



We are having a lot of foggy mornings here now and as I can see the blue sky above the grey-white masses and the golden glow of the sun through it, I don't mind at all. And when the fog lifts, we have gorgeous warm and sunny days that even makes me want to take care of all the dead leaves that are covering our garden. Not that I actually get as far as doing it but still, the intention is there!



And it is still so nice to cook with the season's produce, it still makes me happy to see all the winter greens and root vegetables and they even make me feel inspired but I know that in January that will have changes so I try to enjoy this moment as much as possible. This is a great way to do it, the mix between celeriac root and butternut squash is wonderful, they do complement each other in such a smooth way. I topped these with a small green salad to which I had added one of my favourite cheeses, Sardinian pecorino. If you never tried it and see it in a shop somewhere, buy it and try it and you will see why I love it so much.




BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND CELERIAC CAKES WITH SALAD AND PECORINO TOPPING
6 cakes

300 g/10,5 oz butternut squash without its peel
300 g/10,5 oz celeriac, cleaned and peeled
1-2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
5-6 salad leaves of a soft but crispy type
some kind of semi-hard or hard cheese that you like. I used Sardinian pecorino
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Grate the squash and the celeriac coarsely.
- Fry the vegetables with the rosemary in some olive oil. Add salt and stir often.
- When the squash and celeriac is soft and cooked, take a chef's or egg ring and pack it with the the vegetables. I suggest you to make each 'cake' on dish they are being served on as it can be difficult to move them later.
- Cut the salad leaves into very thin strips and put in a small bowl. Add a little salt and olive oil.
- Cut the cheese into small pieces and add it to the salad, mix.
- Top each 'cake' with salad and serve.

Eggs and feather

Eggs and feather, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

Bread Baking Babes - Brioche Mousseline

This month the big challenge for us Bread Baking Babes was not the bread itself, the
Brioche Mousseline, but the cans. I understand that it sounds silly but finding cans that worked was really the most difficult thing of it all. First of all, you need a can or cans of the right size and then, you need to finds cans without plastic lining because it would melt in the heat of the oven and most probably intoxicate you. The bread chosen by our sparkling Monique is a treat, both to make and to eat, especially if you decide to forget about calories, and it looks lovely! I wanted to make one big brioche and I found a big 2,5 kg/ 5,5 can of tomatoes that I bought as soon as I set my eyes on it but I think many small ones, like portion brioches, would look great at a dinner party or on a buffet table! I bet you want to bake one or two yourself now and become a Bread Baking Buddy, if that is the case, steer over to Monique and find out more about the brioche and the details to how and what to do! And don't forget to check out if my fellows Babes managed to find the right can, here is the list of all of them!





Brioche Mousseline
The Breads of France , of Bernard Clayton jr.
2 tall loaves or 1 big tall one

Starter
1 package of dry yeast ( I used about 15 g fresh yeast)
120 ml/1/2 cup warm water
235 ml/1 cup allpurpose flour

Dough
940 ml/4 cups all purpose
6 eggs, room temp.
4 tblsp warm water
3 tblsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
340 g/12 ounces butter , unsalted , room temp.

Line the cane
Butter the inside of the can or , better , line in with paper.

Starter ( takes 10 minutes and 2 hours )
- Dissolve yeast in water and set aside for a few minutes until creamy. Stir in flour and knead for about 3 minutes until shaggy dough has formed. Cover with plastic and let rest for 2 hours.
- To prepare the dough you start with 2 cups of flour, 4 of the eggs, one at the time, 2 tblsp water, sugar, salt and mix well.
- Knead the butter soft and pliable with a dough scraper or spatula on parchment paper or a marble slab and mix it into the dough batter.
- Add the remaining 2 eggs and spoons of water. Stir in the rest of the flour , 1/2 cup at the time until the dough is a soft ball.
- Press into oval on your work surface, better dust it with flour first, and then place the starter in the center, fold over the edges and knead to incorporate the two doughs. Knead for about 8 minutes. The dough stays a little sticky but will become firm after cooling in the fridge.
- Let the dough rise at room temperature covered with a plastic wrap for 3 hours or until more than double. It will be light and puffy.
- Put the dought in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
- Line the can or cans with parchment paper, make sure that it rises above the edge at least 12-15 cm/4,7-5,9 in to support it when it rises in the oven!
- Fill the cans for 2/3 and let it rise for 1-2 hours or more, the longer it has stayed in the fridge, the longer it will need to rise.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven (190°C/375°F) for 1 hour on the lowest rack space, remember it rises a lot while baking.
- Let the brioche rest for about 10 minutes before taking it out of the can and the let it cool on a cooling rack.