Food Porn Daily

Hello! Some of you may be wondering what I have been doing besides travelling and I wanted to explain by mainly pictures but a few descriptions as well. The title of this post comes from one of my favorite websites that I view on a daily basis. Food Porn daily is a website that puts up a new photo everyday and it looks so mouthwatering and delicious you can almost taste it, and you are instantly hungry. Hence, the food porn. Anyways, you should check it out if you're ever bored and kind of hungry. These pictures won't be quite as good as the ones on the website but I tried! I've taken a picture of everything I've cooked so far so here is a quick summary to get you caught up. I'll go through my four classes:

Food, Culture, and Society: The third week of class we went on a walking tour to one of the markets and got to do an oil and balsamic vinegar tasting. So, that day there was no cooking. The next week was all about aperitivo, which is basically the Italian version of a happy hour. It is like 2 hours before dinner and you eat small portions and drink wine to "open" up your stomach to prepare for the full meal. How Italians stay so thin is beyond me....  Anyways, we made an appetizer called coccole which is essentially fried pizza dough balls that you serve with stracchino cheese and prosciutto. Stracchino cheese is a cow's milk cheese that resembles the inside of brie. It's very creamy but has a mild flavor and is delicious. And the other appetizer we made was called Cecina al Rosmarino with Pepe Nero. This was essentially a flat bread that is made with chickpea flour, rosemary, olive oil, and black pepper. And it was delicious and chewy from the use of the chickpea flour. I don't have a picture of the coccole but here is the Cecina al Rosmarino:

Cecina Al Rosmarino

The next week, which was this week, we made my favorite: Zuppa di farro e verdure. This is a traditional tuscan soup with farro and vegetables. One of my favorite soups I have had since I have been here is the traditional tuscan ribollita soup which is bread soup made with carrots, cannellini beans, black cabbage, leeks, celery, and olive oil. This soup reminded me of that except we added farro instead of the bread. You literally just sautee carrots, celery, leeks, and cherry tomatoes in olive oil. Add farro. Then you puree half of the cannellini beans that you cook with sage and garlic to thicken the soup and add the whole beans as well. Then add the black cabbage at the end. And drizzle a rosemary olive oil on top at the end. So filling, yet so healthy! Literally my favorite thing I've made thus far.

Zuppa di Farro e Verdure

Moving on to Chocolates, my favorite class of the week. The third week was our first class where we actually cooked. We made chocolate souffles and a flourless chocolate cake with homemade strawberry sauce. So simple, and so good...the pictures speak for themselves.

Chocolate Souffle

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The second week we learned what it means to temper chocolate. When making chocolate it is important to make sure that the right kind of crystallization happens so the chocolate has the right scheen and snap. A good chocolate should be shiny and when you break it, it should have a hard snap. Tempering is a process where you heat the chocolate up in a double boiler, then pour it onto a marble slab and scrape it to cool it down, then return it to the double boiler to heat it back up again....and this gives you the perfect chocolates.

Dark Chocolates

Chocolate Covered Candied
Orange Peel

White Chocolate Lollipop with
Pistachio and Black Sesame Seeds

Lavender Dark Chocolates

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Tarts

 And then, this week we did more tempering of chocolate but also learned all about ganache, which is the filling to truffles. We made homemade lavender truffles by making a milk chocolate lavender ganache and filling dark chocolates with them. We also made dark chocolate hazelnut tarts with dark chocolate ganache. Too delectable for words.....



Moving on to Tuesday.....Pastas. Week 3 was probably the only thing I've had that I wasn't in love with. We made Tortellini in Brodo, which is essentially Tortellini in broth. Sounds good enough....except for what the tortellini was filled with. It was a combination of pork, parma ham, and mortadella, which is Italian bologna. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not a huge pork or beef eater, so obviously this wasn't my favorite. But, I'm in Italy, so of course I tried it. It stared with beef bones and rabbit bones to make a delicious beef broth with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Then we made homemade pasta dough for the tortellini and combined the three meats in a blender with parmesan cheese and then filled the pasta and made the homemade tortellinis. Then you serve the tortellinis in the broth.

Tortellini in Brodo

Week 4 was all about Gnocchi and Gnudi. The word gnocchi actually is also a slang word in Italian for when you want to call a guy or girl "hot" or "sexy" Like if I thought a guy was hot I would say he was "gnochho" and if a guy thought it was hot they would say I was "gnoccha." I thought that was pretty funny, I guess its because the shape of gnocchi is cute. So, this day in class we made Gnocchi con salsiccia e cavolo nero. This is gnocchi with sausage and black cabbage. Unfortunately, every sausage in Italy is made with fennel in it (finnochio). But don't get me wrong, this dish was still delicious. We also made gnudi with ricotta and spinaci with butter and sage sauce. Gnudi is so easy to make and it essentially naked ravioli.

Gnudi con Ricotta e Spinaci

Gnocchi con Salsiccia e
Cavolo Nero

 And then this week! I also forgot to tell you how good of friends me and the chef have become over the past five weeks. Chef Desi picked up early on that I am super interested in cooking since I was always peering over his shoulder, asking him questions, and taking more of an interest than most of the other kids who are taking this class for fun. So, he has now started calling me his "Executive Chef" and puts me in charge of my group most days. Sometimes he calls me "Exec", sometimes Allison, sometimes Paige, and sometimes he just calls me Gottwalt, thanks to Colleen. So I have four different names when I am in Chef Desi's kitchen. I always have the most fun in his class! This week we made Ravioli di Zucca and Ravioli agli Spinaci. Ravioli with Pumpkin and Ravioli with Spinach and Ricotta. Both were good but the pumpkin ravioli was more like dessert ravioli. It had crushed amaretti cookies and candied fruit in the filling which was interesting. It was also served with and orange butter. But both were still very good...just a lot of butter for the sauce. Thank god I went on a 2 mile run after eating these dishes!

Ravioli with Spinach and Ricotta

Ravioli di Zucca

Ok, now I know you're probably sick of all this food by now but one more class! Keep in mind that I only eat a few bites of each of these....haha
Contemporary Italian Cooking: Week 3 we went on a walking tour but week 4 we made another one of my favorite dishes! Ravioli Verdi di verdure con salsa al Pomodoro. This was essentially spinach ravioli stuffed with vegetables and served with a tomato sauce and fried eggplant on top for a garnish! So delicious and perfect....

Ravioli Verdi di Verdure

And we're almost done! Today in class we made a contemporary dessert! Tre gusti per un dolce. It was one dessert with three flavors. We first made creme brulee, then chocolate mousse, then coffee bavarian cream. Then we layered them and let them set. Then we turned them over onto the plate and garnished with hardened sugar and chocolate. If we had had more time, they would have set more but here it is....

Tre Gusti per un dolce

Hope you are all salivating by now....then I did my job!!! Thanks for bearing with me through all of that and hope you enjoy all the pics! I realize I look like a complete fatty but hey, I'm in Italy, what's a girl to do??!

Salute!
Alli