Solo Traveller Adventures: Cooking in Florence

Having visited Florence before, I had done all the major sightseeing and really wanted to take it easy a bit. Of course, this did not happen, as I kept myself busy doing all sorts of new things, including a wonderful one day cooking course.

For those who are regular readers of my blog, you know food is an integral part of my life – dining out, cooking and trying new recipes, including making healthy eating exciting and fun. So when I saw this activity listed among the various tours one could do from Florence, I booked it.

The tour hosted by the great team at Walkabout Florence (my second time using this great tour company) and would start in Florence itself, and as predicted, I got lost trying to find the meeting spot. Let me just say that this time, Google Maps led me astray. Getting lost meant being late, which meant keeping the group waiting, which made me angry, cause I hate making people wait, but woosah – let’s continue.

Our wonderful guide, Valeria first took us to the various markets, where we picked up the various main ingredients for preparing our menu for the day. Quite an interesting little walk, as we learnt which types of tomatoes were best for sauces or for bruschetta, for example, sampled cheese and also had a very important stop before heading to the bus that would take us to the farmhouse – a coffee stop. I am sure it was a bit of a lesson for some of the Americans on the tour to learn that frappuccinos are a Starbucks invention and Italians’ idea of a cold coffee beverage is the shakerato – espresso and ice cubes shaken in a cocktail shaker with a bit of syrup, and served. For the hot day, everyone had one of these except me – gimme a cappuccino, buddy. Give it!!!

Fresh veggies at the market - ready for our bellies

Picking up our awesome pork loin for roasting at San Lorenzo Market

Shakerato - espresso shaken (not stirred) and my lonesome but awesome cappuccino

Next stop – the farmhouse, in the hills not too far from Florence, but absolutely gorgeous. Here we would meet our ‘teacher’ for the day, the lovely Carmela who spoke no English but her passion for her cooking and for food was evident. Our guides, Valeria and Lavinia took us through what we would be doing for the day and our menu included

• Bruschetta 
• Fresh homemade egg pasta 
• Ragu meat sauce 
• Pizza 
• Roast pork 
• Patata al rosamarino (Roast potatoes with rosemary) 
• Tiramisu 
• Florentine gelato 

This was the best fun and the best tour I have done. While the dishes themselves were not that hard, there were little gems shared during the day which would serve me well in the future with my own cooking. While I do a fair amount of cooking myself, I was always a bit gun shy about going to a class, but this was a lot of fun, with a great bunch of people.

Check me out cutting up that bread for our bruschetta

Aren't our tomatoes sexy?

Bread toasting and wine - Round 1. lol.

Always amazed at how simple but how amazing bruschetta is. I heart bruschetta!

It seemed to be a great bonding activity for couples especially, with newlyweds, not so newlyweds, and newly engaged couples, joining us three single solo travelling girls on this culinary adventure. My favourite part was preparing the pasta, which I always thought was beyond my amateur skills, but it is so easy it is ridiculous.

My pasta - the finished product - left to dry for 30mins before boiling (and eating!)

Our ragu doing its thing - slow cooked for 2 hours!

The end result of our hard work - this was so nom nom

Oh wait – that was my second favourite part, after eating the pasta and all the other goodies we slaved over a hot kitchen table in 40 degree heat to prepare.

We also made our own pizzas and washed that down with Italian beer 

Our roasted potatoes

This pork was everything. I have already replicated this awesomeness since being back

A for Awesome - Awesome tiramisu. A is also my first initial.

Eating and drinking. We did a lot of drinking too. A lot! Lol.

The belle of the ball - Chianti Classico. And our hosts were not stingy with it either. 

I would do this again in a heartbeat and it is such a great activity for single girlfriends, or couples to do together as an aside from the sightseeing. I met some wonderful people, learnt how to make some of my favourite foods, ate a lot (soooo much food!!!) drank some amazing Chianti reds (and beer) and made a lot of great memories.  Thanks to the Walkabout Team for a great day and to great peeps like - yes, gonna give you a shout out - Danielle, Jamie, Libra, and Sarah - for the laughs and the good times.

You can check out more tours on Viator or go directly to Walkabout Florence and just choose one or two, or five! They are a great bunch! My next post will feature Walkabout again as I took a trip out of Florence for some coastal fun.

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Come Dine With Me: Reality TV at its best

While living and studying in London, one of my fave tv shows was Come Dine With Me. It was also one of the few tv shows that my cousin and I could watch together - when he was not riveted to the English Premier League. The show is a reality show that takes 4-5 strangers from a particular town or region and have them host a three-course dinner at their homes, where afterwards they would be scored on their evening. The person with the highest score at the end of the week would win 1000 quid.

As you know, I love food, I love dining out, I love cooking. So I love this show. But this is often the "dark" side of dining, the funny side - not the Instagram-ready glamour shots of haute cuisine. The reason this show is so amazing is because these people are Average Joes and Janes. They are NOT chefs by any stretch of the imagination. They are often kitchen novices and there are very often kitchen and hosting disasters. They are often bonkers, nutters, loons, a bit too eccentric to be real. The narrator of the show, Dave Lamb, surely adds to the comedy with his snarky commentary.

I think most people watching this show can catch a glimpse of themselves here. In my own quest for kitchen greatness, I have burnt dishes, had cakes fall or be like gunk, forgot to add eggs in a cake and then tried to add them when it was way too late, forgot to put the lid on the blender. Don't lie - you know you have done it too. Even the best cooks have their little slip-ups, but still, I love seeing the foodie train wrecks - the unabashed walking disasters. I keep thinking of my own friends and how a local version of this show might look and I laugh just thinking about it.

The show is great fun and when I discovered they had a US site on YouTube which would allow me to get my jones all weekend, well, that was all she wrote. I have missed this show, and with the rainstorm plaguing my neighbourhood all weekend, I almost feel like I am back in the den in London, watching my fave show after class in the afternoon. Except, this is much better. I have added an episode here, so you can grab a glass of wine and see for yourself.

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Morning Wake Up Call aka "No Coffee" Smoothie

Nu Wave Party Mixer

I had a wannabe Magic Bullet that I used to make my smoothies but it just never did the job, leaving my blueberries and other fruit chunky and thus, often making my smoothies a dismal failure. Now with my Nu-Wave Party Mixer, which I got on sale, and which is way cheaper than the Nutribullet I really wanted, on top of being the daiquiri champion, I now can make wonderful fresh fruit slushies for my nephew and yummy fruit and green smoothies for myself.

My favourite smoothie to date is my Morning Wake Up Call green smoothie. Yes, I have lately been having this in lieu of coffee, while in recovery mode. I am making a concerted effort to not try to cover exhaustion with caffeine, while adding much needed nutrients at the top of my day.



For my morning smoothie, I use

• a huge handful of baby spinach leaves (Trinis, do NOT attempt this with bhagi. You will regret it! lol)
• one ripe peach (you can also use a banana, but I hate bananas)
• 6-7 seedless prunes
• a tbsp peanut butter - organic if you can
• almond milk 
• whey protein powder
• If you have kale, throw that in too

You put it all in the mixer and pulverise it. For post-workout, I sometimes use half milk, half coconut water, for those much needed electrolytes. Once your fruit is sweet, you really have no need for sugar. I tend to never put sugar in my smoothies anyway, and if you are going to use yogurt to give your smoothie some body, use plain yogurt as opposed to the sugary stuff.

I have also made smoothie bags for convenience and to keep my ingredients from going bad in the fridge. Spinach for one is notorious for spoiling very quickly, so I have taken to bagging it out in individual smoothie servings and freezing it. And when it's time for smoothie, I simply grab a bag, pop it in the mixer with some milk/coconut water and voila.

That's my idle "sick in bed" post for today.

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Keeping it Fresh in the Kitchen

Homemade Tomato Sauce
- just in a recycled Prego jar

One of the most vexing things about wanting to eat healthier, is that healthy eating is not always convenient, and it is definitely not cheap. A KFC snack pack costs less than a salad, a good healthy soup can be hard to find and buying a slice of cake can be less aggravating than buying a slice of watermelon from my regular watermelon guy. I mean, watermelon guy, while I appreciate the compliments and yes, maybe I am your angel who has fallen from heaven, I am still not going to marry you. lol. I just want a slice of watermelon.

I decided against eating out this weekend, which of course meant putting in some effort in the kitchen, cause if you want to do it right, you often have to do it yourself.  I really was not in the mood for doing it myself but was not in the mood for taking a drive to get it either, or spending a lot of money to do so. So I sucked it up, and ventured into the kitchen, on a hot Saturday afternoon.

I decided in the name of freshness and ease, to make my own pizza yesterday, where I could control the type of crust (whole wheat, as opposed to white), the amount of cheese (a drizzle as opposed to a torrential gooey downpour), the toppings (fresh as opposed to crap from a can), and the tomato sauce, which in the whole quest for freshness, I decided to make from scratch, rather than buying. I must say, my tomato sauce was da bomb. Using fresh tomatoes, awesome amounts of fresh garlic and basil, salt and black pepper to taste, and no sugar or preservatives, I now have a Prego jar (the last insult) filled with this awesomeness.

I also had a fresh, light pizza without all the gunk, and a lot of onions, garlic, tomatoes, and spinach, with some bits of deli beef and feta to keep it sexy. And since I am also not drinking alcohol still, I used the last of my grapefruits to make a fresh non-alcoholic spritzer, with fresh grapefruit juice, a bit of ginger, Angostura bitters and club soda. Small yaay. And I did not have to get dressed up or leave my driveway to get it.

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Kitchen Porn: Cajun Chicken Frittata

My frittata essentials 

So I came back from vacation and hit a blogging slump and a life slump. It always happens. The high experienced over 3 weeks as a result of unbridled freedom and excitement, is shot from the heavens by the bullets of reality – early mornings, enslavement to the utilitarian laptop at your desk, dry phrases and jargon, meetings, daily routine, schedules. Yep. Reality bites. It is also not very exciting to write about. I guess I will have to turn to other things to keep this blog going.

In the first instance, a lot of my blog, whether I am at home or abroad, is about food. I love food - good food - and love both preparing it, and eating it - and as I said in my last entry, it is part of life, in how we interact, socialise, celebrate life's moments. Still, I am hardly a food blogger, so have no fear, photos of bags of flour will not take over the blog.

But...I did have a bit of foodie success today as I made my very first frittata ever! I had always wanted to try my hand at making one but just never did. But I was committed to making it happen this weekend, and so I marched to the supermarket yesterday to restock my cabinet and to get my fritatta essentials. I would do a cajun chicken frittata which would be breakfast this week.

I chopped some onions, grated some garlic, roasted a red pepper and then chopped it into strips, and stir fried it all in some EVOO, with a bit of black pepper and salt. I had also previously boiled and chopped a small potato and set that aside.

I used 6 large eggs, and added some milk, and whisked, following which I added my stir fried veggies and my potatoes, and my chopped chicken slices, and blended all the ingredients together.

Finally, I added some red pepper flakes, some light cheddar cheese and some parsley. Into my well greased dish, I poured my gooey mixture and popped it into the oven for about 35-40 minutes.

And the results were great. I was planning to start on the stove top and then transfer to the oven, but was not sure whether my skillet was oven proof so went the oven method and I was very very pleased with the end product. I am now a frittata maker!!

I did put it under the broiler for a couple minutes and it was perfect after that.

I also used the baking time to make myself a nice pommerac chow. Pommerac, as we call it here, and also known as the Malay rose apple, is one of my fave fruits ever, and so when I FINALLY got a bag of these gems on Friday, a chow was in the cards. Simply cut up, add salt, pepper, grated garlic, chadon beni, and mix. Heaven.

Today was a good day in the kitchen, and you have not even seen my oven-baked chicken curry with roasted red peppers. Okay okay...here you go.

Time for a nap. All this kitchen madness has worn me out.

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(Foodie) Porn: Cure for All Cases of Boredom

So I have been sitting at home, bored out of my freakin' mind and when I am bored, I eat or I create...in the kitchen, which ultimately leads to more eating anyway. lol.

This week, there was spinach and mushroom pizza...

Veggie Pizza
This is actually a pretty healthy option - just a few tbsps of cheese, and fresh veggies on a multigrain crust

...and today, my first ever attempt at a pie, 100% from scratch. No store-bought pie shell. I must say, I was really pleased with my efforts. I made an apple pie and it was really splendid. I went a bit crazy with the cookie cutter shapes, but as I said, "bored" is the word of the day!

Not so healthy...but delicious! My first apple pie

At least tomorrow I will be productive as I start my French classes to excavate my dormant French-speaking skills from the dark recesses of my mind. I am enjoying it all now cause when I re-enter high heeled life, baking and conjugation may be the last things I wanna do.

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Kitchen Porn: Super Phallic Sausages and other Sexy Stuff

So it's a semi-wordless Tuesday night, and not quite Wordless Wednesday but I have loads of work to get through tomorrow and I am waiting for my 11am snack to come out of the oven before I start working again.

So decided to show you some kitchen stuff. I spend a fair deal of time in the kitchen, cause one needs to eat to live. In this previous post, I mentioned my bargain Saturday night at Sainsbury's where I snagged bargain sausages and the contentious 25p bread.

Taste the Difference with my bargain sausages! lol.

I usually put these bad boys in the oven to cook, but I like sealing them with some EVOO first. It took me months before I bought sausages in the UK cause as you can see, they have a more than normal phallic look about them that does not engender a healthy appetite. lol. Am I lying? Don't they look like the other thing in that post? They look more sexual than the typical sausage I think! Or maybe I just have a dirty mind!

My yummy, sexy pork sausages being sealed in the pan

Then we have the contentious, and now infamous 25p bread. They were reduced twice, cause when I went in earlier they were actually 39p and after dinner, they were down to 25p.

Perfectly good bargain bread! Not much you can get for 25p in this place

Then this morning, I decided to make a coconut bake, leaving the last roll for my 11pm student life snack. My dough, comprising of self raising flour, butter, salt and coconut milk, looked pretty damn sexy.

Perfect looking dough

I then rolled it out into a rectangle like shape using a sports bottle since this house has no proper cooking utensils like...oh...a rolling pin. lol. Rectangle like...

Not too bad. It looks rectangular, doesn't it?

Then with the last of the sausages, I had breakfast.

The sausages look much better this way don't they? And the bake was great!

I also thought it would be fun to show you the inside of the household fridge. Why? I live with a bachelor. He fully lives up to the bachelor stereotype. While the fridge is full, look at what's in it?

The container on the bottom shelf with an actual solid food product is mine!
And my yummy sorrel is next to it.

I own a drawer in the bottom where I have FOOD items, but this is ridiculous isn't it? lol. I am not sure what he eats exactly, but you can bet he is seldom thirsty.

Back to coding...

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Foodie Pics: Curry Tabanca

I always say, I could eat curry every week - maybe not everyday but definitely once a week and it had been a while since I had a good curry. And my mantra is, if you want something good, best you do it yourself and so I did. I had promised a friend to come over and cook Trini curry for him this weekend and we did that, while watching my dismal cricket team play India. It was lovely. And so after introducing a Brit to Trinidadian curry on Sunday, and ultimately teasing my own tastebuds for the spicy goodness of a curried chicken, yesterday, I went to Tesco and got chicken, chick peas, potatoes and chapatis.

First, I seasoned the chicken last evening so it could marinate overnight. Lots of onions, garlic, green herbs, , peppers, geera (cumin) and curry powder. Chief curry powder, and Chief ground geera - not the crap they have here. It looks beautiful doesn't it?

I love cutting drumsticks in half for curry. To me boneless chicken for curry is sacrilege

Then this morning I cut up my potatoes into small cubes. I also chopped some onions, garlic, peppers and threw them in some very very hot oil, with some whole geera, (I just love geera) before adding curried powder mixed with water for the chunkay. Then, in went my chick peas and then later my cubed potatoes. Bubble bubble...

The channa, better known as chickpeas, bubbling in the curry

With my oil extremely hot in my dutch pot, I added the seasoned chicken and allowed that to cook in a covered pot for about an hour. I nyammed on a toasted sesame bagel with a scrambled egg white and some hot chocolate while this was going on. Did I mention I started cooking at 8am?

Putting the chicken on to do its magic

I finished cooking before 10am which was great and cleared the kitchen and packed everything away until 2pm lunch hour. I did make dhalpuri from scratch on Sunday but there was no way I was doing that today so I picked up some chapatis and heated them in the microwave for about 20 seconds. I also, last night, brewed some green tea and added the juice of 3 limes and some sugar for a thirst quenching iced green tea. Lunch was then served.

Tuesday lunch - curried chicken, curried channa (chickpeas), chapatis, iced green tea with citrus

Close up of the meal, with the chicken so tender, the flesh was falling off the bone. It was bliss. Jealous much? Back to work.

Curry a la Trininista!

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Life is NOT like a Noodle Stir Fry. Stir Fry is Much Simpler.

Well, I woke up this morning and guess what? It was March. Time is going by at a pace. I am actually dreading this fleeting passage of time, only because this dissertation thing is a nightmare. All the decisions are also a nightmare. Why can't life be as simple as a noodle stir fry! Speaking of which...

I had really been in the mood for some stir fry. I crave the weirdest things at the most random times. So during my weekly Tesco run on Friday, I got everything I would have needed for a home-made noodle stir fry.

I got some pork, cause I love pork and it was cheap. Added my regular seasonings - garlic, onions, green seasoning, ginger, black pepper, salt, coriander. It looks good doesn't it? I had done this on Saturday so it could marinate over the weekend and soak up all the herby goodness. Of course you put it back in the fridge.

Pork marinating...

Then today I took it out and first pan fried it in a non-stick pan with a splash of EVOO. Pork is already a fatty type of meat. You don't need a lot.

Pork searing...

After pan frying on light heat for about 5 minutes - and it is really to give it some colour - I chucked it into an sturdy pan with a sturdy cover and chucked it all in the oven on a low heat for a couple hours. I continued doing my assignment while that did its oinky thing.

Then 2 hours later, I re-emerged and got started on my noodles. Added some egg noodles to boiling water, and let it cook for 3 minutes before draining. They taste good just like that too.

Noodles draining...

Then I got my veggies ready which involved me tearing the pack open. Gotta love ready-made stir fry noodles. At home I would have to cut this crap up myself if Hi-Lo was out, which was regularly.

Veggies waiting...

A bit of EVOO in the pot, and I added some pre-cut onions first, before dashing the veggies in. I also seasoned said onions with a bit of ginger and black pepper and a splash of soy sauce. Then I added my veggies and some oyster and garlic stir fry sauce.

Veggies stir frying...

Then came my noodles, salt to taste and it was done. The pork - out of the oven, and then I took some of the stock, added a splash of coconut milk powder, some ginger, garlic, parsley and about a 2tbsps of orange juice (sounds weird but it is really delicious) and reduced all that til the thickness was right for me. Add that to my pork and lunch was ready.

Mouth watering...

No white wine cause I am doing research and I am so fat it sucks. I don't like myself right now. I am in the "not liking myself time of the quarter". It usually coincides with when I need an eyebrow wax, or as in London, an eyebrow threading, and a salon job. Add puffy cheeks and a face as round as a full moon and I am a hot mess.

Tomorrow - the crap eating ends. I have a danish I need to dispose of today.

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