MONDAY
It seems early for pumpkin, more so because summer reappeared this week, but the farmer I shop with on Saturdays told me the pumpkin was amazing and I believed him. Also, the freezer is crammed and has to be emptied of the growing amounts of Ziploc bags with chicken bones and vegetable scraps.
This is my non-recipe for pumpkin risotto: I put on a big pot of chicken stock with the saved scraps (carrot peels, trimmings from fennel, leeks, celery, leftover chicken and bones) from the freezer. I roast the pumpkin in the oven. Meanwhile, I warm the rice in a hot skillet and don’t burn it if I pay attention. I remove it from the pan, put it aside, and sautée leeks in butter until soft. I add stock if they get too dry. I add the rice, and gradually start adding stock while stirring. The roasted pumpkin goes in towards the end of the cooking time. When done, I add butter and parmigiano and let it rest. The rice keeps absorbing so at this stage it looks soupy, but by the time you serve it’s perfect. If this is all too vague, here’s a written up recipe from the River Café.
TUESDAY
Back to eating like it’s summer. Pizza picnic in the park.
WEDNESDAY
I am having a meeting with a bakery I really like: one where I regularly order my bread. I figure I should show up with goods, so I am trying my hand at handpies (haha) and a schiacciata d’uva. Super happy with the handpies (I am going by this visual reference, and this recipe for the filling, and I’m using my usual sourdough galette dough).
The schiacciata bar is high - I used to eat it at Sullivan Bakery and Lilia. It’s seasonal - being tied to the wine harvest - and was only available for a limited amount of time, intensifying the yearly cravings. Mine was fine for a first attempt. I landed on this recipe, just swapped out the yeast for sourdough. The “harvest” came from the garden at my office here in Amsterdam. (If you need some foraging inspiration, check out my friend Caroline’s adventures).
I really enjoy testing things out, less so having to eat sheetpans of so-so focaccia.
Dinner: Pasta al Pesto, extra: freezer pesto from before the summer, beans that looked good at today’s market, leftover potatoes. The pesto I usually make is adapted from The Silver Spoon, however, since I have seen this Ligurian lady make it in a mortar in Salt Acid Fat Heat, I have upgraded.
THURSDAY
Still that overflowing freezer. Tonight it offers sausages. Then there’s week-old rice, those beans from the market, carrots, leftover eggwash from the handpies, ginger, garlic. I start cooking but have to get on a call with a generous woman in Maine whose many titles include “bread doula” and who answers all my beginner’s questions, for free, because it’s #sourdoughseptember. People are amazing. Manuel takes over. It becomes fried-rice-ish and it’s finished by the time I get off the phone an hour and a half later.
FRIDAY
Woordvis catch this week is sole, and the instructions tell me to fry it in oil. So good. Leftover grape focaccia is croutonized for the salad. The last of the potatoes, this time smashed. I forgot to salt the water when I cooked them and no amount of salt will fix that afterwards. It’s shameful, because they are Opperdoezers, very special potatoes grown within a kilometer of a church in the town of Opperdoes, North Holland. They are only available in the summer.
SATURDAY
I have so much good sourdough discard in the fridge, I make this Morning Glory Cake. (You can also make it without sourdough). Its taste is sort of like a 90s healthy deli muffin, in a good way.
SUNDAY
A good lunch at my mom’s. She makes pasta with a baby spinach and almond pesto. A crostata with plums. I’ll get the recipes one day, but I’d rather invite you over to her house.
Ciao,
Anna
PS: did you hear about Obama’s sourdough starter?