I do love eggs

Well here it is. So delicious. The caviar, while it sounds indulgent and unnecessary, is such a great addition - much better than slimey smoked salmon and so much quicker too.

Guest Post: Erin’s Indulge Me Goddammit Weekend Breakfast

I still have one meal left to go today but I'm already onto thinking about Saturday's breakfast. Sometimes simplicity is all and, I am so frying my crumpets. The only other thing is to have enough wine tonight for a teensy hangover as Erin suggests: "So this is barely a recipe really but it’s so bloody good for Saturday late-morning breakfast, when you’ve got a teensy hangover and want something substantial, but you’ve got enough zip to get into the kitchen and faff about for ten minutes."

Thanks Erin, I just wish you were the right side of The Atlantic to share this with me.

Serves two (or one if the person is as greedy as a bear in a salmon filled river):

4 crumpets
4 large free range eggs (courtesy of Uncle Joe)
Big chunk of salted, good quality butter
Fresh flat leaf parsley
Black caviar
Crème fraiche

Either toast the crumpets or do what I do and fry them slowly in butter in a frying pan. This is disgracefully fatty but so delicious. In the meantime, fork your eggs about and oh I don’t need to tell you how to make scrambled eggs do I. So, in the meantime, make scrambled eggs to your liking (I like them just-cooked). When the eggs are done, put two crumpets on each plate, divide the eggs between them, then add a dollop of crème fraiche on top of each. Top with a teaspoonful of caviar, then sprinkle with torn-up parsley. Might want a squeeze of lemon. Yuuuuummmmm.

Happy weekend x

Supper Eight

An Italian supper for a Scottish Summer evening:

From midnight roasted vegetables to midnight baked cantuccini

Our wee kitchen was a busy place to be last night:

Rosemary flat bread

Zuccini bread {before}
Zuccini bread {after}
Home grown basil. If only this shot was scratch and sniff.

Basil cantuccini {baked once}
Basil cantuccini {baked twice}

Menu Eight ~ Weekday Supper

To start
House selection of antipasti

To follow
Schaicciata di manzo con aglio, rosmarino e funghi, zucca al forno
{Flash roast beef with garlic, rosemary and giroles, roasted squash}

To finish
Scottish strawberries, balsamic ice cream, basil cantuccini.

Flavours of Italy 2010

Well, it didn't take much to tempt us back. We've just returned from another food filled trip. This time, higher in the stunning mountains and chestnut forests, not far from Pieve Fosciana and pretty Sillico. The views were amazing, the sun shone and the food, rustic, simply served allowing the delicious, local flavours to speak for themselves:

Amazing figs and ham

Baked cheese with generous gratings of truffle

Sillico perched on the hill

Doorway in Sillico

View from Sillico

Tagliatelle con funghi

Antipasti

Sunset over the Apuan Alps and across the Garfagnana valley

Flavours of Italy 2009

In our experience, Italians certainly know how to make the most of the big, home grown flavours they find.

Last year, we had a fabulous time in Tuscany, learning to make pasta, glugging olive oil and wine (in near equal quantities), baking biscuits, butchering rabbits, driving fast and eating lots. Big thanks to these lovely people.

Villa Toscana and views

In the kitchen

Lucca.

We're packing up and escaping soon...