Sorry, yes, you cook the bacon first.

Penelope wrote:or do you mean Parma Ham or prosciutto?

Maybe, I've never tried them, but they may work. I have tried using sopressata salami, that didn't work, it's too hard.

We've just enjoyed two of the most warm and sunny Spring days. Most unseasonable.....but what a treat!!

So today we decided to have a barbecue - very early in the year for us. I think it must be a record.
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We went down to the town this morning to pick up some fish because we like fish barbecues. I got some rump steak for Dan, because he said he might call around later. Dan only likes meat bbq, doesn't have our passion for fish.

Anyway, we've just had three oysters each as a starter and I didn't want to stop eating them. I wish we'd had a dozen each....I really love oysters.

We then barbecued, whole sea bream.......and they were very delicious too. We had green salad and beetroot with goats cheese on the side. Beetroot and goats cheese were made for each other....I could have just eaten that all evening too.

Being so early in the year, we have had to come inside because it isn't warm enough to sit out in the garden in the evening, although the hyacinths smell heavenly, when the smell of the fish has disappeared, that is.

I wonder where we will eat this time next week. On Friday next we are going across the channel to Belgium. We are going to the town of Leuven....we have been there before. (They play jazz on the church bells.) We liked it so much that we decided to return for a second look. We're only going for a long weekend, so we'll be back on Monday (late).

I'll report on the food....with photos. I always wanted to be a restaurant reviewer....missed my vocation.

It's a nice day here too. Warm enough to go out without a jacket and do a little garden (pots) clean up. Far from hyacinth blooms though.

Thursday I spent four hours on my feet cooking the following recipe. I have wanted to try this since hearing about it on a t.v. comedy show (Everybody Loves Raymond for U.S. readers) It is the Italian dish Braciole. Why I didn't research many recipes rather than taking just the one I saw the t.v. cooking hostess prepare is beyond me as this is by far the most complicated of the ones I later researched.

This tasted o.k. but hardly worth the trouble. Only good thing is that I have quite a bit of the stuffing left and it should be good in pockets in either pork chops or chicken breasts. BTW, Penny I think your household had very sophisticated food tastes. Oysters and goat cheese! We have goat cheese but not oysters in our markets. (an oyster knife is the handiest thing I have in my kitchen!) What is beetroot?

Braciole


Stuffing:
Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup finely diced pancetta
1 large onion, finely diced
Kosher salt
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
2 cups day old Italian bread, crusts removed, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 cup milk
2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
1/2 pound button or cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 pound spinach, stems removed and cut into chiffonade
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup grated provolone
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 pounds top round, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices (about 12)
Sauce:
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
4 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup red wine
1 (32-ounce) can San Marzano tomatoes, passed through the food mill
2 cups water
Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, for garnish
Chopped parsley leaves, for garnish
Special equipment: toothpicks
Directions
For the beef rolls:

Coat a large saute pan with olive oil, add the pancetta and bring the pan to a medium heat. Cook the pancetta until it gets brown and crispy, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the onions and crushed red pepper and toss to incorporate with the pancetta. Season with salt, to taste. Cook the onions until they are soft and very aromatic, about 7 to 8 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, in a large bowl, combine the bread and the milk. Toss to combine and let sit until the bread has absorbed the milk and is very soft. Use your hands to get in there and really squish everything together. Reserve.

Add the garlic to the pan with the pancetta and onion and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, season with salt, to taste, and saute until the mushrooms are soft and have let off their moisture, about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the spinach.

Add the onion/mushroom mixture to the reserved bread and stir to combine. Add the pine nuts, provolone and Parmigiano-Reggiano, and stir to combine. Taste to make sure that the mixture is delicious and season with salt, to taste, if needed. Set aside.

Lay the beef slices between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and gently pound with a meat mallet to flatten and even out the slices. Put about 1/4 cup of filling on 1 end of each of the pounded beef slices and roll up. Secure the rolls with toothpicks. Repeat this process with the remaining beef and filling.

Coat a large, wide pot with olive oil and put over medium-high heat. Season the beef rolls with salt, to taste, and brown them on all sides. When the beef rolls are brown on all sides, remove them from the pan and reserve. Make the sauce in the same pot.

Sauce:

Remove the oil from the pot that the beef was just browned in. Add a light coating of fresh olive oil and add the onions and crushed red pepper. Season with salt, to taste, and put the pot over medium heat. Sweat the onions until they are translucent and very aromatic, about 7 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and red wine, and cook for 6 to 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes, and 2 cups of water and season with salt, to taste. Return the beef rolls to the pan and snuggle them into the sauce. Bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the beef is very tender and flavorful, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Remove the toothpicks before serving. To serve, arrange 2 or 3 braciole on each serving plate. Halve 1 or 2 rolls to expose the stuffing. Spoon on some of the sauce and garnish with Parmigiano-Reggiano and chopped pa

LofS

What is beetroot?

I Googled, 'what do Americans call Beetroot', and the answer came back Beets. A beetroot is the same shape and size as a turnip but it is deep purple. This is the root, but you can eat the leaves, tops, too. It is quite easy to grow and worth it since you can eat the whole of the plant.

I like it (the root) boiled and then sliced with a slice of goats cheese on top.

Mostly, we buy it in jars, pickled in vinegar, and use it as pickle on meat and potatoe pie, but I really like beetroot, just boiled and not pickled. It is very good for you. Here's a recipe for Borscht - Russian Beetroot Soup:

* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 1 leek, finely chopped
* 1 sticks celery, finely chopped
* 275 g raw beetroot
* 1 potato, diced (about 100g in total)
* 1 carrot, finely grated (about 150g in total)
* 1.2 litres beef stock, or vegetable stock
* 2 tsp red wine vinegar
* 1 tsp sugar
* 2 tbsp soured cream
* black pepper



Method
1. Heat the oil in a large pan and stir-fry the leek and celery for about 2-3 minutes until softened but not coloured, then add the beetroot, potato and most of the carrot, reserving some for garnish.

2. Pour the stock into the pan, season and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes or until the vegetables are completely tender and the soup has thickened slightly.

3. Season the soup to taste, and then stir in the vinegar and sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Ladle the soup into warmed serving bowls and garnish with a small dollop of soured cream and the reserved grated carrot. Serve immediately.

Your recipe for Braciole sounds good, but four hours? You must have been too tired to enjoy it.

Thanks Penny. Beets are about my favorite veggie. Esp pickled. Well as I was making my braciole I received some very distressing phone calls. (Ill health) that may have slowed me up some.

I don't know how much soil or what temps beets must grow in but we could not grow them in our tiny yard. I'll ask my gardening friend who used to have such a nice garden. Unfortunately they also grew pot in the center of it! * They would collect all their neighbors grass clippings and use it for mulch and to pad walk ways in the garden. She had wonderful things but it got to be too much for her.

*my husband is adamantly against any kind of drug use or smoking etc. so they never told us till recently! Although as a matter of fact I did know it.

I have laughed so much about your neighbour growing pot in her garden. I wouldn't have laughed ten or twelve years ago though, when I was having trouble with my son and his friends bringing it into my home and smoking it.

It wasn't so much the drug itself, because I used to smoke tobacco cigarettes myself until two years ago. I managed to stop when Roxana was born and so did Norm. It was the horrible people who sold it to the kids. Then when they got into debt, they would bully them unmercifully.....three young boys in our area committed suicide from fear of the bullies before the authorities, police, schools and colleges decided to do anything about it. I had a real rampaging campaign against it, confronting headmasters and tutors. I actually stood up in our church pulpit, with the vicars consent....and spoke about it. I made myself very unpopular at the time. But it wasn't the actual smoking I was complaining about....It was the thuggery behind the supplying.

I actually campaigned in favour of its being legalised....and I swear to you that I've never tried any illegal drugs because I had enough trouble ridding myself of the tobacco addiction.

I just thought that if the kids could have gone into a chemist and bought pot over the counter, it would not have seemed so glamorous to them, and maybe those young lads would have still been alive today.

Penelope:

I just thought that if the kids could have gone into a chemist and bought pot over the counter, it would not have seemed so glamorous to them,

I don't know Penelope, we still thought smoking cigarettes was "glamorous" Here now kids commit suicide because of internet and school bullying!

We have legalized pot for health treatments here in Maine but as you know it is a very inexpensive crop to grow but you would not believe the medial costs they have attached to it!

Sam Harris makes a very compelling argument for the legalization of all drugs in The End of Faith, saying the burden on the prison systems is out of whack. Yet today a friend was just telling me about a man who went into have surgery for a heart valve and never woke up again. She said that he had done a lot of cocaine which is very injurious to the heart evidently. I feel very sorry for people who are addicted to drugs and now they can make their own and so availability is greater.

LofS

We have legalized pot for health treatments here in Maine but as you know it is a very inexpensive crop to grow but you would not believe the medial costs they have attached to it!

In my opinion, if a drug helps sick people to feel better, then it should be used for that purpose. But there were all kinds of conflicting messages going around at the time when I was involved with my son and his friends' usage.

When I went with Danny to see our local doctor, I asked the doctor to talk to him about the use of Marijuana....and our doctor, who had three young sons of his own, said, 'There is nothing wrong with Marijuana, except that it is illegal'. So that didn't help much.

I'm glad those times are over.... although I am told that 95% of young people try these substances at some time...so I think something should be done to clarify the situation. There seems to be a lot of information going out about the affects of the drugs but no regulation about the supply.

Our grandkids have been lectured all through the school years about the use of drugs (by the schools)

I would suspect that there was more use among the baby boomer generation and those immediately following maybe than there is now. I don't know really as my nieces and nephews Of whom I have about 22 never have discussed it with me, although I know for sure that some of them were users (in fact one went to prison for dealing. . . that is a girl too!) However definitely not all of them, certainly not hard drugs as other than that one case everybody has worked etc and not been in rehab or anything.

My dinner tonight was banging! Cook french lentils. Then tossed with olive oil, salt & peper, set aside. Sauted garlic, carrot, celery, leek or any other kind of onion type in olive oil and then a bit of added stock. As the veggies are getting soft throw in some parsley. All this gets combined with linguine and lentils, toss until mixed. Over each serving drizzle a little olive oil and shaved or grated parm. cheese. Yum!



Oh dear, I forgot, swiss chard. Don't forget to add swiss chard as the veggies are getting soft.