Week Three: Letitia Clark
i am hungover.
This late Sunday newsletter has been brought to you by: Hangovers! If I had the energy I would write an intro like “being 30…blah blah blah…hangovers…blah blah blah.” But, you get the gist. I drank and I don’t feel well.
Here’s what I cooked this week:
January: Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from Sardinia and La Vita é Dolce: Italian-Inspire Desserts by Letitia Clark
The tiny peach and almond cookies with ricotta cream (pg. 23, la vita é dolce) are hands-down the cutest cookies I have ever made. (Did you gasp at the photo yet? It makes me happy every time I see it.) When I first flipped through the book, I thought there was no way I was making those. But when I canceled my day trip to Breckenridge, I figured why not give them a try! To my surprise, these cookies weren’t overly complicated and actually pretty fun to make. The cookies are like soft little pillows and were so good that I kept eating the plain ones before I could even decorate. To make them look like sweet little peaches, I mixed red food coloring with Grand Marnier (you could use water but…#basic!!) and then painted the tops to give a peachy watercolor vibe. Again, too cute!
Letita’s perfect polenta (pg. 150, bitter honey) was a great snowy-night dinner at home this week. It’s a simple recipe but works as the perfect, creamy base to top with whatever you can find in your fridge. I chose to toss in some shrimp and roasted cauliflower. Then I made these polenta fries with the leftovers. Yum!
The mascarpone chocolate mousse (pg. 234, bitter honey) really hit the spot when I wanted an easy weeknight indulgence. Just a quick whisk of melted chocolate, a couple of eggs, mascarpone and voila! A silky smooth mousse. Whipped cream and chocolate shavings are optional.
I felt like I couldn’t do an Italian-inspired month without making cannolis (pg. 165, la vita é dolce). It wasn’t until I purchased all of the ingredients that I realized cannolis require a unique and specific tool – cannoli molds. (Thank you, Amazon.) Buying an item that only has one use is very annoying, especially when you live in a small space, but I felt determined to make these. Two days and $9 later, here we are!
But the correct tools were not my only hurdle. I followed the instructions exactly and my dough did not look remotely usable. It was dry, crumbly and didn’t look at all appetizing. I had to toss it.
At this point, it was like I had to make these damn cannolis like my life depended on it. I ended up going with this recipe from Binging with Babish. (This recipe, and others I looked up, called for eggs. Letitia’s did not. 🤔) I can’t say that this recipe turned out much better, but I was able to roll the dough out enough to wrap it around the molds. I made six and the one below is the only one that turned out somewhat decent. It tasted okay but really not worth the mess I made.
The cannoli molds will now live somewhere in my storage closet. Please feel free to reach out for any and all cannoli needs.
Thanks for reading, sweeties! 🍎
Those little peach things are precious!