Blueberry muffin bread with cream cheese filling and fig muffins

 

 

My birthday came and went last week. I would have added quietly, but have you noticed how birthdays are on steroids since the advent of the book of faces? But hey, don't misundertstand me. I am grateful for each and every birthday wish I received. Especially the kind words from that girl I think I knew in nursery school; and from that friend of a friend of a friend that I have never met but that I know goes running three times a week, 8km each time, and whose heart - according to her status - is broken; she would willingly turn back time if only she could, if only he would let her.

But back to more important things. Me.
So, I am a year older and if truth be told, I feel better about myself and my life now than I did in my early twenties. Sure, this feeling of self assuredness comes with some usually-although-not-always well concealed grey hair, a wrinkle or two (thank goodness I can still use single digits for those) and a few extra pounds, but I am not complaining.

 

 

A birthday celebration these days no longer involves two hundred of my very best friends and drunken dancing.

It means meeting up for a quick, unplanned lunch with F and enjoying the guilty pleasure of sushi sans kids, a small beer during my lunch break, almost an hour of uninterrupted talk and holding hands every now and then without squealing and gagging sounds as accompaniment.

 

 

 

 

It means picking up my daughter, who may or may not have forgotten it was my birthday until way after she sulked because I did not agree to invite half of the class over for a playdate. But it doesn't matter, because when she finally did remember, I got a beautiful drawing that  I had watched her and her friends working on hidden behind a secretive wall of backpacks in the school square the day before.

 

 

 

 

It means a simple week night dinner at home, the usual racous, messy affair but the grand finale of a birthday cake complete with candles and presents.

This year, it was exactly what I wanted and all that I needed: an impromptu daytime date with my husband and a simple dinner at home with my family. A quiet, unnoticed affair... well, if it wasn't for FB, that is.

 

 

 

 

Since I didn't bake a cake for my birthday like I have in past years, the only baking that went on over the week end was for this blueberry muffin bread and simple muffins with a fresh fig topping. 

 

 

 

  

I first was inspired to make the blueberry bread when I saw a pin on Pinterest. However, when I was getting ready to make it I realized the recipe actually did not include cream cheese, although I thought it did for some reason when I pinned it. So I started looking up recipes on the Internet and to my surprise found what I was looking for on Anecdotes and Apple Cores, a blog I have been following for quite a few years now. I made some very minor adjustments and also ended up making an extra batch of the batter minus the cream cheese filling for the fig muffins*.

 

No access

Who's complaining about having no access when you have this?

Food from the area in the coming posts. This is literally just what has been falling into our arms...

More soon!

Fig & cream cheese bars

While people all over the US are in a baking, cooking, organizing frenzy for Thanksgiving, here Christmas is on its way. This morning, as I was riding my bike through Piazza Duomo, I was pleasantly surprised to see they had lit up the big Christmas tree to test the lights. It is still pitch black at 7am and the effect of the illuminated white marble Duomo and golden Madonnina statue on its highest spire and the hundreds of lights on the majestic tree in front of it were enough to make me momentarily catch my breath and feel that first tingle of excitement that accompanies me throughout December. Despite the torrential rain and floods pretty much all over the country on the week end, I noticed people had been at work putting up Christmas lights to decorate the streets. They were still off, but they were hanging in their more sober attire in the shadows, patiently waiting to turn into Cinderella at the ball.

As is traditional in Italy, the stores and supermarkets have started putting copious amounts of frutta secca, dried fruit, on display. Frutta secca not only includes fruit, preponderantly dates and figs in all versions (stuffed with nuts, covered in chocolate, plain); it also comprises all the members of the nut family (walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, peanuts, cashews etc.). I couldn't help buying a few bags of dates and figs recently and wanted to bake with them, something I hadn't done yet.

This dessert can be made for your Thanksgiving feast or you can file away the recipe for your Christmas holidays.

It is reminiscent of fig newtons, but the cream cheese topping adds a whole new dimension. The bars got better and better with the passing of time, so I actually suggest making them a day or two ahead, perfect when you are hosting a large gathering and want to prepare early. I also personally think you can skip adding sugar to the fig filling, as it is sweet enough from the rich honey flavor of the dried fruits, and you can also play around with it, soaking the figs in alcohol for a more grown up version or in juice if you want to add an interesting note.

Pork, pork and more pork: fennel rubbed-pork tenderloin with fig sauce & pork chops a la Vera

Today I am posting what I had originally planned to post about yesterday, before being sidetracked by chocolate and butter and the way those brownies just melt in your mouth...I wish I had just one teeny one left to nibble on right now...oops, there I go again...sorry.

Rewind. 

Today's post is about meat, more precisely pork tenderloin.

Rewind again.

Remember the Sunday family lunch I wrote about the other day? Well, I knew exactly what I didn't want to make as a main course: no roasts, too obvious (mother-in-law territory). No chicken, made that last time my mother-in-law stayed with us. No foreign recipes (for those of you who didn't read that post, it is not that we don't like foreign food. I just always end up making it for F's family in the effort to prepare something different). No fish (we all just spent a lovely vacation on the island of Elba and had tons of fish). It had to be tasty, simple, yet not obvious. It needed a special touch. Wait... September = figs. Figs = prosciutto. Prosciutto = pork! That's it!