Quick recipes : Cupboard brunch muffins

When we are out working around the house, or running off to work early in the morning it's super useful to have a quick microwaveable snack that you can grab out of the freezer, and eat within 3 minutes. I'm really not a fan of fast food on the whole - so I try to find my own alternatives.  Muffins are super easy to make,  delicious freshly baked, and also freeze quite well!

I'm a big fan of the cupboard muffin - which has a little bit of everything and anything in it, and is perfect for using up little odds and ends in the fridge. Here's a basic recipe you can experiment from yourself :

2 cups of flour

1 cup of milk

1 beaten egg

salt & pepper

2.5 tsp baking powder

.5 cup of grated cheese (a fullfat hard cheese like a Beemster or a cheddar)  

8 slices of bacon, chopped up or equivalent amount of bacon bits.

1 cup mixed vegetables : leeks, broccoli, peppers, carrots

Cook the bacon and place off to the side to cool. Use the lovely bacon flavoured oil to gently fry and soften your mixed vegetables. Mix the egg & milk; mix the flour, salt & pepper & backing powder; then combine the liquids with the flour mix and stir. Add in all the remaining ingredients - I aim for a rich coating of the muffin mix over the contents. Pour into individual muffin tray, ( you can sprinkle a little extra grated cheese on top if you want) and put into a preheated oven at 375 degrees. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until a spike inserted in the muffin comes out clean.

Once the muffins are cool, you can bag them up in a ziplock bag and freeze for later use - if you can resist the yummy smells!

Spiced poached pears

We are at the end of the pear season, but a number of the farmhouses near by still have cooking pears for sale on their honesty stands. I can't resist a bargain ( apparently a very dutch trait!) and I snagged a bag full of pears on a recent trip out.I have to admit I thought they were eaters and had a bit of a shock when I took a big bite out of the first one! Nonetheless, when life gives you cookers - let's make delicious desserts!

I decided to try my hand at making poached pears with a spicy christmas twist to them - and promptly ran into the challenge of needing red wine for all the recipes. I don't tend to drink much wine, so I don't often have a spare opened bottle kicking around so I improvised.

Koggenland Poached Pears 

6-8 large cooking pears
4 heaped spoonfuls of white sugar
4 heaped spoonfuls of dark moscovado sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
6 cloves
1 inch knob of fresh ginger
1 spoonful of 'appelstroop'  - apple molasses ( use apple spread jam or molasses instead)

Peel, quarter and core the pears. Rinse quickly and then put into a pan on a gentle heat. Cover the pears with water, add the sugars, spices and 'appelstroop' and stir gently. Simmer very slowly for about 30-45 minutes, or until the pears are soft & gently colored.

I keep my pears in clip jars - if you plan to keep them for a long time you need to sterilize the jars by placing in boiling water in a saucepan for about 5 minutes. As they don't last too long around our house, I just pour in hot, cool with the lid clipped down to form a seal, and keep in the fridge. They are lovely warmed through and served with yoghurt or cream. W loves them for breakfast as topping for his porridge. Or you can serve them as a side dish with pork based main courses. However you eat your pears - I  hope you enjoy them and they bring back a whisper of summer!

Dutch pea soup - Rae's way.

Winter's here, and the temperature is dropping. We've had frost on the cars, and the constant rain and storms is a dead giveaway that we are well into the cold season. I love the comfort of a large bowl of steaming thick soup and the Dutch have their own national speciality that fits the bill perfectly. It's called 'snert' or 'erwtensoep' and is a thick pea soup that is absolutely perfect for winter weather. It also freezes very easily and is great for microwaving for lunch at the office - something that is incredibly useful for me, since I find I'm usually starving 5 minutes after the usual Dutch cheese sandwich.

So let's kick on to Rae's Dutch pea soup :

2 large onions, chopped coarsely
1 large leek
1 celeriac
3 potatoes
2 carrots
2 celery sticks
2 rosemary sprigs
1 smoked sausage
200g of bacon bits
2 fatty pork shoulder steaks, bone in ( or more if you want a more meaty soup)
500g of dried peas or split peas.
salt & pepper to taste


The traditional smoked sausage used in the Netherlands is 'Gelderse Rookwust' from the province of Gelderland. It's tied in a loop and is very smooth in texture. If you can't find a good quality smoked sausage you could replace it with frankenfurters or something similar.


It makes life so much easier in the kitchen if you do the majority of the preparation before you start cooking - at least enough that you have a sense of 'flow' rather than a start stop feeling. I start with the preparation of the vegetables : all peeled & coarsely chopped in chunks. The celeriac is a really important vegetable in this soup - it brings a depth of flavour that would be otherwise lacking  Then the meat needs to be diced and the onions chopped into chunks . Keep the bone pieces, they add flavour and can be picked out at the end.


I soften the onions in olive oil until they start to look a touch translucent, then in goes the chopped pork steaks and the bacon bits. Hold on to the sausage, don't add that just yet. Once you've tumbled the meat once or twice in the hot oil and onion mixture, add the peas,and bring it to the boil for a couple of minutes. Skim the top, then add the chopped vegetables and water to cover. I add 2 rosemary sprigs at this time to give just that extra little flavour. You can also add a stock cube if you are concerned that the flavour isn't rich enough. Bring it to the boil and turn it down to a beautiful slow simmer for about 1.5 - 2 hours until the vegetable and peas are melting into a beautiful soft mush. Check at half time and season to taste with the salt and pepper.

When the soup gets close to mushy and thick, keep a close eye on it - this is the time it's most likely to 'catch' and burn on the base of the pan. Add the sliced smoked sausage in the last half hour and stir in gently. Serve it with fresh bread chunks slathered with butter.

I always make far far too much ( these quantities will serve a large family, and have leftovers) and then I cool it in freezer boxes for taking to work or for a quick easy dinner.

Eet smakelijk! as the Dutch would say. Bon Appetit!

Crumble 'n' cream

This summer has been all about trying to reduce some of the rampant weeds that have taken over the house garden. We've been digging and weeding and cutting and trimming .....and cussing politely lots as we suck prickled fingers or chew on stung forearms.

I took a call pretty early that we wouldn't clear the brambles near the main shed - I could see we had quite enough to do with the rest of the property. This was a source of wild food as soon as autumn came around - our first crop of  own fruit in North Holland.

Blackberries are quite pippy, but they have beautiful rich flavours that are just divine baked in a crumble served with a nice dollop of cream. In fact, a fruit crumble is my go-to recipe for resolving any fruit glut, when the freeze just can't take anymore.

Crumbles come in two parts : the topping and the filling.

Let's start with the topping - the classic 'mix' calls for 1 part flour to 1 part fat and 1 part  sugar by weight. The drier and 'crumbier' you want your topping to be, the more fat/sugar you should add until it is almost equal parts in weight. If you love the crispy biscuity topping style  but want to keep the calories down, increase the fat, and not as much of the sugar.  I personally try and always use butter for the fat, unless I have friends over who can't take milk/lactose products - I find that margarine and other such products produce much less crispy results.

You can also mix the plain flour with other ingredients to give it texture and flavour - replace some with a replacement amount of almond meal or oats to give a nuttier or crunchy top. A touch of cinnamon or ginger in the topping to match with a flavoured filling gives a little zing.

For the fillings you can use combinations of most berries and orchard fruits - household favourites are apple, plum, blackberry, and rhubarb. Spread into the base of the baking tin, sprinkle with sugar or sweetener of choice ( honey, agave syrup, maple syrup) and spice up as desired ( cinnamon, ginger, cloves). Here in the Netherlands, I use speculaas spice - a lovely premixed winter cookie flavouring.   I rarely pre-cook the fruit unless they are particularly hard or particularly acid  as my circle like quite sharp, solid fillings - rhubarb and hard cooking apples are the only two that get a quick zap in a pan with water and sugar beforehand.

When you fill the baking dish with your filling, be aware that the softer the fruit you use in the filling, the more crumble topping you will need as the base of the crumble (crumble DMZ!) will absorb liquids and become a sweet flavoured doughy textured mass. So make sure you make lots of topping - and don't worry if you have too much as you can easily freeze it and use it straight out of the freezer later on.

Pop into a pre-heated oven at 180C/350F and cook for 30 minutes or until bubbling and crispy. If you have little volcanic explosions through the crumble, you either cooked it too long or your crumb was spread unevenly and too thinly. Never mind, they taste divine anyway!

Lastly devour with cream, or custard or evaporated milk. Be careful if it's just come out the oven - the sugar stays hot quite a while!

Montreal

As it's been cold rainy and grey, I've decided to take a quick look back at somewhere much sunnier (then) !

Just before I got the keys to the new place, work kindly sent me to Montreal, Canada  for conference. This is always a busy time, but I decided to stay on for a long weekend and meet up with family and friends in the area.It's been a long time since I've been to Canada - the best part of 15 years  and a lot has changed. Montreal's economy has clearly struggled in the interim and this lack of cashflow has definitely left it's mark on areas of the city.

As I was in the centre of the city, I couldn't resist a visit to Notre Dame Basilica in Place D'Armes Square. It is Gothic, colorful and unmissable as you walk in through the front doors. This amazing photograph by Adrian Hu gives you a sense of how you drown in color and light as you walk down towards the ornate altar at the nave of the church

At the rear of the building there is the Sacre-Coeur Chapel which is like stepping out of a kaleidescope and into an autumnal frieze. It was destroyed by arson in December 1978 and has been completely rebuilt in a modern style. I adored this winding staircase that just meandered up into heaven.

It was also the Montreal beer festival that weekend -I really couldn't pass up on the opportunity to test out some local food and drink in a sunny cheerful environment full of happy people.Firilst up was a beavertail or 'queue de castor'. its a lovely gooey doughey deep fried pastry - a lot like a doughnut - covered with a choice of sweet toppings. I tried the apple & cinnamon; as well as the chocolate and maple syrup - both divinely calorie laden treats. 

I had the chance to sample a few of the local brew - this one was light and refreshing - perfect for a sunny summers day.

 To deal with the post beer munchies I sampled 'Poutine' - a French-Canadian fast food favourite of french fries and cheese curds topped with a rich gravy. It's filling, tasty, filled with salt and really quite addictive. The curds are 'squeaky'- not made in the traditional way by weighting and pressing to release whey but by cooking and allowing to mature to develop their unique flavour and texture. 

 It is quite a heavy dish for summertime, but the queues speak to the enthusiasm the Quebecoise have for their national dish - even in the middle of the afternoon the Poutine vans had long trailing queues that stretched across the grounds with people waiting for their chosen dish & toppings. 

Lastly I'd love to introduce you to a new friend of mine - 'coons run wild in Montreal, a lot like the urban fox in London. This chap had no fear at all, running around and through the tourist to dig through bins and explore for tasty titbits for dinner.

Montreal is beautiful - and a wonderful place to visit - don't forget to say hi to Charlie, here!

Dutch babies

I'm not turning maternal on you, I promise - but I do like making Dutch babies! They are really a misnomer, as the name is derived from the American Pennsylvania Dutch or 'Deutsch' as they should really be - it's a German 'pfannkuchen' recipe that has had some tender loving care in America. It's perfect for breakfast or brunch - and feeds an army of hungry workers in the middle of the day with little preparation & effort. 

In England, we've long had a passion for Toad-in-the-hole and Yorkshire puddings as evening meals or accompaniment with Sunday roast dinners. This is another dish in the same vein - a rich pancake batter which is oven baked in very hot fat at a high heat to puff up into lovely fluffy clouds of crispy deliciousness. The big difference to a Yorkshire pudding - where you add all the toppings in afterwards (onion gravy, sausages) - is the inclusion of the flavour ingredients as part of the batter in the cooking. I take quite an experimental approach to it and add what I have in the fridge but for the less enthusiastic here's some tips : 

Savoury babies :

• cubes of feta or halloumi
• bacon or pancetta strips
• pepperoni slices

Sweet babies :

• apple slices
• cherry pieces
• sugar & lemon

To make the basic Dutch Baby you want :

1/3 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of milk

2 beaten eggs

salt & pepper to taste ( nutmeg or cinnamon if sweet) 

Mix all the above ingredients into a smooth batter. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees , and prepare a metal tin with small cubes of butter or other fat, sufficient to create a thin layer of oil in the base. Heat the tin in the oven until the fat is lovely & smoking hot. Bring out, and fill with the batter and additional ingredients.  Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the pancake is puffy, goldenbrown and set through. Don't open the oven whilst it's cooking because it will collapse and you will lose all the lovely airspaces that form the crispy edges. 

If you are feeling experimental you can go as far as mix'n'matching in the same time so you have both main and dessert in the oven at the same time  - as in the picture below. You have to be very quick with laying out the ingredients, as you can't mix them into the batter beforehand and you want to make sure the oil/fat layer doesn't lose all it's heat whilst you put the contents in. 

Happy Baby making  & Baby eating. My, that sounds so wrong - and yet so right!

Post Xmas snuffles & childhood foods

This Xmas break was kinda topsy turvey : with the new job starting on the 17th of December, I didn't get a lot of time to make winter plans - so I spent Xmas with the folks in Cambridge and watched Mum stuffing under the skin of the turkey with lemon butter . It made for a beautifully moist turkey, so that has been noted in my list of 'things to do to turkey"......

Back to Feijenoord on Boxing Day, and straight into one of the worst colds I've had in a long time...managed to keep the worst at bay for a few days, but by New Year's Eve, curling up on the sofa was as good as I could manage, and since then, getting out of bed just hasn't happened. An emergency doctors visit later, I now shake, rattle and roll with pills to keep the fever down, suppress the cough, and clear my lungs so I can breathe again. Hopefully this mass of medication will get me back on my feet in time for work on Monday. That said, there hasn't been much to blog about, since mostly I've been sleeping or coughing or spluttering.

Food wise, my appetite has completely gone and I've had to force myself to eat at all. As nothing has any flavour, it's been like chewing sharp craps of cardboard - so I retreated to a childhood food which is easy to swallow and at least is so fiery in flavour something breaks through the taste barrier...Gari & chilli sauce. Gari is ground up cassava which when reconstituted makes a slightly sour, slippery purée , which I dipped in a hot Surinaam chilli sauce. It's easy to swallow on a sore and swollen throat, and the chilli makes for a good holistic medicine.

Here's to getting back on my feet sometime soon.

Pickle days

I love moroccan cooking and one of the primary flavours for me is the use of  salt-pickled lemons. Whilst they are source-able (at a ridiculously high price) in the UK ( Waitrose, Tescos, Sainsburys) , here in Holland they just don't seem to exist - even in Feijenoord, which is the moroccan ghetto of Rotterdam.

So........pickling time :

• Organic unwaxed lemons
• Salt
• Water
• A pickling jar

Chop up lemons into big pieces, insert in jar, top with LOTS of salt ( sufficient that it forms a layer on the base of the jar, even after the water is added and shaken up), fill with water and place in a conspicuous place to remind you to shake it up each day.....

A few weeks down the line, I look forwards to lots of lovely nom nom nom!

Cookie cravings

I haz cookie cravings. Lots of cookie cravings - and as there is no such thing as 24/7 supermarkets here, I just had to satisfy them myself.

Whilst I swiped the base recipe from an online site, I had to make some variations on ingredients - given the limited resources in my larder.  So :

200g butter
90g dark brown sugar
90g granulated sugar
1 egg
225g self raising flour
175g mix of chocolate chunks, cranberries and pecans

Cream the sugar butter and egg together, mix in the flour and remaining ingredients, and spoon the mix onto a well greased baking sheet in large blobs. Heat oven to 190 degrees and cook for 12-15 minutes. They will be very gooey when they come out but harden up as they cool. If you don't thoroughly cream the butter/sugar/egg mix, you get a crunchy texture to the biscuit from the sugar crystals.......

Remove from oven, acquire a glass of chocolate port, and enjoy.

My Keralan chicken curry

Yesterday, I had a great success improvising a Keralan-style chicken curry  from my store cupboard.  If you like mild curries, I recommend you have a go!

Ingredients :

1 thumb sized fresh ginger piece
4 cloves of garlic
6 green cardamoms
1 stick of cinnamon
10 methi grains (fenugreek)
7 curry leaves
1 tsp tumeric
1sp garam masala
1 pinch cumin seeds
4 tomatos, diced
2 chicken breasts
1 onion, diced
1/2 tin of coconut milk
salt to taste


Heat some oil in a pan, add cardamoms, cinnamon, cinnamon, and methi ( fenugreek) to the oil and cook for a couple of minutes to flavour the oil. Add onion, cook till softened. Grind or crush ginger and garlic to a paste, add to oil, cook for a couple more minutes - don't 'burn' the garlic so keep it on a low heat. Add chicken and all the remaining ingredients and simmer gently until chicken is cooked and flavours are developed. Add salt to taste.

Voila! Ultra simple and very quick to make, served with a flavoured cardamom rice with toasted cashew nuts.

Supermarket sweep..............

I've always considered myself to have a very diverse repertoire of cooking, but now I'm faced with a really bizarre dichotomy. Dutch supermarkets have an awesome selection of Indonesian/Surinaam ingredients - 2/3rds of which I have no idea at all what to do with - and an amazing dearth of some of the most basic ingredients in the world, like bicarbonate of soda, strong flour, golden and maple syrup.

As a result, I'm having to learn a whole new genre of recipes (awesome!) and innovate madly to replace some of the basics of baking and dessert making (scary!). Watch this space............

Autumn Soup days - Pumpkin/Coconut soup

With autumn closing in and the days getting increasingly dark and damp, I'm getting real cravings for warm hot soups. I was going to have left over chilli last night, but just couldn't resist jumping up in the 3 minutes between two activities and throwing together some soup.

Amounts are approximate but it's hard to go wrong as long as you taste as you go :

1/2 a small squash/pumpkin
1 large sweet potato
Stock ( vegetable or chicken, your choice, I used chicken)
1 medium sized knob of fresh ginger
1 small carton ( about half a tin) of coconut milk
2 limes, juiced
salt/pepper to taste
1 chili ( optional)
lots of chopped coriander

Peel and chunk the pumpkin, sweet potato and ginger (chili if desired). Pop in pan with stock and salt/pepper, and simmer til tender. Blend til smooth, add coconut milk, coriander, and lime juice and heat til warm again. Voila - delicious served with a lovely fresh hunk of bread.

Luxembourg & kniddelen

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was the next substantial stop on the north bound run - Janine and I spent a day on the motorway, running between Chamonix and there, and although we enjoyed the countryside views, there just isn't that much you can say about the junk food that is the lot of the long distance driver.  It is an amazingly verdant area - there are very few towns or villages visible in the southern side so you approach through fields and countrysides. Luxembourg itself is a deceptive mix of old and modern, until you get near to the centre, and get a sudden glimpse of the river gorge that runs right through the centre of it. 

The heart of the old town is based around 'Lucinburhulic' the original fortress, started in 963. Over time  it was grown and morphed, eventually ending up as a Napoleonic style fortification built on and through the cliff face, albeit mostly dismantled as a result of the Treaty of London in 1867. The internal 'casements' are however still there, and have been pressed into service in numerous ways since then. In WWII the population of Luxembourg sheltered in them from the bombings, and the remains of the 'sand loos' are still visible, complete with reminder to take your sand with you into the loo. The stench of humanity in such a confined space must have been pretty unpleasant. Other parts of the casement have been made into telephony and electrical hub rooms, and still others are the gold vaults of the national bank of Luxembourg - sadly we were not allowed to tour that part of the casements! Some of the original guns have survived, and one is still standing guard in solitary splendour, whilst the others have been removed to the central museum for preservation, away from the damp mizzle that lines the tunnels.

Luxembourg is also home to the largest stone bridge in Europe - it's quite imposing, reaching as it is across the breadth of the valley. Our guide blithely informed us that as a part of the plans to modernise the city, the bridge is soon to be completely dismantled, strengthened, and since they've got it down and in pieces, widened, and replaced back up 'exactly' as it was before.

In the heart of the city, you find the Cathedral - an interesting architectural experience for a religious building of such prominence, as it is predominantly 1920s and 1930s built. There is also, for some unknown reason, just outside the Duke's palace, a large herd of blue plastic sheep. A somewhat sheepish attendant tried really hard to persuade me that it was bringing world  peace, goodwill and an end to hunger.............it just reminded me why I have little patience with a lot of modern art.

Lunch was an exploration of Luxembourg cuisine - I decided to go for Kniddelen with bacon and cream. Kniddelen are essentially dumplings, and whilst it was a very flavoursome dish and I'd recommend it for a winters day, it sat rather heavily during the rest of our trogging around town!

Val d'Aosta, Mont Blanc & Chamonix

Leaving Bologna, Janine and I headed north up though the Val d'Aosta and into France through the Mont Blanc tunnel. I have to admit to having felt some trepidation at the idea of the 'van going over the Alpes - I wasn't a 100% sure the engine was going to cope, after the fairly hairy journey through the Sierra Nevada in Spain. However,  the road through the Val d'Aosta is cunningly designed to trick you into believing that you are travelling on the perfect flat - and although the satnav showed the height above sea level gradually rising, for the most part you hardly noticed the fact you were going up and up.

Aosta itself is a pretty little Roman town, complete with triumphant arches, amphitheathre and other roman remains. In the summer it's fairly quiet, and seems to focus on the sale of 'porcini' or  Boletus Edulis/Penny Buns for the majority of it's income. It's a different story in winter of course when it becomes a major ski resort and the town nestles in a blanket of white. For us, we had the interesting experience of wandering though the streets in bright sunshine, and 34 degrees heat, whilst surrounded by snow capped mountains. Since we seemed to have stepped into a bizarre world, we decided to add to round it off, by enjoying Virgin Mojitos, and an apple flavoured sheesha, before heading off towards France.

It has been a long time since I've been through the Mont Blanc tunnel, and one of the legacies of the 1999 fire is the severe hike in price to get though. There are substantial safety improvements, with clear delineated driving distances, and escape areas - a good thing to see that the money is being spent on the tunnel management since it cost over £50 to take the van through one way. Once on the French side of Mont Blanc, we stopped to stretch our legs, but also to replan our route - we decided to drop Switzerland from the agenda and stop overnight in Chamonix instead.

 Chamonix in summer is full of fit young things in hiking and mountaineering clothing, striding energetically around. The deep verdant green is a real contrast to the white of the surrounding hills and glaciers, but the river is still the green white of glacial run-off - freezing cold and not suitable for a quick dip! We had dinner in one of my favourite restaurants, and as always, I heartily recommend trying the local cheese dishes - tartiflette is filling and simple, raclette is awesome and calorific!

Tarquinia - Etruscans, Necropoli, and flagellation

After an early morning wake-up we finished the run down through the Apennines, Tuscany and into Lazio, arriving near Tarquinia at lunchtime. We decided to have 'lunch on the run' opting for take-away pizza slices and cold drinks. For those of you who know me, I'm not a huge fan of pizza, but this was awesome - two 'pizza biancas' (i.e. without tomato) - one with potato slices, cheese and rosemary , the other with garlic, salt and herbs. The entire lunch including large multi-flavoured icecreams came to less than five pounds per head!

By this time, we were starting to wilt in the heat, so what better to do that to visit some underground tombs? They will be cool, wont they? The Etruscan necropolises around Tarquinia are made up of  some 6,000 tombs, 200 of which include wall paintings. The main site is the Necropolis of Monterozzi, with a large number of tumulus tombs with chambers carved in the rock. The scenes painted include erotical and magic depictions, landscapes, dances and music - life and death in the Etruscan world. Because of the fragility of the paintings, maintenance of their unique microclimate is vital, and not all the tombs are open to visit - they rotate on a secret and unknown schedule, so what you see is what's around on the day.

In addition, when you finish stumbling down towards the tombs themselves you realise that they are closed off behind a thick double glazed iron door, with a push button light up system to allow peering visitors to see inside. The fact that this is both vital and sensible is brought home to you rapidly as you suddenly discover that far from being cool, it's hot, muggy and incredibly humid down at the end of the tunnel, there are drops of water forming on the moss around you, and any dry item of clothing you thought you were wearing can now be wrung out to water a small garden with.

A number of the paintings depict gods and demons of the Etruscan world, such as this colorful pair of Charontes who are guarding the portal into the tomb; or Vanth, a butch looking female, seen here escorting a mother and child into the Netherworld.

Others are less concerned with what happens after death, and more so about how to enjoy the life you have - feasting, dancing and general merriment is very common as a depiction. Sadly, Tomba Della Fustigazione was closed, so I've had to borrow a picture from wikipedia to demonstrate some of the more earthly pleasures depicted!

 Tarquinia itself is a walled city some distance from the sea with the normal maze of small cobbled streets, limited motor traffic and many many churches. As with every good Italian city, whilst on route to your next destination, you can fortify yourself with a quick cake shop visit.

The museum is housed in an old papal palace - the building itself is spectacular, although somewhat faded in it's grandeur. There is a superb collection of Etruscan sarcophagi, all with the image of the person reclining at a somewhat uncomfortable angle on top of it.
Grave goods from the Necropoli around also make up the vast majority of the displays, and there is a remarkable amount of greek pottery on display.

By this time it was heading on to 8pm, so we headed out to Lido di Tarquinia, and camped up at the beachside for the night. Word to the wise : Italian beachside campsites, particularly near Rome are not the most pleasant of areas to stop at. The site was incredibly crowded, with people squashed in cheek by jowl in huge numbers. Avoid!