Time to visit another country, time to pack up curiosity and enthusiasm to discover Sweden through Ilva’s word. Ilva, whose fantastic blog, Lucullian Delights, an Italian Experience, is one of my favourite ever, is an exceptional foodblogger and photographer, but her high professionalism always comes along with kindness, sensibility and friendship. So, let’s pass the word on Ilva!

I was really happy when our lovely Juls asked me to do a guest blog post here because in this way I could do what I usually do every summer but not this year – I could make a virtual journey to my country of origin, Sweden. Summer is the best season in Sweden, life is so much easier, the light is all over and all the time, well almost at least and the only thing is that you really don’t know if the weather will be with you or against you!

I rarely think about me being a Swede, living abroad have somehow made me much less nationalistic than I once was, not that I was that nationalistic but I felt more for Sweden. I am not one of those expats who celebrate their countries various national holidays and traditions, I do it when I am in Sweden but not here in Italy and to be honest I feel much better for it! Sounds bad? Not really, I really love being in Sweden and my children all want to live there one day which makes me happy though I think they might change their minds after spending a whole year there, including winter.

I hope my photos will give you a feeling of my Sweden, a place embraced by nature and with a relaxing calm, and that you will be able to go there one day!

I wanted to create something very Swedish for Juls and you and the most Swedish food I can think of is Lingonberries, a red berry that grows in the deep woods and that has this nice acid tang it. You usually make jam out of them but you use that not only for sweet things but serve them with meatballs and other savoury dishes as well. Here I made a cookie and to give a little Italian twist to them, I added pine nuts!

Lingonberry Cookies with Pine Nuts

• 150 g / 5 3/8 oz salted butter
• 100 g / 3 1/2 oz sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 3oo g / 10 5/8 plain flour
• lingonberry jam, you can find that at IKEA
• pine nuts

Stir butter and sugar creamy, don’t stir too much. Add the egg yolk and mix it until creamy.
Add flour and work the dough until it’s smooth.
Roll it out with a rolling pin and cut out the forms you want, I’m getting old, romantic and soppy so I obviously made hearts. Put them on a baking sheet.
Put a small spoonful of lingonberry jam in the middle of each cookie.
Sprinkle the cookies with pine nuts and bake in a pre-heated oven at 175°C/350°F for 8-10 minutes.

Thank you Ilva for this delicious recipe! Now I leave you with a few amazing pictures that, I’m sure, will make you grab your passport and run to the nearest airport to reach Sweden!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp #6: Sweden, Ilva {Lucullian Delights}

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”
2. Summer RoundUp #4: Portugal, Viz from “Desperate HouseViz”
3. Summer RoundUp #1: Cape Cod, Massachusetts – Jen from “My Kitchen Addiction”

I told you this summer would have been bubbling with events and ideas, so you should be prepared! Along with my Summer RoundUp, a real fun by now, a way to travel together with fellow foodies, here another intiative, the 3rd Summer Fest, a cross-blog food event celebrating peak harvest season.

How does it work? Each Wednesday for the rest of the summer and probably longer, a group of blogging friends will swap recipes and tips about the following harvest-fresh ingredients:

• 28 July: cukesNzukes
• 4 August: corn
• 11 August: herbs, greens, and beans
• 18 August: stone fruit
• 25 August: tomatoes
• more to come if we all want it!

A list of all attendees will be compiled every week, so you’ll be able to travel around and enjoy all gorgeous recipes.

Why do I partecipate? Harvest-fresh ingredients, and I’ve said everything. Name a fresh ingredient, any freshly harvested  ingredient, and you’ll feel summer sun warming your skin, a firm and earth scented fruit in your hands, cicadas singing in the backgrounds… root your feet into Mother Earth and feel the power of buzzing Nature, that’s summer, and we have to celebrate her products!

As first recipe, I decided to use freshly harvested zucchini, coming directly from our vegetable garden. The idea was to create a light tart, made with quinoa flour, completely gluten free, with raw baby zucchini, so tender when just picked up, and a dressing made with sun dried tomatoes to enhance tastiness.

Ingredients to make the tart:

• quinoa flour, 180 gr
• extra virgin olive oil, 100 ml
• egg, 1
• cold water, 5 tablespoons
• dried oregano, 1 teaspoon
• salt, a pinch

Ingredients to fill the tart:

• soft cheese, 220 gr
• baby zucchini, 2

Ingredients to make the dressing:

• sun dried tomatoes, a dozen
• pine nuts, 50 gr
• dried oregano, 1 tablespoon
• garlic, 1 clove
• parsley

In a bowl, add quinoa flour, extra virgin olive oil, salt, dried oregano and egg. Whisk together until crumbly. Pour the mixture into a greased mould (10 cm x 30 cm) and press with your hands on the bottom and sides of the moulds. Freeze for 1 hour or so.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Bake quinoa tart for 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Now, let’s make the dressing. Chop sun dried tomatoes roughly and mix them in a bowl with enough extra virgin olive oil to cover them. Add pine nuts, one clove of garlic and parsley. Let it marinade for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, whip soft cheese with a few tablespoons of marinade from sun dried tomatoes bowl and a tablespoon of oregano. Slice baby zucchini thinly.

Assembly. Spread cheese mixture over quinoa tart. Line with thinly sliced zucchini and sprinkle with sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts dressing. Let it rest for 30 minutes to enhance flavours and serve.

Verdict: fresh & natural. Quinoa shell is crunchy and nutty, a perfect complement to fresh raw baby zucchini. Sun dried tomatoes give taste and character to the tart, withouth adding any salt. It’s a simphony of ingredients, well balanced between green and grassy zucchini, nutty quinoa flour and pine nuts and strong and mediterranean sun dried tomatoes, all tied up by soft cheese.

Now, grap your fork and visit all the partecipants to enjoy the best of summer (Thanks Margaret for the list)!

• Margaret Roach – A way to the garden
• Cooking Channel TV  zucchini’s versatility
• The Food2 blog – zucchini appetizers
• Food Network Dish – Paula Deen’s zucchini bread
• Food Network’s HealthyEats – cuke salad and lighter cuke/zuke ideas
• Diane and Todd of White on Rice Couple – stuffed cucumbers with prosciutto and feta
• Cate at Sweetnicks – cucumber wraps
• Paige Smith Orloff at The Sister Project zucchini excess
• Kelly Senyei of Just a Taste – cucumber and sesame salad
• Gilded Fork -  zukes and cukes, and Chef Mark Tafoya – cucumber mint soup
• Caroline at The Wright Recipes – cucumber salad and marinated summer squash salad
• In San Diego, Caron – cucumber and radish confetti soup
• Tigress in a Jam – 50 Ways With Cucurbits
• Eating From the Ground Up -  cucumber mint sorbet
• Judy at Divina Cucina – Cukes and Zukes
• Expecting great, late-breaking news from Nicole at PinchMySalt and Tara at Tea and Cookies and Shauna at Gluten Free Girl and Alice Q  Foodie.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer fest: Quinoa tart with baby zucchini & sun dried tomatoes dressing

You should be interested also in:

1. Ricotta and eggplant tart with slow roasted cherry tomatoes
2. Lost Quinoa
3. Summer RoundUp #2: Mowielicious and a summer salad

Today is my birthday. I’m getting older, I’m 29 today, but I’m not scared at all. I love birthdays, the 27th of July is one of my favourite days throughout the year, along with Christmas and the first Monday of holidays! I love those 5 minutes when you stretch yourself under the blankets, savouring each and every single moment, the upcoming hours filled with birthday wishes, smiles, fun notes and people giving you love and affection. It’s not a matter of birthday gifts, I swear, it’s a matter of possibilities. It’s your birthday, c’mon, you can do what you want, something beautiful will come your way (as Robbie Williams keeps singing, God bless him!).

So today it’s my personal glorious day: it’s a day to celebrate, 29 years of a beautiful and interesting life spent walking on a sunny country road together with a great family, loving friends and burning passions. Nobody will be able to spoil my day, my smile will be wider than ever today!

There couldn’t be a better recipe than this to celebrate my birthday with my foodie friends, this month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge happens on the perfect day! The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home. I followed the recipe step by step as regards Swiss roll and hot fudge. When I came to ice cream, I decided to give a twist of colour and citrus feeling, using matcha and lime instead of vanilla and chocolate.

The Swiss rolls

Ingredients:

• 6 medium sized eggs
• 225 gr caster sugar + extra for rolling
• 45 gr of all purpose (plain) flour + 40 gr of natural unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted together
• 30 ml of boiling water
• a little oil for brushing the pans

For the filling:

• 500 ml of whipping cream
• 1 vanilla pod, cut into small pieces of about ½ cm (or 1 tsp vanilla extract) (I used scraped seeds of vanilla pod)
  
• 70gms of caster sugar

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven at 200 deg C approximately. Brush the baking pans (11 inches by 9 inches) with a little oil and line with greaseproof baking paper. If you have just one pan, bake one cake and then let the pan cool completely before using it for the next cake.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.
3. Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.
4. Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans.
5. Place a pan in the centre of the pre heated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the centre is springy to the touch.
6. Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down.
7. Repeat the same for the next cake as well.
8. Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processer till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream.
9. In a large bowl, add the cream and vanilla-sugar mixture and beat till very thick.
10. Divide the cream mixture between the completely cooled cakes.
11. Open the rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of ½ an inch should be fine).
12. Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.

The matcha ice cream

Ingredients:

• 500 ml of whipping cream
• 100 gr of granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon of Matcha tea
  

Method

1. Grind together the sugar and matcha tea in a food processor.
2. In a saucepan, add all the ingredients and whisk lightly.
3. Place the pan over heat and keep stirring till it begins to bubble around the edges.
4. Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a freezer friendly container till firm around the edges. If you are using an ice cream maker, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instruction, after the mixture has cooled completely.
5. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

The Hot fudge sauce

Ingredients:

• 230 gr of caster sugar
• 24 gr of natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 15 gr of cornflour/cornstarch
• 355 ml of water
• 14 gr of butter
• 5 ml of vanilla extract

Method:

1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornflour and water.
2. Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
3. Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool.

The lime ice cream

Ingredients:

• 500 ml whipping cream
• 100 gr caster sugar
• juice of 1 lime
  

Method:

1. In a saucepan, add sugar and lime juice and let them melt completelty. Add cream.
2. Place the pan again over heat and keep stirring till it begins to bubble around the edges.
3. Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a freezer friendly container till firm around the edges. If you are using an ice cream maker, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instruction, after the mixture has cooled completely.
4. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

Assembly

1. Cut the Swiss rolls into 20 equal slices ( approximately 2 cms each).
2. Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap.
3. Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).
4. Soften the lime ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm (at least 1 hour).
5. Add the fudge sauce over the lime ice cream, cover and freeze till firm (at least an hour).
6. Soften the matcha ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set.
7. Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.
8. Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.

Verdict: lovely and scenographic composition, gorgeous and fresh dessert. If you use high quality ingredients, you won’t be disappointed. My family really loved the dessert, deciding to put it on the top of my 10 best desserts ever list along with chocolate and orange cupcakes and corn and limoncello cake. It’s a perfect dessert to finish a classy and posh dinner, a coup de théâtre which will contribute to define you as a super chef!

And now, since this post is not long enough, it’s time to dedicate a song to… ME! I love this one, I think it’s perfect for a birthday wish, so keep in mind that today I’ll be humming it in my mind all day long!

Well surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down

Well surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down

Well today is your birthday
We’ve traveled so far we two
So let’s blow out the candles on your cake
And we’ll raise a glass or two
And when the sun comes out tomorrow
It’ll be the start of a brand new day
And all that you have wished for I know will come your way

Well surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down

In the hollow of the evening, as you lay your head to rest
May the evening stars scatter a shining crown upon your breast
In the darkness of the morning, as the sky struggles to light
May the rising sun caress and bless your soul throughout your life

Well surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down

Well surprise, surprise, surprise
Yeah surprise, surprise, surprise
Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down (let your love shine down)
Let your love shine down (let your love shine down)
Let your love shine down

Surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes
And let your love shine down

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

DB Challenge & Bday wishes: Swiss swirl ice cream cake

You should be interested also in:

1. The Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Tiramisu
2. Chocolate, cream and mascarpone trifle
3. Jamie Oliver’s Two-nuts Chocolate Cake

Here the winners, voted by all the readers:

1. Reb {So Long and Thanks for all the Food} Salatomisu - Set DELUXE – Torte Tatin Emile Henry
2. Valentinute {Casca a fagiolo} Cheesecake alle ciliegie – Set Mini Tatin Emile Henry
3. Kia {Su per il mestolo} Sunny carrot smile – È l’ora dell’aperitivo!

Special prize for the best photography. Ilva from Lucullian Delights, sweet judge of this section, has chosen Giulia’s post, {Rossa di Sera} – Pane, la ricetta della mia felicità, winner of  Bicchieri a sorpresa, with her third photo, with this motivation:

The styling and the use of props is simple but essential for the transmission of what the photo is about, bread and the baking of it. The light has been used in a beautiful way, it accentuates the textures so that the onlooker can almost feel the crust of the bread. The composition is perfect.

Now, dear winners, please send me an email with your name and address, so that we can dispatch the prizes as soon as possible!

Thanks again and.. see you soon with another competition!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Recipes for Happiness: and the winner is…

You should be interested also in:

1. A new contest: Recipes for Happiness

Fresh, joyful, curious, eclectic, with a wonderful family and a deep love and knowledge of Japan and its culture and food, this is Rachel from La Fuji Mama. I’ve been reading Rachel’s blog for months now, entangled by her bright and gorgeous photos, her various recipes, ranging from Japanese to Mexican, from Southern American to French. Now, let’s follow Rachel to share her crazy and busy summer so far!

Rachel – Soba noodles

This summer has been crazy for our family. We have been all over the globe! In the past 2 months we’ve been to Cancun, New York City, Tokyo, Salt Lake City, and of course at home in Southern California.

Our summer days have been filled with sight-seeing, good food, time with friends and family, playing in the water, and trying to stay cool as all of the places we’ve been are very hot during the summer!

One of the things that I love about summer is all of the wonderful produce available here in Southern California. I recently made a cold soba noodle salad inspired by my recent trip to Tokyo, a recipe for hiyashi chuka in the cookbook Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh, and by some beautiful avocados and ruby red grapefruit grown here in Southern California that I bought at the market.

Chilled noodles are a popular summertime meal in Japan where it is hot and extremely humid. The chilled noodles make a perfect vehicle for fresh locally grown produce, are refreshing, and don’t require you to spend hours in a hot kitchen!

They make a fabulous summertime lunch for kids, as you can add their favorite ingredients to the noodles and have a healthy, filling, refreshing meal in no time! All you have to do is mix up a simple dressing, cook the soba noodles, and then toss them in a tiny bit of toasted sesame oil. Then you add your toppings and drizzle everything with the dressing and eat! The dressing can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator (up to one week) until you are ready to use it! The slightly nutty soba noodles are delicious with the rich and creamy avocado slices and juicy tangy grapefruit segments, making a delicious refreshing meal for a hot and sticky summer’s day.

::::: Chilled Soba, Avocado, & Grapefruit Salad :::::

Makes 4 servings

Dressing

• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 6 ounces dried soba noodles
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 avocado, cut into thin slices
• 1 grapefruit, cut into segments
• 4 teaspoons toasted white sesame seeds

1. Make the dressing: Prepare the dressing at least 2 hours in advance so that it will be chilled when served. Combine the vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the sugar has melted. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the soy sauce and sesame oil until well mixed. Transfer the dressing to a jar, close tightly, and shake. Refrigerate the dressing until the noodles are ready to be served.

2. Cook the soba noodles according to the directions on the package. Drain the noodles immediately and plunge them into ice water. Rinse the cooked noodles in a colander under cold running water, gently rubbing them between your hands to remove any excess starch and salt. Drain the noodles then toss them in the sesame oil. Divide the noodles among 4 plates.

3. Top each serving of noodles with avocado slices and grapefruit segments, and sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds. Serve with the dressing. To eat, pour the desired amount of dressing over the noodles and toss to mix.

Thank you Rachel for this delicious recipe: avocado is my summer 2010 favourite, can’t try to taste this soba dish as well!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #2: Mowielicious and a summer salad
2. Summer RoundUp #6: Sweden, Ilva {Lucullian Delights}
3. Summer RoundUp #3: Chicago and gardening, Diana from “Spain in Iowa”

Sunday. Sleepy, slow, lazy, hidden in the shadow of the closed window blinds to keep out the heat, walking barefoot to get the fresh sensation from the terracotta tiles,  a movie that goes in the background, a book, a fan… then it’s 6 o’clock  in the afternoon and we start dancing! Uncles are coming, each one with a story to tell or a joke to make, then aunts who comment on their recent lunches or on progresses made by their grandchildren, and later on children and grandchildren, especially cutie little Giada, the youngest, one year old yesterday, a concentration of cheerfulness and chubbiness, with a five teeth smile that makes you melt more than the midday sun!

During winter, there is always a tart, or a cake or a tray of muffins and a hot pot on the fire for them to enjoy on the couch in front of the fireplace, but now we need to change! Frozen desserts, ice cream, cheesecake and cool drinks to give a bit of relief and enhance the slight breeze that always blows at me around six o’clock in the afternoon. This year, along with iced tea and orange juice, there’s a new entry, aguas frescas, dad’s new passion, who considers this drink our non-alcoholic version of mojito!

I heard for the first time of aguas frescas from Zested, one of my lately favourite blogs for freshness and originality. Aguas frescas are a mixture of fruit, cereals, seeds, water and sugar mixed together and sieved to create a refreshing drink typical of Mexico and Central America. Who’s more expert than them in refreshing drinks? I then gave full credit to the proceedings and .. Well, judge you the results!

Ingredients for lime, mint and basil syrup:

• water, 500 ml
• sugar, 4 tablespoons (100 gr)
• mint, 2 sprigs
• basil 5 leaves
• lime, 1 juice and peel
  

Put in a saucepan sugar, mint, basil, lime juice and lime zest, cover with about 500 ml of water and then bring to the boil and let it boil until it is reduced by half (about 20 min on high heat). Let it cool completely and then strain it.

Ingredients to make aguas frescas:

• watermelon
• cold water (still or sparkling, as you prefer)
  
• lime, mint and basil syrup
  
• ice cubes to serve
  

Blend watermelon in a mixer and strain the puree to remove seeds. Combine in a jug watermelon juice, cold water to taste, syrup and ice cubes. Garnish with some mint leaves or lime slices and serve.

A few tips: if you have patience and want to remove manually all the seeds, you can avoid straining the watermelon puree, leaving more substance to drink. You can replace watermelon with any fruit you like, I tried it with peaches and it was just as good! I would suggest adding cucumber, or maybe a few ice cubes made with cucumber juice as I saw a few nights ago on tv.. genious! I think would be  fantastic and refreshing!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Watermelon aguas frescas with lime, mint & basil syrup

You should be interested also in:

1. Hay Hay it’s Donna Day: Pea and mint soup
2. Lemon syrup cupcakes, Michelangelo’s style

Yesterday morning I was enjoying, half asleep, the last memories of a beautiful dream still lingering in my mind, caressed by a light breeze coming in through the open window. Along with the sound of cicadas that, at 8 am, were already filling the air with their monotonous and hypnotic recall, the well-known smell of Mum’s roasted meet was coming in from the kitchen, accompanied by the equally well-known and comforting sound of her footsteps.

A second later, I was a child again, short tomboy hair and my comfy tracksuit already covered in stains and marking pen signs (clean in the morning, the evening was already ‘lived’) sitting on a kitchen stool, funny hairy slippers at my feet, one eye on TV, where there was definitely one of my favorite Disney movies, and one on the table where Mum was preparing the turkey to be roast.

After a while the sleep took over again, and when I woke up Mum was already at work, the roasted pork in the oven, but a note left in plain sight on the table informed me that that was for dinner. No roasted meat for lunch, so? Oh no, I felt like it! Luckily, there was turkey breast the fridge that, combined with some other ingredients, has turned into a colorful roasted turkey characterized by the touch of sage and the crunchiness of the almonds.

::::: ROASTED TURKEY WITH SAGE AND ALMONDS :::::

Ingredients:

• turkey breast, about 600 gr
  
• eggs, 2
• almonds, 100 gr
• sage leaves, circa 20
• milk or cream, 100 ml
• Tuscan ham, 4 – 5 not too thin slices
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• white wine, 250 ml
• extra virgin olive oil
  

Beat eggs with milk or cream, season with salt and pepper to taste and add finely chopped sage leaves. Pour in a pan with steaming extra virgin olive oil cook the omelette; put it aside.

Lightly toast the almonds in the oven or in a nonstick skillet. Once cold chop them coarsely.

Open turkey breast with a sharp knife, so as to have a slice of about 1.5 cm thickness. Sprinkle the turkey with almonds, cover them with ham slices, slightly overlapping, and then place over the omelette.

Wrap the turkey breast on itself, starting from the longest side, and tie up the roll with a kitchen string. Rub the meat with salt and pepper.

Heat a generous splash of extra virgin olive oil into a pan: I used a cast iron skillet. When the olive oil is hot, brown the turkey roll on each side, making sure to turn it with a silicone or wooden spatula, so as not to spill cooking liquids and not to harden the meat. When golden brown and crispy, pour in the white wine, cook uncovered for about 2 minutes and then continue cooking for about 20 minutes covering the pan with a lid.

Check often that the juices do not dry up completely: if so, add a little hot water and cover again. After 20 minutes, finish cooking the meat for another 5 minutes without the lid. Let it rest for a while before removing the string and slice the roll.

A few tips: do not season too much turkey and omelet. Tuscan ham inside will contribute to flavor the meat. Choose a salad as a side dish, perhaps with arugula and tomatoes, which will balance with freshness and delicate flavor the savoury meat. Turkey roll can be served both warm and hot, seasoned with a tablespoon of cooking juice.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Roasted turkey with sage and almonds

You should be interested also in:

1. Tuscany in a jar: salt with sage and rosemary
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: pot roasted rabbit
3. Less than 5 minutes: turkey salad

There is a rule, and every time there is an exception. Viz, blogger at Desperate HouseViz is the exception. This is because she is the only 100% Made in Italy between all bloggers of the Summer Roundup, and it is also because she is an exceptional girl, an Italian expat to Lisbon for love, cheerful, fun and a great supporter of Inter! She’s one of the first foodbloggers I get to know, with whom I  soon started to chit chat and laugh, I can call her a friend of long standing. Her blog is a hymn to life, curiosity and desire to experiment with cuisines from all around the world. This is Viz, now I give her the word:

A while ago, Giulia asked me to participate to her summer initiative and prepare a guest post. Wooow, I thought, I’m not even from another country… I just an Italian expat! But Giulia explained me the whole idea, she wanted me to explain what is summer in Portugal. I was just back from Algarve and I was still feeling like swimming into all tones of blue. First I thought of a completely different post from the one you are about to read. (N.d.A. Have a look at her Flickr set) .

I decided to tell you how’s summer in Lisbon, one of the most visited capitals of Europe. This is an amazing city with a spectacular light, it makes you feel like buying a reflex and go around to take pictures of all the incredible details. This is what I do in summer in my free time, I walk through Lisbon and I try to capture her beauty.

Lisbon transforms in summer in a big, huge esplanada, that means outside coffee tables. Since ever, the most visited esplanadas are the one on top of the 7 hills of the city, the miradouros (sightseeing points) and the historical kiosks’ ones.

The kiosks are in some cases 100 years olda and after quite a long time of abandonment, they have become fashionable again in 2009 thanks to 2 young Portuguese investors. Tradition is safe and people can finally enjoy typical drinks as leite perfumado (scented milk), boiled milk with cinnamon, lemon and sugar, served extra chilled.

Up – Web source (Lisboa Praça Camões 1908) and Viz’s shot (Lisbona Praça Camões, 2010) – Above – Web source (Lisboa, Praça do Príncipe Real, 1908) and Viz’s shot (Praça do Príncipe Real, 2009)

Many times, when asking an imperial (1/2 pint draught beer, Portuguese don’t like pints, they get warm and not fizzy…) you’ll receive a free small plate of tremoços (lupini beans). In Portugal there is a long beer “war” on two fronts, I’d say 50% of the population likes Sagres the most and the other 50% Super Bock. After innumerate trials (I had to, this decision can influence friendships!) I can say that I prefer draught Sagres and bottled Super Bock.

The most beloved esplanada combination is imperial and caracois, beer and snails. Snails are a very big deal in Portugal, you can buy it everywhere and in summer there is a Snail’s festival for a week, where people can try full snails’ menus, from soup to pizza… I can’t. Seriously can’t. But if you are curious and you want to try…

Ingredients:

• 1, 5 kg small snails
• 2 table spoons of e.v. olive oil
• 1 handful of fresh oregano
• 1 laurel leaf
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 onion
• salt and black pepper

1. Wash the snails more and more times, until transparent water is running through.

2. Put the snails in a deep pan with cold water. Add oil, laurel, oregano. garlic and the finely chopped onion.

3. Boil the snails in the topless pan for 30 minutes. While cooking, eliminate the foam on top of the water.

4. Add salt and quite a lot of freshly ground black pepper.

5. After another 30 minutes, turn off the heat. Serve tepid, with some of their broth.

And now, pretend to be in Lisbon listening to this modern fado!

Before leaving you and let you book your flight to Lisboa, communication service!

Just finished the vote time for HHDD event, our winner is Reb from So Long and Thanks for all the Food! Congrats! Now it’s your turn!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp #4: Portugal, Viz from “Desperate HouseViz”

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”
2. Summer RoundUp #3: Chicago and gardening, Diana from “Spain in Iowa”
3. Summer RoundUp #1: Cape Cod, Massachusetts – Jen from “My Kitchen Addiction”

Here we are. It seems yesterday that I gave birth to the competition, yet two months are already passed! I have really appreciated your warm and enthusiastic participation, I was not expecting to receive over 100 recipes! But it happened, this is really one of the best recipes for happiness! Other than treaties and essays on philosophy, tons of chocolate or compulsive shopping: you, my friends, make me really proud!

It was difficult to select only 20 recipes, but how was it possible? in each recipe there was the sparkling I was looking for, that particular way to ward off the blue mood, that special taste that helps to bring back the calm… at the very the end, thanks to the cooperation with Macchine Alimentari, we managed to select 20 recipes. Here you can find the talented finalists, in alphabetical order:

1. Arabafelice, Araba Felice in Cucina, Il fudge della felicità
2. Chiara, Cavoli a merenda, La mia minestrina senza brodo
3. Daniela, Daniela & Diocleziano, Spaghetti alla sbiraglia
4. Ele, dEleciously, Cappuccino a modo mio
5. Elga, Semi di Papavero, Coccola alle ciliegie e cocco
6. Genny, Al Cibo Commestibile, Semplicemente Puré
7. Ginestra, La ginestra e il mare, Granita di Gelsi neri
8. Jasmine, Labna, Gelato al fiordilatte con gli oreo
9. Kia, Su per il mestolo, Sunny carrot smile
10. Laura, via mail, Dolce arrotolato al cioccolato
11. Mariluna, Via delle Rose, Sablés breton alla confettura di lamponi
12. Nepitella, Nepitella, Chocolate Banana Bread
13. Nicol, Il the delle cinque, Pasta e patate
14. Onde, L’Omino di Panpepato, Dulche de Leche in Pentola a Pressione
15. (parentesiculinaria), Parentesiculinaria, Brownies black and white
16. Precisina, Vita da Precisina, Biscotti da colazione
17. Reb, So Long and Thanks for all the Food, Salatomisu
18. Sara, CaffeIna, Pastry cream
19. Valentinute, Casca a fagiolo, Cheesecake alle ciliegie
20. Vaniglia, Vaniglia cooking, Frolle

Now it is your turn to vote! Choose the recipe you like and give your vote, you have time until midnight of Sunday, July 25!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Recipes for Happiness: the 20 finalists

You should be interested also in:

1. A new contest: Recipes for Happiness
2. Recipes for Happiness: and the winner is…

Friendship: I would say that in my value vocabulary this word deserves the first place. Indeed friendship is there, as a kanji, tattooed on my right shoulder.

Friendship can arise from the kindergarten, children playing on a swing, it can spring out the first day of school when the blue ribbon chokes you and makes you pronounce your name with a whisper, it can be born chatting on the stairs of the University commenting on the lesson of the day and the last film by Julia Roberts, it can arise in the office when teamwork becomes complicity, respect and fun, but it arises also behind the screen of a computer, admiring a sport champion as Fioravanti or a perfect recipe or picture.

For a friend, you can cry, laugh, travel miles and miles just to be able to say hello in person. With a friend, you can dream and make plans for the future, challenge the fate and do everything possible to realize the amazing and crazy idea that you both are feeding with enthusiasm and inspiration. For a friend, you can turn on the BBQ on that very day that will be remembered in the annals as the hottest day of the century. Genny, these are for you!

Tuna & Avocado Skewers. Tuna, because I was feeling like seafood and holidays. Avocado, because this fruit is my favorite summer 2010 ingredient, being a guacamole, a warm salad of shrimps, a fresh corn and mozzarella salad or diced on a skewer. A marinade of lime and fresh herbs, searching for a bit of refreshment and Mediterranean taste even into small things.

A classy touch with Maldon salt. I didn’t know this precious salt before finding it into Food Bloggers Connect goodie bag. Another shot straight to the heart! This English salt (ah l’amour) does not dissolve immediately, it is made of many crisp flakes that, once in your mouth, play with food enhancing its flavors. It suits well with soft textures, such as these tuna and avocado skewers.

Ingredients:

• slices of fresh tuna
  
• ripe avocado
  
• lime
• chilli
• mint leaves
  
• basil leaves
  
• dried oregano
• Maldon salt
  

Cut tuna into pieces big enough to be skewered and do the same with avocado. Put them in two separate bowls to marinate with lime juice, olive oil, red pepper (fresh chilli would be better), mint leaves, basil leaves and dried oregano. Let it marinate about thirty minutes.

In the meantime you have found a willing man that would have light up the BBQ. When the grill is hot, and the embers below have done their duty, place tuna and avocado skewers over the BBQ and brown them for about 2 minutes per side, not more. Drizzle with their marinade (and pay attention to the backfire when you pouryour marinade on skewers, I can say this from my experience!) while cooking: when the tuna is cooked, just on the outside, remove them and place the skewers on a plate. Season with Maldon salt flakes.

A few tips: Eat them immediately and pretend to be dinig out at the seaside. If you concentrate properly, you’d be able to hear the waves and the smell the saltiness of air! If you do not have a BBQ at hand or if you are not brave enough to light it up with these sub-Saharan temperatures, you can use a very hot cast iron skillet: you will get the same result!

Which is their perfect drink match? My idea, based on a collective imagination, was a cold beer (the one included into the picture is used solely for illustrative purposes, as I drank water for the same old and well known reasons). If you have any suggestion for an interesting wine, I’m eager to know!

So, to cut a long story short, this is my recipe for Genny’s contest Fuoco alle Griglie! The contest will end on the 24th of July, so hurry up and light up your BBQ!

Communication service! Yesterday was the last day yu could submit your entries for my second contest Recipes for happiness: I am really pleased with the enthusiastic response you gave me, more than 100 recipes, go figure! It was a great emotion, I did not expect it! Now, you must wait until Wednesday to see which will be the recipes that will enter the second part of the competition!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Tuna and Avocado Skewers

As I announced last week, be ready to have you backpack with you and let’s have a look at another part of United States of America, following words and pictures from Diana, blogger at Spain in Iowa. Diana is a Latina woman with many interests: she’s a graphic/web designer by profession and also a homemaker, gardener and chicken keeper! I’ve been reading her blog for many months now, loving her passion for Latin food and recipes but also her effort to support local food movement. Following her blog, you can learn how to grow your own organic garden, so don’t loose a minute more and go visiting her blog!

Diana: Chicago, gardening, playing baseball and camping

When Juls first invited me to be a part of her summer roundup, I was planning on sharing my favorite place to be over the U.S. Independent Day holiday. Chicago!

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to escape for as many days as we would have liked.  So for this post, I wanted to share with you what summer means to my family and share some pictures along the way.

Being from Iowa, the Midwest of the U.S., we have frigid cold winters.  Temperatures that can drop well below zero degrees.  So when the temperatures warm and our days lengthen, we spend as much time as we can outside.  We literally have light from 5:30am until 10:00pm.  Plenty of time to play and get some work done!

One of my favorite things to do in the summer is organic garden.  I spend countless hours tending my urban gardens.  My readers are aware that I am an urban homesteader.  I raise my own chickens in the city for eggs and meat and I grow enough food to preserve for my family over the winter.  Usually by freezing, canning, and dehydrating.  It makes all of your hard work worth it when you can make fresh tomato sauce or salsa in the middle of February!

Of course, with all of the wonderful food I have growing, I also enjoy cooking using the produce that I’ve labored for or buy at my local farmers market.

Summer also means family!  I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful boys that love to play outside and help mami in the garden. As a family we spend time camping, swimming and playing baseball!

This past Fourth of July holiday, we spent at the Omaha Zoo!  What’s a summer without animals, right?!  We’ve also spent time outdoor berry picking, and…. of course, more BASEBALL… Go CUBS!

As you can tell we enjoy our summers!  From raising and growing our own food to spending as much quality family time outdoors as we can!  After all, before we know it the leaves will start to drop and our first snow will arrive.  Thank you Juls for having me on your beautiful blog and letting me share a bit about my summers in Iowa!

Besitos!

Thank you Diana for taking time to write this gorgeous post and for letting us enjoy your wonderful family and amazing passion for organic food and gardening! Last but not least, GO SPAIN! Finger crossed for Sunday!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp #3: Chicago and gardening, Diana from “Spain in Iowa”

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”
2. Summer RoundUp #2: Mowielicious and a summer salad
3. Summer RoundUp #1: Cape Cod, Massachusetts – Jen from “My Kitchen Addiction”

Over the past two weekends I gave complete freedom to my culinary vein to put aside a good supply of recipes to deal peacefully with the upcoming summer, as it promises to be not only terribly hot but also very busy: I cooked meat, desserts, pasta… but then, again, it happens all the times! You make a recipe and you fall in love. A texture, a smell or a memory and she creeps into your heart, asking for attention, she wants the front page the next morning. I tried to take time, to convince her that it is not kind for the latest addition to outdo the older recipes, waiting patiently in line for days, with photos ready and a story in my mind. But she has the enthusiasm of youth on her side, and she definitely won!

On my quest to discover new flours (at least for me), I bought at NaturaSì shop a stone-ground corn flour from organic farm, a deep, intense and joyful yellow flour. On Cavoletto’s book there is a recipe for a polenta cake with raspberries: my first intention was to make it step by step without any change, but then I met Tiffany berries at the supermarket!

I decided to improvise and let the yellow guide me… yellow as the school bus from which I could see the blond head of Claudia when I walked her to the bus stop to go to kindergarten, yellow as the yellow cab in New York that one day I’ll stop with a whistle, charged with bags after a day of shopping, yellow as the solar plexus chakra, the fire that burns inside and shines like a jewel, the individual willpower, charisma and effectiveness, yellow as Aunt Theresa’s limoncello*, always present in our freezer.

So I created a corn cake with limoncello, with a rustic texture given by corn flour but so deliciously scented thanks to the addition of limoncello. A scent that fills the kitchen while cooking, but gives its best when the cake is cold and a bite explodes in your mouth with all its aromas.

* Limoncello is a lemon liqueur produced in Southern Italy, made from lemon rinds, alcohol, water, and sugar. It is bright yellow in color, sweet and lemony, but not sour since it contains no lemon juice.

Ingredients:

• butter, 225 gr
• caster sugar, 225 gr
• corn flour, 175 gr
• eggs, 4
• limoncello, 100 ml
• flour 00, 60 gr
• baking powder, 2 teaspoons
• limon thyme, a few sprigs
  
• more butter and corn flour to butter and flour the mould
  

Beat softened butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then corn flour, plain flours and baking powder sifted together. Add the lemon thyme leaves and about 100 ml of limoncello.

Grease a round baking pan of 24 cm in diameter, sprinkle corn flour and remove excess. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in preheated oven to 190°C for 40 minutes. Let it cool down completely before serving. Dust with icing sugar.

Extra tip. For adults, not for little children: you may drizzle the cake with extra limoncello when serving: although I am a former teetotal, I assure you it is really, really, *really* delicious!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Corn cake with limoncello: yellow raised to the second power

You should be interested also in:

1. Buckwheat cake with chocolate
2. Red Velvet Cake and Happy New Year!
3. Buckwheat cake: an afternoon break

Just a quick post to present the final RoundUp of HHDD event! I really loved hosting this event, because it gave me the chance to discover new blogs and new interesting manners to present such a simple and delicious recipe. You can find a complete list with all the partecipants and a survey to vote at the end of the post. On Thursday the 15th of July I’ll announce the winner!

Rebecca at {So Long and Thanks for all the Food}, with a lovely pseudo picnic version…

Rossella at {Ma che ti sei Mangiato}, with a delicious twist on the cappuccino side…

Claudia at {Verdecardamomo}, with a finger food version…

Heather at {eatwelleatgreen}, with an interesting green approach…

Barbara at {winos and foodies}, with a yummy change on the garlic chives…

Mardi at {eatlivtravwrite}, with a nutrition tip included…

Cecilia at {One vanilla bean}, with a cold interpretation

Melissa at {Food, Wine, Words}, with a lemony twist

Now vote your favourite one! You have time till midnight of the 14th of July!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Hay Hay it’s Donna Day RoundUp

You should be interested also in:

1. Hay Hay it’s Donna Day: Pea and mint soup

Does he need an introduction? Needless to say I went to London to attend to the Food Blogger Connect also to enjoy his talk about photography and to finally meet him… his blog is one of the most stylish, elegant and gorgeous foodblogs on the world wide web. His desserts are Heaven on Earth. His pictures are bright, sexy and with a perfect mastery of the light. I’m really thrilled to introduce Mowie, from Mowielicious! If you haven’t visited his blog yet, be ready to fall in love!

Mowielicious and a summer salad

Summertime is my favourite season. The long, bright days, gorgeously lit until late in the evening, the ability to wear t-shirts and flip-flops, laying down in the grass, jumping into a cold pool when it gets too hot, barbecues with friends, and the great happy feeling in the air exuded by almost everyone. Even though they may be simple, these are the things that I appreciate most about summer and I often wish it would last all year long. It is a time for letting go, shedding whatever winter coverings are left behind, relaxing and having fun. More importantly, summer has always been about fresh food. When it gets too hot, I prefer to eat cold food, something that’s fresh and easy to put together. So what could be better than a wholesome salad?

When I was asked by Giulia to guest post for this Summer theme, I wanted to make something different, something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while now, and a change in direction for me instead of creating another dessert, my usual blog theme. When it comes to picnics, nothing beats this fuss-free & fresh chicken salad. It is light and healthy, the chicken and mozzarella compliment each other perfectly and go very well with the  potatoes and pea shoots, while the fig relish dressing is a regular household favourite of mine that I think goes perfectly with this salad.

::: Chicken & Mozzarella Salad With Fig Relish Dressing :::

Ingredients (Serves 2):

• 500g cooked potatoes, sliced or diced
• 2 cooked chicken leg quarters, meat taken off the bone
• 2 mozarella balls (roughly 250g), torn roughly
• 50g fresh pea shoots
• 250g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 teaspoons smooth fig relish
• 6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 fresh red chilli
• salt & black pepper to taste

1. Layer the potatoes, chicken, mozzarella, pea shoots & tomatoes in your serving plates.
2. For the fig relish dressing, mix the fig relish, vinegar, oil, onions, garlic, chilli, salt & pepper.
3. Pour the dressing over the salad and serve.

Thank you Mowie for taking the time to do that and for being a constant inspiration. Stay tuned for next week’s post, we will take our backpack and travel again!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp #2: Mowielicious and a summer salad

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”
2. Summer RoundUp #3: Chicago and gardening, Diana from “Spain in Iowa”
3. Summer fest: Quinoa tart with baby zucchini & sun dried tomatoes dressing

Last Friday I was crouched on the couch looking through Sigrid’s book in search of inspiration, trying to find the right recipe that could describe my mood in a few well chosen ingredients. Grandma was in the kitchen and I could ear the clatter of dishes from the lunch, Claudia was studying for her university exam just in front of me, bent on the very same table where I spent the best years of my youth translating Greek and Latin authors.

I came back to the time of the afternoon snack, which has now been replaced by a quick coffee in the office or a penitential and masochistic fasting when I’m at home… when I was really young, and still an only child, I used to watch cartoons on tv after my homeworks with a slice of bread topped with jam, a cup of tea and Mickey Mouse comics in my hands (I’ve always been multi-tasking, since a very young age!).

Then things changed: growing up, the afternoon snack became tea and biscuits or a slice of grandma cake, made for Claudia, who was a terrific picky when she was a child and did not want to eat anything! In the background, the very same old video of little children singing (the Zecchino d’Oro choir) played continuously for months, each and every afternoon, even without skipping commercials!

The sisters grew up again, and now they study together one next to the other at the same table: for Claudia there was the trouble of learning to read or playing with numbers, for me Greek classics, Roman historians and the birth of love for English Literature. Even if the day after there was a test of philosophy and a multiple choice test of Greek literature, five o’ clock in the afternoon was tea time, mum and grandma sitted together with us, three generations gathered around the same table to dip cookies in hot tea and talk friendly about the day.

Looking back at these moments, my eyes fell on this sentence

…flavours are simple but intense, a real cake made for the afternoon snack when we were kids, perfect for a regressive afternoon tea, when it rains outside… (p. 240)

and instantly I chose the recipe. Ten minutes and the cake was baking in the oven… Give to the cake the time to cool down and let it rain outside, a summer cloudburst, and we again gathered around the same table sipping a cup of tea with a slice of buckwheat cake.

Ingredients:

• buckwheat flour, 180 gr
• flour 00, 100 gr
• softened unsalted butter, 240 gr
• sugar, 200 gr
• egg yolks, 4
• whole egg, 1
• rum, 3 tablespoon (I used instead sweet wine, suitable for chocolate, they say)
• vanilla salt, 1/2 teaspoon

To brush:

• 1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon of milk
  

Beat softened butter with a whisk until it is light and creamy. Add sugar and keep on whisking. Combine egg yolks, the egg, liquor and salt, beating well. Finally fold in flour and mix just to get a smooth dough.

Butter a round pie mould of 21 cm (I used instead a rectangular mould of 10 x 35), pour in the mixture, flatten the dough roughly and brush it with an egg yolk beaten with milk. With a fork, draw a grate on the cake surface. Sprinkle with a pinch of fine vanilla salt and bake at 180°C for 40 minutes or until golden. Let cool completely before serving.

Response. Good. Simple as a glass of milk. Perfumed and fragrant as freshly baked bread. The texture reminds me of a Scottish shortbread, but softer and with the dominant rough and rich sensation given by buckwheat flour, enlivened by the presence of salt.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Buckwheat cake: an afternoon break

You should be interested also in:

1. Buckwheat cake with chocolate
2. Red Velvet Cake and Happy New Year!
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: chestnut cake

Here I am! No, I haven’t been kidnapped by green aliens and no, I haven’t won the lottery and escaped  to the Hawaii… simply there was no Internet connection for a long and relaxing weekend at home. At the beginning I was quite annoyed by this inconvenience, but later on I decided to enjoy my old style weekend cooking, taking pictures and playing with my chubby and lovely niece. The result is a belated Daring Bakers post, I admit, and a very short one indeed, but a larger smile on my face! So, enjoy this chocolate pavlova as I did and take a portion of my relaxed mood, quite unusual on a Monday morning, I’m happy to share it with you!

Last thing, before leaving you with the pavlova recipe, let me proudly introduce my guest post at Ilva from Lucullian Delights about food props, I really enjoyed doing it, and therefore I must thank Ilva again! As she has anticipated in her post, we’re trying to organize something for late September, so stay tuned!

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

Recipe 1: Chocolate Meringue (for the chocolate Pavlova):

3 large egg whites
½ cup plus 1 tbsp (110 grams) white granulated sugar
¼ cup (30 grams) confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 200º F (95º C) degrees. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.
2. Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form. (The whites should be firm but moist.)
3. Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)
4. Fill a pastry bag with the meringue. Pipe the meringue into whatever shapes you desire. Alternatively, you could just free form your shapes and level them a bit with the back of a spoon. (Class made rounds, hearts, diamonds and an attempt at a clover was made!)
5. Bake for 2-3 hours until the meringues become dry and crisp. Cool and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Recipe 2: Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse (for the top of the Pavlova base):

1 ½ cups (355 mls) heavy cream (cream with a milk fat content of between 36 and 40 percent)
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon
9 ounces (255 grams) 72% chocolate, chopped
1 2/3 cups (390 mls) mascarpone
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp (30 mls) Grand Marnier (or orange juice)

Directions:

1. Put ½ cup (120 mls) of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.
2. Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK.)
3. Mix about ¼ of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova.

Recipe 3: Mascarpone Cream (for drizzling):

1 recipe crème anglaise
½ cup (120 mls) mascarpone
2 tbsp (30 mls) Sambucca (optional)
½ cup (120 mls) heavy cream

Directions:

1. Prepare the crème anglaise. Slowly whisk in the mascarpone and the Sambucca and let the mixture cool. Put the cream in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until very soft peaks are formed. Fold the cream into the mascarpone mixture.

Recipe 4: Crème Anglaise (a component of the Mascarpone Cream above):

1 cup (235 mls) whole milk
1 cup (235 mls) heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks
6 tbsp (75 grams) sugar

Directions:

1. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow.
2. Combine the milk, cream and vanilla in a saucepan over medium high heat, bringing the mixture to a boil. Take off the heat.
3. Pour about ½ cup of the hot liquid into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly to keep from making scrambled eggs. Pour the yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining cream mixture and put the heat back on medium. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. DO NOT OVERCOOK.
4. Remove the mixture from the heat and strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours or overnight.

Assembly:
Pipe the mousse onto the pavlovas and drizzle with the mascarpone cream over the top. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and fresh fruit if desired.

I decided not to use Mascarpone Cream for drizzling (I used it in another white pavlova, yummy as well!). This was the only change I did, and my chocolate pavlova was stunning, I really enjoyed it and I’m proud to say that I went through my fear for meringues! So let’s celebrate a new era!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

June Daring Bakers: Chocolate Pavlovas

You should be interested also in:

1. The Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Tiramisu
2. Chocolate, cream and mascarpone trifle
3. Jamie Oliver’s Two-nuts Chocolate Cake

I’m really excited! It is more than a month that I’m waiting this moment and now finally we can begin our adeventure! I am so happy to present the first guest: give a warm welcome to Jen from My Kitchen Addiction! Jen is a systems analyst and database developer from Pennsylvania (USA) during the day, and a passionate cook and baker during her free time. I’ve been reading her blog for many months now, I like her direct and genuine approach to food, her tasty and inviting photos. Thanks Jen for being the first to open this series of traveling guest posts!

Starting the Summer on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

When I think of summer, the first thing that comes to mind is eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Yes, I am a foodie at heart, and I equate most seasons with the foods that go along with them. There is nothing better than biting into a perfectly ripe strawberry or picking snappeas off of the vine in my garden… And of course, there’s also ice cream… That’s definitely a summer favorite!

The fresh foods are definitely my favorite thing about summer, but traveling is a close second.  This summer, my husband and I decided to head to Cape Cod, Massachusetts (US) for a week with our yellow lab (appropriately named Yellowdog). We had a great time relaxing at Nauset Beach and walking at Nickerson State Park.  Naturally, I also spent the week exploring and enjoying the local cuisine and farmers’ markets!

We traveled early in the season, so the farmers’ markets on Cape Cod were just getting started for the year.  Lucky for me, we happened to be there for the opening week of the Mid-Cape Farmers’ Market in Hyannis, MA. I was impressed by the selection of organic produce… I wish I had so many options at the farmers’ markets at home! Since it was early in the season, most of the stands were selling fresh greens (and one had garlic scapes!). I also found some beautiful strawberries that we enjoyed the rest of the week for breakfast!

Of course, since we were on the Cape, we had to have some seafood. What’s a trip to the beach without seafood, right? Fried seafood is one of my favorites – especially fish and chips! To meet our fried seafood quota, we enjoyed dinner at the Red Nun Bar and Grill in Chatham, MA, a fun and casual restaurant enjoyed by both the locals and the tourists in town.  With my fish and chips, I also tried their wedge salad – a wedge of iceburg lettuce topped with both blue cheese and Balsamic dressings and some crispy bacon. It was a perfect treat after a long day on the beach!

We also enjoyed sampling ice cream from various local establishments including the Cape Cod Creamery (South Yarmouth, MA), Sundae School (Dennisport, MA), and Captain Frosty’s (Dennis, MA). There’s definitely no such thing as bad ice cream in my book, but we enjoyed the Cape Cod Creamery the most, and went back for more later in the week. Yellowdog was a big fan of the soft vanilla ice cream!

Our week in Cape Cod was a great way to start the summer… We were fortunate to have great weather, great food, and even better company! Now I’m feeling relaxed and refreshed… And ready to enjoy the fresh tastes of summer at home!

Thanks again Jen for your kindness and for having shared with me this first step of the trip! On Friday you’ll discover the next guest .. a nice surprise!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp #1: Cape Cod, Massachusetts – Jen from “My Kitchen Addiction”

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #3: Chicago and gardening, Diana from “Spain in Iowa”
2. Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”
3. Summer RoundUp #4: Portugal, Viz from “Desperate HouseViz”

You still do not know it, but this will be a summer to remember. I have this wonderful feeling that lingers in my head, fills my stomach with butterflies and makes my heart beat to the rhythm of drums. It’s like when you feel that something  stunning and very positive is going to happen, when you feel vibes in the air, shimmering with a golden light full of expectations. I am living one of those moments. No, nothing new has happened: I am still the same old single, Bridget Jones’ style, Donna Hay didn’t called me to work with her. No, not even Jamie Oliver, unfortunately. Simply summer is here, and with summer the whole load of great expectations that accompany this season every year!

Every year, in September, I find myself at the end of summer and I can’t even realize how it has happened, but this time I have decided that this will be different. I decided to live this summer moment by moment, so that one day, as an old woman, I’ll look back at this not as a summer, but as that summer. Just like Bryan Adams’ Summer of ‘69, this will be my, our, summer of ‘69!

Oh when I lock back now
That was seemes to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya – I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

How can make it memorable? What about traveling?! I know, I know … it is not easy to take your backpack and follow a road to the horizon, savoring the air and the changing landscape that becomes lake, sea, mountain, forest or desert.

Friends will helps us, marvellous new friends I met through the blog, people who live somewhere else, with a daily life completely different from my own, yet intense and amazing thanks to the same passion, food. They are exceptional foodbloggers, with whom I can laugh at stupid things on Twitter, or who may help you and give you wise advices without asking anything in return!

Well, these international foodbloggers (with a national exception currently living abroad) every Friday up to September will present their own idea of summer, their holidays, their recipes, their photos.. it will be a way to travel remaining at the your desk, a way of discovering different places and different recipes that will provide a more international style to our summer! This is also a chance to tickle my xenophilia vein, standing still with my feet in Tuscany!

Tomorrow you’ll find out who is the first guest who’ll bring you on holidays, but for the moment … DLIN DLONG service communications !

• I guest posted on Tuscanycious, Tuscany with gusto: come to discover something more about Tuscan herbs and my passion for foreign countries and later on for Tuscany.
• Last remind, you have time up to the midnight of the 30th of June to send me your recipe for the Hay Hay Donna Day event, take part to the competition and play with pea and mint soup.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Summer RoundUp… what is you summer like?

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer RoundUp #2: Mowielicious and a summer salad
2. Summer RoundUp #5: Soba, Rachel from “La Fuji Mama”
3. Summer RoundUp #3: Chicago and gardening, Diana from “Spain in Iowa”

Let’s dream for a while, are you with me? Let’s imagine that is summer… daylight is a bit longer and lingers upon golden wheat fields, spreading a soft glow on the horizon line. The shadows are cool, fragrant with linden and jasmine. The cicadas sing tireless, enjoying every precious moment of this so magical summer. It is the moment to sit in the garden and see the night that slowly takes over the day, the moment to look back at the day that has just passed and make plans and for tomorrow nad build castles in Spain.

Summer evenings make me want to dine out, not to leave anything behind, to behave as cicadas, enjoying to the full daylight and summer. Dining out creates many beautiful memories, a collage of flavors and fragrances, often illuminated by candlelight or by the silver moon, a combination of senses to bring with you throughout the winter, to live again a summer glow even in the coolest evening.

Dining out means arranging a few ingredients in a recipe that takes care of itself, while we set the table, go searching for a few candles, pick up aromatic herbs to enrich the dishes and water the flowers at dusk, so that they can return to life after the heat of the day .

What I have prepared a few nights ago – when summer was still alive and not yet a faded and cold memory – is a vegetarian dish, which requires about 1 hour of baking and a 5 minute preparation. While the vegetables cook in the oven, spend this precious reconquered time for yourself, to rediscover the beauty of everyday life, then, when the dish is ready, go outside and enjoy your dinner!

A note on ingredients. The tomatoes I used are the ox heart tomatoes, my favorite ones: they have firm flesh, few seeds and are very tasty. About the cheese: I found a Greek PDO Feta. It was milder, less salty and more friable than the usual Feta I buy already packed, it was the best ever tasted so far!

Ingredients:

• eggplants, 1 thinly sliced
• potatoes, 2 medium thinly sliced
• ok heart tomatoes, 2 medium thinly sliced
• Greek feta, 200 gr
• salt
• oregano
• breadcrumbs
• extravirgin olive oil

Slice eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes very thinly. Choose a pan that can retain heat very well and is suitable for the oven: I chose a cast iron stewpan. Grease the bottom of the stewpan with extra virgin olive oil, line a layer of potatoes with their edges slightly overlapping. Season with salt, cover with a layer of tomatoes and drizzle with olive oil and plenty of oregano. I chose not to salt tomatoes because I covered them with feta, a cheese very salty in itself! Now crumble with your hands half the feta over the tomatoes and cover with a layer of eggplant, overlapping again edges. Season with olive oil and salt.

Repeat layers and finish with the eggplant. Sprinkle eggplant slices with bread crumbs and season with salt, oregano and a drizzle of olive oil.

Cover with a lid and bake in preheated oven to 180° C for about 45 minutes. At this point, check the vegetables and finish cooking without the lid to let the eggplants get brown and crisp for the last 10 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

Verdict: the first adjective that comes to mind is Mediterranean. Feta and eggplant along with oregano immediately recall Greece. The flavors of the dish are enhanced by the cooking method, because all the vegetables are cooked by the water released from the tomatoes and the steam that is created in the stewpan. This method mixes strong and gentle accents to a final result which is balanced and appetizing.

In these times of the year I can’t help but singing one of my favorite songs every time I see a wavy field, Sting’s Fields of Gold.

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold

So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in the fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold

I leave you today with this song… but my summer surprises are not finished yet. Soon the blog will be inspired by many different voices. But that’s another story, I’ll save it to another day!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Dining out: vegetable and feta cheese cocotte

You should be interested also in:

1. Summer fest: Quinoa tart with baby zucchini & sun dried tomatoes dressing

Whoopsie daisy! I was so happy when I discovered I won the last Hay Hay it’s Donna Day event hosted by Mardi with my Strawberry Cheesecake pots! Since I truly admire Donna Hay and her simple and essential recipes, I’m really proud to be the hostess of the next HHDD event. My task is to choose a recipe, invite you all to recreate the chosen recipe and send them in to my by the end of the month. I will post a roundup on Monday the 5th of July and ask all the readers to vote on which interpretation they like best announcing a winner (and the next host/ess) on July 15th.

Rules of Entry:

1. Hay Hay it’s Donna Day is open to all food and wine bloggers.
2. Entries submitted for HHDD must be made specifically for the current round of this event, although photos may be submitted to photo competitions such as “Does My Blog Look Good In This.”
3. The host will select, make and post an original Donna Hay recipe without any changes. Participants may make that exact same recipe as is, or put their own spin on the same recipe by altering an ingredient or two, while remaining within the theme.
4. Entrants must include a link to the host (that’s me – en.julskitchen.com) and the facilitator (that’s Denise – www.chezus.com) in their entry post.
5. Entries can be made at any time once the event has been announced, but must be posted and emailed to me by the closing date, the end of the month.
6. The host then assembles all the entries together into a roundup (posted before the 5th of the month), from where the participants of the round vote to elect a new host for the following event (voting must be done before the 10th of the month).
7. Denise is going to try to keep this event going on a monthly bases, with an announcement of the new theme on the 15th of the month.
8. With your entry please include the following:

• The Name & URL of your blog
• Your Name
• Your Location
• Name of your recipe
• The URL or the permalink to your entry.
• A photo of your recipe if you have. You do not have to re-size it, but it should be less than 1MB.

Twitter: Follow HHDD on Twitter to keep up to date with all the latest.  Tweet about the event using #HHDD.

I decided to choose a soup. Why a soup? Mainly because I’ve browsed through all previous HHDD entries and there weren’t soups in the list, then because it’s getting colder and rainy outside, nothwithstanding the upcoming summer, so I was feeling like a soup, last but not least because I happened to find this delicious cup and I fell desperately in love with it!

It was utterly delicious! The fresh mint aroma is light and fits perfectly with pink pepper, ideal to create an aromatic blend, perfect either hot, warm or cold! And now, com’on!! Start thinking at this soup and send me your email by the end of the month!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Hay Hay it’s Donna Day: Pea and mint soup

You should be interested also in:

1. Hay Hay it’s Donna Day RoundUp
2. Green peas and asparagus soup, with a coconut hint
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bread soup