La Bella (but most of all Buona) Sicilia

Finally we managed to go. After years of wanting and months of planning, we went to Sicily!
We landed late in Palermo and were picked up by the bed and breakfast we booked there.
Our first culinary experience of the Island was an Arancina (a deep-fried ball of risotto filled with sticky cheese), it wasn't what we had hoped for, but we were too hungry to even notice the disappointment of our stomachs.
The next day we went out to discover the disordered beauty of Palermo, it's great Opera house and many, many of it's delicious treats. We had lunch at the harbor with Swordfish Caponata and polpette di pesce, followed by Pasta con le sarde e finochietto. Then on our way we tried some mini Canoli, this is the typical sweet of the island. It's a crunchy deep-fried rolled dough filled with ricotta and chocolate. Delicious!
Then in the evening we met up with three Sicilian friends who showed us a traditional Sicilian restaurant in the heart of the city called 'Ferro di Cavallo'. We took a big mix of antipasti; caponata, panelle, prosciutto crudo con ricotta and so on...This was followed by fresh swordfish, filled squid, and more fishy delights. We simply couldn't fit in any dessert otherwise I would obviously have had one.
What a feast it was!

The next day on our way to rent a car, we stopped over for a very much needed cappuccino in a very fancy pasticceria. We discovered these amazing biscuits there called 'I Toto Siciliani' that my Love is now crazy about so I had a go at copying them. They don't taste exactly the same, but they turned out yummy anyway.

We drove towards Trapani, our next stop and had a lunch break in Scopello. A cute tiny village right at the sea. I had an amazing pasta with fresh seafood, the best I've ever had!

We moved on to Trapani where we knew we couldn't leave before having tried the Couscous with fish and so we did in a very charming and elegant restaurant called 'Serisso 47'. The owner made us try several mouthwatering starters followed by the famous, and extremely delicious, Couscous.

The following morning we visited Trapani's harbor and for coffee and more sweets we went to a place called 'Evangelista', this is where we took about half a kilo of almond biscuits as a souvenir (already finished unfortunately...).

We decided to head back to meet our friend in Scopello and finally have our long longed for dive into the blue sea.
That evening I had an (again, I know this is getting boring) amazing pasta with gamberi e pistacchio. I really need to try this at home soon as it was too good to be true.

When we woke up the sun was smiling at us in the blue sky, it was 27 degrees on the 2nd of November.
After a delicious breakfast with homemade crostata we took our little Fiat 500 to the 'Riserva dello Zingaro' A big nature reserve right at the coast. This is where our friend took us to the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. I though I was in the Caribbean or some other tropical place.

Nearly at the end of our trip we found an olive oil factory just outside Scopello. We arrived at peak time as all the local farmers came around to have their freshly picked olives squeezed into delicious olive oil.
We wanted a taste of that and decided to bring home a 3 liter can to dress our salads with or, even better, soak some fresh bread in, Mmm!

I haven't really experienced home sickness to a holiday place before, I always found the though of going back home, sleeping in our own bed comforting. But Sicily has changed that.
I want to go back as soon as I can! Eat the great food, drink the good wine. Soak up the warm sun and bathe in the blue sea. It seems to good to be true!

I've even started a trial and error phase of copying the almond biscuits, the raisin bread and this week I'll start on the challenging Caponata...

Caponata di pesce spada

Harbor of Palermo

Outrageous cakes!

Canoli Siciliani

Flower power Cappuccio

Pasta al mare in Scopello

Le Saline with wild Flamingo's 

Trapani

Trapani

Breakfast view in Scopello

Riserva dello Zingaro beach

Freshly picked olives at the Oleificio

Oleificio Scopello

Back at home with a souvenir

Home made Sicilian sweets

Pane con uvette e semi di finocchio

A fine Fall

Fall is here again, I can't believe how fast seasons change, they're back before you know it!

Weather wise I'm not the biggest fa of fall but when it comes to nature's beauty it's maybe the best out of the four of them. It's in serious competition with spring I'd say.

As I have a new phone that takes great pictures I snap around as much as I can. On a lunch break stroll around the office, or on a rainy day in the weekend, like today, when we went to visit a small village at Lake Como called Torno.

Here I saw the most beautiful leaves and berries that made a stunning still life against a stone, mossy wall. I hope I'm not the only person walking there enjoying this extraordinary beauty, as it makes me feel so happy to be able to be surrounded by all this.

Bright!

Bamboo at work

Hungry snails

Weddingdress inspiration

Fluffy mushroom

Monte Generoso

Happy leaves

I love nature!

Cookbook project

Dear Reader,

It's been a few months since my last post, a lot happened lately...

My brother's amazing (!) Wedding end of august for which I had to prepare an outfit or two.
Of course I ended up making my own dress as I had some pastel colored silk lying around, which was perfect considering the theme of the wedding was Pastels. And I collected some silk flowers at a vintage shop in Amsterdam to fix a matching headpiece.

Then, as the sister of the groom, you should come up with a reasonably acceptable present, best made or bought from the heart.
After a bit of brainstorming I came to the idea of making them a personal cooking book.
The book includes all my favorite recipes that I have been perfecting throughout the years. As you can imagine it includes lots of desserts and cakes, but also a tutorial on 'how to make bread' and many other simple but delicious savory recipes.
I realized that making a cookbook takes quite some time and effort, it took me just over six months to complete the project. It starts with the writing of recipes, then the cooking, then I realized food photography is a whole new challenge to be taken on. Then putting everything together so it looks nice is another one...And choosing what goes in and what stays out. Phew!
But I must say I'm pretty pleased with the result and I more than profoundly enjoyed the whole process.

I'm working on a new and improved version now that will hopefully, one day, end up in some people's kitchen (other than my own and my mothers...).
To give you a sneak preview I added some example pages below. In case you are interested in one of the recipes, just let me know and I'll translate it in my next post!

copyright Lisa Weinberg

Peas soup copyright Lisa Weinberg

copyright Lisa Weinberg

Fig salad copyright Lisa Weinberg

                                   

Crostata copyright Lisa Weinberg
    

Headpiece

Cuore di bue

I just wanted to let you know about another favorite summer food I have.

It's the Cuore di Bue.

Isn't it a lovely name as well. Bull's heart in English.

We use the as the heart of our daily salad, in the sugo di pomodoro with pasta, as a pre-dinner snack...

Tricked tomato

Focaccia del Turista

When summer arrives, our ways change. We wear sandals, skirts and dresses with no tights (what a relieve !). We exchange baking cakes for making salads and summer soups. We eat outside, where the last rays of sun shine and the blackbirds prelude the night.

Since last summer we have the habit of eating a pizza on Sunday nights at our favorite restaurant in Argegno.
They have the greatest pizza's there, the dough is different from any other pizza place and the ingredients are super fresh and delicious. I am especially in love with the 'Focaccia del Turista', a pizza with leeks, fresh salmon, cream, mozzarella and fresh tomatoes. How good does that sound!?

As I'm still only good with one arm, my shoulder is healing slower then expected, I tried to make a simple dish with leftovers. It turned out to be a delicious version of my favorite Argegno pizza.

Here is the recipe:

You will need for 1 big pizza:
1 sheet of store bought puff pastry
1 small leek
150 grams of smoked or fresh salmon
100ml of cream
1 small ball of mozzarella
2 organic medium eggs
a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
Salt and pepper
(I had some left over mashed potatoes that I added, but this is not necessary at all)

Preheat the oven on 180 degrees Celsius.
Roll out your sheet of puff pastry and fold 1cm of the edges to the inside to make a border.
Finely slice and wash the leeks and sprinkle on top of the pastry. Add slivers of the salmon and mozzarella, poor over the cream. Break the eggs onto the pizza, one on each side. Add the thyme leaves and some salt and pepper to season. For some more body you can add some cherry tomatoes or small potato cubes. You can also leave the eggs out, if you don't feel like them.

Bake the pizza for about 20 minutes and eat right away with a fresh salad!

Buon appetit!

Focaccia del Turista

The real thing!

Weed Lover

Last Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, we planned a long bike ride near the lake if Varese where our Dutch friends live. We were well on our way and just coming down a beautiful curvy descent. In the middle of the narrow road there as a big, fat, black car. 4 riders past the car without problems, I was planning to do the same...a door opened right in front of me and all I could do was BREAK! And up my back wheel went, down my face, flying over my bike who parked herself nicely into the bushes. I on the other hand landed on the asphalt head and shoulder first.

The first thing I did, surprising myself, was shout as loud as I could at the driver, then I realized what had happened and I tried to localize my bike and my boyfriend who was already on the phone with 911, trying to explain where we were, which turned out to be rather difficult.

The ambulance came, took me to the nearest hospital going back up all the windy little roads we just did in the descent, which made one of the volunteers feel sick. I didn't feel anything but my shoulder, which was bad enough. In the meantime my friends talked to the police, another friend picked up our bikes and yet another friend came to meet us at the hospital with clothes and food. I was lucky to have so many helpful people around me, if not, what do you do with your bike and how do get home from the hospital...

I think I met 100 new people in that hospital, taking me to different rooms every other second.

The doctor confirmed nothing was broken and I could go home, rest for two weeks keeping my arm in a sling-up and my shoulder iced. So that's exactly what I've doing for the last week. Nowhere to go, nothing to see...except for weed. In the garden and on my little stroll around the block I saw some very beautiful species that I just wanted to share with you.

It was the first time I fell and after all I'm happy it didn't turn out as bad as it could have been. 

I hope it will make me an even safer rider, being aware of these dangers. I can't wait to get back on my King 3 though...!

The Garden

This year I decided to be a little more serious about our garden. I made a plan about what to plant in it and where to put the pots, so they would be in the right sun/shade position.
I wanted a big variety of vegetables and herbs and many of our beloved strawberries.
Organized as I am...I started out with looking at websites of how to plan your own little vegetable garden. mijnmoestuin.nl (my vegetable garden) was a little help to when you should start planting you veg and when to take them out.
We went to the DIY shop to buy enough pots and earth to set up on our little strip along the house.
Then I bought all the seeds I fancied and started the germination in small pots in the window shelf.
This doesn't always work as it's a delicate thing to get the temperature, light and watering right.
But it's such an amazing thing to see a seed growing into a green leafy thing that will later on give you tasty food to put in your all home made salad or cake!
I added a video below about the growth of a bean, I find it fascinating!
The pictures you see below are very recent and you can see that the garden is just beginning to bloom and the veg are at their early stage of facing the real outside weather. It's been kind of rough for them lately as we had a lot of rain and cold. Many of my first seedlings did not survive because of this. The second batch seems to be a lot stronger.

This is my list of things I hope to be eating from my own garden this summer:
- Lots of strawberries, I think I have about 15 plants.
- Beetroots
- Olives, I need to find a good recipe to pickle them.
- Sweet chillies, love them!
- Hot peperoncino, last year we had a very successful plant but it died because of the cold.
- Beans, so nice to see them grow.
- Sage, Basil, Origano, Thyme and Mint.
- Lemons, last year they turned black so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
- Tomatoes, big and small.
- Courgette
- Potatoes from the ground, I planted two types.
- Two types of salad.

It will be a humble crop as I don't have that much space. But it's even more the growing process I enjoy. Every day when I get home from work, I check my plants and there is always a surprise waiting for me to be discovered.

The 'garden'

Sage flowers

strawberries

first rose in bloom

Lemon flower, smells amazing!

Lemon tree buds

Potatoes in the ground

strawberries, beetroot and herbs

Young tomatoes

Our olive trees are growing like crazy

Dinner outside, I now made a terrace on the right side with stones

Sunset magazine from Macon, USA

Below a time-lapse about a the growth of a bean