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

Easter Bunny Brunch!

Yes, I'm back! After a slight hick-up with the name of a whiplash and a more pleasant break from writing in the shape of our trip to the States, I'm back.

As I never like to exclude exciting moments from my blog I thought I'd start my comeback with a post about our Easter Lunch with friends.
I organized this festive lunch because I had the urge to revive family traditions and try some old and new recipes out on my friends.

I had my day planned full with decorating the table, painting eggs, baking the Easter bunnies and preparing all the other delicious things I had on my list.

I wanted to fill the table with a ray of Easter goodies that  I knew from my childhood on.
I started with doing some research on how to make the best Easter bunnies with the most fun shape. I got to the recipe of this speedy hopping bunny, I made them with buttery white bread dough and they turned out delicious, soft on the inside and golden and crispy on the outside.

Then I made my all time favorite scones, crumbly and warm, straight from the oven. I took Jamie Oliver's recipe this time, from his Great Britain cookbook. I served them with whipped cream and raspberry jam, as I like them best.

For a more savory touch I baked some wholemeal blini's and served them up with smokes salmon and sour cream and some dille. I also did a plain flour version but we all definitely preferred the wholemeal ones. I you see I was just in time to make a picture before they were gone!

My friend brought some fresh asparagus which I served with a vinaigrette dressing and scrambled eggs. I always make those with cream instead of milk as it makes them so much more silky and fluffy! Mmm!

To round up this scrumptious meal I had a New York cheesecake and a soothing cup of tea.

I could celebrate Easter every Sunday morning, without any problem!

Esselunga-time!

Finally, I found some real, that means not genetically influenced by men, food in the supermarket!

Or maybe they were having some fun in the lab while creating these odd looking eggplants.

Normally the are plain, round and very 'perfect' looking. But just this one lucky day the 'melanzane' was having a laugh in the veg-section of my favorite supermercato, the Esselunga.

This is the place were we go every week to shop for the best offers on olive oil, fresh bresaola, ricotta and everything else this rich country produces.

Yesterday we had a new record sky-high bill. The cashier said that in her family of four, including two adolescents, this amount of food disappears miraculously fast in a week...we didn't dare mention that is was actually just for the two of us food lovers....

Devilicious

Nosy man

Patatje met!

Typical Dutch and o so delicious, these fries.

I say typical Dutch but actually we call them Belgium fries. They are fat, chunky and preferably hand cut. I always take one with Belgium mayonnaise, that is a bit sour and I prefer it to the sweeter Dutch version. 

The 'Patatje met' (fries with)you see on the picture was bought and eaten on the Damrak in Amsterdam at supposedly the best fries shop in town... I'm sure the next shop will argue with that statement. 

But surely, eating fries in a pointy bag with a wooden fork is a must when you go to Amsterdam, and it's always on my 'to do' list that I make just before I go there.

I enjoyed this portion of hot fries even more because it fit so well to my brand new  winter coat!

Tropical Icebergs

During the Christmas holidays, when at home at my love's mom, who has an amazing big TV, I saw the first episode of Frozen Planet by the BBC Earth. And watching this, you need a big screen.

I was amazed what beautiful wonders the warming of the Earth can create. It made me feel so excited and sad at the same time.
I have always thought, and am pretty sure, that nature can never be overruled in its beauty by manmade things. This series confirmed that feeling.
The countless shades of blue that hide in a piece of ancient ice. The slow transformation of a glacial landscape. The love-making of polar bears.

The closest I've ever been to an icy landscape like this was the Rhone and Aletsch glacier in Switzerland. We climbed the mountain next to it to be able to see the miles long street of thousands of years old ice. At the end of the Rhone glacier there is an ice cave that you can enter. It was covered with pieces of white cloth to reflect the warm sunlight and to keep the glacier from melting away even quicker.

Not that it has anything to do with it, I just thought they looked somewhat like little icebergs...I baked a tropical delight last week 'coconut rocks' or as we call them in Holland 'cocos macronen'.

I was looking for a 'quick and easy' recipe and that's exactly what this is.

You need:
180gr of ground coconut
2 very fresh eggwhites
120gr of table sugar
1/2 a stick of fresh vanilla
1 pinch af salt

Preheat the oven on 210 degrees C.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Make whatever shape you like of them as long as you get between 15 and 20 pieces. Put them on a baking paper lined oven tray and bake them for about 5-8 minutes, depending on your oven. You can keep them for a few days.

After baking 

above 4 photo's from www.lovethesepics.com

Rhone glacier

Aletsch glacier