Microwave Thai

We found these amazing little takeout boxes of Thai food at the german grocery store here! Pretty much all you have to do is open the pack of noodles then add the sauce from the package and put it in the microwave for 2-3 min.- easy as that! Now its not the best Thai food in the world but its pretty much the only Thai food we can get here so we're gonna stock up! And they come with fortune cookies now who doesn't like that!

A vegan Way of Life

Recently ( two weeks ago) I joined the ways of the vegan lifestyle! I have often been curious about being vegan and what that would entail. I must admit that from time to time I had thought it to be a totally wasted effort, I mean why would you knowingly (and with full control of your brain) not eat anything that comes from animals... just think of life without cheese. Yet here I am two weeks into it, no meat,cheese,milk,yogurt, eggs...etc! Its been quite a healthy trip so far! I've been eating lots of vegetables and fruit and finding out about the amazing powers of quinoa and other funky beans and roots! Not to mention eating a good dose of PB&J's. It's a little tricky doing the vegan thing here in Italy with the Italians not able to grasp their minds around the idea of vegetarian let alone vegan seeing as most of there diet in based on meat and dairy. Who knows how long I'll stick with it or if I'll become vegetarian or just go back to being a carnivore! But for now I'm still inspired to eat healthy plant-based meals!

Popovers with Raspberry butter and the Beach

Ever had one of those days when you wake up and you’re sitting down in front of the computer with a cup of coffee and then you get this great idea from heaven itself to bake something. But half way through your baking process you realize that there isn’t actually time to finish, so you rush around only to realize that you can't actually do anything except turn the oven up and hope that it will finish in time! Until finally you can’t wait any longer and you just pull out whatever is in the oven and throw it a bag then run out! – Well in case you hadn’t figured out from the immense details of the last couple lines this is the exact scenario that happened to me this morning while I was trying to make popovers and raspberry butter!
After the excitements of my morning we went to spend the day with Amory and Kate at the beach. We went snorkeling around then went and had a wonderful lunch while looking out at the sea!

 Popovers + Raspberry Butter!
I got the recipe from cupcakes and cashmere and Orangette - I had to change the strawberry butter to Raspberry (because of course strawberries are out of season!!) and add powder sugar for some sweetness!

Cooking Frenzy!!

First of all I have to say "Happy Valentines Day" - a couple days late!! And Buon Carnivale! We finally got a break from school for Carnivale ( a three day weekend - big break!)! So pretty much I did absolutely nothing productive for the first part, but then of course, I started to feel bad about not doing anything so I had to do something! And my idea of something to do all started after watching Julie and Julia!!(A great movie about Julia Child- you have to love Maryl Streep) so naturally, after I saw the movie I just had to cook something. This resulted in me cooking all of Tuesday - not that I'm complaining, here's what I made:

 

 Ingredients for french baguette! 

  

 Mixing 'em all up!

  

 Toasting bread for bruschetta !

  

 Cutting the tomato and basil!

  

 Ummmmm... delicious bruschetta with a topping of basil olive oil!

  

 Asortment of cheeses that we found in the market! ( I love brie, and most stinky cheese!!)

  

 The baguette didn't last long enough to take a picture!

  

Ingredients for French chicken with a mushroom sherry cream sauce -  

 

And french chicken with a mushroom moscato ( we were out of sherry!) cream sauce!!

Pork, rice and chopsticks

Last week we went to our friends Dave and Yuki Piper's house, they just moved here from Seattle. Yuki is from Japan (where she and Dave met) so we were treated to a WONDERFUL meal that she made for us! Let’s see we had Tonkatsu or 豚カツ or for those of us who don't speak Japanese its pork cutlet - breaded deep-fried pork. We also ate Miso soup with seaweed along with a bowl of rice. Only to be followed by a classic Italian cup of coffee - ok well I was the only one to have the coffee!

                                              Here's Yuki cooking away!

Frying with chopstickes!!

These are the Tonkatsu's, fresh from the fryin' pan!

The full layout!

                                                            
                                            Look at the cute chopstick holder!

Pasta alle Sorelle!

Literally translated: Pasta on the Sisters! Last night our parents were going out to dinner with some friends and seeing as neither Olivia or I had plans for the night we decided to have a sister night! This included cooking our own WONDERFUL penne using a recipe from the blog http://thepioneerwoman.com/-I love her blog, her food is really good!- and sitting down to old episodes of Friends and Scrubs.

Here are the ingredients (from the pioneer woman’s blog) with our own pictures!!

Ingredients
• ¾ pounds Penne Pasta
• 1 pound Shrimp
• 3 Tablespoons Butter
• 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 whole Onion (small)
• 2 cloves Garlic
• ½ cups White Wine (we used chicken broth)
• 1 can Tomato Sauce (8 Oz)
• 1 cup Heavy Cream
• Fresh Parsley (for the Taste)
• Fresh Basil (for the Taste
• Salt
• Pepper


Preparation Instructions:

First start to cook the pasta, cook until good and tender-firm.

Wash the shrimp, add 1 teaspoon of butter and 1 teaspoon olive oil in the skillet. Add the shrimp and cook for a few minutes until they turn opaque. After done cooking put them on a cutting board and cut them into BITEsize pieces.

Then dice the onion and mince the garlic.

In another skillet add 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Then add the garlic and onion, let them sauté of a while. Then pour in the wine or chicken broth and let in evaporate a little.

Now add the tomato sauce, stirring to combine.

Then the cup of heavy cream, keep on stirring… you’re almost there! Turn the heat to low and set aside.

Ok now turn to your herbs and get ready to chop! About a tablespoon of chopped parsley ....

and another tablespoon of basil.

So now you add the shrimp to the tomato cream sauce, give it a good stir and check to see if you need to add salt or pepper for flavor.

Add the herbs and your tomato sauce COMPLETE!!!

Finally add the sauce to the penne...

stir it in and finito! ummm mama mia che buono!

Sprinkel some extra parsley on top and you are ready to rumba!

Rain rain come back!!!

Ahhhhh at last it’s finally starting to feel like autumn!!! It was raining today and on the way back from the bus I just couldn't help but jumping and splashing in the puddles as all the Italians scurried by me with umbrellas and newspapers covering their heads - ok so I did have my rubber 'wellies' on but at first I was using my papers to shield my hair, something the teachers do not like being told! Anyway it’s that kind of weather when you want to stay inside and drink apple cider with cinnamon and pumpkin soup and snuggle up on the couch just to read! I'm getting excited just thinking about it! I love looking at those magazines like Better Homes and Gardens around this time because the colors are amazing and not to mention the food is to die for! http://www.bhg.com/recipes/  or also http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/favourites/... see what I mean, I feel like I can go and cook anything and it will look exactly like the picture! The other night we had people over and we ate the BEST pumpkin soup ever, and I’m not even kidding it was soooo good and fit in perfect with the weather and mood and all that.


Heres the recipe:


4 tbsp olive oil
2 onions , finely chopped
1kg pumpkin or squash (try kabocha), peeled, deseeded and chopped into chunks
700ml vegetable stock or chicken stock
142ml pot double cream
4 slices wholemeal seeded bread
handful pumpkin seed from a packet


1.Heat half the olive oil in a large saucepan, then gently cook the onions for 5 mins, until soft but not coloured. Add the pumpkin or squash to the pan, then carry on cooking for 8-10 mins, stirring occasionally until it starts to soften and turn golden.


2.Pour the stock into the pan, then season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 mins until the squash is very soft. Pour the cream into the pan, bring back to the boil, then purée with a hand blender. For an extra-velvety consistency you can now push the soup through a fine sieve into another pan. The soup can now be frozen for up to 2 months.


3.While the soup is cooking, slice the crusts from the bread, then cut the bread into small croutons. Heat the remaining olive oil in a frying pan, then fry the bread until it starts to become crisp. Add the seeds to the pan, then cook for a few mins more until they are toasted. These can be made a day ahead and stored in an airtight container. Reheat the soup if needed, taste for seasoning, then serve scattered with croutons and seeds and drizzled with more olive oil, if you want.


Note: We just had the dark bread on the side but it was great with the soup.  And the bacon bits are PERFECT for this!

Tonight I'm going to try to cook some CRUSHED HOT POTATOES so watch out!

DOUGHNUTS!!

Just the other day I had a mad craving for really good american doughnuts, but i was unfortunately sick so i didn't actually participate in the making per-say, but i did over see the over sight of operation doughnut! We got the recipie from a friend of ours and got to work early on sunday morning only to find out later that we had forgotten all about the oil - that you need to cook the doughnuts... kind of a crutial ingridiant if you think about it, so we had to drive all the way to jim and amory's to steal their vegtable oil seeing as how the supermarket was closed and no one else had any!!! But it all worked out and we all got doughnuts in the end!!!