Sweet summer calls me - Sponge Cake Bruschetta With Berries, Maple Syrup and Cinnamon Salsa

   Well it is more like me calling for sweet summer actually because so far it's not that summery around here. OK it is green and flowery all over but the sun is reluctant to show up, it teases us now and then with promises and then it lets us down with a big splash or something similar.  So what else is there to do other than create summer for ourselves? And what better way to do that than with summery food? So I leave you with this dessert, snack or treat, call it what you will. Because you toast the cake, you can use any old sponge cake you have lying around, I didn't have any so I made myself a fresh one, using the Lemon extract that Nielsen-Massey kindly sponsored us with at the P2P workshop a few weeks ago, just because I like lemon.

   Next time you will hear from me it will be from Sweden some time next week, I have been a diligent and have a few recipes to post for you and I will also post photos from the north, just like I always do!

SPONGE CAKE BRUSCHETTA WITH BERRIES, MAPLE SYRUP AND CINNAMON


2 slices of sponge cake/person
75-100 g / 2,6-3,5 ounce raspberries and blueberries/person
2 tbsp maple syrup/person
1 pinch cinnamon/person

   Take half of the berries and mash them roughly in a bowl, add the rest of the berries, the maple syrup and the cinnamon and mix well. Leave to juice up for 10 minutes

   Toast the sponge cake under the grill. Put the slices on the plates you are going to serve them on and spoon the berry salsa on top of each slice. It is not a bad idea to wait a few minutes before serving so that the cake get imbibed with the salsa but don't wait too long so that it gets soggy.

Beat the boredom - Cold Carrot, Rosemary and Lemon Soup With Pancetta Topping

 This is a busy week, lots of things to do before we leave for two weeks in Sweden on Sunday and I live by my daily lists, ticking off all the things that pop up in my head and that would disappear if I didn't catch them on a list. I love lists which doesn't mean that I always follow them but I find comfort and order in writing down what has to be done and then see how many things that I have done, I confess that I sometimes write down any insignificant thing just to be able to tick off as many as possible so I can gloat over my own efficiency. A kind of cheating really but quite innocent.

It took me some time to get back to blogging mood after Plate To Page, no to be honest I suddenly went on food blogging strike-it can be soo tedious to always, well almost, have to cook and then photograph the food and sometimes I just want to cook new, interesting food for me and my family without that pressure. And it feels great actually but now I'm back, I still have lots of ideas about food to blog about and I am even enjoying to shoot it so I will try to do as much I can before leaving.

But this must be the most boring blog post of this century, dangerously close to what you should read when you suffer from insomnia, I better stop now.

    I have been wanting to make a carrot soup for ages and I got that final little push last weekend when I had a very nice carrot and coriander soup. But I am still on that rosemary and lemon trip so I approached my soup from that angle and then I couldn't resist to balance the sweetness with some savoury pancetta/bacon as topping.

COLD CARROT, ROSEMARY AND LEMON SOUP WITH PANCETTA TOPPING
4 servings

1 kg/ 2,2 lb carrots, the better they taste, the better the soup
800 ml/ 3,4 cup water
400 ml/ 1,7 cup fresh cream
2-3 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
the grated zest of 1 lemon
150 g/ 5,3 ounce pancetta or bacon
salt

   Peel the carrots if they need it and cut into pieces that you put with the water in a pan and then simmer until very soft. Add the rosemary and the lemon zest the last 4-5 minutes.

   Add the fresh cream and run the soup in a blender or with a hand mixer until completely smooth. Season to taste, i.e. add a little salt, more lemon zest or rosemary if you think the soup need it.

   Cut the pancetta in small pieces and fry until crisp in a skillet, put on kitchen paper to drip off excess fat and then top every bowl of soup with it. Put the rest in a bowl and let people add more if they want.

Plate To Page Somerset 2012 - the story so far

It's time to post about our third Plate To Page Workshop, this time held in Somerset in the UK. It is not easy to write about really because I find it difficult to describe the energy, the emotions (oh yes, I have been living in Italy for too long) and the beauty of it all with words so I will mostly let the photos speak.



This is the house we slept, worked and shared our meals in, a beautiful old stone house called Meare Court situated in lovely Somerset. We were surrounded by fields, cows and lots of trees. Very peaceful and perfect for our workshop.



 As usual the participants were great and we all made new friends and met people we never would have met which is definitely one of my favourite aspects of the P2P workshops. The people.



 But we did go places too and the best by far was Brown & Forrest Smokery, what a place, what a passion the owner Jesse has for his work and above all: what incredible food they produce! I really enjoyed the tour of the miniscule smokery and to taste the different smoked products they sell. I can really recommend what they do and I am not surprised that so many top chefs and shops like Fortnum & Mason use and sell Brown & Forrest!

 And then we have the incredible sponsors, many of these local and/or small producers who really impressed with what the do and who really deserve all the promotion they can get on our part. Sponsors who provided us not only with great things for our goodie bags but also with fine wines and drinks (Bisol's wonderful proseccos and Laithwaite's fantastic red wine, refreshing cider and juices from Orchard Pig), food to eat (lamb shanks, the best fish pies ever and great curries from Donald Russel and I just can't resist to add that they also serve the Queen of England! Hrmph. Then we had fresh asparagus and garlic from the Garlic Farm, fine goat's cheese from Capricorn Goat's Cheese, Cavi-Art, Dammenberg Chocolate, Mustard, Cream Cheese from generous Gourmelli, unbeatable smoked salt from Halen Mon,) sweets (super tasty Blue Basil Brownies, incredible Sally Williams' Nougats, jams from Sunchowder, flavoured extracts from Nielsen & Massey, not to forget the delicious raw chocolate from Raw Love Life) and in addition to this we got  cookbooks and aprons from Taste of Home and last but definitely not the least two fabulous knives each from super generous Edge of Belgravia - I feel incredibly lucky to have got all these products and you can rest assured that I will cook and blog some new dishes using the things I got from our sponsors!

To finish I want to say THANK YOU to all the participants (I will add a list with links here when I have the time), to all our fantastic sponsors, to my dear P2P colleagues Jamie, Jeanne and Meeta and to lovely Hayley (a P2P Tuscany participant) and Sebastian who came down and cooked for us for making Plate To Page Somerset 2012 such a great experience that I will remember for a long time!