This is life here right now

I use this photo as my desktop background because it is so summery to me, the green, white and yellow brings out my Swedish roots and make me think of past midsummers celebrated among flowers and grass. And friends too.



Right now the evenings here are lovely, when I step out on the stairs in the darkness to close the doors for the night, I feel the honeysuckle's sweet perfume and the garden and the fields around us are filled with fireflies blinking, sending out their messages that I don't understand but enjoy watching anyway.



This is my favourite gate. There are not many wooden fences and gates around here any more but this still stands and I pass it several times a day, either by foot or by car and it always catches my eye.



There are still a lot of poppies around but there's more variety to it, just look at this that makes me think of those loose fur or feather collars that women used to wear. My grandmother still had some and they always seemed so glamorous to me.



But not everything is green, there are also soft carpets like this under some trees, with soft and cool colours and I am happy to rest my eyes on them now and then when garish Mother Nature is too exuberant!

loosing the lashes

peony, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

CHICKPEA CREPES WITH TOASTED ALMOND AND GOAT'S CHEESE AND CUCUMBER FILLING - Gluten-free

My baby is back with me and it feels good. Using someone else's computer is like using someone else's handbag, it feels slightly uncomfortable to rummage around things that aren't yours and you can never find what you really are looking for. So here I am with my own computer (and handbag) and it feels cozy. Computers are strange things, to me they are like doorways to another dimension, I just can't feel that they are only means of communication, no, they open up other worlds, in a way I suppose they are smaller versions of black holes in a way. But now I will save you from me going on about this subject because I can feel that I am going on some kind of trip here and I don't have the time to delete and write about something else.

So here's the real reason for me rambling on, chickpea crepes with toasted almonds and a goat's cheese and cucumber filling. I don't think I have to say much about that, they speak for themselves!






CHICKPEA CREPES WITH TOASTED ALMOND AND GOAT'S CHEESE AND CUCUMBER FILLING
4 medium to small crepes

crepes:
100 g/3,5 oz chickpea flour
4 tblsp toasted almond flour (easy to make on your own: toast the almonds in the oven until pale/light brown and then run them in a food processor until you have flour)
200 ml/0,85 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tblsp extra-virgin olive oil

filling:
200 g/ 7 oz soft, fresh goat's cheese
Greek yoghurt
1/2 cucumber either finely diced or cut into really fine strips

- Make a batter with chickpea flour, almond flour, water, salt and olive oil. Let it stand and rest for 5-10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, mix goat's cheese and yoghurt until it is nicely creamy and soft.
- Heat up a little olive oil in a pan or skillet and go on frying the crepes on both sides.
- Put the ready crepes on a plate, spread out some of the goat's cheese filling, top with cucumber and fold or roll the crepes.
- Eat warm or tepid.

Space ball

COLD TOMATO AND VEGETABLE SOUP WITH SAGE

It is hot here right now, the kind of hot that strips you of the wish to live in the late afternoon if you manage to make it through the day. I am not used to it yet so I have problems, I take myself too seriously and even believe I mean it but then I remind myself that this is how I feel when it is hot. So I almost cheer up and try to think and feel less. Above all, I try to stay away from adolescential arguments because that really punctures my lust for life balloon if I may call it like that. You who have or have had teenagers know what I am talking about. Heat waves and that (adolescential argument) is not compatible.



But I know something that is, cold soups are perfectly compatible with heat waves, they might even be a must, and cold vegetable soups must be the best of them all. This is a deliciously dense tomato soup to which I added green beans and zucchini to give it a more complext flavour.





COLD TOMATO AND VEGETABLE SOUP WITH SAGE
3-4 servings

700 ml/2,95 cups tomato sauce
150 g/5,3 oz green beans cut into small pieces
1 zucchini, diced
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 large sage leaves, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped (optional)
1 lemon, the grated zest of
400 ml/1,7 cup
600 ml/2,5 cups water
2 tblsp tapioka pearls (optional)
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Fry beans, onion and zucchini slowly in a little olive oil together with garlic, sage and lemon zest for 3-4 minutes.
- Add tomato sauce, water and tapioka and let it all simmer for 1-520 minutes.
- Leave it to cool down before putting it into the fridge to chill it. You can obviously eat it hot if you want.

Palazzo Pretorio, Pistoia

Palazzo Pretorio, Pistoia, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

CREAMY PASTA WITH LEMON AND THYME

Lemon is one of my favourite flavours, as some of you might remember or maybe I am flattering myself here, thinking that someone actually remembers what I write but I am a bit worried about repeating myself and getting boring, not necessarily old because I know a lot of young people who repeat themselves ad infinitum, anyway I love lemon! And pasta. And thyme so what could be better for me to eat, and hopefully for you too, than a plate with pasta in a creamy lemon and thyme sauce?





CREAMY PASTA WITH LEMON AND THYME
2 servings

freshly cooked pasta
1 big lemon
1-2 sprigs of fresh thyme
200 ml/ 0,85 cup fresh cream
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Grate the zest of the lemon, put it in a skillet with a little olive oil and the thyme and cook on low heat for two minutes.
- Add the fresh cream and cook until it has reduced and has become creamy.
- Add about two teaspoons of lemon juice, begin with one and taste the cream before adding the next, lemons vary very much in taste and strength.
- Stir well, heat up the lemon sauce quickly and mix it with freshly cooked pasta.

About this and that

I am stealing a moment on Marco's computer, still no sign of mine but now I know what is wrong and that I will have it back with me next week. But that is without counting with the Pistoian style, here they might say "It will be fixed on Tuesday" or "I will come on Thursday" but that doesn't necessarily mean that they intend this Tuesday or this Thursday but any Tuesday or Thursday in the infinite future. So after many years here, I am prepared for the worst. I usually try to look at it as a sort of exercise for the strengthening of my character, patience is a virtue and I certainly will not loose anything by practicing that virtue.
For obvious reasons I have not had the opportunity to collect any interesting links this week but I have been reading an interesting book that I bought. I have been thinking about fat lately, it started by itself and then I read an interesting article about lard in an Italian food magazine a couple of months ago that confirmed some of my thoughts about animal fat being unfairly victimized as our worst enemy. So when Melissa of The Traveler's Lunchbox wrote lyrically about the book fat by Jennifer McLagan, I immediately ordered a copy. Now I can understand that this in many respects is a controversial book but I cannot but agree with McLagan that animal fats have been unfairly seen as the demon in the kitchen, not all of us need to be careful with what we eat because of colestereol (and that animal fats is the sole cause of that is something McLagan does contest) and I honestly am more scared by processed vegetable oils and fats that I am by some fat on my meat, I am actually glad if I can get nicely marbled meat because I know that it will taste better. What I do care about is not to eat too much of it, just as I try not to eat too much bread or chocolate. Balance is the key word. And that goes for most aspects in our lives. If you are interested in this matter, and you should be, read this book, there is much food for thought. Plus it is filled with lovely and varied recipes, you can be sure that I will make my own lard as soon as I can find the right type of fat!

I have another book that I wanted to say a few words about, quite a long time ago, I was contacted by Elisabetta Tiveron who had got my name from an fellow Italian food blogger. She asked me if I happened to have any Pippi Longstocking books and if so, could I lend her them as she was writing on a book on Pippi and cooking. I don't know about the newer generations in Sweden but I have grown up on a diet of Pippi Longstocking books, I have all the three in old editions so I was happy to lend her the ones I had. Pippi is such an important part of my female identification and I could write several posts about what she has meant to me and Swedish woman in general but I won't. Be happy for that is all I say. Anyway, a couple of days ago I received a book in the mail and I was really happy to have Elisabetta's book Pippi Calzelunghe, piccola grande cuoca. Comfort food in salsa svedese in my hands. I read it all in one sitting and it was a very interesting read, I never really thought about the food in the Pippi books because it is all the food that I used to eat as a child, it was just there so I was, and am, delighted by Elisabetta's idea of exploring the theme. (There are other books by Astrid Lindgren like the books in the Emil series where I remember the food because it was somehow sticking out, being different from my own diet). And not only does she write about it, she also gives us the recipes that she rightly has adapted a little to Italian standards when needed. If there are any Italian readers here, I can recommend this book, you will probably understand Sweden and maybe even me a bit better after reading it and you might even find a new favourite recipe!

So now I have to go, my computer time is up. I will be back with a recipe tomorrow.

an invitation

SWEET RICE DESSERT WITH RAISINS, GINGER, NUTS AND HONEY - GLUTEN-FREE

Gluten-free Friday goes on, I am on the very verge of adding another recipe category where I will collect my gluten-free recipes, baking and cooking but I am still on the verge of doing it stage and I still haven't got my computer so it will be in the future, hopefully the near future though. By saying it here, I might actually start on it soon. Anyway, today I am proposing a little rice dessert, no cream, no sauce except some honey but quite tasty if you like rice, fresh ginger, nuts and raisins. It is important to choose a rice that you like, personally I think Asian rice is better for this that the Italian ones but it is a matter of taste as so many other things in this world.





SWEET RICE DESSERT WITH RAISINS, GINGER, NUTS AND HONEY - GLUTEN-FREE

3-4 servings
250 ml/ 1 cup fine grained rice, not parboiled
1-2 tblsp sugar
100 ml/0,42 cup raisins
a piece of fresh ginger
50-75 g/1,7-2,6 oz nuts, I recommend soft nuts like walnuts or pine nuts.
3-5 tblsp runny honey
rum, very optional

- If you want to soak the raisins in rum, this is the time to do it.
- Cook the rice in water with sugar. Let it cool down.
- Chop ginger, raisins and nuts finely and add the honey.
- Add the rice mix very well and put it in the fridge to get cold.
- Serve with a drizzle of honey.

Elder flowers

Elder flowers, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

PANE DI PASTA TENERA CONDITA or ITALIAN KNOT BREAD

(First a short note to my readers and commenters, my computer is in for reparation and after a disastrous month for computers in our home, I have only limited access to the only working computer remained so I have to excuse myself for a) not having the time to answer comments and emails properly and b) for not being a good fellow blogger visiting your blogs and leaving comments. Not as if I am that good at it even with my computer alive and kicking but now I am worse than ever. Please be patient with me!)

As you can see it is time for our monthly bread and this month I got to choose what to bake and it didn't take me long to decide which bread it was going to be. A couple of months ago I bought an Italian bread book called Pane. Il piacere di preparare pane in casa by Anna Gennari and every bread I have baked from it has been really good but the one that have had the biggest success all over (and then I mean with every member of the family, dog included) is pane di pasta tenera condita or what I call Italian Knot Bread. It is a pretty bread, quite easy to make and very easy to eat. If you ever have been to Italy, it is very probable that you have had very smooth white bread buns in restaurants or at home with your friends, I love them despite the fact that I am more of a wholemeal bread person but I never ever managed to bake similar bread at home until now. This is a recipe that calls for 00 flour, i.e. the finely milled flour you use for making cakes and cookies here in Italy with a protein content that is around 8-9%, and it calls for lard. Not much of it so I don't think it will cause any problems with those of you that have problems with high colestereol levels, with the help of my friends Dancingmorganmouse and our Alumni Babe Glenna I managed to calculate that the content of lard is only 2,7% of the bread as a whole and to be honest, I personally prefer a bit of lard to some of the processed vegetable oils that we find in a lot of food. If you want, you can substitute it but you will not have the same bread unfortunately, the lard does something to it. I know that several Babes have used other fats so please check out their breads, links at the bottom of the post. To help with the knot form, I have included two photos of the explanation that you find in the book and I have translated the text to make it easier for you. As to the recipe, it has been very slightly adapted by me and I have also translated the directions rather freely, having baked it so many times I have developed methods that are slightly different from the the original ones but I am still following the main directions the author gives. This bread freezes really well and that is something I appreciate. I hope you will like this bread as much as we do! I'd love it if you bake it and become a Bread Baking Buddie, if you want to join the ranks, make, bake and blog about the bread and send me the link to the post before the 30th of May (luculliandelights AT gmail DOT com) and I will send you a Buddie badge and include you in the roundup!



PANE DI PASTA TENERA CONDITA or ITALIAN KNOT BREAD

biga:
500 g /1,1 lb normal bread flour
5 g/0,17 oz fresh yeast
240 ml/1 cup water (I usually need a little more)

- Dissolve the yeast in a little water and quickly work the dough together.
- Put it in a high container, cover itwith a half closed lid or a kitchen towel and leave it for 15-24 hours.

bread:
0,500 g/1,1 lb biga
1 kg/ 2,2 lb 00 flour
450-550 ml/ 1,9-2,3 cup water, finger warm
30 g fresh yeast (this is what I found: 18 grams of fresh yeast = 7-10 grams of active dry yeast = about 4-6 grams of instant yeast, I don't dare calculate it right now)
50 g/ 1,7 oz extra-virgin olive oil
60 g/ 2,1 oz lard
25 g/ 0,88 oz honey
25 g/ 0,88 oz salt

- Put the flour either in a big bowl or on a baking board, add the lard and mix it with your fingers until it has 'crumbled' and is completely mixed with the flour.
- Dissolve the yeast in little tepid water and add it to the flour.Mix as well as you can.
- Mix salt, olive oil and honey with the finger warm water and add it to the flour. Now work it it until it holds together and then add the biga.
- Work the dough until it is smooth and doesn't stick. I do it by hand and then it takes between 5-10 minutes.
- Put it into a big bowl, cover it with plastic film and leave to rise until it has doubled.
- Now take up the dough and divide it into smaller parts, about 100 g/3,5 oz each, and roll them it into long snakes (sorry can't remember the proper term) about 25 cm/9,8 in long but you can do them smaller if you want, no need the follow these indications religiously!

To make the knots:
page 1
1. (top left) Roll out the dough into snakes and lay them out on a flat surface.
2. (middle right) Make a semi-circle with the dough snakes.
3. (bottom left) Twist the two end together like in the photo.

page 2
4. (top left) Bring the two ends towards the upper part of the circle.
5. (bottom left) Lift/fold the top part over the twisted part.
6. (right) Take the two end and join them together under the actual knot, this will make the knot part come out more and it hides the ends.

- Put the knots on baking sheets and leave to rise until they have doubled in size.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven (200°C/390°F) for 30-35 minutes. As always it is useful to check the bread and to use your common baking sense!

please check out the rest of the Bread Baking Babes here to see what they made out of it, I know there are some nice variations! (They might not have posted about it yet though so try again if that is the case!): Bake My Day (Karen), I Like to Cook (Sara), Living on Bread and Water (Monique), My Kitchen in Half Cups (Tanna), Grain Doe (Gorel), Notitie van Lien (Lien), The Sour Dough (Mary aka Breadchick), Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn), Living In The Kitchen With Puppies (Natashya)

the wonder of seeing what you can't see

romantics, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICY CHICKPEAS, GREEN BEANS AND TOASTED ALMONDS

I suspect that the best way to understand if a person really likes vegetables is to serve her/him cauliflower, preferably boiled, if they eat that, they are true vegetable lovers. I think I can safely say that cauliflower is one of the most hated vegetables in the Western world (I don't dare to pronounce myself on the Eastern part as they have so many vegetables that we don't have) I know I am a vegetable lover because I love cauliflower in every form and in any way you can cook it. I even think I love it the best steamed and with a little salt and olive oil, simple and pure. The truth is that I can't stop eating it once I start. This just shows how differently we perceive taste and flavours and even smells because I am not even disturbed by how it smells; what is heaven for one person can be hell for another!
Today I offering you steamed cauliflower and green beans, simple flavours that I have spiced up with chili chickpeas and then I added toasted almonds to get some interesting textures too.





CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICY CHICKPEAS, GREEN BEANS AND TOASTED ALMONDS
3-4 servings

1 head cauliflower divided into florets
200 g/7 oz green beans, I used runner beans but you can use any type, cut into pieces
200 g/7 oz chickpeas, cooked
3-4 tblsp sliced and toasted almonds
2-3 tblsp parsley, finely chopped
ground chili pepper
lemon juice
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Put the chickpeas on a plate and sprinkle some salt and chili pepper over them and then drizzle a little olive oil over. Shake the plate so that the chickpeas are covered with chili and oil.
- Either bake the chickpeas in the oven (175°C/350°F) for 15-20 minutes or fry them in a pan until they are a bit crispy.
- Steam the vegetables and put them in a bowl. Add the chickpeas.
- Mix a little lemon juice, salt, parsley and olive oil and add it to the vegetables, stir and serve either tepid or cold.

windows, inside out

A shady friend?

the road homewards, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

WHITE BEAN, TUNA AND CUCUMBER SALAD WITH HERBY CARROT SALSA

Yesterday I saw this blog post and realized that I am done for, if people are so disturbed by spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, you sure have a difficult life here on Lucullian, almost 65% of blog readers are less likely to share, link to or forward a blog post or article if it contains grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. "Spelling and grammatical errors harmed a reader's opinion of a blog, their willingness to spend time on the site and to share its content nearly as much as perceived factual errors did". Now that makes me wonder if we who are writing a non-mother tongue are 'exempted' from this because it is more or less impossible for us not to make mistakes unless you went to an English speaking school as a child. Or maybe it is just me. I live in a linguistic limbo, I speak Swedish with my children and friends, I speak Italian in my daily life and I blog, tweet etc. in English and I often feel that I cannot speak or write any language properly anymore. Sad but true but it somehow it is compensated by the incredible possibilities every language give (or should that be gives??) me as they are all so different and express different cultural identities and, yes, emotional ranges. But still, it makes it more difficult to express myself properly and correctly. Well, if you suffer, I suppose you can always look at the photos!

The first cucumbers have arrived and as I am a cucumber lover and always look forward to this time of the year, I went for them as soon as I saw one. White beans and cucumber is a great combination, both taste and texture gains from the pairing and the carrot salsa is nicely herby and fresh, it is a perfect lunch now when it is getting warm here.





WHITE BEAN, TUNA AND CUCUMBER SALAD WITH HERBY CARROT SALSA
3-4 servings

400 ml/1,7 cup white beans, cooked
2 tins (160 g/5,6 oz) of tuna
1 quite big cucumber
2 carrots
fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley or whatever takes your fancy
3 sun-dried tomatoes
1-2 tblsp capers, optional
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Put the sun-dried tomatoes in tepid water to soak for 20-30 minutes.
- Peel the cucumber and either dice it or cut it into very thin strips. (I used my mandolin that has a special attachment thing that cuts things into thin strips).
- Put the cucumber in a bowl and add beans and tuna, mix well.
- Peel and grate the carrots finely and put it into a blender, food processor or whatever you use to mix thing with. Add herbs, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, some salt and a dash of olive oil. Blend until smooth, add more olive oil until it has the right consistency, i.e. the one you like.
- Add the salsa to the salad and stir well. Let it rest a little before serving.