It has been a very dry and hot summer here

Leaves, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

LIME AND THYME MARINATED CHICKEN WITH GREEN BEANS AND POTATOES

Blank, completely blank is what my mind is right now but I just can't sit here and stare at the computer so I thought that a little ramble would help me to get where I am supposed to go, the recipe of today. Sometimes I think that I should not post too simple or obvious recipes here but then I slap myself and tell myself that why not, sometimes that is exactly what you need, it is the kind of recipes that saves your dinner when you are busy or too tired to make anything to complicated. And very often simple dishes are those that give you the most comfort when you need it. This chicken dish is exactly that to me, great comfort food and quite easy to make, the only thing is that you need to remember to prepare the chicken an hour or two before you start cooking but apart from that, it is just straightforward cooking.





LIME AND THYME MARINATED CHICKEN WITH GREEN BEANS AND POTATOES
4 servings

500 g chicken breast
200 g green beans
4 big potatoes
fresh thyme
1-2 limes, depends on their size
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Cut the chicken meat into pieces and put in a bowl together with chopped fresh thyme and the juice of the lime(s). Stir and leave to marinate for 1-2 hours. If you remember, mix the meat a cuople of times.
- Peel and dice the potatoes, clean the green beans and cut into pieces.
- Cook potatoes and beans in some olive oil until soft and a little golden. Add salt.
- Turn up the flame and add the chicken meat, cook and stir until the chicken is cooked, check salt and serve.

Back again with Sunday links!

View Revisited


Today I have some links that I would like to share with you:

Starting with food, one of the first food blogs I found when I started to blog was Barbara's Tigers and Strawberries and I have since then tried to keep up with her blog. I like how she writes and what she writes even though I might not always agree but she makes me think and she is not afraid of expressing her opinion, something I appreciate a lot. I also enjoys the food she posts about and I learn a lot every time I go there so I felt that it was time to spread the word to new readers and bloggers.

The next link is to a blog post by Lydia over at The Perfect Pantry that has been haunting me since I read it back in July. It's about ginger and it tells us how to grow it yourself in your garden, something that I really would like to do and maybe someone else out there too, it is really simple. Thanks Lydia!

And to round off the food section, I find this Food Timeline both interesting, amusing and a little mindboggling too actually because there is so much information and even though it might not all be correct, I love the passion put into this project!

Since I was little child of 4 and fell in love with the star constellation Cassiopeia, I always am on the look out for it and the other constellations I have managed to learn so the Neave Planetarium is just the place for me!

And do take a look at the art of Robert J. Lang, he creates the most fantastic things with origami!


The Sun and the Rose

Three Olives

Three Olives, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

PRICKLY PEARS AND PEACH DRINK WITH MINT - FRULLATO DI FICHI D'INDIA E PESCHE CON MENTA

I am doing a couple of heavy hours every morning in our garden in order to clean it of quite a lot of overgrowth, I take a corner a day and dedicate it a couple of hours of serious pruning, cutting and sawing. It is quite a satisfying work actually, I am allowed to go through the garden like a terminator with the added satisfaction of it looking so much better afterwards. How often does that happen in my life? Almost never. But I am not just rambling here, there is a purpose with what I am writing, this is leading up to today's recipe or rather serving suggestion, all that work in the hot sun does make a girl very thirsty and then a refreshing prickly pear juice and peach drink is just the thing and I can tell you that if it hadn't been too early in the day and obviously a bit too early for alcoholic drinks, I would have added a dash of rum and I would have slumped down with it to relax on a sun chaise in the shadow of the oak. Next time maybe.
And as it is gluten-free, I add it to my Gluten-free Friday series!





PRICKLY PEARS AND PEACH DRINK WITH MINT - FRULLATO DI FICHI D'INDIA E PESCHE CON MENTA
2-3 glasses

500 ml/ 2,1 cups prickly pears juice. I bought a bag of prickly pears, cut them in halves and then passed them through a sieve in order to separate the liquid from the numerous seeds.
2 mature peaches
200-400 ml/ 1-2 cups ice cubes
4-5 small mint leaves (optional)
a dash of rum (optional)

- Peel the peaches, cut them in pieces and put these in a mixer. Add prickly pear juice and ice cubes, if you feel like it, add mint leaves and rum as well.
- Run until smooth and serve immediately.

Shaft

Shaft, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

CUCUMBER BUNDLES WITH HOT FRITTATA RIBBONS

It feels good to be back here in Tuscany even though it is pretty hot here, it forces you to take it easy which is good in one way but right now I am still full of that energy you usually have when you come back from a vacation, a wish to change is in the air, and it is such a waste not using it before I fall into the usual 'torpor'. Torpor is probably not the right word but it feels like that in my mind, once upon a time I really liked making my home a nice place to live in but nowadays it feels more like I am keeping it liveable instead. That must change so keep your fingers crossed.

Before I start on this life changing project of regaining lost capacities and wishes, I would like to serve you a nice little piece of finger food, fresh cucumber sticks wrapped in hot frittata strips. I like eggs with chili pepper, they go so well together, and the freshness of the cucumbers makes a nice contrast. But you can obviously use some other vegetable and/or substitute the chili with chopped fresh herbs if you want, there are so many ways to do here!





CUCUMBER BUNDLES WITH HOT FRITTATA RIBBONS
10 bundles

2 eggs
2 tblsp freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 pinch salt
fresh chili pepper, finely chopped. The amount depends on how hot the peppers are and your own personal taste
1 cucumber

- Whisk eggs, parmesan, salt and chili pepper until the batter is smooth.
- Make a thin frittata in a non-stick pan.
- Peel the cucumber and cut it into thin sticks.
- Cut the frittata into 1 cm/0,4 in wide strips.
- Take 4-5 cucumber sticks and make small bundles with them, wrap each with a frittata strip that you fasten with a toothpick.

Evening Sun In Sweden

SMALL RASPBERRY AND CHOCOLATE CAKES

Today (Monday) I am returning to Italy, we all are obviously, but as I try to keep my family outside of this blog, I say I. So I am writing this today (Sunday). And now I am wondering if I will be able to get past this beginning and get started with the recipe of the small raspberry and chocolate cakes I made for dinner a couple nights ago but with some effort I think I will because they were so good that it would be criminal not to share them with you. (Even though they hardly can be called healthy but I am of the opinion that we need to indulge now and then, not too frequently but what would life be without high and lows?) See how I can brag when I try but I really liked them a lot. We have been eating a lot of raspberries here because Sweden is a raspberry country and I find it hard to resist when I see them, they have such a beautiful colour and form, not to speak about the flavour!
I made 28 small ones because the kitchen here is more or less void of kitchen utensils but I am sure you can bake it in bigger forms than I used or in a large cake tin if you want, you obviously have to bake it a bit longer but not too long because it should be nice and creamy in the middle.





SMALL RASPBERRY AND CHOCOLATE CAKES
28 small ones

cakes:
5 eggs
300 ml/1,25 cup sugar
150 g/5,3 oz dark chocolate
100 g/3,5 oz milk chocolate
250 g/8,8 oz butter
300 ml/1,25 cup flour
1 pinch salt
1 scarce tsp baking powder
500 ml/2,1 cups raspberries (volume is the measure used when you buy them and I have no scales in this kitchen, I am sorry.)

ganache:
150 g/5,3 oz dark chocolate
100 g/3,5 milk chocolate
3 tblsp fresh cream
100 g/3,5 oz butter

decoration:
500-600 ml2,1-2,5 cups fresh raspberries

- Melt butter and chocolate and leave to cool down.
- Whisk eggs and sugar fluffy. Add the melted butter and chocolate, stir and then add the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well.
- Fold the raspberries into the batter.
- Spoon the batter into the small forms and bake in a pre-heated oven (175°C/350°F) for about 10 minutes. Leave to get cold.
- Melt butter and chocolate for the ganache and then add the cream, stir until it it thoroughly mixed.
- Pour or spoon a small amount on every cake and top with 2-3 raspberries before serving.

Ten more lines

Our stay here in Sweden is drawing to a close and so is the summer here, it feels luxurious to be able to go home to Italy and immerse ourselves in the hot hot summer again because I am not ready for autumn yet. Oh no. Anyway, now it is the time to do all the little things that always are left to the last, procrastination has clearly not gone on vacation when it comes to me.
I leave you with some more photos, I am taking the easy way out; I hope you can forgive me but I am now so relaxed from blogging that I have forgotten to write a blog post longer that 10 lines, I wonder how it will go next week when I am back on 'full-time' blogging?

A Trip To an Island

We arrived to the island with the boat packed with crayfish and food. Well the crayfish was our food for the first evening.





We even arrived before the rain. And it rained. A lot. But we just moved the dinner indoors and had just as good a time anyway.





When we woke up the day after, the rain had moved on and left us a clean sky and a calm sea.



There are few things that has such a calming effect on me as the sea and staying outdoors all day was like balm on my soul.

red

red, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

RHUBARB AND PEAR CREAM - Gluten-free

There are some things that are more Swedish than others to me even though I know that they exist in other parts of the world as well but they embody so many memories of my origins that I cannot but see them as Swedish in my mind. Rhubarb is one of them. Where ever I lived as a child, there were always rhubarbs growing somewhere and I think that many of my Swedish readers will agree with me that summer is not summer without eating rhubarbs in some form or other. I have never seen rhubarbs where I live in Italy and as we usually rent flats when we are in Sweden, I haven't seen any here as well for years so you can imagine how happy I was when I discovered a big rhubarb plant here in the flower bed of the small house we are living in here! It is a bit overgrown so I felt that it was my duty to use up some of the stalks to make me a happier person, sometimes on has to do ones duty, don't you think? The first rhubarb dish I made was an old-fashioned rhubarb cream but with the addition of pears to give it a little extra texture and sweetness. And as it is gluten-free, I add it to my Gluten-free Friday series!






RHUBARB AND PEAR CREAM - Gluten-free
3-4 servings

600 ml/2,5 cups rhubarb stalks cut into pieces
3 medium pears, peeled and cut into pieces
200-300 ml/ 0,85-1,25 cup sugar
600 ml/2,5 cups water
2,5-3 tblsp potato starch (or corn starch), the more, the firmer

- Bring water and sugar to a boil in a pan and then add the rhubarb and the pears and leave to simmer until the rhubarb is soft, it just takes 3-4 minutes if you have cut it into small pieces.
- Mix starch with a little water before adding it to avoid lumps, add it stirring all the time over low heat and when it has become dense, take the pan off the heat.
- Pour it all into a bowl and let it get cold or at least tepid before eating.

Photos and HotM announcement

I am completely to blame for this very late HotM announcement, Michelle discreetly probed and pushed me but my brain obviously went on vacation coming here. Anyway, better late than never. So I am proudly presenting you with a new theme for what remains of August and as a bonus, September as well: A as in August (and September). Do you realize what a incredible freedom of choice this gives you? Dishes with names beginning with A, an enormous amount of ingredients that begin with A and I am sure there are plenty of other ways to interpret this theme. But I am putting a little restriction on it, if you choose to go for an ingredient beginning with the letter A it has to be the main ingredient but apart from that, you are free to do what you want. And of course it has to be heart-healthy too: your entry should be low in saturated fats (lean meats and fish), be low in salt (sodium), and that you can be abundant with vegetables or fruit. If you want to get more information, check out our useful links in the right hand marginal of the HotM blog. Please only use your entry for this event so that we can keep things centred on heart-healthy recipes and please link to the event as well. Send your entries to me at luculliandelights AT gmail DOT com before (your) midnight Sunday 27th of September.

But now over to something completely different, and you will not have to read anything, just look at some of my favourite photos from our trip to Sweden so far, a crazy mix:







Click here to see the last photo.

reluctance

reluctant, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

SMOKED SALMON AND EGGPLANT CROSTINI WITH HORSE RADISH TOPPING

I'm quite surprised myself but here we are, a recipe from my temporary kitchen in Sweden! I wanted to make something like Sweden meets Italy and this is what came out of that. I really love horseradish, or pepparrot/pepper root as it is called in Swedish, it has a lovely peppery taste and then there is that incredible explosion in the nose, just like wasabi , that surprises me every time - what more can you ask from food than that? And it goes so well with smoked salmon. Fried eggplant is also a favourite of mine and I think that its sweetness goes very well with the smoky saltiness of the salmon. Try it!





SMOKED SALMON AND EGGPLANT CROSTINI WITH HORSE RADISH TOPPING

bread, sliced and toasted
eggplant
smoked salmon
horseradish, either grated fresh or bought in tubes. You can also use wasabi
creme fraiche or if you can't find that, sour cream can also work
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

- Slice the eggplant thinly and fry in olive oil. Put on kitchen towel paper to drip off the excess oil and sprinkle a little salt over the slices.
- Cut the salmon into thin strips.
- Mix as much horseradish as you feel like with the creme fraiche.
- Now put a couple of slices of eggplants on each crostino, then you add salmon strips on them and finally top with the horseradish mix.