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Today I'm guest blogging over at Juls Kitchen!

SUMMER SANDWICH WITH WHITE BEANS AND CHERRY TOMATOES ON AVOCADO AND WASABI BUTTER

I get really lazy when it come to cooking in the summer and often think sandwich when I think about making lunch. But I do like a nice sandwich with interesting flavours and flavours and possibly also healthy and nutritious as well. And good looking because that really is important when it comes to sandwiches, we need to feed our eyes. But maybe not too good looking, I remember reading somewhere once that if we eat without seeing what we it is that we are eating, we eat less than when we can look at the food on our plate. The brain apparently listens only the stomach and its signals instead of involving all those complicated signals that are both visual and playing with our taste memories and that makes us hungrier and/or more inclined towards gluttony! Did I destroy your appetite now? I hope not!

SUMMER SANDWICH WITH WHITE BEANS AND CHERRY TOMATOES ON AVOCADO AND WASABI BUTTER
serves 2

2 slices of bread
1/2 large and mature avocado
1- tblsp wasabi paste
1 stick of celery
4 tblsp cooked white beans
8-10 cherry tomatoes
sprigs of parsley
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

Run the avocado, celery stick and wasabi in a blender with the wasabi paste and some olive oil until it is smooth and has the right consistency. Check if salt is needed.

Spread the avocado and wasabi butter on the slices of bread, then cut the tomatoes in two and put these on top of the spread. Top with the white beans and garnish with some parsley before eating.

PASTA WITH ZUCCHINI CREAM AND A SUN-DRIED TOMATO AND PINE NUT TOPPING

This is obviously a post that I wrote before leaving for Switzerland, I feel pretty good about myself being such a good girl that I have made several blog posts that will be posted in my abscence, well, not that many but at least this week and then I hope to be able to access Lucullian to share some photos with you. If that is possible because I still don't know whether I can access internet via wi-fi or not since I changed to Snow Leopard on my Mac. If life is smiling to me, I will make a post on the spot, I promise. But this is all in the eventual future (as this is while I write it), today I want to serve you pasta with hot zucchini cream and a nice little topping if you feel like that. If you don't just leave it out and go for the zucchini, it is really good as it is as well!

PASTA WITH ZUCCHINI CREAM AND A SUN-DRIED TOMATO AND PINE NUT TOPPING
4 servings

400 g pasta
8 small zucchini
3 whole sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
3 tblsp pine nuts
1 clove garlic, optional
chili pepper in flakes and powder
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

Cook the pasta.

While the pasta is cooking you slice the zucchini and slowly cook it in olive oil, chili pepper and the garlic cut in 4 until the zucchini is golden.

Put the zucchini, garlic and some of the olive oil in a blender and run it until they are smooth and creamy.

Mix the freshly cooked pasta with the zucchini cream and serve topped with the chopped sun-dried tomatoes and some pine nuts.

A few shots from Pistoia Blues to look at while I jodle in the Alps!

FARINATA WITH ZUCCHINI, PINE NUTS AND ROSEMARY

We are leaving town/microscopic village tomorrow and are heading for the Alps where we hope to find cooler temperatures and a lot of sleep, well that is what I am hoping for anyway. We will do some good walking too, it is almost like meditation I find, you just walk there with the sky above and high mountains around you and all annoying things get small and less important. And what is better than sitting down on a stone to eat your packed lunch after a long walk? mmm But I have been a good girl and have prepared blog posts that will be auto-published here next week in case you feel like clicking in here so keep your eyes open!

I am very fond of Ligurian farinata which is a thin chickpea pancake made with only chickpea flour, salt, water and olive oil. The French version is called socca and maybe you have heard about that in case you never met farinata before. Here on Lucullian I have posted several versions of farinata and now it is time for a new one, this time with zucchini, pine nuts and fresh rosemary. This summer I have made innumerable farinate, I have a craving for them so I suppose that there is something in the chickpea flour that I need and who am I to neglect my cravings? If you never have tried this dish, do it now-it's very easy to make and the olive oil makes it so nice and crunchy, I can absolutely recommend it!

FARINATA WITH ZUCCHINI, PINE NUTS AND ROSEMARY
12-15 pieces

300 ml/1,2 cup chickpea flour
350 ml/1,5 cup water
0,5 tsp salt
2 medium zucchini
2-3 tblsp pine nuts
3-4 tblsp extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 tblsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

Whisk chickpea flour, salt and water for a couple of minutes until it is smooth. Leave it to rest for 30 minutes or more if possible. Add the pine nuts.

Slice the zucchini thinly.

Pour olive oil in a oven-proof form of approximately 25x29 cm/9,8x11,4 in, then pour the chickpea batter into the form as well, stir to incorporate the oil into the batter. Cover with a layer of zucchini slices and then sprinkle the chopped rosemary over them. If you want you can sprinkle a little salt over as well.

Bake it in a pre-heated oven (225°C/440°F) for 20-25 minutes.

Let the farinata cool down before cutting it into squares or lozenges.

TOMATO PIE WITH ONIONS, ANCHOVY, FENNEL SEEDS, FRIED BREADCRUMBS AND PINE NUTS

I often wonder if it is laziness, disregard for my own body or a secret fear of dying that makes me so lousy to go to the doctor, it takes me ages to phone to get an appointment and actually get going and by then I have collected several ailments to ask about and I come out with a handful of prescriptions and feel very gratified indeed, by then I feel as if I get value for the time spent in the waiting-room. In reality I should go more often because sitting there waiting together with 20 old people with serious problems and not makes me feel so young and fit, almost invincible! I never learn. But I honestly can think of billions of things that I can spend my time better on than running to the doctor (what a contorted phrase that is!) so I doubt I will change unless I get seriously ill and so far I have been very lucky.

But I wish someone could think of something to do in the waiting-rooms for those who have to go often, why not divide the rooms into active and inactive areas, one for those who want to chat, read, maybe even surf on the internet and then a calm zone for those who feel the need to turn inwards or want to use the moment for meditation and rest for the mind. There are so many simple things that you could make to make the waiting-room into an oasis to which you want to return rather being like me who does my best to avoid it. But then maybe they would be too full...

TOMATO PIE WITH ONIONS, ANCHOVY, FENNEL SEEDS, FRIED BREADCRUMBS AND PINE NUTS


pie crust:
use your own favourite recipe, use mine (but half it as this is a smaller pie) or buy it ready-made if you are on vacation or in a hurry

filling:
2-3 mature tomatoes
1 medium onion
4-6 anchovy fillets
1-2 tblsp pine nuts
1-2 tsp fennel seeds, chopped or crushed
2-3 tblsp breadcrumbs
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

Make the pie crust and line an oven-proof pie form with it.

Fry the breadcrumbs in a little olive oil until golden.

Slice the tomatoes into thin slices and make a layer of them in the pie, do the same with the onion. Chop the anchovy fillets roughly and spread them out over the tomatoes and onion, sprinkle the fennel seeds and a little salt over it all and then top with the fried breadcrumbs.

Bake in a pre-heated oven (175°C/350°F) for 25-30 minutes or until the pie is ready.

A Visual Journey to Mugello

We spent some time in Mugello area which is situated in the Apennine part of Tuscany the other day, lovely place so I wanted to share some images with you. We were quite high up at 700 meters so we escaped the humid heat down on the planes.

A FIG, SOME BLUEBERRIES AND A SPOON OF GINGER HONEY

Just a quick post to serve you a really simple idea of a dessert that you make in few minutes. You might have noticed that I seem a bit obsessed with things you can make with the speed of light and you are so right! It is getting hotter and hotter here and I am getting slower and slower so what would take three minutes wintertime now takes twenty so I just have to prepare food that is quick not to get stuck for the rest of my life there in the kitchen. No, joking apart, it is really getting hotter and hotter and I need to make and eat simple things and new fruits and vegetables are popping up so why not eat them now when they are at their best?





A FIG, SOME BLUEBERRIES AND A SPOON OF GINGER HONEY

fresh and mature figs
blueberries
fresh ginger
honey of the runny sort, I used lemon blossom honey that has a little acid tang to it, at least in my mouth

Peel and grate fresh ginger and then mix it with honey.

Cut a cross on the top of the fig and open it up. Do the same with the rest of the figs.

Put a small handful of blueberries in the middle of each fig, then drizzle ginger honey over and it is ready to serve.

OLIVE EGGS

Do you think enough? Really think I mean, about yourself, others, where you are going, about prime numbers, the situation in Burma/Greenland, Nigeria, if ants have brains, what are the birds saying when they are twittering at dawn, how is it possible that a heavy jet plane can actually stay up there and things like that? About music, social relations and/or how do they do those things? I used to think once upon a time and then life's practicalities caught up with me and I apparently stopped because I am now realizing more and more how I miss it and how numb this lack of thinking is making me feel. No wonder it feels as if I never have any time over and as if time is speeding up like something supersonic if I take some of it and spend it on thinking because that acts like a wave breaker to me and it refreshes my mind. Do you have any thoughts about this? When did you really think last time? And do you have any good ways of getting some thinking done to share with us?

But sometimes it's good to have a recipe for something quick that you can do without much thinking or maybe I should put it like this, something you can do while you think about something else and then this is a perfect thing to do. I love hard-boiled eggs with fillings, it is a summer favourite and the good thing is that you don't need to have a lot of ingredients to make a tasty filled egg! These olive paste filled eggs are great examples of this, all you need is olive paste, bought or quickly made at home, and eggs.

OLIVE EGGS
10 eggs/20 egg-halves

10 eggs
150 g/ 5,3 oz black olives without stones
2-3 tsp anchovy paste or 2 anchovy fillets
2 sun-dried tomatoes (soak for 10 minutes in tepid water if they are not soft enough)
1-2 tblsp chopped fresh herbs, I often mix different ones like rosemary, thyme, sage, basil
extra-virgin olive oil

Boil the eggs until they are hard-boiled, the peel and divide them in two.

Put olives, anchovy paste, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh herbs and 1-2 tblsp olive oil in a food processor and blend until you have a smooth cream. If it is too firm, add olive oil until you have the consistency that you like.

Mash the hard-boiled egg yolks with about a tsp of olive paste, form a small ball and put in the hole of each egg white. Ready to serve.

Food Props on Sunday-Show us Your Food Props Roundup

I never thought that this Food Props on Sunday series would be so popular nor go on for so long but here I am, the last instalment after 11 weeks of weekly blog posts! It has been lots of fun to get all this positive feedback and to see what my fantastic guest bloggers have had to say but maybe I enjoyed even more to be allowed to take a look at what they keep in their cupboards like a virtual Peeping Tom with permission to peek! And now it is time to do the same with the prop collections of those fellow food bloggers who responded to my call Show Us Your Food Props! (And if you missed the deadline, don't worry, I can add you later on because I would like this series to be like a 'library' to go to for food prop inspiration!)

The first out is Gosia from Majology, I always enjoy her blog and her beautiful photos and I am sure you will not only enjoy her post on props but to browse the whole blog!

Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups is not only a fellow Bread Baking Babe but also a true friend who I always have a lot of fun with despite the fact that she lives in Texas and I in Italy so I was delighted to when she shared her musings of food props with us!

I hope you can read in French because Dominique of De vous à moi has made a lovely post about food props on her blog, if not you can always look at her gorgeous prop photos, what a collection!

Ozoz actually wrote her post about food props back in January on her blog Kitchen Butterfly but had the good sense to send it to me to be included in this roundup, she is one smart woman I'd say and she has a lot of great props too!

And here we have Joanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe who not only show us her colcourful collection of props but she also has a most perfectly propped header for her blog!

Deeba of Passionate About Baking is a fantastic photographer and I was so happy when she decided to show her incredible prop collection for us, do read her post and enjoy her tales about exotic places to find food props, you might even decide to go for on a globe trotting quest for pro-pah food props yourself!

Not only do we have a French blogger with us here, I am very happy to present the Italian food bogger Jasmine from Labna, amore in cucina who shows us her collection and gives her point of view on this mania that most of us food bloggers suffer from!

Sarah of Maison Cupcake takes us with her to the recent Food Blogger Connect in London where someone have had the great idea of organizing a food prop swap, I love that idea and wish I could figure out some way of doing it online! Take a look and see if you can spot one of my guest bloggers there!


Next post comes from Paula who not only is a professional prop stylist but also started a blog, Still*Life-Style, just to participate in this event with a post about parts of her fabulous collection - I feel very flattered. Please do me the favour of going there and urge her to continue blogging about what she does, it will be profitable for all of us don't you think?

Asha of Fork Spoon Knife has made a beautiful post about her props and her thoughts about collecting them and shooting the final photo, I am sure you will find something there that inspires you!

My lovely friend Aparna from My Diverse Kitchen shows us that it is not at all necessary to have a huge collection of food props, you just need to choose the right ons and then keep on combining them in new ways instead!

And now I would like to say a HUGE Thank You to all the participants of this event and to my guest bloggers and to You who have been reading and hopefully enjoying this series about food props! You have all made this a really good time for me with your passion and enthusiasm-Thanks!

CREAMY ZUCCHINI SOUP WITH LEMON AND BARLEY

The bi-annual big fight is on here in our minimal village, well gathering of houses is rather a better way to describe it really but whichever word you use, they sure know how to quarrel here! As a Swede I just look and wonder and enjoy it but with a big portion of worry because I cannot help my Nordic genes that tell me to avoid full conflict and go for negotiations instead. But somehow I think it is good to show anger now and then even if it creates bad situations. So now we are here again with the two fractions plus the council in full swinging fight! The drama, the drama! Every other year, ever since we moved here, there is a fight and I suspect that people actually enjoy them, at least a bit - finally they can say what they really think about each other and they appear to think a lot judging from what I have heard through the years. Us? We keep out of them and go for the love and peace stuff instead.

CREAMY ZUCCHINI SOUP WITH LEMON AND BARLEY
4 servings

500 g/1,1 lb zucchini
1 onion
200 g/ 7oz cooked barley
900 ml/ 3,8 cups light stock, vegetable is the best choice, or water
100 ml/ 0,42 cup fresh cream
oregano
half a lemon
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

Trim the onion and slice it, do the same to the zucchini and then put it all in a sauce pan and sweat it in some olive oil for 5 minutes.

Add the stock and a pinch of oregano and let it simmer without a lid for 15-20 minutes.

Blend the soup in a food processor, taste to see if there is something missing, if the zucchini aren't sweet enough, add a pinch of sugar. Squeeze some lemon into the soup, add the barley and mix well before serving it hot or cold.

RICOTTA AND HAZELNUT COOKIES (GLUTEN-FREE)

This week is full of important things, on Thursday I am going to Parma for a big client meeting so I am preparing my presentations to a T or at least as close to that as possible. And then tonight is the birthday party for my oldest daughter, she will be 18 later this month and is celebrating with her friends now when they still are in town so we are and have been working towards that a lot lately. And the most of it is still to be done so I just wanted to post or to be honest re-visit a recipe I posted about 4 years ago and I really think deserves to be dusted off because these little cookies are quite good to nibble on for celiac sufferers and non. Anyway, I'm off and please keep your fingers crossed for me on Thursday!





RICOTTA AND HAZELNUT COOKIES (GLUTEN-FREE)

100 g/ 3oz hazelnuts
125 g/4,4 oz ricotta
85 g/ 3 oz sugar
75 g/2,6 salted butter
1 egg yolk
50 g/1,7 oz corn starch/flour
180 g/6,3 oz rice flour
1 tsp baking powder

- Run the nuts in a food processor until you have hazelnut flour.
- Cream sugar and butter before adding the mashed ricotta. Go on stirring until completely mixed.
- Add the egg yolk and then the hazelnut flour and keep on stirring.
- Sift the rice flour, corn starch and baking powder into the mixture and work the dough lightly until mixed.
- If the dough is loose or should I say very soft you can put the dough in a decorating bag and squeeze out ‘sticks’ of the length you want on a baking sheet. Otherwise you can divide the dough in three parts and roll out trunks that you cut into shorter cookies.
- Bake the cookies in a pre-heated oven (175°C/350°F) for about 10-12 minutes.

Food Props on Sunday part 10 - Guest blogger Andrew from Spitton and Spitton Extra

We are now down to the last of my guest bloggers who have enriched this Food Props on Sunday series with their insights and tips about props and their use in food photography, I am forever grateful for the time and effort they have put into their posts and for their generosity to share it with us here on Lucullian. And please continue to send me your Show Us Your Food Prop posts for the roundup next Sunday the 11th, send them to me at luculliandelights AT gmail DOT com with your name, the name of your blog and the url to the blog post and I will include you in the roundup!

If you want to hear me talk about food props, click over to Learn Food Photography and Food Styling and listen to the first part of an interview that will be continued next week.

But now it is time to present my last guest blogger, Andrew of Spittoon and Spittoon Extra who I have known ever since I started blogging, we do move in slightly different circles as he writes about wine and drinks (or is it only wine?) but on Spittoon Extra he splashes out on food as well. It is Andrew who is holding in the Does My Blog Look Good In This? event which is the oldest food photography event/contest that we have and that is still around. He is a great photographer with a keen interest in photography and he is going to approach the subject from a slightly different angle, he will discuss wine and drinks props, something that is often forgotten!

To be honest I don’t hold a huge range of glasses; they just don’t last that long! I’ve lost count of the number of ISO’s (international standard wine tasting glasses) I’ve got through. On the shelf are remains of sets ranging from expensive Conran glasses through to cheap-as-chips supermarket collections. They just don’t last long! Like those expensive Riedal stemwares I once had they all break during the washing up stage.

Surprisingly my favourite little glass - picked up for next to nothing in a Cape Town home wares store has lasted well beyond the norm – surviving the flight home and the near constant still life use since. The fact that breakages happen so frequently has convinced me that expensive glasses are just a waste. OK so you need a set for real dinner party entertaining but ‘sets’ are really not needed. How many glasses do you need in a photo? One, maybe two? Exactly the same for bowls and plates for the foodie props.

This rules out sourcing glasses from antique shops or high end junk stores. I only need one thank you very much and complete ‘antique’ sets of six or eight are too many despite the inevitable breakages. Such stores are generally too expensive anyway, however interesting the shape or styling. I do find Zara at Home on London’s Regent Street a great source for interesting glasses. Just avoid those too garishly coloured or overly patterned as these hide the liquid inside.

Bron and Meeta and the others have emphasised in their contributions to this Food Props on Sunday series that it is the background that sets the mood for food images; so too for pictures of wine or other drinks. I’ve a nice range of coasters for example and use place mats, napkins and the like exactly as the foodies do. Texture is important to me, so I too have a section of an old door with peeling paint, chopping boards, a piece of Welsh slate and the like to add to the ‘mood’. I’ve also just invested in a pile of fabric squares (designed for quilters and patchworking) from The Cotton Patch which I hope will add a new fresher feel for forthcoming shots and broaden the often limited palate range in my photographs.

While Meeta for example mentioned that undersized props work for food, if the shot combines the wine/drink bottle it doesn’t often work. The disparity in wine glass verses wine bottle can result in the bottle looking overlarge. Experimentation is the key and you may well find it works for you.

The good thing with wine is that it comes ready packaged often, although not always, with an expensively designed label that in itself sets the mood. Selecting props to emphasise the feel of the wine should be at the forefront of the set-up. Wine bottles can also come with their own built in props. Think of the wire cage and cork of the champagne or other fizz for example or the cork itself (even if screw caps are now more prevalent). There are also wooden wine boxes that Port especially and gifts are often presented in. Think also of the corkscrew (although I’ve only three) and decanters. The latter I find, however, to be too large to comfortably include in my photos – although that could be down to my personal ‘style’ of photo taking and you may think differently.

The main issue with presenting wine in a glass is that the glass HAS to be clean. I’ve fallen for this many times in having a decent image failing due to grubby marks left by greasy hands or failing to polish fully post washing. Wash and polish, just be careful of breakages.

Thanks you very much Andrew for sharing your knowledge with us!

Food Props on Sunday, part 1
Food Props on Sunday, part 2
Food Props on Sunday, part 3
Food Props on Sunday, part 4
Food Props on Sunday, part 5
Food Props on Sunday, part 6
Food Props on Sunday, part 7
Food Props on Sunday, part 8
Food Props on Sunday, part 9