Blue is the theme...

With or without spirits - Watermelon and Cucumber Mojito

short note to those of you who are using google chrome, I am aware that the colours are off-puttingly pale in that browser so take a look at this post in Firefox, Explorer or Safari please.

Yesterday the Mouse finally decided to exit through the kitchen door, presumable the same door it came in through, it leads straight out to the garden without any steps to climb. The Mouse has been our guest here for the last two weeks and it has behaved exactly like the Scarlet Pimpernel created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy well with the difference that he didn't sit in the sofa pretending to be someone else or at least we haven't noticed anything like that. We have obviously tried to catch the little bugger, I even bought three mouse traps but it took me more than a week to get around to actually rig one up and the Mouse obviously didn't fall for a simple trick like a piece of ham on a metal contraption. So we heard it under the sofa, we heard it in the kitchen, my son saw the Mouse several times going from one room to the other but it was just like having the Scarlet Pimpernel in the house:

We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.

But yesterday morning when I was sitting at the kitchen table, checking my mail on the laptop, I suddenly saw a sweet little Mouse with a very fat belly sitting by the threshold, looking out through the kitchen door so I told it to get out and it did. And that darned dog (a famous cat killer) hasn't noticed a thing. For two weeks. 

So let's celebrate with a refreshing drink, you can make it strong or you can just keep it child friendly and not add any rum at all. Now I don't pretend at all to know how to prepare a real Mojito, I know that there are strict rules on what to do before you add ice, rum and soda water, so please be patient and enjoy this drink anyway, you can invent another name for it if you are a Mojito purist!

WATERMELON AND CUCUMBER MOJITO

single portion

watermelon

2,5 cm/ 1 in cucumber

1 tsp mild honey or confectioners sugar

8-10 fresh mint leaves, it depends on big they are

juice of 1/2 lime

1 part rum, optional

1,5 part sparkling water 

1,5 part watermelon water 

 Scoop small balls out of the watermelon, if you don't have a scoop, use a small teaspoon or cut it into small cubes. Peel the cucumber and cut it into short and thin strips, or use a grater. Mix the two in a bowl or a jug/pitcher.

 Cut the mint leaves into thin strips and add those together with honey or sugar and lime juice to bowl or jug. 

 Squash a part of the watermelon through a sieve or just squeeze it so you are left with watermelon juice or water, add it and the rum to the bowl or jug, stir and pour into glass in which you already put ice cubes. Or crushed ice if that is what you like.

One hour, one park

Bread Baking Babes on the run - White Soda Bread With Herbs

Boy am I happy that I chose this bread as the Bread of the Month for the Bread Baking Babes because between job sessions, headaches due to job sessions and the usual worries that are attached to having teens, I completely lost track of time and when I saw a Babe tweet about soda bread this morning, I slapped my front and said something I am not going to say here. But because of the 'premonitial' choice of soda bread, I can post about it now, it is so quick to make that even a forgetful Bread Baking Babe can make it in a whiff.

I often have to make soda bread because of my forgetfulness, twice a week one of my children need to bring lunch to school and sometimes I have to get up a bit earlier (not that much earlier though) to bake bread for the lunch sandwiches. I usually use a recipe from an Irish bread book (what else could I use, after all they are the masters of soda bread) called The Ballymaloe Bread Book by Tim Allen and I thought we could use another one in it with herbs in it now when summer is almost here! So here you are, I hope you will like it! I know one Babe has had problems with the taste due to chemical reactions, I didn't and that is why I like the recipes in this book because with their soda breads I never have had that problem. You tell me if you had flavour problems with it when you bake it because this one you cannot pass by, it is so fast, so simple and so pretty delicious that you just have to be a Bread Baking Buddy this month! You have to! So bake it, blog it and send me the link ( luculliandelights  AT gmail DOT com, put Bread Baking Buddy in the subject line please) before the 28th of June and I will include you in the Buddy roundup on the 29th (hopefully, it might be a little later because I'm in Milan working that week)!

And do check out the other Babes breads, links here.

WHITE SODA BREAD WITH HERBS
from The Ballymaloe Bread Book by Tim Allen

1 loaf

450 g/1lb plain white four
1 level teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon bread soda, finely sieved
1 dessert spoon each of rosemary, sage and chives, all freshly chopped
400 ml/ 14 fl oz buttermilk

Heat up the oven to 230 degrees C/450 degrees F

Sieve the flour, salt and bread soda into a large, wide mixing bowl. Add the freshly chopped herbs to the dry ingredients.

Make a well in the centre. Pour most of the milk into the flour. Using one hand with the fingers open and stiff, mix in a full circle drawing in the flour from the sides of the bowl, adding more milk if necessary. The dough should be softish, not too wet and sticky.

The trick with all soda breads is not to over-mix the dough. Mix the dough as quickly and as gently as possible, keeping it really light and airy. When the dough comes together, turn it out onto a well-floured work surface. Wash and dry your hands.

Gently roll the ball of dough around with floury hands for a few seconds, just enough to tidy up. Then pat it gently into a round, about 5 cm/2 in high.

Place the dough on a lightly floured baking sheet. With a sharp knife cut a deep cross in the middle of it, letting the cuts go over the sides of the bread. Then prick the four triangles with your knife: according to Irish folklore this will let the fairies out!

Put this into your preheated oven for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F for a further 25 minutes, or until cooked. When the bread is cooked it will sound hollow when tapped.

Would you let your waistline determine where you live?

Would you let your waistline determine where you live? My answer to that is Yes! When Marco and I discuss probable places where we could live, there are two important factors that we always consider, one is the climate and the other is the food. Food.  Food has been an important part for all of my life of course, how would I have survived to this day if I hadn't been eating food? But for more than half my life it has been important in a different way, a more profound way and moving to Italy has definitely changed how I look at food in many ways. It has been a bit like being pregnant and suddenly realizing that you actually have a body and beginning to listen to what that body is telling you. Suddenly I saw food from the seasonal point of view, I satred to go with the flow and to look forward to what each and every season bring us, to go and gather chestnuts in the woods around here in Autumn, to enjoy all the wonderful winter greens and light up the grey with oranges during those bleary boring winter months, to feel exulted by fresh peas, strawberries and asparagus when Spring finally arrives and indulge in all that abundant summer produce. To eat light when it is hot and go for the heavier stuff when it is cold and you need more energy to warm up that waistline of yours. I have learnt so much about food and eating here and I have enjoyed so much good food that I don't think I could live in a place where food is just food, something that you eat to keep you alive. A good things with living in a country like Italy is that basically the food is very healthy, it is is an integral part of life and the culture and that to me is a determining factor when it comes to  choosing where to live (if you ever can make that choice), and if that will increase my waistline (and I would like to point out that my fluctuating waistline depends on my bad character and not the food itself, how could I ever blame my own blemishes on the food of where I live?) so be it!

This post is part of a sudden and improvised 'writing exercise', but maybe it is more of a thinking exercise really, that I am doing with Mona of WiseWords, Simone aka Junglefrog, Astrid of Paulchen's FoodBlog?, Jamie of Life's A Feast and Jenn of Jenn's Cuisine so you have the possibility of clicking around to read more points of view on this subject!

It's Paper Chef time again - Marbled Chocolate Focaccia With Cherries and Lime Sugar

 We, Mike, me and Owen (yes, the Creator of Paper Chef!), finally managed to get Paper Chef going again  after a break of eight months. About time really because it is one of my favourite food blog events with a long history, it started in 2004, and one that I used to participate in quite often once upon a time when I was a good food blogger. I love the concept of creating a dish or dishes out of four ingredients and to see how differently everyone interprets them! This month we have bread, lime, chocolate and berries to play around with and I hope we will see a lot of interesting entries. I sort of missed the take-off (yes I know, that is sooo bad but here we are) but Mike who is this month's host let me extend the deadline from tomorrow the 7th until Friday the 10th so if you want to participate, check out the Paper Chef blog here. And if you don't participate this month, please do it next month.

Bread, lime, chocolate and berries, could it be easier? It could I suppose but they just scream comfort food to me and when I saw them yesterday I only had to incorporate them into the baking plans I already had; I was making focaccia, I had nice cherries in a bowl and lime and sugar at hand so I immediately thought about making a Marbled Chocolate Focaccia With Cherries and Lime Sugar. I only added cocoa powder to the original dough and only added sugar on top of the focaccia which turned out well but if you want, you can obviously add sugar to the dough as well. The only thing I will change next time I make it is to add more cherries on top of it! Oh and I added some chocolate shavings on top of it as well, just to make it more... chocolatey.

MARBLED CHOCOLATE FOCACCIA WITH CHERRIES AND LIME SUGAR

1000 g / 2,2 lb flour
500 ml / 2,1 cups water
25 g / 8,8 oz fresh yeast
½ tbsp salt
½ tbsp sugar
4 tblsp + more to drizzle over and put in pan of extra-virgin olive oil
100 ml high quality cocoa powder
400-500 g/ 0,88-1,1 lb fresh cherries
1 lime, grated zest of
3-4 tblsp sugar (or more if you want)

 Dissolve the yeast melt in a little of the finger-warm water. Add the rest of the water, sugar, salt and olive oil. Stir and add almost all the flour. Work the dough and then you add the cocoa powder, knead on but don't work too much or you wont get the marble effect. Leave the dough to rise until double its size.

 Pour some oil in any kind of oven-proof pan and, depending on the size of the pan, flatten with your hands or roll out the dough with a rolling pin either in one piece or in two round and flat cakes. Put the focaccia into the pan onto the oily surface. yes.

 Mix sugar with the grated lime zest.

 Stone the cherries and cut each in two, put these on top of the foccaccia, you should more or less cover the surface with them, sprinkle with lime-sugar over and drizzle some olive oil over the focaccia.

 Bake in a pre-heated oven (175°C/350°F) for about 20-30 minutes, it depends on the size of the focaccia, it should be golden and the cherries soft when it is ready.

Paper Chef is on again!

Paper Chef is on again, first time for this year and hopefully we will manage to keep it running every month but that depends on you too so click over to check out the easypeasy ingredients and the rules and get going-what are you waiting for? Do Dare!