Artichokes... stuffed!

I am away from home, on holidays.

I am in my favorite place on Earth.

I am at my parents' house.

This is the valley where I come from. The food here is amazing and tastes like nothing else. All is home grown, or I can buy foods that are produced with such dedication and care, they taste like they were made especially for me.

The second day I was here, a trip to the local butcher was in order. They make their own Mortadella, Porchetta, Ham and many many more delicacies.

In the counter, under the glass, I saw it: cow's milk cheese matured in May hay... I cannot describe what I felt when the boy who was serving me gave me a tiny slice to taste it.

You may not believe it; however, it was like eating wild flowers, it was like I was able to eat a smell I remember from my infancy, from the Spring.

This cheese in particular comes from somewhere in Terni, I don't know exactly where but I will find out.

My father loves collecting wild things to bring home, this time of the year it's asparagus. They obviously look nothing like the ones we buy in the shop.

 They are thin and long, very dark at times, and I cannot see them in the woods for the life of me. The few times I tried to go and gather the asparagus, I could not see even one.

You need to divide them in tiny pieces, starting from the tip, and stopping at the point where they don't "crack" anymore. That bottom part must go.

This does not mean my mother throws it away. Here is what she does; she will place them in a tray in the little glassed room outside the kitchen.

Once dry, she will grind them all and obtain a powder to use for risotto and other dishes. Imagine, asparagus-based dishes all year round. I said it before and I will say it again: she's a genius in the kitchen.

Tonight, for dinner, we had pasta with a cream of artichoke hearts and asparagus.

My mother cooked the asparagus and the artichokes hearts in a bit of water and salt, then blended everything and, in the end, added some cream.

The pasta was really good, and very light. Artichokes are known for their detoxing properties and eating them on a regular basis helps cleanse the liver and the kidneys. Even if they didn't really clean anything, who cares? They're yummy!

Now, finally, to the title of this page: Stuffed Artichokes. I love artichokes, and since they are not to be found in Ireland, I love them even more... That's part of the emigrant's curse.

Finally, the recipe for Stuffed Artichokes.

Ingredients:

5 Artichokes
3 Eggs
1 Dry Sausage
A Handful of Mince Meat
A Bit of Breadcrumbs
Parsley
A Garlic Clove
Salt to taste

 Remove a small bit of the bottom and some of the outer leaves.

 Place them in water while preparing the stuffing.

In a bowl, place the breadcrumbs and the mince meat 

Cut the sausage lengthwise in two and then in four.

 Then cut it in small pieces and add them to the bowl.

Now add the parsley.

Some garlic, in small pieces.

 Add the first two eggs.

Mix and add the last egg.

 Push apart the artichoke leaves and start stuffing it.

 Once stuffed, place them in a pot, cover with water and a spoon of tomato passata.

On top, place some sticks to make sure the artichokes do not come afloat.

Place them on low heat and let them boil for about an hour.

And now, enjoy...

Hybrid Tacos Burritos Piadina...

What we made instead of enchiladas, two nights ago, was this:

I had some dough for naan bread already made:

I worked it in this way, dividing it into 2 and then 4 and then 8 and then 16 parts:

With the rolling pin, I have made it nice and round and very thin and then cooked it on both sides, on low heat, in my cast iron wok.

These are the first 3 of them, nicely cooked. I finished cooking the rest and there I was with 16 naan breads, ready to be filled.

Then I prepared a series of fillings:

About 800 grams of mince meat, cooked with just salt and a tiny bit of water

Shredded carrots

Shredded courgettes cooked with salt

A can of chickpeas cooked with a bit of green curry paste

A can of sweetcorn slightly cooked with a spoonful of butter

Then, everyone chose their fillings, topped it with some cheese and the hybrids were ready to go under the grill:

A few minutes for the cheese to melt and dinner for 7 was done :)

I had a great time cooking, trying to come up with filling ideas and obviously eating with friends and family...

Everyone was pleasantly surprised because nobody in the house knew exactly what to expect, including me!!!!

If you leave out the mince meat it becomes a vegetarian dish, fun to prepare and easy to put together.

Aubergine Parmigiana

Aubergine Parmigiana is simply a sort of Lasagna made with aubergine slices instead of pasta sheets.

It's easy and, when made at home, very very enjoyable.

I made one last night for dinner. The oven was already hot because I was baking focaccia, so it took less than 30 minutes to cook.

I have reduced the amount of time it takes to prepare it by not grilling nor frying the aubergines. No fried aubergines also means less calories and virtually no fat.

So, for the Ingredients:

2 good sized Aubergines, sliced
1/2 a kilo of Mince Meat
2/3 of a litre of Passata
1/2 a litre of Besciamella Sauce
2 Mozzarella balls
Olive Oil
1 clove of Garlic
Salt to taste

First thing first, place the garlic clove in a pot with some olive oil and let the oil take the flavour. Remove the clove and add the mince meat, along with just a tiny bit of water and let it cook.
At this stage, I usually salt the meat.
Once is browned, pour over the meat your passata and let boil on low heat for about 10 minutes. Here it is, your sauce.

Second, prepare the besciamella sauce.
Place some olive oil in a small pot, add a few spoons of flour and then pour over about 1/2 a litre of milk. I usually use a whisk for the besciamella, so no lumps of flour remain in the sauce.

Now that everything is ready, place a ladle of mince meat sauce at the bottom of your oven tray and start placing the aubergine slices:

After each layer of aubergines, place some besciamella sauce and continue alternating mince meat sauce, aubergine slices and besciamella sauce.

On the very top, before baking in the oven, grate or slice a

couple of mozzarella balls.

Keep the tray in the oven for about 20-25 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius and, voila'!

Here it is! At the back, another Moussaka I made on the side. 

Moussaka!

I often stop and look at our lives: I find them full, interesting, rich, satisfying, dignified and happy.

A friend of mine always says happiness is a choice. And for all of us lucky enough to have food, safe shelter, electricity and clean running water every day, happiness is indeed a matter of choice.

I started thinking about enriching experiences when our first Au Pair, Giulia, joined our family. She was at the time 20 years of age, abroad on her own for the first time.
In a matter of days, we began regarding her as our daughter, although we are not much older than her, and certainly not old enough to be her parents.

However, and this is a big however, she brought a whole new set of feelings in our house. It was beautiful to realise how we started to love her almost immediately, how we were "warning" her before she went out at the weekends, how I worried when, at 3 am, she had not yet returned from the City.

We keep in touch; she would call and ask us for advice on her new job in Italy, ask our opinion on many things. Just like a younger family member who doesn't really want to discuss certain things with her parents... I can see her blossoming into a beautiful young woman and feel a certain pride. It is obviously not my place to do so, but I do!

Now a new Au Pair lives with us, Dalia. She is older, 28, so the relationship with her has been different from the beginning. I regard her more like a sister in my house, helping out with everything.

She carried with her all of her positive energy, her passion for movies and, of course, she is the reason behind my decision to take Tango lessons. We go to the lessons together and we love it!

At present, a very good friend is staying with us, looking for work. Him, too, meant a new wave of feelings kicking in.
He studied with me in college, and now that we have children, with him around, it feels like being back to that care-free life we used to live back then.
We do a lot of things together, we talk, we exchange opinions and experiences and, often, we cook.

He has the creativity and resourcefulness i appreciate in people. He will say: tomorrow I'll make Moussaka! Let me ask my Greek friend for the recipe.

And that's exactly what we (mostly him...) made! 

The original recipe called for fried potatoes and fried aubergines, but to make it lighter, we boiled the potatoes and grille the aubergine.

Ingredients:

6 good sized Potatoes
1 clove of Garlic
1/4 of an Onion
1 Kg of Mince Meat
2/3 of a litre of Tomato Sauce, or Passata
1 Aubergine, sliced quite thick and briefly grilled
1/2 a litre of thick Besciamella Sauce (Made With: 5 tablespoons of Flour, Olive Oil and 1/2 litre of Milk)

First thing first, slightly boil the potatoes, peeled, adding a pinch of salt in the water. The potatoes should not be too soft, they should be hard enough to be sliced.

Next, Besciamella Sauce. Place some Olive Oil in a small pot, let it heat on low for a couple of minutes and then add 3 tablespoons of flour, do not stop stirring, and gradually add the rest of the flour. Once you get a thick paste add the milk and keep stirring. It takes very little time to do it, so no distractions or you'll end up with a messy messy thing.
Keep it on low heat and stir until you have the right consistency.
Once that's done, set it aside, possibly covered.

Now, time to make the sauce.
Place some olive oil in another pot, on low heat, and place in a garlic clove, skin and all.

Chop up the onion and put in in the oil. Let the oil soak up the flavour and then remove the garlic.

Soften the onion and then add the mince meat.

Cook, always on low heat, until the meat is nice and brown.

Add now the tomato sauce and let it simmer on low. Add salt to this sauce according to your taste.

Once the sauce is ready, turn off the heat and you are ready to grill briefly the aubergines. We had them grilled from the day before, because we had a barbecue in the garden. But they can be successfully grilled on the stove as well.

All set! Cut the potatoes and place them on the bottom of your oven tray to make the first layer.

Now place the mince meat sauce as the second layer.

Now it's the turn of the aubergines and the third layer.

On top, the fourth and last layer will be the Besciamella sauce.

Now, place it in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, and when it comes out, it will look like this:

Slice it up and enjoy!

There is enough for 4 people in this recipe :) So invite a friend or two and have fun!!!

So Here We Are...

... Sitting on the floor, my daughter plays with her dollies, and myself, updating the blog.

It was a strange week: my son was off school Monday and Tuesday for Saint Patrick's day, I took some days off work myself cause I was not feeling my best, yesterday and today my daughter has been kind of sick herself, my husband caught the flu... It sounds like a hospital, but I'm always grateful all our little diseases are ones we can, in the end, laugh about.

In the middle of all this, I've been working in the garden, which is starting to look like a proper vegetable garden, finally!

Here is the new look:

 This is our dog, Billa, loving the sunshine, next to the brand new raised bed I made with 6 cinder blocks. They will eventually be painted and look way better, but for the time being they serve the purpose just as they are. Tulips, and artichoke, a daisy plant and a tiny raspberry "bush" which cannot yet be seen, in the corner next to the compost bin.
Next to the compost bin used to be two absolutely useless and ugly trees, I hated them with all my heart, I could not stand them any longer... They took up a lot of space exactly where I always wanted a kitchen herbs bed. I finally managed to uproot both of them and could not be happier!!!

Here instead, I have extended the existing raised beds, moving and replacing the blocks I had from last year. Strawberries in the holesunder my home made mini tunnel I have tiny swiss chards and spinach. I still fear a late frost which would definitely kill them, so I have "invented" this small tunnel, which is made of leftover garden net and plastic from the previous polytunnel which was destroyed by a storm. I am glad I kept some pieces of that sturdy plastic, they always come in handy :)

Today is the beginning of Spring, we had a magnificent sunny day and the morning came with the gift of a spectacular solar eclipse...

 The sunrise of Spring 2015

This is the best picture I managed to get of the eclipse  I am definitely not equipped for this kind of events...

 A quick update on the windowsill: cucumbers growing fast on the left, rocket not showing up as of yet, perennial spinach just planted and more pop corn plants on the right :)

 Lavender, geranium who survived the Irish Winter, and newly arrived primulas :)

The strawberry pallet moved from its south facing spot to a west facing spot. Paint, paint, paint is needed!!!!

And More Gardening...

We had some beautiful sunny afternoons in the past few days, so the chance to transfer some plants in the garden could not be missed!

These were sunflowers, when they had just decided to pop up from the soil :) As you can see, my non conventional pot follows the golden rule: Reduce Reuse Recycle.

This is my daughter watering the spinach, the day before we could see them coming out!
The next day, she was thrilled to see all the little plants :)

These are runner beans, peas, borlotti beans and pop corn ready to be placed...

And here they are in their definite home :) Runner beans on the left, borlotti in the middle and peas on the right.
Here too, the garden net I used has been repurposed so it will help the plants in their climbing job.

I had to place these in the tunnel because the risk of frost is not behind us just yet, and last year I have learned is not something beans, and legumes in general, enjoy too much... There is still room for the tomatoes, which are still about 5 centimetres high. I have consulted my gardening advisor this morning (my mother), and she recommends to wait until they are at least twice this size before transplanting them outside.

The strawberries are all in their place, some in the vertical pallet, some in the cinder block holes, ready to make us happy again during the spring.

The pallet will get painted at some stage...

Upstairs, I have noticed last night, finally a courgette is sprouting! I can't wait to taste my home grown courgettes! Pasta with zucchini sauce is one of my favourites, and when the courgettes will be ready it's going to be the first thing on my list!!!

And this is the windowsill downstairs! 

Cacti, rocket salad, swiss chard, more pop corns and... cucumbers!!!

They are the ones on the left, next to the rocket which has not yet sprouted...

These above, instead, are the spinach, where my daughter worked her magic :)
The pot will stay in the polytunnel for a good while, so they are protected.

Gooseberry on the left and raspberry on the right :)

I am delighted so far, there's still a lot to do! I need to plant the potatoes as soon as possible but a place for them is not ready yet.

Enjoy your gardens!!!