Salty croissant

I decided to do a salty snack with some puff pastry I had left over. Easy, fast and yummy. Plus, you can make the filling as you please!

Ingredients:

• 2 sheets of puff pastry
• 150 gr of ham in slices
• 150gr of goat cheese
• 75gr of smashed nuts
• some basil leaves
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 egg yolk

Instructions:
Roll out the puff pastry and cut triangles out. put on each a slice of the ham. Meanwhile, put in a bowl the finely chopped basil leaves, the garlic, the smashed nuts and the cheese. Mix it thoroughly together. With a spoon then, dispose a spoon of it on the large base of the triangle. Then roll the puff pastry as to recreate a croissant. Beat the yolk and brush it over the pieces. Now if you want you can sprinkle the top with a bit of cheese-powder or pepper. Put in the oven for 10-15 min for 200ºC until golden, then enjoy! :)

The best, is that the filling can be changed it is still awesome.. some ideas:
-goat cheese, spinach
-tuna fish, tomatoe
-smoked salmon, avocado
-mozzarella, basil, olives

Asparagi alla milanese

Asparagi alla milanese, or Milanese-style asparagus, is a first course dish traditional of the Lombardia region (Milano is the main city of Lombardia) where asparagus grows in abundance naturally.

Asparagi alla milanese is a very popular dish in my Country but almost unknown outside of Italy. It doesn't contain any silly sauce, on the contrary is really simple and it includes only 3 ingredients: green asparagus, eggs and grated parmesan cheese. It's sooooooo delicious! When I was living in Milano, my mom always made this dish especially in late spring, when the asparagus is in season.
When eating, I always break the egg yolks and allow it to run over the asparagus.... mmm so good!!!

Asparagi alla milanese is usually served as first course (primo), it works beautifully also as antipasto (appetizer) or second course (secondo).

The original recipe says to cook the asparagus in salty water, but I do it differently and also, instead of using butter to fry the eggs, I use oil which is a bit healthier :P

Ingredients (2 persons):

• 1 large bunch of fresh green asparagus (6-8 asparagus per person)
• 4 eggs
• grated parmesan cheese
• rapeseed oil (or butter)
• salt & pepper

Directions:
Wash and dry the asparagus, cut the hard bases off. If needed, trim their skin also.
Pour some oil in a large pan, lay the asparagus and cover with the lid. Let them cook at medium-low heat, stirring time to time and adding salt up to taste.
Just before the asparagus are cooked, fry the eggs in another non stick pan with some oil (or butter), sunny-side-up. Ensure the whites are fully firm, while the yolks are still runny. Season to taste, I always add a bit of salt and black pepper on the eggs.
Arrange the cooked asparagus on a serving plate, lay the eggs over them and then sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.

Sima, the viking drink (mead)

In my imagination I see viking wild parties where hairy tall vikings drink mead from horn cups and dance happily on the tables.

And, as Vappu (May Day) gets closer, this fantasy gets bigger and bigger :D
I always wanted to be a viking! And to drink mead from horn cup! Sadly I would be a ridiculous viking, being so short with dark hair and eyes. I would be an exotic viking! :D

Alright, I cannot be a viking (and cannot dance on tables) BUT I can make and drink my own sima! In Italy, we call it "idromele"... the word has a nice and romantic sound to it :)
Sima, sweet mead, is a bubbly brewed drink traditionally made with lemon, honey and raisins. It's related to the Finnish Vappu festival on May 1st, that celebrates International Workers' Day.

I love sima very much! It's sweet and fresh and bubbly! Last year my bf made sima himself and the result was excellent. It tasted way better than the commercial sima, it had a more traditional taste. So yesterday he made another batch for the upcoming Vappu, and it should be ready in about 1 week.

Here's what you need to make your own mead, don't forget a big bucket (or other sturdy container) with lid and empty bottles!

 mmm fresh lovely lemons...

Please note that this recipe doesn't include raisins because we don't like them much.

Ingredients (8 liters of mead):
8 liters of water
500 g brown sugar
250 g white sugar
2 lemons
about 250 g honey
1/4 ts fresh yeast


Directions:
Put the sugars at bottom of the bucket. Boil 4 liters of water and pour it in the bucket, stir until the sugar is all melted. Add honey and keep mixing.
Add the rest of the water cold (4 liters). Check the temperature, when the liquid is lukewarm mix the yeast in a little bit of water and add it to the mixture.
Wash and slice the lemons, throw away the edges. Drop them in the bucket. Close the bucket with its lid and let it rest 1-2 days in a draftless place. 
After those days, bottle the sima without lemon slices: add a spoon of sugar to bottom of the bottles, close the caps loosely (might explode otherwise, especially if you were careless with the yeast), and let it rest 3-5 days more in a warm, draftless place.
Finally put the bottles in the fridge and serve cold.

Burrito! Mexican omelette

Usually, on saturdays, we eat pizza. But pizza is annoying if eaten eeeevery saturday, so I proposed to friends to start changing a bit the menu and include international yumminess. So today we went mexican, ay ay ay!!

We still didn't caught the difference between burrito, enchillada, tortillita, taco, gordita and whatsoever, but since we wanted to eat at Taco Bell's and weren't able to, we just made our own creations. We were like 6-10 persons, so I'll just give more or less the medium amount for 2-4 persons. :P

For the tortillas:

• 1 egg
• 4 tablespoons flour
• a bit of salt
• 2 cups of milk (or might be 2-4.. read the instructions)

Instructions:

Beat the eggs, add one cup of milk and the salt, and start mixing. The add slowly milk until the mixture is not too liquid, but neither too thick, it must at the point where it is thick enough to not be liquid.. great explication, lol. Then heat a pan with a bit of oil and put in the pan 2 table spoons of the egg mixture. The thinner the better. Let it get gold brown on both sides, and do so until you have a bunch of those tortilla pancakes omelette thingies. :P

Meanwhileeee.....

The Filling:

• 250gr minced meat
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tiny onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 crushed tomato
• some slices of red, yellow and green pepper
• paprika powder

Instructions:

Preheat a pan with a bit of oil. add the finely chopped onion and garlic until they are golden, then add in pieces the minced meat and the salt, until it cooks a bit. add the paprika powder, the crushed tomato and the slices of pepper. Let the meat absorb some liquid. When it becomes a compact mix, it's ready.

Then just take a tortilla above, put 2 or 3 spoons of the filling, roll and.... serve! :D

Some also put above a bit of cheese... but I liked it like this, simple and yummy!!

If with many friends, you can also buy some nachos and preparse some chilli, pepper, cheese or guacamole sauce... but I reserve this for another recipe. ;)

 

Farfalle al salmone

I have already said that I love salmon and I try to eat it often since it's so good and healthy. Our top favorite salmon recipe is smoked salmon pasta: delicious and easy to make! I cook it almost every week.

On the internet you can find many salmon pasta recipes, but I always cook it the Italian way... very very simple. Italian foods are simple and tasty because they are made with few but good raw ingredients.

In this recipe I use a little bit of vodka. It might sound weird, but it does really give a good taste and goes well with the salmon.

In Italy people don't usually add parmesan cheese to fish dishes, that's why parmesan is not included in the recipe (but I always add it anyway :P)

Ingredients (2 persons):

• 200 g short pasta, e.i. farfalle or penne
• about 200 g smoked salmon
• 250 ml cooking cream
• 1 onion
• rapeseed oil or olive oil
• 1-2 caps of vodka
• finely chopped fresh parsley
• salt & black pepper

Directions:
Slice the salmon in small stripes.
Finely chop the onion and saute it in a saucepan with oil over medium heat. When it gets a nice blonde color add the salmon and let it cook for few minutes, adding black pepper and, if needed salt, up to taste.
Pour the vodka and let the alcohol evaporate for few minutes stirring well. Add the cream, stir, and let the sauce cook for few minutes at low heat so it gets thicker.
Cook the pasta in salty water until al dente. Mix the pasta with the sauce and serve with fresh chopped parsley on top.

Wonderland in Helsinki & new bunny bento

So, yesterday I was in Helsinki to get my new Italian passport. My god what a trip! 5 hours straight on the bus killed my royal 'tocks!! It was also my first time visiting Helsinki.

As I arrived at the central bus station, I couldn't find the Tourist Information point anywhere, so I asked people without getting any useful info. It was also hard to understand what they said! In the Capital they speak a totally different dialect than what I'm used to. It's crazy :P

At the end I found the Tourist Information office in the railway station, small and hidden in a corner... I managed to reach the Italian Embassy and get all the burocratic stuff done. So I still had about 3 hours free that I could use to visit the city and do some shopping! :)

Even if it was first snowing, and then raining (nice Spring weather isn't it?) the walk back towards the Centrum was nice. First I went to Tokyokan, a store that sells japanese food and kitchenware. I expected it to be a big bigger for some reason, but it was very nice anyway.
Sadly, I couldn't find the furikake I wanted to buy, but instead I found a wonderful blue bunny bento!! Oh joy! :D They had actually 2 types of bento, the blue one with bunnies and a red one with flowers.

I also bought a couple of Pocky packs :P
In these photos you can see the bento box better. It's a two tiers bento box, with chopsticks and divider included. In the package there was also a nice little bag to carry the bento around.

From DAYSHOP I bought this cute little tray. It's a very nice shop, full of cute and colored stuff for the house and accessories.

At this point my belly was rumbling so I had to stop to eat something. I ended up in Arnolds coffee shop... as it describes itself on the webpage "Finland’s first bakery & coffee shop chain with American style fast service".

There I ordered a chicken bagel and a milk chocolate donut. It was the best donut I've ever had in my whole life!!! My god was it good?!!
The bagel, on the other side, wasn't that great, also because the chicken was taken right from the fridge and it was still ice cold :/

Before I had to take the bus back home, I had the time to go to Tiger shop (a Danish chain) where I bought this lovely neko coin purse  ^^

I like Helsinki, it's a very nice city and I'd like to visit it again when I'll have more time at my disposal and a car!

Arroz Marinero, or Rice à la aye aye capt'n...

So, I don't really love the typical spanish paella, but I do like alternates with only mussels or only gambas. ;)
This time, some fishermen sold great thin mussels in the beach, and I thought of cooking them in paella style, with some tomatoes.

Ingredients (5-6 persons):

• 2x two hands of mussels (didn't weight them)
• 2 hands of thick grain rice per person
• 4 big tomatoes (peeled)
• 2 onions
• 2 garlic cloves
  
• 3dl Gambas - fond (it's homemade-bouillon... I made this while peeling fresh shrimps, putting the heads and carcase to boil in water, like this you become very good shrimp-bouillon for cooking fish and seafood recipes ;)
• parsley, salt and pepper

Instructions:
Wash the mussels and cover them with water and a bit of salt in a bowl.
Meanwhile, cut the onions and garlic in pieces, put in a big pan with a bit of olive oil on medium heat, until it caramelizes and becomes transparent. Then add the rice and let it fry for a bit afterwards cut the tomatoes in cubes and add to the rice. Thanks to the juice, it will start boiling, now is the time to add a bit of the fond water. Put away the salty water of the bowl with the mussels, and incorporate them to the pan. As the water boils and evaporates, continue to add the Shrimp-Fond. Meanwhile the mussels will open. It's time to add the chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Remember to remove well from time to time. Now you can decide whether you want your rice "dry" or with more liquid. I like it somewhere in between, so if the rice get's dry remember to add more fond if you still have enough, or just add a cup of water. :) When the rice is done, turn of the heat, put over the pan a towel and let it rest like this for 5 min. In Spain we say it must "sweat a bit". :P
Meanwhile just prepare the table, then serve and eat. Enjoy. ;)