Asparagus and Champignons

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asparagus, champignon, dinner, dish, food, garlic, healthy, idea, lunch, mushroom, rice, soya, spring, tasty, vegetarian

These two are great together;.

A simple idea for a spring dinner: Rice with Asparagus and Champignons. Way tastier than it sounds, with some garlic, soya sauce and herbs it’s a quick and healthy idea.

Weekend breakfast

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berries, breakfast, food, food photography, food styling, fresh, photos, weekend, yoghurt

Weekend breakfasts are the best; especially during spring; and even more when they include berries.

So, now that I said this, I am off to enjoy the weekend! Arrivederci!

 

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

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buttermilk, eggplant, food, how-to, ottolenghi, peel, photography, plenty, pomegranate, recipe, rustic, seeds, styling

I was looking for a vegetarian cookbook when I stumbled upon Ottolenghi’s Plenty. Although Ottolenghi is not a vegetarian himself, he wrote a whole book in honour of Mr. Vegetable; and it is pretty darn good!

The recipe that immediately struck my eye is the “Eggplant with Buttermilk sauce” (it’s not for nothing that it is on the cover for some editions). It looked so pretty I wanted to make it, but when I read the recipe I felt like this was going to be a failure. I couldn’t see the flavors of an eggplant combine with not only buttermilk, but also pomegranate.

Nonetheless I made it, and it was wonderful! It is very easy to make; you just need a little patience waiting for the eggplant to bake and lots of olive oil to season the eggplant well (man that thing absorbs a lot!). You will also learn how to take the seeds of the pomegranate out without looking like you just killed a cow. The taste, my friends, is amazing; a mix between Mediterranean and Middle-eastern, and that feels right, since Ottolenghi is Israeli. I say: for how weird it sounds, just try it and you will be amazed.

Find the recipe here, and let me know

Tags

canon, canon eos 600d, fotografie, holland, leiden, photography, the netherlands

Leiden is slowly coming out of this long winter; this is all I was looking for: being able to walk outside without just wanting to go back home, sitting at a café for a nice breakfast on a Sunday morning, waking up and taking the time to listen to the bird singing.. it makes me miss Italy a little less.

 

On independence

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alone independence, concert, confidence, den haag, happiness, icelandic, indie, joy, learning, live music, music, of monsters and men, paard van troje

A few days ago I was in a bad mood. The evening I was going to a concert I had planned on going to since September. Of Monster and Men in Den Haag, I couldn’t miss it. Finally the day had arrived, but there was a problem: the person I was going with had to work, and all other friends had plans. You see now were I got the bad mood from..

Around 5 pm, I decided to go anyway, even if it would have meant going alone.

I took my bike and on the way I almost wanted to randomly stop someone and ask if they wanted to come along.

On the train I started feeling better and  more confident: finally I was doing something that you are “supposed” to do with friends, all by myself, and it started feeling good. Arrived in Den Haag I took the tram and I started being really excited about the concert. Ten minutes later I was  at the venue and I couldn’t care less if I was surrounded by couples and groups of friends: I felt independent and I was happy.

Fast forward a couple of hours and I was standing in the first rows, drinking a beer and taking pictures. I met a very nice girl, who, what are the odds, came from Italy and was at the concert on her own as well.

An Icelandic musician called Mugison openend the concert. He played some great songs, certainly another artist to add to my playlists.

Of Monsters and Men started playing straight after; The songs were all amazing, the feeling, the people, everything was perfect. I wouldn’t know how to describe the concert itself. If you have been to a concert you probably know what I mean: you can’t describe the feeling.

Once back home my bad mood was just a far away memory, replaced by joy.

Yellow Light – Of Monster and Men

Your Bones – Of Monsters and Men 

Love Love Love – Of Monsters and Men

 

Photography website

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amsterdam, cargo, cargo collective, collective, leiden, netherlands, photo, photography, update, website

During these cold and grey days of early March in which the days are supposed to start getting a little sunnier, I tried to escape the long winter depression by working on what I like the most: photography.

I gathered the photos I consider worth giving a look at in my new website. I will update it and keep you updated about it.

Please, feel free to visit it and remember that any feedback is more then welcome!

Thank you and enjoy your Sunday!

 

Quinoa with a mix of herbs

Tags

basil, cookbook, coriander, easy, fresh, herbs, italy, mint, ottolenghi, parsley, plenty, quick, quinoa, recipe, simple, spring, summer

For a couple of days I was just exhausted. My body felt heavy, sore, and I felt like I needed some time to restore. Life has been pretty hectic : many decisions and changes which sometimes can make me feel overwhelmed. I needed silence, space, time.

Keeping the promise I made to myself, I decided to listen to my feelings and instead of pushing through the sickness and keep going, I stayed home for two days. No regret or guilt allowed, and it feels good.

Except for organizing some things I had left on the side for quite a while, I had time to go back to cooking, taking the time to read recipes, leaf through cookbooks and just enjoy one of the things I love the most.

One of the dishes I made was Quinoa with a mix of herbs.

Why this dish among all the recipes I have stumbled across? Well, I can summarize it in one word: home. The herbs used in this dish just took me by my hand and brought me back in Italy. Especially the coriander, which my best friend’s mum used to often use in her wonderful dishes.

My recipe was inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi’s Steamed rice with herbs (I bought “Plenty” by Ottolenghi on Saturday and I really enjoyed leafing through the pages of his book).  Since I am not and I will never be capable of following a recipe (I always change some ingredients, often I miss some of them and never will I follow the quantities). So, yeah, I switched rice with quinoa (I just felt like having quinoa), I didn’t put a potato in there (I didn’t really see the point) and I had Quark instead of Greek yoghurt and sour cream. But, man, it was good. As I said, I just was brought back to when, as a child, during the hottest summer nights, I was sitting at the table with my friend’s family, eating dinner just waiting for the moment we could go back to play board games or go out and pick some apricots for dessert.

Since I make up my own recipes, I wouldn’t be able to tell you exact quantities (maybe I should buy some scales). The main point is: is it a springy evening? One of those when you can sit outside, but only if you wear a sweater? Awesome, this quick salad will allow you not to lose too much of your precious outside time!

 

For two people:

You will only need: quinoa, a mix of freshly picked herbs (I chose basil, coriander, mint and parsley), salt, olive oil and quark.

Rinse about a cup of quinoa ( I always lose a third of it by doing this) and pour it in a pan. Cover it with water, add a little salt, and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for about 7 minutes. Drain (there goes another third down in the sink) and set aside allowing it cool down.

Take the fresh herbs and chop them (you can decide how big or small you want the leaves to be). Put the herbs in a bowl; add a pinch of salt and the quinoa. Mix and drizzle with olive oil. Serve some quark on the side.

I think this could be a great idea as a side dish during a barbecue as well.

Tags

berries, feeling, happiness, italy, liguria, natural, nature, personal, photos, quote, raspberries, smile, strawberries, summer

The breeze entering the bedroom and relieving your heavy dreams, taking a long breath and dive until you reach the sea bottom, going outside in your pajamas and count the fireflies, picking berries, reaching the top of the mountain after walking for hours, listening to the waves come and go in silence, sitting outside while the day comes to an end and hear the birds singing their last songs of the day, sitting around the bonfire and talk for hours, crawling in bed after an exhausting day.

Feelings that make me happy.

(quote by Paul Schmidtberger – Design Flaws of the Human Condition)

Damn it, I fell into the trap again. I threw my thought black on white as in a stream of consciousness and then posted it on this blog. I must admit, it wasn’t the greatest idea. You know, I have a diary, and I have people to talk to. Why would I open myself to the world, to any stranger, to anyone? I don’t know, therefore the post *puff* disappeared .

So let’s go on and keep this a happy place. Because, seriously, I am happy.

Tags

breadsticks, bruschetta, dinner, enjoy, food, friends, friendship, grissini, happy, italian, netherlands, organic, ravioli, story, wine

A new family moved into town. That was very special in the place I lived in. When someone decided to abandon a city or another town for ours, everyone wanted to know who the new people were and what brought them to this foolish decision.

This family was even crazier: they had decided to take over the town’s only restaurant! Grandma would be the cook, the mom would stay at the bar, and grandpa would serve.They ended up staying a couple of years to disappear later, as most of the families who decide to move in town from the city.

Grandma, the cook, well, she was special to me. There is no adjective to describe the freshness of her dishes: they were all homemade, made with the experience and love that only an italian “nonna” can have. She used to call me “fatina“, which means “little fairy“. Whenever I went there she didn’t even have to ask me what I would order: it was always ravioli. The most amazing, tasty, filling and delicious ravioli I have ever tried. I used to ask for sugo alla bolognese (bolognese sauce; at the time I was not 100% vegetarian) and put an extra couple of teaspoons grated cheese on them.

Ravioli are my favorite dish ever since. Roberto’s nonna used to know that as well and made them for me every now and then, my mum always buys them when I go back to Italy and I even made them myself a coupe of times.

 

Good Italian food is very hard to find abroad: in supermarkets you can only find the packed thick pizzas, simil-mozzarellas and other pseudo-italian packed stuff that usually is so predictably not italian, since 90% of the times the spelling on the packages is completely messed up (I would advise the companies to hire a translator instead of using Google Translator). Therefore either you buy the core ingredients and take a day off to prepare a really good, traditional dish, or.. you go to your friends’ little  Italian restaurant. That’s what I decided to do last week.

This little place called Bocconi it owned by an Italian woman, but basically run by a few young Italian guys who happen to be my friends. I met them about a year ago and they welcomed us in their little Italian community in Leiden. They have an insane passion for food, real food, homemade and mostly organic.

Last week, my friend Sonja and I decided that we would make an Italian dinner together on Saturday. I knew the guys make fresh pasta and ravioli every Tuesday night, so I went there on Wednesday to get some of their freshly made spinach and ricotta ravioli.

On Saturday Sonja came here, we sliced a few slices of bread, put it in the oven, and when roasted, we topped it with tomatoes, and fresh herbs to make some beautiful bruschette; we prepared the ravioli with a simple tomato sauce (they are awesome enough already!), put some breadsticks on the table with a dip, we had each her personal bottle of wine, red for her, white for me, and enjoyed. While listening and chatting the hours away, we took a lot of pictures and had a good laugh. It was great, and the good food made it even a pinch better.

 

So, you see, our story, the story of ravioli and me, goes way back in the past. It is a long story with a happy ending. I will never get sick of them..