Italy resumé

It took me 4 days to set up this post. I know I promised some people photos of Venice as soon as I am back, but my "very fast" internet connection has set limits to it. Plus my mother came on Wednesday midnight, so I have been busy hosting her.
Now, our 5 day trip to Italy and Venice was everything that I expected and even more. We could experience a true summer weather with beach, lot of relaxed atmosphere, beautiful scenery, good food and very good company of many friendly Italians and 2 Portuguese.

Joana, our host and Joao somewhere in Padova

Day 1 Joana picked us up from Padova autostazione and guided us to her place where we could drop our bags and dress into summer clothes, because in Italy they have a summer. Then we met our driver Lorenzo, who took as all to the sunny beach of Lignano (I think this was the name :S). It got cloudy as soon as we arrived to the beach, but this didn't stop us to take a first summer dip and enjoy the beach. Eventually it got sunny and we kicked some ball.

Kicking the ball

Day 2 continued in the rhythm of beach life, by the end of the day we were back in Padova to meet Alessandro, Joana's second half. As Italian and a true master of pasta, Alessandro made us a lovely dinner of chilli spaghetti with fresh tomatoes.
Day 3 was a trip to Venice. It is as beautiful as you see in the pictures. Where ever you go, there is a possible Kodak moment. We spent around 5 hours walking around with our very very patient tour guide Joana. I won't make a long speech here, pictures will talk for themselves with a little help from the caption.

Breakfast at Ale's house

First buy in Venice, water



One of many canal photos



Colourful building

"3 pieces of ravioli please" - Pasta

It was still first half of the Venice trip, so the spirits were high

Our lunch: bread bought from Jewish ghetto, ham from butchers and cheese from cute Italian supermarket

Tourists stopped in front of pretty clock tower

They were feeding me to the pigeons of Basilica di San Marco

Palazzo Ducale

They didn't bang their heads. They must have been trying it out before then

Beautiful pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta

View on Grand Canal from a bridge

Sprits

Pizza

Venice - Grand Canal

So all this was Venice. There was a day 4 with walks in Padova market on Prato della Valle square. Joao made a great bought of new sunglasses after he got his previous sunglasses wrecked in the beach by a kid. But one photo below all this was long forgotten and everyone was happiiiiiiiiii.

Sunglasses models

A very warm day 4 finished on a graduation party of Alessandros friend, somewhere in nearby mountains. It was a lovely warm summer night, with many happy people. Million thanks to the party guy who invited us.

The Pasta Gang
tomatoes - Joana
pasta - Alessandro

observer - Aire
special effects - Whisky

Night before Venice - Baking bread

Another attempt to bake bread. The recipe is from beautiful cookbook Piri-Piri Starfish: Portugal Found. The recipe was calling rye flour next to simple wheat bread flour, but I didn't have it, so my bread came out pure wheat bread. As it cooled down little bit, we had it with fresh mozzarella and tomato. Mmmmm ....

Tomorrow we will fly to Venice for 4 days. Wiiiiii ... I know it is going to be crowded and in general I don't like crowded at all, but it's Venice, it's a must. I am convincing myself that I am prepared for this, so in the end I can say it was wonderful. Cappuccinos, ice-cream, warm summer nights with food to nibble and wine. Bring it on!

Good old Cabbage Rolls

This dish is definitely from my mothers cooking repertoire. I missed the taste of it, so I decided to give it a try. It gives a little work though, but I suppose the more you do it the easier it becomes. We always had it with boiled potatoes and splash of sour cream.

Cabbage Rolls

1 medium size cabbage
300g ground beef
1 small onion finely chopped
1/2 cup long grain rice
pepper
salt

Boil the rice.
Mix the beef, chopped onion, rice, salt and pepper.
Place the whole cabbage in the pot with water and little bit of salt, making sure that water covers cabbage entirely. Bring it to boil 5 - 10 min, so the cabbage leaves become slightly soft and you can bend them without braking. Do not over boil the cabbage otherwise the greener and softer parts of the leaves get mushy. Lift the cabbage out of the pot and remove whole leaves one by one. Cut the white tough skeleton end of the leaf thinner.

Flatten the leaf on the board, depending of the leaf size, place 1-3 Tlsp of meat mix onto the leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf to the centre over the filling and then roll the filling into the leaf starting from the white skeleton end.Place the rolls on the pan with little bit of olive oil and fry them 3-4 min from both sides until they gain brown spots. Remove from the pan and place them to a pot layer by layer tightly side by side. Pour over with the remaining water from boiling the whole cabbage. Cover with a lid. bring to boil over low light and let it simmer 1 hour.

Transformation

My blog went through complete transformation to the brighter side. When I opened an account in Blogger I didn't have a clear vision how should it look like. So I have been changing it and trying out layouts. Now I can say I like it, its my new baby. To celebrate the transformation I baked so much loved in our house Chocolate Crinkles. The recipe is form Joy of Baking once again. I have been exploring this website and continue to do so.

These Crinkles are brownie like cookies with nice soft texture and rich chocolate taste, which makes them more than just cookies. Dough is very easy to make, keeping it in the refrigerator for few hours makes the process a little longer and demands some planning. I tend to make the dough on the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight.
What I like about the Crinkles is that they are nice bite size, when ready baked about 3cm in diameter. I would call them figure friendly. You know how brownies are always a very generous square and its impossible to eat half now and leave the other half for later. Who does that? With Crinkles there is no need to make those crucial decisions, because they are tinier but still have all the flavour.

Guinness Brewery

Another tourist attraction in Dublin seen. It was actually a week ago already, last Sunday, that we went there. Its me being very, very delayed. I am having this blog around half a year now and most of the times I still cannot remember that I should write here on more permanent basis. I try to improve.

So Guinness. "Good child has many names", as we say in Estonia. They say its a Storehouse, Brewery and the most odd a Museum. It does explain the history of Guinness and everything surrounding it. Ingredients, making process, transport, but the educational part in this "museum" is very small. All they want to do is sell their beer and increase the profits. Oh and in the booklet they promised that visitor can pull his own draft and get a certificate and all, but we didn't find such thing. As a good consumer I must say that the most enjoyable part is the top floor with magnificent panoramic view on Dublin City and pint a fresh and creamy Guinness. The most amazing thing was when we acclaimed our free pint. Girl in the bar made a shamrock (ristikhein) on the foam. It was very pretty.

Concentrate the eyes on pint on the left, that's mine, thirsty Joao already wrecked his.

Summer in Ireland

Let me make it clear once and for all. Why do they say Ireland has a summer? It doesn't. It is raining every day. I wear a coat every day in the "summer". It does become in-expensive in a long run, because there is absolutely no need to buy summer clothes. The stuff that you use for spring times is excellent. Long trousers, top and have a sweater ready to cover your bare skin. Forget little cute dresses that you wear in summer times, not here, you would end up with cystitis. Bottom line, no summer here, at least I haven't seen it.
But I have two great holidays coming. First one at the end of July, we a going to Venice for 5 days to visit JT (Joana). It will be warm and very crowded but I don't care as long as its warm.
Second one is in September, we are going to Portugal for 2 weeks. 2 weeks!!! And there it's going to be warm as well.
Meanwhile there is a picture from the summer in Ireland.

Look what it does to you.

Laikus, laiskus mine ära!

Laiskus, laiskus mine ära means laziness, laziness go away. Indeed, I hope that just saying this would help, but God know it won't...
So meanwhile I was in Estonia for one week and now I am back with whole. Its been a nice week, getting the rest since I am still unemployed, but surprisingly calm about it. Something will come along I have a good feeling about it. Meanwhile my old job called me back to do few nights in a week. I said yes, this way I at least keep on earning milk and bread money and Joao won't kick me out :P
I have to take a walk to a post office now, to send a package to Karina, since some of the stuff I bought her for a present was way too small, so I promised to send a replacement.
Picking up fresh strawberries from Farmers market wouldn't be bad idea either :)

Baking warm

With a nasty weather outside and feeling chilli in the house, baking makes me feel warm and cosy. The sweet smell in the house and of course oven working for 1 hour does make the house warmer :P
I have always wondered how biscotti tastes. They look very delicious, but I have never actually tasted one. My eye stopped on this recipe from Joy of baking, mainly because the picture was "calling" and I happened to have the ingredients, well almost. I was missing lot of cocoa powder. That's why they came lot lighter than the original picture was showing, but despite of it very very tasty. The flavor of hazelnuts compensated all the missing cocoa.

Here is what came out from a project "Baking warm".

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

125 g semisweet or bitter-sweet chocolate coarsely chopped
1 cup (215 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 3/4 (250 grams) cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa , preferably Dutch-processed
1 tablespoon (4 grams) instant espresso powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons (6 grams) pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. To toast hazelnuts: spread on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned and the skins begin to flake. Remove from the oven and place nuts in a dish towel. Roll up the towel and let the nuts 'steam' for 5 minutes and then briskly rub the towel (with nuts inside) to remove the skins from the nuts. Cool and then chop coarsely. Set aside while you prepare the dough.

Reduce temperature of oven to 150 degrees C. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the coarsely chopped chocolate and brown sugar and process until the chocolate is very fine; set aside.

Sift or whisk together the flour, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl; set aside.

With mixer combine the eggs and vanilla extract and beat to blend, about 30 seconds. Mix in the chocolate/sugar and flour mixtures until a stiff dough forms, adding the hazelnuts about half way through mixing.

Transfere the dough on well greased baking sheets, forming 2 large logs. Bake until almost firm to the touch, about 35 - 40 minutes (logs will spread during baking). Remove from the oven, place on wire rack, and let cool for 10 minutes.

Using a long spatula transfer the logs to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife cut the dough into slices 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick on the diagonal. Arrange the slices cut-side down on the baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake until crisp and dry, about 15 minutes longer. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack.

Makes about 30 biscotti.

Supposably they last in air tight container for several weeks. Mine were eaten in a first week, so beats me, if they do or not.

Are the Mondays blue?

Waking up on a Monday morning at 6.57 is a crime, but this is what we do, to get the means for all the comforts that we desire. Thank god I don't have cows to milk or pigs to feed ... or maybe ... well, there's another thought behind that...
So, "me is going" to jump in the middle of the floor to get those mummys in shape and Joao is managing a ward full of old people and crazy care assistants. Old people who pay a fortune, so their complaints would be listened with a patience. Care assistants who dream about doing nurses jobs, because it is so much easier. Isn't it ironic how we always seems to notice that our bosses do nothing. All they do, is order you around and read newspaper. Or, when sharing apartment, you feel that you are the only one who is cleaning. Ok, many times, maybe your boss is doing nothing and maybe you really are the only one who is cleaning, but have you thought that it might be the inner conflict. You're never really happy. Asking, more, more, more. Wanting to do better, receive more, be slimmer, want a plasma tv, bigger boobs etc. Maybe its the ambition, in that case very good, but maybe just complaining. I'm going to turn my Monday to a different colour. I'll make it yellow :)

Here we have a perfect example of an ambition. Desire to get to the other side, to the better side.