lavendar bee

lavendar bee, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

The Heart of the Matter, The Heart Healthy Salad Roundup

Now it is time for the roundup of last month's The Heart of the Matter, the theme was Heart Healthy Salads and I am delighted to say that I have received a whole bunch of delicious and inspiring salads for us to try out! I don't have much appetite right now as it is very hot and humid here right now but going through the entries this morning has created a certain appetite I have to say. I think you will feel the same at the end of this roundup!

The first entry I got was from The Blushing Hostess who sent in a delicious Fresh Field Pea and Brown Rice Salad with Chile Pasilla Vinaigrette to be eaten on a well mown lawn! Or what do you say Cathrine? (If you read her post you will understand what I am alluding to)


Next out is Kevin from Closet Cooking who has prepared a very attractive Teriyaki Salmon and Asparagus, Spinach Salad that he guarantees never ends up as a leftover!


Sweet Arfi from HomeMadeS sent in a Mixed Green Leaves with Shaved Beetroots, Apples, Walnut and Blue Cheese, both crunchy and tasty!


Then Ann of Redacted Recipes, one of our habituees here on HotM, sent me an entry for a mouthwatering Grilled Lamb Salad that just makes me even more hungry!


Here we have a Thai inspired Avocado and Mango Salad made by Ricki of Diet, Dessert and Dogs that is so lovely and healthy too!


This time we have an Italian food blogger among us, Rori from Ma Che Ti Sei Mangiato who even has translated her post into English for those of you who don't know Italian. Her entry is a The Day After Farro and Barley Salad that must be perfect on a hot day!


A beautiful Chicken, Cherry Tomato, Spinach and Raisin Couscous Salad, that is what Michelle from the Greedy Gourmet has prepared for the HotM this month!



An ahhh and ohh salad made of bell peppers and herbs tempts us all the way from Leafy Cooking where my friend LaBelga has mixed this delight!


Chris from Mele Cotte has sent me her delicious Spinach, Strawberries, Mandarin oranges, Walnuts, Honey roasted turkey and Blue cheese Salad. Go and check out her incredible cake decorations too!



A winter salad is good to have and Joahanna from the Green Gourmet Giraffe has made a real tasty Cauliflower and Sesame Salad for us!


One of my HotM partners, ever so busy but ever so delightful Michelle of The Accidental Scientist has finsihed her teaching just in time to send me this tasty Grilled Sweet Potato Salad!


And last and slightly reluctant, I forced Tanna of My Kitchen In Half Cups to participate with her Texas Carrot Salad. She insists on calling it Ilva style but I honestly think it is pure Tanna style, check it out and decide for yourselves!



Oh, I forgot my own entries, I made a Lentil and Potato Salad with Tomato and Oregano Dressing,



a Pasta Salad with Carrots, Onion, Capers and Pine Nuts



and finally a Fruit Salad with Chili Pepper and Lime Honey!

Thanks a lot to all the participants who make this event a success, without you it wouldn't exist! And if I have forgotten someone or something, please tell me!

PEA, GOAT'S CHEESE AND HERB RISOTTO or RISOTTO CON PISELLI, CAPRINO E ERBE

You have to forgive me if I am short today but my new camera arrived lunchtime and I am pretty busy understanding all the functions and get tuned in to it. It will take some time and many photos but I am happy. It feels so good in my hands...
MOO asked me sometime ago if they could use my photos for the launching of their new business cards and who am I to say no, I was surprised but obviously happy. They are really nice to work with and I have now two sets of beautiful business cards with my own photos on, everyone different! I already have the small MOO cards and the postcard size but I am very happy to have these, the photos look so good on a slightly bigger size. If you want to see what they look like, look here!



I do have time to post a recipe, something I made before leaving for Sweden and obviously forgot to write down the exact measures but I think I will make it, my kind of cooking usually doesn't require exact measure, it's more a matter of feeling.





PEA, GOAT'S CHEESE AND HERB RISOTTO or RISOTTO CON PISELLI, CAPRINO E ERBE
4 servings

About 1 kg/ 35,3 oz of unshelled peas which is about 250-300 g/ 8,8-10,6 oz
1 fresh onion
450 g/15,9 oz of rice, Arborio or Carnaroli
1 ½ l/ 6,3 cups vegetable stock.
Fresh herbs like thyme, oregano, sage, parsley and rosemary
100 g/3,5 oz or more fresh mild goat's cheese, I recommend a mild one because if it's too sharp it gets overwhelming
A large knob of butter
Salt
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

- Slice the onion finely and sauté it in a lot of butter until it has become transparent.
- Add the peas and go on cooking for a minute or two.
- Add the rice and sauté it until every grain of rice is covered with butter, stir all the time.
- Now it is time to start adding the stock, a ladle at a time, always stirring. When the rice has absorbed the liquid, it’s time for the next ladle of stock!
- When the rice is cooked, you add a knob of butter and as much grated parmesan cheese you want. Stir well and let it rest for a couple of minutes.
- Chop the fresh herbs finely, mix them with the goat's cheese and stir it into the risotto before serving.

Sisyphos or house work

Sisyphos, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

ITALIAN STYLE HUMMUS

I am full of cravings right now, I crave certain food, certain books, certain films, you know the way you are supposed to crave things when you are pregnant. I never did in my three pregnancies but I do have cravings now and then and I firmly believe in giving in to them as I think our body and/or mind is telling us that we need something in particular. So right now I seem to need chickpeas, grapefruit, fresh peperoncino, books about photography that talks about photography in a more abstract manner and BBC Dickens films. I don't dare to analyze that, I just give in to it. What I don't crave at all is ironing (you should see the mountain of clean laundry in our living room, I'll attack it later on today, doing a lot of folding which could be interpreted as ironing if I flatten it out properly with the palms of my hands), putting order to one of the children's room (AGAIN!!) make appointments and deal with things that have to do with school. Or make phone calls. So I don't give in to that but I suspect that it will have dire consequences if I don't so I better. But later. Later.

Chickpeas I said, I want to eat chickpeas every day right now so I try to come up with different ways of doing it, this is an Italian style hummus that you can use on crostini or why not on a slice of cucumber? Perfect if you need to go gluten-free and great if you don't.

Updated: Check here if you recognize the photos in the video!





ITALIAN STYLE HUMMUS

2-3 mature tomatoes
1 small onion
250 g/8,8 oz chickpeas, cooked
a piece of fresh peperoncino
(garlic if you want, I don't. If you add it to the tomatoes it gets milder, if you want more sting, you add it raw!)
parsley
oregano, fresh or dried
salt
extra virgin olive oil

- Chop the tomatoes and the onions and braise in olive oil until soft. Add salt.
- Mix chickpeas, peperoncino, tomatoes, onions, parsley and oregano. If it is too firm add a little water and /or olive oil.
- Check salt and then eat. Very nice topped some finely chopped cucumber.

bouquet of leaves

bouquet of leave, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

PINK GRAPEFRUIT, WATERMELON AND CUCUMBER DRINK WITH MINT

Now is the time for fresh fruit drinks and for some strange reason I found myself drawn into buying a lot of pink grapefruit the other day with the purpose of using them for a refreshing drink because with the heat and humidity we're experiencing right now, we sure need to drink a lot! It is very much summer; I took out the dog very early this morning to avoid the heat but it didn't help, I came back home soaked but I do have to admit that I felt far more energized than before leaving so I gained more than I lost. And now I really have to drink something refreshing as a compensation which means that I gain again. All on the plus side today, what is happening to me, am I coming out of the darkness? I do hope so because I am getting bored with feeling on the low side, maybe I should divide the day in two, AM up and PM less up and then gradually decrease the down time. I do wish there was Antabus for feeling low, I am sure a negative physiological reaction every time I start feeling low (without any real legitimate reason, I mean when it is just out of habit) would get me moving, if Pavlov succeeded in 'programming', this would work as well! But as it is now I will stick to my new regime and hope it will work. I think it will.






PINK GRAPEFRUIT, WATERMELON AND CUCUMBER DRINK WITH MINT
3-4 glasses

2 pink grapefruit
watermelon, the same amount as the grapefruit pulp
14-cm/4-5 inches peeled cucumber
10-15 fresh mint leaves
4 tsp honey, optional
ice cubes

- Divide the grapefruit and cut out the pulp (or is it called flesh?), avoid the white bits. Put it in a blender ormixer.
- Add watermelon, cucumber, mint leaves and honey. Throw in as much ice you want, the more ice the more liquid it gets which is a good idea when it is hot. I think I used about 5 or 6 biggish ice cubes.
- Run the blender until it is smooth.
- Pour into glasses and top with a mint leaf for decoration.

FRUIT SALAD WITH CHILI PEPPER AND LIME HONEY

I know, I said that my pasta salad the other day was my last entry for the HotM but here I go again. But the abundance of sweet and tasty fruit has seduced me totally and then I have a craving to eat fresh peperoncino or chilli pepper so I decided to combine the two. I'm sure that I would find the reason to why people eat hotter food in hotter climates if I searched a little on the web, I'm just too lazy right now because it's so hot. I am happy to eat my hot fruit salad without really knowing why. I can take that, sometimes I have to know the answer to the questions that pop up in my mind but right now I feel that I am happy in my blissful ignorance, besides I count on having a reader here who knows the answer and generously shares it with us.
Now I will take it easy, I really appreciate this aspect of hot weather, you hear it all over: "Take It Easy" and I am an ardent follower of the TIE movement right now, slow and easy - that's how life is going to be this weekend! But before I leave you, I just have to remind you that next weekend is Paper Chef weekend so please pop over to the Paper Chef blog and add an ingredient to the list!





FRUIT SALAD WITH CHILLI PEPPER AND LIME HONEY

apricots
peaches
fresh chilli peppers, not too hot ones
lime
honey, preferably acacia honey as it is lightly flavoured and runny

- Cut the fruit into pieces and mix in a bowl
- Slice the chilli pepper thinly or chop it finely and add to the fruit.
- Mix honey and lime juice, you choose how much lime you need. Then add it to the fruit and stir.
- Top the salad with a little grated lime zest.

resting place

wheel barrows, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

greens, verticals, horizontals and spheres

allium, originally uploaded by ilva-b.

PASTA SALAD WITH CARROTS, ONION, CAPERS AND PINE NUTS or INSALATA DI PASTA CON CAROTE, CIPOLLE, CAPPERI E PINOLI

Packing up after my mother was not all sad, it was also quite beautiful. I did it with my brother and we reminisced about both my parents and our lives together which obviously brought them closer to us. Now that they are gone, I am able to remember them through all their ages instead of just seeing the vulnerability of age and illness and that is a great gift that death has given me. I packed up all the things that will be sent down here and I am very happy to be able to bring things from my parents home into my own, they are sadly lacking now.
Another positive thing is that I seem to have landed a photo exhibition in Sweden for September, a very dear friend has been fundamental for this as she has pushed me onwards and encouraged me. Anyway, until we have established the exact dates I cannot not really believe that it will actually take place but I wanted to share it with you.
And a third good thing is that I am waiting for my new camera to arrive, nothing too fancy but so much more pro than what I have been using so far. Not that I am particularly into the technical side of photography, on the contrary I think photography is too dominated by which cameras you are supposed to use and such instead of the drive to find your own visual language and to learn to see. Which is a continuous work-in-progress. Fortunately.



But this is also a food blog, something that hasn't been that obvious lately but today I do have a recipe for you! This is my last entry for this month's HotM which has Salads as its theme. Pasta salads are good but can be slightly boring after a while so I wanted to come up with something different, something that made me want to continue to explore the possibilities of pasta salads and I think I have succeeded! I used black spaghetti but that is not necessary, nor is the spaghetti form although I do like to use it instead of the usual fusilli or conchiglie. I hope you enjoy it - I'm off to make another pasta salad!





PASTA SALAD WITH CARROTS, ONION, CAPERS AND PINE NUTS or INSALATA DI PASTA CON CAROTE, CIPOLLE, CAPPERI E PINOLI

carrots, approx. 1 per person
mild onions, 1/2 small one per person
capers, 1 tsp per person
pine nuts, 1-2 tsp per person
lemon or lime juice
herb salt
extra virgin olive oil
pasta, cooked and rinsed in cold water

- Cut the carrots into long thin strips, I used a mandoline to make it easier. Chop the onion and mix carrots, onion and capers in a bowl. Add lemon juice, herb salt and olive oil, mix and then let it rest for a little while before you add the pasta.
- Add the pine nuts, stir well and serve!

Back to real life

I'm back and it feels good. Nothing really went as I expected it in Sweden apart from me and my brother managing to fix everything (almost) that we had set out to do. Which is quite a lot but I didn't see many friends, I didn't blog and I didn't use my camera as much as I expected. But that is the way life goes and I actually think it is better this way. I have at least learnt that there is no way I can manage to do everything I want to when I go to Sweden, that it isn't humanely possible to see everyone I want to see and that it's OK to say no sometimes.



It is hot here but it feels good, it is somehow how it should be. The light and the sounds are so different and as usual I feel so happy that I live where I live. I feel like that every time I come back home after travelling. Not to speak about how it feels to be back to the food, I don't want to be a bore but it tastes so much more here. I immediately went to do some food shopping yesterday and now I really feel like cooking, I want a fresh and healthy lunch with a lot of flavour that is what I want so I am leaving you right now, I just want to say one more thing: Thanks a lot for the comments and the emails, I hope you don't mind if I don't answer them, I have to process some of the feelings that popped up in Sweden and I just don't have that much mental energy right now so please forgive me and if there was something important you wanted to tell me, comment or write again and I will behave and answer this time!

Bread Baking Babes: Mary's Pumpernickel or Dark Onion Rye

This month's Bread Baking Babes' bread did cause a bit of a problem for us Europeans, not to me because I had the fortune (read have a lazy nature) to bake the bread after Lien and Karen had made their tries.



You see, rye flour in Europe and the US are d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t, very different. Rye flour here is much coarser and of a different type and makes a heavier bread than the American one and as the recipe of the month is a very special one, it is a recipe created by our own Mary, an American Pumpernickel bread we were in for trouble. Even here we differ, to us in Europe, Pumpernickel bread means a very dark and dense brick like kind of rye bread whereas it is quite different in the US. Anyway, we managed to solve the problem by diluting our rye flour 50/50 with a high gluten wheat flour which turned it into a tasty and very good bread that matured beautifully! I really liked this bread and I am sure I will make it again.



What I enjoyed the most this month though wasn't the actual baking but the incredible discussion about how to solve the rye problem and the solidarity between the Babes (but that's no news by now), the discussions going on on our BBB blog and Mary going around to Russian bakeries and beer brewers to find out why and how the rye could be so different here and there. I feel very lucky to b a Bread Baking Babe!
Thanks Mary for proposing your recipe and I can recommend making it so steer over to Mary to find out how to become a Bread Baking Buddy! And here you have the rest of us, check out how they fared with the Pumpernickel!

Notitie Von Lien (Lien) and , My Kitchen In Half-Cups (Tanna), Bake My Day (Karen), Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn),I like To Cook (Sara) , A Fridge Full Of Food..And Nothing To Eat (Glenna), Grain Doe (Gorel), The Sour Dough (Mary aka Breadchick)