Roasted eggplant salad with tzatziki herb dressing

My daughter will be back tomorrow and I can't wait to see her. This week, however, has given me time to spend with my youngest.

He never had the fortune of being the first, that little creature who totally capsizes your world in wonderful (and not always so wonderful) ways. The baby you spend hours staring at, playing with, nurturing. Your first baby is the one you take endless pictures of, you make scrapbooks for, recording every detail of her growth. You scrutinize the content of each and every diaper, you count the strands of hair and sprouting teeth over and over. The first is the baby you play classical music for when she is in your tummy, you do not allow near sugar and salt or anything with a bit of flavor for the first two years of her life. Your first child starts watching TV (10 minutes and no more) when she is a toddler and is only allowed to watch educational programs. You buy her specific toys and/or books for every stage of her devolopment and spend time playing/reading with her. You take her to baby massage groups and English playgroups (if you live abroad) and hum lullabies to her in a semi-dark room at naptime.

By the time your second comes along it is a whole different world. Whilst in your tummy he is already a comfy perch for the older child, forget Mozart's sweet notes. As soon as he is out, his world is a place of noise and light. No lullabies in cool, dark rooms. If he survives his older sibling he will be picking up the crumbs from her cookies and initiating his sugar intake long before he is two. Every time he starts playing with a toy, his older sister will grab it from him (well, to be fair, he will do the same). He will constantly be sucking on that made-in-China barbie or car made out of toxic materials and with a million detachable pieces that his sibling got as a present from their great aunt's cousin twice removed last month.

When I had my second child, my sister warned me I would not take as many picture of him. I promised myself I would, that he would get his personal storyboard, just like my first. I have stuck to that. But that is pretty much it.

He had his first taste of ice cream before he turned two and when he watches TV it is usually Barbie and the 200 Dancing Princesses in the friggin' Diamond Castle. Or Shrek when he gets lucky. His bedtime books are usually more intricate than the Dr. Seuss and Baby Einstein we read to him every once in a while. He has never known the delight of playing with the floating letters and Sesame Street characters all on his own.

All in all, he does have the constant entertainment and company of another child, unlike his sister did. He has a very active social life, I'll give you that, but it is really his sisters'. No fancy English playgroups and massages for that guy. He hangs out with snotty-nosed babies and cool three-year olds because they are his sister's friends'younger siblings. All in all he has it pretty good, he is stimulated (albeit in a different way than my first), he is 2 going on to 6 and has a sugar and salt-coated life.

But I for once I wanted him to feel like my first. The last and only time his sister went away he was too distraught to enjoy it. This week he did a lot better and I pampered him and cuddled him and kissed his little cheeks sore. We read the Foot Book and Good Night Gorilla over and over, we played with non-toxic games that are age appropriate and I sat with him and taught him all the tricks. He splashed in the bathtub to his delight and we watched The Bear in the Big Blue House and Thomas the Train. We both miss his sister a lot, and every time he asks where she is I am wondering the same thing, but I am grateful for every extra cuddle I can give him this week.

Since he loved the yogurt sauce (and posing with it) I made recently so much and because I am always thinking up new ways to get him to eat vegetables, I decided to make this to spoil him a little. He did not mind in the least.

Loosely inspired by Ottolenghi's recipe taught in person to the Heavenly Housewife.

Gazpacho - a soup or a drink?

The other day I mentioned a questionnaire I was answering to subscribe to a food community. One of the questions was a pet peeve of mine in the kitchen. I had a hard time coming up with one at that moment, but since then they have just been popping up in my mind. Turns out I am quite the kitchen nazi.

Here are a few:

1. When someone grabs food from a platter or picks/eats the garnish before I serve it.

2. When someone hovers while I cook and constantly sticks a spoon or even worse a finger into something I have on the stove top.

3. When someone sticks their fork into my plate while I am eating. (I see a trend emerging here. A touch territorial?)

4. When someone eats pasta and leaves all the sauce in the plate.

5. When someone eats roast chicken and discards the crunchy, salty skin.

6. When someone says they don't like something without ever having tasted it (excluding religious/moral reasons)

7. When someone only takes the runny part of an aged cheese

8. When someone cuts the crust off of cheeses like camembert and brie

9. People (er...Italians) who say English food is terrible. Hello? Gordon? Nigella? Jamie? Heston? (Also, I believe there is no country that does not have a local cuisine, some just have more variety than others)

10. People who think Italy is just pizza, pasta, cappucino and mafia.

11. When people make ..... (brownies, cookies, etc. You choose) and halve the butter, sugar, egg ratio. Don't be surprised if it ain't a ..... or if it isn't as good as the bakery's.

12. Language distorsions.

This opens up a whole new subcategory (and the truth is I probably do the same in languages I don't know so I probably shouldn't cast the first stone). But bear with me and let me rant just this once:

a) biscotti is plural. The singular is biscotto, so you are eating a biscotto, not a biscotti

b) the same goes for panino and panini

c) by the way, biscotti are all kinds of cookies in Italian - even an Oreo, and panini are all kinds of sandwiches, even a club sandwich

d) the same goes for Italians. 'Cookies' are all cookies, not just chocolate chip cookies

e) the right word/spelling is BRUSCHETTA (pronounced broosketta, not brooshetta)

f) why does the package of a regional, traditional Italian cookie (biscotto) have to have 'cookie' written in English under the brand to make it cooler? (And why don't you get a native speaker to correct your English before you print that sentence on 100,000 t-shirts? But I digress...)

g) gelato is all ice cream in Italy, even the Haagen Dazs you buy at the supermarket

h) Fettucine Alfredo are NOT Italian

Since we are discussing all those infuriating/endearing mistakes we make with foreign foods, here is the recipe for gazpacho. I am sure that in Spain every family has a recipe for gazpacho that is the best and only true version. In the recipe I used, which may or may not be authentic, the procedure is a little more complex than my usual throw-together-and-blend-the-vegetables approach. The result is delicious, it really does seem to give the gazpacho an extra kick.

Now to the big dilemma is: is it a soup or is it a drink? 

After doing a little research and because I have close family living in Spain, I feel I can pretty confidently answer it is a soup you can drink. So whether you use a bowl and spoon or a glass is up to you. But because I do not want to become a Spaniard's pet peeve please let us know, if you are out there, if this is true and also what you consider to be the original, one-and-only recipe.

I followed the recipe to  a "t" and made half a batch and then omitted the last step with the other half. You decide which you like best. I drank the first and ate the second with a spoon. What matters is that it bring you pure joy on a hot, hot day like today.

What are your pet peeves in the kitchen?

Adapted from Just Eat it.

Scratch, scratch

Sorry, no cooking this week end. Was here...

...enjoying some of this...

...and some of this...cream of burrata with tomato coulis and extra virgin olive oil anyone?

 

Or would you prefer some Parmigiamo Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma? Both?

Separating from your five year old for her first vacation away is sort of like severing a limb: it physically hurts, it feels wrong. You still feel your child's presence when she is not there with you. That is sort of how I feel today (and how I felt then too). But she is with people that love her and that will take care of her and spoil her, just like zie (aunts) and nonne (grandmothers) are supposed to.

And if dropping her off means a weekend of doing the above, it ain't all bad right? Ok, off to scratch another mark on the wall. Five days to go.

Thai fried coconut & lime shrimp

Yesterday I became a member of yet another food community and had to answer a few questions for my profile. Among these, I was asked what my favorite cookbook was. That is a tough one, I thought to myself, I have many and love them all.

This got me thinking. How do you decide what your favorite cookbook is. Is it the one you cook from the most? Or the one that answers a lot of the questions you have on cooking techniques?  Is it the one that makes you dream about conquering your favorite exotic cuisine? Or iss it that great new one with the lovely pictures that make your mouth water whenever you flip through it?

I love some because they were gifts from people I care about, or because of the stories that go along with the recipes, others for the photography and food styling. Some because they are so comprehensive and some because they are filled with original, exciting and unsual recipes.

I have had a longstanding love for all things food and my first steps in cultivating this passion was buying books about food and cookbooks. I spent many an hour reading them and looking at them, but the truth is that at the time I seldom cooked from them. Despite having cooked basic meals for myself on a daily basis since adulthood, I only started really cooking and experimenting with recipes and pushing my boundaries in the past years. Since then, if I have to be really honest, I have used the Internet and the blogosphere to get inspiration much more than my beloved cookbooks.

 

There was my revelation, that is how I came to realize that you are my favorite cookbook! And that is why, as you may have noticed, so many of my recipes link back to you guys.

Today is no different, I adapted this fabulous recipe from Tiffany, over at Care's Kitchen. It is not the first and will certainly not be the last.

If you have been reading me for a while you will know of my fear of deep frying. Once again I overcame it (I hope once and for all at this point) and fried up these little guys in a handful of minutes. It is a tasty, fresh , summery recipe (I promise, despite the deep frying) that I highly recommend: max result, minimum work (ok, except for cleaning the shrimp. But I did that earlier so actually making the shrimp literally took 10 minutes).

What is your favorite cookbook?

Kafta-style meatball salad with yogurt tahini dressing

Yesterday I was able to leave the office a little earlier than usual so I decided to do something I hate almost as much as filing my papers: buying a bathing suit. A one-piece bathing suit.

Let me recreate the scenario, just so you can cringe a little. Because I know you've been there.

When: beginning of sales.
Where: a department store, Ladies' lingerie & beachwear section.
Who: myself and a million other ladies.

A few notes:

- I live in a country where the average woman is petite and has a good figure

- I live in a country where women often have beautiful olive skin
- I am a pale, freckly blonde
- I live in a country where thongs and Brazilian bikinis reign

- I want the '80's back, when one-piece bathing suits were cool (and when I looked great in a bikini so it didn't matter)

- I have had two children in the past 5 years

- I ain't getting any younger

- My bikini top and bottom are completely different sizes (and no, not in the good way i.e. larger on top, smaller on bottom)

 - No bathing suit looks flattering with your underwear sticking out of it.

A few questions:

- Why is there neon lighting in changing rooms?

- Why are the best mirrors just outside the changing room?

- Why do most changing rooms have flimsy curtains instead of doors?

- Why does the old bag in the changing room next to mine force her embarassed husband to go with her?

- Why does he have to stand right between changing rooms, exactly where the flimsy curtain doesn't reach?

- Why, o why do bathing suits never look as good on my rack as they do on the sales rack?

I actually made it out with two nice one piece bathing suits (I'm telling you, no one buys them anymore) and this time the changing room actually had doors. So I'm not complaining. But after seeing each and every shadow cast on my thighs (where there shouldn't be any shadows) by the neon lighting, I am increasing my running schedule and having more of this for lunch.

As you can see all the way down below, the kids loved it. My son was partial to the yogurt sauce while my daughter devoured at least 15 meatballs. They were also a great help making the meatballs.

Child labor

Kafta recipe loosely adapted from Joumana's.

Nigella's honey chocolate cake and blogversary

On the weekend this little blog of mine celebrated its first year.

I will not bore you with the usual blablabla about how much this amazing experience has helped me out of my comfort zone (in the kitchen, on my laptop and with my camera) and introduced me to a whole new community of friends and food lovers all over the world.

You've heard this, you've done this, you don't need to read about it again. B.O.R.I.N.G.

If I were Martha Stewart I could show you a blooper reel of the past year.
For example me crouched over on a chair in my undies and a t-shirt to get that perfect picture of a cookie. Forgetting the window is wide open behind me. It happenend.

Or me pulling the hand beater out of the bowl and forgetting to turn it off. I am still cleaning chocolate batter sprays off the walls.

There have been many such moments (and great moments too of course)

But I am not Martha Stewart and I am no Nigella Lawson either. The closest I can get is making one of her signature recipes and that is what I did to celebrate.

 

Before I get into baking technicalities, just one last thing.

I see from my stats that I have lots of silent readers and several followers. I was a reader of blogs for many years before I started commenting and interacting with bloggers and I know that doesn't make a person any less passionate or interested. I just wanted to acknowledge you, a year in, and tell you I know you are out there and how much I appreciate your presence. Thank you. If you ever feel like it, like dropping a line or asking me a question, I would love to hear from you.

Back to baking.

Making Nigella's chocolate honey bee cake was quite simple, but keep in mind there are a few steps and it is important you have enough time to let the cake and glaze cool before assembling.

Making the bees was a lot of fun. I made them with my daughter, who is five, and she really did a good job, so it can be a fun family activity.

As always occurs when I need a key ingredient, the only box of marzipan paste I found was damaged, so I had to resort to making my own. It was a revelation, it is that easy!

 

The only two problems I encountered where following:

1. Nigella suggests using a cup of boiling water for the batter. My batter was already quite runny with half a cup so I didn't use the whole amount. My springform pan is old and a bit battered and I have had problems with runny batter seeping out during baking in the past, so I didn't want to risk it. And it did seep out a bit anyway. I brought the cake to a party and it was finished before I had a chance to eat a slice. I did however steal a nibble from my daughter and did not find the cake as moist/gooey as I expected and Nigella described. I wonder if that made a difference? I only baked the cake for an hour, so I don't think it was overbaked.

2. Nigella also suggests covering the cake after 45 minutes if the top looks cooked, which I did. The cake was perfect when I covered it but it sunk in the middle a few minutes after covering, which was very disappointing. No biggie, as she suggests turning it over for the icing, but it was a little of a letdown.

Besides that, it was fun and easy to make and looked like a million bucks. So if you are not a "domestic goddess" and want to impress, this is the cake for you.

Fudgesicles

Most of us working in offices have a routine, something that makes the endless hours sitting at a desk in front of a computer, day in and day out, bearable. The kind of routine you actually grow fond of and almost come to look forward too, especially if you have little kids at home. Those habits that make your day orderly, that dictate the rhythm of your work.

Checking your emails and missed calls, reading the headlines of the papers, a steaming cup of coffee and a chat by the coffee machine, lunch (and a look at your favorite sites and blogs whilst chewing), some gossip or a few laughs with a colleague on the way to the ladies'/mens'.

Except those days when the *beep* hits the fan, like today. When everything is hectic and crazy and there is no time to even go the ladies' room. This of course always happens when half your team is on summer vacation. But hey, the worst is over (should I even be writing that?) and today is Friday (T.G.I.F.) so I wish you all a lovely week end and a Happy 4th of July to all you lucky ones who have a lonf weekend to spend with the family.

Here is a great treat to enjoy with the family on a hot summer's day, reminiscent of childhood and belly flops and hot dogs and sprinklers.

Do you have an office/work/daily routine?

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen  (original recipe by Matt Armendariz).

Ingredients (for 4 popsicles)

2 tablespoons chopped semisweet chocolate

1/3 cup/70gr sugar

1 tbsp potato starch (or cornstarch)

1 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup/300 ml milk

a pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1/2 tbsp butter

Melt the chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips if you prefer) over very low heat, stirring constantly. When smooth, stir in sugar, potato starch, cocoa powder, milk and salt and raise heat a little. Cook until the  mixture thickens, stirring frequently. Remove from heat, add vanilla (my homemade batch isn't ready yet so I skipped this step) and butter and stir until well combined. When the mixture has cooled pour it into popsicle molds and freeze.