Cold peanut soba noodle salad

 

 

Happy 4th of July to all my American readers!

Here it is a day like any other, but I thought this recipe would be handy for a last minute idea to take along to a picnic or BBQ (or a delicious salad for any other occasion if you are not celebrating Independence Day today).

It has been a while since my last real post, so forgive me, but last week we were away enjoying some of the glorious sea and beaches Italy has to offer.

 

 

 

 

 

We try to take days off every once in a while throughout the summer to get our kids out of the city, summer school and the sweltering heat (although we have been very lucky thus far) since we both work well through August. I will save you the whole spiel about the guilt of being working parents in a city where summer vacation lasts three months and it is normal for kids to spend most of them away in the country, mountains or at the beach with grandparents who double as fulltime baby sitters (and yes, I am aware this is a first world problem), because I already did that here. But the guilt remains and so we try to whisk them off whenever we can. 

 

 

 

 

 

This year, however, to be honest husband and I really needed it too.
Those who know me personally can confirm that I am not one to usually complain about feeling tired, worn out or unwell and I am always looking for things to do or places to go. I am usually quite happy being busy, but the past couple of months really knocked the wind out of us, for no particular reason, might I add. It was more like an accumulation of lots of little things: busy days in the office (at a job that is doing its best to suck out every last ounce of my normally positive attitude recently); the last month of school with its endless recitals, fundraisers, open-classes, parties, parent-teacher meetings, report cards, good-bye dinners, drinks, week ends and what have you. The related stress of constantly having to ask for time off from work to go to all the abovementioned gatherings and the running back and forth from them to work multiplied by the number of kids you have (how do you moms with more than two kids do it???) blablabla taxes in multiple countries blablabla bureaucratic deadlines for summer school, regular school,  after-school, you name it, we did it blablabla free lance jobs blablabla a birthday party to organize blablabla...

 

*yawn*

 

I am even boring myself, so I will stop boring you. But you get the idea, right? Because we all have periods like that, whether you are a stay-at-home parent or a working parent, whether you are a parent or not. Periods when you just feel wrung out.

 

 

 

Peaches 'n' cream (no-cook) ice cream

 

 

 

It is late in the afternoon. The shutters are half closed, a woman lies on a bed covered in a patina of sweat, her tanned limbs splayed over tangled white sheets. A ceiling fan hums quietly above her.

 

If this is were one of those movies set somewhere in the tropics in the Fifties, she would be the sultry love interest, shining with a post-coital glow. But this is Milan, summer 2013. And that lady is me. I lie sprawled on my bed, gasping for air like a fish out of water, my bangs stuck to my forehead and my hair scrunched up unattractively on the top of my head while my kids chase each around noisily in their underwear, my son resembling one of the Village People in his briefs and hard hat, my daughter in panties and costume jewelry (less is more, as Coco would have said).

The awareness that we will be lying on sandy shores and swimming in crystal clear waters soon undoubtedly makes the high 30's and suffocating humidity much more endurable.

 

 

 

In the meantime, however, we have been battling the August heat however we could this past week.

On the week end we discovered a corner of paradise that I am fondly reminded of whenever I look at the blisters on my feet, brush against the sunburn on my shoulders or feel my sore thigh muscles. Mental note: maybe it isn't just the heat that is keeping DH stubbornly turned the other way in the marital bed.

I have been making lots of iced tea, the latest with rooibos, which *round of applause* I found at my local the supermarket.

Then I made ice cream using an ideal recipe because it did not require standing next to a hot stove stirring the custard base.

 

 

 

 

When you use a Ben & Jerry's recipe, you usually know you are going to get a good result, even when it is so hot that your Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment has trouble freezing the cream (at one point it actually started melting and I had to quickly mix in the peaches and put it in the freezer) and when you invert the amounts of milk and cream (because you don't have enough of the latter). If you manage to churn the ice cream all the way and use that extra cup of cream (because I am giving you the original quantities), you will be in for an even creamier delight than ours.

 

 

 

Recipe from Ben & Jerry's

Ingredients (makes 1 quart)
4 small ripe peaches, peeled and chopped (about 2 cups)
1 to 1/4 cup sugar (depending how ripe the peaches are)                 

juice of 1/2 lemon

3 eggs (or 2 large)                  

2 cups cream

1 cup milk               

 

Combine peaches, 1/2 cup of sugar and the lemon juice in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours, stirring the mixture a few times.

 

Drain the juice into another bowl and return peaches to fridge.

 

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, add the remaining sugar a little at a time and whisk until completely blended.

 

While whisking, pour in the cream, the milk and then the peach juice until blended.

 

Transfer the mixture to your ice cream maker and freeze following manufacturer's instructions.

 

When the ice cream ice ready, add the peaches and freeze for a few hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miso and sesame cucumber salad

 

 

 

 

When it is so hot that your clothes are glued to your body like a sticker paper doll's.

When it is so hot that you look forward to going to the office: a) for the lovely breeze during your 6:00am bike ride; b) for the blasting A/C.

When it is so hot that the sky is more off-white than blue.

When it is so hot that you wonder why you even own an oven or a stove because you don't remember the last time you used them.

When it is so hot that you start turning to Pinterest to consider the endless possibilities of watermelon.

When it is so hot that putting on face cream or deodorant turns into a daily challenge thanks to that patina of sweat that covers your body 24/7 no matter how many times you shower.

When it is so hot you have the urge to fling your kids across the room every time they hug you or sit on your lap.

 

 

 

 

That is when this crunchy, cool salad and the heat from the chili is exactly what you need, all you crave.

 

But not only.

 

Because, to be honest, it has not been a scorching summer here (yet) and we have rarely even had to turn on our ceiling fans. Yet this five-minute salad (it might take you eight minutes if you don't own a mandolin) was the hit of the season. My daughter and son ate serving after serving of this (minus some of the chili flakes).

 

 

 

 

If you cook Asian now and again, you will already have all the ingredients right in your kitchen. Just go out and get some cukes, which are pretty staple in our home in the summer, and you have yourself a winning side dish, salad or appetizer. Cheap, quick, refreshing and delicious.

 

 

 

From Cooking Light
Ingredients
1 1/2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds,

2 tbsp white miso paste (you can substitute with soy sauce)

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp hot water

1 tsp crushed chili flakes

2 tsp sesame oil (preferably dark)

about 4 thinly sliced cucumbers

 

Whisk together the toasted sesame seeds, miso paste, rice vinegar, honey, chili and sesame oil adding the hot water to help emulsify.

Peel and seed the cucmbers (unless you are using a skin-on variety like English cucumbers for example), slice thinly and then toss with dressing to coat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strawberry cheesecake popsicles

 

 

Last night I skyped with my sister. We had a bad connection and we couldn't hear each other, so after trying to connect over and over we just resorted to making silly faces at each other, laughing with no sound and then hung up. That made me feel closer to her than a thousand words. There are not many people in the world you can do that with after the age of 7.  

 

When my new favorite workout song came on during my run early this morning, I felt elated and pushed a little harder, my legs burning, feet thumping to the quick beat of the tune.

 

My daughter woke up earlier than usual this morning and sat in the bathroom watching me put on make up. When I finished using the blush brush, she smelled it and said: "oooh, that smells soooooo good. It smells.... (pause to think), it smells just like you Mommy!"

 

After I hugged F good bye before I rushed off to work and he to the airport to catch a flight, I felt closer to him than I sometimes even feel when we are in the same room.

 

These are little things that make a day, a life, special. Especially today, especially when I think of families in Oklahoma. I am so fortunate. I send thoughts and prayers to them.

 

Make these creamy, slightly tangy popsicles and share with your family on a warm summer's day.

 

Adapted from here.

 

Ingredients (makes about 8, depending on mold size)

8 ounces/225gr cream cheese (I used a 200gr tub)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
about 6-8 strawberries
4-6 standard sized graham crackers or Digestives
1 tbs melted butter
 

In a food processor add the cream cheese, powdered sugar  and milk, process until well combined and then add the strawberries. Pulse to combine.

 

Pour mixture into popsicle molds, leaving about 1 inch of the top empty for the crust and tap the molds to remove air bubbles.

 

Melt the butter. In a food processor add the graham crackers/Digestives and pulse until they are fine crumbs and add the melted butter while it is running. The mixture should be the texture of wet sand.

 

Divide the crumbs evenly between the popsicles and press down to compact. Insert the popsicle sticks and freeze.

 

The crumbs will loosen while eating, so I suggest eating over a plate and dipping the popsicle in the crumbs as you go along. Soooo good!

 

A few notes: this is more of a guideline than a recipe. You can use more or less strawberries and sub frozen ones for fresh ones. You can use any kind of milk or sugar, although you may have to play around with quantities. Also, if your strawberries are sweet and ripe, you will probably need less sugar. I used a little less. We don't get graham crackers over here, but Digestives work fine.

 

No access

Who's complaining about having no access when you have this?

Food from the area in the coming posts. This is literally just what has been falling into our arms...

More soon!

Perfect Summer Pantry Pasta with red peppers, tuna and olives

Summer can get tricky when there are two working parents in a family.

Many children here leave town for a good part of three months to spend time with grandparents at the sea, in the mountains or in the country, while parents or fathers stay in town to work. Grandparents here are a very popular form of free 24/7 year round babysitting and nobody seems to think much of packing off multiple children to their elderly parents, who take care of them without a complaint for months on end.

Our parents don't do the 24/7 thing, whether for health reasons, distance or simply because hello, they have their own lives + should enjoy their golden years and their grandchildrens' occasional presence + spoil them rotten and leave the dirty task of parenting to the parents already! As much as we would ideally love for the abovementioned to kidnap our kids for weeks on end and free us of the worry of how to organize yet another summer in the city and enjoy multiple dates on week nights, we are realistic and totally believe that it is wrong and should not be.

To be truthful, things have luckily been changing noticeably in the past years, with August no longer being that month where everything is closed in the city (no tumbleweed rolling down the streets anymore!) and more and more women working alongside their spouses. The city and schools offer summer acitivities for children all through August, something quite unheard of until recently. If you ask me, July and August have almost become pleasant, relaxing months to be in Milan, this summer in particular, where the weather has been extraordinarily good and cool. We almost feel priviledged to be here.

There are however a couple of factors to deal with, no matter how well you actually know you are coping. The first one is that atavic, irrational feeling of guilt all parents live with, or at least all working mothers (yeah, sure, it makes us more accomplished women, better moms blablabla but truth be told, most of us don't really have a choice anyway). And then there is the fact that I (as also my husband) was a priviledged child who travelled and spent several months away from home every summer (chaperoned by a balanced mix of grandmothers, nannies and parents).  

As a result, to compensate, we have been away pretty much every weekend this summer, trying to give our kids concentrated shots of the seaside, the mountains and the country. We have been alternating these short trips with some stints away for our oldest with F's family. The little one is still too small and too much work. Luckily he doesn't understand yet and still prefers being with Mommy and Daddy for now.

The result is short weeks, where Thursday has become Packing Evening (I never cease to be surprised at the amount of things you need to take for the under-6 category, even for just 2 days) and Monday has become Unpacking/ Laundry Evening. This means very little time to cook and even less time for foodshopping (thus an empty fridge).

This is where a pasta like this comes in handy. All pantry staples except for some fresh peppers, which you can pick up at any corner supermarket. Not bad, eh? It is very quick and so flavorful it will make your taste buds sing. Go on, make it tonight. Tomorrow is Packing Night again.

Recipe adapted from here, a wonderful source for many tasty recipes.

Black and white chocolate berry tart

When it comes to grilling, every country in the world has its traditions. In the US a BBQ just isn't a BBQ without hamburgers and hot dogs. In Italy, grilling or la grigliata is all about our friend the pig. The preferred meat is undoubtedly pork. A hamburger is a very rare (no pun intended) find, but there will be no lack of sausage in all shapes and sizes on an Italian grill and even pork ribs, chicken and lamb will often make an appearance.

And then, the one thing you will find at pretty much every BBQ in Italy, the spiedino.

It looks pretty much the same (and tastes pretty much the same if you ask me) wherever you go, north or south, east or west, at a town fair or in your back yard. It is a brochette with alternated pieces of pork in various forms (sausage, pancetta, pork loin), red or green peppers for a dash of color, and onions and frankfurters if you get lucky.

Perhaps you have to be an Italian to really appreciate it and I will not argue the importance of its presence on la griglia as long as you don't start questioning that delicious, juicy burger on my grill. But I love pretty much everything else a grigliata has to offer: summer, friends, ripe red tomatoes, flowing local wine, cold beer, salami made by the farmer next door, wonderful grilled and marinated vegetables picked in the morning from the garden, lamb chops and sausage, beautiful landscapes and if you get really lucky, the ancestor of the modern BBQ, a grill over an authentic wood fire.

The kids made perfume: note the fig and green tomato for fruitiness

And to top it off a summery tart that is quick to make, not too sweet and cleanses your palate after all that oink oink.

What do you barbecue where you come from?

Ingredients (for 12 servings)

For crust

250 gr (1 box) Digestives (or graham crackers)

130gr butter

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa

1 tbsp conferctioner's sugar

For filling (adapted from a recipe in Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess)

75gr white chocolate, melted (plus a little for decoration)

200gr mascarpone cheese

150gr cream

1 cup raspberries

1 cup blueberries

In a food processor or by hand, crumble the cookies and then mix in the butter, sugar and cocoa. Grease an 11 inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom and press the cookie mixture into the bottom and along the sides. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
Start making your filling by melting the white chocoalte. While it is cooling, beat together the mascarpone cheese and the cream and then gently fold in the white chocolate. Fill the crust and decorate with the raspberries and blueberries, or another berry of your choice, and sprinkle with some grated white chocolate. Serve cold.

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.

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.