Jyothi

This is how I make them. I add some more vegetables then in the “original” recipe because Luca is not to keen on eating vegetables and he loves eating these. So this way he eats them anyway. For me cooking is a matter of feeling so it is hard to give the exact amounts for the ingredients.

Ingredients.

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed off
1 small onion
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
60 grams of fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs
dried breadcrumbs 

As I own one of these lovely food processor I add all the ingredients in there, apart from 2 eggs and the breadcrumbs. And turn it on. Normally after 5 minutes or so I have a smooth mixture.

If you do not own one of those you need the chop the onion, carrot, parsley and  celery in very small pieces. Then squash the chickpeas and mix it all together with one egg.

From the mixture that you have you should be able to make firm balls. So if it is to wet add a little of the breadcrumbs, if it is to dry add a little oil.

Once you made all the balls. Beat the 2 left over eggs in a plate and on another plate you do the breadcrumbs.

First you role the balls through the eggs and then through the breadcrumbs.

At this point i normally let them rest in the fridge for about half an hour and after that I deep fry them.

Is a variation on normal brownie recipe. Because did not have all the ingredients of the original recipe and Luca was begging me to make a cake . Also I had to use some of the chocolate from all the Easter eggs the boys got given for Easter.

Ingredients:

180 grams dark chocolate
180 grams of margarine
250 grams of sugar
2 eggs
120 grams of flour
100 grams of grated coconut

Melt the chocolate and the margarine together in a pan.
Beat the eggs and sugar together. Mix the chocolate margarine mixture through the eggs, then add the flour and the grated coconut.

Bake in a preheated oven on 180 degrees Celsius for about 35 minutes.

Let it cool down a little and cut in little pieces…

pastry

50 gr of margarine

50 gr of sugar

150 gr of flour

1 tablespoon ground almonds

Filling

50 gr of margarine

100 gr of sugar

100 gr of ground almonds

1 egg

1 large apple peeled and sliced

To make the pastry mix all the ingredients together in the foodprocesor until it is a ball, wrap up and let rest in de fridge for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven on 180 degrees Celsius. Roll out the pastry and dress a 24 cm greased baking tin with it.

Put a bit of baking paper in the tart en fill it with baking beans. Cook for about 15 minutes or until it starts to color at the sides. Remove the beans and let it cool of.

To make the filling mix all the ingredients apart from the apple until smooth. Spread this over the tart and arrange the apple slices on top of it. Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Let is cool down and enjoy.

The village where Joshua goes to school, is a village expanding build along two busy roads and with a station. Houses where affordable or at  least 6 years ago they where. Now they are expensive. People started living there because of the busy roads and the station it is well connected to Rome.

But when people live there the things that keep them so well connected to Rome turn in something that make a lot of noise and are annoying. So they want them changed. They do not want all the cars driving through the village they do not want to see or hear the train. So they made a project to get the train underground. http://digilander.libero.it/Sotto_terra_il_treno/ . To me it looks nearly as an impossible job to do with all the houses build so close to the rail road.

I do understand from a human point of view I really do understand that it is very annoying to have cars an trucks passing your house continuously, and that twice an hour all the streets are blocked because a train has to pass…….but when they moved there that was already there. And they do not stop building they are building more and more houses with a result it get even busier………

Apart from that we can not afford to buy a house there if I could then for that amount of money i would not choose to buy a house there. But that is just my opinion.

With Easter it was also the birthday of my mother in law. And as I like to cook and am not to bad in making cakes I thought I make her a birthday cake.

First i baked 2 heart shape cakes, The recipe i used for that is

225 g flour

2 tsp baking powder

225 g sugar

225 margarine

4 eggs

Grease the baking tins

preheat oven on 200 degrees celcius

Mix all the ingredients together until smooth.

divide evenly over the 2 tins and bake in a preheated oven for about 50 minutes, or until well risen and golden.

Let cool down and add jam or cream as a filling on one layer and place then the other one on top. Lightly cover with apricot jam to make it sticky so the decoration stays better.

For the decoration i used fondant, which you can buy ready made but i choose to make it myself. There are different recipes you can find on the net on how to make it. I usually make it this way.

450 g icing sugar (zucchero a velo of poedersuiker)

1 1/2 tsp gelatin powder

2 tbsp water

1 1/2 tbsp liquid glucose

2 tsp glycerin

Dissolve the gelatin powder on low heat in the water, add the glucose and the glycerin, and mix well.

Take of the heat and start adding the icing sugar, and when you cant stir anymore with a spoon start kneading it in with you hands until you have a firm ball. Then roll it out until it is big enough to cover the cake.

The original recipes all say to cover the cake first with marzipan but we find that to heavy so i do not do it like that.

When the fondant is on i start getting creative and decorate the cake. For this one i used markers with food coloring inside. I really like the result and on how easy they where to use. I bought them here.

Or you can use the leftover fondant, or make some new and color it with with food coloring and make shapes out of it like i did for the birthday of Daniele last year.

Well I have a pair, well actually they are called Woz? and are made in Europe, and cost about half the price. In the end i choose for a blue pair, because it goes with a lot of cloths. I have to say they are really comfy. I even took wore them for a walk in a forest, nearly mountain climbing and no sore feet what so ever……  so when we can afford it i would not mind having another pair in a bright color.

Ingredients

250 gr flour

200 gr margarine cut in little pieces

8 teaspoons of icewater

pinch of salt

1 1/2 kilo apples

80 gr sugar

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1 egg yolk

baking tin of 30 cm

Mix the flour,salt and margarine then add spoon by spoon the ice water until you can make a firm ball. Wrap the ball up in cling film and leave it to rest in fridge for an hour.

While the dough rests peel the apples and slice them in thin slices, mix them with the lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and ginger.

Preheat the oven on 200 degrees Celsius.

Butter the baking tin.

Take about 2/3 of the dough and roll it out big enough to dress the baking tin and dress it.

Put the apple mixture in the dressed baking tin.

Roll the remaining 1/3 of the dough out to make a lid and close the pie with the lid.

Roll up a little piece of aluminum foil to make a kind of chimney out of it. Place the chimney in the middle of the pie.

Decorate if you like with left over pieces of dough. Brush the cake with egg yolk and place it for about 45 minutes in the oven.

Enjoy.

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 shallot chopped

pinch of chili pepper

150 gram frozen spinach

150 gram frozen chicory

3 eggs

250 ricotta (I used the one from sheep milk)

salt and pepper to taste

ready made puff pastry (I know i am lazy)

baking tin

Defrost the spinach and chicory.(I usually defrost it for about 5 minutes in the microwave)

In a pan glaze the shallot and add the chili pepper.

When the shallots are glazed add the spinach and chicory and stirfry for about 10 minutes or until all is cooked.Take of the heat

In a bowl mix the eggs with the ricotta until it is smooth, add salt and pepper to taste.

Dress the baking tin with the puff pastry, the left over bits you can use to decorate the pie.

Mix the egg/ricotta mixture with the spinach and chicory and after all is mixed transfer to the dressed baking tin.

Decorate with the leftover bits of the puff pastry.

Bake in the oven on about 180 degrees  for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.