lemon twist

finally i put my paws on some of my beloved lemon twist infusion.. sounds like i'm promoting twinings of london, but this infusion is definitely great :D just lemon grass, lemon peel, lemon flavour and a little prange peel, hibiscus and rosehips.. awesomeness.
on a different note, allergy is choking me.. it takes me ages to fall asleep and when i wake up my windpipe's on fire and my nostrils are on strike (plus i sneeze like crazy ahah) i'm not too much into spring really.

for the rest, what.. studying like hell extremely exciting things that involve differential equations, drawing and getting some artsy inspiration i wish i'll follow up (i'm looking forward to some painting, just need to get my paws on my tools eheh) drinking lots of teas and listening to music i didnt listen to in a while.. man i was a huge fan of savage garden back in the day :D
btw i cut my hair again.. whenever i tell myself this time i'll let it grow, then i get some sudden frenzy and go for the mohawk again ahah

tiny world

this little guy is living on my plant of sage.. i was impressed by how small yet perfectly detailed it is :)

i got a few aromatic plants lately.. sage, thyme, rosemary and basil.. i thought my bonsai would feel lonely all by itself eheh besides i'm utterly fond of fresh basil.

new elf hut

yes yes.. i havent really been updating lately.. BUT i moved to my new flat about one week ago and now i'll be finally able to update more often.. i'm back to a human net connection now! finally, i was starting to madden ahah
the kitchen part is satisfying, specially compared to the moldy mess i had to deal till one week ago.. there a living room/sofa corner which is rather comfortable and nice (as you can see in the background, my books are already taking over the place) where you can find a lurking troll typically immersed in the italian book ;D

anyway i've been busy studying, moving and such.. i got this new camera and i still have to get into it (maybe would be a good idea to take a look at the user manual also ;)


havent had that much time to cook something good, or at leats to take pics of it eheh i shall learn how to make the most of my new electric oven though.. the first attempt was a failure in shape of a disappointing batch of peanut cookies. taste was pretty delicious, but i had to scratch them off the baking paper and get rid of a good layer of burned cookie.


this afternoon i was rummaging in my pic folders, deleting stuff, moving it to external hd and trying to make some order so to save the upcoming pics in an organized manner.. and i found this series of pics i liked a lot :)
more on cooking later!

eventually back :D

Finally update! yes i've been busy with exams, i've had a very crappy net connection and maybe i've been a bit lazy about updating eheh actually whenever i had a good net, i did a lot of other stuff, mainly checking emails and webmastering websites ^^

anyway i'm back.. got a new camera, gonna make some new food pics and stuff :)

life's been ok.. i was very stressed out about my general physics exam, a nightmare that hauted me for a few years LOL but the other day i finally passed it and with a rather good mark, so now i'm relaxing and starting to prepare the next exam.

havent been cooking too much lately.. i'm always studying or rushing to the gym, taking a bus or looking for a new flat.. plus i cant really make breakfast for myself. i enjoy too much when the guy is here and makes breakfast for me eheheh

since i cant make eggs at all, he makes those. i tried a version of mine of the french toast yesterday morning and it was a sort of enhanced version of his.. super buttery and super sugary, so that i was almost ashamed of myself LOL

anyway.. i'll try to update as soon as i can, for the moment i have just a pic of the sea close to my current flat.

just sky

skies from where i live.

one good merenda

i recall pretty well this merenda.. it was on suomenlinna island, finland :)

the place was a very nice small cafè, my mom and sister went there in the winter too and told me it moved to a bit bigger place.. i like old finnish wooden buildings, with so weird pastel colors and nice claddings.

that was probably the best cappuccino i've ever had in finland, a real cappuccino eheh but i really loved that sort of big fried soft and yummy thing, filled with blackberry jam.. mmh so good. i must find a good recipe of it, though i'm really a culinary disaster about fried food :P

i enjoy very much merenda time, that nice break around mid afternoon to have some treat and a cup of tea or coffee.. that's the italian name of it but i guess you can call it teatime if you will :)

it's a nice interval during the day, something that can cheer you up or just accompany your activities.. i prefer some real break like these above, but even nibbling at some cookies with a glass of milk will do perfectly.

every year when everything starts off i tend to skip merenda and, in the rush between the gym and the school or the bus, i just eat some cereals bar quickly and just because my body screams for food ehehe
so now that i'm settled and i begin to really organize my time, i'll think of some way to have a good merenda even in the middle of such activities. a few years ago i used to make pain au chocolat on sundays so my sis and i would have a nice homemade snack.
last year instead i started to make some awesome puff pastry stuff.. and that's where i mean to go back to :D

an ode to burrata

i love burrata. really.

first of all, let's check out what wikipedia says about it.. fresh italian cheese, made of mozzarella and cream.
"The outer shell is solid mozzarella while the inside contains both mozzarella and cream, giving it a unique soft texture."


right. it's a beautiful white shell that jealously holds its milky treasure, a delicious heart that will melt in your mouth.

to me it's just awesome.. i love mozzarella and this is the best of :D the creamy filling is one of the most luscious things one can eat.. the taste is simple, delicate, outstanding.. involves you like a sweet hug.. palatable, harmonious, mellow..

the best way to eat it to me it's burrata alone, without any other flavor to taint it.. just pure pleasure :) makes an amazing caprese, just some few drops of olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and tomatoes.

that said, sometimes i use burrata for some other dishes.. a few days ago we had 3 or 4 burrate, so i made some pasta with it. first of all one should never heat burrata, so i cooked my pasta (maccheroni to be precise) while i was preparing a rough pesto with pine seeds, fresh basil and black pepper.. then i mashed a burrata (you can use a fork or a mixer.. burrata is already quite soft, but in this way it gets a nice mousse-like texture).
so i mixed pasta with my pesto, took everything off the heat, poured burrata stirring well and that's it! very nice pasta to eat in the summer :)

monthly life update!

well yep, i finally came back to update this blog! i really didnt have the time and the wish to do something about it in the past weeks.. a lot of things and matters were going on and then i was on holiday for 2weeks :D
i have to say the holiday in sicilia was awesome and all the good food i ate down there brought my inner foodaholic to absolute delight and made me come back to the kitchen loaded for cooking madness eheheheh i bought almond paste, ground coffee, pistachio and almond rosolios, oregan, sicilian pesto and such.. ready to make some of the wondrous stuff we had there :)

i already posted a couple of recipes (that have nothing to do with sicilian food though eheheh) so i guess it's time for a brief update about the rest.
finished the year in helsinki i'm finally home for the summer, by september i'll manage to move to pisa (tuscany come to me, yay!) i'm looking forward to that.. then maybe there will be some more moving in the next years, maybe zurich, maybe somewhere else, anyway for the moment it's pisa :)
holidays went very good.. i love the south of italy and sicily is just beautiful! it was quite hot though and the days we visited ruins it was almost hellish LOL so i'll confess, the day we spent in selinunte we stayed on the beach instead of sightseeing the archaelogical park.. and i have to say it was the best seaside ever.
beautiful places, awesome food, hot weather, transparent water, a troll, some good books and a lot of obsolete pieces of architecture.. soooo good, i guess i would have liked to spend at least 2more weeks down there.. but well, that's the only complain i could have eheheh

i have so many pics i havent had the time to put them in order yet!

ananas and peppers

here it is, today's dinner :)

i'm a huge fan of angel hair pasta (capelli d'angelo in italian) but it seems this week i couldnt find any up here, so i tried these mais this noodles. they're not bad at all, though not as good as angel hair to me.






i made them with chopped and sauteed sweet red peppers and red chili, topped with some fresh basil.. it was nice, just a bit spicy (not sure about my perception of spicy though after my misadventures with the habaneros LOL)




then i decided to have a quick and fresh dessert, so i made some ananas mousse! very easy and rough one.. just smashed ananas, cane sugar, vanilla flavor and whipped cream eheheh

little finnish update

so well.. this is not about food but a little update about finland is needed :D

last week finally we got a bit of summer (actually it was better than last summer weather eheheh) but in these last few days it's turned to cold again.. and i mean COLD.
on the other hand finland is getting green and very beautiful, i'm having some very nice walks. i took these pics today on the shore near my area, it's such an awesome place :)

yea right after i took the pics it started to rain badly and i was like 30min walk far from home.. the result is a nice sore throat and frozen feet LOL although the view was amazing and i love the rainy sky colours ^^


about my schedule well i will be here till the first week of june then i'll be back to italy for a couple of months before moving to zurich. there will be time even for a bit of holidays, i'm craving for the seaside after the finnish winter ehehehe

i'm happy for i'm going to spend some few days with the man right before flying home.. and then i will be back to italian food yay!
i already have the topic for my next update.. this week i re discovered my passion for fresh goat cheese, specially spread on dark chocolate.. mmh mh ^^

btw yesterday, crying for the chili, i did some quick search about capsaicin.. i knew something about but i never checked out deep the scoville scale thing O_o i also knew that the habanero chile is one of the hottest but i didnt know i bought exactly the red savina kind LOL oh well, i still have 2 of them to eat tomorrow..