Tortino di Melanzane e Zucchine in Carpione

The ingredients: zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes and some garlic

The finished product

Zucchine in carpione

Since I could not climb, or really do any other physical activity I decided to cook two dishes that I have been meaning to try out for a while. The first was tortino di melanzane or translated in english little eggplant cake. The second was zucchine in carpione (I really don't know how to translate it in english). They are quite different but both dishes require chopping in layers and cooking zucchini, so I decided to make them both on the same day.

Tortino di melanzane:

4 eggplants sliced

6 small zucchini sliced

3 mozzarelle

1 tomato sauce

1 clove of garlic

extra virgin olive oil

a few basil leaves

oil for frying

The eggplants and the zucchini were cut, cooked in vegetable oil and left to rest on paper towels. In parallel to a sauce pan a clove of garlic was heated in a tablespoon of olive oil, the tomato sauce was added and left to cook for a few minutes after which the basil was added. Now the tortino was constructed by layering the ingredients: eggplants then tomato sauce then mozzarella then the zucchini then tomato sauce and mozzarella again. The layers were repeated until all ingredients were consumed.

The tortino was left to rest for a few hours and it was then placed in the oven at 200 oC for 30 minutes before serving.

Zucchine in carpione

4 zucchine sliced

1 red onion cut really thin

1 clove of garlic

some sage

1 cup of white wine vinegar

1 cup of white wine

1 tbs of extra virgin olive oil

The zucchini were pre-cooked but frying in vegetable oil, and they were left to rest on paper towels. to a large sauce pan the olive oil was added and heated. When the oil was hot the garlic and the onions were added and cooked until golden. The vinegar, wine and sage were then added and the mixture was cooked on slow heat for a few minutes after which it was poured over the zucchini.

Everything was left to cool and it was served chilled. Vegetables cooked in this was may be stored for a few weeks in glass jars.

Manchester

The oldest railroad station in the world.

Brick buildings around the city.

Street signs.

I think it was a fish market at some point.

Churches and canal boats. Some of the churches are for sale.

Lovely pub dinner: stake and ale pie!

I decided to enjoy the last few days of free time before the job starts up in October. So I spent a week in England. First in Cambridge and then in Manchester. It was the first time I went to Manchester and it's not as ugly as people say. Granted I had amazing weather. It NEVER rained and it was actually hot and sunny (as you can see from the pictures). The friend I was visiting said she had never seen weather like that.

I pretty much spent the whole time there walking around the city. I really like the architecture. Most buildings date from the industrial revolution and are big and made out of red bricks. It's possible to see older buildings such as the Manchester cathedral, but not much else dates from before the industrial revolution. The first rail road station in the world is in Manchester and it was build for the Liverpool-Manchester line, now it's part of the museum of science and industry (MOSI). I have to say that I really likes MOSI. I spent a few hours there and only say a small portion of the the site and just a few exposition.

No visit to England would be complete without a proper pub dinner: a few pints of ale and a steak and ale pie with chips! We went to the oldest pub in Manchester the Old Wellington and they know how to make pies.

More Jam!

Washing and chopping

All the ingredients ready for the spicy plum jam

Plum and grape vanilla jam

Cooking cooking cooking... and at the end canning...

A flower in my kitchen.

It was a rainy weekend, so it was time to make more jam. I went to the market and bought 5kg of untreated plums. I decided to chop them all up but then oh no I did not have a pot big enough so I made three kinds of jam.

1) just regular plum jam

2.5 kg of plums

1 kg of sugar

juice from 1 lemon

The plums and the sugar were mixed and cooked on slow heat for 2.5 hours.

2) plum and grape vanilla jam

500 g of plums

some grapes (I don't really know how many I put)

200 g of sugar

1 vanilla bean (this one was bought in indonesia and it's quite mild)

juice from 1/2 a lemon

All ingredients were mixed and cooked on slow heat for 2.5 hours.

3) spicy plum jam

2 kg of plums

800 g of sugar

2 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of nutmeg

10-15 cloves

2 cardamon seeds

juice from 1 lemon

All the ingredients were mixed and left overnight. The next day they were cooked for 1.5 hours. I don't know why this jam took much less to cook then the others.

All the jams were canned and the containers were left to cool upside down. Now all I have to do is start eating the jam!

Making peach jam and eggplant preserve.

Jars

Books which tell you how to preserve anything.

Eggplants cut into little

Eggplants and vinegar on the stove cooking.

Drying before canning.

All the ingredients.

The end result in the peach jam process.

It was a rainy day, and I took it as an excuse to make peach jam and eggplant preserve. I have been meaning for a while to make jams, but I have never really found the time to do it.

For the recipe I used an old book, in which you can find instruction on how to preserve just about anything.

For the peach jam:

1 Kg of ripe peaches

750 g of sugar

The peaches were peeled and cut into small cube. The peaches and the sugar were mixed and left overnight. In the morning the mixture was boiled for about 1.5h until it passed the teaspoon test*. While the peaches were cooking the glass jars were heated at 100 oC in the oven. In tow of the jars I placed some cinnamon sticks. The jam was placed while still hot in the hot jars. the jars were sealed and turned upside down to cool.

* a bit of the hot jam is placed on a plate. The plate is tilted, if the jam does not run down the plate then it is ready.

For the eggplants (recipe for 3Kg of eggplants, I only made 1.5Kg)

1 L of white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar

Cloves

Basil leaves

Rosemary

Garlic

The eggplants were peeled and cut into small cubes. They were salted and left to stand to drain some of the water out of them. They were rinsed and dried. The vinegar, salt and sugar were brought to a boil. The eggplants were cooked in the vinegar for about 3 minutes, after which they were placed on a towel and left to cool.

A layer of eggplant was placed at the bottom of a jar followed by some garlic, a few cloves, a few basil leaves, and some rosemary. Some of the vinegar was poured on top. The layers were repeated until the jar was full. At the end the jar was toped with some extra virgin olive oil.

Now all I have to do is wait at least 15 days before eating!

Alps

Mountains and glaciars

Hiking up the wrong route!

On top of Colle du Grun

Bees nesting in an abandoned car

Too beautiful to be edible

The last part of our summer vacation was spent in the French Alps hiking and climbing. To be more exact we were in the valley of Valgaudemar in the Ecrins national park. I have to say we were really lucky because it stopped raining when we arrived and it did not rain (much) for the whole week while we were there.

Every day consisted of a different activity. We went hiking up mountains and saw lots of animals (cow, sheep, marmots, and an ibex). We looked for raspberries and made a pie with them. We went mushroom hunting. We (actually not me) found some genepì and made genepì liquor (I actually did the easy part).

I was a really nice week and I can't wait to go back!

Food

Grilled eggplants with mint

Stuffed tomatoes

Marinated sardines

Just a few pictures of some typical italian antipasti. These were made by one of my mother's friends who happens to be a really good cook. They were delicious!

Egyptian Museum

Reading hieroglyphics

Very very old bread

Eyes to see the river

Cats!

Crocodile

On the way to the museum

In 1824 the king of Italy Carlo Felice founds the Egyptian Museum in Turin with 5628 Egyptian artefacts gathered by Bernandino Droveretti. The museum is entirely dedicated to Egyptian art and artefacts. The visit begins in the black statue room. Here it's possible to see Sphinxes and imposing statutes against a dark background. The visits proceeds upstairs, where mummies and artefacts are kept in 19th century cases. One of my favorite exhibits has always been the mummified cats and animals.

Italy

Ivrea, Italy

Lago Sirio

Bus in Turin

Piazza San Carlo, Turin Italy

Gelateria popolare at night

Traffic signs around Turin

Via Barbaroux, Turin Italy

This year the first two weeks of August were spent travelling between Italy and France. The first stop was at my mom's house in Turin, Italy. Finally after weeks of bad weather, the sun was out and we were able to walk around the city and we found lots of traffic signs with these little men pasted onto them. It was quite cute. As always I have to go and eat ice cream at my favorite ice cream place: la gelateria popolare.