Milky sweetness for a healthy dessert

"At last we meet!" told he to the bowl in front of him. Filled with a creamy syrup, it hosted little white sponges. What were they made from? "Cheese", somebody said.
The history of me and this sweet, rich Indian dessert dates back to at least two years ago when exploring the meanders of a virtual video gallery, I stumbled upon this video from "Show Me The Curry":

Better than bread and water: Bierbrezeln

German gastronomy is pretty a mystery to most of us, I have been living in Germany for the last 5 years and still eludes me. Walking around the streets of Bonn or Cologne, you rarely see restaurants specialized on German food. Mostly they are brewery offering rich creamy meat dishes, stews or schnitzel to have with their beers.

Broccoli for a long-awaited come back

It has been quite long time since my last post; it has been a long pregnancy but finally here I am.
Yesterday night I felt the need to get back to cooking for you all, creating new unusual and enticing dishes for your table, memories, dream (nightmares?).
When I came back from Sicily, last Saturday night, I bought a head of broccoli and few other things to be able to survive on Sunday. Half of it went into a reshaped classic: soupy broken linguini with broccoli, garlic, olive oil and parmesan; a soul food of my childhood that speaks to me of my mother and our meal together when I wasn’t able even to cut a slice of bread. The time of happy, free thoughts over a sparkling future, run in the grass with my neighbour friends, cry over a scratched knee after a fall, laughter watching my baby sister running on the hallway with her puffy diaper and head full of goldie locks.
We want to grow up; we do it eventually. We take the sceptre from our mothers preparing those simple meals that made us what we are.
Do not worry, this post isn’t about “pasta e broccoli” rather risotto with broccoli. Not any risotto though! Scavenging my freezer I found a bag of sweet prawns to use and…some Valrhona chocolate was still lying around.
Is that enough to entice your curiosity? Come on; say yes… you won’t be disappointed, promised!
Here I give you my:

Risotto with broccoli, poached prawns, roasted sesame seeds oil and dark chocolate shavings

The health paradigm

Tofu is healthy.
Everybody knows that, they keep on telling this to us from any available source promoting vegetarian eating (and not only) last but not least even Lisa Simpson from her yellowy world praises the loveliness of a mock-turkey made with the bean-curds as deign substitute for the feathery alter-ego in a Thanksgiving dinner.

So for once, let’s be healthy and, as always, adventurous; shall we?
For this month the four Velveteers, in the person of Pam, have chosen to have a lovely trip to the far-east. Furthermore from this month on we (Aparna, Asha, Pam and me) decided to open the Velveteers challenge to all our fellow bloggers so don’t be surprised to see more tofu’s posts in the next days. If you want to join the Velveteers club, just email us or join our Google group.

Mint: my nemesis

Mint.
Few weeks ago this word appeared in an email I received as the chosen ingredient for the next Velveteers challenge.
Mint; one of the readily available ingredients that never made it into my pantry. Why? I suppose I got scarred by all those medicinal tablets with mint flavor I had to employ to heal my sore throat; I think I liked more the raspberry flavored cough syrup.
That freshness coupled with the chemical taste of medicines was quite a nightmare. Not even bitterness or extreme sourness made me shrivel into a gothic grimace like menthol.
I like mint’ scent, I have always liked it but keep the shrub out of my mouth please!

Let's blow those candles all together!

The past week Jamie of Life’s a feast, a good friend of mine and inspiring blogger, had her birthday. This month, she is hosting the ritual Bread Baking Day and to make it special we are bringing all our breads to her place for a cosy birthday party.
I haven’t baked bread very often, I guess you can easily count the times I did on the fingers of one hand. Probably it was just out of laziness since wherever I lived I could find great breads just around the corner and I am in love with my home town bread: Lentini’s bread.

A pure durum wheat bread made from locally grown plants, baked in traditional stone oven, fired with olive tree wood and almond shells. At first sight, a thick cinnamon brown crust tempts your senses, perfect tiny sesame seeds stud its surface; the intricate shapes in which this bread is usually baked leaves plentiful of tiny dollops that you will just tear away to hide it in your mouth, looking around to make sure mommie isn’t looking.
Its crumb, golden yellow, dense but porous has a sweet aroma and delicate flavour; the crackling of the crust fills your hears, the warmth of the bread make you want to cuddle it like a teddy bear, you squint your eyes in pleasure when the crumb start releasing its incredible aromas. You just need a pot of hot spicy garlicky tomato sauce (better if made from canned tomatoes) and… Oh my, what memories.

It is true that bread can talk to our soul trough our nostrils, as Leonardo might through our eyes.