Salty plumcake

I am still very unsure about the summer style of the blog, but I think I will prioritize posting this recipe instead than perform more adjustments.
I have not experimented in the kitchen in a while, since Isabella came (Mattias has been the masterchef since), but now it is time to put myself back "behind the stove" (as we would say in italian, "dietro i fornelli").
I have therefore started with this recipe, which turned out to be very tasty and very simple.

Ingredients (for 6 people)

• 200 gr of flour
• 100 gr of grated gruyere
• 100 gr of grated parmesan
• 100 ml of milk
• 100 ml of fresh cream
• 150 gr of bacon
• 60 ml of olive oil
• one bag of powder yeast
• 3 eggs
• salt & pepper

Start mixing the flour with the yeast in a quite big bowl and turn on the oven to be 180° (150° with a convection oven)

Add first the parmesan and the gruyere and mix everything.

Slice the bacon in small pieces.

Finally, add the bacon and after having mixed, add the olive oil.

In another bowl, mix the eggs with the milk and the cream. Blend them carefully.

Season the mix and add it to the flour and cheeses and, again, mix everything with a wooden spoon.

Take a mold for plumcake (or, if you don't have it, a whatever you use for baking cakes ;) ) and fill it with the mix.

Put the mold in the oven, leave it for 40-50 minutes (40 for a convection oven). Let it cool down and serve!!!

Summer Restyling

Summer is on its way (just a bit more than one week to go) and I have decided to refresh the blog with something new.
Some new background and colors as well as a new format (3 columns instead of 1).

Still a lot to do, I have of course (!) big plans and I am using the time needed to rock Isabella on her little bouncing cradle to do some of the things I have in mind.
So, this is not going to be the final result (hopefully), but we are getting closer!

Some suggestions or feedback so far?

How to use a cute font when blogging

I have been using some unusual and fairly complex system to display cute fonts for headers and such in my blog. However, I had problems of transparency with Chrome on Ubuntu (see this post) since what was generated was basically images with some strange setting and, I had recently noted that the hosting of the font, on Webs.com was not working any longer and I didn't think that was a stable solution for what I had in mind.

Taking inspiration from other blogs (e.g. my friend Chiara's one), I had decided to find a simpler way to make the blog cuter, without too much fuzz.

After some quick Google search I found this wonderful page and decided to use some of Google Fonts. I think I have been playing too little with the web in the latest years to not know that Google has a font API as well as realizing that the modifications to the blog layout were not just HTML settings and some weird language, but the so call CSS language, which I am now somewhat learning by playing around with the blog. Nothing fancy or complicated, but just made me realize I have been out of the "business" too long :)

Now, I will play around more with some fonts and hope I will have a nice result!

Engaging the reader

It is not easy to keep the interest up of the few readers of a blog! There are so many blogs and maybe one lands on some blog when searching something on the internet, or simply, when surfing from blog to blog.

In search for inspiration, I have viewed several blogs that were suggesting at the end of each post, related subjects-posts. Today, I discovered that adding such feature is really simple! It is enough to use the LinkWithin widget, which takes few hours to sort out all the blog content and make proper guesses.

When doing this, I have noticed that my fonts got screwed up! I need to fix that - I wonder what is wrong with the Webs account where the fonts were lying....

New experiments in the garden

After the bad winter, some of my plants died, especially the ones that were in the "famous" sockerlåda. Nothing to do there, even though I could have spent some time trying to resurrect what was left over of the plants I had there, considering that they were mainly herbs.

So, I have now refreshed the "collection" planting something new and experimenting with some news.
We have now a plant of chilli (hopefully more spice than the ones planted last year), a physalis (I wonder how this will turn out), rosemary and sage coming from my parents vegetable garden.

The stones are an attempt to see if Romeo will let those poor herbs be in peace :-)

Pasta with asparagus and squash

This is a really nice "spring" pasta that doesn't take too long to be prepared and that gives some satisfaction also when served to guests.

Ingredients (for 4 people):

• 400 gr green asparagus
• 1 onion
• 3 spoons of olive oil
• 100 gr of bacon (in cubes or in small slices)
• grated parmesan
• About 400 gr of pasta
• salt & pepper
• A medium size squash

Dice the asparagus, leaving the tops untouched and put them aside, after having washed them and peeled the bottom from the hardest parts.

Dice also the squash into small cubes, after washing it and having removed the ends.

Finely chop the onion.

In a pan, warm the olive oil and slightly brown the onion.

Raise the temperature and cook the asparagus for few minutes.

Then, add the squash as well, sink the temperature a little after few minutes and season it with salt and pepper. I usually then cover it with a lid and lower the temperature so that the vegetables cook a bit faster (about 10-15 minutes)

In the meanwhile, in another pan, brown the bacon (without oil). I like to have it a bit crunchy, so I let it cook until I reach that consistency.

When the vegetables are ready (both asparagus and squash should be tender) add the bacon to them.

Mix well and see if you need to season it more.
It is now time to cook the pasta, when it is ready and drained add it to the vegetables and let it slightly fry  all together.
Serve it and add the grated parmesan on top!

The arrival of Isabella

It didn't take too long for Isabella to realize which day she was supposed to come. Everything did start according to plan, but then took a little bit too much time, so at the end, she arrived with one day of delay.

Now, it is time to adjust and learn about each other and of course, also wear all those pretty clothes we bought and got :)

As symbol for our little daughter, I got this wonderful jewel from Mattias. It does shine :)