Great St Bernard Pass & Aosta

This summer we did a lot of traveling, despite the fact that according to the most popular traditions: once you have a baby you are locked inside your own home!
After spending 10 days in Sicily, we added to our "summer tour" also a new goal: spend few days chilling out in the Alps.

We chose of course the coolest days of August to go there (...) and hence the weather was not that great. This meant that warming up a seldom-used house took about 5 days. Then we had to go back!
Nevertheless, we enjoyed the freshness of the air more than the heat we would have found later on in Gallarate...

We improvised some small excursions touching Aosta, Great St Bernard Pass, St Rhemy (well, that was not a big excursion) and Lausanne.
Aosta turned out to be a quite lively town (well, I have seen it hundred of times before, but never noticed these things), with a lot of tourists and souvenir shops, but also beautiful shops (we found a comic store that was very nice!) and some small event. There were small stands in the main streets where people dressed in typical clothes were showing old-fashioned toys to the smallest ones.
We did a short walk among some of the monuments, touching with the car the Augusto Arch, eating an ice cream in the main square, walking by the Porta Pretoria and finally talking a stroll in the Roman Theatre.

Certainly, the Romans knew where to build stuff!

We decided to pick up the worse day instead for going up to the pass. The road (which is being improved) is quite scenic and the mountains were beautiful surrounded by the clouds.

It was damn cold up there and it even started to rain!
We got "robbed" in one of the coffee places there, where we had to go since Isabella was hungry (and sitting outside feeding her would have been crazyness!). A fake chocolate was incredibly expensive and we were astonished at how the Swiss people there could not understand nor the italian "cioccolata" neither the english "chocolate". How different is it from the french?!?!??!
Since we are at it, we decided also to show Isabella the St Bernard dogs and we invested again in swiss franks for visiting the kennel and observe those beautiful dogs and the quite interesting museum.  In the museum we could read about the history of the place and, even though this was probably the 15 time I have been there, still there was something to learn!
Since the temperature was quickly dropping to northern-Sweden levels, we decided to go back home!

Gooseberry, cinnamon and rhubarb jam

On the wave of the summer fruit and discovery, here there is yet another jam. The second of the season. Actually, I found out that this is a way to use a lot of fruit in a short time and that it is fairly simple (especially if using the jam sugar). We usually get quite a lot of fruit, especially berries, from the cat hotel owners and we have always hard time to consume them.
Also, I think it is really nice to be able to give as a gift a little (or medium) jar of your own jam to people and I like to receive feedback so to make new different "tastes".

This time, I decided to just take what I had and I briefly searched what would be a good combination with gooseberry and I found out that cinnamon would have been the key ingredient to make the taste less flat.
As the previous experiment, I put a bit more fruit than sugar so that it would not be a too sweet jam. And I discovered that people do not like too sweet jams and hence, mine was quite appreciated.

Ingredients for about 1,5 kg of jam:

• 750 gr of gooseberries
• 750 gr of rhubarb
• 1 kg of jam sugar
• a tea spoon of cinnamon

I warmed up the frozen berries and the rhubarb in a big pot, without adding anything.

Once the fruits was warm and not frozen any longer, I blended the fruit, but not too much in order to leave some fruit to chew on.

I have finally added the cinnamon to the mix!

Since I was still "cheating" using the jam sugar, I simply added it and let it cook for the time written on the package. Well, if I have to be honest, in this case I accidentally left it over the heat some minute extra and burned it slightly (which however gave a nice back-taste to the jam!).

It is finally cooked! As you can see, there are some pieces of fruit that are well visible.

As usual, I sterilized the jar and then I filled it with the jam. It turned out to be a really good jam to eat with cheese. 

Citadels

I must say the expectations I had on this game were not met whatsoever.
I thought it would have been a strange card game, with no big depth.
Instead, it turned out to be a quite interesting strategy game, not trivial at all and unexpected outcome.
Yes, if for good part of the game it seems the winner will be one, then at the end, with some good maneuver it could be somebody else.
It is a lot about guessing, intuition and also a bit of luck.

One can be a different character at each turn (a bit like in Puerto Rico), each character giving a special ability that can help out performing the action of the turn. The aim is to build eight districts: that will conclude the game, but the player with the highest amount of points will of course win.

I found the game quite well balanced and simple to learn. Not that fast, after all, since the strongest player changes quite often and the others try to compromise his actions.
A great game to play if one doesn't have too much time to dig into a booklet of rules, but still want to use the brain (or what is left of it ;D) and keep the mind well awake!

The smallest tomato in the world

One is always surprised to find new (exotic!??!) products at the supermarket. From yellow squashes, white pale bell peppers, aubergines and tomatoes that have gone through some interesting african trip meeting a zebra....

This time it is the turn of the size of the tomatoes. Are these the smallest tomatoes in the world?
Wonder how do they taste...

War of the Ring

Tolkien's fan? Finally a board game that is not heavily influenced by the movies :-)
After a bit disappointing Lord of the Rings Risk, we have tried this game, which, in its collector edition, is just majestic.

When Mattias P described the game and said that the box was in wood and the game 8kg heavy, I needed to see it to believe it!
He then came and took out the game and we were all astonished and exclaimed "woow" in unison.

We didn't fully play the game, we started a bit slow digging into some rules details, but the first taste was quite nice. The battle between evil and good is not as trivial and one requires a good strategy to survive.
Of course, good part of fascination of the game is due to the hand painted figures and the reminiscences from the books (not the movies!!!), but it was quite fun as well to roll the dice, and use the cards for performing new actions.

I look forward to actually see Galadriel in game, considering her funny expression!

A different juice

We really love juices and smoothies. We also experiment create some smoothies ourselves, but it is always more convenient to just open a bottle than wash, peel, cut and slice and mix and so on...

Recently, we have discovered a new type of juice (or at least, I believe I have never seen this type before) which is cold pasteurized. Normally, the procedure requires certain temperatures, but that, not only kills some bacteria, it also removes some of the taste.

No conservants, no added sugar, made in Sweden (although, of course, the fruit comes from other parts of the world). A very very genuine taste. When drinking the mango-apple version, one can really feel the different from similar products.

Yummi!

Vanilla Rhubarb & Blackberries jam

We have got rhubarb and berries in huge quantity for a while, and the first thought has always been: the best way to use them is doing a jam. However, we have always been saying it and never actually DOING it!
This year, I decided to put myself in action, especially after tasting a fantastic jam made by our friend Ullis. Inspired by that jam, with rhubarb as well, I improvised this other jam.
According to the our guinea pigs, this turned out to be a success - with the exception that for cooking a jam you need to wear a protective overall and "plastify" the whole kitchen, or one will have just stains of jam everywhere (and the ones produced by berries are very very very evil indeed :-) )

Ingredients for about 1,5 kg of jam:

• 1kg of rhubarb
• 500 gr of blackberries
• 1 kg of jam sugar
• one vanilla rod
• the juice of one lemon

I mainly followed the instructions on the jam sugar package. One can use also standard sugar, but this was my first attempt to cook a jam, so I didn't want to risk. With standard sugar one needs a thermometer since you need to reach a specific temperature (104°C if I remember right).

One thing I did before following the instructions was to warm the frozen rhubarb and the berries in the same big pot that I used for cooking the jam.

Once the fruit was all warmed, I blended the fruit and then I added the juice of the lemon and the vanilla rod, previously cut opened.

I mixed everything carefully and then I added the sugar and cooked it for the time written on the package of the sugar.

I did 1,5kg of jam, but the original was for 1 kg and was supposed to have 700gr of rhubarb (300gr of berries, in that case red currants) and 1 kg of jam sugar. In this way, my result was less sweet than the original one, but I think it worked for this combination.

Before putting it in the sterilized jars (one can both boil them in water for 5 minutes or put them in the oven for 30 minutes at 100°C), I let it cool down a bit. 

Once the jars are filled, I put them in a dark, dry place to cool completely and rest.