"Limata" in stile vietnamita

Hello dear readers! As predicted, my life is super hectic again, and still will be for a few more weeks. So, I'm going to have only two posts for this month (mmm -- I just realized it's past midnight, and it's already March! Oh well :)). So, the first post is my entry to the 'Fresh Produce of the Month' event! This month the event is hosted again by my dear friend Simona at Briciole.
The theme was citrus fruits, all but lemon and orange. This month we prepared two very good drinks involving citrus fruits, but unfortunately I have a nice picture of only one of them: a Vietnamese-style limeade!

Limata in stile vietnamita / Limeade Vietnamese style
This is a very easy drink to make, and it doesn't differ much from a regular limeade, except for the fact that it doesn't contain much sugar, and instead, it has some salt in it. It's very refreshing and a good thirst-quencher. However, I'm going to transcribe here Matt's version of the recipe, since he's the one who prepared it.

Squeeze a fresh lime, add a pinch of sugar and a of scosh of salt, shake it for 20 seconds in a Martini shaker with some ice. Prepare a second Martini shaker by rubbing lime peel in its interior, and pour the limeade in it. Shake. Finally, pour some whiskey in a third Martini shaker, burn off the whiskey, and shake the limeade in it for 13 more seconds. Pour the drink in an appropriate glass, add a piece of cilantro, and serve.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe. :) I am going to post the recipe for the second drink in the next few days. It's a lime-lemoncello flavored with habanero. A true delight, but I'm afraid this will be after the deadline for the FPOM.. we'll see if Simona will give me an allowance for it. :)

Death by chocolate contest

There is a very exciting contest going on, organized by Culinate, and called 'Death by chocolate'. The winner wins a chocolatey trip to Napa Valley for two, to attend the Copia Center’s annual Death by Chocolate Festival, and if no travel money is required, also a dinner for two at the famous 'French Laundry' restaurant. So, how could I not participate? Especially because I have an entry which cannot be beaten:

Cioccolata calda alla Torinese / Hot chocolate Torinese style
Dear readers, this is not your common 'hot chocolate'. This is melted heaven. Every time I have a foreign guest in my home town, Torino, I bring them to one of the few real places where they can taste it, and enjoy their expression when they first take a spoonful of it. No one can know what hot chocolate Torinese style is, unless they have tried it. Torino is well-known for chocolate: the famous 'Gianduiotti' come from there..
(picture taken at 'Baratti e Milano', a very famous cafe in Piazza Castello, one of the most beautiful squares in Torino)
.. and there are many small chocolate factories born there in the XIX century. Hot chocolate is a specialty that every Torinese person drinks on Sundays, during wintertime, in elegant cafes like 'Fiorio'.
I thought I would never be able to reproduce this type of hot chocolate at home, but I recently found out how to do so. The trick is to use real dark very good chocolate to begin with. So I started with Venezuelan 80% dark chocolate and broke it into pieces (about 1/4 cup). I then added a small piece of butter (about 1 tbsp), and ~ 2 tbsp heavy cream. I put it on the stove, with very low heat, and added sugar while it was melting (maybe about 1/4 cup total). I also added 1 tbsp Nutella, to give the typical hazelnut flavor that Gianduja Torinese chocolate has. Then, I added enough milk to get the drink of the right consistency: liquid, but very dense (check out how the cream is floating on top, in the first picture I posted). It's probably another 1/4 cup, more or less. The chocolate must be served with sweetened whipped cream on a side. The person drinking it is supposed to add it to the chocolate little by little, enjoying it while it's melting.. a pleasure for the taste buds as well as the eyes!
So, what do you think: is this entry worth of winning the best chocolate-centered entry for the 'Death by chocolate' contest? If so, please vote for me!!!!! If I win, I promise that if you stop by the Bay area and you voted for me, you'll be treated with a Hot Chocolate Torinese style at Marta's cafe. :)
When you vote, you too automatically enter the draw, and you can also win the same two tickets for the chocolatey tour of Napa Valley. The deadline is February 8th, so.. hurry up!!!

Girly Caipirinha

Meeta's Monthly Mingle is called 'Liquid dreams' this month.. and the theme is, as you can easily imagine, drinks!
I'm going to present here this variation on the 'Caipirinha' theme that I created a few nights ago. Does everyone know what Caipirinha is? Actually, I found out not too long ago, when our friend Elif gave us a bottle of Cachaca that she bought for us in Brasil! Cachaca is a very good liquor, similar to rum but with a different flavor. Hard to describe if you haven't tried it.. Check out the wikipedia description. So, Caipirinha is made with Cachaca, lime juice, sugar and ice. I like it, but it's very strong for me. So, a few nights ago I created my
Girly Caipirinha
To prepare it, mix in a blender ~4 cubes of ice, 1/4 cup cachaca, 6 large strawberries, juice of one lime, 1 tbsp sugar and a few mint leaves. Blend and serve in cups decorated with lime. This makes about two cups. Of course if you like it stronger, add more cachaca. I'm a light weight! But I gave the second cup to Lucas and he really liked it! I think it's almost impossible not to like this refreshing and cheerful drink. :)
Thanks Meeta for hosting such a great event again!

(Do you like my drink image above? I modified my picture with Gimp (freeware wonderful software), since I didn't like my background - but if you want to see the 'real' colors, here is the original image on the left)

Albicocche

The 'Fresh produce of the month' theme is now Apricot.. so in the past few weeks I made a few desserts using apricots. I'll post here about the best two I prepared. The first was one of the tartes that I made for my birthday.. The type that I like best! The latter is a drink that I made as a nice refreshing dessert to welcome Lucas when he came back from his trip in Italy.
Crostata di frutti di bosco e albicocche / Berry and Apricot crostata
I already posted how to make crostata with fruit last year - as I said, it's the dessert that I like to make for my birthday.. :) So you can read the recipe here. This year, I added some marsala to the cream, to give it a new hint. :) On top, I put my favorite summer fruits: strawberries, blueberries and apricots (and a few pieces of nectarines). I loved it, and so did the other guests. :)

Frappe' all'albicocca / Apricot frappe'
Frappe' is a drink similar to a milk shake, and can be made with almost anything that you can think of. I wanted to make something a bit different, and so I combined apricots, almonds, yogurt and rum, and I used maple syrup instead of sugar, to sweeten!
To make it yourself, blend 10 ripe apricots, 1 cup yogurt, 10 almonds, 1 tbsp Bourbon, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and ice. Serve with a slice of apricot imitating a lemon and with twirls of maple syrup on top.

This Frappe' is going to be my entry for my own 'Fresh Produce of the Month' event! The deadline has been postponed till next weekend, so please submit more entries!

Bevande rosse e bianche :)

This month Weekend Cookbook Challenge theme is 'Red and White' - cook anything that has anything to do with these two colors. So my idea was to make two drinks, a red one and a white one, and show them together!
I made two Mexican drinks, using recipes I found in my Mexican Cookbook by Jane Milton: Tequila Sunrise and Horchata!


Tequila Sunrise is tricky to make right (mine is not perfect): you have to pour 1 1/2 tbsp golden tequila in a glass half filled with crushed ice, then add freshly squeezed orange juice (4 tbsp) and juice of one lime. The tricky part is to add 1 tsp grenadine quickly enough, pouring it on the back of a teaspoon, so that it sinks to the bottom of the drink. I couldn't find grenadine (supposedly an alcoholic beverage made with pomegranade), so I used pomegranade/cranberry juice, and to help it sink, I poured it against the sides of the glass. It layered a bit, but not as much as the grenadine probably would have. In the end, though, I liked the cocktail and it was pretty. :)

Horchata is a super typical Mexican drink, and I've always been curious about what it was, exactly. We have something similar, in Italy, which we call 'Orzata', which is very sweet and made with almonds, but I wasn't sure if it was really like Mexican 'Horchata'. In fact, I found out Mexican Horchata is made mostly with rice, although it has some almonds. There's no milk in it to make it white. The white color comes from rice water!
So to make it, soak 2 1/4 cups long grain rice in 3 cups water overnight. After that, drain the rice, reserving the liquid, and then blend the rice as finely as possible. It must be really fine, otherwise it will all sink to the bottom of the drink and it won't be pleasant. Then, blend 1 1/4 cups blanched almonds, very finely too, and add to the ground rice. Then you have to add 1/4 cup sugar and some cinnamon. The recipe suggested 2 tsp ground cinnamon, but it's really too much in my opinion. Next time I make it, I'll use 1/2 tsp. Add also grated peel from one lime. Pour water over the rice mixture, and serve with ice. It's quite good, although in my opinion some more sugar makes the drink more enjoyable. Next time I go to a Mexican restaurant, I'll take the drink, and compare to how this tasted. :)

I'll put the link to the WCC roundup here if you come back later... let's see what neat recipes people came up with using 'Red and White' as a theme!!

For now, I want to remind all of you of my 'Fresh produce of the month' event! Please send in lots of apricot-centered recipes!! The deadline is July 27th.