Cakes and psychoanalysis

Healthy Snack: Tomato Salad

Here is a healthy,summery snack, which is also good as a side to main dishes.

It is a simple, quick, and easy tomato salad.

Portion for 1:

1) Cut slices of 1 big tomato

2) Grab 4 slices of basil and chop them

3) Mix the tomato slices and basil together with olive oil and salt (ind. preference)

and that's it!!

a delicious snack :)

life sucks but the recipes continue, original italian tomato sauce

Hello dear all,

I am probably having the worse day ever...problems at school and my parents postponed their trip..yet again!

However, I figured I would still write a new recipe because I love doing this and I love that you guys are actually following my blog...makes me feel special.

So, today, I am going to give a very simple recipe for tomato sauce...the true italian way. In fact, I hope you are not fooled by Italian-American food, which is NOT the original Italian cooking. In fact, my home country cooking is very simple and healthy.

Down to business, here is how I make my tomato sauce:

I put olive oil in a warm pain and then I add garlic to it..the amounts can vary based on how many people you are cooking for and personal preferences.

Then, I put a few basil leaves and tomatoes from a can in the pan..usually I use whole tomatoes, but diced are fine as well.

I then add salt to it and wait until the sauce becomes less soupy and more solid, but still not too solid about 15 minutes or so...and voila'!

If you do not like garlic, you can always use onions. My aunt does that. :)

You can also use spices like oregano to give more flavor to the sauce.

results from previous dinner

Hello wonderful peeps,

so we left off with an ambitious dinner plan consisting of bruschetta,lamb chops, and vanilla ice cream with fruit. Results were that the bruschetta was wonderful and so was the dessert. Not so much the lamb chops! you see they were quite thick and as I had feared they remained undercooked. I decided to cook them in pan after brushing them with oil and spices...but next time I will try broiling them...since that might be safer :)

In terms of the bruschetta...I simply cut plum tomatoes and mixed them with oil, salt, and basil. Meanwhile, I cut a baguette in slices and let them bake in the oven for about 5 minutes. After that, I added the tomato mixture on top of the bread and that was it!

For the dessert, I put diced strawberries first, then vanilla ice cream, and blueberries on top...it was yummmmyyyy.

dinner plans

All right my lovely friends,

I am about to prepare a dinner that consists of:

1) bruschetta for appetizer

2) lamb chops, as main entree, with side salad...(may add some apricot jam on top)

3) vanilla ice cream topped by fruit salad or fruit salad topped by vanilla ice cream (gravity will probably decide which one), as dessert.

Here I go to the grocery store...wish me luck...i hope it's yummy!!

oh and quick italian lesson....the "sch" in bruschetta is actually pronounced as "sk". Many people don't actually know this ;)

1st day of blogging....

I have been thinking about blogging for quite a while now, but a few obstacles have prevented me from doing it: 1) lack of time, 2) second language barrier, 3) low-self esteem in my writing skills.

So, why...would you say have I finally decided to just go through with it? The answer is, all the above reasons are just mere justifications for not starting the wonderful blogging adventure...and I am definitely in need of an adventure at the moment! Furthermore, being 26, from Italy and with a mother who is a wonderful cook, I have just now put the apron on and started another little adventure...that is: cooking!

Now, another question one might ask is how is it possible that a 100% born and raised Italian has never cooked before? Reason being that I was raised to be a book worm while my mother would create these delicious recipes that were mouth-watering. As a result, I never found the need to learn how to cook. And even when I moved to the States for my higher education, I preferred cafeteria food (I know..I know) to actually making an effort to learn how make a simple tomato sauce!

So now that I have my own kitchen and someone to cook for (my wonderful fiancee), I have decided to make the kitchen my favorite place in the house and to start a series of recipes that I will share with the world! or perhaps 1 or 2 wonderful bloggers that will decide to follow me.

Also, because I suffer from a need to have many interests at once, I shall share my experience as a competitive amateur dancer, and an amateur fashionista....while dropping an an italian word here and there just for the heck of it. Let's start with translating the title of my blog: "L'amore per il cibo...ed altro."