Smarties Cookies.

It has been so sunny here in Italy, lately. Summer is finally here!
And summer to me means: Colours!
Having to bake something for my mother's friends I thought it would be nice if I made something easy, quick and colorful.
So, I chose this easy recipe from Sophistimom, and changed it a little to make Smarties Cookies.
I think my mother's friends of Joga will appreciate it after a one-day long Joga lesson.



Smarties Cookies.

375 g all-purpose flour
180 g unsalted butter, room temperature
350 g sugar
2 eggs
10 g vanilla extract
3 small packages of Smarties (I think they were 50 g each)
a pinch of salt

Preheat the oven at 190 °C.
Beat he butter until fluffy.
Add the sugar slowly, until well blended.
Add eggs and vanilla extract.
Slowly add the flour and the salt.
With a tablespoon place little amounts of dough on the parchment paper, place them at some distance because they will expand in the oven.
Then press the dough a little with a glass (I used a coaster, I recommend to put some flour on it, in order not to make it stick ), and press some smarties on it.
Place the cookies in the oven for about 12 minutes.
Let them cool before moving them from the parchment paper.

Voilà!
Going back to the books, and to the sun!
Bye!
HappyFroggy

Normally in March, or at the beginning of April, I would already have gone once to the seaside. At least to lunch on the sand and enjoy the first rays of the sun.
This year has been completeley different.
In March it rained, the same goes for April, and well, now it's May. May has been cold and rainy this year, with some days of sunny weather, but never too much.
Fortunately, my mood doesn't go along with the weather. But after these months, I just needed the sun to shine.

So,
Why am I saying this?
Because today was the first wonderful, sunny, pleasant, warm with a bit of cool summer breeze day of 2010. And I am so happy!
Ok, I have been studying. But studying on the balcony, with a cup of tea and sunglasses, isn't the same as studying in a cold, dark room.

(this is a detail of my mother's little tomato plants)

And obvioulsy I wanted to bake something. Given that Summer is here (I'm not saying it will last forever..) I thought of making some fruity tartelettes (tartlets, or?).
I have no tartelettes moulds, no similar kind of mould, nothing of that kind, so.. well I tried to make something similar from scratch.

Ok, stop talking and talking.
Here's the recipe:

Fruity tartelettes (with yogurt pie crust)



Dough

250 g all purpose flour
150 g yogurt (you can use both whole or low-fat)
65 g granulated sugar
65 g cold unsaltened butter
a pinch of salt

Mix flour, salt and sugar.
Cut the butter into little cubes and add it to the flour mixture. Mix and slowly add the yogurt until it becomes a consistent dough.
Wrap it into a sheet of plastic and place into the freezer for 3 hours.

Filling/Topping

1 apple
1 banana
10 strawberries
1 orange
70 g sugar
1 Tbs flour

1 egg

Cut the fruit in pieces/dices. Blend all the ingredients together.

---

Preheat the oven at 180 °C.

Now, after the 3 hours have passed, I rolled the dough out, cut big circles of it (7cm or so) (the dough was 2-3mm thick). Then I placed a tablespoon of fruit in the middle and wrapped the dough around it, just to make the borders, and not to let the fruit flow away.
Beat the egg and brush it onto the crust. (I haven't done this as you may see from the pictures)
When I used all the dough (and fortunately also all the fruit), I baked them in the oven for 20 minutes.
Let it cool on a rack for 10 minutes.


Today was a good day.
I hope the tartelettes will be good as well.

Have a nice evening!

HappyFroggy

Uff.. It's exams-time over here.
And I have something like 10 exams in these two months. They haven't even started and I'm already stressed.
But, in weekends I always find a second or two, that then become 3 hours, to prepare something for my bofriend or my family.

I thought it would be nice to make more typical product, not only from Italy, but especially from the area I come from: Liguria.
A coulple of weeks ago my bf and I went for a walk in the little town we live in, and I took some photos.



It was very interesting because I discovered things I didn't know.
But, let's talk about the traditional dishes. I think I will write about it more often if I have the chance, because I'd love to make and learn more of the typical dishes. (My bf's grandma is going to give me some recipes!)
There are some bread-ish products, I like a lot. There's one called "Ciappe di Taggia" or "Ciappe della Liguria", there are "Canestrelli" (oh so yummy!), "Torta verde" (a sort of veggie pie, delicious) and then ..."Focaccia" (I think Focaccia is known around the world, isn't it?)

That day, the day of the walk, we made "Focaccia ai pomodorini" (i.e. "Focaccia with Cherry tomatoes") together. It took a while, but it was very tasty!
The recipe:


Focaccia ai pomodorini.


Ingredients
500 gr flour
300 ml lukewarm water
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
25 gr yeast
4 tablespoons + 1/2 cup olive oil
oregano
500 gr cherry tomatoes

Dissolve the yeast in a cup lukewarm water and the sugar. Let it in a warm place for 10-15 minutes until it becomes bubbly.
Put the flour in a large bowl and add the yeast, the remaining water and the olive oil.
Let the mixture stand for 2 or 3 hours in a dry and warm place.
After the 2 or 3 hours, spread the dough out until it's 1cm-thick, shed it with a bit of olive oil, and let it stad for half an hour.
Meanwhile, wash the tomatoes, cut them into slices (I cut them into halves) and remove the seeds. Salt them, and put them on the risen dough pressing a littlebit.
Pour another bit of oil on the dough and add the oregano.
Let it stand for another half an hour.
Preheat the oven at 190 °C and bake the Focaccia for 30 minutes (the cherry tomatoes have to be wrinkled).

I hope I'll have the time to write these weeks, and maybe to try some more typical recipes.

HappyFroggy

What a breakfast means to me..

Ladies and gentlemen found the cable, oh yeah, it was in one of my ten thousand bags. One one those bags I never use. I wonder how it came there =)

This weekend was fantastic, like every weekend I spend with Roberto. We always want to do something funny. And most of the times we succeed.
Saturday we went to the seaside. We stayed there only 2 hours because I had to work, but the weather was lovely.
But before going to the seaside we ate a super breakfast which doesn't let us eat until the evening.

When we have time enough to stop for a second and actually really enjoy preparing breakfast and eating together, while talking about the week that passed, I feel so relieved, so happy.
This week our breakfast was wonderful. Look at it! It makes me happy only to see it =)



I made the Banana Yogurt Bread friday evening. It's simple actually and I liked it a lot, you really can taste the banana a lot.
I took the recipe from this blog. (Thank you, Tara!).

For the Smoothie I just used the fruit we had: Bananas and Strawberries.
It's not really a recipe, but I'll say how I made it:
Strawberry and Banana Smoothie
4 or 5 Strawberries
1 banana
1/2 cup ice cream (I used "fior di latte", it's cream)
1 cup milk

and no sugar otherwise it's less healthy and it becomes less "homemade" (in my opinion, but you can add some sugar if you want).

Just mix everything toghether with the mixer and that's it.
For the serving I suggest fresh strawberries or maybe 2 leaves of mint.

I made the Granola last week, and I like it a lot, but not with yogurt or milk. I like eating it alone, with nothing else. It's super-crispy!

Ok, back to my books, hope you had a fantastic weekend!

HappyFroggy