Herbed Soda Bread + Fig Chutney

Herbed Soda Bread

This bread is soft, flaky and has an irresistible smell!  

Salmon Tartar

So easy and so posh! ;-)

Spring Finally! Flower Cooking Part I

Dandelion - Dente di leone - Loewenzahn

Finally there are the first signs of spring and the first rays of warm sun!

Spring for me also means starting to cook "with the nature". There are many blossoms and flowers you can eat.
Now it's time for dandelion:

Lent

As you might know, one should prefer fish to meat in lent (this is old catholic traditions). Recently we really ate loads of fish, and my man became verrryyyy good in cooking fish. This was our pre-Ash Wednesday experience, as in reality it still was Mardi Gras, but hey - good food doesn't care when exactly it is eaten!
Anyway I prefer not to eat too much on Ash Wednesday, let's say - I don't wanna make a feast of eating fish on this special day like many people do nowadays, which I really don't find correct.

As a starter we had smoked salmon and fresh marinated sardines on toasted, buttered bread. I had mine with a dash of mustard, which I love with salmon.

Linguine with seafood: The first time my man made it for me 6 years ago, I simply couldn't eat those "bugs of the sea"...it looked too disgusting. By now, I got used to it and even learned to love it!

Seafood sauce for pasta

Baked fish in the oven: Thanks to a friend who every now and then brings us some huge fish, which we eat together then, we make oven baked fish with vegetables around. That's so yummy AND healthy!

For dessert I was lazy and didn't bake anything. A friend brought "castagnole" - the fancy kind, which is kind of fried choux pastry balls coated with sugar and filled with Nutella or cream.

With this feast we had my favourite white wine, Gewuerztraminer, another bottle of white wine which I didn't taste and to close with we opened a bottle of  "visciole" (sweet cherry wine from the Ancona area). Just had a sip but I loved it!

Carnival In Venice

Street artist show in Venice

Of course also this year our yearly "Carnival in Venice" tour started with 2 typical specialities: Spritz cocktail (Aperol and sparkling wine) and Tramezzini!!! Love love love Tramezzini!

After some more Spritz and some litres of Sangria and Strawberry Daiquiri at a fruit stand .... hmmm better not to say anything (btw: should have eaten more tramezzini ;-))!

The day after a mid afternoon cure was needed: Piadina (local flatbread with raw ham, soft cheese and rucola - available also with different fillings) and Pizza at the harbour and later on a visit to a café where I wanted to go since a long time was just the right thing!
What a nice sunny day!

Earl Grey Lavender Tea - super flowery and fantastic!

Carnival!

Krapfen are THE Carnival food in Austria! And when I was a kid you could find them ONLY in the carnival period. Nowaydays you can buy them all year round, just like in Italy, where they are called "bomboloni". The traditional filling is apricot jam, but my Italian guests requested also a batch of cream and a batch of Nutella filled ones.

Another request were "salty" bomboloni, which is simply Krapfen filled with cheese and ham! First I was very sceptical, but after the first bite I fully approved! They're fantastic!

These are typical ITALIAN carnival balls - called "castagnole". I tried the "traditional" recipe (by now there also exist some fancy forms), which is basically cake dough formed in balls, fried, and covered with sugar and liquor.

In this pic you can also see another fried dough, which I personally didn't like that much. It's kind of fried pasta dough covered with powedered sugar. The recipe I had was simply not good.
Now carnival is over and we should cut down on sweets and heavy food in lent... we'll see if I manage!