Happy New Year

I haven't been around in a while and I haven't even cooked. I did not post any Christmas recipe even though I really wanted to. But it is actually the nice thing about being home with your family and friends. You can just enjoy yourself and no time remains for your daily routine.

However I wanted to make sure I would wish everyone a very happy New Year. I'm very grateful for this year as it gave me a lot. It brought me wonderful new friends and the most importantly I have found my real passion in life - food and photography.

Big thanks to everyone for stopping by here. It is a very nice feeling knowing that you are here with me. Wishing you a very happy New Year full of love, light, laughter and happiness.

I will see you here again in 2010! :)

My Lasagne Bolognese

I know I should already post a Christmassy recipe and pictures when Christmas is here in only 7 days. How many? 7 days? Ok, now I am panicking! It is just one week! Whee... And no snow in London! Just imagine it. Everybody on twitter writes about white fields and gardens and posts pictures of snow. And here? Nothing! Well, to be completely honest, I saw several snow flakes yesterday, but they had all melted sooner than I took out my camera! Just have a look, this is it, the London snow :)

However I am still positive about the snow in London. This is how it looked here last year in February.

I loved it and I really enjoyed it! But not everybody did. Because there were no buses, trains and tube going for almost two days! The whole city turned into a sleeping kingdom.

But let's get back to my today's post. The lasagne bolognese.

I cooked the lasagne during my "off-line period", that is to say one week without the Internet at home! Do not worry, I survived, though it was not easy! :) This was about two weeks ago. Time goes so fast! I found the photos of the lasagne yesterday, and I thought it would deserve to write a post about it because it was sooooo delicious. I ate similar lasagne when P. and I visited our friends in Finland this year. I loved it. Just two weeks later I emailed our friend, asking her for a recipe. My recipe is a combination of a classical lasagne bolognese and our friends' recipe.

My lasagne Bolognese

Serves 6

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 carrot, grated

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp dried oregano

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp tomato puree

500g minced beef

100ml red wine

2x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

125g Philadelphia with garlic & herbs

2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the white sauce

50g butter

50g plain flour

1l milk

200g Cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 pack of lasagne sheets

2 tomatoes, sliced

40g Parmesan cheese, grated

1. In a large pan heat the olive oil, and sauté the onion, carrot and garlic for 2 minutes. Add the dried oregano, bay leaves and season with salt and freshly grated pepper. Fry the onion for another 5 minutes or until softened. Add the tomato puree and let it cook for a minute.

2. Stir in the meat, and cook until all the meat browned nicely. Add the wine, stir and let the alcohol cook off. Finally add the chopped tomatoes and simmer for another 5 minutes. Take it off the heat and mix with the Philadelphia. Discard the bay leaves.

3. For the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and stir. Turn the heat down to absolute minimum and add a 1/4 of the milk, whisking quickly to prevent any lumps forming. If it thickens too fast, take the pan off the heat and add more milk. Add the rest of the milk gradually, whisking as you go.

4. Add the nutmeg and let it simmer for another 10 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning. Finally add the grated Cheddar cheese and stir well until smooth and fully incorporated. Turn off the heat.

5. Preheat the oven to 180C.

6. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with the cheese sauce and place pasta sheets on top. Spoon the meat sauce onto the pasta and spread evenly. Now add the cheese sauce on top of the meat. Repeat until all the meat and cheese sauce is used, reserving a little cheese sauce for the last layer. Add the last layer of pasta and cover with the remaining cheese sauce. Put the sliced tomatoes on top and finished with grated Parmesan cheese.

7. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Coconut Rice Pudding with Pineapple

Hey my friends, I'm back. Not that soon as I promised, though. I don't know what is keeping me from doing anything! May it be Christmas around the corner? May it be my laziness? Or both? I just know that I feel like I have less energy left inside of me these days. I want sunshine or snow. I guess, I simply just need more light.

I know that sugar makes me happy and keeps my energy up! This theory was thoroughly tested during my studies. Oh yeah, I can not even say how much chocolate I ate during every exam term! :) I did not nourish myself with chocolate this time, though. I know I have already posted a recipe for a rice pudding some time ago. However, rice pudding is one of my all time favourite desserts, and I made a lighter version, omitting a double cream, and I used a proper pudding rice.

I got the pudding rice in a local food centre. I was actually quite surprised. I felt like Alice in Wonderland while browsing the shelves full of all kinds of rice, bulgur, polenta, couscous and other yummy stuff. Unfortunately, I could not spent so much time there as P. was not so excited to be in a food kingdom and kept asking me if I got everything I needed. I have to go back alone! :)

I used a pineapple to serve my rice pudding, but it is delicious with any fruit you find at home. I even like it just plain when the pudding is still warm.

Coconut rice pudding with pineapple

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 cup pudding rice

400ml coconut milk (1 can)

150ml ful fat milk

4 cardamon pods

2 tbsp palm sugar

shredded coconut to serve

unsalted pistachios, chopped

fresh or canned pineapple, diced

1 Wash and drain the rice in a sieve.

2 Heat the coconut milk mixed with the full fat milk and cardamon pods in a small sauce pan over a low heat. Bring to the boil.

3 Add the rice and stir well. Simmer, covered for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until almost all milk is absorbed and the rice is tender.

4 Discard the cardamon pods. Add the sugar and stir well. I usually let the rice stand, covered, for couple minutes before serving.

5 Divide the rice pudding between prepared bowls or glasses and top with pineapple, coconut and pistachios.

Back to Reality

It has been more than one week since Food Bloggers Connect '09, the first official conference of food bloggers held in Europe. What a wonderful weekend it was! Ah, I still can not get myself over it somehow. That one single weekend changed my life. It brought me new friends. It gave me the feeling that I am no longer alone in a blogger world. And it still keeps me thinking about and recalling all joyful moments from those two days. I still did not managed to re-establish my daily routine. And I know, I have not posted in a while. So what was I up to over the past week?

At first. Our broadband at home. Actually, to be clear, no broadband at home! It is another issue actually, which totally changed my daily routine for the whole week. Can you imagine it? No internet connection for a week?! I tried to live without it. However to be honest, it just did not work! Am I an Internet addict? Maybe... Yeah, apparently I am! :) But try it yourself just for two or three days, and you will see...

This situation called for an instant solution. What everyone likes? And what does every food blogger do best? Yes, the correct answer is - FOOD! And if it is sweet food, you have a 99% chance of success. I made chocolate muffins as a bribe. And I bribed P's colleagues to let me occupy their office with a super fast internet connection.Problem solved! :)

I was going to the office after one year working from home! Phew, I felt really tired! :) I did not cook much. Though a quick mushroom soup for dinner was enough.

And, of course, we all know that Christmas time is here again. I am christmas lights nut and I just can not imagine Christmas without them. I was excited like a small kid when I have finally installed my lovely christmas lighst to our all year IKEA dried plant decoration. Beautiful. That made my made.

One more pic of my leftovers for lunch, before I go to bed. Yes, it is time for bed. I can not believe it. Is it 3am again? Is anyone stealing time?!

Good night then. I come back with a yummy recipe soon, I promise!

I was there! Meet my new friends. Food Bloggers Connect 09

I do not know where to start. My head is spinning. So much was going on last weekend, so many wonderful and fabulous people I met, and so much I have learnt! It was the Food Bloggers Connect weekend! Yeah. I feel so happy.

I think I can not describe all my feelings and amazing moments, I had, with words. Hence I will show you pictures. That is one thing I have learnt over the weekend actually. I found my voice. I found myself. And I found the voice of this blog. I love photography, especially food photography and my photos will speak instead of me. This time though, I will not show you many food photos. So take a seat and relax with me, while watching some of the wonderful moments I had over the past weekend.

Food Bloggers Connect weekend begins...

Saturday.

It all became reality thanks to wonderful Bethany from Dirty Kitchen Secrets.

The first food bloggers conference in Europe took place at Levant - lebanese restaurant in London. I can only recommend it, food was extraordinary there.

Now let me introduce all brilliant speakers. First, Meeta from What's For Lunch Honey revealed her secret to style and photograph beautiful food photos.

Kang - London Eater spoke about shooting in dark and social media. He is a natural speaker. I enjoyed his talk very much! Here is Kang talking about aperture.

Jeanne from Cook Sister!

And Jamie from Life's A Feast.

Both Jeanne and Jamie are excellent writers and they shared their secret to help us find our voice and make your blog successful.

Everybody were lively chatting. We had so much fun!

From left to right: Nora, Christina and Nicola.

And of course, everything had to be well documented! As I sad at the beginning, it was a beautiful day with wonderful people and yummy food!

Wait wait, this is not the end... let me go on...