Hello Everyone!

Hi everyone, I am so happy to finally be sitting down at my computer and sharing with all of my wonderful blogger friends!  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas - Thanksgiving Day was celebrated here and Christmas was with Frog Hollow Farm Boy's family.  Both days were full of fun, family, food and our signature cocktails.

So, I'm just posting a few photos to get you up to date with some things.  

Our Thanksgiving Table

Some Christmas Decorations

Our cat Olive sitting on a warm woodstove!

One more photo from our July trip to Ireland, just needed to share that blue water with you all!

Wedding dress in window in Florence, Italy

This is a magnificent photo of our brave boy Connor.  

Connor is my niece Jennifer's little boy.  He was diagnosed with a form of leukemia in late October and is being treated vigorously with different chemotherapy medications - the treatment protocol involves two years of treatment.  

This photo was take by a photographer with a company called Flashes of Hope at the hospital right when Connor was diagnosed.  Since then Connor has lost his hair.  

His prognosis is very good - we pray for him every day.  

That's all for now friends.  I will be visiting as many of you as I can - that's the fun part of blogging!

Ciao, bella!

A Street Food Stroll in Rome with Eleonora

At the end of our recent trip to Italy, FHFB and I spent a couple of days in Rome.  When we first visited Rome many years ago we found it to be very much like any large city - large, busy, noisy and unfamiliar.  Since then we have figured out that in order to understand Rome, like any large city, we needed to learn about and understand the different areas of the city.  For example, the area around the Pantheon or the area around the Piazza Navona.  I'm sure that each of these city sections have their own name.
 

A new part of Rome (for us) was introduced to us by Eleonora from aglio, olio e peperoncino.  She also writes a blog called Roma Every Day.  I've become a follower of aglio, olio e peperoncino and blogging friends with Eleonora since last year. 

Eleonora and  Frog Hollow Farm Girl eating chocolate!!!

Check out Eleonora's blog - it is chock full of delicious Italian recipes, and all things Italian.  I

t's always a delight for me to read and it makes me long for Italy!

Farmer's Market at Campo di Fiori. 

(This link tells you about many of the piazza's in Rome)

 

Our afternoon with Eleonora consisted of a Street Food Stroll.  Now, if you have been a follower of Frog Hollow Farm Girl for a while, you know that FHFB and I love to cook and to eat - and especially in Italy! 

Eleonora describes the Street Food Stroll as follows:

Street Food Stroll

If your idea of delving into a culture is to tune into the city's most cherished food traditions, this is the walk for you. Our leisurely stroll and sample tastings include tavola calda fare, portable goodies, ancient chocolatier confections, fried treats, pizza sold by weight, plus artisan pastries, gelato and grattachecca.

We had a wonderful time.  Here are some pictures from the afternoon as we strolled through Rome.  There aren't many pictures because we were too busy talking and eating!!! LOL

 

Shopping in Campo di Fiori with Eleonora.

Here I am learning how to drink out of a Roman water fountain. 

When you press and stop the water that you see running from the spout at the bottom of the picture, the water spurts up from the top.  I believe that this water comes from the original aquaducts but I'm not absolutely sure.

The chocolate shop!

We have a delightful afternoon and learned about a new section of Rome called the Jewish Ghetto, not far from the Campo di Fiori.  This is a very historical and solemn portion of the city - you can check out this link to learn more.  Of course there was food connected with the Jewish Ghetto, and the most famous dish to try to get is the deep fried artichoke. Now, we never did get back to the restaurant for that artichoke, and I'm disappointed that I didn't push myself a little more and get back when the restaurant opened, it  wasn't far from our hotel.
Next time, DEFINITELY!!!!

Eleonora was a wonderful guide - we so enjoyed our time with her and would recommend trying one of her culinary tours if you happen to have a few hours in Rome.

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll be linking in to Seasonal Sundays at The Tablescaper!

Ciao, bella!

xxoo

 

Panicale

During our April trip to Italy, we did three things that we had never done before.  The first thing was that we took a cooking class with Sharon Oddson - my last few blogs describe all of the recipes and have some yummy looking photos to go along with them.  The second thing that we did was taking the train from Florence to visit FHFB's cousin Mario and wife Pam at their wonderful little farm right outside of the wonderful little town of Panicale, Umbria, about 90 minutes outside of the city of Florence.  I think that I'm overusing the word 'wonderful', sorry!

Isn't this just heaven???

Here's a photo of my son, Pam, Mario and FHFB on the brick patio, where we sat and ate a delicious meal and drank local wine most of the afternoon. 

I think I'll just post the photos with short explanations - the photos just bring me back to that very wondeful day!

When we arrived (Mario picked us up at the train station) Pam  had a wonderful table full of delicious Italian specialties for us to try.  You can see the one bottle of local red wine labeled 'B'.

Mario built his own outside pizza oven and stone grill - don't these little chops look delicious and so rustic?

Believe it or not, we do other things besides eating!  After we sat and ate for a few hours, Mario took FHFB and my son to his neighbor's home to fill up on their homemade wine.  Pam and I stayed behind and had some time to get to know each other - it was the first time I had met her and she is a fascinating and intelligent lady.  I loved hearing about her life.

The next three pictures show the process of getting the wine from the large oak wine barrel into what looks like a white plastic bucket.

Here's the next step, pouring the wine from the white bucket into Mario's large glass wine container using the biggest funnel I have ever seen. 

And here's the wonderful container that Mario has for the trip home in the back seat of his car...

So, after the wine delivery, Mario took us on a walk through his property.  The most amazing thing that I saw (and there were many amazing things to see!) were the artichokes growing in his garden.  When we were in Florence artichokes were all over the vegetable markets - they were in season and just delicious and beautiful to see in huge piles.  Have you ever seen them grow?

Aren't they they gorgeous??

You know, as I'm putting this blog post together I'm missing Panicale so much.  It was such a lovely day.  Here are some more photos just to enjoy and dream with:

Walking through the woods, Mario showed us where the wild boar forrage for acorns. 

Wild cyclamen also grow in the underbrush.

An olive grove on one side of Mario and Pam's property.  I think the olive trees closer to the bottom of the photo belong to Mario and Pam.

A view of the front of the farmhouse and the patio where we sat and enjoyed a delicous meal with wonderful people.

My son and I enjoying the wine - this was bottle 'A'!

It was hard to leave this very tranquil and lovely home. 

Mario and Pam are wonderful hosts and very lucky people. 

They love their home and property so much and it shows in every nook and cranny.

Thank you both so much for making such a wonderful memory for all of us!

My next post will be about the third new experience we had during our trip - a street stroll in Rome with Eleonora from aglio, alio e peperoncino. 

I'll be linking to Seasonal Sundays at The Tablescaper and Foodie Friday and Alphabet Thursday!!

Ciao, bella!

xxoo

Scaloppine ai Carciofi

 Veal Cutlets with Artichokes - yummy!!

Okay, we're still in La Cucina del Garga (at least in my mind) and I want to share the Secondi Piatti, or second part of the main meal that FHFB and I made with Sharon:  Scaloppine ai Carciofi, or veal cutlets with artichokes. 

Now, the really special part of this dish, and the reason I'm sure that Sharon included a recipe with artichokes, is that Easter is one of the two prime seasons for artichokes in Italy. 

Fava beans were also in season and absolutely delcious if you haven't tried them fresh - pureed or whole!

Artichokes were all over the vegetable markets in piles like this - sorry for the fuzzy quality of the photo.

Here's the recipe for Scaloppine ai Carciofi.  The hardest part of preparing this recipe was having to peel away most of the leaves surrounding each artichoke heart.  Sharon said that most people have a problem doing this because we usually eat most of the leaves in our recipes - dipped in hot melted butter of course! Despite this - and getting over the fact that 2/3 of the artichoke ended up in the garbage -  you really need to strip off all of the tough outer leaves in order to have the very tender leaves that surround the heart of the artichoke. 

Definitely scarpetta worthy!! (Thank you Eleonora, we've always practiced scarpetta here at Frog Hollow Farm but didn't know that it had a name!!! LOL)

When I came home today I found a beautiful hybiscus in full bloom on my porch.  I picked up two of these little potted plants last fall  - absolutely free from a nursery on my way home from working - they were giving away a truckload.

Isn't she the prettiest????

Artichokes growing on Cousin Mario's farm in Panicale, Umbria.

Fields of olive trees.

I hope that you are enjoying these yummy recipes from la cucina del Garga.  Our next post will include the recipe for the easiest and most delicious dessert I think I ever tasted: 

Crema de Ricotta Salsa Caramello all'Arancia e Madorle Tostate!!!!!!

Ciao, bella!!

I'll be hooking up at Foodie Friday!!

Visualizing Italy

The other day I was in the dentist's office for a 3 hour appointment.  It seems that one of my root canals (my teeth hurt just typing those two words) - well, there was a problem with the root canal and one of my teeth needed to be extracted because the problem had extended into the bone.  Lovely, right?  Anyway, between the extraction and bone graft my dentist asked me if I wanted to watch a movie or wear the very expensive Bose headphones and listen to Andrea Bocelli. 

Now, I love listening to all Italian opera, as well as to Andrea Bocelli, I mean, who doesn't?  But I've worn those headphones before and even those the audio is fabulous, every sound the dentist's tools make seem to be exaggerated 10x with the headphones - so I opted out of wearing them for this appointment. 

Instead, I decided to visualize my way through Italy, remembering the cities, towns and villages we visited this past fall.  And you know what, it really worked!  It was so interesting because one memory would lead me to the next, and the next, and so on, until my appointment was just about done. 

Since I really enjoyed my visualized trip back through Italy, I thought I'd share some of the images with you.

Lake Como, the town of Bellagio...and Venice....

Tuscany farmland and vineyards...

Florence from Michaelangelo's Hill...

The Coliseum in Rome...

Inside the Pantheon in Rome, looking up at the oculus...

FHFB and I love to travel, but we don't like being over-scheduled and tend to stay away from tours that have early morning wake-ups and lots of driving in a bus.  We tend to book a great hotel and with recommendations from friends and family, hire an experiened and affordable tour guide for a few hours - otherwise we prefer discovering things on our own. 

I usually have the restaurants already researched and reserved for dinner, (La Giostra and Garga in Florence and Pier Luigi in Rome, although I know that there are hundreds more wonderful places to have dinner!)

Our lunches are very casual and if we find a great aperitivi bar we might even end up missing dinner. 

We are planning a trip to Ireland in the spring.  My mom grew up in a small village called Kilmactranny in County Sligo, on the west coast of Ireland. 

We're hoping to see the thatched farmhouse that she grew up in and visit with some relatives that we haven't seen in many years. 

I hope you enjoyed my little travel post. 

Ciao, bella!