Chicken & Chorizo Soup

We spent a long day yesterday nursing hangovers and sore feet after Saturday's party. After losing my own drinking game at pre-lash and having to drink 2 shots of rum from our coffee making contraption, getting us totally lost in Venice for over an hour and having to be rescued by the host of the party from a location far away from pretty much anything - we had already had a pretty eventful evening before we even made it to the party! The tiramisu made it though and wasn't totally destroyed by our slightly drunken stumbling through the back streets of Venice. I'm pretty sure it was popular - it had totally disappeared within 5 minutes of arriving and I was lucky to get a taste.It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated and if I make it again I'll try and do a blog friendly recipe. I'd really like to thank the hosts of the party for inviting us, we had a great time and it was definitely worth the hour and a half walk home at 1 in the morning.

So on Sunday, after a long lie in and my version of a full English (the full Italian) for lunch, I only wanted to make something easy for dinner. This soup is kind of like a stew or a minestrone without the pasta. It is very tasty and warming and you don't need a lot of it to fill you up. I served it with a crusty bread roll each.

Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 Red Pepper (Diced)
1 Courgette (Diced)
1 Onion (Diced)
150g Spicy Chorizo (Roughly Chopped)
1 or 2 Chicken Breasts (Roughly Chopped)
750ml Passata
Oregano
3 Cloves Garlic (Finely Chopped)
4 Crusty Bread Rolls
Salt, Pepper & Olive Oil

Fry onions, garlic and chorizo in a little olive oil for 5-10 minutes until the chorizo starts to brown. Add the chicken pieces and cook through before adding the oregano and the passata. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes on a low heat. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the chopped pepper and courgettes and leave for a further 5 minutes. Serve into bowls with the bread on the side.

Its so easy and saves a lot of washing up because its a one pot meal. Sorry, no pictures today (I totally forgot because I was so sleepy...) If you wanted to bulk this meal out a bit, you could add a few handfuls of those really cute little pasta things in with the passata (you might want another 250ml of passata for this) and leave to cook until the pasta has cooked before adding the veg. I don't cook the veg for too long as I prefer them to stay crunchy for a bit of texture.

Remember - Drink Responsibly ;)

Hard Rock Cafe & Tiramisu

We had a long day yesterday, most of it spent standing on boats for well over two hours, so once we got back to Venice we decided we were well and truly in need of a cocktail. In Venice there are plenty of bars that do cocktails but we thought we would head to Hard Rock Cafe as their cocktails are - hands down - the best in existence. Not great for students purses but we've been budgeting our food well so why not! Once we arrived and took our place at the bar, the smell of deep fried american food tempted us upstairs to the small restaurant area and before we knew it we had ordered dinner...

I know its ridiculous to go to Venice and to eat at Hard Rock but we are here for 11 weeks and anything that comes with barbecue sauce really floats my boat - so don't judge us. The food was good and for the portion sizes it wasn't crazy prices either and we had a great evening over indulging and persuading each other to order another round of cocktails (like I needed any persuasion). Also, I'm willing to forgive them forgetting our cutlery because their Pina Coladas are the best I have ever tasted. After we had finished our dinners we started our trek back to the flat, feeling a little tipsy and discussing the best way to try and board Pamela V (a large, posh, yacht that is moored near our street) All in all, a great way to end a busy day. 

This evening we have been invited to a party at a friends apartment on the other side of the Rialto. I have made it my rule to never go to a party empty handed, mainly because I get hungry and need a snack (I have been known to carry a kitkat in my clutch bag on nights out) so I made a Tiramisu earlier to take along. I can't tell you the recipe, not because its a secret family recipe or anything but because I don't have any way of measuring ingredients here so I had to guess. I've made it before, so I know what to put in it and I have tasted the components individually and it seems OK if not a little too much rum (perfect for a student party then?!) so I will have to wait and see if its good or not. I also don't have an electric whisk, so I'm hoping the cream has been whisked properly too... Fingers crossed. 

P.s. A good tiramisu recipe is Delia Smith's - its my mum's go to dinner party dessert (see, no secret family recipe). To find it, click here.

Pasta Alla Puttanesca

Today, after our seminar, Holly and I had to go and look at a Campo (or square) for some homework - essentially using this as an excuse to go sit in a bar we trekked for 30 minutes across the Rialto to find this place. It took us longer than expected as a quick detour to find H&M (I needed some shoes as my only comfortable ones are sandals and its cooling down fast here in Venice) resulted in us ending up past the Rialto and not finding H&M at all. So by the time we had visited the campo and caught the vaporetto back home, we were hungry and I could only be bothered to make something easy.

Pasta Alla Puttanesca (or Whore's Pasta?!) is a tomato based pasta dish flavoured with a little chilli, anchovies and olives. For those of you who just went 'ew anchovies' don't be put off - I don't like them either, they are slimy and smell weird but they do wonders with a pasta sauce.

Serves 6 (or 4 hungry students)

Ingredients:
1 Small Onion (Finely chopped)
3 Cloves Garlic (Finely chopped)
3 Little Red Chillies (Remove seed and chop finely - DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES)
5 Small Anchovies (From a jar is fine - chop them finely)
1 Small Jar Black Olives (Pitted is best)
1 Large Jar Passata
Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil
Oregano
1 Packet Pasta Shapes or Spaghetti

Put a pan of water on to boil with a little salt.
Fry the onions, garlic and chilli in a little olive oil to soften before adding the passata, add the olives and anchovies and leave to simmer for 5-10 minutes on a low heat. Cook the pasta until Al Dente, drain and add to the sauce.

I served this with sliced ciabatta and a salad with a balsamic dressing. You can't taste any anchovies (if it had tasted fishy, my mum would be in big trouble as this recipe was her idea). I intended this dish to serve the four of us with left overs for tomorrow lunch, but we ate it all... a whole packet of pasta and over half a ciabatta. Safe to say, our pasta to salad ratio was not acceptable.

 

To Mummy Tatlow - I promise not to fatten Emily up with too much pasta in future!

Stuffed Peppers

I had a day off today but even though it was a lovely day outside I had lots to do and didn't even make it out for an ice cream! I wanted to make a quick dinner so we could watch the Great British Bake Off afterwards, so I made stuffed peppers. The peppers we got from the market were huge, so we only really needed one each - if I was having this at home I would probably need two to fill me up.

Ingredients:
4 Large Peppers (I chose red ones)
4 Large Handfuls of Risotto Rice
Jug Of Boiling Water
1 Vegetable Stock Cube
250g Cherry Tomatoes (Chopped into small pieces)
1 Courgette (Cubed)
1 Onion (Finely sliced)
2 Garlic Cloves (Finely Chopped)
Salt, Pepper & Olive Oil

Heat the oven to 250C.

Fry the onions and garlic in a little olive oil and once softened add the rice and the stock cube. Add the boiling water a little at a time until rice has absorbed it. You don't want to add enough water to cook the rice fully as it is cooked further when baked inside the peppers. Once the rice has absorbed enough water to be soft but still Al Dente, add the chopped tomatoes, courgette and salt and pepper. Leave this to simmer on a low heat while you prep the peppers.

Slice the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds from inside, keep the tops to serve as lids later. Fill the peppers with the rice and place on a baking tray with the tops and bake in the oven for 10-15 or until they start to brown on top - don't let the peppers get too mushy. Serve with freshly sliced bread - we had a baguette - with some butter.

After our Nutella overload yesterday, we stuck to fresh fruit for pudding today - but I did notice a new pack of biscuits in the cupboard earlier which will probably make an appearance at some point this evening.

Nutella hidden on top of the fridge, its reachable but only by chair and its been decided that climbing on a chair to get to the Nutella is too embarrassing if you get caught, so its safe for now.

Fishy Fishy

Today we had an early start doing a library tour - what fun - so on our way home we ventured to the fish market to get some for tonight's dinner. I love fish and I worked in a fish restaurant for 4 years so I'm no stranger to big ugly fish complete with eyes, heads, bones, you name it. I'm terrified of crabs, because one of the chefs once placed a large snow crab on my shoulder when I had my back turned, but fish are fine and I've seen fish a lot uglier than the ones I bought today. The girls on the other hand, remained a safe distance from the fish counter and were not overly keen when I wiggled the fish in their faces at home.



The man at the counter asked if I wanted him to de-scale the fish, which in hindsight would have been a good idea, as although I successfully managed to remove all the scales I did not manage to keep them contained in the sink. While at the fish counter, I noticed that they had fish like mackerel and gurnard - but they have a lot more bones and are harder to fillet, so I chose the Bronzino fish because it looked most like a fish I was familiar with - a bream. When I got back, I used the most important website for a history student (Wikipedia) to find out what it actually was and it turns out that it is a Mediterranean sea bass!


For dinner tonight I think I'm going to bake them whole and then fillet them before presenting them to the girls, as they had made it clear that they don't want to see a head or any eyes. I like filleting stuff though, we used to have to do it in front of guests at the restaurant and I like to show off!!

I stuffed the bass with slices of lemon and baked for 20-30 minutes on 180C and after removing the unappetising parts of the fish, I served the fillets with sliced potatoes and green beans which I sautéed until the potatoes were cooked (par boil the potatoes for five minutes or so first). Finally I added the juice of 1 lemon to a large cube of melted butter and served on top of the fish.

After dinner we decided we needed a pudding and as we have been healthy by eating lot of fresh fruit we thought we needed a treat. Emily ran to the shop to grab some eggs and a kilo (yes...a kilo) of Nutella and I whisked up some pancakes, you can't go wrong with Nutella but Emily had honey on hers and sugar and lemon is also yummy. I've had to hide the Nutella from the girls in a place only I can reach as there was talk of eating it from the jar with a spoon...

Linguine with Chanterelles

It was my mum's last night with us yesterday, so as a special treat I made a dinner featuring one of her favourite things - chanterelle mushrooms. I sent her down to the market to get the ingredients and she came back with enough mushrooms to feed a small army - or maybe a number of sailors from the naval academy down the road that we keep spotting (we are hoping to befriend a few of them). These mushrooms, according to mum, are quite difficult to find in England, but are currently in season and there are stacks of them on most fruit and veg stands that I have seen in Venice. I was also lucky enough to sample them on holiday in Austria a few weeks back and they are a good addition to lots of dishes and compliment all sorts of flavours. Also worth trying if you don't usually go for normal button mushrooms, as they do have a different taste and texture. I think this pasta dish went down well with the girls, even Holly who had mushrooms on her list of dislikes but was willing to suffer through a mushroom based meal just to keep mum happy.

This recipe serves 6 and the ingredients area as follows:
300g Chanterelle Mushrooms (slice any larger ones in half but I left most whole)
1 Packet Linguine/Spaghetti
1 Small bunch Parsley (finely chopped)
200g Bacon Lardons
1/2 Bottle Dry White Wine
150ml Single Cream
1 Large White Onion (chopped)
2 Cloves of Garlic (finely chopped or crushed - we don't have a garlic press unfortunately)
Salt & Pepper to taste
Olive Oil

To start, wash all the mushrooms and chop any large ones in half. Put a pan of water on the hob with a pinch of salt and leave to boil. Add a glug of olive oil to a frying pan and add the chopped onion and garlic and cook until soft, add the lardons and fry on a medium heat until starting to brown.

Once the water is boiling add in the packet of linguine and make sure it is all underwater before leaving to cook for about 10-15 minutes until it is soft but still has a bit of bite to it (Al Dente).

Next add in the white wine and simmer until half the liquid had been reduced, add half the chopped parsley and salt and pepper to taste (a pinch of each should do). Place all the mushrooms in, don't be alarmed if it seems like loads as they do shrink down. Once the mushrooms have shrunk down a little, stir in the cream and leave to simmer for a few minutes. Drain the pasta once ready and add to the frying pan, stir in the mushrooms and bacon and let the pasta soak in some of the sauce. After a few minutes, top the pan with the remaining parsley and serve.

We had a bowl of parmesan on the side and a salad with some cherry tomatoes as well, but if you prefer veg to salad you could add some chopped courgette or asparagus to the frying pan before adding the wine.

We visited the Accademia Gallery yesterday as well, they have a wonderful exhibition on at the moment that features a lot of Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings and sketches, including the Vitruvian man. They have all of the explanations in English and Italian. The gallery is quite small but full of excellent paintings, some by the Masters of  Renaissance art like Titian or Bellini.

Perhaps more importantly than the gallery, we also found a great gelateria near the gallery that had blood orange (arancia rossa) sorbet and coconut ice cream - my favourite - and sat on some steps over looking the Redentore to enjoy it!

Will keep you updated on the sailors.. ;)

Roasted Vegetable & Chorizo Tart

At the start of the week I sat down with the girls and went through everyone's likes and dislikes...(ice cream - yes, cauliflower - definitely not) to make sure that my weekly 'menu' would go down well with everyone, I also wanted to make good use of the market stalls while some of my favourite fruit and veg is still in season. I decided to make a simple roasted veg tart with a little chorizo for our first dinner at home, as I haven't quite braved the fish market yet and the butchers shop has so many salamis I don't even know where to start.

For this recipe you will need:

1 Medium Pumpkin or Squash (peeled and roughly chopped)
1 Courgette (sliced and halved)
1 Red Pepper (remove stalk & seeds and roughly chop)
2 Onions (white or red)
4 Cloves of Garlic (crushed with the back of a knife)
200g Chorizo (sliced and quartered)

1 Ready rolled Puff Pastry (you won't catch me on great British bake off I prefer to cheat)

Small bag of Rocket Salad
Handful of Cherry Tomatoes (halved)
Handful of shaved Parmesan
Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar to taste

I roast the vegetables, chorizo and garlic with a glug of olive oil, pinch of salt and pepper for about 20-30 minutes on 200C or until the pumpkin or squash is softening. Then simply transfer the veg onto the rolled out pastry and bake on a tray for a further 20 minutes on 150C until the pastry around the edges are golden brown. You want to roast the veg first to reduce the water content especially in the courgettes as they will make the pastry soggy in the middle if you don't. God forbid your tart should end up with a soggy bottom!

I dress my rocket salad and cherry tomatoes with a 2 parts olive oil to one part balsamic with a pinch or salt and pepper to taste and then serve on top of the tart with the parmesan sprinkled over the top. It can easily be made into a vegetarian meal by taking away the chorizo or for a slightly cheaper alternative you can fry off some bacon lardons and use them instead.

In other news, we visited St. Marks Basilica and the Campanile this morning, we got there early to avoid the queues and managed to not be persuaded to stop for a coffee by the well dressed waiters in  St. Marks square. We got up the tower while it was sunny and the view was amazing - it is 8 euros, but you have to do it once. We also timed our visit to the Basilica well as we got to see the mosaics that decorate the walls lit up which only happens between 11:30am-12:30pm and the lights really add an extra dimension to the gold tiles. The museum up on the terrace is also well worth a visit, with lots of interesting tapestries to look at.

Do avoid being tempted into eating in the St. Marks area, the waiters are keen salesmen and will try any tactic to persuade you to choose their place. While walking past one restaurant earlier, a waiter told me he had pizza, pasta and fish - looked me up and down and said "or big fish"...because I clearly look like a girl with a large appetite!

                                                  The 4 of us at the top of the Campanile