THE FRIDAY NIGHT RECIPE: BISCOTTI AL LIMONE

Hello folks!Happy Fiesta Friday to you all!This Friday i thought to bring some Lemon Cookies, was I wrong? I totally love lemon taste, and in the summer I often use it for cookies and cakes: I thing it has a refreshing taste. I found the recipe in Marisa’s blog: her recipe are just fabulous. Here the recipe:

INGREDIENTS: for 25/30 cookies

– 120 gr granulated sugar
– 120 gr soft butter
– 1 egg
– 1 lemon
– 250 gr flour 00
– 1 teaspoon full of baking powder for desserts
– powdered sugar (as needed)

PREPARATION:

In a bowl work with a mixer – or with whisks – the soft butter with the sugar, till you’ll obtain a creamy mixture. After that, sift the flour together with the teaspoon of baking powder for desserts.

Continue to work the mixture with the mixer; in the meanwhile, add the whole egg, the juice of half lemon, the grated peel of a whole lemon, and finally the sifted flour with the baking powder. The final mix obtained will be soft: let it rest in the fridge wrapped in clingfilm for 1 hour.

When the hour has gone, make small ball with the mixture, and put them first in the granulated sugar, and then in the powdered sugar. Set the small balls in a baking tray covered in wax paper. Cook them in the preheated oven at  180°C for 10/15 minutes.

Check often while cooking, the cookies must be taken out when you see that they have “cracks” on the surface. At this moment the lemon cookies will be really soft. You have to let them cool down for a bit before serving.

Buon Appetito!Cris

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THE FRIDAY NIGHT RECIPE: PACCHERI GAMBERONI&ZUCCHINE

Hello!Am I in time for FiestaFriday also this week?!Unbelivable!This Friday I cooked a simple pasta dish – classic Italian style –  with prawns and courgette. I used a big type of pasta named “pacchero”, they’re like maccheroni but bigger, and they’re made by durum wheat flour.

INGREDIENTS: (4 persons)
– 350 gr paccheri
– 200 gr shrimps (to clean)
– 1 zucchino
– salt&pepper
– extra-virgin olive oil
– chopped parsley
– tomato passata (1 spoon)

PREPARATION:

We start first from cleaning the shrimps: separate the heads from the bodies, and remove the shells. In a frypan, warm up two spoon of extra-virgine olive oil with red onion and a butter curl. Let the onion lightly fry and the butter liquefy. After that, you could add the zucchini previously chopped, to pieces or slices. Flavour them with salt, pepper and add the chopped parsley, and the spoon of tomato passata.

At this point you can add the shrimps heads, and let all the ingredients cook for a while on low fire, then switch off the stove. In the meanwhile, put another pot with salted water on the stove, and wait till the water will join the boiling point to add the paccheri.

The coooking time for paccheri is about 12-13 minutes. When the pasta is “al dente” (not too hard, not too soft) you can drain the pasta. Transfer the pasta in the frypan together with the courgette and the shrimps and cook them together for 2-3 minutes.

Buon Appetito!Cris

THE FRIDAY NIGHT RECIPE: LEMON CAKE

Hello! I’m glad this Friday to be able finally to participate again to FiestaFriday. Lately, I tried some new dishes, but I give up to post them on the blog because of the lack of time to write. Today I would like to show you a simple classic Lemon Cake, ideal for breakfast or a tea break.

INGREDIENTS:

– 120 gr flour 00
– 250 gr butter
– 250 gr sugar
– 4 eggs
– 8-10 gr yeast
– 2 small lemon
– 120 gr maizena (it could be replaced with the same quantity of potato flour)

PREPARATION:

To start preparing the cake cut the butter in cubes and let it became soft at room temperature, then put it in a bowl and add half of the sugar quantity previewed for this recipe. Start mixing (with the mixer or with the whisks) till you’ll obtain a soft and spumy mixture, then add the egg yolks (one by one). When the eggs will be fully blended, add the lemon peel.

At this point you add the flour, the maizena and the yeast, previously sifted all together. Mix well all the ingredients then transfer the mixture in a clean big bowl. Use another time the mixer (or the whisks) to beat until stiff the albumen and the remaining quantity of sugar.

When you have approximately finish to beat the egg whites, add slowly the lemon juice, then continue till you’ll obtain a rich and dense mixture. Add at last delicately the edd yolks you previously prepared, mixing from bottom to the top, not to disassemble the albumen. Mix until all the ingredients all fully combined.
Transfer the mixture in a round baking tray – diameter 22-24 cm – covered in wax paper, and put the cake in the preheated oven for 1 hour time at 180°C. When the cake it’s ready, let it cool down and then sprinkle powdered sugar on the top.

Advice: If you notice that, while cooking, the cake became darker on the top, after 40 minutes open the oven and cover the cake with an aluminiun foil, then continue the cooking for the time suggested.

Buon Appetito!

BELLEZZE D’ITALIA: UMBRIA

Hello!How are you? We’re just back from a small tour in Umbria, we spent four days driving and walking in lovely towns and small villages. We were settled in Perugia, the capital city of the region of Umbria -in central Italy-, crossed by the river Tiber. The city is also the capital of the province of Perugia.

It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area.The history of Perugia goes back to the Etruscan period. The city is also known as one of the earliest university town. There are annual festivals and events: the Eurochocolate Festival (October), the Umbria Jazz Festival (July). Perugia is a well-known cultural and artistic centre of Italy. The famous painter Pietro Vannucci, nicknamed Perugino, was a native of Città della Pieve, near Perugia.He was the teacher of Raphael.The city symbol is the griffin, which can be seen in the form of plaques and statues on buildings around the city.

Perugia (and Umbria in generally) has a kind and peacefull atmosphere all over: it still maintains the appearence of a medieval fortified small town. The heart of the city is Corso Vannucci, the main shopping street that ends with IV November Square, where you could admire the Cathedral of San Lorenzo and The Mayor Fountain. Just in front of the church, you can see the National Gallery of Umbria, where are displayed many artworks of the most famous italian artist, like Piero della Francesca, Pinturicchio and Perugino.

I love getting lost in the narrow silent alleys: in Perugia there’s plenty of tiny streets where you’re just carried back in time, and you can appreciate the bliss of everlasting things. In any case, you’ll be quickly brought back to present, by finding any sort of cute shops and cafès: if you’re glutton like me, your attention sure will be drawn to the many chocolate shops in the citycenter. (also food is art, right? ahah)

Finally, Perugia in the night is a quite lively place: it’s an academic town, so the foreign students meet up first in the cafès of the citycenter: in the week-end, from 5.00 p.m., winebars and pubs fill up with young people till late, before move to disco.

to be continued..

NEW AWARD!

Hello! Today I’ve to thank Chiara for the nomination for the Liebster Award, i’m really honoured. Recently, I was busy with many other things and I’ve left aside the blog: I published things “sporadically”, and always in such a hurry, so I was surprised seing even so a new blog award: Thanks!

The rules are simple, as always, if you wish to take part: thank the person who nominated you, paste the image of the award in the post, answer to 10 questions, and tag other 7 -more or less- bloggers. If you wish, you could add 10 questions on your own for blogs you choose to nominate. (not my case!)

And now, let’s start with the answers:

1) What is your blog about? My blog is about interior design, cooking, travels: my biggest passions!

2) Why you opened a blog? ‘Cause I like writing about my experiences, sharing them with others, read about other bloggers’ opinions.

3) How much do you dedicate to the blog? Usually, at least once a week.

4) How long is it since you opened it? I started the blog at the end of August 2013.

5) If you had to open another blog, what the topic would be? Probably I would like to separate the topics of The Blog Around The Corner: one for travels, one for cooking, one for design: too much work!

6) How many blogs you follow with similar topics? A lot of blogs. So many that I don’t have the time to read them all every week. I think about … 400!

7) What’s your favourite colour? Red.

8) What do you do in your life? I’m an interior designer.

9) How old are you? I’m 31.

10) Do you write a blog for work or in free time? In my free time.

Finally, these are my nominees (good luck!): feel free to accept or not/to make a post/or not. This is just to show you my appreciation for your blogs.

Baby you can drive my car
Ely’s Kitchen
My Kitchen Moments
Oltre la pagina
CraftPatisserie
Accanto al camino
Arl’s World