Spawn salad

This recipe was the hit of our New Year's Eve menu. I added spawn salad to my recipes list just recently, inspired by my mother in law. 

It's a cheap (as long as you use cheap spawn) and easy-to-be-done recipe.

And the result in delicious:  



Ingredients:

You prepare the semolina (boil semolina + water for about 15 minutes, until you obtain a paste with the consistence of cream.)

Cool down the boiled semolina (it's consistence will become harder when cold).

Add spawn and mix:

Add in few steps the oil, while mixing.

Then add vinegar.

Mix again.

Add chopped onion and mix one more time:

(Add some salt only if needed. Take care about salt - spawn comes already salted!)

The salad is good served with olives.

Pofta buna!

(Bon appetit!)

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Sweet family moments

* as told before, Ilaria loves speaking on the phone. She takes as phone anything she finds around: puppet, pair of socks wrapped as a ball, slipper, her hand,...
After about 10 days break from this custom (she seemed to forget there were phones on this world), on Friday evening, while spending our time in kitchen, Adrian told me "did you observe Ilaria is not so in love with phones anymore?". The next second Ilaria was saying "aaaaaaAAAAAaaaAAaaaaAAAAAAAA" with the boiled egg she was having in her hand in that moment, glued to her right ear.
It was the very 1st moment when we realized she truly understands what we are talking about, not only what we are doing.

* on Sunday we tried (again) to make Ilaria say "mama" and "tata", by repeating her: "say mama / tata". Until Sunday, in our best cases, we were obtaining "mamamamamamama..." or "tatatatatatatatatatata...". This time we were happy to hear few times the simple and beautiful "tata". Regarding "mama", all we got were negative head-shakes, accompanied by laugh.
Mommy has to wait a little bit more :-)

* 

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Don't cry for an onion!

In case you are interested in a solution for the tears while cutting onions, next time when you have to cut one, remember and try this: keeping your mouth full of water while cutting onions, turns the process into a tears-free one.

"Ha ha ha ha! It's magic!" ;-)

Waiting for your feed-back after testing. And/Or for your solutions.

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Wish lists (and mine for 2011)

I recently had the opportunity to meet a young oncologist woman. In our discussion she quoted something from "The bucket list". I remembered I've heard about that movie being very good, rewarded with few Oscar prizes, but I wasn't interested in it till meeting that beautiful girl.

After our meeting, I tried to watch it and after watching few dramatic scenes I realized it wasn't made for me. You have to be strong to watch it entirely.

But a good thing came from the above story. I started to think about wish lists in life and I realized I heard so much about this subject especially when a very ill person was involved. There is a saying which tells "Live every day as if it were your last one". But how many of us are so motivated to apply the wise saying in our lives? Many times we are too tired, too poor, too young, too busy, too old, too shy,... to follow our dreams. When everything is fine we think it's still time enough in store for us and there's a chance to start tomorrow "fighting" for our dreams.

There is another cliche in our lives - somebody asks somebody else: "what would you do if you would have only 24 hours or 1 week or 2 months or 1 year left?". I was also asked and, guess what: I didn't know the answer because I never truly thought about it.

Why do we "wait" something bad to happen and only then we make lists and we start to rush for reaching our goals? Probably we were designed to act this way!?

I was curious to find out which was the "The bucket list" 's list. It sounds like this:

- skydiving
- climb the Pyramids

- drive a Shelby Mustang
- fly over the North Pole
- eat dinner at Chevre d'Or in France
- visit and praise the beauty and history of Taj Mahal, India
- ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China and
- attend a lion safari in Africa

Beautiful! But, oh, man, their goals are pretty expensive for a healthy person!

Anyway, I was so moved by the whole story, that I said: "something must be done".

And I decided for a little list for 2011. Here it is:

* see the Romanian actor Victor Rebengiuc in a live theater show (preferable in "Death of a salesman")

* cook weekly 1 new recipe from my no.1 cooking book

( in the beginning this goal had this form :"cook more often", but Adrian reminded me that every goal has to be measurable and then I changed it for "cook weekly 1 new recipe"; where was my mind when I did this mistake? ;-) )

* start making hand-stamped metal jewelry ( Ramona S., please be patient a little bit more; you are on top of my clients list ;-) ). More on that subject in a future post.

Did you made any list? I'd love to hear about it!

Stay healthy and make yearly lists for the next 100 years!

Kisses!

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Natural beauties

When on Tuesday morning my father exclaimed: "Look, a deer!", I was sure he was saying that in order to distract Ilaria from a breakable object she would have handled. Looking out the window, I have seen the nice view:

It passed centuries (to be more exact, about 10 years) since I've seen last time such beauties from my parents' flat's window. And when we were kids it was something usual that my mother was waking us up during winter at about 6 o'clock in the morning to watch the groups of 5-7 deers which were coming out the woods to drink water or to eat.

This time it was around 10 o'clock and the group had only 2 members. They were so beautiful and so peaceful! Some cars and people were passing by them at about 20 meters distance and they were not afraid at all.

It was a surprise prepared by nature, special for us, starting with years ago. Thanks, nature, for the beautiful show!

So long, dear deer!

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Traditions in 1st day of the year

Sliding, in the morning:

 

  

Watching New Year concert of the Vienna philharmonic, at noon:

I love:

- wonderful flower arrangements, made in Sanremo

- it make me dream that Ilaria may become one day a Viennese ballerina

- they give for everyone the possibility to participate at next year's concert, by subscribing yourself to the drawing: http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/2011_drawing.html

Happy New Year 2011!

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Christmas memories

Christmas preparation started last year on 23rd of December, at Zărneşti, with keeping the beautiful tradition of making bread and cake in the wood fired brick oven. At this action I had the paparazzi role. Fănel (Adrian's brother) fired the oven one day before and Adrian fired it again on that day. They are always very enthusiastic doing this, as the final result depends 90% on their ability in making the fire, being very much influenced by the wood used for fire and by the temperature outside.



Then, on Christmas Eve, while Ilaria was sleeping, Adrian decorated the tree.

Fully decorated it resisted only for 10 minutes after Ilaria woke up, as she confused it with a fruit tree with ripe fruits on it. Then we were forced to move all the decorations in the above-Ilaria's-height part of the tree:



When Santa Claus came, Ilaria was the only one fully prepared to welcome him. Her lovely parents were surprised by the moment wearing odd pyjamas (for sure our priorities were strongly turned upside down since we have Ilaria..)

Daddy received the official proof that he is our local hero ;-)

Ilaria received a nice game, very appreciated... especially by her parents ;-)

We are so grateful for those wonderful moments spent into our little family!

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