Traditionally in Italy Easter IS chocolate! Loads of chocolate!

As you can see in Sara’s post we even tend to go quite big with our Easter chocolate eggs!

And every year, especially if you have a child in the house, you’ll find your home filled with all different kind of Easter chocolate, in form of eggs, bunnies and even some lambs and hens!
All made with chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!

Is there a better period to remind you about all the wonderful chocolate recipes on this blog? (sometimes I’m quite impressed by all the recipes there are on this almost 10 years old blog

Few basic rules for substitution:

– if the original recipe call for dark chocolate, and you want to substitute it with milk or white, diminish the amount of sugar in the recipe.

– Remember white chocolate is more difficult to work then milk or dark.

– Chocolate chips can be substitute with chopped milk or dark or white chocolate.

Here is a selections of recipes form the archives that you can try to recycle your Easter chocolate!

I like my strawberries as they are: they are so good that I normally do not add sugar or anything else to them!

But sometimes, especially in the peak of the season, I tend to be carried away and I buy too much!

In France there are many different varieties of strawberries, all tasting differently: Charlotte, Gariguette, Mara de bois… In France they do not joke with their fraises!

One of the most iconic piece of French patisserie that you can find everywhere is the wonderful Tartelette aux fraise: when it’s well executed prepare yourself for a dream of crunchy pastry, aromatic créme pâtissiere and loads of strawberries!

The best way to enjoy strawberries, besides fresh and raw, it’s in drinks, where you can take advantage of their aroma and taste!

Here are 10 recipes for strawberries drinks:

Ingredients for French Toast

Sliced bread, a few days old

Milk

Beaten egg (begin with 1, then if it’s not enough you can beat another one)

A knob of butter

Sugar or maple syrup

1. Warm a skillet.
2. In a flat bottom dish, beat the egg. In another flat bottom dish pour some milk (not too much: just enough to deep a slice of bread).
3. Add the butter to the skillet.
4. Take a slice of bread, deep it in milk then in the beaten egg and add it to the skillet: go on until you have enough.
5. Enjoy with a sparkle of sugar or some maple syrup.

I am growing vegetables this summer.

For the third year in a row I’m attempting to grow something in my two squares of garden.

The first year went really well and we had salad, carrots, lots of courgette and courgette flowers, broccoli, tomatoes…

Last year the summer in Alsace was some kind of fierce, cold, rainy and windy, so we didn’t achieved much.

This year is looking promising and after easter we will begin the different crops.

I use the technique explained in Square foot gardening à la française: the potager en carrés. It’s handy, simple to follow, plant and maintain and it gives good results even to inexperienced like me.

With square foot gardening you do not need a lot of space or to grow a lot of the same vegetable. All you need to know are 3 basic facts:

1. You need to know your friend and their friends, were you are the only human and the rest of the friends, your or theirs, are vegetables You need to know who’s happy near who and who’s unhappy near who, so you can proceed planning all your squares.
2. You need to know how much space each crop will take: courgette are HUGE on the other hand carrots ot shallots are happy in small spaces.
3. You need to be ready to fight against the voracious snails, and for that you need a deep container, beer and sugar: they love beer and snails will drown in it. Remember before thinking “oh poor snails”: it’s them or your crops! They can eat a broccoli head overnight!

For the vegetable friendship I’ve found a nice and interesting chat that can help you. And for more interesting garden related stuff you can check out my board on Pinterest: Garden.

Companion Planting

In France they eat them with Hollandaise sauce or ham. In Alsace you can find only the white ones.

My favorites are the wild young asparagus: very thin and very tasty!

But this vegetables are very versatile and easy to cook!

Here are six recipes I’m sure going to try (or try again) this spring!

For more recipes and ideas, you can have a look at my board on asparagus on Pinterest!

6 recipes with asparagus

How do you cook asparagus? What’s your favorite recipe?

Forget about store brought tomato sauce, with all that additives and salt.

Simple, good ingredients and 30 minutes of your time: that’s all you need for an incredible tomato sauce!

And it’s not an April’s fool!

Ingredients for tomato sauce

The simplest tomatoes sauce

1 can of plum tomatoes, diced or whole (but whole are better quality)

1 table spoon of extra virgin olive oil

2 gloves of garlic

1 handful of fresh basil leaves

2 tablespoon of the best tomato paste you can find (I use the Triple concentrated from Mutti, but if you can find only the double concentrated is still ok)

2 pinch of sugar

1. Heat the oil in a deep saucepan. Add the peeled and halved garlic. Add the basil.
2. Let it fry, slowly, for 1-2 minutes: the garlic must be still white and basil leave must be a nice strong green.
3. Add the canned tomatoes, add the tomato paste and sugar, stir, partially cover.
4. Let it cook, over moderate eat (the sauce must bubble) for 20-25 minutes.
5. Taste, season if you need to, serve!

Note

You can keep the tomato sauce in the fridge, in a glass container, for 4-5 days: always reheat before use.

It’s perfect to top pasta, pizza or to add to casserole.

I’m always in search of new recipes, always.

I always find myself with some strange turnips in the fridge, or a cut of meat I’m not familiar with, or with simple lack of inspiration!

In the last years I’ve realized that even if I love so much my cooking magazines, after a while I don’t look at them anymore: the lack of a digital index, easily searchable by keywords, makes them obsolete after a short period of time. For my favorites I’ve switched to the digital edition, but when I look for inspiration my only source is the Internet.

I have 3 website I love and consult on almost a daily basis for inspiration:

1. BBC Good Food: in search of the perfect scones recipe? Or the latest take on a Shepard’s pie? Or for a simple and quick way to cook chicken breast of a fish fillet? Don’t look farther, as BBC Good Food has a wonderful archive of thousands of recipes searchable by keyword and they can also be filtered by time or course or even calories! The recipes are all tested both in the tasting kitchen or by the readers, so are 90% fool proof (there is always a 10% possibilities of failure).
2. Simply Recipes, by Elise Bauer: she’s one of the first food bloggers I’ve ever read and I know for sure, having tried many of her recipes, that they are not only very simple and well described, but fool proof! She has wonderful archives searchable by ingredient, so whenever you fancy chicken or chocolate, you’ll sure find something.
3. 
   Pinterest recipe search: try to search something on Pinterest and be aware of the box the appear in higher left part of the screen: you see? All recipes? Click it and you’ll get only recipes! And there is few customizations too. It’s not secret I’m a huge Pinterest fan, and as it is a visual pinboard it’s like browsing millions of magazines, all in one simple search!

Happy browsing!

And do not forget to be brave and confindent!

Born in 2006 on blogger, moved under my name domain in 2008 and finally home to its own domain now, in 2014!

A long way! Both for my blog and myself!

Many things have changed since 2006: 2 children, a move and now we are building our new home in Alsace, France (with a staggering new kitchen!).

The move won’t change the spirit of this blog Time has sure changed and it will be not only recipe related, but I will try to have a wider eye on this wide exciting online world!

Have fun, feel free to browse the archives and soon there will be a new world of content on this pages!

And subscribe to the feed of this blog, if you haven’t already!

This simple yet effective cheatsheet on how to cook vegetables can help you add more green (and red, yellow, purple…) to your diet.

Veggie sheet

Where to get all the minerals and vitamins we need daily? Here is an effective infographic with all you need to know to get al your supplements: forget the pills, eat the real stuff!

Minerals and vitamins

What a better way to cleans your system then a smoothy, made with super fresh ingredients, all raw? Give it a try with the endless possibilities you’ll find in this infographic.

How to make a smoothie

And if you crave for more foodie infographic don’t miss out my friend Cimny’s board on Pinterest!

One bowl chocolate cake

The first food blog born in this world was Chocolate&Zucchini, by Clotilde Dusoulier: she blogs in English since september 2003, more then 10 years ago. In this last 10 years many things have changed, allowing more and more people to approach simpler ways to blog on the internet.

And since Adam, one of the first USA food blogger, wrote a post about how to start a foodblog in 2005, many many thing have changed.

And even since the existence of this blog, since January 2006 (first on Blogger, now on a self hosted WordPress) the food blogging world has exploded.

Here are 10 resources where you can find many tips on how to start a food blog, how to make it work and how to enjoy one of the best thing that can happen to you: blog!

1. How to start a Food Blog, by From away: all the things you need to know before to start, from the blogging platform to ADV
2. A 10 point strategy from one of the most successful food blogger on the planet, David Lebovitz, live from Paris.
3. The 10 photography lessons by Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman, aka cook book author and Food Network sensation
4. Food blogging 101 and all about the holy trinity of food blogging: gorgeous food photography, wonderful writing and rock solid recipes
5. It’s form 2007 but I wouldn’t miss the Do and don’ts of food blogging by Nicky at Delicious Days
6. Linsday and Bjork of Pinch of Yum shares a lot of resources on food blogging that can get you started
7. Adam of Amateur Gourmet has a list of 10 post type that will drive traffic to your blog
8. 100 links and 8 tips on how to blog about food by The Hungry Australian
9. An entire blog dedicated on tips for food blogger by Jo of Jocooks.com
10. A food blog about food blogging: Pro food blogger

Bonus

A very comprehensive guide with more then 150 resources!