Italian cooking site with illustrated instructions

I was not well for a while but I will try and contribute to my blogs a little more from now on. I guess I must be feeling better because I agreed to have a dinner party at our house today. And it turned out really well, too! To tell the truth, I did start preparations two days ago, making sure to get everything done. I actually decided that I like this type of a schedule because it allowed me to prepare everything ahead of time, at a relatively leisurely pace.

I prepared a European style dinner and in the process of looking for ideas I found another good site with step-by-step illustrated instructions. It is the site of this lady in the picture, Anna Maria Volpi, born in Italy, now living in California. Her site, Anna Maria’s Open Kitchen is chock full of great Italian recipes (and I don't mean spaghetti and meatballs) with lots of guidance to help you get great results.

Roley

7 eggs
3/4 cup (170 grams) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup (70 grams) finely ground regular breadcrumbs or graham crumbs
1 cup (200 grams) ground walnuts
1 tablespoon rum

1 box butterscotch pudding (the size that requires 2 cups of milk)
2 egg yolks
1 cup (250 grams) margarine or butter
3/4 cup (150 grams) icing sugar

1 box ladyfingers (dry ones, the kind they use for Tiramisu)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee
1 tablespoon rum
1 box (250 ml) whipping cream
sour cherry jam

Beat egg yolks with sugar until frothy and lemon coloured. Beat in vanilla and baking powder. Fold in the breadcrumbs, walnuts, the beaten whites of the 7 eggs, and 1 tablespoon of rum.

Spread it in a baking pan and bake it for about 20-25 minutes, or until it feels springy to the touch.

Prepare the butterscotch pudding as per the instructions on the box. Beat in the 2 egg yolks while it is still hot and let it cool. Then beat the margarine (butter) with the icing sugar until fluffy and slowly beat in the cold pudding. Spread half of it over the baked cake bottom, then mix together the warm milk, coffee and rum, dip the ladyfingers into it and put rows over the cream, spacing the rows about one inch apart. Spread the second half of the cream on top.

Now whip the cream, sweeten it to taste with some icing sugar, and spread it on top of the cake. Then beat a little sour cherry jam, adding a little water if necessary to get it to drizzling consistency. Drizzle some of it over the cake in a decorative fashion. Let it sit for a while before cutting it into squares or rectangular slices.

Bus journey blogging and more...

I discovered this blog, Route79: Reflections on a bus journey home, while I was looking for some recipe or another. The blogger (Jag) is a Londoner who travels to and from work (Genie/O2 Mobile Internet Service) every day on the (you guessed it) Route79 bus. It contains his daily musings and impressions, with lots of pictures that exhibit great artistic sense. He has several other websites, some of them very technical, like the one on Mobile Streaming Videos. But, most importantly, he also has a great recipe collection, complete with photo instructions to aid you with the preparation process. I should not forget to mention that the recipes are all of a good East Indian home cooking type, asking for lots of lovely spices.