My weekend

Hello there!!
After a week of celebrating {*smile} , I am back... with a bit of hangover from being center of attention .
So...after all of the excitement I just wanted a calm weekend, and what is better then visiting one of my favourite places.

Hope you had a nice one too!!!

Welcome to the circus

There is something special about our partnership with De Alma e Coração.
Besides the happiness and good mood that is always present , Rita always come to me with a challenge. And believe me, I do love challenges.

Latest challenge was a dessert table for a special wedding.. a different one, a 'circus wedding' .
I knew this included a lot of planing and work but I was so crazily happy about it.
Here you can see some of the photos with cookies I made for kids and if you are curious (and I am sure you are), you can see more HERE.
Enjoy!!!

{Party:  De Alma e Coração}
{Photos: Rodrigo Cardoso - De Alma e Coração}

In the mood to celebrate

I am entering the last week of my thirties and I am in the mood to celebrate.

I want to celebrate every single success or failure, every happy and sad moment, with all of you who cross my path.
I want to celebrate with M. and kids, want to celebrate with friends, with the ones that have their share in my daily life and I want to celebrate with you, who are always here, supporting me in my life change.

So... there is no celebration without a good chocolate cake. But, since I can't have that, I came up with this crazy good beetroot and carob cake.
Beetroot gives it moist and carob gives it a chocolaty taste, and there is a lot of lemon whose acidity gives that special touch.

My celebration cake!!

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Estou a entrar na última semana de meus trintas e estou com vontade de comemorar.

Quero comemorar cada sucesso ou fracasso, cada momento feliz ou triste, com todos os que cruzam o meu caminho.
Quero comemorar com o M. e as crianças, quero comemorar com os amigos, com os que têm a sua parte no meu dia-a-dia e quero comemorar com vocês, que estão sempre aqui, a apoiar-me na minha mudança de vida.

Então... não há celebração sem um bom bolo de chocolate. Mas, como não posso ter isso, criei este bolo incrivelmente bom de beterraba e alfarroba.
A beterraba dá-lhe humidade e a alfarroba dá-lhe um sabor achocolatado, e há bastante limão cuja acidez dá aquele toque especial.

O meu bolo de celebração!

Carob and Beetroot Anniversary Cake

175g spelt flour
1ts baking powder
75g carob flour
250g sugar
250g cooked beetroot
3 eggs
200ml olive oil
1ts vanilla extract
zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat your oven to 180ºC. Mix the dry ingredients in a big recipient, spelt flour, baking powder, carob flour and sugar.
Place the beetroot, olive oil, vanilla extract, lemon zest and juice and eggs in a food processor and process until creamy.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the beetroot mix and mix well.
Place in a prepared tin and bake for 50-60 min.

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Bolo de Aniversário de Alfarroba e Beterraba
175g de farinha de espelta
1 colher de chá de fermento em pó
75g de farinha de alfarroba
250g de açúcar
250g de beterraba cozida
3 ovos
200ml de azeite
1 colher de chá de extracto de baunilha
raspa e sumo de 1 limão

Pré-aqueça o forno a 180ºC. Misture os ingredientes secos num recipiente grande, farinha de espelta, fermento em pó, farinha de alfarroba e açúcar.
Coloque a beterraba, azeite, extrato de baunilha, raspas e sumo de limão e os ovos num processador de alimentos e misture até ficar cremoso.
Lentamente, adicione os ingredientes secos à mistura de beterraba e misture bem.
Coloque numa forma preparada e leve ao forno durante 50-60 minutos.

Baked eggs

You would be surprised if I say I spent more then 5 minutes trying to decide how to name this post.
It is post about a dish my mum use to make for me.

My mum worked all her life as a teacher, first as a village teacher , at a time when teachers were really respected and kids would get up early in the morning and walk for few km , on the rain snow or sun to come to the school.
A lot of generation passed through 'her hands' and I find it amazing how these kids, now adults with there own families, stop her on the street sometimes and say: 'Do you remember me.. I was in your class in the third row', and she does remember.
Even she educated so many kids, she always had time for us. She was and still is tough mum, with a lot of authority, but she dedicated all her life to us...me and my sister.

There is something I inherited from her...we both show our love through food. I so much enjoy to make favourite food for my family and friends. And she does that always. So..this dish is one of the dishes my mum made to me, I love it so much.

Now I changed it a bit, add some ingredients I didn't like as a kid and I hope you will like it also.

Baked Eggs

1/2 pepper, chopped
handful cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1tbs olive oil
100g ground beef
2tbs tomato pulp
chopped parsley leaves
2 eggs
pecorino, finely grated
1tbs olive oil salt pepper

Place olive oil in a pan and add garlic and onion. Cook for 1 min and add green pepper and tomato. After 2 minutes add tomato pulp and parsley. Add salt and pepper and 2 tbs water.
Cook for few minutes,add water if needed.

In a meantime heat the oven to 180C, grill. When meat and vegetables are cooked place them in individual oven dishes, and place egg on top of each. Sprinkle with grated pecorino and put in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until eggs are cooked.

Sprinkle with some more grated pecorino and serve.

Apple Cake

Yesterday my son made me company. He got some stomach bug and was really bad on Sunday (while I was working on the fair and felt really bad about not being able to be with him), and yesterday he didn't go to school and stood home to recover 100%.

He had to drink a lot of tea during the day, and he was not happy about it...so.. I decided to made a tea party for 2 of us.
We baked a simple apple cake and made a pot of tea ,it was pouring rain outside and we had a cosy tea party watching the rain.

Classic Apple Cake
(recipe I discovered on a rice milk pack while I was having breakfast)

200g spelt flour
50g ground almonds
3ts baking powder
200ml rice milk
6tbs honey
1 egg
5tbs olive oil
5 apples
2ts cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put the four, almond and baking powder in a bowl.
Mix the egg along with milk and whisk until smooth. Stir in the honey and oil.
Slowly add dry ingredients to the egg mixture.

Grease and line 22cm cake tin with baking paper. Peel the apples and slice thinly placing them directly into the tin. Pour the cake mixture over apples and bake for 30 min.
Leave to cool.

We are on Instagram!!!

Little Upside Down Cake is finnaly on Instagram!! You can find us under @littleupsidedowncake or here

Lisboa BIO

Little Upside Down Cake vai estar novamente presente na LisboaBIO, feira de produtos biológicos nacionais.
É já no próximo Domingo, dia 28 de Outubro, entre as 10 e as 19h no Centro de Artes Culinárias - Mercado Santa Clara (à Feira da Ladra).


Ate Domingo!!!

Pear and Goat Cheese Crostini

I won't write here how much work I had last week, we all have.
What I want to write about is how to try to eat good in these days.
When I worked in my profession in big corporations, there were days when I would pick something from machine and had my lunch at 15h . I wouldn't even take time to eat it peacefully, I would had lunch on my desk while working ( I am sure you know what I am speaking about).
I started to realise how bad I felt after that, my tummy would hurt and I wouldn't feel good, so I started to bring my lunch from home. I would prepare a meal a day before, with some fruit or dry fruits as snack.

Now I work from home and even I can organise my time , there are days that I need to make an effort to stop, take some time to prepare my meal. In these days I use to make something like this Crostini, quick but tasty and healthy.
You can make it in advance and bring to work in your lunchbox , they are tasty even a day after.

How do you deal with days when your schedule is bursting with things to do? Do you try to take some time for your meals or you eat something quick? How does your body react on that?

Pear and Goat Cheese Crostini

1 slice of spelt sourdough bread ( or any other kind you like)
1/2 pear
2 slices of fresh goat cheese
lemon thyme
olive oil
honey
walnuts

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Top a slice of bread with some olive oil and goat cheese. Place bread with in the oven for 10 min. Core and thinly slice a pear.
When bread is ready ,take it out from oven and place pear on top. together with some lemon thyme leaves. Sprinkle with some extra olive oil and honey.
If you like, place some walnuts on top.

Hokaido Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

Last week we had am unexpected visit.
Mean Mr. Virus came again.
We were not prepared for this visit. We tried everything , all natural methods, to defend ourselves .For some of us it was enough, for me it was not. After days of trying to deal with Mr. Virus I put white flag out, and called Mr. Antibiotic for help.
So..now when Mr. Virus is almost leaving our house, I wanted to share a secret. There was one thing that helped us passed this last day..Mrs. Soup. She was so comforting, hot and tasty. Our bodies craved for her.
One of them I liked most ,and you can call her for help in case Mr. Virus visit you also.

Hokaido Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium hokaido pumpkin ,cleaned and sliced
1 small ginger root, peeled and grated
1 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 tbs olive oil
1l vegetable stock
1ts ground cumin
50 ml coconut milk
salt and pepper

Put onion,garlic, ginger, potato, pumpkin, ground cumin, salt, pepper and stock in a large pot and leave to cook in a covered pot. Cook for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Puree soup with blender and add olive oil and coconut milk. If needed, add more water and adjust seasoning.

Italy

Despite not being Italian, neither ever lived in Italy (for more than 1 month), whenever I'm in Italy, I feel as I am home.
In Italy everything goes around food and wine. Every village, every house, has its own specialty which they are proud of. This was my first time visiting the Abbruzo region and it happened the same.
Italian Nonna welcomed us to her house, happy to teach us some of her favourite recipes. Nonno came along and, a bit latter, a neighbour stopped by. The house was full, but she kept working and explaining... and she was so happy having all of us there.
We made some Caggionetti, Abruzzo’s traditional Christmas treats, and they were divine.

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Apesar de não ser italiana, nem nunca ter vivido em Itália (mais de 1 mês), sempre que estou na Itália, sinto-me como se estivesse em casa.
Em Itália tudo anda em torno da comida e vinho. Cada aldeia, cada casa, tem a sua própria especialidade, a qual é motivo de orgulho. Esta foi a minha primeira vez a visitar a região de Abbruzo e aconteceu o mesmo.
A Italiana Nonna acolheu-nos em sua casa, feliz por nos ensinar algumas das suas receitas preferidas. Nonno também apareceu e, pouco tempo depois, um vizinho apareceu. A casa estava cheia, mas ela continuou a trabalhar e a explicar... e estava muito contente por nos ter todos lá.
Fizemos algumas Caggionetti, a especialidade tradicional de Natal de Abruzzo, e estavam divinais.

The next day we had a class with Nikole Herriott and Jennifer Causey.
Nikole was styling and Jen was photographing. For me it was a great experience watching two of the people that I really admire, working and complementing each other.
We tried to style and photograph our own sets... I loved the experience.

*****

No dia seguinte, tivemos uma aula com a Nikole Herriott e a Jennifer Causey.
A Nikole fez o styling e a Jen fotografou. Para mim foi uma experiência enorme assistir a duas pessoas que eu realmente admiro, a trabalhar e a complementarem-se uma à outra.
Nós tentamos também fazer o styling e fotografar os nossos próprios sets... adorei a experiência.