The perfect Bolognese

Along with fresh Italian pasta and a bottle of the beautiful Sardinian wine, Cabiròl, I prepare my bolognese like this. Sorry no measurements, I take what I find in the fridge:

Minced beef

Garlic

Olive oil

Fresh tomatoes, maybe 2-3-4 of them.

Pepper and Salt

Chili powder

Rucola

Mushrooms - Goes well with any type. I prefer Portobello.)

Sugar - This is very important, folks!

Some red wine.

Pour olive oil into a large sauce pan, press the garlic into it. Fry the garlic until golden. Add the meat.. some teaspoons of water, salt, pepper and chili powder. Fry the meat until it has completely changed color from red to brownish. Pour in the wine. Squeeze in the tomatoes, add the peal of them as well if you'd like, otherwise use only the inside of them. Add the same amount of sugar as you earlier had of salt. This is very important for bolognese so don't ever exclude it! Works also well with honey if you prefer. Honey goes by the way with anything and everything. When things look smooth and tastes good, add the mushrooms and let it all simmer for a while. When finished, add the fresh rucola and mix the sauce with the fresh pasta you had boiled on the side.

Enjoy! /Taru

Birthday cake

It was one of my best friends birthday some days ago so I made her a cake and we celebrated her on the boat in Stintino - Sardinia, even though a couple of thousands miles away from her. And no, the shape of the cake is not a new design I invented, it's just our oven in the boat that's heeling a bit too much on one side..

Cake Fanny

3 eggs

1,5 dl sugar (0,7 cups)

2 tablespoons of natural raw honey (30 ml)

1 teaspoon vanillin extract (5 ml)

75 gram melted butter (75 ml)

0,50 dl milk (0,25 cup)

0,50 dl cream (0,25 cup)

3,5 dl flour (1,5 cups)

2 teaspoons of baking powder (10 ml)

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (10 ml)

1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice (5 ml)

a small pinch of salt

Any sort of crushed nuts

Preheat oven to 175° C (350° F).

Grease and lightly flour a pan. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; set aside. In a large bowl: Whisk eggs, sugar, vanillin sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Bring the flour mixture into it, add the milk, cream, lemon juice and the melted butter. Pour batter into pan, sprinkle some crushed almonds or hazelnuts over and place it into the oven for around 40 minutes.

Mmm, this is a wonderful, easy cake and you can easily exchange the nuts and cinnamons to whatever you rather prefer.

Happy belated birthday Dear Fanny!

FYI: All my recipes are written with Swedish/Finnish measurements. Please follow the numbers within the parentheses if you're not from Scandinavia. I guess I need to find a better solution for this. A proper translator might be needed for this blog? Please let me know if someone is interested in the job!

Sardinia

Just a few more pics from Italy...

My hunter

Alex got a new toy the other day. He declared to me that he will get us some BIG, big fishes, just by shooting them and grabbing them by hand. So I took my seat on the deck, I excitingly watched him swim around our boat, dreamed of what gorgeous dinner I could prepare with his harpoon caught fish. Maybe another Barracuda?! After some thirty minutes he showed up from the water, he seemed excited and made me understand he caught something! He pulled up the arrow and... the fish he pulled up was .. this one! Ha! Oh my wonderful baby love, that was the greatest fish I've ever seen. Not perfectly enough for dinner though, but big enough to give us a good laugh. And big enough to use for catching other ones. Lets try this out in other waters where the big fish hang around, very soon. /Taru

Ciao Italia!

We have now stocked up more than enough with Italian produce and planning on spending the next ten days in Corsica. We're thinking of mainly cruising along the west coast of this beautiful island with start in Bonifacio. Any great cruising/anchorage/mooring tips for this area are very welcome!

Shades of the night

Midnight passage between Stintino and Castelsardo.

This is how we do it

This one is for Baydog. He's been asking for more tuna:

Choosing Rapala.. (we picked the red one)

There's something BIG on the hook... reeling in.

A 16 kilo's tuna!

Tada! Lunch, anyone? Fresh sushi and a sesam seared tuna steak. Oh madre mia, how delicious it was.

Sardinia

We had the most beautiful sleep in one of the best moorings we ever encountered. Porto Mannu can be found in the north-western providence Sassari and it provided us with a perfectly still anchorage and a 2 minutes dinghy ride to the most adorable little town. We had a beautiful day in that town yesterday and purchased the freshest Italian produce for our dinner. Basilic, pasta, Sardinian wine, fresh parmesano, salsiccias... Italians sure know how to seduce with flavors and aromas. And what a freaking wonderful dinner it turned out to be with that Barracuda! I had it oven baked with a marinade made of fresh, homemade Sardinian olive oil, basilic, lemon juice and tons of garlic - served with basmati rice. It was simply out of this world.

And to top up the already perfect day and night: exactly when we had dined and wined and were on our way to sleep, an enormous firework show erupted where we were given a front row view over the beautiful explosions. It seems like fire and explosions are following us wherever we go. If it's not frightening thunder and lightning, it's probably marvellous fireworks just outside of our boat. Thanks Sardinia, what a dramatic and extraordinary welcoming! I think we'll spend a couple of more days around here. /Taru

Barracuda fishing in Sardinia

So we arrived safely. It was a harch night, the first one underway towards this Italian island, let me tell you. We were well prepared for the strong North wind with gusts to 30 knots but we we're not expecting to get stuck in the middle of a thunder storm and the most intensive lightning show we've ever seen. It is kind of magical to see the lightning strick around you on every and each side and just having to sit there and wait for them to hit your mast, but they didn't, obviously.

We got a peaceful sleep in Porto Conte and headed up North this morning. This is the beautiful Barracuda we got today, just before arriving to Porto Mannu where we just anchored up for the night. Can't wait to have it cooked on the barbecue tonight.