Back from Barcelona!

I'm back after five days in Barcelona and it was amazing! First time in the city and I loved it. We (me and Matteo met his mother and sister there) had a great time and saw a lot of places. The city is lovely and we went to some great places to eat too (yes, you'll read about it here this week).

VeganMoFo starts tomorrow and I'm really excited about it! We're moving to a bigger apartment on Saturday and I have some other news to share with you soon too. That's a great begin for this Autumn.

All about... passion!

Yesterday I went out with some friends to watch a movie that I didn't know much about. Just knew it was with Meryl Streep and I don't like her too much. But I was glad to go out and have some fun.

And after all, here I am, writing about the movie! Oh, and which was the movie?! Julie & Julia! I just loved it. And I loved Amy Adams on it. She is so cute. The movie is about three things that are part of my life everyday: eating, cooking & blogging. And it's based on two true stories. “Meryl Streep is Julia Child and Amy Adams is Julie Powell in writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julian and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated time and space, are both at loose ends... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.”


Coming back home I started to think about the story and about my life in the last year. I changed my whole life to come to Europe with my husband. And in the first months I didn't know what to expect. I left everything behind: family, friends, a house, job/career. I'm the kind of person who is not afraid of doing anything, so we came. It wasn't something we decided from a day to another. It was decided with calm, many months before. But I still didn't know what would have happened. We stayed the first three months in Italy, at my mother in law's and after some time I started to miss doing something that I liked. That's how this blog was born. I decided to put somewhere my passion for cooking and eating (vegan food). I wasn't inspired for any famous cook, I didn't know that the bloggosphear is so full of people writing about it and I didn't know if anyone would read it. I wasn't at a loose end, but I needed something exciting to spend my time on.


And for over a year I have written in this space. And I can tell you that I found the (perfect) combination to make me smile everyday (especially in the hard days): passion, fearlessness and vegan chocolate. And I have another thing in common with these two amazing women: I have the best husband ever, that is always here for me. And love makes this combination work even better.

Next month I will start the first challenge of this blog: the Vegan MoFo. I'll have to blog at least 20 times in one month, all about veganism. Hope you join me in this adventure and share some passion!

(All pictures from the Julie & Julia official website)

Vegan MoFo III (edition 2009)

For the first time, I joined the Vegan MoFo, or Vegan Month of Food!

If you have a blog about vegan food and want to be part of this join it too!

"For the entire month of October, blogs from all over the free world and Alaska will be writing about vegan food and the awesome power of veganism. Vegan MoFo started in 2007, when Isa Chandra thought it'd be a good idea to give NaNoWriMo some stiff vegan food related competition. Since I still haven't managed to read all the MoFo posts from last year, I suggest you buckle up. For seriously, this year's MoFo's shaping up to be more gigantic than last, and the single most common denominator amongst serious vegans is an unending-giant-love for pontificating about vegan chow. You know it's gonna be wordy."

More info here!

In love with broccoli

As I wrote here before, I just started to eat broccoli after becoming vegan. That's great because it has many healthy properties and there are so many recipes to use it that you can eat broccoli everyday if you want!

I don't know why, but for the last weeks I've wanted to eat broccoli (with tofu) everyday. We're always cooking them to make the vegan sfihas that we take to Govinda's and I love the filling. So, last time we decided to make our famous salty pie I wanted it with this filling and not with ragù (bolognese sauce) as I always do! Matteo cooked the filling and I don't know the quantities of the ingredients to publish here (bad cook!!) but he used (a lot) of broccoli, (a few) tofu, potatoes, soy cream and vegetable stock cube. The recipe of the dough is the same one and you can find it here.


Seriously, it was one of the best meals I had in many ears!! It was so delicious that I could it every single day!

Cupcakes Take the Cake

... is one of my favorite blogs ever! I always go there to see what's going on and I'm in their group on Flickr too. So last week I received a message of them, asking to publish some of my SWEET vegan cupcakes pictures at their blog :)

I couldn't be more happy, here I am as the spotlight! It's so good to see the things you love to do being appreciated for so many people around the world. Thanks, Cupcakes Take the Cake ♥

And to celebrate, here we go with some vegan cupcakes pictures:

"these days still mean everything to me" *

Is the end of the summer (a great one, I mus say!).

Is the end of my hard work (on Friday).

We have been living in Dublin for ONE YEAR! Time really flies.

We will move to a bigger apartment (in October).

The husband is still cooking:

Rice + beans + spinach + falafel burger

I am still making vegan dessert ('cause we can't live without them!):

Vanilla ice-cream and chocolate pave

And sometimes I go to the kitchen to make some good stuff like these spinach pancakes (or crepes). The recipe is the same one I use for the regular ones, but I added tons of spinach! It was beautiful and it was delicious :)





(* Speechless - Bane)

Nothing to say!

By Natalie Dee

Meat is still murder

I'm still working hard.

I'm still baking a lot!



The husband is still cooking!



Meat is still murder.

Heifer whines could be human cries
Closer comes the screaming knife
This beautiful creature must die
This beautiful creature must die
A death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER
And the flesh you so fancifully fry
Is not succulent, tasty or kind
It's death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER
And the calf that you carve with a smile
It is MURDER
And the turkey you festively slice
It is MURDER
Do you know how animals die?
Kitchen aromas aren't very homely
It's not "comforting", cheery or kind
It's sizzling blood and the unholy stench
Of MURDER
It's not "natural", "normal" or kind
The flesh you so fancifully fry
The meat in your mouth
As you savour the flavour
Of MURDER
NO, NO, NO, IT'S MURDER
NO, NO, NO, IT'S MURDER
Oh ... and who cares about and animals life?

(The Smiths)