BRAINSTORM

As I already told you, I really love cooking, mainly experimenting and creating new recipes. Something I really like is mixing elements from different traditions and countries.

When my boyfriend was here with me in Innsbruck, I decided to cook Mexican burritos. So after a long trip in the supermarket (a paradise for us: thousands of special ingredients, sauces, spices), we came back home to start cooking.

It was late, so to appease my boyfriend's hunger, I arranged a small Mexican appetizer: tacos and hot sauce, plus other random stuff, bought to satisfy our gluttony.

The cooking session had started. Here you can find the recipe and the process!

Ingredient (for two people):

300 g meat (choose the one you prefer, I used pork meat)
1 red pepper
150 g cherry tomatoes
150 g salad
salt
oil
spices (I used cumin, paprika and chili)
tortillas

Process:

Cut the meat in thin slices, and start cooking it with some oil and all the spices in a pan.
Cut the red pepper in small cubes, the cherry tomatoes in four piences, than cook them in the same pan of the meat

Take the tortillas and warm them up on a grill

Wash and dry the salad, cut it and put it on the open tortilla

Put the meat on the salad
Roll up your burrito and close it with a napkin

Taste your burrito adding some hot sauce at your pleasure.

Hi Guys! It's been a long time since I wrote on the blog, but I've been very busy in the last two weeks. My boyfriend came to visit me, making a surprise! He's been fantastic. But I had also exams and lessons, so I couldn't concentrate on anything else.

Today I want to tell you about a trip we made to a fantastic place: Aqua Dome. It is a magnificent and enourmous Spa an hour away from Innsbruck, in Langenfeld, to be more accurate.

It is an great structure, with swimming pool outside, in the beautiful gardens, surrounded by the mountains and the snow; some of them are raised in the air, which is one of the most peculiar thing there.

We chose for the Relax! One Day Holiday Delux, a package that included Therme, Sauna, Fitness, and the access to the exclusive area Spa 3000.

Once we arrived, we have been given of 2 bags, with towels, a bathrobe and a pair of slippers. We started our day walking around and exploring the structure. It has a lot of different kind of saunas, hamams, swimming pool, in the open air too, with different smells, lights and musics.

The only wired thing was that the access in some areas was allowed only without the swimming costume. Even if we knew it before going there, we were very embarassed. But after a while, surrounded only by naked people, it started being "normal".

We tried every Sauna: from the hotter to the colder, from the dryer to the wetter. The most relaxing was the "hay sauna", with a temperature around 50°, where you could easily stay more than 15 minutes.

The most shocking experienced we tried was the freezing waterfall. It was in 10 metres high cave, where you can choose from different programs, starting with a thunderstorm with lighting and thunder, ending with this "ice-bucket".

Than it was the time for receiving my gift: a massage. I went to the Beauty Centre, where I enjoyed a relaxing massage on my back.. a baraly fell asleep on the bed...crazy, you can't imagine!

I reached my boyfriend, and then we had lunch in the "Sauna Restourant", with two delicious salads, and a fruity dessert.

Then we enjoyed the view of the gorgeous austrian mountains form a pool-bad on a balcony, completed with hydromassage, waiting for a special hammam. It was a treatment in which you dab creamy herbs on your body, and than, with the help of the steam of the hammam, you skin shoud become very soft. And it really worked!

Exausted after this last treatment, we realxed on a comfortable sofa in the relax area, with soft "yoga" music.

It wasn't possible to bring your phone in the Spa, so we couldn't take pictures. I'll leave some found in the internet, but you should really try this short holiday and see this place with your own eyes. You could go with you partner or with your family, because they have specific areas for children, so you won't disturb each other.

What about you? Do you like spa? Have you ever been to Aqua Dome? Would you suggest other stuctures?

Hear from your aswers soon, I'm curious!

As you may know, one of my biggest passion is the Interior Design. I love enter a flat, a house, and try to imagine a new set up, which furnitures should be placed, which colors on the wall should be painted.

My idea of Interior Design is ruled by one principle: your place has to be warm and emotional. It doesn't matter if you will choose a modern design, or a classical one. What is important is that the people entering your place feel that it is yours, and it cannot be anyonelse's.

So, when someone, friends, relatives, ask me a suggestion about the setting of each piece of furniture in their new flat, or an idea to refresh the ambience, first I try to understand what he or she likes, then, I can give my opinion, but respecting his or her personality.

In spite of this, my personal taste is very clear. I love rough wooden forniture, especially mixed with light colors, like a cold white, or a light grey, to create a contrast. Wood makes any room warmer, familiar, and it is the material I like most for tables or other surface.

Today I'm gonna share with you some ideas for your personal workspace. Wheter it is your home - office, or your study corner, or the space you use to enjoy your passions, it has to be confortable, beautiful and tidy. A tidy environment is the key to work well, concentrated and focused on your job.

These pictures collect different styles and ideas. Try to find the one that best fits your needs.

Carolina

NIKE+ PHOTO SH

Quotes: Pinterest

Quotes: Houzz

Living alone is proving to not a big deal. I mean, when I was still in Genoa I was used to help with the housework, I can do almost everything on my own. The real big news has been in the kitchen.

Don't think that I cannot cook, actually people say that I am a good cook. Infact, one of the thing that I enjoy most is cooking for my family, for my boyfriend and for my friends. Staring at their smiling faces while tasting my dishes makes me happy, proud and satisfied. So the kitchen work was the thing the worried me less when I decided to move alone.

I was definetely wrong: cooking for one person, especially yourself, could become harder then you expect.

First problem: the portion. I usually cook for at least two people; you should say, "ok, cut the portion in two, where is the problem?" The problem is not the preparation itself. You could not do a risotto for one, or you can, but it is still difficult to cook the right amount of rice, as you would do for a dish of pasta. So you will have to eat the risotto the day after, when, cold, won't be the same as the dinner before.

The first days I was here I promised myself to be creative, to plan different menu for my weeks... but this challange is getting harder. Lazyness, lack of imagination, shortage of variety of vegetable in the austrian supermarket, took me to do often the same thing.

But I'm trying to get out of this monotony, experimenting new recipies or preparing dishes I used to make in Italy.

Today a new "column" sees the light. I will weekly share a recipe, neither created by me or found on the internet.

The recipe of the day is the "Spelt vegetable salad".

I first tasted it when my mother cooked it instead of the classical cold rice salad.

Actually there isn't an official recipe, you can do it with every vegetable and ingredient you want or you have at home.

My version is very light, and it could be turned into vegetarian dish, only taking out an ingredient.

Wear your apron, we have to cook now!

Ingredients (for one person):

80 g of parboiled spelt

1 tomato

1/2 savoy cabbage

1 small courgette

1 small can of tunafished in olive oil

salt as required

pepper

olive oil

Wash the courgette, the tomato and the cabbage. Put two pots with water on the cookers, and bring water to boil. In the meanwhile cut the cabbage in slices, not too thin, and the courgette, in small cubes. Do the same with the tomato. When the water is boiling, put a fistful of salt in each pot, and then put the cabbage and the spelt inside of them.

Take a pan a with a little olive oil and cook the courgette.

Open the can of tunafish, remove the oil excess, and put it in your plate.

Drip the spelt and the cabbage, and put them in the same plate. adding the corgette as well. Stir-fry for 3 minutes the tomato in the same pan where you cooked the courgette, than put it in in the plate, too.

Mix everything, add salt, a little olive oil and some freshly grounded pepper.

The dinner is served.

And what about you guys, do you share my problems? What do you usually cook when you are alone?
Let me know, and stay tuned!

Hey Guys!

Today I'm going to tell you about the trip to Vienna I made some weeks ago with my erasmus friends.

It all started on a sunny friday mornig, when we started to drive towards the capital of Austria.

As always, I fell asleep but after a short nap I was ready to enjoy the roads!

When we reached our destination, after a little break in our hostel, we started walking very hungry, looking for food. We had a big ice-cream and then we started going around this amazing city, with fancy buildings, beautiful parks. We passed along the Opera House, the Hofburg palace, and then we walked the main shopping streets, and there we met a funnily dressed man who proposed us a show in the Shonbrun Palace. We immediately bought the tickets, we were so excited!

We ended our first day in Vienna tasting the famous Vienna ribs, enormous dishes that most of us hasn't been able to finish.

The second day couldn't start in a better way. After a short walk in which I showed that I am definitely not a morning person, we reached the famous Cafè Central, were we had a delicious breakfast, in that very fancy place. I would have ate everything on the menu!

After that our Master Map Hadrien took us around the city and in the main street of shopping, we wanted to buy some fancy clothes for the night. Our two heroes has been really patient that morning.

The afternoon was more intellectual: we went to the Albertina museum. It has been great. There were a collection of impressionist paintings, from Degas, to Monet, Seurat, Cezanne, then some from Picasso, and other painters. The ground floor was amazing, with pieces of Andy Warhol and other modern artists.

Almost dead tired, we ran to the hostel to get dressed and rushing the time we finally arrived at the Schonbrun palace, where we had dinner before enjoying our concert. It did't disappointed our expectations. The music, the singer, the atmosphere were gorgeous.

Finally we went to a bar in the city centre, to make a brindisi alla our fancy night.

On Sunday, our last day, we went visiting the Hofburg Palace and the Sisi Museum in it. It was so realistic, with a audio guide, we had the chance to discover the history of that sad empress, and walking through the rooms of the palace in which she felt like a prisoner, you had the feeling that from a moment to another she would have appeared in her astonishing dresses.

After the worst pizza I have ever had we went to the original Hotel Sacher, were we tasted the real Sacher Torte. Useless saying that one slice wasn't enough, I would have eaten an entire cake, of course.

This is how our trip to Vienna ended. We jumped in Fede's car, and we came back to Innsbruck.

The days after for me were quite busy, I had some lessons and of course I had to pack my luggage.

Stay tuned guys!!

Carolina

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