So for this week's episode of our Food Travel series, we are off to an Italian inspired dinner with a smell of tomatoes, garlic fresh basil, and of course cheese.

For all of you who have missed out on our previous episodes, make sure to check out our posts with the Greek dinner, Food travel to India, and the latest one where we do 4 Italian Cocktails. I really hope you enjoy this kind of post and that you'll stick with us as we travel through the kitchens of the world. And hey, we would love to have your input on what kitchen we should try out next?

What's an Italian dinner without some pizza and pasta right?

The tomato sauce that we made for the pasta was super easy to make, we used both fresh tomatoes and canned once. Yellow onions, garlic, fresh basil, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. As I said, it's super easy. The trick is to keep it simmering on the stove for several hours, I think ours was on for nearly four hours, then we took it off to cool down, and as we were about to serve the pasta we reheated it, poured it over the pasta and added lots and lots of grated mozzarella cheese.

The pizza was actually made on the grill. I have told you before that the husband loves to barbeque right, so whenever he gets a chance, I'll find him in front of the grill. If you look closely on the images you'll see that the pizza is on this round stone platter, that's called a pizzastone, and its made keep beneath the pizza when it's on the grill. So you just roll out your pizzadough, add some tomatosause and grated mozzarella cheese, and start cooking it on the grill. When it was almost done, we added some Bresaola ham just to heat it up. And as we served the pizza we added some arugula. Delicious!

We just had to have some small side dishes as well, so breadsticks, of course, some well-aged parmesan cheese and my personal favorite, sliced tomatoes with fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella.

Naturally, we had a bottle of red wine with our dinner, we had a wine called Zingled out. Yes, I bought it cause I thought the bottle was pretty, but its an Italian wine made from the black-skinned Zinfandel grape, which I know is a grape that I can drink without getting a headache. There are a few grapes that I just can't even take a zip-out off, without getting throbbing pain in my head. Unfortunately, I haven't quite figured out the particular grapes that torture me, but I do know that the zinfandel grape is one of the good guys. Have you ever had that kind of experience with red wines, or maybe wines in general?

As you can tell, this dinner was really easy to make. I am not trying to downsize the effort at all, it really was that easy to make. The hardest part was chopping the onions, and that's always a hassle no matter what kind of dishes you are attempting to make.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am crazy for pasta, so food traveling to the Italian kitchen was a definite hit for me. Most people like their potatoes and rise and want a bigger variety when it comes to their food. No me. I can go with pasta every day, easily. Farfalle, fusilli, rigatoni, gnocchi, spaghetti, linguini, fettuccine. I just love it!

So tell me, what is your all-time favorite dish when it comes to Italian food?

//Ann

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Oh yes, we went on a small roadtrip to Trosa for the weekend, I was so looking forward to going on a mini-trip. Not that its fun to pack your bags when you're going somewhere, but this time its kind of okay, just cuz its been such a long time. But then again, we all know that good feeling goes away as soon as your back home, and that bag of yours starts craving to be unpacked. To be completely honest, before I could start packing, I had to do some unpacking from our last trip (new years in Athens).

I had a vision of updating you guys during our weekend away, but to be completely honest - as always when we are on some kind of holiday, I completely forgot the blog. Sorry!

First impressions

As dogfriendly as the small town Trosa is, the friendly cat was one of my highlights.

Dog-friendly

How to get to Trosa

I would imagine that it would take about three hours on public transportations, seeing as it always seems to take so much longer time to on busses than cars, but boy was I wrong. It takes about one hour, you've got free WIFI on the bus and it will cost you 15 euro. There are busses that go directly from the center of Stockholm to the harbor in Trosa. Pretty neat if you ask me.

You can go by boat from Nynäshamns harbor, but that will take you three hours and will set you back 40 euros for a one-way trip.

According to Google, it would take you 14 hours and 43 minutes to walk from Stockholm to Trosa. I don't really know why you would do that, but that's your choice.

Summer city

We had a great time this weekend, so I am gonna give you some more details of our favorite restaurants, recommendations of where to stay for a weekend, and of course - where to find the best cocktails.
And hey, I hope you all had a great midsummer weekend, we sure did!
//Ann

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Chillaxing by the pool during last years trip to Nessebar in Bulgaria.

Yeah, so this picture was last years relaxing by the pool, in Nessebar Bulgaria, it all seems kind of amazing doesn't it? What I would not do to be right there, right now. But that's not happening...

We have just canceled our last booked trip abroad for this summer. We had plans to visit Cyprus for a week and just have that relaxing trip, you know, All-inclusive by the pool where you just let the stress fade into vacation vibes. That was our plan for our first week of the summer vacation, so now what?

It takes a while, just to let it soak in that we're not going abroad this summer. I don't think I have come to terms with it quite yet, but I am getting there. We're just gonna have to put our heads together and figure out a new plan to get that vacation mode going instantly. You get the picture right? It's like it always takes me a week to get into the mode, so the first week is kind of devoted to that, but if you travel abroad that same first week, you're kind of forced into vacation mode. Do you know what I mean?

So how do you get into that feeling instantly?

My initial thought was to make an All-Inclusive at home, but to be honest, who wants to have an all you can eat buffet in the fridge and eat the same food for four days... I could totally go for the open bar though.

Jokes aside, I don't think its a bad idea to try and replicate the feeling of an All-Inclusive of maybe more correctly an apartment by the beach. Make a grand breakfast every day, as you would abroad. After breakfast, pack your bag, and hit the beach. Bring snacks, maybe even lunch, and just force yourself to relax and get into the feeling that it's okay to do absolutely nothing at all. Does that make any sense at all?

How do you start your first days of vacation?

//Ann

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