Chop the beetroots and put it in a mixer with some salt, balsamic vinegar, walnuts oil, a teaspoon of honey and some mustard.  Mix adding some water to make it smoother.

Prepare a beautiful green salad, mixing different green leaves, tiny beetroot slices, black olives, courgettes, red onions and black sesame seeds.

Prepare a parsley cream, mixing parsley, some walnuts oil, some light soy cream .

Ingredients - Serves 2 

For the lentils

150 gr of lentils

1 onion

1 carrot

1 Stalk of celery

 2 bay leaves

A pinch of salt

3 tbs extra vergin olive oil

For the sauce

1 lemon

1 soya yoghourt

some lime leaves, minced

curry powder

fresh ginger

persil, finely chopped

mint, finely chopped

Preparation

Cook the sliced onion into the extra vergin olive oil,  dissolve make it blond, while cooking add the  celery and carrots, fiinely  chopped, after a few minutes add the lentils and simply cover with water. Cook for 1 hour or more if needed.

Drain the lentils and let them cool.

For the sauce: 
add all the ingredients to the soya yoghurt and mix well

Take a round mold and make a layer with the lentils, well pressed, cover with a layer of sauce and with another layer of lentils.

Garnish the dish with the remaining sauce or as you wish!

Serve immediately

Magazines and the web are full of pics of "People", Actresses and Actors, Royalties and Wealthy people having access  to the most famous tailors and couturiers in the world, most famous counselors, and advisors reaching all famous brand’s productions in the world.

They should be the ones, and actually they are the ones, rewriting and creating every day the concept of elegance : an elegance that, in many cases, should be natural and coming from the inside.

To be goodly dressed, and, understand me, not « brand dressed », is a reflection of beautiful and rich souls, of the respect for our lives and bodies.

But only a few  of these "People"are the ones that are combining elegance respecting their personality, able to communicate through their elegance messages of style and deep model to reach: the rest, is emptiness.

The reflection of our impoverished world and superficial times is reflected in poor personalities. 

Fashion magazines are surroundings us with beautiful images that are mostly « photoshopped », and many of us are buying items that makes us think we will be having access to that rich, happy and shiny world.

Meanwhile, the quality of clothes production, strictly related to the consumerism’s world we are living in, is poor bad and obtained through the suffrance of many, in different parts of the World. The majority of clothes last a season, if so, in order for us to be pushed to consume more: as well as styles, colors, lasting just for some months, for us to automatically be busy in searching to have the new items of the moment.

What we have in common with these " Media Created Personalities" is, that if not through a dress, a bag, some shoes, we're not any more able to be individual and unique, to find and show our particular hints...

And so, 
an immense mass of badly and poorly dressed people is walking through the world, reflection of our spiritual and cultural lack, fears, hungers and every day fights: among this mass, a minority of wealthy people and symbols are moving around too, mostly hiding and secluding.

On the other hand,  as soon as we reach a Status object, immediately the way people are looking at us is different: is a fake. The world is moved by Power and Symbols! Imagine also how many pickpocketers and thieves are approaching us just because they recognized wealthy habits!
Somehow  then, we hide behind these grey habits, worried of walking in some cities dressed differently, fearing  to be attacked  or perceived differently.

I like to believe that almost all people, they still have the capability of perceiving grace, beauty and inner richness around them : when I walk on a street well dressed expressing a shiny attitude, people are looking at me, and I see a sudden glimpse into their eyes ; but, it last a second.. they are not able to get rid of their fears, complexes and weaknesses. The world needs new guides to enrich the souls and let people shine on the outside!

This wil not happen through the Powered ones; they just wants us to be just as grey as the "anonymous" and dreaming of the world we cannot reach.

But our real world is not just expensive dresses and Symbols created by a Power:  is a world of deeper beauty, made of elegant nature,  of the colorful and meaningful livery of animals in their natural environments; the real live proofof what we are trying to destroy and badly reproduce.

You will not look better if you buy  last Michael Kors’ bag ; you will not be more beautiful with last Prada’ Shoes. Royalties, models, actors, are not always model to be followed : they will not give you the status you are searching for.

Instead, start searching around you;in your cupboard, THINK, look at yourself in the mirror, TRY different things .

A simple black or white total look with a spark of color will enhance your personality that is just lying down layers and layers of lies, coming from a fake and unattractive world. Choose your color, the one that you like the most, do not follow the rules. 

Dare to try, give yourself chances! Markets, private charming small fashion business, can make yourself shine uniquely, without ruining you with incredible expenses that will not give you the happiness you are searching for!

A question? Write me at gaia.gorini@gmail.com 

Ingredients

Extra vergin olive oil  

 ½ onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

75ml dry white wine

140gr risotto rice, like arborio or carnaroli

450ml hot chicken or vegtable stock 

1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese

basil leaves

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation method

Warm the oil  in a large heavy saucepan and add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook gently for about 5 minutes until soft but not colored. Pour in the wine and boil hard to reduce until the liquid has nearly evaporated.

Stir in the rice to coat. Add a ladleful of stock and simmer, stirring, until it has been mostly absorbed. Continue cooking and adding the stock, a ladleful at a time, until all the stock has been absorbed, about 20 minutes.

The rice should be tender and creamy but still have some bite to it. Taste and season with salt and pepper and stir in the parmesan.

Serve immediately 

There is a place inside all of us, where our mind is in touch with our deeper soul.

A consciousness that is permitting our evolution in life, that is detached from every kind of external experiences, a very deep personal place.

A place where we feel unity and tranquility, while our  external world and reality is globally giving us exactly the opposite.

Let’s make a pause, for our deeper inner world: let’s imagine for a moment, a different way of living , different societies, likewise we would have been living on another planet; science fiction's writers and movie makers are so good in proposing and creating different scenarios for this planet Earth.

Now think on all the inventors of the past, all the visionary people like Julius Verne or Leonardo, just to make an example : weren’t them having access through their minds and souls, to other Universes ? To other forms of imagining this Universe of ours, the planet Earth, Gaia ?

New technologies and inventors are here too, today: think about the incredible steps of the Computer Industry, Web developments and its fast developments. Not often, then, these Medias are used to generate positivity and beautiful transformations. Athe contrary, often they flatten our realities.

But you can intervene too, imagining a different world, you can contribute in creating it; your energy and your thoughts will generate a change: as we do not have to forget that verbal language isn't the only way to communicate and provoke actions. Whithout talking, communication can just come through the perception of a movement, of a glimpse in the eyes, of a phisical feature.  
Or, thanks to a music, a sound , a smell, a color, an emotion.

Think about love : we cannot see or touch it but we know it exists ; we cannot measure feelings, but we experiment them. Energy is like the emotions, we cannot see it, but we know it is here, around us.

When we are tuned into our own vibration, we feel strong and healthy; this condition can change, disturbed from frequencies of other people, places, sounds and thoughts….you see? Not just words.


And it is incredible how, so often, we use our senses selectively, to see and hear what we just want to see and hear ; other signs were there, but we didn’t saw them, it was so much easier to ignore them than to face them.

Let’s not forget how we were before the use of our words and languages, of our Technologies: let's make efforts to create phiscal moments of emotion with other people around us, through the sharing of invisible links. 

I wish  my Kitchen, our Cooking  and Get together will contribute to communicate to your  deeper inner souls  through our senses and bring a positive feeling of simplicity and accomplishment into your houses.


 

Ricotta  has bountiful nutrition at a very low calorie-cost. Even if you are not trying to lose weight, ricotta provides benefits that make it a wise investment in your daily meal planning

Ricotta  is a  byproduct ,  that literally means “recooked” in Italian. It is made from recooking the whey after it has been separated from the curds.

A high-calcium, high-protein, low-carbohydrate, low-fat, low-sodium nutrition, that is ricotta!


One cup part-skim ricotta, at 339 calories, has 28.02 g protein, compared to regular cottage cheese’s 23.35 g. 


One cup fat-free ricotta has only 200 cal per cup, 0 g fat and a whopping 40 g protein. 


Ricotta’s remarkable calcium content, at 669 mg per cup outranks cottage cheese’s 174 mg and even low fat yogurt’s 448 mg. 


Ricotta has twice as much selenium, one-third more potassium and yet only one-eighth the sugar of cottage cheese. 


It also has 20 percent of the recommended daily allowance for zinc and vitamin A, and 10 percent for magnesium and vitamin B-12.

Preparation: Serves 6/8

Ingredients:
For the pastry

- 300 gr. flour
- 100 gr. of butter
- 50 gr. fresh  light cream 
- 2 eggs (if they are large 1 red and 1 whole egg) 
- 100 grams of  brown sugar
- A pinch of salt
- Grated rind of one lemon untreated

For the filling

- 500 gr. sheep ricotta,  if possible! 
- 150 gr. of  brown sugar
- 140 gr. of  cherries
- 120 gr.  dark chocolate 

Preparation:

Prepare the stuffing a few hours before use by mixing the ricotta with the sugar and candies, and combining the chocolate cut in small pieces. Mix well and leave in the fridge until use.

Mix quickly the flour with the softened butter,eggs, fresh cream, sugar, salt and lemon zest.

After getting a nice smooth ball of dough flour the surface lightly, wrap with plastic wrap and let rest in refrigerator for half an hour.

At this point we will divide the dough in two:  half will serve to make the base, the other half to make the cylinders of dough for the top.

Butter the mold and roll out the dough. Make sure the dough stays out of the border of the mold.

Put the stuffing well in the center  of the mold and start leveling it; put the cylinders of dough on top and close the dough al around the  stuffing.Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before you unmold the tart.

Ingredients

- 250 gr of flour
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
- A pinch of salt
- 12 grams of baking powder
- 80 g extra vergin olive oil
- 250 ml milk
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 tablespoon soluble barley 
- Brown sugar
- Pine nuts

Preparation: 
Preheat the oven at 170°
Sift the flour one time, with the icing sugar, salt and yeast. In another bowl, melt the barley with milk,  mix well and dissolve any lumps and then add the egg. Add the liquid mixture to the flour, stir well … the dough should be smooth. Then add the olive oil. Continue stirring, add a little brown sugar in the dough as well as pine nuts and transfer into the mold.
Bake for around 50/55minutes.

IMPORTANT ADVICE AND INFO


The ventilated oven is not good for baking cakes, the oven should be warm but not ventilated otherwise it  dries quickly and does not cook inside
The heat must come primarily from the bottom and the cake should rest on the first track of the oven, detached from the base but not too much.
Remember to put the cake inside when the oven has reached the temperature required by the recipe

The difference between baking muffins and baking cakes is that cakes are cooked for a longer period of time on a lower temperature. Muffins you should usually wind up baking at 180° for about 25-30 min, and cakes or loafs are usually 170° for about an hour. This can be done using the same batter recipe.

If you try to bake a cake or loaf at a muffin temperature you can wind up getting crispy or even burned outsides, and raw sticky middles. The same principle applies here for larger muffins. Cook a bit longer on a lower temperature and they should come out well.

Red pepper with herb quinoa 

Ingredients 

1 red  pepper, in stripes

1 tbsp olive oil

85g quinoa

150ml vegetble stock

1 lemon, juice only

 1 tbsp chopped fresh chives, 1 tbsp fresh parsley

 salt and  black pepper

 1 tbsp olive oil

 ½ onion, finely sliced

 1 tsp brown sugar

1.      Preheat the oven to 200C

2.      For the pepper, place the sliced pepper onto a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, transfer to the oven and roast for 10-12 minutes, or until softened.

3.      For the herb quinoa, place the quinoa and stock into a pan and cook around 20 minutes until the quinoa is tender.

4.      Stir in the lemon juice and herbs and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

5.      For the caramelized onion, put them in a baking  pan and gently fry the onion with the sugar until the onions are soft and caramelized.

6.      Serve with some rice noodles and decorate as you wish