A Mediterranean Meal – Salmon, Asparagus, And Delicious Homemade Panzanella

Eliza and crew came down on Sunday to drop off the items Wende brought home from Italy for us and I opted to make yet another Mediterranean meal.  While I don’t usually think of salmon as a Mediterranean dish, it was on several Italian restaurant menus and I wanted a dish that goes with the Panzanella (tomato and bread salad) that I wanted to serve.  Even though we’ve made several Mediterranean Salmon dishes in the past, I did a little web search and found this recipe for Mediterranean Salmon on the “Cuisine With Me” blog and I liked it as I had the ingredients on hand.

Trip to Italy Day 23 –Early Lunch And Sorrento Cooking Class

Just as with the other kids visits, I arranged for a cooking class, at least one wine tasting, and a town visit or in this case, a town stay.  And for our first full day I was up at six am and ready to start my day.  Bev got up a couple of times and went back to bed and finally got up to stay along with Wende at 10:30 am.  About 11:30, Bev was ready to go get a little food so we went down to the Piazza Tasso (the main square) and ate at the Bar Ercolano.  One of her trip desires was to stay in town and walk down the street to eat at a cafe.

Trip to Italy Day 22 Con’t - Beautiful Sorrento

When getting into Sorrento (pop. 15000), we were told by the apartment hostess to come to the main square (Piazzo Tasso) and let Valeria know we were there, which we did.  Per our request, she had arranged for someone to help with the luggage and valet parking for the car and it all went well.  I took these shots of the busy square while awaiting pickup.

One Pot Spring Pasta Primavera

We interrupt our Italy trip at the three fourths point (with Sorrento to come) to say that we got home on May 11, after a 24 hour day, so I’ll be interspersing the trip with normal posts beginning with this one – can you believe it’s pasta – to use some of our asparagus.  The recipe for One Pot Spring Pasta Primavera is courtesy of the “Flavor Of The Moment” blog and I doubled it (as shown below) to use the full pound of pasta and asparagus and to have leftovers. 

Trip to Italy Day 21 & 22 - Orvieto To Rome Airport To Beautiful Sorrento

After a good nights sleep, on Saturday, mid-morning, our very nice hostess, and owner, Sabrina retrieved our car from the parking garage, helped us load up and sent us on our way.  This is a shot of the owner, Sabrina, on the right and her right hand girl, Rita.

Trip to Italy Day 20 - Orvieto - A Planning Mistake

When we decided to visit Orvieto, I didn’t plan on my being in recovery from a cold and Bev still having one plus a strained ankle so I believed we would be able to walk around some.  However, with those problems and the cramped accommodations, we decided to leave on Sat. afternoon rather than early Sun. morning and spend the night near the Rome airport so it would be more convenient to pick up Wende by 9am Sunday morning.  So, we ate the light Italian breakfast on Friday morning then just hung around the apartment on Friday as there was nothing to see or do within a short walk.  I already knew this from our friends but don’t visit the old walled hill towns unless you are willing and able to walk the hilly streets.

 This is from the table on the veranda where I’m sitting to type this in the unseasonably warm weather. 

Trip to Italy Day 18 & 19 - Our Last Day In Castellina And Heading To Orvieto

Day 18 was packing day for us and while I was pretty much well, Bev was still feeling a little rough – the silver lining was that we watched the complete Taylor Sheridan series “Landman” starring Billy Bob Thorton and much of “Tulsa King” starring Sylvester Stallone - so, we flew a few thousand miles and spent more than a few thousand dollars to watch shows we were unlikely to watch at home – duh.

Bev took a few pics around the farmhouse before we left.