Venice: The Food! (Part 1)

We had AMAZING food while in Europe, so of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share every meal we ate!!! Before we got there, I was planning on eating tons of seafood and pasta, and drinking lots of wine, and that's exactly what we did! Be prepared...this is kind of a long post, so feel free to just look at the pictures! (Oh, and I've decided to split the Venice food up into two posts....too much for one!)

Day 1: We arrived in Venice around 8pm. We wandered around, checked into our hotel, changed clothes, and went out to find something to eat! We found ourselves at the Grand Canal, by the Scalzi Bridge. There were several restaurants in the area, and they all looked really good! We decided to pay a little more and eat at one of the restaurants on the Grand Canal. We ended up choosing Trattoria Povoledo. I was in the mood for pasta, so I ordered the spahgetti ai frutti di mare....and it was sooooo good. It tasted super fresh, and was just amazing. Ryan ordered the proscuitto pizza, which was also super yummy! Of course we ordered a bottle of wine, as well!

Ryan's proscuitto pizza =)

My super fresh, super yummy seafood pasta!

Our first bottle of Italian wine, just chillin'

The gorgeous Canal view from our table!

Day 2: I woke up early (6am) because I was so excited to be in Europe and couldn't wait to see Venice in the daytime! Our hotel serves breakfast in the room, but we left just as the hotel staff was getting there, so we didn't get to take advantage. We found a random little cafe and had a croissant and peach juice...over priced and not that good (definitely the worst "meal" in Venice, but whatever!). We had plans to go to Burano that day, but we were getting kind of hungry around 11am, and decided to stop and get out first lunch. Ryan got a sandwich with meat and cheese (not sure exactly what) and I got a flat sandwichy thing that they heated up! Mine was really good! It had cheese, veggies and olives, yum!

Our 1st lunch! I didn't take a picture of breakfast...but I'm sure you can imagine a croissant =)

After getting to Burano and exploring a bit, we found a place that served pizza (I was really craving pizza). Since we had already eaten our first lunch, we decided to split mussels with lemon and a pizza ai frutti di mare. The mussels were really really good! The pizza was also really good, but a little different than I expected, but it tasted really yummy! I think if I had to choose, I like Ryan's pizza from the night before better, but honestly, they were both so good! Oh, and we washed down our lunch with a mezzo litro (500 mL) of prosecco =)

Mussels with lemon...so good! And if you look closely, you can see the Prosecco in the upper right-hand corner

Seafood pizza!

We had big plans that night. We had planned to go to the Skyline Bar, go on a gondola ride, and eat at a restaurant that had awesome reviews on Trip Advisor. Well...nothing worked out as planned. The Skyline Bar and gondola ride were a no-go, but we still went on a mission to find the restaurant. It was very hidden, and when we finally found it is was around 10pm. Well, I looked at the menu, which was pretty limited, and decided that nothing looked that good. So, we were super lucky and ended up finding a great place to eat. THE FOOD WAS AMAZING! The place was called Osteria Alle Testiere, and they usually only have one sitting, but they were super nice and let us eat, even though it was an hour after they had seated people. (side note: I just looked it up on Trip Advisor so I could link you all, and realized that's it's the #3 ranked restaurant in Venice! We win!)

Ok, so I was really craving pasta, but unfortunately, they had already dumped out the pasta water (since they were not expecting anymore dinner guests). They did, however, have a lot of other dishes that looked delish! So, we started off with a mixed seafood appetizer from the Adriatic Sea, which was seriously, sooooo good. Probably the best seafood we had the whole trip. For dinner, I ordered prawns with corriander, ginger, and lime sauce and Ryan ordered sea bream fillets with fine herbs and citrus sauce. And of course we ordered a white wine =)

Our bread sticks, cracker thing and roll! Oh, and we got refills!

Amazing appetizer! Octopus in the middle, and then starting at 6 o'clock and going clockwise: lobster, cuttlefish, shrimp, spider crab, anchovies, baby calamari, and a little crostini (?) with a mousse-like substance made from cod, milk, vegetable oil, garlic, and herbs. My mouth is watering....

Ryan and his dish!

My wonderful prawns that came with polenta! It was delicious!

So, there you have it! The food we ate the first two days in Venice (well most of it....). Yum! I can't wait to post about the rest =) I hope none of you are sick of hearing about slash looking at good food!

An Idea for All Those Leftovers!

This one is from Giada de Laurentiis. It's something I saw on her show a while ago, and I've been meaning to try it ever since. The day after Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect time, since it's Turkey and Cranberry raviolis!! I'm not really a huge fan of the Thanksgiving turkey, but figured I'd give this one a shot. If you're interested, you can find the recipe here.

Depending on how much you like cranberry sauce, I suggest putting more. I put in a little extra, but wish there had been a bit more. We used wonton wrappers, so they weren't as heavy as normal raviolis. A word of caution: be carful not to poke holes in them while boiling!! A couple of them split open, causing the water to become infested with turkey....kinda gross.

I didn't actually make the gravy in Giada's recipe, because my dad is pretty much the Gravy King. I went the easy route and used his leftovers from the day before (another way to save some time!!).

Overall, I did enjoy these. Definitely a unique way to enjoy all of those leftovers, instead of making sandwiches for the next few weeks. The only downside is that they take a while to make. It's a lot of hard work putting the turkey/cranberry mixture into each of the wonton wrappers!! However, it is something that can be done ahead of time. You can just put them in the fridge, and boil them whenever!! The last part is very fast...only takes about 3-5 minutes.

Sorry that I didn't take any pictures!! But honestly, they aren't the prettiest things ever....I was a little lazy when I was making them, because it was taking so long. OH! And she recommends using dark meat. My family only eats dark meat, so we had about 3/4 of a pound left, but had probably 5 or so pounds of white meat. I ended up mixing the two, which helped get rid of some of the unwanted white meat! Depending on your preferences, I'm sure either would taste great! Enjoy =)