Cruising in Food Heaven

If you read my other blog, you'll know that all too recently we returned from a cruise to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday. One of the absolute highlights of this trip with the four course dinner every night, which featured Italian cuisine with fantastic presentation and a great taste - and imagine! the cooks were catering for hundreds of people at once! Quite the accomplishment.

So although the rest of this blog doesn't actually feature any of my own recipes, I simply had to show you all the amazing things we ate on this Costa cruise line in the Mediterranean, and hopefully it will not only inspire you to try your hand at some of these dishes, but it will also inspire me to try and make some of these food creations. I've made a few notes below the pictures, with a few suggestions for changes I would make to the dishes. After all, the poor chefs on the cruise had to cook these dishes up for hundreds of people at once!

Squid Ink Risotto with Prawns and Cherry Tomatoes

This was pretty nice - I've never tasted squid ink before and I was concerned it would be too salty and strong. It wasn't, just a really lovely flavour. I would have loved king prawns with this dish, cooked in garlic and butter and added on top. Probably wouldn't have bothered with the cherry tomatoes, but maybe some chilli instead?

Meat filled Ravioli

This tasted a lot better than it looked, although I haven't a clue what the sauce was. And they were advertised as 'meat'-filled, as opposed to any specific meat being named. Some spinach and more garlic would have been welcome here.

Sea Bass with creamy potato, sautéed greens and cherry tomatoes

A classic, beautiful dish. The presentation could use a bit of work, but I wouldn't change a thing!

Grilled Swordfish with lightly fried Octopus

This was one of my favourite dishes on the entire cruise. The octopus was cooked absolutely beautifully, and the swordfish wasn't bad either! Adding anything extra here would probably ruin the dish - it really didn't need any carbs or veggies on the side. Swordfish is pretty filling actually.

Steak with stuffed pepper, bubble & squeak and red onion chutney

The steak and stuffed pepper were great (a nice change from steak and chips) but I wasn't a fan of the bubble and squeak at all. It was more like a quiche, and they would have done so much better with potato fritters. I don't like having gravy poured on top of my steak either...

Mussel broth tagliatelle

Absolutely beautiful dish. You could taste the freshness of the mussels, and Italians never go wrong with pasta.

Fried courgettes in a creamy pasta sauce

This was quite a surprising dish. I'm not a big fan of courgettes, but sliced thinly and fried like this, they really work! The cream was surprisingly light, and it was an excellent starter.

Rare steak with jacket potato and kapunata

Yum yum yum! Served beautifully rare and the kapunata (Italian dish of peppers and garlic and other veg) complemented it amazingly. Again, nice change not having chips on the side - the baked potato was great!

The most amazing seafood platter

We didn't actually have this seafood platter on the cruise - I ordered this for dinner the night before we boarded in the port town of Savona. Aside from being a huge dish, at an amazing price of 20 Euro, it was perhaps the best dish I've ever tasted. The highlight was certainly the octopus, which was cooked perfectly and was absolutely divine. The mussels, prawn and scallops were fantastic, and the fish itself: swordfish, tune and the whole sea bream(?, maybe?) were incredible. And there were chips on the side!! The best start imaginable to this holiday, and I will one day return to that restaurant and order it again!!