Vegetarian treats: smoked cheese with mushrooms

I am trying to keep myself as much as possible in trends with the seasons and the overall mood. As we wanted to have a quality family time thinking about what we did already and discussing our plans for the next 12 months, I decided to prepare a couple of light meals, colourful and rich and, of course, a little bit creative as well.

Also, I wanted something fit for both cheese and meat based meals. 

As autumn is here and there are fresh vegetables are always on demand, I made the following choice:

zucchini

tomatoes

big mushrooms

sesame seeds

smoked tofu cheese

All together and with oil in the pan, they spent some time in the oven (heated at 150C) and disappeared shortly after in the bellies of the hungry members of my family.

The time dedicated to the preparation of this tasty meal was: maximum 15 minutes!

Plenty of time for blogging, isn't it?

Eggplants with couscous and mozzarella

 The following recipe is a creative cocktail between the recipe found in this good book about Mozzarella and this tasty recipe from Israeli Kitchen: eggplant stuffed with fruit bulgur.

You need, for four persons:

2 medium eggplants, sliced and fried

2 packs of fresh mozzarella, sliced

250 gr. boiled couscous, with salt and rosmarin

100 ml. olive oil

Add the mozzarella, couscous and oil to the fried eggplants and fry together for approximatively 15 minutes. 

That's all!

Rice with Vegetables - Indian style

An adaptation from Indische Kochen. Die Beste Rezepte, Edition Trautwein (p. 36)

400 gr. broccoli - boiled

300 gr. Basmati reis - boiled

100 gr. raisins secs

400 gr. carrots - boiled

200 gr. small tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

300 gr. Creme fraîche

2 tsp. curry powder

You can add also ananas, nuts or ginger.

And, in less than 45 minutes, you can make 4 hungry people happy.

Smoked tofu with tomatoes, garlic, sour cream and avocado

Did you miss my avocado recommendations? Well, be ready for more than one recipe. 

Let's start with the sour part:

To the wonderful recipe of smoked tofu with tomatoes and garlic, from the Vegetarian Tofu Recipes book, please be so kind and add a big avocado sliced and some 250 gr. sour cream, or yogurt. Maybe also some salt.

And, that's all!

Avocado-Pomegranate Salat

I am not following too many recipes, but for the sake of diversification and given my limited experience in the issues of cooking, I need to use some books.

I have already four big colourful ones in my library, a very modest presence, in comparison with the volume of my books.

But, I have Internet, so no worries about my bibliography and actually, I prefer the virtual option, as I can find useful video posts - maybe one day I will try to do it too.

The following recipe is adapted from Elizabeth Wolf Cohen's Jüdische Küche. 100 authentische Rezepte.

What do you need is:

1 pomegranate

2 oranges

2 avocados

10 fresh mint leaves

Cayenne pepper, on taste

1 spoon of honey

25 gr. of salt

Prepare the orange juice and mix together with salt, pepper, the salt and the honey.

Remove the seeds of the pomegranate, peel the avocado and slice it.

Pour the orange mixture and wait another 10 minutes.

The total amount of time is maximum 25 minutes.

I served together with some fish recipes, fighting hard the temptation to eat it as a separate meal. A lovely and unique taste, worthy to taste it!

Refreshing mandarine salad

After so many drinks, you need to continue with something fresh. Like, for example, a salad. Not a salad with avocado, as we, in the house, we are having almost daily. This time, it is a mixture of:

2 bunch of fresh salad, washed and chopped

4-5 tangerines

sun flower oil

sesame seeds

salt

Blend them together for 2-3 minutes, put in the fridge for another half an hour - for allowing a dialogue and combination of ingredients and be ready to serve it with fish (in our case) or other meat-based meals or with some cheese and pasta. 

Easy and tasty!

Add some zucchini

I am not a constant vegetarian, but I prefer for a long time to limit the meat ratio to once the week, maybe. I can live without meat, but to stimulate my appetite I need to create various combinations of vegetables. And, here, my imagination is playing an important role. 

A couple of weeks ago - when I was decided to start writing about what I am cooking, hence the photos I tried to take as professionally as possible - I was about to prepare some ready-made tortellini, but I had the feeling that it will not be enough so tried to think a bit about a new combination.

I pick up from my special food closet:

- sunflower oil (100 ml.)

- sesame oil (3 drops)

- 1 zucchini

- sesame seeds (100 gr.)

- salt

Peel the zucchini and cut into small cubicles. Pour the sunflower oil in the heated pan, together with the salt, zucchini cubicles and sesame seeds. Mixed them together for five minutes, then pour the sesame oil. After 30-35 minutes, mix the composition with the tortellini and wait for another five minutes.

Ready to eat!