2 Cauliflower 'Rice' Recipes to die for

Am I the last one to try cauliflower 'rice'? Recommended as a healthy and calories-free alternative to rice, this invention is making waves in the foodie world for a couple of years already but only last week landed to my kitchen. 

The following two recipes were created from scratch, using a medium sized cauliflower, shredded in the food processor. In each case, it serves 3 hungry people.

Veggies overflow

Ingredients:

- half of the 'rice' of a medium cauliflower

- one medium-sized onion, finelly cut

- 1 teaspoon brown sugar

- 100 gr. fresh shiitake mushrooms, finelly cut

- 150 gr. fresh cottage cheese

- 2 tablespoon corn oil

- 200 gr. fresh canned corn

- 100 gr. Allgäuer Emmental, finelly shredded

- 1 fresh tomato sliced for decoration

- 1 teaspoon za'atar

Directions:

Add the oil, the onions and the brown sugar in a pan, at 250C. Mix and fry until brown. Add the za'atar, 'rice', the 2 sorts of cheese, mushrooms, corn and mix well for around 10 minutes. Serve it with the fresh tomatoes. 

Preparation time

10 minutes

Cooking time

15 minutes

Thai impressions

Ingredients:

- 1/2 'rice' of a medium cauliflower

- 3 tablespoon corn oil

- 2 tablespoons za'atar

- 3 tablespoon cottage cheese

- 2 big garlic cloves, finelly chopped

- 50 gr. Allgäuer Emmentaler shredded

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 100 ml. Wok Sauca - Coconut Lemongrass - which is very spicey

Directions:

Warm the oil in a pan at 250C. Add the ingredients one by one and mix them well. You can accompany it by a a fresh cucumber and tomato salad.

Preparation time

10 minutes

Cooking time

10 minutes

Tofu salad with sesame seeds and veggies

Is this time of the year before Pesach when I have to be creative enough to combine different products from the kitchen to create new easy recipes. With the spring around the thoughts about clean eating, the veggies are always part of the scenery. The following recipe is, as most of my recipes, easy to prepare, delicious and with an expense of less than 25 EUR. It works perfectly as a snack, breakfast, lunch or dinner, for small or big kids.

Ingredients:

- 200 gr. Tofu cut in cubes

- 3 mini yellow bell pepper, finelly chopped

- 3 shallots, finelly chopped; alternatively, garlic can also be used or 1 medium red onion

- 125 gr. white champignons, finelly chopped

- 1 tablespoon white sesame

- 3 tablespoons walnut oil; alternatively, the same amount of olive oil can be used

- 1 tomato for decoration

- 1/2 teaspoon of normal salt

Serves: 3

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Warm the oil in a pan warmed at 250C. Add one by one the other ingredients. Mix them well until they are getting a gold-brownish colour. The peppers may need more frying because they contain a high amount of water. The good part is that the liquid from the vegetables is mixing well as a sauce in the pan and at the end all the ingredients are benefiting. If you want your tofu well burned you can wait a bit more until it gets brownish on all side. I personally preferred to finish when the tofu is half-baked. I also found that it is much healthier and tastier for the baby who also had his portion from the salad - and liked it.

I poured all the ingredients in a salad bowl, mixed them one more time. I added the tomato slices as a decoration. In addition, it also offers a good of freshness, in case that you don't fancy too much all the frying, oily taste. On taste, you can also add a pinch of black pepper.

That's all!

Bon Appetit!

Easy recipe: cauliflower soaked in olive oil and lemon juice

I am quite lazy these days, getting ready for some marathon of cooking soon - meaning tomorrow - for Purim seuda and some more work in the kitchen coming up in the next month - because, your guess is right, Pessach is coming. But we still should eat something so tried in less than 30 minutes - 20 minutes to be right - a new very easy recipe, an alteration of the latest cauliflower recipe in the NYTfood edition today.

Ingredients:

1 small cauliflower

3 tablespoon olive oil - it can work with truffle oil too.

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

juice from one lemon

3 garlic gloves, finelly chopped

Serves 2, as an individual meal or in combination with: potatoes, meat or fresh tomatoes or various salads

 Mix the oil, lemon zest, pepper, salt and garlic. Let to rest for around 5 minutes while slowly wisking.

Wash and cut the florets of the cauliflower. Add to the bowl and mix it well for around 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven at 250 Celsius.

Add the ingredients from the bowl on a tray and mix it a bit before leaving in the overn. Turn it on all sides. Bake it for another 10 minutes. If you want it roasted well, you can wait for another 5 minutes or so.
Served at room temperature. If you are in the mood and you are not a big fan of citric juice, why not add one teaspoon of soy sauce too.

The summer of smoothies

This summer was hot in Berlin and with a very active professional life and an advanced pregnancy I had to offer myself the best mixture of vitamins and hydration, prepared with a limited budget and in just a couple of minutes. Yes, I know, I always want too much from life! I started with the easiest smoothie ever: strawberries. 

All I had to do was to clean them and add water and a bit of brown sugar. My juice was ready in just a couple of minutes. If I was not thirsty enough, I kept it in the fridge for one hour and had a very refreshing treat. 

Another frequent combination for my early morning involed several fruits: blueberries and bananas, to whom I added once in a while one avocado or some kiwis too. When I had kiwis and blueberries, the liquid base was always water. In the case of bananas and avocado, I preferred at least once the week to add some milk. The sugar was not necessary for the bananas combinations. In all cases, I preferred brown sugar. Avocado can stand alone, as it is creamy and tasty enough for providing the energy offered by a rich breakfast. With some ice cubes,  it tastes even better. A pinch of cinnamon or Muscat added to simple avocado or banana shakes makes the taste richer and very perfumed.

As for now, I stayed away of too complex recipes, with spinach or vegetables, but the time has come to improve my skills and get more vitamins and energy into my life. 

Learning how to properly prepare couscous - work in process

I love to much couscous not only because it's very easy to prepare - maximum 20 minutes if you are lazy enough - and very tasty too. Also, you can add various spices - za'atar, of course, but also cumin, and some dried parsley and even some cayenne pepper - veggies - such as carrots or tomatoes, scallions and garlic. It goes well with various types of oils - cotton being the less recommended, and olive the favourite. However, there is something always missing from my couscous recipes, mainly the real experience of preparing it in the traditional way, as it is done in Morocco or the Middle East.

Till will be able to take part to a live exercise of preparing real couscous, I tried to update my bibliography and have a look at various videos and traditional explanations and recipes. Based on the latest lectures and conversations, I improved a little bit the couscous recipe, as follows:

- before starting the cooking, I add 4-5 tablespoon of flour and mix it for 60 seconds till the entire composition is homogeneous. Did I say that I try to mix it with hand, feeling the special texture of the grains?

- talking about mixing, acquiring homogeneity after each ingredient added. It will take longer to prepare the recipe, but at the end you enter the ancestral pace of the genuine couscous experts. 

- limit the amount of water added. I used to add around 1 cup of water for 2 cups of couscous, but I rather preferred to be more generous with the oil - 4 to 6 tablespoon. 

- add the oil first, then the spices and then the garlic. For the bigger veggies - such as tomatoes - the cooking time takes longer and thus you better add them when the composition is almost done and hot enough for a proper preparation. 

Right now, I am very far away from a successful couscous maker, but following my personal motto of learning at least one new thing every day, I promise to improve soon and share a genuine experience.  

Soon...very soon... 

Roasted olives recipe

I love olives but as I can get bored very easy, I need to diversify the recipes and ingredients and last but not least, tastes. During my February challenge of cooking from Leila Lindholm's cooking book, I discovered a recipe that was too tempting not to try.

It can be done very easy - in less than 20 minutes, and is also very affordable - if you have the garlic, the olive oil and the za'atar and other spices in the house.

I chose the black simple olives and I don't think it can go with other kind of olives. 

I slowly heated at 250C in the pan 150 ml. pure olive oil, with 1/2 tea spoon of cumin powder, and 1 tea spoon of za'atar, plus 3 cloves of garlic, minced. After 2 minute, I add the olives - 150 gr. - and mixed slowly all the ingredients. After around 10 minutes, the roasting is done and the olives are waiting to be tasted. 

It goes very well with a meat dish, but also with some fresh veggie salads or with fish.

It serves two.

Bon Appétit!

Tasty pumpkin purée

Orange is the colour we need at the beginning of autumn in order to forget that the winter season is getting dangerously close. Or, at least, I need as much warm as possible to survive the long dark time of snow and cold. But at least I have a serious reason to be happy at the arrival of autumn: the pumpkin season. 

Even though nowadays it is possible to buy pumpkin regardless of the time of the year, I always prefer to add them on my menu in autumn. If I have a pumpkin tooth, I know what to do without too much suffering.

My first pumpkin of the year was relatively easy to prepare:

I boiled it for around 45 minutes at a temperature of 150C. I added a pinch of salt in the boiling water for taste.

In the mixer, I added: 1 tablespoon of olive oil, some garlic on taste, one teaspoon of turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of za'atar. The overall mixing process may take maximum 5 minutes. 

To be served fresh and hot, with some leaves of cilantro for a more complex taste and green decorations.

Bon Appetit!

Tuna croquettes

Since Monday, all I have in my mind - when I think about food - are thuna croquettes. I am not that good at such things, especially because I not always match the right combination of ingredients for having an almost perfectly round croquette. But tempted by the idea and looking for more ideas for the Friday meal, I took a chance to try my hand on something new. (Yes, I know that I was almost absent from the blog in the last weeks, but I am trying now to set up more writing adventures and eating less or only the old recipes that have a guarantee of success of 98%. But promise to be more active in the next days!)

The inspiration for my tuna croquettes was from this site, but I changed some of the quantities and added more ingredients.

I used the following ingredients:

350 gr. simple poached tuna, carefully minced and without the water 

2 beaten eggs, medium sized

10 small champignons, finely minced

1/4 lemon, medium sized

1 red onion, finely minced

1 pinch of Cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 bread crumbs

I added all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed them for 2 minutes. After everything melted, I made some small balls and let them rest on a cooking paper.

Everything was looking better and tasted even better, but somehow I missed the right size of the champignons. The next time I will need to cut them even more finely. 

After 10 minutes of waiting, I added some half cup crumbs and rolled the tuna balls. 3 minutes before, I added same cotton seed oil in the pan and let it warm. I added the croquettes and turned them from a side to another for another couple of minutes. Not all of them resisted fully to the test, but most of them ended up as deep gold croquettes that I can't wait to taste in a couple of hours.

I will probably try the recipe again - including on Hanukkah - because: it can be prepared very fast - maximum 40 minutes, the waiting time included; it is more than affordable. I would like to replace the red onion with garlic and add some more spices in the mixture. Only looking at them my mouth is watering but should keep my hands out of the fridge for now.

Bon Appetit!