My First Easy Cheese/Meat-free Lasagna

Some recipes are waiting and waiting for you to be prepared and you still avoid doing it because not brave enough to just go on. It´s like that famous door that waits for you to be open and you spend the rest of your life in the front of it waiting someone to open up for you. 

No more waiting for me! Including in terms of recipe testing. When I want to do something and wish for it, I know now that everything is up to just me, the one and only in charge to make it happen.

Lasagna was one of those meals hard to be done at home. Not sure what was the psychological blockage about, but it was like this for a long time, until this Friday when I just put together all the ingredients and finally made it. 

The most important part of the preparation has to do with the cheese filling, as you need some experience in order to properly know what goes better for a tasty result. For instance, I´ve used ricotta chese, but I bet a cottage cheese or some labne with a less neutral consistency would have bring a stronger salty taste. Otherwise, it was not only a great fulfilling meal exprience for the main Shabbes meal, but also a cool kitchen project developed for and together with my son who helped intensively with the filling of the sheets. 

Next on the agenda is a meaty lasagna for whom I am trying to figure out the right ingredients right now.

Ingredients

125 gr mascarpone
2 beaten eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
125 gr. shredded yellow cheese
6 non baked Barilla lasagna sheets
1/4 red pepper, finelly minced
125 ml. tomato sauce, at room temperature
fresh dill, on taste - alternatively, you can use parsley
4 gloves garlic, finelly minced

Directions

In a bowl mix well the cheeses, the eggs, the salt, the dill and the garlic. Keep some cheese for the top of the lasagna. Pour the tomato sauce in a different bowl.

On a sheet of lasagna, add the tomato and the cheese filling. For the cheese filling, we used a cooking brush. Repeat the operation until you are on the last sheet. Add the rest of the tomato sauce - preferably have some extra to let the lasagna cook in its own sauce. On the last sheet, add the extra cheese and eventually some additional tomato layer. 

What I really liked about preparing this lasagna is that I figure out how many options you have for playing with ingredients, including when you are not mixing meat and cheese. You have a lot of options on the veggies side, for instance, by adding slices of fresh tomatoes, or aubergines, or onions or champignons, or corn, or even some fried potatoes - but it looks rather like a mousaka that I will try as well. 

In my variant of lasagna, there is no oil used and I loved it this way, but you can also add the oil if you want a greasy final result. A big lover of spices, this time I prefer to not add anything, but some oregano or za´atar goes good as well. 

For more tastier results, labne instead of ricotta and Greek cheese instead of the mozarella could help.

Let it heat in the oven at 250C. Serve it fresh, at the room temperature!

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Bon Appétit!

Grean Beans with Pistachios and Labne

Half a year without posting and it paid off: the DA sunk, the regular revenues from my blogging and photography activities as well and the chances of being accepted for a serious collaboration with a serious brand are slim, if not completely non-existent.

Torned between the need of keeping an online face and the pressures on the personal front, I decided to take the break first, and come back. Now, I am back. Hungry, in the mood for experiments and keen to share some personal stories of resilience and mindfulness. 

One of the most inspiring cookbooks I´ve read lately is Leah Koenig Modern Jewish Cooking. My kind of cookbook where simple kosher ingredients are mixed creatively. There are plenty of things I´ve learned from this book, but in the next 4-5 posts will share the most relevant for my current cooking state of affairs, as it allowed me to try and experience new ingredients, products and tastes. As usual, I´ve adapted the recipes, added extra ingredients or eliminated some. 

Here it is, for the sautée green beans with labneh!

If there is a Middle Eastern product that I am always longing for, there it is labneh. I love the texture, the versatility - it goes so well with fish, bagel, eaten from the box, prepared with dill - and the consistency. It combination with green beans, sautée, Iranian pistachio and walnut oil, among others, it can be easily eaten as a meal in itself, as it is heavy and nutritious. The preparation may take some time - around one hour - but it elegantly save your entrée part for the Friday evening meal.

Ingredients

200 gr. green beans, washed, with the ends on both sides

2 full tablespoons walnut oil

5 big garlic cloves, halved

around 20 Iranian pistachios, crushed in a mojar (the original recipe mentioned almonds, but I prefered to keep it up with the citrus note) 

2 full tablespoons lemon zest

1/2 tablespoon salt

100 gr. normal butter

250 gr. fresh labneh, from the fridge- as an alternative, you can add some parmesan and any sort of hard cheese on the top as well

Directions

Heaten the oil in the pan at 250 for around 10 minutes. Add the garlic and roast it slowly for a couple of minutes. Add the beans and the lemon zest and slowly roast it from a side to another. Add the butter and keep mixing up. As the beans may be a bit too green, the butter tenders it. Continue with the pistachios and keep mixing. 

When ready, wait for a couple of minutes until it cools down, add the labneh - or your choice of cheese - on the top and serve it either as an individual dish or as a companion to fish or summer salads. 

Serves: 3

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Bon Appétit!

Cheesy Cornbread Muffins for a Snacky Weekend

Autumn is almost away and the days are getting darker and much, much colder - at least in the part of the world I am living. The body is getting tired and we need more often small energy snacks to keep up walking through the day.

For those longing for a power snack but afraid there is not enough time for baking it ourselves, I'm bringing you just another easy muffin recipe, made of cornflour, cheese - lots of it, milk and...many more easy ingredients. It's ready in less than one hour and fills your breakfast, dinner and lunch, plus the short snack breaks with a lot of healthy energy.

Ingredients
1 cup cornflour
15 gr. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 full tablespoon cooking oil
3 medium-sized eggs
2/3 cup milk, at the room temperature
11 pigeonheart tomatoes, cut in quarters
1 full cup shredded cheese

Directions

Heat the oven art 250C, at least 15 minutes before starting the baking. Add the ingredients, one by one, while whisking them well. Let the composition to rest for a couple of minutes, then pour it into 12 muffin papercups. 

Bake it for around 20 minutes or until ready. I've personally preferred them a bit crispy on the top, therefore I've kept it for almost 30 minutes. Your muffins are ready!

Serves: 12 crunchy tasty cornbread muffins

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 20-30 minutes

Bon Appétit!

Easy Peasy Apple Muffins Recipe

Apples are one of the main ingredients of a successful Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) table. You can bake them, or just slice them and dip them in the honey, turn them into kugel or...do whatever you want with them. Everything is accepted because...it's Rosh Hashanah. 

This year, I was very comfy with not cooking non-stop for days - or even weeks. I wanted to make things as simple as possible and bring love and happiness to an otherwise traditional table, instead of tired faces. Because muffins are a very loved baking item in our household, I had the idea to have them with apples. You have tradition, and little cakes and an easy baking process and not too many ingredients. Eff it! Ready, steady go!

Ingredients

1 cup white flour

8 gr. baking powder

2/3 cup white sugar

10 gr. vanilla sugar

4 medium-sized apples, finelly shredded

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions

Heat the oven at 250C, preferably at least 10 minutes before starting the baking.

Add the ingredients, one by one and mix well to have a homogenous composition.

Pour the content into the muffin papers.

Bake them until ready.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 30 minutes

Serves: 12

Bon Appétit!

Spicy Spinach Sidedish

Spinach is one of my least favorite veggie. However, driven by the hope that one day will live a healthy life, I did my best to combine it in different recipes and sometimes I succeeded to create tasty recipes that suit my anti-spinach palate.

Like today, for instance, when I was courageous enough to combine it with a spice I am not using that often - if ever: carom (or ajwain, that I got courtesy of SpiceKitchen UK). A combination of caraway, cumin and fennel, it contains thyme and has a bitter taste (a mixture between anise and oregano). Therefore, I tried to combine it with other ingredients that may alleviate its sparkling: pistachios (salty, Turkish ones) and my beloved garlic, plus the olive oil used for frying. 

Overall, it went out pretty tasty. It's super fast to prepare and it makes it into a tasty sidedish for a main meat meal. For a vegetarian combination, you can add some freshly sliced tomatoes with cheese, or some freshly boiled potatoes.

Ingredients
- 2 generous tablespoons of olive oil
- 2 teaspoons carom seeds
- 4 big garlic cloves cut in rounds
- around 20 pistachios, halved
- 100 gr. baby spinach leaves, carefully cleaned

Directions:
In a medium pan, heat the oil at 250C. Add the carom seeds and fry it for a couple of minutes until it starts sizzling. Add the garlic and keep mixing with the spices for another 2-3 minutes. Continue with the pistachio for another 2-3 minutes. Add the spinach in small batches while mixing. As the spinach is slowly frying, mix all the ingredients a couple of time.
Serve it fresh and lukewarm.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Bon Appétit!

Delicious Side-Dish with Okra, Rice-Shaped Noodles, Garlic, Tomatoes and Aleppo Pepper

Okra is such a versatile and not always easy to match vegetable, especially for people like me, who didn't grow up with. As many other food-related products, I've discovered okra relatively late, but through trials and errors, I've discovered my own dish combinations. 

But I haven't try anything new for a long time, maybe for too long. It is not always easy to find the fresh product - and I am not a supporter of frozen veggies anyway - and most of the shops selling it are located quite far away from me. Sometimes, I was simply not in the good mood for paying the full attention requested by preparing a recipe with an ingredient so unfamiliar to my usual eating habits. 

The wonder happened yesterday and I was not only happy to taste okra again, but also to scribble fast the main directions of a new recipe. 

You can use this as a side dish - a good company to a meaty meal - or if you want more consistency, to add some shredded yellow cheese to make it into an autonomous meal. It suits very well white fish.

It is easy to prepare - you only need 45 minutes - and delicious for the palate, as well as healthy.

Ingredients

200 gr. fresh okra, finelly cut in rondels

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 cloves garlic, finelly cut

5 middle-sized tomatoes, finelly sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Aleppo Pepper

100 gr. rice-shaped noodles. it goes very well with rice

2 tablespoon cooking oil

Directions for preparing the okra mix

Warm the oil in a pan at medium heat. When it start sizzling, add the okra and keep mixing in order to have them fried on both sides. After 5 minutes add the garlic and keep mixing. Sprinkle the salt and add the tomatoes. Mix well for another 5 minutes. When ready, add the Aleppo Pepper, mix well and put it on the side.

For the rice-shaped noodles

In a pot, add the oil and warm it for a couple of minutes. Add the rice noodle and mix it well with the oil. Pour water, at a ration of 2 cups of water for a cup of rice noodles. Mix it well and leave it boil for around 15 minutes.

When the noodles are ready, add the okra mixture and mix it well while heated at medium size temperature for another couple of minutes.

Now, it is ready to be served, either as an independent dish or as a side dish to meat or fish.

Serves: 3

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Bon Appétit!

Spicy Cauliflower with Black Sesame

Cauliflower is such an easy match for a variety of flavors, especially spices, allowing the culinary imagination to easily fly away. My experience - although limited - is that you rarely can get it wrong with cauliflower, such a versatile vegetable which keeps a good and healthy company to heavy meals. I've tried this recipe during the Hanukka holidays, when everything is filled with oil and was in desperate need of some healthy side dish. 

Ingredients

1 medium-sized cauliflower, with separated florets

1 teaspoon za'atar

1 teaspoon Berbere spices, received part of Spice Kitchen UK Brand Ambassador Program

1 teaspoon black sesame

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Warm the oven at 250C, at least 10 minutes before starting the baking. On a sheet pan, smear the florets with olive oil - preferably on both sides, then add the various spices and the salt, also on both sides. Let it bake while turning from a part to another every 10 minutes. When ready, add the black sesame and mix it a couple of times.

Cooking time

30 minutes

Preparation time

10 minutes

It makes it a good side dish for both meaty and diary menus. Especially for the latkes, it was my favorite companion. You can also serve it as an entrée, together with a fresh salad - cherry tomatoes with cucumber, with or without oil. The Berbere spices are giving to the meal such a heavy consistency that it changes completely the otherwise bland cauliflower flavor. 

Bon Appétit!

Tahini Honey Cake - (An Almost Failure)

Tahini/Tehina/Sesame sauce is such a modern ingredient nowadays, generously used in various sweet and savory combinations, not only for the classical salad. It has a heavy dense texture and adds an aromated note of originality to any meal, especially a cake. And I am not talking only about halwa.

However, it seems that in my case things take longer as expected when it comes to success in the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago, I tried my own variant of tahini cake, which didn't came together well. Maybe because it was too much oil and too much tahini, and something was so wrong that even after 2 hours the entire composition was still in a liquid form.

But I am not someone to give up too fast, therefore, on the occasion of the Jewish High Holidays, besides my classical honey cake, I wanted to improve the initial tahini cake recipe and adapt it for the usual list of ingredients served on this occasion. The result was much better, although it did not look very good for the picture - the upper side went a bit burned as I had to keep it in the oven for over an hour. However, it baked well and had a deep nutty honey taste. Most probably, a third time will even better - at least visually - but until then I am happy to share this successful attempt.

Ingredients

- 2 1/2 cups white flour

- 19 gr. baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup white sugar

- 75 ml. honey

- 3 medium-sized eggs

- 100 ml. tahini

- 2/3 cup cold milk

- 1 teaspoon grounded cardamom

- 100 gr. butter for the pan

Directions

Preheat oven at 250 C. Grease the pan with butter.

Add the ingredients, one by one, first the sold one, followed by the liquid, while mixing well every time. Pour the content into the pan. Wait a couple of minutes and then bake it in the oven. 

To be served morning, with the hot coffee, or as a companion to the afternoon tea.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: Over 1 hour. It depends a lot of the kind of oven you have, but generally, one hour is the minimum time requested for achieving a proper baked texture

Serves: 9

Bon Appétit!

Corn on the Cob with Ras El-Hanout, Salt and Butter

Many autumns ago, corn used to be my main meal for the final weeks of August and mid-September. Mostly eaten as corn on the cob, it only involved salt, and a lot of time spent in the boiling temperature of the kitchen while boiling corn after corn. It was all what I was eating for lunch and dinner and the natural sweetness of the corn was what I needed for that part of the year. 

Meanwhile I grew up and my tastes become more complex. Many years I just avoided corn on the cob, because too proletarian for my newly acquired preferences. Also, it was not so easy to find that countryside corn sold in the farmer's markets in the old country. A new world was opening to me and it was no place for that past any more.

However, once I settled up and diversified my life and food experiences, the old recipes and life stories were just another opportunity to share an unique story. My story.

Therefore, why not using them as a basic for just another spicy experience?

Ingredients

- 2 normal size corn
- 1 tablespoon salt for boiling the corn and another tablespoon for smear it on all sides of each corn
- 1 liter cold water
- 2 tablespoons butter, one for each corn

- 1 tablespoon Ras El-Hanout

Directions

Preheat the water at 250C. When almost boiling, add the corn and let it boil for at least 45 minutes. If the corn is too ripe, you can wait as long as one hour. When ready, take them out of the water and smear the butter all over each of the corns. Add salt and the Ras El-Hanout, spreading it all over the surface. You can use a cooking easel if you want an almost perfect coverage.

Serve it warm or at the room temperature. Reheat, if necessary, in the microwave.

A typical spice for the North African cuisine, usually mixed with couscous, this spice-mix of Ras El-Hanout has at least 25 different ingredients, among which: turmeric, paprika, salt, nutmeg, ginger, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, sugar, all spice, clalli powder, star anise, cloves, rose petals. Only the mention of each and every one of those ingredients stirs tasty memories therefore you can imagine how does it taste the full combination added on the corn. The butter creates a special fluidity adding a milky note.

You can also use this corn mixture as a main ingredient of a salad, eventually together with tomatoes, onion, avocado and some olive oil. 

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes-1 hour, depending on how ripe the corn is.

Serves: 2

Bon Appétit!

Disclaimer: The Ras El-Hanout spices were offered by Spice Kitchen UK part of their Brand Ambassador Program, but the opinions are, as usual, my own. Their Ras El-Hanout was a 2-star great taste award winner in 2017.

About a Different Kind of Pepper: Urfa Biber (Isot Pepper)

This is less a post about recipes and cooking ideas, but has as main character a very special kind of pepper: Urfa Biber or Isot Pepper. Part of my selection from the Spice Kitchen UK collection, with whom I've entered a partnership part of their Brand Ambassador program, I've received a couple of spices to test in the next weeks and months, starting with the very special Aleppo pepper.

The inspiration of Monday's lunch was something a bit different: a very black looking powder called Urfa Biber. Biber means pepper in Turkish, the country of origin of this special kind of pepper. Practically, it is part of the red pepper family, produced through a process of 'sweating': drying of the seeds during the day, followed by wrapping them tied during the day. Compared to other peppers, they are less spicy, with a warm note which creates a pleasant balance of flavors. 

I used it twice for my lunch: spread modestly on my fresh tomatoes, and as one pinch used for by very special barberry rice - 1 cup Jasmin rice, plus 25 gr. dried barberries (or Berberizen as they are called in German). The other part of the meal were Turkey cevapcici, brought to me by the kosher meat Of Tov company. Especially in the case of the rice, the urfa biber was a great balance to the mild sparkling taste of barberries, without pungency of any kind. Given that the day before I had a 25 km. hiking this meal was not only easy to prepare but also full of energy and fresh vitamins (barberries are rich in Vitamin C). 

As for the urfa biber, my short documentation indicates that it has a great variety of uses, among which: on roasted eggplants, fried eggs, but also brownies. Testing in process so keep an eye on my blog for updates.

Disclaimer: Spices offered by Spice Kitchen UK, part of their Brand Ambassador Program, but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Easy, Skyr-based Scones

I've tried my hand on scones several times in the last blogging years, very often with tasty results. They are easy to prepare, always delicious and with a low chance of failure. All you need is a bit of imagination and some basic ingredients - like flour, baking powder and salt. The rest can be easily matched from the fridge or pantry.

Yesterday, I was thinking to have some of them again, because wanted to have some afternoon snacks and we were quite out of good treats.

You can have those scones with a cuppa or a big coffee mug, fill with jam - my latest love is a fig jam that I hope it will never finish - or add some extra cheese for some dairy taste. I was very happy to find an extra use of the Skyr Yogurt, an Iceland-made product which I instantly fell in love with a couple of years ago and would love to explore more in some next posts. Brought from Norway over thousand years ago, Skyr is officially classified as cheese. It has the consistency of the strained yogurt but with a much milder flavor.

Ingredients
500 gr. white flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon backing powder
300 ml. Skyr Yogurt
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds for the garnish

Directions

Heat the oven at 250C, at least 10 minutes before starting the baking. Mix the ingredients and let them interact with each other for at least 10 minutes. By hand, make small doughs and add them on a parchment covered tray. Bake it in the oven for around 20 minutes or until completely baked.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 25 minutes
Make it into 20 tasty little scones. To be eaten immediately!

Bon Appétit!

Thuna Steak with Sesame Oil and Soy Sauce

I never worked with thuna before, except the canned one, lazily added to a salad. I don't like that much either the texture or the taste therefore I rarely invested too many seconds thinking about it. Today though, I impulsively decided to try something new. So, it was thuna steak with sesame oil, soy sauce and some black sesame seeds garnish.

Ingredients
250 gr. frozen thuna. I don't like frozen meat or fish, but it was the only available option, therefore I had to wait a bit more until the two piece were completely defrosten
1 tablespoon of orange juice, spread over the thuna on both sides. It is always recommended when you cook fish, but especially for the frozen variant, as diminishes the unpleasant fish taste
1/2 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
1 tablespoon of black sesame seeds, for garnish

Directions

Heat the oven at 250C, at least 5 minutes before the fish is prepared in the pan. Spread the lemon juice on both sides, followed by the brown sugar, the soy sauce and the sesame oil. When in the oven, take care to turn on both sides every 10 minutes or so. 

After 30 minutes in the oven, take the thuna away and put it on a pan on the stove and fry it for another 15 minutes. You only need to add some couple of drops of sesame oil.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes.

Because of all the ingredients - especially the sweet soy sauce and the brown sugar - it tastes slightly sweet but in a very healthy discrete way. I served with country potato fries and some fresh tomatoes on the side. It was a very fulfilling and healthy lunch and hopefully, I am courageous enough to try again some thuna recipes soon.

Bon Appétit!

Chop...chop...chop...the Parsley for Tabbouleh

While many of the foodie humans around are spending impressive amounts of time trying to figure out how to do an Instagram-perfect layered cake - for those keen to follow my visual adventures on Insta, I am boiledwords there too - I am terrified about my lack of skills on chopping veggies. Ten years ago, while preparing a barbecue party, I was assigned to finelly cut the tomatoes for an Israeli salad and what I got back was the remark of my friend: 'Is this what you call chopped tomatoes?' And he was right but instead of honing and improving my skills I tried to avoid as much as possible to go again through the same challenge. 

But as there is a beginning for everything, it i also an ending for fears and frustrations and inferiority feelings. Today is the great day when I will do my own tabbouleh salad. Because I want and I can and I'll do it. Chop...chop...chop...

I've slightly adapted the recipe presented in Cooking Class: Middle Eastern. The Australian Women's Weekly, 2003 edition. 

Ingredients
2/3 cup burghul
4 cups fresh parsley, finelly chopped
1/2 cup fresh mint, finelly chopped
3 green shallots, finelly chopped
1 small red onion, finelly chopped
4 medium-sized red tomatoes, finelly chopped, without seeds and the chore
2 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

Cover burghul with the same amount of cold water and let it rest for 15 minutes. Press the burghul for spreading the water uniformly in the bowl. After 15 minutes drain the rest of the water.

The most of the time - around 30 minutes of preparation, in total - was spent chopping. I had in the front of my eyes the beautifully fine tabbouleh bowls served in the restaurant. And kept chopping more and more. The onions were the best, the tomatoes went well, but the mint and parsley were a far cry from any original chopped recipe. Which means that I should keep practising at least once the month for better and more experienced results. Maybe I also need a special knife, as a good knife can really help to achieve the best final results. Chop...chop...chop

The final result was delightful, easy to match with some fried chicken or an autonomous salad for the busy healthy mornings. You can add a drop of yogurt, feta cheese, goat cheese, or just eat it as an individual meal or a side dish for a meaty meal. 

Suitable to be kept in the fridge for at least one hour before eating and to be prepared and eaten in the same day.

Serves: 6

Bon Appétit!

Ginger, Honey and Teriyaki Sauce Chicken Thighs

Since 2010, when my blog was launched successfully in the online waters, I posted only 2 meat recipes. For your information, I am not a vegan or vegetarian, although I fancy to eat clean and healthy, and the low frequency of meat recommendations is due to the fact that I only eat kosher meat which if you are outside of Israel, America or England, might be a bit problematic, but not impossible to purchase. Anyway, I am not blessed with fancy restaurants to try various top notch meat recipes - I would sing you Hanukka songs for a piece of beautiful roasted duck in plum sauce or chestnuts right now - therefore cooking meat is always a challenge, but not an impossible thing. I do have more than one choice to try from and in the next years, my experience with meat will get diversified as well.

One of my staple meat meal are the chicken thighs, which I usually cover in various sauces. It is easy to prepare and cook, rich in proteines and matching nicely a salad or a portion of potatoes. 

This recipe is an Asian winter variant, without oil, which I perfectly loved because the tastes of the ingredients are mixing into the meat flavor with exquisite results.

Ingredients
5 chicken thighs
1 tablespoon greeted fresh ginger
3 tablespoons Teriyaki sauce
3 tablespoons honey

Directions
Place the defrosten chicken thighs in the pan. Smear on both sides the ingredients in order to cover them properly. For the honey and Teriyaki sauce, I used a brush. Place it in the oven at 250C and cook it for around one hour or until ready.

To be matched with a fresh tomato salad, mashed potatoes or just a classical portion of French fries.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes
Serves: 3

Bon Appétit!

Brushetta Recipe - Easy Like Sunday Morning

Good late morning everyone! Fancy something special for your brunch today? I made today my first bruschetta and very happy about it! If you want to have and eat it too, here is the easiest tastiest recipe around the world wide web:

Ingredients
2 slices of black bread
3 medium sized tomatoes
3 garlic cloves finelly minced - if you are supposed to have a lot of busy meetings for the rest of the day, you might skip this. I never do it, anyway
1 bunch of fresh parsley
2 tablespoons dried tarragon
2 tablespoons olive oil
A pinch of sea salt, on taste

Directions

Grate two tomatoes. Add and mix well the ingredients. Spread the juice on top. Slice the tomato and add to the bread.

To be eaten with some slices of fresh Fetta cheese. Goat cheese goes perfectly well too. Or some fried eggs. It is important to take it easy, enjoy the taste and think about the good things coming your way.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Serves: 2

Bon Appétit!

Delicious Ricotta Cheese Quiche with Tomatoes and Basilicum

I love quiches, especially during the winter, and as an easy meal to kill some short days when I am not too in the mood for cooking. Although I know that it is easy to make and hard to finish, I do not credit myself too often for such a culinary adventure, not because I might have some unpleasant cooking failures memories, but simply because baking requires on my side a lot of attention and focus which I am not always have in excess - especially when the baby chooses to roam around the kitchen exactly in the moment when I am about to prepare some complicated recipe.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a look at a German cooking book - Biergarten Cookbook, by Julia Skowronek - dealing with the usual food served in the famous local beer garten. Most of the recipes were not my cup of tea, but the ricotta cheese quiche with tomaotes and basilicum rang a bell home and decided to try my hand to something new.

The following recipe is a slight adaptation from the book. 
Ingredients
1 ready made Filo pastry
250 gr. ricotta cheese
200 gr. sour cream
4 eggs, medium size
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
5 shallots, finelly chopped
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
100 gr. Pecorino hard cheese
12 fresh Basilicum leaves
I used a 50cm. diameter baking pan.

 Directions
Heat the oven at 250C, at least 15 minutes before baking.
Add the ricotta, sour cream, eggs, shallots and mix well. Continue to add the salt, pepper, olive oil and mix until creamy.

Set the pastry in the pan and pour the cheesy content. Add the tomatoes and the leaves, and spread the hard cheese on the top. You can also add the basilicum when the quiche is ready to keep the leaves fresh, but I loved how the taste of basilicum infuses the mix of ingredients. You can leave to rest before putting to the oven for a couple of minutes - 5 to maximum 10.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 45-50 minutes

Serves: 7

Bon Appétit!

Perfectly easy recipe of mashed potatoes

If you wonder why someone able to make complicated recipes seems to have so much fear of preparing very simple recipes, like mashed potatoes, I do wonder too. Maybe I have to call a special therapy session where I have to deal with my (apparently many) stumbling blocks against fully developing my cooking skills. 

However, until such a serious encounter will take place, I will rather take care of my problems by myself, by simply setting a daily cooking objective and following it. Today, it was the mashed potatoes, a meal I only tried to prepare a couple of times, without satisfactory results.

Time for a change.

Ingredients

8 moderate potatoes, peeled and put to boil for around 30 minutes in 2 liter salty water

1 tablespoon butter with Skyr. Skyr is a fantastic traditional Icelandic dairy product that I will feature extensively on a next post.

1 teaspoon salt

100 ml. cold milk

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon Osem seasoning mix 

Directions

When the potatoes are soft enough to be easily mashed, take them out of the boiling pot and mash them. You can do it in the food processor or by using a special tool, as mine, which has a grill-like end. Press the grill on the potatoes until you have a perfectly compact purée. Add the butter, the salt and pepper, and the seasoning mix and pour the milk. Add the composition back in the pan and stir it slowly at 250C temperature for another 10 minutes.

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves: 4

Bon Appétit!

Simple and Delicious Mushroom Soup

I have a very bad relationship with soups. First, I always thought there are too difficult to prepare, that kind of meal where homely experience is required and when it is absent, failure will be written everywhere, Second, I am not a big soup eater myself, therefore, why should I force myself to cook something I will anyway end up throwing in the garbage?

However, with a small hungry little baby at home, my (bad) eating habits are also challenges. For the sake of his health and his pleasure - he is a big soup lover - I decided to prepare every week a new soup. Because, when it comes to love, only the sky is the limit of our super(mom)powers.

For my first installment, I decided for a mushroom soup. The preparation went smoothly, and except the colour which was not necessarily the one I've seen in the many cooking books and videos I watched for preparing it, it tasted good and I was happy with my personal ingredients combinations. Probably, everything would have been different if I milk have been used, but I rather bet this time on a non-dairy recipe.

Ingredients

300 gr. fresh white mushrooms, chopped

1 medium-sized onion, cut

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon za'atar

3 tablespoons cooking oil 

1/4 cup Osem Seasoning Mix

4 cups warm water

100 gr. pearl barley

Directions

Stir for 10 minutes the mushrooms, onion, black pepper, salt, oil and za'atar in a pan, heated at 250C. Add the mix into a food processor for 3 minutes at medium speed. In another pot, bring the pearl barley to boil until ready.

Pour the composition into the water, add the seasoning and stir well for another 30 minutes. Add the pearl barley and continue to stir slowly.

If you want some dairy version, add some Greek Feta Cheese on the top.

To be served hot.

Preparation time: 1 hour

Serves: 6

Bon Appétit!

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

Broccoli cream soup for the winter days

I am not a big fan of soups, but I am trying to be a better cook and healthier mom so, I decided to make a change this season. Especially with another 2 months - at least - of cold ahead, I am curious to change the usual lunch routine and prepare at least one healthy soup the week. As a start, I tried to make from scratch a broccoli cream soup.

I used a medium broccoli, which I carefully cleaned several times, under hot water. I added:
3 gloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of black pepper
1 pinch of zaatar
4 tablespoon butter
150 ml. cold skim milk

I put the broccoli in the blender, together with the milk and blended for around 2 minutes at high speed. I added in a pan the rest of the ingredients and warm it while carefully mixing at 250C. It is very important to mix often and slowly, in order to mix all the ingredients. Bring it to boil and serve it warm.

The preparation time is around 15 minutes. Most of the time I spent cleaning obsessively the broccoli. It serves 3. The cream soup has a good silky texture, but I realized that maybe it was too milky so maybe the next time I will skip the butter part. 

Bon Appetit!