Low Calory Lunch at a Friends Place

I haven't seen my friend in a year now. Finally we managed to set a date and she invited me for lunch.

She helped her daughter to loose a lot of weight and cooks accordingly. She was able to tell me the amount of calories to every part of the dishes.

We started with 2 small stuffed mushrooms. They were filled with tiny bits of ham, bread and low fat creamcheese and baked in the oven. On a bed of pieces of lettuce. Very tasty little mushrooms. Some home baked cheese puff as bread to go with the mushrooms.

The main was an oven baked ground chickenbreast with spinach and artichoke hearts and low fat cream cheese wrapped in a cheese slice and set in tomato sauce.

For dessert tiny cheesecake bites on Oreocookie crust and a flat white coffee.

We had a couple of flutes of non alcoholic champagne.

 

Pringles Chocolate Roll - viral

My feed is stuffed with the chocolate drenched Pringles. All kinds of variations, some good some others look weird.

But over all, everybody is surprised how good that combo tastes. But sweet and salty goes together well. 

I went out to get some Pringles and stock up on chocolate. I had to buy the No Name kind, because only crazy Pringles flavours were left.

Getting chocolate that does not cost an arm and a leg is crucial now. The big brands have skyrocket in prize, but skimming on size. But No Name milk chocolate does the job too.

I saw many videos from people putting Nutella or Biscoff spread between the single chips. I decided to do something like it too. Using my leftover Pistacchio cream. That was a good idea.

Spreading the cream on 3/4 og the chips then putting them back in the Pringles tube was a bit difficult. I melted the chocolate in 2 batches, each with a bit of coconut oil.

I used 300 g, but in the end it should have been 400 g for 3/4 of the box. That would mean 500 g of it for a whole tube. Close the lid and put it in the fridge for 24 hours.

Cut open the tube and then tear it apart. The moment you take a large knife to it, it will probably fell apart. Share it with a couple of people, too many calories for one.

Ingredients:

2/3 of chips/crisps in a Pringles Roll

400 g milk chocolate

2 tsp coconut oil

50 g Pistacchio cream

One Pot Rice and ground Beef

Cooking all in one pot is something I like very much. This time a filling beef and rice stew.

Ground beef of good quality is expensive in the moment. But I found some 30% off because the expiration date was today.

This hearty rice dish was on my looking forward to list for a while and that offer gave me the reason to cook it.

All other ingredients were at home, so no time to waste.

Recipe for 3:

400 g ground beef

1 tbsp oil

2 beefstock cubes

1 1/4 cup longgrain rice

2 carrots

70 g leek

2 celery stalks

2 green onions

2 garlic cloves

2 bay leaves

1 tsp Italian pepperoni paste

Salt, thyme and pepper

Fresh parsley

850 ml water

Heat up the oil in a large pot and brown the beef very well. Season.

Cut the veghies well and wash the rice. Add the rice first to the beef and stir it well, then the veggies and fill up with water. Add stock cubes and bay leaves.

Bring to a boil, cover and reduce the heat. Simmer for 15 min until rice and veggies are cooked. Add chopped parsley.

Puff Pastry with Asparagus and Feta

When you only have 2 asparagus stalks left of a pound, the choices for a full meal are rather slim.

I peeled them, chopped them and cooked them and put them aside. Still not knowing what to do with them.

A couple of hours later, a puff pastry roll and some feta came out to play and brought a jar of ayvar with them.

Recipe:

1 rectangular puff pastry sheet

150 g Feta

2 medium asparagus stalks

3 tsp ayvar

2 tsp grated Parmesan

Pepper and salt

Parsley

1 egg yolk to brush the pastry

Sesame seeds

Mix the cheese, ayvar, Parmesan and asparagus and season it. Measure the half of the puff pastrx and fill up one side. 

Fold the other over and press the edges down. Cut some slits on the top and brush egg yolk over it. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake at 220 C for 20 min.

Asparagus Pulpo Salad

The salad is seasoned with Kubeben pepper and Szechuan pepper.

I saw this recipe in an ad from a spice shop - Gewürzmühle Rosenheim.

They were promoting a kind of peppercorns I have never heard of: Andaliman pepper. 

But I have some many spices jars with different kinds of peppercorns, that I just picked up two of them.

Today I this years white asparagus season started. I went to a hut, where the big local farmers have their distributers. I talked to the woman there a bit and we exchanged some recipes.

Ingredients for 1:

6 medium thick white asparagus 

200 g cooked pulpo arms

1/2 lemon juiced

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp Bergamotte salt or lemon salt

Olive oil

1/4 tsp Kubeben - Szechuan peppercorns freshly grounded

Fresh flatleef parsley

Peel the asparagus and cut it in 3 mm slices. The same with the pulpo arms. Heat up olive oil in a wide pan and add the asparagus. Season with salt and cook for 3 min, now qdd sugar and a little pepper. Then a bit of lemon juice.

Put it to one side of the pan and put the pulpo in to heat up. Add more pepper. Get both on a plate, more lemon juice, pepper, a little more salt and olive oil. Finish with parsley and eat warm.

Egg Ragout

I found this recipe described as a former GDR school - and cafeteria food. It intrigued me.

Lots of hardboiled eggs were left after Easter - sitting in a basket beautifully colored. But I hate to eat hardboiled eggs on their own.

The ingredients were simple and can used in huge amounts without breaking the bank. That's why cafeterias liked to serve it to their customers.

Recipe for 2:

5 hardboiled eggs

3 green onions ot 1 medium yellow one

40 g butter

40 g flour

300 ml milk

50 ml water

2 tsp vegstock paste

120 g defrosted peas

1 medium carrot

1 small can sliced mushrooms

2 tsp mustard

2 tbsp Worchester sauce

1 tsp curry powder

Salt and pepper

Fresh dill

Serve with boiled potatoes

Chop carrots and onions fine. Drain the mushrooms and defrost the peas. Start the potatoes.

In a pot melt the butter and sautee the onions. Add flour and cook it. Gradually add the milk and stir to prevent lumps. Add the carrots and cook the roux a couple of minutes.

Add mustard and Worchester sauce and veg stock paste with water. Season with salt and pepper.

Now in with peas and mushrooms. While this cooks, peel the eggs and slice them. Get them in the sauce to warm through. Finish with dill.

I would love to see it on a menu of a cafeteria.

Lemon Snack Marmelade

I had these tiny edible lemons before and was not a huge fan of eating them on their own. They went in a lemon cake.

But I wanted to prepare one of my puddings from the package I shopped online and that one was lemon flavoured. I saw the lemon snack punnet once again at the big supermarket and wanted to give them a second choice.

I tried one when I came home and knew, not my choice, but put 2 on the pudding and that went well.

It is Easter Monday today and a second holiday. Time to spend more time in the kitchen.

Recipe for 380 g

280 g lemon snack

1 orange

40 ml Grand Marnier Triple sec liqueur

200 g pectine sugar 3:1

Take out the seeds in the tiny lemons, there will be lots of them. Cut the rind off the orange completely and cut the orange in quarters.

Add that with the Triple sec and the sugar to a mixer and give it a whirl.

Cook it in a pot for 13 to 15 min or until it has well up 3 min. Fill in clean jars.