Chia Coconut Dessert

I am not a huge fan of Chia seeds.

Having some in tupperware sitting around does not make it any better.

Now I found an easy dessert that can be made without lots of work. So I've got rid of 50 g of it.

Recipe for 3 large glasses:

400 ml coconut milk

150 ml water

4 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla ectract

50 g chia seeds

60 g shredded oats -these come later!

6 tbsp Blackberry jam

4 tbsp toasted desicated coconut

The chia seeds have to soak in the liquid for 2 hours, no cooking required. After 2 hours in the fridge I tasted it. 

FROG SPAWN

Now I had 2 solutions for the bowl: 

1= toss it

2- improve it

To improve I added fine oats and heated the bowl in the microwave for 5 min on 800 watts and stir. Then I let it sit and cool down.

Tasting it while it was cooling down showed the improvment. I decided to keep it.

Filled in 3 tall glass jars, spooned the blackberry jam on top.

Put the desicated coconut in a dry pan and heat it up. Stir often and keep an eye on it. Some minutes nothing happens, then they get brown quickly. Get them out of the pan in a bowl, otherwise they burn.

Put them on top of the blackberry jam. Let them sit in the fridge. When you serve it, tell everybody to stir it.

It even was nice for breakfast the next day.

Cauliflower Bulgour Soup with Shrimps

Cauliflower florets still in the fridge. A soup on a Saturday sounded good. 

While I baked my Spelt Bread in the morning I had found an opened package of large bulgour in the pantry where my spelt flour sat. 

From a kilo package just 160 g were left. Enough for 2 portions in combination with other ingredients. The fridge showed cooked cauliflower, an open bag of Emmenthal cheese, some leftover homemade chicken stock and some ready to eat shrimps.

Combining the chicken stock with some vegetable stock the bulgour cooked for 20 minutes. Then the cauliflower went in, the cheese and last but not least the shrimps and a little green part from a spring onion.

The tastetest showed a lack of seasoning. Some pepper and Vegeta helped.

Ingredients:

160 g large bulgour

500 ml chicken -+ veggie stock

350 g cooked cauliflower

40 g Emmenthal cheese

100 g cooked shrimps

1/2 green onion

Salt, pepper, Vegeta

Spelt Bread - no kneading

On a cold Saturday morning thinking about walking to the bakery or baking yourself is the question.

I decided on baking myself. The ingredients are at home, no supermarket needed. The recipe is from "gaumenfreundin.de

There are two interesting things about this bread: it is just stirred together and no kneading is required. If you are someone who often forgets to preheat the oven, no problem: the loaftin goes in a cold oven and then you turn it up.

Recipe:

500 ml luke warm water

7 g dry yeast or 21 g fresh yeast

1/4 tsp sugar

250 g spelt whole grain flour

250 g spelt 630 flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

Linseeds and oats for topping

Use a 25 cm loaftin and spray of oil it.

Get everything together in a huge bowl. A wooden cooking spoon is all you need. Make sure no lumps of flour are left.

Pour it in the loaftin and sprinkle with seeds amd oats.

Put in the cold oven, turn the temp to 200C

Bake for 60 min. Take it out of the tin and check if it sounds hollow. If not put it back in the oven without the tin for 5 to 10 min.

 

Cauliflower "Carbonara style" Pasta

After root to stem cooking I had to use some of the cooked cauliflower florets. 

A pasta dish with a creamy cheese and eggs sauce was a good idea. The pasta type was Malfadine, the long wide curly sides pasta.

While the pasta was cooking, I started with the green onions and after 3 min added the cooked cauliflower. On my balcony there was the last beet plant sitting in the pot. The leaves grew plentiful, but no beets in sight. 

The chopped leaves went in with the rest as additional color.

I grated Pecorino Romano and mixed it with 2 egg yolks. To get that a bit smooth, I hold the bowl over the boiling pasta water. Then added 3 tbsp pasta water to it.

When the malfadine were ready they went directly from the pot to the pan, a bit of water was great.

I took the pan off the heat and added the cheese egg mixture. Stirred in and then ready to serve with some fresh grated Pecorino on top.

Ingredients:

120 g Malfadine pasta

300 g cooked cauliflower florets

70 g Pecorino romano

2 egg yolks

25 g butter

2 green onions

1 bunch beef leaves

Salt, pepper, smoked paprika

Root to Stem Cauliflower

This is an Indian recipe I can't pronounce. I saw it on YT "Beryl Shereshewsky"

Today I bought a cauliflower. The head was no longer good covered in leaves, but I worked with what I had.

Root to Stem was new to me. Nose to Tail is something I use myself. But only with chicken.

Cutting the cauliflower in halve and seeing the huge stem was eye opening. Usually you first take the cauliflower out of its green cover, then you cut off the florets. Greens and stem are waste.

But not this time. The center stem was cut in matchsticks, the leaves and thicker parts were just run through with a big knife. I washed both parts seperately.

Recipe for 2 to 4:

1 cauliflower - leaves and stem

1 large potato

Ghee or Indian mustard oil

1 tbsp brown mustard seeds

2 tbsp garlic- ginger paste

2 red dried chilis

Salt and pepper

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp garam masala

125 ml cauliflower cooking water

While I was still chopping all the parts, I cooked the florets first and scooped them out to cool down to be packed away for other dishes.

In the boiling water now went all the stem and leave parts. They cooked until nearly done. Keep a good mug of cauliflower cooking water.

The potato was washed and cut in matchsticks. The wide pan with hot Ghee, mustard seeds, ginger garlic paste and chilis was cooking 2 min and then the potato went in. Since they are raw, they need time.

After 5 min add a bit of cauliflower cooking water and put a lid on to steam the potatoes for 5 min. 

Now in the the stems and leaves. Put in all the spice powders now. Add more water. Stir well and cook until everything is done. That can take a little while.

To bulk it out, people in India eat that with rice.

Braised Pork Cutlet with Onions

Served with Air fryer potato wedges.

I had a couple of mixed onions that needed to be eaten and a thick slab of pork neck cutlet. I wasn't looking for the usual breaded kind of pork, but an other way to prepare it.

First I sliced the onions in half rings and some garlic cloves in slices. I cut up some cherry tomatoes. On the side I cooked the potato wedges for 7 min.

The pork was cutlet was beaten a bit, then seasoned with salt and pepper and smeared with Dijon mustard.

In a pan with a lid, heat up some oil and sear the cutlet on both sides 3 min each. Take it out.

A bit more oil and the onions go in the pan. After 5 min I added the cherry tomatoes and seasoned with salt and pepper. The chicken stock was next and the cutlet went back in.

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and cook for 6 min, turn the cutlet and cook for 5.

Put the seasoned and oiled wedges in the air fryer for 16 min at 180 C.

Bring both together and enjoy. 

Ingredients:

250 g pork neck cutlet

Oil

Salt, pepper Dijon mustard.

200 ml chicken stock

1 red onion, 3 shallots, 1 Roscoff onion

3 garlic cloves

7 cherry tomatoes

Malfatti with Sage Butter

This is a recipe from the Italian regions of Lombardy and Tuscany. Malfatti means: made badly or failed.

These dumplings are the filling of some Ravioli. Either someone had a problem with his pasta dough or was just too lazy to make some. The solution was a pot of salted boiling water and 2 tablespoon. Drop the chunks of Ricotta Spinach Cheese dumplings in and let them cook.

In Italy they are either served in a tomato sauce or in sage butter. Since the sage pot on my balcony is on its last leg before the winter, I picked a couple of sage leaves to use.

Recipe for 18 to 20 dumplings:

200 g ricotta

100 g hot water soaked, squeezed out and chopped spinach

75 g parmesan

2 eggs

55 g melted browned butter

180 g flour

Salt, pepper, nutmeg

Sauce:

12 sage leaves

35 g butter

Pepper

Start with melting and browning the butter.

Add ricotta, eggs, chopped spinach, parmesan to a bowl. Stir well. Add seasoning, flour and butter and make sure all the flour is incorporated. Let it sit 15 min.

A big pot of salted boiling water, dip 2 tablespoons in and get dough the size of golfballs in the water. On medium heat let them simmer for 12 to 15 min.

Put a large pan on an melt the butter. Add the sage leaves and fry them a bit. With a slotted spoon get the dumplings in. Coat them in the sage butter and serve.