Almonds - green and unripe

Shopping at a Turkish supermarket often brings interesting new food items to the table. 

My BFF was on holiday in Istambul 4 weeks ago and as gift she brought me coffee, sweets and a Turkish food magazine issue -SOFRA - with Ramadan specials.

With the help of Google translater, I worked my way through half of the magazine. Recipes that sounded good, the ingredients were translated as well.

But a lot of these ingredients were missing in my cupboards. That ment a trip to a Turkish supermarket. 

Outside were the veggies and fruits presented. In the middle of it punnets with small green stuff. The sign above them said Almonds.

I had to get one punnet just to learn what they are, how they taste and what I can do with them. I asked the lady cashier what to do with them, and she told me to eat them as a snack with some salt.

Well, they taste like a mix of cucumber, unripe plum and nut. 

Eating them as they are is not to my liking. Chewing on a piece of one, it gets more and more in my mouth.

 

Wild Garlic Spaghetti with Endive

I still call endive  -  chicory.

My wild garlic butter needs some dishes to get eaten. Buttered pasta is a good way to do so. But only these two together sounded a bit lame to me. One look in my veggie drawer of my fridge and one small head of chicory and a bunch of parsley and some lonesome green onion were found.

A good way for tasty spaghetti. I started with melting some of the wild garlic butter in a pan and tossing onion and chicory in. They needed a couple of minutes and a little salt and pepper.

The spaghetti started to cook now. Starchy pasta water is essential for the sauce. Since this pasta is a fast kind, I dropped it directly from the pot in the pan. Stirring a lot helps with the emulsion of the sauce.

I cut off the best parts of my bunch of parsley and let it refresh in some cold water for 3 min utes before patting it dry and chopping it.

Stirred in the pasta with a knob of cold wild garlic butter. Topping it with grated Parmesan.

Ingredients:

180 g quick cook spaghetti

50 g wild garlic butter

Salt and pepper

1 spring onion

1 small head of endive/chiory

Lots of fresh parsley

Grated Parmesan

Asparagus Gorgonzola Pasta

I often watch YT Pizzaiolo Luigi, an Italian from Napoli living in Vienna. Most of his recipes are hands on easy to replicate, but I did my own way.

He prepared this green asparagus pasta dish. I went out to a very small Italian market in my former hometowm. The owners are from Sicily, a Mother and son team. The tiny shop has a good section of meat and cheeses, but you need to bring time.

I remembered the video from the day before and bought salsiccia and Gorgonzola and a couple of other goodies.

The green asparagus was from a hut a couple of minutes around the corner.

Ingredients:

400 g green asparagus

1 Tropea onion on white onion

4 tbsp olive oil

250 g salsiccia with fennel

75 g Gorgonzola

175 g penne pasta

Salt and pepper

Strip the sausage meat of of the casing. Chop the onion very fine and take the tops of the aspatagus and cut the stems down to the woody part in 1 cm pieces.

The penne needed 14 minutes to al dente. I staeted the water first. Then heated the olive oil in the pan and sauteed the onion. Add the broken up sausage and brown it on all sides. Season it.

Next in with the asparagus tops and a small ladle of pasta water. You will need more the moment the Gorgonzola needs to melt.

The asparagus pieces go in the pasta water the last 5 minutes of cooking time. Then both are drained together and with a little water add to the sauce. Stir well, check seasoning and serve.

 

Wild Garlic Butter with Potato Mash and Asparagus

Spring time is not only white asparagus time here in Germany, but wild garlic is the sent you often smell when you walk through our forests.

But luckily the fields in the wild do not get too much depleted, wild garlic is grown commercialy here too. I bought a bag with 50 g.

The butter recipe is on the blog (May 23). I used the butter in this dish twice. On the steamed asparagus as the seasoning and a good part of it in the potato mash.

The mash turns lightly green and the flavour is herby, but not too intense garlicky. I was busy that Saturday watching NLS 3 endurance race from the Green Hell, I unloaded most of the cooking to my thermomix. The potatoes in a basket inside and the asparagus in the steamer on top.

The mash itself was done in 4 minutes.

The whole lunch contained Chorizo and boiled eggs to add some protein. 

Pizza style Hot Dogs

I hate the squishy Hot Dog buns. They are so tasteless.

I've watched a Hack-Check on YT and saw this pizza dough filled with all the goodies that usually go in a hot dog bun.

Like a Calzone or a braided log. I wanted to give it a try and see if it is a lot better. Is is good to serve to a lot of people without a lot of hassle.

Recipe:

1 readymade reactangular pizza dough

6 Wieners

French's mustard

Ketchup

Dry fried onions

Grated mozzarella

Burger style gherkins

Sliced cheese

First a layer of mustard and ketchup, topped with grated mozzarella, then pickles.

Now line up the wieners and get fried onions on top.

Mustard and ketchup next and finally sliced cheese.

Cut the pizza dough in strips on both sides and fold them over.

Built it and bake it at 200 C fan for 25 min.

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