Ranch Dressing - homemade

Hidden Valley Ranch in a bottle or as powder packages is not available here in supermarkets. You can buy online, but the prices are crazy.

There are several yogurt based salad dressings here to buy, but they are not coming close to the US one. I tasted some of them, but most of them were only good on lettuce, too watery and were lacking the buttermilk undertone.

I will cook chicken tenders tomorrow and serve them with Ranch dressing. I went online and checked a lot of recipes and made my own version. The way I remember the original one, it is pretty close, just missing MSG and other stuff that is forbitten here in Europe.

Recipe:

1/2 cup Mayo

1/2 cup sour cream (with herbs)

6 tbsp buttermilk

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dried parsley

1 /2 tsp dill weeds

1/4 tsp dried chives

Salt and pepper

Stir it all together and put in a jar and it keeps in the fridge for 1 week.

Bolognese with Green Spelt Groats - vegan

My BFF gave me a package of green spelt groat.

The area she lives now is a producer of it. Spelt is a very old kind of grain and can be grown on barren soil where wheat wont do. But it has less volume harvest, only about 70 % of a wheat harvest.

I've made meatfree bolognese before and wanted to give it a try. Most of my bolognese sauces always contain a lot of fresh vegetables. I love the balance of veg to meat and I am no fan of more or less veg free bolognese sauce.

The start was to cook the grout in vegetable broth. There was no advice at the back of the package. I decided on 100 g green spelt groat to 300 ml stock. It takes 15 minutes to cook and I did not use enough liquid. Some of it stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Now I know that I should treat it like an instant polenta 100x400.

Recipe for 4:

100 g green spelt groat

400 ml veg stock from paste

2 carrots

3 celery stalks

Green part of a leek

200 g cherry tomatoes

2 spring onions

4 garlic cloves

1 orange mini bell pepper

5 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp paprika paste

200 ml tomato passata

200 ml white wine

10 fresh basil leaves ( no dried stuff!)

Fresh oregano, thyme, majoram, sage, rosemary

Salt and pepper

I used my Thermomix to create a very fine vegetable mix. In a large pot went the olive oil heat up, then the tomato and paprika paste to cook for 2 min.

All veggie mix was dumped in and needed 5 min to cook. Then wine and passata were next.

The salt and pepper and all fresh herbs with stalks went in. I fished them out short before serving with some tongs.

Let it cook 12 min and then stir in the cooked groat. Make sure it is completely loose and well combined with the sauce. 

Serve on top of fresh cooked pasta with some more basil leaves.

Danishes with Pear Filling

Some baked goodies on a holiday - May 1th - for coffee are great. But a trip to a market is out, most places are closed today.

But ready made pastry rolls are a thing in my fridge, especially for solutions like today.

The filling was easy. I bought a punnet of pears 3 days ago. They looked ripe. The punnet I had the week before was awesome. This was the same kind. Yesterday I took the first out and looked for the softest. 

Well, not much luck this time. Mostly hard to rock hard. Today 4 of them went in a pot to become the filling of my danishes.

Recipe:

4 pears

200 ml white wine

1 cimnamon stick

Sweetener of your choice

1 heaped teaspoon potato starch + 3 tbsp water

Peel the pears and core them. Cut them in cubes

Heat up the wine with the cimnamon stick and the sweetener and add the pears. Cook until the pear chunks are softer, but not mush.

Preheat the oven 180 C fan.

Mix starch with water to a slurry and pour it in and let it thicken. Cool it down.

Unroll the pastry dough and cut it in 6 pieces and fill it with the cold pears. Fold over and bake for 17 min.

 

 

Shepherd's Pie Turkish style

From my Istambul cooking magazine issue. The mash is with sweet potatoes mixed with potatoes. 

The beef is prepared Köfte style, but not made in to balls, but spread out on the bottom of the pie dish. The cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes get a good amound of butter and a little cream and get mashed.

What was new to me is the finish on top of the mash: hot water with paprika powder. That went in the oven for 30 minutes, then sharp cheddar slices went on top for 15 more minutes.

First step peel and cook both kinds of potatoes. Then prepare a bowl with the veggies and seasonings for the Köfte meat. A bit of yogurt and a little water makes the meat a lot smoother in texture. Spray the pie dish with some oil and layer the meat in flat. 

Put the mash on top. Now heat up 2 tbsp of water and mix it with 1 tsp of paprika powder and pour that on top. The cheese comes last.

Let it sit 15 minutes when it comes out of the oven to set, sprinkle some chives on top.

Preheat the oven 180 C fan. 

Ingredients:

4 smaller potatoes

1 large sweet potato

50 g butter, salt and pepper

Meat:

400 g ground beef

1 red onion

4 garlic cloves

2 small bell peppers

5 tbsp chopped parsley

3 tbsp water

2 tbsp yogurt

2 tbsp Adana Kebap seasoning

1 tsp paprika powder

Salt and pepper

2 tbsp hot water + 1 tsp sweet paprika

6 slices sharp cheddar

Chives

Spaghetti with Creme fraiche and Vegeta

I saw a short YT video about kid's favourite pasta dishes. This one was from the Balkans.

Kaymak was used as the rich cream. But for that you have to go to a Turkish or Balkan supermarket. Our standart ones don't sell it. But creme fraiche is a good substitute.

Vegeta is a powder to season everything in the Balkans. It has the Umami taste, like Maggi. I just bought a small package at the Eastern European store and wanted to learn what it is all about.

Cream and Vegeta are going well together. A strong kind of seasoning, when used too much. Mixed in with spaghetti, great idea.

Since I had leftover green asparagus, I sauteed it with a bit of green onion and tossed that in with the vegeta cream spaghetti

Ingredients:

140 g spaghetti

60 g creme fraiche

1 tsp Vegeta

5 green asparagus

1 green onion

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Lemon Balm Lemonies or Blondies

This is a variation of a lemon thyme blondie recipe from "labsalliebchen". The lemon balm on my balcony has come up after this strong winter even bigger.

I baked a lemon balm cake in fall last year, blog is on, and looked for an other way to get rid of some of it. Lemon thyme and lemon balm are similar in their lemon flavour, so I used the one on my balcony to bake with.

Use an electric handmixer for this recipe and 3 different bowls, one large, one medium and a smaller one.

Recipe for a 23x23x5 cm baking dish, buttered and lined with baking paper:

3 eggs

200 g very fine granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

300 g AP flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 organic lemons, one of them zested, both juiced

3 tbsp chopped lemon balm leaves

125 ml olive oil

170 g 10% Greek yogurt

Topping:

90 g icing sugar

Juice 1/2 lemon

Smaller lemon balm leaves

 

Preheat the oven 180 C.

In the big bowl whisk eggs, sugar and salt until very foamy. In the medium bowl sift flour and baking powder together. In the small bowl, zest one lemon, juice from both, oil, yogurt and chopped leaves together.

Get flour and lemon mix in 3 parts in the egg mix to prevent knocking all air out. Pour it in the baking tin and bake for 20 min. Use a wooden skewer to check. After 5 min lift the blondie out and get it on a wire rack to cool down.

Mix icing sugar with lemon juice and maybe some drops of water and spread it on the cold surface. Stick some leaves on top and use a toothpick to press them down. Cut in small quarters to serve.

 

Leek Soup Turkish style

This is an other recipe from the cooking magazine from Istambul.

Leek cream soups here in Germany are mostly eaten as starters. I told a neighbor what I was cooking for the day and she asked me: that wont fill you up, it is a starter!

But with the topping and the croutons this soup can easily eaten on its own and will fill you up.

Ingredients:

500 g leek

3 garlic cloves

1 red long pepper

7 tbsp olive oil

100 g Pastirma or Beef ham

4 slices of bread

3 cups beef broth

1 cup heavy cream

2 tsp mustard

Salt, pepper and nutmeg

Chop up the upper green part of the leek in small pieces and give them a good wash. Sands sticks everywhere. Peel and chop the garlic.

The white of the leek goes in sliced quarters and gets washed too.

Clean the long red pepper and cut it in very small cubes.

The Pastirma comes in slices, cube them. And make bread cubes.

The easy way now is one pan and a larger pot. Put oil in both (leave some for the second pan).

Start the garlic in the pot and after 2 min add the white of the leek. Let it soften for 5 min and stir sometimes, season. Then pour in the beef stock and simmer covered for 12 min. Add the cream, mustard and nutmeg.

While you start the garlic in the pot, add the breadcubes to the oil to fry. Shake often and turn in to croutons. Get them out of the pan and set aside for garnish later.

Add the other oil to the pan and toss in green parts of the leek and the red pepper cubes. Season with salt and pepper. When all is soft, add the ham to warm up.

Check the soup for seasoning, but do not mix it. The veggies stay as they are.

Now dress the bowl with ham leek mix and croutons and serve.

I can asure you, this soup will fill you up.