Pizza with a View and Ice Coffee

After the night trip and the early flight, I needed something decent. 

The Hotel has a great open shaded area beside the beach where you can get drinks, ice cream and snacks. They offer sandwiches or a pizza combo there.

My breakfast/lunch on the arrival day was first an ice coffee. But not the sweet dairy kind everybody knows. This one was totally new to me.

A fresh pressed shot of Espresso, 2 tsp of sugar and half a glass of crushed ice. Shaked well and strained in a glass that was filled with ice cubes to cool down and then thrown out.

That woke me up.

For lunch I took the pizza combo. A huge fresh baked pizza - either Margharita or with Parma ham - and a small beer.

Calabrian Dinner

I finally escaped Germany for a week. Now I am sitting outside beside the ocean in the South of Italy in Calabria. Near the town of Cabo Vaticano.

The first course had some sauteed Tropea red onions on offer. On the trip down here from the Airport in Lamezia Terme we came along at least 30 growers and sellers of the purple gold of Calabria. I am looking forward to the trip to one of the growers, where we will learn a lot about these onions.

A sightseeing tour combined with a foodtrip is right down my aile.

The rooms in this 4 star hotel leave a bit to desire, but the food is awesome. 

Here are some of the foods I've tried.

Air Fryer Caprese Bread Roll

A good alternative oven is the air fryer. For an evening snack is this a great way to use the air fryer.

I just took one potato bread roll and sprayed some olive oil on the rolls. Fresh cut tomato slices seasoned with salt and pepper on top. A large piece of mozzarella and a bit more seasoning.

At 180 C for 8 minutes and then a couple of fresh basil and a little balsamico finishes this dish.

Pork Neck Steak Hong Kong Streetfood style

I watched YT School of Wok again and found this steak sandwich with extra cheese.

That was something I had ho try today.  Grocery shopping and a trip to the butcher was needed, because we have a long weekend ahead.

What was interesting about the cooking method was the tenderization of the meat. Usually I try not to destroy the meat to much, just flatten it out. But the back of a Chinese cleaver hacked with force on the meat was new to me. It leaves deep ritches in the pork steak. That way the marinate can be massaged in easily.

The Chef on YT told, his son loves these steak sandwiches with additional Parmesan crisps. He filled a pan with grated Parmesan and set the buns with the inside on top. After taking them out of the pan the buns have a nice topping of cheese. No sauces needed.

Ingredients:

225 g pork neck steak

1 tbsp curry powder

2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp sake

1/2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp sesame oil

1 heaped tbsp cornstarch

Oil to shallow fry in a wide pan

Parmesan grated, 1 bread roll I used a potato bread roll

Flatten the steak with the backside of your cleaver until the meat spreads out. Put it in a bowl and add curry powder, soy, sugar, sake, sesame oil and massage it.

Now add cornflour and do it again.

Grate some Parmesan to cover the bottom of your pan, slice the breadroll and set them on top. When the Parmesan has melted, get the bread out and set aside. Clean the pan.ä

With enough neutral oil to cover the bottom, heat it up to medium high. Get the steak in and brown it on each side for 3 to 5 min depending on the size. Let it rest on a plate for 3 min.

Place between the cheese crusted breadroll and enjoy.

Red Pesto Asparagus and Pasta Soup

I am cleaning out my fridge once again. This soup reminded me of a Minetrone in the end. I just left out any kind of meat.

The homemade stock was the first thing that caught my eye when I opened the fridge door. It needed to be used up, then a small bag of cooked pasta and an open package of cream cheese. The veggie drawer was full over everything.  But not enough of one to make something out of it, all different things went on the counter.

The cooking was fast. Just peel and clean the veggies and toss them in some oil to get a little color. But keep the tips of the asparagus out of the pot for later.

Pour in the veg stock and bring it up to boil. Cover and reduce the heat and cook for 12 min. Season with salt, pepper and thyme and add the red pesto and the tips.

Cream cheese and some creme fraiche makes it more moorish.

Ingredients:

400 g asparagus, 1 green onion, 1 red pepper, 1 carrot, 1/2 leek, 600 ml veg stock homemade

Salt, pepper, thyme, fresh oregano, 4 tsp red pesto

2 tbsp cream cheese, 2 tbsp creme fraiche

Asparagus Lemon Sauce with Rice

This is a very creamy kind of "Ragu", but without any meat in it.

These kinds of vegetable stews of ragus were often prepared by my Mom. That the veggies were always overcooked did not matter, because they were in a creamy sauce. Served with eiher potatoes, mash or rice we had a full meal for less money when I grew up. The use of seasonal veggies made it even more affordable.

I started this dish with a log of asparagus peel and offcuts. They went in a pot with salt, sugar and butter and enough water for a soup base later. I cooked them for 30 min and let them sit for an other 30 min. Then I took the peels and offcuts out and cooked the stock down.

The fresh grated lemon zest and the juice balance out the asparagus. 

Recipe:

500 g white asparagus, 1 lemon, 1 shallot

250 ml asparagus stock, 1 tsp veg stock paste, 2 tbsp cream cheese, 

1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 100 ml double cream

Lemon salt, pepper, chives 

Melt the butter and toss in peeled and cut up asparagus and chopped shallot. Give it 3 min to get coated in the butter. Sprinkle the cornstarch over it. Stir and add the stock and paste. Zest the lemon and press in the juice.

Cook for 10 min or until asparagus is soft. During this time cook the rice.

Add cream and cream cheese and check the seasoning. Finish with chives and serve on rice.

Asparagus in Panko Butter coating and Prawns

Since I am going on holiday next week, I need to get my fill of the white gold. The season ends on St.Johns Day.

The combination with seafood is great and a block of frozen giant prawns waited in the freezer for me. It is always a joy to peel and clean them :-(  But I bought some tools for that purpose!

After cleaning them under running water, I made a marinate with a Caribbean seasoning, some garlic powder and a little oil. I let them sit in it until the asparagus in the pan was nearly done.

Fresh short sticks of asparagus from the field I bought early this morning. I had to peel tgem, but that is work I love to do. They wentbin a medium hot pan with some oil to get a good bit of color all around. A good knob of butter helped along the way with some seasoning. 3 tbsp of water created enough steam to cook the stalks some more. At last 2 hands full of Panko breadcrumbs went all over it and it took a couple of minutes to brown and cling to the different asparagus stalks.   

That time was fine to let the prawns hit an other very hot pan to get from grey to pink orange. Ready to be served alongside the asparagus.

Feta, Red Pesto, Tomato Pasta

I made the basic TIK TOK recipe a while ago. But this time a lot more went in the oven proof dish.

The mini tomatoes were a bit on the tasteless side and did not look good enough to enjoy them raw. Pimping them with several dollops of red Pesto helped a lot and improved the taste.

Fresh herbs, fresh garlic and some onions are together with olive oil and seasoning the best components for an exciting dish.

All that together went at 180 C fan for 30 min in the oven. I cooked small pasta during that time.

After the dish came out of the oven, I used a potato masher the bring everything together.

But be careful, hot little tomatoes burst and splash everything in the kitchen. Mix in the pasta and rip some fresh basil to top the dish.

Ingredients:

200 g feta, 500 g mini tomatoes, 

5 cloves of garlic, 1 shallot, 1 green onion

4 tbsp red pesto, olive oil, herbes de Provence

Fresh rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, basil

Salt and pepper

300 g small pasta

Truffle Burrata on Linguine with browned Mushrooms

That is the first time I saw a package of burrata with truffle at LIDL. I never thought that was a thing.

Now having it in the fridge I needed a dish to use it up. I found one on Pinterest. But it was made with lamb filet strips. I did not wanted to go grocery shopping for lamb meat only and used up my 2 large portobello mushrooms instead.

When you cut them in large chunks and brown them in a hot pan without oil or salt for 5 to 7 min and turning them once, they get a nice color and a meatlike consistency. After that time, just add a bit of olive oil and a knob of butter and some salt. They wont loss any water now. Take them out of the pan for later.

This is the time to chuck in some onion and garlic, pepper and herbes de Provence. With a little pasta water, the sauce will be great.

Crispy Fried Onions, Wieners, Pesto filled Puff Pastry

What to do with a small leftover piece of puff pastry dough? The answer is: fill it with everything that is left over too and stick it in the oven. A treat!

After 12 minutes the Snack is ready. Did the weird combination work? Lets find out.

Use two rectangles of 15×12 cm of puff pastry. Spread 1 teaspoon of red pesto on top of each piece.

Do you like crispy fried onions? Then sprinkle a lot on top of the pesto. 2 small Wieners and 2 slices of Camembert each and now fold over the edges of the dough. Brush egg wash over it.

Bake them at 220 C for 14 min.

Ground Beef Vegetables and Rice Stew with red Pesto

Today is Father's Day. A church holiday here in Germany. As a family we had a stew traditional on this day. Often after a bicycle tour. 

This time no bicycle, but a stew. The more vegetables you can put in the soup, the more leftovers you can enjoy for the next days. The stew gets even better after reheating it.

Beside the traditional used soup veggies here in Germany: such as carrots, root celeriac, leek and parsley, I added a red long pepper and a portobello mushroom together with a red onion and some garlic to the soup.

After browning the 500 g of ground beef, it was seasoned with salt and pepper and 1 Birdseye chili and 1 bay leaf, lovage and celery leaves.

The stock was homemade last week.

The 1 1/3 cup of longgrain rice comes in aftet the stew cooked for 5 min.

Then it took 15 min on low heat and the stew was ready to serve. For some more color, a bit of chives and parsley was added.

Plated, the stew only needed 1 tbsp of red Pesto to finish.

Onion Tart upside down

I watch too many Reels!

The way this small tarts were prepared looked interesting to me. No better way to give it a try.

After a thorough Internet search I found a company that still prepares puff pastry with butter, not the vegan sh...t, they now sell in most supermarkets for the same price as the butter ones in the past. But not every supermarket sells the better ones. I grabbed two packages for further use.

This is an oven treat that consists of many small steps. First brush some olive oil on baking paper about 15x15 cm. Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar on top. Next add fresh thyme and some Cheddar cheese. Now the shallot rings and some salt and pepper. Cut out puff pastry the about 16x16 cm and place it over the onions.

Repeat until you have enough little tarts to eat. Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle Pecorino cheese on top.

Bake at 220 C for 12 min. Turn over and peel off the baking paper.

Breakfast Omelet in the Air Fryer

Not all TIK TOK recipes are good. 

The hack is a good idea, but the whole thing is a real work in progress. Temperature and  baking time, the way you prefare your eggs in an omelet. This all has to be taken into consideration. My first attempt was edible, but the eggs sucked. Way too dry. 

Checking out new dishes is one of my favourite thing to do. A piece of paper and a pen are always on the table. A couple of notes and I have the idea. Checking Pinterest for nice ideas is great too.

But using my Air Fryer for more then fries and chicken wings is important to me. It sits often on my hob and gets used. Its great for a small household and versatile.

Ingredients for 1 omelet:

3 eggs, 2 small tomatoes, 1 spring onion, 1/2 cooked sausage

Salt, pepper, Italian herbs

Put a baking paper in the AF. Spray a little oil on the surface. Crack in 3 eggs, chopped veggies and season the whole stuff.

Set the AF to 200 C and bake 10 min. I do not need to preheat mine. Check the directions for yours.

The recipe called for a baking time of 15 min at 200 C. I used only 12 min and the eggs were baked dry.