What is not to like?
This was the second piece of my ready made pizza dough. It stayed in the fridge for 3 days and was still good to go.
Some tomato sauce with basil as the base, seasoned with salt, pepper and majoram and covered with some grated mozzarella.
On top salami slices, fresh brown button mushrooms cut in slices and strips of a Roscoe onion.
More cheeses and a little olive oil.
Baked at 200 C for 12 min.
This 3 meats soup is not complicated. Just a combination of leftovers with fresh vegetables made in to a tasty soup.
A great trick to create something new. A couple of veggies are always in my veggie drawer of my fridge. Take some out and take a good look at the upper shelves of the fridge. Bits and bobs from a variety of dishes can be found. All are still good to eat, so lets not waste them.
A piece of cooked chicken breast, the Halloumi cheese long gone and one cooked beef sausage were the first things that fell in my hand. A plastic bag wrapped opened package of bacon bits was next and a small jar of tomato basil sauce, still 75 % filled.
Chicken stock from stock cubes, sautéed veggies in bacon fat, what is not to like.
The veggie combination were 2 carrots, 1 red bell pepper, 3 spring onions and 2 cloves of garlic.
1 bowl of cold basmati rice was the last ingredient to hit the soup. That took the shortest time to heat through.
The result of my work was the mixture between a soup and a stew.
This is my Birthday cake.
End of November mixes Christmas spices with regular cake flavours. It took me several days to decide what kind of cake I wanted to bake. So much to choose from.
This recipe is from Dr.Oetker. The good thing is, most work is best the day before. Only the decorative topping is done short before serving. There are 3 layers and each one takes time to finish and 2 need to cool down completely.
Recipe for a 30x40 cm sheet cake dish.
Start with the 2nd layer first, it takes the longest time to cool.
1 kg apples, 500 ml apple juice, 1 lemon juiced
100 g slices almonds
2 packages Dr.Oetker vanilla pudding
Peel the apples and slice them in thin slithers. Pour 400 ml apple juice in a big pot and add the lemon juice. Add the apple slithers.
Mix 100 ml apple juice with the 2 vanilla pudding powders very well.
Heat up the apples with the 400 ml juice and lemon and cook them 3 min. Add the pudding mix and bring it to a boil and cook for 1 min until it thickens.
Dry toast the almond slices in a pan, cool them down. Mix them in the hot apples and cool the pot completly down. That will take a lot of time.
Preheat the oven 180 C.
1st layer Sponge :
6 eggs
200 g sugar
1 package vanilla sugar or 2 tsp
100 g flour
Pinch of salt
200 g almond flour
4 flat tsp baking powder
2 tsp speculoos spice
In a kitchen machine bring the eggs up to speed. Gradually add the sugars and beat on medium high speed until it triples in volume.
In a bowl mix the dry ingredients and carefully fold them in the egg mix. Butter the sheet cake dish and fill in the cake batter. Smooth it out. Bake for 20 min and let it cool in the pan on a wire rack.
3 rd layer Cream filling:
500 ml double cream - very cold
3 packs cream stabilzer
50 g sugar
500 g quark or ricotta or dried cottage cheese
1 package vanilla sugar
1 tsp specoloos spice
Beat the cream with the sugars in a standmixer with the stabilzer. Add the quark and the spice. Pour on top of the apples and smooth it out.
Decoration:
A couple of hours before serving, place Specoloos cookies on top.
This is an Air Fryer recipe.
All Summer long Halloumi cheese is available at all supermarkets. The vegetarian alternative to German Bratwurst for BBQs . Since Summer is finally over, the cheese dissapeared from all supermarket shelves.
I only found the Turkish variety. But it is only different by name. Usually I try not to use Halloumi. The squeeky cheese tastes like an eracer and grilled like a piece of hot tyre.
But I am always open for new recipe ideas.
Recipe for 2:
350 g chicken breast
100 g Halloumi
3 tsp red Pesto
1 tsp Honey
1 tsp olive oil
Salt, pepper, Italian herbs
Polenta:
300 ml veg stock, 1 tbsp butter
75 g Instant Polenta, 2 tsp creme fraiche
Season the chicken breast on both sides and make 4 cuts on the top side. Divide the Halloumi in 8 pieces and stuff them in the cuts.
Mix oil, pesto, honey and seasoning and brush on top of the chicken and cheese.
Btw: the dark crust of the cheese is caramelized honey, nothing is burned!
Put in the Air fryer for 23 min at 180 C.
Polenta:
Heat up stock with butter and add polenta. Stir and cook on low heat until thickened. Add the creme fraiche.
I needed a quick lunch for Saturday and some ingredients needed to go.
Even on a very ugly November day, pasta salad is good for the mood and helps to beat the grey outside.
Cooking on the fast lane is key on many days. The pasta cooking time of 9 minutes was nearly enough time to clean and prep all other ingredients. I chucked the hot pasta in cold water to get it ready for the bowl.
Fresh herbs are good. I found an open bag of dill, still on the fresh side. That went very well with my dressing sauce.
Mini Mozz are great. Cut in quarters, they mix well with the pasta.
Recipe for 2:
150 g crescent shaped small pasta
8 date tomatoes, 2 celery sticks
1/2 pink Roscoe onion, 2 spring onions
50 g Salami, 125 g mini Mozzarella
Dressing:
3 tsp horseradish, 5 tsp red pesto, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp cider vinegar, salt, pepper, Italian herbs, 3 tbsp cold water
Fresh dill
Chop the onions. Since I planned to eat the pasta salad on two days, I boiled water and drenched the onions for 45 seconds and drained them and doused with cold water. That way they wont get sharp the next day.
Mix everything together and let it sit for a bit before serving.
This is my 2500th blog!
I love sweet corn, but I rarely have it with anything else like onions and butter.
But Thanksgiving called for a more luxurious kind of sweet corn.
Goat Cream Cheese is an ingredient I often have in my fridge and use it for more then putting it on bread. It is richer as the regular cow milk cream cheese and tastes a little more complex.
Our supermarkets don't sell frozen sweet corn. The easy alternative is the canned stuff. Since it is cooked, the preparation time is a lot quicker.
Recipe for 3:
1 medium can sweet corn
3 tbsp milk
1/2 onion
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp agave syrup
80 g Goat cream cheese
Italian herbs, salt, pepper
Melt the butter and sauté the onion. Add the sweet corn, seasoning and syrup. Cook for 3 min. Pour in the milk and drop in the cheese. Let it melt. Check the seasoning and serve.
Thanksgiving without any kind of poultry is not right. I opted for turkey legs, but after beeing to 4 supermarkets non were found.
French high quality chicken thighs went in my shopping cart at last. A great alternative.
Preparing them in the oven together with the sweet potato casserole seemed like the smartest idea. Only some time management was needed and it worked out perfectly.
So easy to prepare. Just season the pieces with salt snd pepper and place them in an oven proof dish. In a cup mix honey, olive oil, Dijon mustard, chopped rosemary and thyme. It needs to be like a very thick creamy paste. Brush the thighs with it. Peel some young garlic and set slices of it on top.
Preheat the oven 180 C. Bake them for 40 min.
Ingredients:
4 organic chicken thighs
3 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp Dijon mustard, 2 tsp honey
Salt, pepper, fresh tyme, rosemary, 3 young garlic cloves
I was really really hoping that this casserole was edible. On a whim I invited my older neighbor to my Thanksgiving dinner.
She never had sweet potatoes before, that she told me when I talked about the menu. That stressed me a little.
The idea for the casserole was from different recipes on Pinterest. Most of the recipes were for larger groups of guests. I started to break the amounts of ingredients down for 2 people.
I was shocked about the amount of sugar in these recipes. With the marshmallows on top even more sugar in the dish. I used a very small amount of sugar later and it was great to eat.
Recipe for 2:
600 g peeled and cubed sweet potatoes
40 g butter, 40 ml milk, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 4 tsp muscovado sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon
40 g toasted pecans, chopped
80 g Mini Marshmallows
Cook the sweet potatoes in salted water for 15 min until soft. Drain. Add butter, milk and seasoning and use a potato masher to make a puree.
In a dry pan toast the pecans. Chop them on a cutting board. Add them to the mash.
Use an oven proof dish and coat it with butter. Spread the mash and flatten it out. Keep it cool until it is time to get it in the oven.
Toss the marshmallows on top and put it in a preheated 180 C oven for 20 to 25 min.
I wanted a very fast lunch, but something substancial. I had some ready prepared ground meat in the fridge.
Just a couple of ingredients and a Asia style sauce together with some Udon noodles.
I often see YT videos when a saucemix of green onions, garlic, chili flakes and sesame seeds are heated up by pouring smoking hot oil over them. They then get finished with soy sauce and other ingredients.
That gave me the direction for my recipe.
I had to finish the bundle of long Asian green beans and started them chopped in boiling water. After 3 min I added the dry Udon noodles and cooked them together for 5 min. I drained them and put them in a large bowl.
A head of chicory waited for a purpose. It got cut in strips and added to the bowl. The ground meat was heating up in the microwave and went on top of the bowl.
I heated up neutral rapeseed oil with a tsp of Szechuan peppercorns. I fished them out before pouring the hot oil over the saucemix. That was finished with soy sauce, tahini paste and 2 tsp of peanut butter.
Mix everything before serving.
Do not forget a soft boiled egg.
Ingredients:
130 g Udon noodles
4 long Asia beans, 1 chicory
2 spring onions, 3 garlic cloves, 1 tsp Gochugaru hot pepper flakes, 1 tsp sesame seeds
5 tbsp rapeseed oil, 10 Szechuan peppercorns
2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp peanut butter, 2 tsp Tahini
This soup was made by my friend. She calls it "Minestrone". I visited her family yesterday to celebrate her husbands birthday.
When I came in her kitchen, there was a huge pot with good smelling soup on the hob. She offered me a bowl of soup to eat immediately. I declined because she had made a cake and muffins for later.
But I've got a plastic container filled with soup to take home with me. I asked her for the ingredients:
500 g ground mixed pork and beef
1 tbsp oil
4 medium zucchini
4 medium potatoes
1 leek, 3 carrots, 150 g celeriac, 5 cherry tomatoes
2 l beef stock
Salt and pepper
Brown the meat in oil and add the beef stock. Season.
Chop all the veggies in small cubes and add them to the pot. Cook until the veggies are soft.
Check the seasoning again. The soup freezes well.
I ate it with some freshly deep fried crab chips
