Bucatini with Basil Oil and Pecorino

Quick food on a day working from home. I still have pots of basil on the balcony. Night temperatures are down to single C and during the day they don't rise over 12C. Best time to get rid of the plants before they give out.

I have a basil bush that has long shoots with tiny purple flowers. Even they have a fine basil taste. The leaves are shorter and sturdier and the basil aroma is sharper.

Just throw enough leaves into a chopper with just some tiny chunks of pecorino, some lemon zest, 1 clove of garlic and a couple of Timut pepper corns. Good olive oil is important. Give it a good mix, add more oil for the right consistency.

The Bucatini pasta are thicker then spaghetti and have a hole in the middle. They aren't as wide as Maccaroni. Grate more cheese and serve it with the dish.

Pindar Soup

I bought 3 packages of ready made soup while I was shopping in the Dutch supermarket. This peanut soup is of Indonesian origin and is served as a vegetarian soup. It is eaten with white Basmati rice.

Beside peanuts, some red peppers and bell peppers have been cut up for the soup. It made for around taste and something to bite on. But the soup had no heat from the red peppers. I added a bit of chili to the plate.

For a full meal you will really need to eat it with rice.

I have two more soup packages for later use. One is Harissa and the other is Dal.

Blueberry Upside Down Cake

I haven't bake some cake in a while. Buying a large package of blueberries made me creative. I only new pineapple upside down cakes until now. But that intrigued me. I left some of the sugar out of the recipe because here in Germany, we do not like our cakes too sweet.

Ingredients for a 24 cm round loose bottom dish:

300 g fresh blueberries, washed

1/3 cup of light brown sugar and 2 tbsp butter

2 eggs separated in yolks and egg white

1 /2 cup + 2 tbsp sugar

120 g butter

1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

Heat up the oven to 175C.

Use a lighter brown sugar to make the caramel. The original recipe asked for dark brown sugar. Melting that into a caramel is not so easy because it melts unevenly and some part already burns while the rest still needs to melt. I tossed that part in the trash after it cooled down and started with light brown sugar again. When it was melted, I added the 2 tbsp butter. 

Use some cake spray for the baking dish. Pour the caramel in. Now wash the blueberries, dry them a bit on kitchen paper and place them on top of the caramel. Do not use frozen or canned ones.

Make the batter and start with separating the eggs. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks with a tiny pinch of salt. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg yolks, vanilla extract and salt. Mix baking powder with flour. Add it in two parts with the milk to the mix. It is rather a thick batter.

Loosen it with the stiff egg white. First 1/3, then the rest. Pour it on top the blueberries.

Bake 50-55 min.

Take it out and let it sit 15 min. Turn it upside down on a plate. Let it rest 10 min.

Now unmold the dish.

Couregette and Baguette Bake

This is a great way to get rid of day old baguette. A scrumptious vegetarian dish with a creamy cheese sauce and grated Dutch cheese on top. 

I found this recipe leaflet that are on the counter of  some of our  traditional bakeries.  And the recipe asked directly for a traditional crafted baguette. I went to one of our old bakeries, family owned since 1913.

Courgette is easy to combine in that dish. It needs a bit of seasoning up front to make it a bit tastier. I adjusted the recipe as always.

Preheat the oven 180 C fan.

A bake for 2:

8-10 slices of day old baguette

3tbsp olive oil and 4 cloves of chopped garlic and some pepper

250 g courgette

30 g butter, 30 g flour, 300 ml milk, 80 g velveeta cheese typ Gouda 

nutmeg, salt and pepper

30 g grated Dutch Gouda

Butter a baking dish, cut the courgette in 1/4 inch slices and season

Cut the bread in 1 inch slices, mix oil and garlic and pepper and spread on top of the bread.

Bake the bread for 8 min.

Stack bread and courgette slices in the baking dish.

In a small pot melt butter and add flour. Make a roux. Add milk, nutmeg and seasoning.

Melt the velveeta cheese in the sauce. Pour on top of the bread courgette stack and grate Gouda on top.

Bake for 25 - 30  min.

King Oyster Mushroom Omlet

Served with lambs lettuce, tomatoes and pine nuts.

A light and fresh lunch. Easy to prepare and very tasty. You can use any kind of mushrooms that your local supermarket sells. I am a fan of king oyster mushrooms. They are a bit meaty and keep their texture after cooking. Not much cleaning to do either. 

I have still ripening tomatoes in small crates sitting around in the dark. I check them every two days and take the ones out that are changing color. They ripe in a smaller container with ones from the days before. I can eat a couple of them daily.

Since this dish is pretty easy, I started with the salad. Lambs lettuce takes a while and is a bit fiddely. I cut the tomatoes in two pieces and dry roasted some pine nuts.

The salad dressing is rich and very creamy:

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (the good stuff)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp olive and lemone oil

1/2 tsp mustard

1/2 tsp honey

Smoked salt and pepper

For 2 omlets you will need:

4 eggs, 4 tbsp milk 4 spring onions

2 red chilis mild

400 g king oyster mushrooms, 

1 tbsp oil

2 tbsp butter, salt and pepper, thyme

Heat up some oil and toss in the white of the spring onions and the chopped red chili. Let it saute for 2 min, add the mushrooms. On high heat give them a couple of minutes. Then season with salt and pepper and a bit of thyme. Get it out of the pan and set aside.

Clean the pan and heat up 1 tbsp of butter. 

Crack the eggs, add milk and the greens from the spring onion. Pour half of the egg mix into the pan and make an omlet. Fill it with the mushroom mix halve and set aside in the oven to keep warm

Repeat with the second omlet. Eat with the lambs lettuce salad. 

Chicken Carrots and Asia Noodles

I checked my fridge and found a package of skinless and boneless chicken thighs and a bag of carrots. They were the next to go. I had no idea what to cook and scrolled through Google.

 

I found a dish with chicken breast and carrots that called itself Asian style. I checked the recipe twice, but only found Asian wheat noodles and 2 tbsp soy sauce as the only components of Asian cooking. 

Boring recipe! I wanted a bit more Asian flavours and added some. The resulting taste was great and heating up the leftovers two days later were even better.

Recipe for 2 or 3:

400 g boneless and skinless chicken thighs

4 shallots

4 cloves of garlic

1 knob of ginger

350 g carrots

2 tbsp sesame oil

2 tsp rapeseed oil

Orange pepper

100 ml orange juice

200 ml chicken stock

2 tbsp light soy sauce

3 tbsp dark soy sauce

Parsley

 

Marinate the chicken pieces in orange pepper and light soy sauce for 20 min.

Peel and chop the carrots and shallots, galic and ginger.

Heat up some oil and sesame oil and fry off the chicken pieces and then store it in a bowl with a plate on top to get done.

In the same pan in more oil cook the veggies. They will take some time. After 10 min, add stock and orange juice and let it reduce. Put the chicken back in.

Cook the somen  noodles for 3 min and drain and cool them.

Mix the noodles with the other stuff in the pan. Finish with some parsley.

 

Butternut Squash Soup with grilled Masala

This is one dish more that goes great with our holiday souvenir from Mauritius, the grilled Masala spice mix. That is the one without any chili.

If you want to cook this soup, just use a mild curry powder.

The soup is vegetarian. Leave out the blob of creme fraiche in the end as topping, you have a vegan soup.

The easiest way to prepare a pumpkin like that is a soup. You can either peel the hart outer layer off or stuff the whole veg in the oven for 60 to 90 min at 180 C fan and get it soft that way. Scraping out the flesh is easy then.

INGREDIENTS:
1 butternut squash
3 flowery potatoes
4 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
500 ml veg stock
2 tbsp veg oil
2 tbsp grilled masala
Salt and pepper
Thyme
Creme fraiche

Peel potatoes and onions and garlic. Roast in some oil and add veg stock.
Cook for 10 min and add the oven baked butternut squash. Cook 5 min.
Put it in a blender.

Garnish with thyme and creme fraiche.