Filled Mushroom Salad Plate

I found some huge white portobello mushrooms today at the Discounter. They went in the shopping basket.

An unplanned kind of vegetable to cook with. I neglected to think about other ingredients to buy. Working with the stuff at home was easy. I had lovely sausages from Thuringa to bake in the pan, some Cheddar cheese and a bit of everything. 

Using the Air Fryer to cook the filled mushrooms was the cleanest solution. I use baking paper rounds now for most of the cooking in there now. Little hassle to clean it later.

The sausages went in the pan first to brown and cool down. This dish is great for leftover sausages from the BBQ.

Ingredients per Person:

2 Portobello mushrooms

1 red roasted onion

1 tsp wild garlic butter

4 slithers Cheddar cheese

Put in the Air Fryer at 180 C for 10 min. Serve on lettuce with some dressing.

Bacon wrapped Asparagus with cheesey Polenta

It is time to cook the second bundle of purple asparagus and hoping for the best it stays purple.

I thought wrapping the stalks in bacon would prevent them from changing color during the time in the pan. But it was no winning again. Just the tips had some purple left.

Next time I see this kind, I keep away and buy green instead. 

That recipe is a fast one. The polenta is instant and takes just 5 min to finish. The blue cheese melted in the hot polenta until it was time to serve it. Wrapping the asparagus in bacon strips is fun and 5 min in oil all around, then 8 min with a lid, a little Noilly Prat and later a bit of Maple syrup  was cooking on the fast track.

Ingredients:

8 or 9 stalks of purple/green asparagus

Veggie seasoning

8 or 9 slices of bacon - about 125 g

1 tbsp Noilly Prat, 1 tsp Maple syrup, 1 tsp oil

Polenta:

300 m water, 1 tsp veg stock paste, 1 tsp butter

75 g instant polenta

30 g blue cheese

 

Wild Garlic Potato Mash with fried Eggs

This is a dish that sets me back to my childhood.

No, not the wild garlic butter added to the mash, but the combination with fried eggs and green lettuce all combined on a plate.

We did not have lots of money when I grew up, but Mom always tried to make ends meet. Her best friends was married to a chicken farmer. That gave us often more eggs (with cracks) she did not pay for in addition to the 25 eggs every 2 weeks. Eggs were a cheap staple of protein in our household. I still love to est eggs.

The combination with mashed potatoes and lettuce was a full meal. The mash always contained milk, nutmeg and a knob of "Gute Butter" butter. The "good butter" showed everyone that the housewife was a good homemaker, that was able to afford butter during meager times. It was often used in advertising too.

Using the Thermomix for the potato mash is my go to method for many years now. Arount 700 g of potatos fit in the basket inside. That is enough mash for 3 to 4 people.

Mash:

700 g peeled and cooked potatoes

100 ml milk, 50 ml double cream

30 g butter,  30 g wild garlic butter

Nutmeg, salt, pepper

2 fried eggs per person

Lettuce with Mango Chutney dressing:

4 tsp Kashmiri mango chutney

4 tbsp cream, 3 tbsp mango vinegar

Salt, pepper, 

Fresh salad herbs

Purple Asparagus with red Pesto and Spaghetti

I bought my weekend supply of fresh asparagus this morning. 

I was at a Toom Baumarkt- like Home Depot- to pick up my online ordered tomato tents. The rainy season this year is NOT coming to an end. I have to protect my future crop from the water.

Opposite the Baumarkt was an asparagus shack. So many ideas to cook with asparagus every year. I had to stop by there to get my fill. And I found the purple ones. I had them last year for the first time. They were a bit of a surprise. Usually I steam my asparagus. I did it with the purple ones too. Surprise: I opened the lid and they were green, WtF?

This time I tossed them in a pan and hoped for the best.

Recipe for 1:

250 g purple asparagus (or green), parsley

1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp rapeseed oil, salt, pepper

3 tsp red Pesto, 60 ml double cream

80 g spaghetti

Break off the woody part from the asparagus and cut them in 3 or 4 pieces. Keep the tips separat.

Cook the spaghetti.

Heat up butter and oil and get the veg stems in, season them and sauté them for 2 min. Add the cream and pesto. Toss in the tips and stir well. Fish the pasta direktly out and add it in the pan. A little pasta water helps with the sauce. Finish with parsley.

Banana Cinnamon Muffins

For the most banana taste in these muffins, take the ones sitting untouched on your counter in black and a bit yellow. They are the best for this recipe.

The combination with cinnamon increases the banana flavour.

They are very easy to prepare. Two reasons for baking today: 1. My neighbor gave me two packs of paper muffin cases as a thank you for my last baking. 2. The bananas on my counter were getting blacker every day.

Recipe for 12 muffins:

150 g sugar, 125 ml rapeseed oil, 2 eggs creamed together with a handmixer

2 1/2  very ripe bananas mashed

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

3/4 tsp cinnamon

300 g flour

Topping:

50 g melted butter

50 g sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven 190 C.

Bring the batter together and fill the paper cases nearly complete.

Bake for 20 min. Cool them on a wire rack.

Brush them with the melted butter and dip them in the sugar cinnamon mix.

Eat fresh.

Broccoli and Feta Bake with Rice

I wanted something easy and vegetarian today. Putting most of the ingredients in the oven and using the rice cooker seamed the laziest method.

I still have a lot of my wild garlic butter in the fridge. I used some of it to coat the broccoli and drissle a little on the feta. Just a few seconds in the microwave and the green butter was ready to go. For some more cheese a bit of Lebanese Labneh was used. I added a little olive oil too.

But before I mixed it with the rice after baking, I had to add some Greek yogurt to make it a bit more creamy.

Preheat the oven to 180 C fan and bake it for 30 min. 

Ingredients:

400 g broccoli, 2 green onions

150 g feta,  2 Labneh balls, 30 g wild garlic butter, 20 g butter, 2 tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp Greek yogurt

Salt, pepper, Jasmine rice

Vegetable Soup with Roastbeef

Having a hunk of roastbeef sitting in the fridge calls for some ideas to use the leftover meat.

I ate some with Tartar sauce yesterday, but there is still a lot to go.

The veggie drawer needed a clean out and a couple of veg went on the counter. A large jar of homemade chicken stock - from my Coronation chicken- was in the fridge door. Next came the box with the roastbeef.  And do not forget some potatoes.

I cooked the soup with just the stock and the veggies. Then I took the soup off the heat and tossed in the lovely pink thin strips of roastbeef. The remaining heat of the soup was enough to cook the beef completely. 

But it still kept its tenderness.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil, 850 ml chicken stock

3 green onions, 3 garlic cloves, 2 carrots, 3 medium potatoes, 1 red pepper, 2 parsley roots

1 bay leaf, a couple of celery leaves, salt, pepper

150 g cold roastbeef, chives

Chop all the veggies and toss them in a pot with hot oil. Roast them a couple of minutes and season them. Pour in the stock, bring to a boil, reduce the heat. Cover the pot with a lid and cook for 15 min.

Cut thin slices from the hunk of roastbeef and slice it in strips. Add that after the cooking stopped and finish with chives.