My partner is a huge meat-eater and when I serve a meal without meat, he is hardly ever satisfied; as if I have only served him the first course of something special to follow, which he never gets. Well anyway, after a regular check-up at the doctors sometime ago, he was told that, although he had an almost perfect clean bill of health-the doctor suggested that he take it easy on the wine, meat, and egg intake. Hmmmm….I have been saying this all along! Never mind-so, somewhat provokingly, I told him that I could not imagine him staying off of his wine, meat, eggs or wheat (I just threw that one in there) for any extended period of time.
…and with that statement…..he took the challenge!!!
It has been 2 weeks now, and I am really impressed at the dedication. I have heard no complaints, and even grand compliments. He has actually stopped eating his own self-made morning-creation-of fried eggs with parmesan cheese, Parma ham, bread with lots of butter and coffee! I never thought it was possible that he could do without this.
So, on the first day of the challenge, when I told him that we would be having a meatless zucchini spaghetti dish, he naturally assumed that we would have some sort of a zucchini sauce served upon a bed of egg noodles as we very often have them. He was actually fine with this and shook his head in agreement. Then I more explicitly told him that we would be actually having a tomato-based sauce and served upon a bed of raw zucchini. He shook his head in agreement once again, but this time, with much less certainty.
Zucchini-Tomato sauce on a bed of Basil-Zucchini Spaghetti
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1 zucchini chopped into tiny squares
½ teaspoon of dried basil
½ teaspoon of dried oregano
1 medium onion-chopped
2 tsp. of freshly chopped garlic
2 tablespoons of finely chopped or sun dried tomatoes (put in a food processor to blend)
2 cups of finely chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoon of finely chopped or pureed black olives
1 tsp. of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
½ a cup of fresh ricotta cheese (divided into 2)
A handful of fresh basil leaves
Place the olive oil in a saucepan and swirl to cover the pan.
Turn on heat to medium and add the zucchini squares. Cook the zucchini for about 2 minutes until they are just soft. Then add the oregano and basil and stir for 1 minute.
Then take them out of the pan and place into a bowl and set aside.
Place the onions into the same pan. Sauté the onions on medium heat until translucent and soft.
Add the garlic and the sun-dried tomatoes and cook for a further minute.
Pour in the chopped tomatoes and cook until for about 10 minutes.
Add the black olives, the balsamic vinegar and cook for a further 5 minutes until the sauce has reached the intensity and consistency you desire. Shortly before serving, stir in the zucchini squares, ¼ cup of the ricotta and salt and pepper to taste. To serve, crumble a bit of the remaining ricotta on top of the sauce and tear up some fresh basil leaves.
For the Basil-Zucchini-Spaghetti
2 zucchinis
1 tsp. of olive oil
2 tablespoons of fresh pesto
Use a spiral-slicer or a saladacco to make the zucchini noodles out of both zucchinis. Place the oil in a pan and place on medium heat. Add the zucchini noodles and cook for just about a minute-just until they become warm. Stir in the pesto, toss to spread and there you have it!. They actually can be eaten as is, which I did when I finished the tomato sauce.
When you are ready to serve, pour some of the zucchini-tomato sauce onto the bed of noodles and crumble a bit of the ricotta cheese on top and tear some of the fresh basil to complete!
It is wonderfully rich in flavour, light and yet “fillingly” satisfying.
Raw and Gluten-Free Cooking
As I admitted earlier, I have a definite multi-culinary-identity disorder. Yup! I am always changing my culinary identity depending on my mood- one week carnivore, one week vegetarian, another week a raw foodie….yea, you get the picture. The one constant, however is that I am always careful in my selection of foods-always organic, non-refined ingredients.
So, I began experimenting with both raw cooking and gluten free cooking a couple of years ago, when I started feeling totally “stressed and burnt-out”. I soon realised that changing some rather minor aspects of my diet, yielded quite noticeable differences in my health and the general way in which I felt.
I do not suffer from celiac disease or have any allergies (luckily), however when I do feel somewhat “under the weather”, I begin to reject certain foodstuffs and veer towards more raw-gluten free foods. Although, I seem to operate in phases, I thought that it was enough to warrant dedicating this section to my experiences and discussions about raw and gluten free foods.
Sweet Potato-Goat Cheese Tart
After I made the baklava, I still had some left-over Phyllo dough!
All the millions of things which one could create with phyllo dough!:) I chose to make a sweet potato-goat cheese pie-just because I had both at-hand.
Sweet potatoes remind me of my dad. As far as I am concerned, my dad defines the term “academic”, in that he really lives to read his academic books and journals. He really gets lots of excitement, joy and great pleasure from delving into this materials for hours and hours, waking up at wee hours of the morning to get in as much as he can. Yea-right-O.K.
I clearly missed out on those genes, and certainly do not live to read academic stuff-although I do adore doing through cookbooks-does that count? I don’t think so!!!
So, I asked me dad the other day what his favourite foods is. He paused a bit, and responded (try to imagine a very articulate, matter-of-fact-voice here) “well, you know food is not really something of which I can have a favourite. I see food as a mere necessity such as gas is to a car”. Then he went on to say that it is not the “what”, but rather the how”. When I asked for further explaination, he added that he likes food when it is nicely prepared; when the person preparing the food cares about his or her craft!
There you go..that’s my dad for you! However, espite the fact that he said he does not really a have favourite food-I know for a fact that he loves sweet potato pudding-a pudding which accomapnies his childhood and which when we visit my grandmother, there is always some freshly baked sweet potato pudding ready for us to eat!
I will give you the reipce oor that in a later post, but for now here is the reipce for the sweet potato-goat cheese tart.
Sweet Potato-Goat Cheese Tart
For 4 servings you will need:
2 medium sized sweet potatos
4 ounces of soft goat cheese
2 teaspoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly cut rosemary
1 tbp. of honey
1 tsp. of Dijan Mustard
Butter 4 casserole cups and line each with a rectangluar piece of Phylo dough. I used 1 sheet of phyllo dough per casserole, by cutting each sheet into 4 pieces-lenghtwise. Place one piece in to the casserole such that the edges will hang over. Place the second piece in a cross on top of the first piece, also letting the extra bits hang over and repeat the procedure for the last 2 pieces. press dwn with your fingers to shape the dough into the shape of the casserole cup. You will use the “overlapping pieces” to cover the filling at the very end, so leave them hanging until then.
Put some water to boil in a medium sized saucepan. Place the sweet potatoes in the boiling water, turn down the heat to medium and cook the sweet potatoes for about 15 minutes. The potatoes should be just soft enough to cut.
Peel the cooked sweet potatoes and slice them thinly. Place about 6 slices of the sweet potato on top of the phyllo dough lined casserole. Now cut a slice of the goat cheese and place that on top of the sweet potato. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and rosemary and a ½ teaspoon of olive oil. Cover up the filling using the phyllo dough which should be hanging over the sides of the casserole. Dampen your fingers slightly to make the dough more pliable and “tuckable” if necessary. Make sure that the entire filling is covered with the dough.
Bake at 370 F degrees (190 degrees C) for about 15 minutes until golden and crispy. Once out of the oven, mix together the honey and the mustard and drizzle a bit it over each tart. Yummers!
Tomato Jam
To complete the Lemon-Rosemary Shortbread, I placed a dollop of tomato jam on top. The combination of the rosemary, lemon, and tomato in a sweet form was very lovely-as each flavour came out in a delicately subtle way.
Tomato Jam
You will need:
10 large Tomatoes (make sure they are ripe)
½ cup of Agave syrup
1 tps. of freshly squeezed lemon juice
a dash of pepper
Equipment
Large pot
Large saucepan
Slotted spoon
Fill a large pot with water and cook until the water is boiling. Meanwhile, making sure not to cut too much into the tomato meat, make an “X” on the top of the skin of each tomato (this will help to take off the skin later on). Then place the tomatoes into the pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds and remove them with a slotted spoon. By now, the skin will be nice and soft and supple enough to peel off with your hands.
After the skins have been taken off from each tomato, cut them in half and remove all the seeds. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces and now they are ready to be made into jam!
Put the tomatoes into a large saucepan and add the agave syrup and lemon juice. Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture becomes bubbly and thick. The cooking time will depend on the tomatoes you are using. It took me about 20 minutes before the tomato mixture became thick. Once thickened, sprinkle some pepper on top and stir!
Lemon-Rosmary Shortbread with Tomato Jam
I love the combination of lemon and rosemary-sweet or savoury. Whenever I use rosemary, I think fondly, and always with a laugh, of my vacation with my partner three years ago in Sicily. Sicily is one of my favourite vacation spots, most loved of course, because of its culinary offerings!!!
During this particular trip, we were celebrating our Birthdays, as they are only one day apart. We stayed in a lovely country barn in the hills- remote-and very far away from anything and anyone! It was in early September and the air was pleasantly cool and everything still and peaceful.
To get to the nearest town, we had to travel down a non-paved and rather dusty road-well…track, which took us about 15 minutes on a good day. Besides the fact that I often get car sick, it was actually pleasant meandering our way on the track, with trees lined along either side. As we drove along the path, we were confronted with the strong scent of rosemary. There was rosemary everywhere and it was divine!
The track was however, just narrow enough for one small car to get through. I always feared the day when, if ever we would approach an oncoming car, one car would have to stop, reverse, and hopefully find an area slightly wide enough to back into and let the other car pass.
This actually did occur on one occasion and I was terrified, as we were in the car, which had to reverse. As we reversed I had visions of the car flying over and tumbling down the hills. I know, I know…I am working on trying to rid myself of all of these negatives thoughts. Positive thinking. Needless to say, nothing happened and we carried on along our way.
However!
As we returned home that afternoon after a long day of driving around and exploring the various villages, going to farmers’ markets and eating Sicilian food, we approached our long and winding road.
On this particular evening, I was completely overtaken by the scent of the rosemary. I had decided then and there, that we were going to pick some and use it in whatever dish we decided to make.
So, as we approached the most heavily rosemary-populated region along our track, I asked my partner to stop the car. Unfortunately, there was hardly enough room for me to get out and pick. So, we each reached out our hands and attempted to pick the strands of rosemary that were within our reach.
Just as my partner grabbed to reach the branch, I felt the car tip over. And then I felt the car tip over more. I was slightly elevated. My partner had sunken. And we sat not moving an inch. We had managed to place the car into a ditch!!!
We both sat there, and sat there. And then I broke out laughing. What’s a girl gonna do in such a situation!? Both of us wondering what the hkkk are we going to do now!? Long story short; despite my utmost fearful visions, which I will not reveal now, we were very very lucky!!! An Sicilian farmer passed by after some time and called together everyone on his farm to assist us. A few strong men and a tractor, a pull here, a push there and we were out! To end the story; I got my rosmary and it was the best I had ever tasted!
As part of my summer welcome, I made some rosemary lemon shortbread with tomato jam. It sounds at first like an odd combination, but I really liked it. My partner could not fathom the fact that tomato could be made into a jam and did not want to taste it. Yes, I forced him to taste it.
He said nothing and we left it at that. It is clearly not for everybody, but worth a try!
Lemon Rosemary Shortbread
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/3 cups of sugar
1/4 cornstarch or rice flour for more crunch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 teaspoons. of freshly chopped rosemary
3/4 cups of chilled butter, cut into small cubes
Set the oven to 300F degrees (150 C).
Mix the flour, sugar, cornstarch, salt, lemon peel, chopped rosemary and salt together.
Cut in the butter and mix either with your fingertips or in a food processor until the dough becomes lumpy and moist.
Make the dough into 2 balls and press one ball onto the bottom of an 8-inch round or square pan. Using a knife, cut either squares or wedges into the dough, and then prick the dough with a fork and bake until pale yellow in colour. It took me 35 minutes.
Take the shortbread out and leave it in the pan until it cools, or it will crumble completely.
Coconut Panna Cotta with Mangos
As the summer months draw nearer, I find myself making all sorts of things with coconut. I blame the coconut oil for that. As my coconut oil has becomes liquid and more manageable, I find myself using it in everything! I use it in my morning health shakes, as a butter substitute, for my fish and meat dishes and desserts. My dad uses it every morning in his oatmeal and swears by its nutritional qualities. I realise that most of my desserts of late, have all featured coconut in some form or other and I would like to share these with you.
Last night, I had some leftover cream from my Creamy Cream-Ice-Cream and decided to make a Panna Cotta. Not just an ordinary one, of course, but with…..yes…coconut! This desert takes me back to my childhood years when my mom used to make Coconut Panna Cotta about 3 times a year. It was and still is a favourite when she has her famous dessert buffets, in particular for the 26th of December-boxing day, when all of our friends, family and just about everyone we knew would come over to our house and gather for lots of food and fun!
Coconut Panna Cotta
you will need:
4 3/4 cup ramekins
1 cup of heavy cream
2 cups of coconut milk
½ cup of agave syrup
1 vanilla bean or 1 tps. of vanilla extract
2 1/2 (or 3 for a more solid Panna Cotta) gelatine leaves soaked in cold water for 5 minutes
Instructions
Pour the cream, the coconut milk and the agave syrup into a saucepan and place on medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes until the mixture just about simmers and remove it from the heat.
Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, and using a sharp knife, remove the beans and scrape them into the cream mixture.
Take the soaked gelatine out of the cold water and remove any excess liquid. Add the gelatine to the mixture and stir until it is dissolved completely.
Pour the mixture into the ramekins and place in the refrigerator for at least four hours, or until firm.
To remove the Panna Cotta from the mold, place a warm knife around the edges of the mold and turn the mixture over onto a plate.
Serve with a fruit sauce or just drizzle with some warm honey! I drizzeled mine with warm honey and served it with some mangos (I cut up a mango and mixed it up with a tiny bit of lemon juice and agave syrup to bring out the flavour and cooked it over medium heat for 2 minutes). The combination is a delight!
Agave-Coconut-Cinnamon Baklava
One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Berlin were the wonderful farmers’ markets (actually this is typical of all German cities and towns and I am working on a post about this for later!).
As I went through the Saturday market in Kreuzberg last week, my mouth watered as I walked by the stands with all the Turkish treats. The baklava was the number one culprit and I kept on going back to look at this golden, crispy-nutty treat. The lady behind the stand continually asked me if I wanted a piece, but each time I declined. By the third time I walked by and stopped to look, she had figured out that I was just “nuts”. No more questions. She just ignored me.
Rightly so!!
I refrained from purchasing any, because as much as I love baklava, I find them often terribly sweet and not always with the nut-to-dough proportion such that I like.
Yea, so after my third visit to that stand, I knew exactly how I would be spending the time in my kitchen once I reached home. Luckily enough I had made some phyllo dough (I will give you the recipe for this later on) a few weeks back and had frozen about 24 sheets, which was enough to prepare my own baklava.
I have been doing a lot of experimenting of ate with natural sweeteners such as agaves and rice syrups. I used both agave and rice syrup for my baklava and it was delicious!
Agave-Coconut-Cinnamon Baklava
You will need:
a baking pan ( I used an 8 x 8 pan)
about 20 sheets of Phyllo dough
½ cup of melted butter
2 cups of ground hazelnuts or walnuts (or a mixture of both)
1 cup of ground almonds or nuts of your choice
½ cup of non-sweetened dried coconut flakes
Optional: ½ cup of semi-sweetened chocolate chips (or 60 percent chocolate bar cut up into small pieces)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
¾ cups of agave
½ cups of rice syrup
1 tablespoon of Lemon juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Thaw out the frozen phyllo dough. Take out 1 sheet at a time, and keep the rest coveted in a damp towel, so as not to dry them out. Lightly butter a pan. Cut 5 to 6 sheets of the dough to fit the size of the pan. Place a phyllo dough sheet into the pan and brush each sheet with a bit of the melted butter. Place another sheet on top and repeat procedure until you have used up 5 or 6 sheets. Now, you are ready to place the nuts on top.
In a bowl, mix the nuts, coconut (chocolate pieces if desired) and cinnamon together. Place half of this nut mixture over the phyllo sheets, and press down with your hands lightly to make an even surface.
Then, place another phyllo dough sheet on top of the nut mixture and brush with melted butter and proceed as before, using 5 or 6 sheets of dough.
Place the rest of the nut mixture onto the dough and pack down again to make an even surface. To finish off, place a phyllo dough sheet on top of the nut mixture and brush with melted butter and proceed as before, using 5 or 6 sheets of dough.
Using a sharp knife cut the baklava into equal squares. Be careful not to cut too quickly, or you will rip the dough.
Bake the baklava at 400 F or just above 200 degrees C. for about 30 minutes, or until it turns nicely golden in colour.
While the baklava is in the oven, mix the agave, lemon juice, vanilla extract and rice syrup together and place into a saucepan. Heat until just simmering and take off heat.
Once the baklava has reached its golden brown colour and taken out of the oven, drizzle the syrup over the baklava making sure the syrup coats each piece and in between each piece. As the baklava is hot, the syrup will spread throughout the nut mixture.
These pancakes are fluffily-light with an almost creamy-like interior, due to the ricotta. This was the perfect way to begin my summer. I had a half of a mango left over and some raspberries, which made for a lovely sauce.
Cinnamon Ricotta Pancakes
You will need:
1 cup of Ricotta
½ cup of milk
2 large eggs, separated
1/3 cup of buckwheat flour (if you do not have buckwheat flour, replace with all-purpose)
½ cup of all-purpose flour (for a more thick pancake, you can add up to 3 tbs. more of flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon of Vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
A pinch of salt
Oil or butter for cooking the pancakes
Mix the ricotta, the milk and the egg yolks together until combined.
Sift the flours, the baking powder, the sugar, the cinnamon and salt into a bowl.
Mix this flour mixture with the ricotta mixture just until combined.
Beat the egg whites to form soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter with a large spoon (as you can see in the photo below, I forgot to put the vanilla sugar into the batter and sprinkled it on top of the whites).
Place a medium non-stick frying pan on medium heat and coat it with the butter or oil. Place a large spoonful of the batter into the pan an cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, or until they turn golden brown in colour.
Turn the pancakes over and cook for another 2 minutes or until golden brown.
I got 10 pancakes out of this recipe and had some of mine with warm maple syrup, one with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top and the rest with some mangoes which I sautéed with agave syrup and fresh raspberries.
Happy Eating!
Hello Summer-Here I Come!
I know that summer has arrived when my coconut oil turns into a clear runny liquid-when I can actually pour it out of the jar and not have to jab a spoon into it with all of my strength (like I had to do 2 weeks ago), to get out some coconut oil. It is also a clear sign that summer is here when the chocolate of my shelf begins to melt.
I will really have to use them up very quickly, so watch out for several chocolate recipes coming up soon! I actually had planned this weekend to make my last batch of chocolate pralines and chocolate bars before the heat came in. I was one weekend too late. Now, I shall have to wait until the fall.
As I write this, I am basking in the sun on my balcony in 25C-degree heat. Yes, summer comes and goes, come and goes, and yet I feel as if, once the heat kicks in after a long and dreary winter, I am experiencing it all over again as if it were the first time ever…and I can never get enough of it.
I have noticed that Berliners love to talk about the weather. They will comment on if it is a pleasant day or dreary, or just drab. I honestly think that my first German words were those, which related to the weather. My “non-German friends and I would always laugh about the weather-complainers-as if they had nothing better to talk about!
Whenever I meet someone who comes from warm regions, I always mention how lucky they are to experience the sun the entire year round. Over Christmas, while my brother and I were hanging out at a café here in Berlin, an American lady who was visiting from LA came and sat next to us at our table. She was chatting away with my brother as I just watched them exchange words.
My head was turning from left to right as I focused on whomever was talking at the time. Being tired of being a mere spectator, I decided to jump in and asked the American lady her how she could possibly bear the grey cold of Berlin. I mean, to my mind, LA is about sun, warmth, and beaches (not that I have ever been there before, mind you). I smiled at her, waiting to hear her complain about the weather as we all do here. She took one look at me and said it was a welcome change.
That was the end of our conversation.
It was then that I realised that I had become one of those weather complainers!
Now, recapping her words, I think that I understand what she meant. Perhaps I would not appreciate the summer as much, if I did not experience the winter months. And indeed the winter does have it virtues-from a purely culinary perspective of course! Only in the winter can I appreciate a warm bowl of oatmeal, or a delicious cheese spätzle, or hmm…I am not really convincing myself here at all.
No, No, No…I love the summer..here and now and always!
To welcome the summer months, I wanted to make something bright and fruity. So, I opened up my summer season this weekend with rasberry ricotta pancakes, lemon-rosemary shortbread, tomato jam and my first batch of ice cream for 2008.
Potato Rösti
Inspired by the potato-talk during my taxi ride some time ago, I made the Swiss Rösti. I love them for their crisp on the outside-soft on the inside consistency. Rösti are wonderful as a stand alone dish or perhaps accompanied by a salat. But then again, if you are meat-eater as is my partner, they go very well with any meat dish with a sauce.
Potato Rösti
You will need:
1 kilo (2.5 pounds) of raw potatoes
1 Tablespoon of salt
4 tablespoons of butter for frying
1 non-stick medium sized frying pan
Peel the potatoes and grate them using the large holes of a grater.
Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a non-stick medium (10 inch) sized frying pan to coat the pan.
Mix the grated potatoes with the salt and place into the butter-coated frying pan. Stir for about 3 minutes to just soften the potatoes, then spread the mixture to cover the entire pan, and pat down to form a cake like shape.
Continue to fry over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the bottom begins to look golden brown.
Shake the pat to loosen the Rösti and slide it onto a large plate. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of the butter into the frying pan and swirl to coat the pan.
Slide the half-cooked rösti back into the pan, with the crusty-brown-cooked side up. Press down on the rösti and cook for another 10 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown.
Cut into slices and serve while warm!
Serves 4.
Extra tip: I added tomato slices and cheese to my rösti. After heating the butter into the pan, place only half of the grated potatoes into the pan and let it cook for about 4 minutes. Then place thin slices of tomato and some grate cheese on top of the potato and cover with the rest of the grated potato and cook until golden brown, and proceed as mentioned above.
