#WorldBaking Day – My little contribution

Yo! So 16 days to go until I finish uni, which means I’m definitely not actually baking today (I’m eating a lot of baked goods though paha), but I thought I’d quickly share a delicious little recipe number with you. It’s not actually a recipe, it’s more a what to throw together, but you know I can’t really think of a nice term for that.
Here is how to make the most amazing chocolate-coconut-white chocolate oreo muffins!

If you’re in Germany, I recommend you use this cake mix (because blogging has to be all honest etc, this is a product from our family business back home, so no personal bias, but seriously, they’re incredibly good!).

♔ Prepare a chocolate muffin cake mix according to package instructions, APART from that you swop the vegetable oil/butter for coconut oil*
♔ Preheat the oven to whatever it says on the packaging
♔ Fill your muffin paper cups with half the batter, then put half a white chocolate covered oreo on the batter in each one and top with the rest of the batter.
♔ Bake as instructed
♔ You’re welcome! 

*That was the first time I ever baked with coconut oil and it was absolutely delicious (and I guess a little healthier). My measurements didn’t work a 100% (I’m guessing this could potentially be, because we don’t have a scale, but who knows hej), and a bit of coconut oil went to the bottom of the paper cups, I’m not sure whether this is what’s supposed to happen. Anyway I had a little read on the internet, and you should be able to substitute vegetable oil 1:1 with coconut oil, see here, and the muffins I made still turned out absolutely delicious (wouldn’t share any recipe with you that I don’t like, would I).

RECIPE: Quiche with Chargrilled Asparagus, Roasted Broccoli and Marinated Feta

Hejhej. How’s everyone doing? I thought I’d finally post another recipe for one of the dishes I made in the first week of the #VegBoxChallenge. I’ve always loved Quiches (my mum makes a delicious one) but I don’t feel like I have enough quiche in my life, so I was really happy when I came across a good recipe that was 1) a quiche and 2) would make use of two of the vegetables from my box. Well the original recipe wouldn’t have, but I thought it was a pretty straight forward substitute. Because I made some changes and because I promised to blog more recipes where you can use the marinated feta from this recipe, I thought I’d quickly blog about it.

RECIPE: Quiche with Chargrilled Asparagus, Roasted Broccoli and Marinated Feta

♘ Preheat the oven to 200°

♘ Make the pastry. I used the recipe from here (but it’s in german, so I’ll take you through it).
Mix 130g of flour, 20g of parmesan, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 65g of butter (cold), 1 egg and if you like some herbs and knead it into a dough. Then shape it into a ball, wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for 30min.

♘ Break off the woody stalks of one bundle of green asparagus, cut the asparagus into 1cm bits and fry the pieces in a griddle pan in a little bit of olive oil. When it’s cooked, sprinke with a tiny bit of salt.

♘ Cut one head of broccoli into little florets. Marinate in a little olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano.

♘ Spread the florets on a baking tray (covered in silver foil) and roast until it’s cooked and crispy (around 10 minutes)

♘ Whilst this is happening, roll out the pastry, then put it into a springform pan (you don’t need to grease it). Once the broccoli is cooked, put the springform pan in the oven and bake until slightly browned at 170° (I didn’t put anything on top to keep it down, and probably should have done, but still worked fine)

♘ Make your egg mixture: Separate two eggs. Whisk the egg whites until they’re stiff, and mix your (slightly cooled down) broccoli and asparagus, approximately 150g marinated feta (see this recipe), another tablespoon of grated Parmesan, and 75g soured cream with the egg yolk.

♘ Gently fold in the whisked egg whites

♘ Fill this into your springform pan with the pre-baked pastry and bake for another 20 minutes until lovely golden brown.

♘ Enjoy!

RECIPE: Roasted Broccoli Salad with Cranberries

Today just a quick recipe (again one I used for the #VegBoxChallenge last week). This one is very strongly inspired by the wonderful Jennifer from milkandhoney. She made broccoli slaw with buttermilk dressing, which I thought looked absolutely sublime. But due to

♧ not wanting to get my food processor out
♧ Daniel having a nut allergy, so almonds are unfortunately a no-no
♧ Me not being the biggest fan of sour cherries

I made a couple of changes, so I thought I’d show you my version on here too, because I absolutely loved it! There are a lot of delicious recipes on milkandhoney, so I suggest you all go and have a look .

RECIPE: Roasted Broccoli Salad with Cranberries
♧ Cut 1 head of broccoli into little florets
♧ Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan. Once it’s hot, add the broccoli, a pinch of salt and dried oregano
♧ Keep it on heat for about 10 minutes or until the broccoli is crispy and cooked
♧ In the meantime, make the dressing. (You need buttermilk, greek yoghurt, sugar and apple cider vinegar)
♧ Finely chop 1/2 red onion
♧ Mix the dressing, the red onion, the broccoli, a handful of dried cranberries and a handful of croutons and there you go.

I thought this was absolutely delicious, so thank you Jennifer

RECIPE: Stuffed Antipasti Courgette Swirls in a Fruity Tomato Sauce with Marinated Feta

As promised on Friday, I’m sharing the recipes to make the food I had with you this week! These absolutely beautiful and delicious courgette swirls are up first. I’m not going to lie to you, this dish is pretty labour intensive. It’s delicious, sure, but I for one probably shouldn’t have spent about 2 hours in the kitchen  to make this (with way too much coursework being due in way too soon and all) AND absolutely worth it!

The recipe itself is very simple, it’s just you know, a lot of work. I got a little fed up with chargrilling courgette slices after about 5 minutes (I’m a little impatient), so I thought I’d just do it with raw slices, but then I tried a stuffed chargrilled courgette swirl and oh my word was it tasty! It’s still delicious, when they’re not chargrilled, so if you’re a bit lazy like me, or if time simply doesn’t allow, just mix and match, chargrill some of your slices and leave others raw (they’ll get cooked in the oven anyway). Or leave all them raw to start with, it tastes good either way, it just won’t have that smoky flavour as much.

RECIPE: Stuffed Antipasti Courgette Swirls in a Fruity Tomato Sauce with Marinated Feta

♧ Marinate 1 package of feta by crumbling it up with a fork and mixing it with good quality olive oil, 1 crushed clove of garlic, pepper, dried thyme and dried oregano. Just do it quantities by feeling, since this depends purely on your taste. It tastes best, if you let this sit in your fridge overnight, but it’ll still be tasty if you do it just before and let the magic happen in the fridge, whilst you get on with the rest of the dish. You probably won’t need all of it to for this dish, but it’s really handy to have in the fridge (there’ll be a couple more recipes over the next couple of days giving you ideas how you can use it!)

♧ Cut off the end bits and use a vegetable peeler to cut 3 courgettes into slices (quite thick considering it’s done with a vegetable peeler, but thinner than you could with a knife.) I don’t use the very first one, because it’s just courgette skin, but then I go until it doesn’t really work anymore and repeat this procedure on each side. Keep the middle bit.

♧ In a bowl, mix your courgette slices with about a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

♧ Heat a griddle pan, and griddle all your courgette slices. If this gets too tedious for you, see above!

♧ Whilst this is happening (told you it’d take a while), get cracking with your filling. Mix about 1/2 pack of cream cheese with 2 heaped tablespoons of sweet corn, 1 crushed clove of garlic, dried oregano, salt, pepper, and some curry powder. Taste to see if you like it and adjust accordingly.

♧ Then (the courgettes are probably still going, if not, just set them aside to cool), make a really simple tomato sauce: Fry 1 chopped up red onion in a little olive oil until softened. Whilst this is happening, chop up the middle bits of your courgettes, then add them to the pan. Once they’ve gotten a little colour, add 1 tin of chopped tomatoes. Play around with the flavour, i.e. maybe add a little balsamic vinegar, maybe some thyme, salt, pepper, curry powder, whatever you fancy! 

♧ Preheat your oven to 200° C

♧ Once all your components are ready, get layering! In a fairly small casserole start by covering the base with about half the tomato sauce. Then (if you have kids this is where it’s fun to get them involved) smear a little cream cheese on each courgette slice and roll it up! I find this easiest if I just put a little on half the slice, fold it over and then roll, but it’s up to your preference really.

♧ Cover with the remainder of the tomato sauce, followed by some of the marinated feta.

♧ Put the casserole and 1 half baked ciabatta in the oven until the feta cheese has reached desired consistency and the bread has a lovely golden brown colour.

Enjoy!

RECIPE: Delightful Butternut Squash Pasta with Sage and Caramelized Onions

Last week, we decided we wanted to make Squash Wellington again (recipe here from sorted food), because we absolutely loved it last time we made it (you need to try it, it’s divine), but being into the #VegBoxChallenge etc, I wanted to make sure we also use the other half of the butternut squash for another meal. So whilst Daniel was training away at his Kung Fu class, I decided to try and come up with a delicious, creamy pasta dish, without actually using any cream (get me!). And well, we liked it, so I thought I’d share it on here. (I didn’t tell Daniel I hadn’t put in soured cream (as planned) and he didn’t notice, so that’s got to show that it’s tasty without it, right?)

RECIPE: Delightful Butternut Squash Pasta with Sage and Caramelized Onions

♠ Preheat your oven to 200°C
♠ Cut your (peeled) upper half of a butternut squash into little cubes
♠ “Marinate” the cubes in a little olive oil, salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper
♠ Put them on a baking tray and in the oven for approximately 30mins (or until they’re cooked, it might take less or more time depending on your oven, you can tell they’re cooked by that they’re really easy to squeeze and turn into puree without applying much pressure)

In the mean time, get on with your sauce
♠ Cut one white onion into thin slices, chop half a chili and a small handful of sage
♠ Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan, when it’s heated up, add the onion
♠ Add just over 1 teaspoon of vegetable stock powder, the chili and the sage
♠ When it starts to catch, add a generous splash of water. Let it cook off and repeat this procedure until your butternut squash is cooked. Honestly it’s worth it! 
♠ When the butternut squash is cooked, put your pasta on. 
♠ Add a generous splash of balsamic vinegar to the sauce
♠ Turn the heat off and add the butternut squash cubes, as well as 2 tablespoons of Greek Yoghurt to your sauce
♠ Puree with a hand blender and serve with the pasta and plenty of grated Parmesan (or a vegetarian hard cheese alternative)

Note: The photo of the dish also includes roasted chickpeas, but they really didn’t add anything, so I didn’t include them in the recipe. I also would not recommend using the pasta I used, it just doesn’t cook in any sort of reasonable amount of time. Just a tip, you know. 

 

RECIPE: Thai-flavoured Sweet Potato Chowder

I made soup yesterday. Aaaaaaaaand it actually turned out delicious. Like surprisingly tasty! It’s definitely my new favourite soup, which doesn’t come as a surprise, because it’s built on the idea of my previous favourite soup combined with this one, which is a variation of Nigella Lawson’s Chowder with Asian Flavours. Anyway the idea is to add Thai/Asian flavours to my already dearly loved sweet potato soup. Try it, honestly it’s probably my favourite recipe on here so far! The recipe is for 3-4 people.

♠ Preheat the oven to 190° C
♠ Peel one large (or two regular) sweet potato(s) and cut it in little cubes (like 1cm x 1cm roughly)
♠ Marinate them in a little olive oil, cayenne pepper, and salt (don’t go crazy with the spices though, there’ll be plenty of other flavours in the soup!)
♠ Spread the cubes evenly on a baking tray and bake for 20-30min (until they’re slightly crispy on the outside and wonderfully soft inside). Whilst this is happening, get on with the base of your soup:
♠ Bring 1.25l of vegetable stock to the boil in a big saucepan
♠ Add 1 leek (cut into thin slices) and cook for 10 minutes
♠ Add 1 can of coconut milk, 1/2 chopped red chili and bring to the boil again, then turn off the heat and mix in a generous handful of chopped up fresh coriander
♠ Once the sweet potato cubes are done, mix them into the soup and blend it all together
♠ Add 1 small tin of sweetcorn, a bunch of spring onions (chopped into thin slices) and the juice of a lime (taste as you go, anything between half a lime and a whole lime should do the job depending on how citrus-y you like it) and serve with some nice Baguette.

Enjoy If you make it, please let me know how you like it!

RECIPE: Avocado-Egg Salad with Beetroot

Hallu! You know what? Doing coursework can be quite really dull. Big surprise here, huh? I don’t even mind the writing bit, but trying to find someone who’s said what you wanted them to say, because before graduating you’re officially not allowed your own opinion? Not cool, and very very boring. I’ll tell you what’s not boring though: Food. Especially lunch, because it’s in the middle of boring coursework, so it can really make a difference to your motivation levels (first because you can fantasize about it, and then because you’ve hopefully enjoyed it). Sooooooo I thought I’d share a little recipe number with you that I’ve been making quite often, because it’s super quick and really quite delicious. Enjoy.

RECIPE: Avocado-Egg Salad with Beetroot

♣ Hardboil an egg*
♣ Mash up the flesh of 1 avocado and 1-2 tablespoons of marinated feta cubes with 1 crushed clove of garlic and the juice of half a lemon
♣ Mash up the egg as well (I like to take the egg yolk out, but that’s personal preference, we’ll talk about my odd egg preferences another time) and mix into the avocado-feta mixture.
♣ Cut 1 (pickled/roasted) beetroot or a couple of baby beetroots into cubes and serve with the salad and some bread.

*In case you’re always unsure how long to cook an egg for (like me), here’s a cool app, where you can even measure your egg, and it’ll tell you the time for whatever consistency you want. It’s a german app, but it’s pretty self explanatory, so if you need help (not being able to get cooking eggs right is quite a serious issue), give it a go! Here’s the link

Things To Try Thursday – 21/04/12

I haven’t posted one of these in a long time, but I thought I’d bring back this little weekly feature where I point you in the direction of some delicious recipes on other blogs that I’ve been liking the look of! If you see any recipes that you think should be part of my “Things To Try Thursday” please let me know.

SWEET

♠  Well if you insist, I suppose I would have these: Hot Cross Pancakes

♠ This Wholemeal Chocolate Blueberry Cake sounds super delicious and super interesting (who would have thought you can put Balsamic Vinegar in a cake?)

♠ I’m totally down for a: Intensely Chocolatey Sables

♠ Cake for Breakfast? I’m totally down: Cranberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

SAVOURY

♠ Don’t you just love Sweet Potatoes? And Burgers? And Roasted Garlic? And Avocado? You’re welcome: Smoky Sweet Potato Burgers with Roasted Garlic Cream and Avocado

♠ Same blog, another delicious sounding burger: Easy Double Bean Burgers with Avocado Basil Cream

♠ I’ve actually tried these, you should too, they’re divine: Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Shells

♠ Nom Nom Nom: Pasta and White Beans with Garlic-Rosemary Oil

♠ How elegant: Cauliflower-Feta Fritters with Pomegranate

♠ Also very elegant, would be beautiful at a dinner party: Stuffed Mushrooms Green Bean Casserole Style

♠ Talking about dinner partys, if you’re having one, you should also serve these: Grilled Zucchini with Parmesan Pesto

RECIPE: Red Wine Lentils and Spinach with Crispy Halloumi

So, after my big little, rant in my last post, I thought I’d be a little more positive and show what I actually mean by eating well without spending a fortune (and without just buying cheap meat). Whenever it comes to these dishes, let me tell you, lentils are your friends! They’re delicious, they’re healthy and they’re incredibly filling! They’re high in protein, high in fibre and according to MindBodyGreen.com they help to lower blood cholesterol, reduce your risk of heart disease, are good for your digestive health, stabilize your blood sugar, increase energy, and promote weight loss. I TOLD YOU they were your friends, and now you even know why. Wahey.

At this point I have a little confession to make, I always get worried, when I like healthy food (like jerusalem artichokes, celeriac etc). I think there just must be a catch, because surely things can’t taste this good and still be good for me. Apparently they are, I haven’t ever had any negative side effects from them (Knock on wood), so I guess they’re safe. And yes, I’m 100% strange, but that’s hardly news.

Anyway, we’re not done here, we’re also going to add spinach into this lovely dish. Yeah that’s right spinach, the nightmare of our childhoods, which if we’re just honest to ourselves for a minute is actually pretty tasty as well aaaaaand full of good things (vitamins other people might say) too! Lots of fibre, Vitamin K and A, Magnesium, Calcium, Vitamin C, Zinc and Potassium (again source: MindBodyGreen.com). 

Anyway, this recipe is not just about being healthy, it’s also about eating healthily on a budget (although I’d totally still make this even if I had a budget of 100 Pounds per meal). Trying to apportion what I bought as well as possible, here’s what this meal costs roughly. I’m making the assumption that most people have olive oil, garlic, vegetable stock, mustard and balsamic vinegar in their cupboard. I appreciate that these do cost money, but they’re definitely worthwhile and calculated on a per use base kind of thing, they don’t add very much at all. So here we go (for 2 people):
♧ Spinach £1.25
♧ Lentils  £0.21*
♧ Lemon  £0.19
♧ Thyme £0.40
♧ Chili Halloumi £1.20
♧ Soured Cream £0.30
♧ Onion £0.19
♧ Red Wine £1.00
♧ Ciabatta Bread £0.65

£5.39 for two people
£2.70 for one

Now, even if we do appreciate that the before mentioned cupboard ingredients do cost something, this really doesn’t add up to very much! And trust me, it’s absolutely delicious! Plus if you’re really trying to cut costs wherever you can, you can leave out the red wine, and it will still be delightful.
So hopefully you see my point, I’d love for you to try out this recipe, so you can taste it as well! The recipe is from Abel and Cole (it’s called Hallou Lentils and Chard, which is a brilliant name), I only made slight adjustments, here’s my version.

RECIPE: Red Wine Lentils and Spinach with Crispy Halloumi
1. Wash 100g of puy/green speckled lentils very thoroughly under cold running water, then drain
2. Chop 1 large white onion and start frying it in a little olive oil in a sauce pan
3. Once it’s softened a little, add 2 crushed cloves of garlic and the lentils
4. Add in 100ml of red wine
5. Once that’s bubbled for a minute or so, add in roughly 350ml of good quality vegetable stock.
6. Put a little bundle of fresh thyme on top and let it simmer for 40 minutes or until tender
7. In the meantime wash and roughly chop 200g of spinach and cut half a Halloumi into little cubes
8. When the lentils are ready, stir in your spinach, half a teaspoon of mustard and 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.
9. In a frying pan, quickly fry the Halloumi cubes until they’re golden.
10. Cut half a Ciabatta into two slices, top with some olive oil, salt and pepper and pop under the grill until golden. When they’re lovely and crisp, rub with half a clove of garlic. Trust me, it’ll make all the difference.
11. Serve the lentils and spinach with the halloumi, a generous teaspoon of soured cream and of course the crispy Ciabatta et voilà

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

* Everything was from Tesco, I was actually quite shocked, just HOW cheap lentils are, so I researched it a little bit, and they’re actually just as cheap at planetorganic… I’d just like to emphasize that I’d always be willing to pay more for food to cover whatever it really costs to produce, I didn’t look to find cheaper products today, this is just what I ended up buying.

RECIPE: Courgette salad with chargrilled Halloumi

Aloha! Before I crack on with revision, I just thought I’d quickly share this delicious and fairly healthy recipe with you, which I find ideal for lunch to keep me going throughout the day, you know something that makes the day a little more interesting than referencing.

♣ Cut a couple of slices of Halloumi and put it on kitchen roll, so it looses some of its
moisture.
♣ With a vegetable peeler, peel 1 courgette into beautifully thin ribbons
♣ Chop 4 spring onions and cut 1 red pepper into 1cm-ish squares
♣ Add the spring onions, the red pepper and 1 handful of rocket to the courgette ribbons
♣ Turn this wonderful secret sauce from TheLondoner into a salad dressing:
- Make the sauce by combining 1 tsp of Harissa paste, 1/2 tsp of honey, the juice of
1 lime, 1 tablespoon of mayonaise
- Mix this with two generous spoonfuls of greek yogurt
- Note: You don’t necessarily need to use all of this dressing, and you can play with
consistency
♣ Chargrill your Halloumi slices in a griddle pan until they’re nice and golden
♣ Serve the salad with Halloumi in a wrap or in a pitta bread.