Month: January 2021

Cottage Cheese Cake with Berries !

But I think happiness springs from another source, a far deeper one that doesn’t depend on will because it comes from love.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Dough ingredients:
– 1 cup (1 cup = 250ml) flour
– 150g cottage cheese or quark
– 80g sugar
– 4 tbsp olive oil
– 1 egg
– 1 pinch salt
– 1/2 tsp butter for buttering the baking form

Filling ingredients:
– 300g berries mix (blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries), I used frozen ones
– sugar to taste

Method:
1 Filling
1.1 Wash (unfreeze) berries and let them dry for 20-30 minutes
1.2 Add 20-40g sugar and mix (I do not add sugar to the filling as the cake is sweet enough without it but one can add some sugar!)
2 Dough and cake
2.1 Preheat the oven to 200C
2.2 Mix dough ingredients and knead the dough
2.3 Separate the dough into 2/3 (for the base part) and 1/3 (for the upper part)
2.4 Roll out 2/3 dough part into 20cm round and put in the buttered form
2.5 Put the berries mixture over the dough
2.6 Roll out 1/3 dough and cut 1cm width stripes out of it. One can also make some decorations with a cookie cutter 🙂
2.7 Put the stripes over the berries mixture
2.8 Bake the cake at 200C 25-35 minutes
2.9 Sprinkle with sugar powder and serve with a cup of green tea !

Warm Avocado-Potato Salad with Dijon Mustard !

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter

John Keats

Ingredients (2 large servings):
– 8-10 medium potatoes
– 2 avocados
– 1 red onion
– 1 tsp Dijon mustard
– 2-3 tsp mayonnaise
– salt and black pepper

Method:
1 Peel and wash potatoes and avocados
2 Cut potatoes into 0.3 cm slices and boil in salted water for 10-12 minutes, then drain water
3 Peel and cut avocados
4 Peel and chop red onion
5 Combine boiled potatoes, avocados, chopped onion, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard: carefully mix
6 Spice with salt and pepper, serve warm !

Simple and Delicious Parsnip-Apple Chocolate Cake with Hazelnuts !

The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. I like the crackling logs, the shaded lights, the scent of buttered toast, the general atmosphere of leisured cosiness.

P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

Ingredients:
– 125g grated parsnip
– 200g grated apples
– 250g spelt flour (wheat flour is also fine, but spelt flour gives a richer taste)
– 125g full cane sugar
– 1 tsp cinnamon
– 1/2 tsp cardamom
– 1/2 tsp baking soda & 1/2 tsp vinegar
– 4 tbsp cocoa powder
– 50g ground hazelnuts
– 50ml water
– 40ml olive oil
– 1 egg (one can replace the egg by 40ml olive oil for a vegetarian recipe!)

Topping ingredients:
– 2 tablespoons hazelnuts

Method:
1 Preheat the oven to 180C
2 Grate peeled apples and parsnip
3 Add flour+sugar+cinnamon+cardamom+cocoa+ground hazelnuts+water +olive oil+egg: mix all well until smooth
4 Add baking soda & vinegar in the same teaspoon and mix well
5 Transfer the batter in the buttered banana bread form and bake for 45-55 minutes at 180C
6 Decorate the cake with hazelnuts halves and serve with a cup of green tea!

Potato Zrazy with Minced Beef !

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Potato Zrazy with minced beef

Dough ingredients (3-4 servings):
– 1kg (weight unpeeled) potatoes
– 2 eggs
– 6-8tbsp flour
– 1 bunch scallion
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1 tbsp olive oil for frying

Filling ingredients:
– 300g minced beef
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp black pepper

Sauce ingredients:
– 200g sour cream
– a few sprigs chopped scallion

Method:
1 Beef filling
1.1 Cook minced beef for 40 minutes in salted water
1.2 Drain the broth in another pan
1.3 Mix boil beef with black pepper and salt
2 Potato dough
2.1 Wash and peel potatoes
2.2 Cut potatoes into 2cm cubes
2.3 Boil potato cubes for 20-25 minutes in salted water
2.4 Drain water and mash potatoes
2.5 Combine mashed potatoes+2eggs+6-8tbsp flour+1/2tsp salt+chopped scallion: mix until smooth
3 Zrazy (Potato Cutlets)
3.1 Preheat the non-sticking skillet with some olive oil
3.2 Shape a flat round out of potato dough and put beef filling in the middle: enclose with a second potato round 🙂
3.3 Fry each potato dumpling 3-4 minutes each side
3.4 Absorb extra oil with paper towels
4 Serve Zrazy (Potato Cutlets) with sour cream mixed with chopped scallion
5 Enjoy !

Quick and Simple Gorgonzola and Spinach Pasta !

Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.

Walt Whitman
Gorgonzola and Spinach Pasta

Ingredients:
– 250g Rigatoni
– 100g Gorgonzola
– 100 ml 33% cream
– 125g spinat
– 1/4 tsp black pepper

Method:
1 Start cooking pasta (2) and making sauce (3) simultaneously 🙂
2 Pasta
2.1 Boil pasta in the salted water al dente
2.2 Drain water
3 Spinach-gorgonzola sauce
3.1 Wash spinach
3.2 Cut gorgonzola in 2cm cubes
3.3 Melt gorgonzola in 33% cream in the frying pan
3.4 Add spinach to gorgonzola-cream sauce and cook for 3-4 minutes
4 Transfer cooked pasta to the sauce: mix well and serve warm !
5 Tired after a long weary week – this warm pasta is what you need 😉

Simple Broccoli Cream Soup with Beef Meatballs !

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

Confucius
Broccoli Cream Soup with Beef Meatballs

Soup ingredients:
– 1 head broccoli (400g)
– 200g carrots
– 250g new potatoes
– 400ml broth from the meatballs
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 50ml 33% cream

Meatballs ingredients:
– 200-300g minced beef
– 1 bunch dill
– 1 tsp salt
– 1/3 tsp black pepper

Method:
1 Meatballs
1.1 Mix minced beef with chopped dill, salt & black pepper
1.2 Form with hands meatballs and boil them in 400 ml water for 40 minutes
1.3 Transfer the meatballs on the plate (cover with a lid to keep them warm) and keep the broth for the soup
2 Soup
2.1 Wash and peel carrots and potatoes
2.2 Wash broccoli; cut 1cm off the bottom of the broccoli stalk and peel the broccoli stalk
2.3 Cut carrots and potatoes into 1cm cubes
2.4 Cut broccoli into small pieces (both stalk and florets!)
2.5 Boil the vegetables in 400ml beef broth (add 1/2 tsp salt) for 12 minutes
2.6 Mash the soup with an immersive blender until smooth
2.7 Add 33% cream to the soup and mix well
3 Serve the soup with meatballs, sprinkle with chopped dill and enjoy ! 🙂

Broccoli-Carrot-Potato Cream Soup: perfect with Cheddar !

Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door.

Emily Dickinson
Broccoli Cream Soup: perfect with Cheddar Recipe

Ingredients:
– 1 head broccoli (400g)
– 200g carrots
– 250g new potatoes
– 400ml water
– 1tsp salt
– 50ml 33% cream

Serving ingredients:
– 100g grated Cheddar

Method:
1 Wash and peel carrots and potatoes
2 Wash broccoli; cut about an inch off the bottom of the broccoli stalk and peel the broccoli stalk
3 Cut carrots and potatoes into 1cm cubes
4 Cut broccoli into small pieces (both stalk and florets!)
5 Boil the vegetables in 400ml salted (1tsp) water for 12 minutes
6 Mash the soup with an immersive blender until smooth
7 Add 33% cream to the soup and mix well
8 Serve the soup with grated cheddar and have a great day ! 🙂

Quick Almond Cookies !

I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.”

Franz Kafka
Almond Cookies Recipe

Ingredients (for 20-25 cookies):
– 50g grated almond
– 50g butter
– 75g wheat flour
– 30g cane sugar
– 1 tbsp sour cream
– 1 pinch cinnamon
– 1 pinch salt
– some almond petals for beautifying

Method:
1 Preheat the oven to 190C
2 Mix grated butter with sugar until smooth
3 Add grated almond, flour, cinnamon, salt & sour cream: mix until smooth
4 Fatten 1 tsp dough within the cookie cutter on the baking paper for each cookie. Decorate each cookie with almond petals 🙂
5 Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes at 190C until golden
6 Serve the cookies with a cup of black coffee !

Notes: enjoy the cookies with your morning coffee & your favourite book. My book this morning was The Unconsoled 🙂

Simple Pilaf with Chicken cooked in oven !

One kind word can warm three winter months

Japanese proverb
Pilaf with Chicken in the oven

Ingredients (4 servings):
– 250g rice
– 400g chicken breast
– 5 (~390g unpeeled) medium carrots
– 2 small red onions
– 3 tbsp sunflower oil
– 1.5 tsp salt
– 0.5 tsp black pepper
– a few parsley sprigs for serving

Method:
1 Wash rice and soak in water for 30 minutes
2 Grate carrots and chop onions
3 Wash chicken breasts and absorb extra water with paper towels
4 Cut chicken breast into 0.5-1 cm pieces and fry
5 Fry chicken pieces with sunflower oil for 10 minutes at medium heat
6 Add carrots, onion, salt, pepper to the chicken: stew for another 15 minutes
7 Preheat the oven to 200C
8 Drain water from the rice
9 Boil 1.5l water in the teapot
10 Put in the four ceramic pots (I have 0.5l pots):
10.1 Chicken with vegetables
10.2 Rice ~2-3 tbsp per pot
10.3 Pour boiled water in each ceramic pot to cover the rice ~1cm
11 Cook the Pilaf in the oven for 40 minutes with covered lids
12 Serve with chopped parsley and enjoy ! 🙂

Parsnip-Potato Cream Soup with baked vegetable chips: quick and healthy lunch !

Night is always darker before the dawn and life is the same, the hard times will pass, every thing will get better and sun will shine brighter then ever.

Ernest Hemingway
Parsnip Potato Cream Soup with vegetable chips recipe

Soup ingredients (2 servings):
– 350g parsnip (weight unpeeled)
– 350g baby potato (weight unpeeled)
– 100ml 33% cream
– 400ml chicken broth or water
– 1 tsp salt

Baked vegetables ingredients:
– 3 small carrots
– 1 parsnip (~100g)
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/3 tsp black pepper
– 1 tbsp olive oil

Method:
1 Soup
1.1 Wash and peel potatoes and parsnip
1.2 Chop potatoes and parsnip into 0.5-1cm cubes
1.3 Boil the vegetables in 400ml chicken broth or water for 15 minutes
1.4 Add 33% cream + salt: mash with an immersive blender
2 Vegetable chips
2.1 Pre-heat the oven to 200C
2.2 Wash and peel carrots and parsnip
2.3 Cut vegetables into thin strips
2.4 Put the vegetables stripes on the baking paper, sprinkle with olive oil & salt
2.5 Bake for 20 minutes
3 Serve and enjoy delicious and healthy lunch !

Notes:
1 If you chop the vegetables in advance in the morning, you can have a really quick lunch in the midday 🙂
2 Everything is going to be fine, I have asked Father Christmas and he is quite confident about it !

Pears-Mascarpone Dessert !

No one’s serious at seventeen
When lindens line the promenade.

A. Rimbaud
Pears-Mascarpone Dessert Recipe

Cocoa cake ingredients:
– 1 tbsp cocoa powder
– 75g sugar
– 5g Vanilla sugar
– 80g wheat flour
– 3 eggs
– 1/2 tsp baking soda & 1/2 tsp vinegar

Cream ingredients:
– 250g Mascarpone
– 2 tbsp 33% cream
– 2 tbsp sugar

Fruits ingredients:
– 2 Conference pears

Method:
1 Cake
1.1 Preheat oven to 180C
1.2 Whisk sugar with eggs for 3-5 minutes
1.3 Slowly add flour to whisked sugar+eggs
1.4 Add baking soda & vinegar in the same teaspoon, cocoa powder: mix well
1.5 Pour the batter on the baking paper in the baking form ~25x35cm
1.6 Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180C
1.7 Let the cake cool down and cut into 1.5cm cubes
2 Mascarpone cream: mix in a bowl Mascarpone with 33% cream and sugar
3 Dessert
3.1 Cut pears into 1cm cubes
3.2 Put in the glass level by level:
3.2.1 cocoa cake cubes
3.2.2 Mascarpone cream
3.2.3 pears cubes
and repeat the levels again 🙂
3.3 Put the dessert into the fridge overnight and … enjoy with morning coffee !
Happy New 2021 Year !

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