Vegetarian – Page 2 – Love… to cooking !

Vareniki with Cabbage !

Patsuk opened his mouth, stared at the Vareniki, and opened his mouth wider still. At that moment, a varenik jumped out of the bowl, splashed into the cream, flipped over and leapt straight up into his mouth. Patsuk opened his mouth again, and another varenik went through the same performance. The only trouble he took was to munch it up and swallow it.
N.V. Gogol

Filling ingredients (all ingredients for 4 servings = ~30 Vareniki):
– 400g pointed white cabbage or young white cabbage
– 1 onion
– 1 carrot
– 1 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp black pepper
– 1 tsp sugar
– 1 tsp vinegar

Dough ingredients:
– 260g wheat flour
– 130ml water
– 30ml olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt

Serving ingredients:
– 1 grated carrot
– a few sprigs of green onions
– 200ml sour cream
– a few leaves of miner’s lettuce

Method:
1 Prepare the filling:
1.1 Cut cabbage into thin strips, chop carrot and onion
1.2 Fry on olive oil chopped onion with carrot for 5 minutes
1.3 Add striped cabbage, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp vinegar to onion and carrot and stew for another 15 minutes
1.4 Add salt and black pepper and mix everything well
1.5 Put the frying pan aside to let the vegetables cool down
2 Prepare dough:
2.1 Add olive oil in the middle of flour heap and mix oil with flour
2.2 Stir in boiled water into the oily flour and knead the dough
2.3 Let the dough rest for 15 minutes
2.4 Separate the dough into 4 equal parts with a knife. Form ~1.5cm diameter sausage out of each part with your hands
2.5 Cut each sausage into 1cm width pieces and roll out each piece into a ~5cm diameter round
3 Make Vareniki:
3.1 Put 1 tsp filling into each round, fold the round into a half-moon and pinch all the edges together strongly with fingers. Put Vareniki on the floured plate.
3.2 Put Vareniki into boiling water and cook for 5 minutes at medium heat
3.3 Serve immediately with sour cream, chopped green onions, miner’s lettuce and grated carrot !

Notes: one can make several servings of Vareniki (e.g., during a rainy weekend) and put them uncooked in the freezer. And then… enjoy the benefits of quick & delicious lunch during the week! 🙂

Light Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies !

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
Pablo Neruda

Ingredients:
– 140g oat flour
– 60g sugar
– 4g Vanilla sugar
– 4 tbsp milk
– 2 tbsp olive oil
– 30g dark chocolate morsels
– 1/4 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp baking soda + 1/2 tsp vinegar

Method:
1 Preheat the oven to 180C
2 Combine flour+sugar+Vanilla sugar+milk+olive oil+salt+baking soda+vinegar: mix everything well
3 Add chocolate morsels to the dough and carefully mix to not destroy the morsels 🙂
4 Form the round cookies from the dough and put them on the baking paper
5 Bake the cookies at 180C for 10 minutes
6 Enjoy 😉

Delicious Garlic Toasts with Goat Cheese, Hazelnuts and Grapes !

The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason, so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Ingredients (for 6 toasts):
– 6 slices rye bread or baguette
– 100g creamy goat cheese
– 2 garlic 🧄 cloves
– 24 red grapes 🍇
– 12 hazelnuts
– 50g corn salad for serving
– 6-7 sprigs green onions for serving
– 1-2 tbsp olive oil for toasts

Directions:
1 Toast rye bread slices with or without olive oil
2 Rub upper part of toasts with garlic
3 Butter goat cheese on the toasts on the garlic side
4 Sprinkle the toasts with sliced hazelnuts, halved grapes and chopped green onions
5 Serve with corn salad and enjoy !

Spanish Soup Salmorejo: perfect for hot days !

With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.
Lope de Vega

Salmorejo ingredients (2 servings):
– 🍅🍅🍅 500g fresh tomatoes 🍅🍅🍅
– 50g-100g ciabatta or baguette crumb (soft part)
– 2 garlic cloves
– 1 tsp salt
– 1/2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
– 50ml olive oil Extra Virgin

Serving ingredients:
– 100g chopped ham
– a few basil leaves

Directions:
1 Wash tomatoes and remove the green middle part
2 Combine in a bowl tomatoes + ciabatta crumb (add 100g crumb for a thick soup and 50g for a light one) + garlic cloves + salt + vinegar + olive oil: mash everything with a food processor or blender until smooth
3 Serve the soup with chopped ham and fresh basil leaves ! Enjoy !

Notes:
1 This soup will not leave you indifferent 😉
2 Tomatoes, olive oil & garlic quality are essential for the taste!
3 Put the soup in the fridge for 1 hour before serving if you prefer to have it cold 🙂

Aubergine Rolls with Walnuts and Garlic !

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.
John Keats

Aubergine ingredients:
– 2 aubergines
– olive oil for frying aubergines

Filling ingredients:
– 1/2 cup walnuts
– 2-3 garlic cloves
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/4 tsp black pepper
– 1 bunch dill
– 1/4 cup warm water

Serving ingredients:
– parsley for serving
– pomegranate seeds for serving

Directions:
1 Cook aubergines:
1.1 Wash aubergines and slice them lengthways into 4mm thick stripes
1.2 Fry aubergine stripes on a skillet with olive oil until golden both sides
1.3 Put aubergine stripes on paper towels to absorb extra oil.
1.4 Let aubergine stripes cool down before filling
3 Prepare the filling: combine grated walnuts, grated garlic, salt, pepper and chopped dill in a bowl. Mix well and add water in small portions stirring constantly
4 Put 1/2-1 teaspoon filling over each aubergine stripe and roll them up
5 Put aubergine rolls in the fridge for 30-40 minutes before serving
6 Decorate with pomegranate seeds, parsley and dill. Serve as an appetiser !

Fresh Apricot Ice-Cream !

.. the future was all happy holiday as I moved Southwards week by week, easily, lazily, lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the call!
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Ingredients (4 servings):
– 250ml 33% cream
– 8 ripe apricots
– 2-3 tablespoons sugar (yes, it’s not much, but it preserves the delicate apricots taste!)
– 3g Vanilla sugar

Method:
1 Wash and de-seed apricots, bake them in the oven 15 minutes at 200C
2 Mash baked apricots with vanilla sugar after apricots have been cooled down
3 Whisk cream & sugar until mild peaks
4 Mix well mashed apricots & whisked cream: put in the freezer for at least 4 hours
5 Serve, serve, serve ! With fresh berries 🙂

Spinach and Feta Fatayer

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu

Dough ingredients:
– 1 cup (1 cup=250ml) wheat flour
– 1/4 cup warm water
– 3 tbsp olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt

Filling ingredients:
– 90g fresh baby spinach
– 90g Feta cheese
– 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
– 1 tbsp lemon juice
– 2 tsp olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/4 tsp pepper

Method:
1 Preheat the oven to 220C
2 Combine flour+salt+warm water in a bowl: knead the dough well for 5-6 minutes
3 Make a filling:
3.1 combine chopped spinach & salt: mix well with the hands for 3-4 minutes to get juice from spinach
3.2 add feta & walnuts & oil & pepper to the spinach & salt, mix well
4 Divide dough into 8 equal pieces and form a ball out of each of them
5 Roll out each ball into a 8-10cm diameter circle: put 1 teaspoon of a filling in the centre of each circle
6 Lift up ends of each circle to the centre to form Fatayers with your fingers
7 Put the Fatayers on the baking paper: bake for 15 minutes at 220C
8 Serve with black coffee and lemon slices !

Strawberry Panna Cotta !

“Honey or condensed milk with your bread” he was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “but don’t bother about the bread, please.”
A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Panna Cotta Ingredients:
– 300ml 33% cream
– 150ml milk
– 90g sugar
– 1g vanilla
– 1/3 tsp agar agar powder
– 100g strawberry

Serving ingredients:
– 100g strawberry

Method:
1 Slice washed strawberries and put them in the glasses
2 Combine in a pan milk+33% cream+sugar+vanilla+agar agar powder
3 Warm up the mixture until boiling constantly stirring
4 Set the pan aside for 3 minutes
5 Pour the creamy mixture from the pan into the glasses over the strawberries
6 Put the glasses in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight and enjoy Panna Cotta with fresh strawberries and … wonderful mood !

Hints:
1 Some agar agar powders are different from others. One might need to make a first try to adjust agar agar amount 🙂
2 Before serving let Panna Cotta stay a little bit outside the fridge, it is tastier when it is not completely cold !

Spinach Fatayer: serving ideas !

You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.
P.G. Wodehouse

Spinach Fatayer Dough ingredients:
– 1 cup (1 cup=250ml) wheat flour
– 1/4 cup warm water
– 3 tbsp olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt

Spinach Fatayer filling ingredients:
– 120g fresh baby spinach
– 1/2 small chopped onion
– 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
– 2 tbsp lemon juice
– 2 tsp olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/4 tsp black pepper

Method:
1 Preheat the oven at 220C !
2 Combine flour+salt+warm water in a bowl: knead the dough well for 5-6 minutes
3 Make a filling: combine chopped spinach & onion & walnuts & oil & salt & pepper
4 Divide dough into 8 equal pieces and form balls out of them
5 Roll out each ball into a 8-10cm diameter circle: put 2 teaspoons of a filling in the centre of each circle
6 Lift up ends of each circle to the centre to form with your fingers rhombuses-like Fatayers 🙂
7 Put the Fatayers on a baking paper: bake for 15 minutes at 220C
8 Serve with a vegetable soup (see Leek-potato soup recipe here) or black coffee !

My first rye bread !

He had only just had break fast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good
J.R.R. Tolkien, Hobbit

Ingredients (small portion like on photo):
– 115g rye flour
– 120g wheat flour
– 155ml water
– 7g salt
– 5g sourdough

Method (27 hours):
1 Knead a dough from all the ingredients in a bowl, put under a damp cloth. The dough is ready when it can be easily removed from the edges of the bowl.
2 Leave the dough in the bowl covered with the damp cloth for 24 hours. Stretch and fold the dough every 6-8 hours
3 After 24 hours stretch and fold the dough one last time, then carefully shape the ball out of it
4 Roll the dough ball in the flour and put it into another well-floured bowl
5 Preheat the oven to 250C
6 Put the bread in the oven in the baking pan with a lid (without a lid, the bread gets too crusty) and bake in three steps
6.1 with a lid for 10 minutes at 250C
6.2 with a lid for 30 minutes at 230C
6.3 without a lid for 10 minutes at 230C
7 Take the bread out of the oven and let it cool before you cut it

Red Bell Pepper Soup with Pistachio !

As for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send round my cards.
Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

Ingredients (2 servings):
– 2 large red bell peppers
– 6 baby potatoes
– 1 small onion
– optional: 60ml 33% cream
– 400ml water or chicken broth
– 0.5 tsp salt
– 25g green unsalted raw pistachios
– green onions for serving

Method:
1 Roughly chop peeled potato, de-seeded bell peppers & onion
2 Finely grate pistachios
3 Boil potato in a broth for 5 minutes
4 Add bell peppers & onion, simmer for another 10 minutes
5 Add (optional!) 33% cream to the soup-to-be, transfer to the blender, puree until smooth
6 Garnish with chopped green onions & grated pistachios

Creamy sweet potato soup: simple and healthy lunch !

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Ingredients (for 2 servings):
– 2 large sweet potatoes
– 1 onion
– 400ml water or chicken broth
– 60ml cream 33%
– 10 leaves fresh baby spinach for serving
– 30g almond petals for serving
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp pepper

Method:
1 Cut sweet potatoes into ~2x2x2cm pieces
2 Cut onion into ~0.5×0.5×0.5cm pieces
3 Boil sweet potatoes in chicken broth for 10 minutes (add as much chicken broth as required to cover the sweet potatoes pieces)
4 Add onion to the broth and boil for another 5 minutes, then remove the saucepan from the oven
5 Blender the soup, add salt and pepper
6 Stir in cream and serve with fresh baby spinach, almond petals and black pepper !

Spinach Fatayer !

“…Absorbed in the new scents, the sounds, and the sunlight…”

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Absorbed in the new scents, the sounds, and the sunlight…
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Dough ingredients:
– 1 cup (1cup=250ml) wheat flour
– 1/4 cup warm water
– 3 tbsp olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt

Filling ingredients:
– 200g fresh baby spinach
– 1 small onion
– 1/4 cup walnuts
– 3 tbsp lemon juice
– 2 tsp olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/4 tsp pepper

Method:
1 Preheat the oven at 220C
2 Combine flour+salt+warm water in a bowl: knead a dough for 3-5 minutes
3 Make a filling: combine finely chopped spinach + onion + walnuts + oil + salt +pepper
4 Divide dough into 8 equal pieces and form balls out of them
5 Roll out each ball into a 8-10cm diameter circle: put 2 teaspoons of a filling in the middle of each circle
6 Lift up ends of each circle to the center to form with your fingers rhombuses-like Fatayers, like on the photo 😉
7 Put the Fatayers on a baking paper: bake for 15 minutes at 220C
8 Serve with a vegetable soup or black coffee !

Creamy parsnip soup with beetroot chips !

“La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles”
– Gustav Flaubert

Soup ingredients (for 2 large servings):
– 600g parsnips
– 250g potatoes
– 1 small onion
– 200ml milk or 33% cream
– 1 tsp salt
Beetroot chips ingredients:
– 1 large beetroot

Method:
1 Let’s first make beetroot chips:
1.1 Preheat the oven to 160C
1.2 Peel one beet root and cut 1mm width slices of it
1.3 Put beet root slices on a baking paper and bake them 30 minutes at 180C
2 Peel vegetables for soup, cut them at ~2cm cubes and boil 15 minutes in salty water
3 Leave 100-200ml vegetable broth with vegetables, add milk/cream and puree vegetables with milk/cream in a blender
4 Garnish the soup with root beet chips and black pepper
5 Enjoy !

Vareniki avec Bortsch: comme a la table du Bon Roi Stanislas

Patsuk opened his mouth, stared at the vareniki, and opened his mouth wider still. At that moment, a varenik jumped out of the bowl, splashed into the cream, flipped over and leapt straight up into his mouth. Patsuk opened his mouth again, and another varenik went through the same performance. The only trouble he took was to munch it up and swallow it.
Nikolai Gogol, Christmas Eve

Vareniki dough ingredients:
– 260g wheat flour
– 130ml water
– 30ml olive oil
– 1/2 tsp salt

Vareniki filling ingredients:
– 250g potato
– 1 large onion
– 1/2 tsp salt

“Bortsch” ingredients:
– 3 large beet roots
– 1 tsp vinegar

Method:
1 Add olive oil in the middle of flour heap and mix
2 Stir in boiled water into the oily flour
3 Let the dough rest for 15 minutes
4 Peel potatoes, cut into ~2x2x2cm pieces, boil for 20 minutes, and make a potatoes puree with one teaspoon salt
5 Fry chopped onion till gold and add to potatoes-puree
6 Boil whole peeled beet roots in 1l salted water for 20 minutes, remove the beet roots from the broth
7 Roll out the dough to ~2mm and make round circles out of it with a cup or a glass
7.1 repeat 7 with the rest dough until no dough is left 🙂
8 Put 1 teaspoon of potatoes-puree with onion in the middle of each circle
9 Fold the circles half in half and lock the ends of circles tightly with finger tips (I usually do it twice through the whole length)
10 Carefully put Vareniki into boiling salted water, boil for 4-5 minutes
11 Serve Vareniki in the beetroot broth with a vinegar (1 teaspoon vinegar per serving)
12 Enjoy Vareniki avec Bortsch comme a la table du Bon Roi Stanislas !

Aubergine rolls with walnuts

Далече от брегов Невы,
Теперь я вижу пред собою
Кавказа гордые главы.
Над их вершинами крутыми,
На скате каменных стремнин,
Питаюсь чувствами немыми
И чудной прелестью картин
Природы дикой и угрюмой;
А.С. Пушкин

Ingredients:
– 1 aubergine
– 3 garlic cloves
– 50g walnuts
– 200g fresh cream cheese
– [optional] 40g sesam for serving
– 1 bunch parsley
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/3 tsp black pepper

Method:
1 Wash aubergine, dry it and cut into 1cm width strips
2 Bake aubergine strips on a backing paper for 20 minutes at 180C
3 Mix in a bowl chopped garlic+chopped walnuts+cheese+chopped parsley+salt+pepper
4 Put a teaspoon of walnuts-cheese-etc. mixture on each aubergine strip and roll it [optionally in sesame]
5 Serve with cherry tomatoes and fresh parsley !

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