Mesto Muse

Figs

2009-09-11T12:45:00.006+02:00

Oh my god I love figs. I hate how expensive they are, but fortunately, we're entering fig season!

Most fig recipes that are savoury combine figs with prosciutto. I never saw the huge draw of prosciutto. I think it's a bit dry, honestly. But I like the idea of something uber salty going with the sweet figs, so I decided to pair it with caviar. It's fairly easy to buy caviar here in the Czech Republic, but I know it's a bit more difficult in the states. I was so excited by this salad that I forgot to crumble goat or blue cheese over it, but it was delicious as is.

All you do is tear up some mild and spicy salad greens, mix them with some green onion tops and/or leek rounds, slice some figs over it, and then spoon some caviar over that. For a dressing, I just drizzled some balsamic over. It was fabulous. The crunchy salt of the caviar paired beautifully with the sweet and soft figs. Definitely try it with some goat cheese, I wish I had!!!

With the camera flash
Without the camera flash, close up
Big view

Bad bad bad...but now good.

2009-09-04T11:09:00.006+02:00

Hi there.

Yes, I've been terribly terribly bad about blogging, it's not good. I've made some awesome things too! A granola bar with no eggs, no sugar. A leek and blue cheese quiche. A RIDICULOUS amount of really yummy salads!

My first blog after my brief hiatus, will be about what I made last night for dinner. My mom was here for a month and we cooked and went out to eat a lot. Hence, I have gained a couple of quite obvious poundage. *sigh*. It's mostly because of the insanely good wine and beer we have in this country, but I'm sure the large lunches and dinners didn't help much either. So last night I committed to healthy and seasonal.

My mom has family friends that live in a tiny village outside of Plzen, Czech Republic. One of the older ladies always picks and dries mushrooms, and gives them to us as gifts when they come. One kind has a delicious woody, earthy smell. The other kind, smells kind of fishy and pungent. This time, my mom received as a gift the fishy pungent ones. I've put these before in a potato soup, and I seriously thought that they ruined the soup. I was determined to try again, and decided to pair them this time with some asparagus I had. Asparagus have a nice assertive flavor that I thought would counter the mushrooms. I also changed the way I cooked them:
When I used them for soup, I just threw them in. This time (as you'll read below) I did something different.

White Asparagus with mushroom, onion, and garlic
1/2 kg white asparagus
1 small onion handful (about 1/3 cup) dried mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Boiling water
Salt and pepper
grated Edam cheese (about 2 heaping tbs)

Method:
Cut the icky ends off the asparagus
Cut the asparagus into 2 inch long spears
Place in baking pan, and roast on high heat, shaking pan occasionally to make sure all sides are lightly browned
Place mushrooms in bowl, cover with b oiling water
Squeeze out mushrooms, and put them in a hot nonstick pan
Sautee on high heat
Add the mushroom water, and let the mushrooms absorb it
Add some more water, and let them absorb again
Throw in the onion, and turn the heat on low
Let the onion brown a bit, and slice the garlic into thin slices while it does
Toss in the garlic and saute a bit more
When the asparagus is done, take it out, and pour the mushroom onion garlic mix on it
Put the pan back on the stove, and pour more water in, scraping up any residue on the bottom
Let the water reduce til it just barley covers the bottom of the pan
Pour the water sauce over the asparagus with generous amounts of salt and pepper and toss in the roasting pan with the cheese.

The roasting pan also has some bits on it, so by pouring the water sauce in, you can quickly scrape those up too. Also, the heat from the pan melts the cheese. Mmmmm.

Mushroom and onion and garlic sauteeing goodness.

Finished product
So yum.

More Dessert...

2009-06-26T14:59:00.005+02:00

I have a friend in Prague this summer who just spent her last year in London. I've been dying to bake something, but only if I have someone to share it with. I asked her what, if anything, I could maybe bake. Cookies? Brownies? Cake? She told me about this place called Ben's Cookies in London that apparently has the most amazing cookies. They're soft (not really crunchy) and they have some amazing flavors, including ginger and dark chocolate. Well, I had some ginger left over in my fridge, so decided to try it out!

Instead of using my standard Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, I decided to do a search for "Buttermilk cookies" Why? Because I know that when you make a cake with buttermilk, it is UNBELIEVABLY moist and soft. Also, I have 2 containers at home and wanted to use them before they went bad.

Ideally, I would have used candied ginger as well, but I was too lazy to go out and find it, so I stuck with powdered and freshly grated. Doing the buttermilk cookie search, however, was the best idea EVER. I am a complete convert and will use this recipe as a cookie base from now on. These cookies are AMAZING. But, if you like a crunchy cookie, then don't make these. You won't be happy. If you like soft, cakey cookies, then get thee to the kitchen ASAP and make a batch! They are to die for!

Buttermilk Cookies (with ginger and chocolate chunks, see note at bottom)
(adapted from Buttermilk Cookies, from epicurious.com)

125 g (1 stick) butter
120 g (1/2 c) packed, dark brown sugar
60 g (1/4 c) white sugar
1 tbs freshly grated ginger
1 tsp ground ginger
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
360 g (1 and 1/2 c) flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
80 g (1/3 c) buttermilk
200 g (7 oz) chopped bittersweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 150 degrees C (300 F)
Cream butter, sugar, and gingers together til light and fluffy
Beat in egg and vanilla
Add flour, baking soda, and salt while alternating with the buttermilk
Stir in chocolate chunks
CHILL dough for about 10 minutes in a freezer
Spoon rounded teaspoons onto a greased (or parchment lined) cookie sheet Bake for about 15 minutes or until cookies don't look wet on top.

NOTE: You can modify the flavors too if you like! I made another batch the next day, and used 200 g white chocolate chunks and about 100 g chopped roasted salted peanuts. Mmm mmm!!!

Flash:

Time for dessert...

2009-06-25T09:09:00.004+02:00

The abundance of produce here, as I mentioned before, is amazing when summer comes. I went to the open air market the other day and bought a big container of red currants. For the US readers, a red currant has a taste a bit like a cranberry. Sweetish sour, but unlike cranberries, you can just eat red currants straight. What did I do with my currants?

First, I froze two icecube trays of them. I mushed some berries, left some others whole, and put them in the individual icecube slots. Then I poured a bit of water over it all, and froze them. I plan on putting them in vodka or soda water!!

Then, I wanted to really showcase the currants, so I decided to make a not too sweet pie dough, and put in the currants. Any pie crust recipe will do, but what I did was grind up some almonds, and replace about 1/4 c. of the flour with those. It added a delicious nutty taste, and the fat from the almonds added moist richness to the dough.
Then, I pressed balls of the dough into a muffin tin, about 1cm up the sides, to make little tartlet shells. I baked in a 350 (170 C) oven for about 20 minutes, and then popped the shells out. After that, I heaped red currants into the shells, sprinkled some sugar over them, and baked them at 350 for about 10 minutes.

With the leftover currants (yes, I still had more!!!) I combined them in a saucepan with chopped peaches, a sprinkling of sugar, and a tablespoon of light cream. I simmered on low heat for about 45 minutes, and then put it in a container in my fridge. I'll probably use it as a jam, or as a filling between biscuits.

More!

2009-06-24T12:49:00.003+02:00

I have been COOKING!
Oh my goodness the things I've been cooking. It's spring/summer time, so the produce is positively BURSTING! For starters, here are a couple of salads I've made:

Chickpea Salad
2 cups cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 tbs chopped summer savory
several handfuls halved cherry tomatoes
Sliced leek rounds
2 cloves of garlic mashed with a bunch of salt
4 generous tablespoons EACH of cilantro (coriander) and flat leaf parsley

Sopsky Salad
Chopped green pepper
Chopped tomatoes
Chopped cucumbers
Chopped onions
Mix with feta, vinegar, and a generous helping of salt and pepper

To make the Sopsky Salad really Czech, sprinkle a bit of sugar on it as well.

Flourless Chocolate Cake - STACKED

2009-06-15T11:02:00.004+02:00

So my birthday was 2 weeks ago. I just had my party yesterday though. Birthday parties rock because you get to have CAKE. If you like baking and like cakes the way I do, it is pure bliss!

So originally, I had wanted to make a chocolate peanut butter cake, specifically this one from epicurious which looks SO. GOOD. I had 3 problems though:

1) no butterfingers in the Czech Republic
2) I knew that someone would inevitably be allergic to peanuts or hate peanut butter
3) I didn't have 3 of the same size (9 inch) cake pans.

So I had to have a substitute. When I go to restaurants and order dessert, I LOVE ordering dense, fudgy, flourless chocolate cakes if they're on the menu. I mean, I DO have a double x chromosome, that means love for chocolate runs in my GENES for heaven's sake! So I hit up epicurious again looking for a flourless chocolate cake with one other caveat: No separate beating of whites and yolks. Why? Truth be told, I'm really just lazy, and I have 1 hand mixer and not many bowls. I didn't want to have to go through the charade of separating eggs, getting many dishes needlessly dirty, and cleaning and re-cleaning my mixer blades. Besides, beating the whites and then folding them in makes for a more spongey cake, and I wanted FUDGEY, damnit!!!

So I found this recipe, and due to my living in Europe with European measurements, I had to modify it a bit. GOOD thing I did too, because I had been debating about whether I could stack two flourless chocolate tortes or not (I searched the net, but nothing seemed to come up) and eventually had to, due to the amount of extra batter I had. Why would anyone want to stack TWO already rich chocolate tortes? Because I like to do things to excess, and I wanted my cake rich, rich, and rich.

So here is the recipe that I modified a bit from the original:

500 grams bittersweet chocolate
500 grams unsalted butter
1 cup strongly brewed coffee
1 cup packed brown sugar
9 medium eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 °F.
Line bottom of 2 9-inch-diameter cake pan with 2-inch-high sides with parchment.
Place all chocolate in large bowl.
Bring butter, espresso and sugar to boil in medium saucepan, stirring to dissolve sugar.
Add to chocolate; whisk until smooth.
Cool slightly. Whisk in eggs.

Divide batter into prepared pans. Place cake pan in roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan. Bake until center of cake is set and tester inserted into center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 30 minutes. Remove pan from water. Chill cake.

While the cake is baking, make the frosting:

120 grams butter

50 grams melted white chocolate

100 grams sour cream

3 tbs powdered sugar

dash of vanilla extract

Whip all ingredients until combined and stiff

Put the first cake on a platter. Spread it with the frosting. Garefully invert the other cake onto a different plate/platter. Slide it off carefully in your hands and place it top side down on the frosting. It took me quite a bit of banging and pleading to get the cakes out of the pans, but eventually they came. I had buttered and floured my pans instead of the parchment, but I would HIGHLY recommend the parchment...

Finally, I glazed it with bittersweet chocolate mixed with some light cream. SO. GOOD. I probably gained about 5 pounds though from it. The good thing too, is that this cake is so rich that it feeds a LOT of people. I think I served about 15-20 with it. :-) I wish I had a picture of it but I totally forgot my camera. Oh well.

Ok, that's a bit of a lie. Here's a picture cropped from another picture. It doesn't look so appetising, but it SO was....

Barbeque Sauce

2009-06-11T10:44:00.004+02:00

I like barbeque. Who doesn't? My partner ESPECIALLY likes barbeque sauce; it's his ideal. Thick, spicy, sweet, tangy...it has everything he wants in a sauce. In the Czech Republic though, bottled barbeque sauce is either a) a bit expensive or b) overly sugary.

I've never been as obsessed with barbeque sauce as my partner, but I've always sighed in frustration at the lack of barbeque sauce recipes that DON'T contain ketchup. My goal, one day, is to make a barbeque sauce from purely basic ingredients (this includes omitting worcestershire sauce and getting down to the meat and bones of the sauce ingredients - one by one) While I didn't have time to omit the worcestershire, I definitely thought I could omit the ketchup. What more is ketchup than tomato paste, sugar, and salt? So I finally got in the kitchen and made a barbeque sauce without ketchup! I used only the back of a barbeque sauce ingredients label (and a few obvious additions) as a guide. The only problem is, I didn't measure the ingredients (like always) but I'll make a list of ingredients, and whoever wants to try this can adjust to their tastes. When I was done adding sauce ingredients, I put in some cubed pork shoulder for a good ol' American tasting barbeque treat on the stovetop.

Start:
Paste of 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic, 1 jalepeno with seeds (if you want it spicy)

After they sweated a bit I added:
50 g tomato paste
2 tbs mustard powder (I may have added more in later, I forget)
1 tbs of tamarind pulp
Several long glugs of tomato juice (maybe about 600-700 ml?)
tbs or two of maple syrup
3 de-seeded finely chopped tomatoes
2 finely chopped sundried tomatoes
bit of water
LOTS of worcestershire sauce
chile powder
garlic powder
onion powder
red pepper flakes
2 tbs mushroom flavored soy sauce
about a tbs of liquid smoke
splash of vinegar
Generous pinch SALT
pepper

Try it. Play with it. I guarantee you it'll be delicious. I left mine un-pureed and had little chunks of tomato and onion in it, which I thought was just fabulous.

Slecna Sara's Cheesecake

2009-04-22T10:52:00.003+02:00

The creation of this cheesecake has a slightly interesting story. The other day, my mischievous cat learned how to climb on top of the refrigerator. Unfortunately for me, I had left 4 eggs in their carton on top of the refrigerator, assuming that he DIDN'T know how to get up there. Well, as I'm sure you can guess, he pawed that egg carton until it fell off the refrigerator and promptly cracked all but 1 egg. I was left with about 2 whole eggs and 1 yolk (the white had sadly seeped off onto the tablecloth) I put them into my fridge, knowing I would make something.
Another recent acquisition of mine is a springform pan (Cake!) So I decided I would use that and the eggs. What to make for the cake though? My friend Sara and I were talking the other day, and she loves the crusts of cheesecakes. So I decided that I would make a cheesecake with an extra thick crust, just for her. She also likes sour cream a lot, and I had some languishing in the fridge, so I thought I would include that as well. After searching epicurious.com, I found a recipe that seemed pretty basic and that didn't require many eggs. It's right here for those who want to read it.
I've just realised my mistake in making it, but it was a good one, so I'll continue. On with the crust! Here in Czechia, we dont really have graham crackers. We do, however, have lots of nilla wafers (detske piskoty) which I think are just as good (if not better) than graham crackers. Since I wanted the crust to be EXTRA THICK, I used a whole 240g bag, which yeilded about 300g of crumbs. However, as you will see the recipe, you can to this or double it for an XXL crust. Now here is my mistake: The recipe calls for 3 eight ounce packages of cream cheese. Simple enough. 8 ounces in a cup, 250 g in a cup, so 750 g of cream cheese. Now, the last time I made a cheesecake, I used about 1 kg of cream cheese, and this thought was automatically in my head. So I ended up using 1 kg of cream cheese PLUS 250 g of farmers cheese. I also whipped the eggs like crazy. This ended up giving me a super thick cream cheese batter, but it was fluffy and DELICIOUS, so if you want a big ass cheesecake (not dissimilar to a cheesecake factory cheesecake) use that. For a more normal cheesecake, follow the recipe.

Slecna Sara's Cheeesecake

Crust:
2 240 g bags of detske piskoty, crushed into crumbs
250 g melted butter
1 tsp salt

Cake:
2 eggs and 1 yolk
1 cup sugar
pinch salt
1 tbs vanilla
1 kg cream cheese
250 g farmers cheese
3 generous tablespoons sour cream
Zest of 1 lemon

To make the crust, combine all the ingredients and press into a 7 inch springform pan
Bake for about 10 minutes at 150 c or until dry to touch

Beat the eggs and the yolk with the sugar on high speed until light colored, thick, and voluminous
Beat in the other ingredients on high speed until thick and frosting like

smooth the batter into the crust (there will be LOTS)
Bake at 150 c for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until center of cheesecake seems dry to the touch

As a side note, I used plain old tesco brand "soft cheese", Tvaroh (0,5% fat) and detske piskoty. This cake was surprisingly cheap to make, I'd say probably about 80 crowns! It still tasted fabulous though, despite it's generic ingredients.

Don't forget to share you decadent cake, or you will become a fatty!

Wishlist

2009-04-17T10:16:00.006+02:00

I've already mentioned my fondness for browsing cnet.com's kitchen gadgets blog. I'm sure that every cook, even the ones that thing they have everything, have a kind of "wish list" of gadgets. The following is my list, what are yours?

1. Donvier Ice Cream Maker Perfect for whichever country my wanderlust may take me to: this ice cream machine doesn't use electricity (no, it doesn't use salt either). It's so cool. So elegant. How can you not want one? One of the only things holding me back from this appliance is that I'm not sure I'd make that much ice cream. I probably WOULD however, try to make fro yo and sorbets.

2. Home Hot and Cold Smoker Simply put, smoked things taste better. I don't eat a lot of meat and LOVE fish, so I need a smoker that would do cold smoking (can we say smoked cheese galore?) as well as the occasional hot. However, this appliance is as big as a small fridge. And living by myself, I'd say the chances of frequent use for this one are nil. Sadly :-(

3. Kitchen Aid Mixer Who DOESN'T want one of these? I just found a place that sells them in Czechia, but no price listed. I shudder to think how much it would cost. Additionally, I shudder to think of what would happen if I decided to move to England, Canada, or anywhere else that has a different electrical plug system than mainland Europe. But Ach, all those amazing attachments! Pasta! Sausages! Cakes! A GRAIN MILL! This is the grandmother of all that is mixed in the kitchen. I think I want Boysenberry.

*~Update: I just found a place that sells them in the Czech Republic. How much? At today's exchange rate (CZK 20.5 / $1) a cool $761~*

4. Food Dehydrator I can make banana chips and apple chips and dried strawberries and...and...and...everything without the added sugar and deep frying. Besides, it'd be great if I ever decide to one day go Raw Foodie (don't laugh, I was vegan, and the Raw food diet DID cross my mind several times...)

5. Home Canner When summer comes, and there are so many fresh fruits and veggies (especially tomatoes) I am dying dying dying to make tomato sauces, preserves, etc., to just pop open whenever I may need (ESPECIALLY) tomato sauce/juice. And the jars. Love love love the jars. However, I don't really have the storage means for the canner OR the finished canned goods. Sad, really. However, one of the nice things about a home canner is that it doubles as a pressure cooker as well. But, a really large pressure cooker, meaning large amounts of food, meaning terrible choice for single female.

6. Le Creuset French Oven I know, many of you might think I have one already but I don't. I'm almost embarassed to admit it.

7. Set of 4 Cheese knives There's one for every type of cheese! Soft and crumbly cheese, unripened cheese, hard cheese and for medium soft to medium hard cheese. Why wouldn't I get this? Because when I have cheese I kind of hoard it. I don't like sharing (i.e., entertaining with cheese, which would inevitably lead to using these knives) Yes, it's a bit disturbing.

8. Mandoline I suppose I COULD get this, but I haven't because there are so many out there, I'm worried about picking the wrong one! I DO like this one though because it stands on it's own and has a fairly simple looking dial to adjust thickness...

9. Bamboo Steamer Steamed fish and veggies all day every day. What could be better?

10. Digital Scale No more converting from ounces to cups to grams to mililitres. *sigh*

Ok, I'll probably add to this list later, but now I must get back to work. If you haven't noticed, another favorite site of mine to browse these gadgets is The Brooklyn Kitchen

Finally one more: A thermometer that works for meat as well as candy!!!

Pasta with salmon

2009-04-06T09:51:00.005+02:00

So I like to read the New York Times food section quite a bit, and a while ago read this post on braising pasta. I never measure the amounts of water (even though I know it's supposed to be quite a bit) when cooking pasta: I usually just pour water into a pan, and then shake some pasta in. I also read another post (can't remember where) about pasta water, especially from restaurants (who often use the same water to cook different batches) and how someone should really get into the business of bottling pasta water. Its starchy, thick, and has a great flavor one can use in sauces. So I bought some lovely salmon (on sale) yesterday, and also some Grana Padano (also on sale) this weekend and decided to make a salmon pasta in a mustard sauce. Using the pasta water. Except instead of just water, I used half homemade chicken stock (I keep freaking out that it's going to spoil) and half water. It was really, really good. And little cleanup as well.

Braised Pasta with Caramelised Onions and Salmon in Mustard sauce
3 large onions
200 g pasta (I used macaroni shaped pasta, but you could probably use orichette or penne)
350 g fresh salmon fillet (no skin and deboned) cut into chunks
2 tbs mustard (I used green pepper Maille brand)
1 tsp old bay seasoning
generous pinch salt
1-2 large cloves of garlic minced finely
40 g grated grana padano
About 500 ml chicken broth and 500 ml water

slice the onions into 2 cm thick half moons
Heat a saucepan, and on medium high heat, begin to caramelise the onions (throw them in, and don't disturb them for about 2 minutes. Then stir them around, and leave them alone again. This should take about 30 minutes, after which your onions should be a woody brown. If you want a darker brown, keep going)
Bring the chicken broth and water to a boil, and throw in the pasta. Reduce the heat to medium high and cook about 7 minutes
Prepare the salmon and the garlic and the cheese
Push the onions to the sides of the pan
Pour the noodles and cooking water in, and scrape up any brown bits from the bottom
Add the mustard, old pay, salt, garlic, and salmon, and stir gently to combine everything
Let simmer, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or so until salmon is just cooked through
Top with cheese

Slow cooked pork

2009-03-31T09:04:00.008+02:00

So I like to buy things on sale. There could be worse things in life.

This week, pork shoulder (no skin no bone) was on sale at Tesco, ($1.70 a pound) so I just had to buy and try. I looked up a lot of (American) recipes, and most use a barbeque or a smoker, and also use bone in skin on pork. Suffice to say, after reading most of these recipes it became pretty apparent that slow cooking was the way to go. I bought the pork on a friday to prepare, and things just fell into place after that. I love the idea of cooking something (especially meat) for so long that it falls apart and becomes amazingly butter tender. When you see the piece of meat hopping gently around in simmering cooking liquid, it looks so resilient and steadfast. After having cooked long enough though, a poke with a wooden spoon will send delicious ribbons off the previously impermeable meat.
Now, I looked up the nutritional content of pork shoulder, and it's not the healthiest piece of meat, but you can ask for (and also do it yourself) a defatted/lean piece.
Even though I've lived in Prague for over two years and have been eating Czech food since the age of 1, I never pretend to admit I know how to cook Czech food (except maybe Gulas, but mine is never as good as the restaurants. *sigh*) Anyway, I went with a very very eastern European flavor scheme here. I especially wanted to use these juniper berries I had recently bought at Marks & Spencers. I have GOT to find more recipes with juniper berries, what a lovely little taste they have. So as for the finished result, I wasn't a HUGE fan, but my boyfriend loved it. After a day though, I actually liked it myself a hell of a lot better.

Slow cooked pork
900 g boneless skinless pork shoulder
7-8 cloves garlic
6-7 juniper berries, crushed and minced finely
3 all spice, crushed and minced
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs dried rosemary
1 tbs dried thyme
1 tbs dried sage
generous pinch salt and pepper
1/4 cup pickle juice or 1/8 cup vinegar diluted with 1/8 cup water
2 medium onions roughly sliced
1 large parsnip sliced
Flour for dredging
Water or stock for cooking
Make a paste of the garlic, and next 7 ingredients
Cut slits in the pork shoulder and stuff the mixture in
Rub any remaining paste over the shoulder
Pour the pickle juice or vinegar over the shoulder and turn to coat
Let marinate over night
Dredge the shoulder in flour
Heat a sturdy pot over a burner
Sear the shoulder on all sides
Now, I didn't caremelize the onions, but suppose I should have. I think it would have added delicious flavor. So carmelize your onions and parsnips, my friends.
Deglaze with water, stock, or even a bit o' wine
Put the shoulder back in the pan, and almost cover with stock/water
Cover and simmer on med low heat for about 6-8 hours, or until poking with a spoon makes some of the meat start to slip off itself in shreds. While it's cooking, if you want less liquid, un cover the meat and let some of it evaporate off. If you keep it covered the whole time, it actually ends up being more like a soup/stew. Also, turn the meat occasionally or at least baste the uncovered parts.
Turn off heat
Let sit over night
Reheat on medium low heat
Serve with potatoes or dumplings and sauerkraut

By the way, I think next time, I'd rather cook it in a tomato-y sauce or maybe a mustardy sauce and not do anything to the pork itself. I think it's delicious on it's own, but it's texture lends it more to a thicker clingy sauce.

2009-03-26T17:59:00.001+01:00

Haven't written in a while, made amazing mexican last night with a friend. If you're a foodie, and a bit bored, this is an awesome site for kitchen gadgets: http://www.cnet.com/8300-13553_1-32-1.html?tag=mncol

Greek Night

2009-03-17T12:01:00.003+01:00

I had leftover chicken that I had roasted a couple of nights ago, and decided to go a little GREEK. I had also visited the Greek store that I blogged about a while back, and had picked up some yogurt, olives, and feta, so thought it would be nice to have a Greek themed night!

I had made stock from the chicken bones/wings that was very fragrant (hint: throw scallion/spring onion scraps in your broth!) So I warmed some of that, (about 250 ml) and then threw in the leftover chicken (also about 250 g), a generous tablespoon of oregano and gyros seasoning, and about 3 small sundried tomates, chopped. I let it simmer gently until most of the broth evaporated while I prepared everything else. If you do this with leftover chicken, it regains it's softness and you can shred it as well (which is what I did). Tastes just like new. The rest of the menu is as follows:

Tzatziki
250 ml yogurt (preferably greek)
1 large clove garlic chopped and smashed to a paste with a large pinch of salt
1/2 of a small onion diced (and by small I mean very small)
about 3/4 cup (180 g) diced cucumber
2 tbs chopped cilantro (coriander) leaves and stems
Pinch pepper
1 tsp lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together.

I also made these flatbreads, which are REALLY convenient if you're pressed for time and someone in your house wants bread.

Flatbreads
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Enough water to hold it together

When you have a ball of dough, pinch off pieces and roll them into balls. Then flatten out into circles with your hands (if you want thicker-ish ones) or roll them out into thin circles with a rolling pin.
"Fry" in a non-stick pan on high heat for the thin ones, turning once when bubbles form, or on medium heat for the thicker ones, again turning once. Keep them warm in the oven while you do the rest.

So we had a delicious dinner of the chicken, flatbreads, tzatziki, and chopped tomatoes, lettuce, and feta. We ate it so fast I had no time to take pictures. Sorry :-(

Blah

2009-03-11T10:34:00.002+01:00

I've been in a really bad/depressed mood recently. I think it's because of the changing seasons and my cat stepping in my plants constantly (asshole)

My friend posted this really funny article though about Walkers Crisps, and the dry humor of it is excellent. My favorite line?

"They taste precisely like a tiny cat piping hot farts through a pot-pourri pouch into your mouth."

If that doesn't put a smile on your face, I don't know what will.

Shepherds Pie

2009-03-09T09:09:00.010+01:00

No chestnuts this weekend BUT I did make a shepherds pie. I made the butternut squash and parsnip soup again, which was yummmm and is now sitting in my fridge. I didn't have an open can of corn, so I opened frozen veggies (peas, carrots, and corn) and picked out the corn from it. Threw in a couple of peas and carrots as well, but mostly corn. I know it sounds weird, but I was having a really stressful day and the picking of the corn was actually quite soothing and ate up lots of my time. On another note, I've planted my salad greens and onions, and my peas and spinach. The cat has stepped in the peas and spinach though, so I'm hoping they didn't get too messed up or flattened. :-( My herbs have sprouted! I couldn't believe it happened so quickly! The basil is definitely the most agressive but the coriander and sage have made appearances as well! However, the oregano that I bought from Tesco has died a very sad death. I think the cat killed it. *tear*

I did make banana cookies again. I used about 1/8 of a cup of soy milk instead of butter and more flour (didn't measure, sorry) It did work though. I had a very stiff dough (again) so they didn't spread, and they're very sticky/chewy, a bit like banana bread. I also put a pinch of nutmeg in them this time which I think really enhances the flavor of the banana.

Anyway, I had the leftover carrots and peas, and had some frozen ground turkey, and potatoes, so I figured I'd make a shepherd's pie! I've never done one before but they are SO yummy. Now, I threw in a bunch of spices/flavors, but I'll mention which ones I don't think made a big effect.

Shepherd's Pie

500 g Ground turkey meat
1-2 tbs chopped sausage
300 g frozen veggies (peas, corn, carrots)
handful of chopped mushrooms (totally optional)
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic
1 beef bullion cube (Don't know if this was absolutely necessary...probably not)
1 tbs grill seasoning (not too sure if it made a difference because it was really old...)
1 tbs onion powder
1 tsp dried thyme or 1 tbs fresh
1 tsp dried or fresh rosemary
1 and 1/2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
Generous 4 fingered pinch of salt
several cracks of black pepper
300 g water

2 large potatoes
100 g milk
60 to 80 grams of shredded cheese (I used hunters cheese [lovecky syr] and a bit of stilton)

Put the potatoes in a pot to boil

Heat some bacon fat or oil in a large pan and sautee the onions until they have browned and caramelised
Add in the turkey, sausage, and bullion cube and brown the turkey
Add everything else
Let simmer for about 15 minutes to combine flavors and let some of the water evaporate off. If you want a bit more sauce, add some more water
Adjust seasonings as desired

pour into a baking pan (about 8x8), spread evenly, and smush down a bit

Whip the potatoes with the milk, add a pinch of salt and pepper
Spoon the potatoes over the meat mixture and sprinkle the cheese on top
Bake at 170 C (350 F) for about 10-15 minutes, until cheese and potatoes brown slightly

Enjoy!!!

PS, this picture makes it look like there were a lot more potatoes than filling, but that was not the case. The potatoes just sank a bit and the filling runneth-ed over when we spooned it on our plates :-)

Weekend plans...

2009-03-06T10:30:00.003+01:00

I'm going to be really boring this weekend.

I've already bought butternut squash and parsnips, and I am TOTALLY making my chowder. By the way, research has found that a chowder is a chowder if it incorporates seafood. So mine is technically not a chowder. I bet a couple of pieces of mild white fish would be DELICIOUS in it though...

I'm also going to make banana cookies again. Maybe with a chocolate chip in each one or something...Oooo maybe I can squeeze some peanut butter in the middle somehow...Must think this through...

I will also make brussels sprouts. Maybe with some chestnuts. Winter is almost over and I want to make sure I eat the chestnuts before they are lost to me until next winter!! I actually just did some research on chestnuts and apparently one can freeze them. I will definitely be doing that this weekend...

I've been cooking a lot more for myself than for my boyfriend, so there is a chance I will make something for us on Saturday. I was thinking of a slow roasted chicken. There's a sale on chicken thigh pieces at my grocery, so I was thinking of mashing up loads of garlic with rosemary and thyme (my two new potted herb additions!!) spreading it over the chicken, and covering and roasting on low heat for a loooooooong time. The boyfriend's brother's family made an excellent dish like this that also have pieces of caramelised onion. I'm thinking and debating how to incorporate this into my chicken. Maybe caramalise the onions and spread it over the chicken after the garlic/herb mixture...hmmm. I like. I will sit and plot more, and fill you all in on the results.

This leads me to another weird thing that happened on Monday. He said to me, "Maybe we should invite my brother and his family over for dinner on Saturday and I can make spinach". Now, for some reason, this absolutely positively infuriated me. Both him and his brother have made this spinach before (it's actually just about the ONLY thing my boyfriend knows how to cook). It's good, but people have HAD IT before. I was so furious and indignant that HE was the one who would get to cook and NOT ME. What bothers me the most about this is that I think it's not a normal reaction. I felt hurt, wounded, pissed off, and sad. I think it's because the message that I got was "Your cooking isn't good enough for company, only mine is". Now that I've sat and written this, it helps, but I wonder why I was/am so uptight about it. I think it's great that he occaisionally cooks, but he only does the same thing. I wish I could encourage him to try other things. Then again, I know that not everyone is like that. My sister has a pretty steady repertoire that she sticks with (mostly stuff my mom made for us when we were little) I, on the other hand, pretty much rejected everything my mom ever cooked. I ate it when I was little, and liked it, but I wouldn't dream of making any of her standards (Spanakopita, lasagna, bolonaise, svickova, etc.) now. It's actually quite unpleasant for me to even THINK about doing that. But, I know that some people have their comfort zone with recipes and just stick with the same stuff. I don't think I could ever do that though. I like experimenting way too much!!!

PS, My basil started sprouting!!! I had a HUGE sigh of relief after my haphazard planting of it. There are teeny tiny little green shoots that make me so happy and proud.

I'm planting some other things this weekend and am QUITE nervous. I will also update on how that went. I may be in tears of frustration by Monday, just a warning...

Gardening

2009-03-05T15:28:00.005+01:00

As successful as I (usually) am in the kitchen, I'm afraid it doesn't apply 100% to gardening. My gardening skills are shabby, at best. I've always been of the camp that thinks, "Throw the seeds in some dirt, cover it up with some more dirt, water, and voila!" I actually recently did this in an attempt to plant herbs (Not supposed to cover them with as much dirt as I did, also not supposed to directly water - as I did) so I'm crossing my fingers that the herbs will come out ok.

Not the best mentality. Now that I finally own my own place, I can actually "commit" to having plants; helped even more by the fact that I live on the ground floor of an apartment building and my flat looks out into the (currently) cold, stone courtyard. My neighbors have planted things as well, but as I bought the place in November, I haven't seen anything yet. I've just seen empty pots with twigs and dirt that look quite forlorn indeed.

I took the plunge and decided to plan a container garden. And actually PLAN and RESEARCH, not any of this half-assed seed throwing. What did I decide to plant? What else, but food! I picked my choices based on what plants are hardy to cold weather, what plants don't need too much sun, and finally, foods that I like but are usually too pricey or unavailable. I also wanted (hopefully) some color in my garden; not just green green green. This left me with:

Spring onion (not pricey and always available, but it's hardy and I bought a winter variety. I also inevitably never use the whole bunch)
Brussels sprouts (LOVE the taste and would kill to have them all day every day in the fall and forever. Plus, the plant looks really frikin cool)

See:

Spinach, Watercress, and Rucola (I've never found watercress here, and am constantly annoyed at the price being charged for the other two in supermarkets. It's just leaves!!!)
Beets (I love beets. And you can use the greens too. SO multi purpose!!)
Broadbeans and purple greenbeans (Broad beans are hard to find here and I bought a mottled red pod which I think will look very cool. The purple green beans are edible and turn green when cooked. Thought good to add color to the garden)
Cauliflower (I don't like buying whole heads because I never make it through them. Also very hardy to cold weather)
Sugar snap peas (Annoyed at unavailability and price of these. Imagine my shock when finding out they're one of the easiest plants to grow)

So thats my list. I've found this site INCREDIBLY helpful on planning. I love how each blurb also tells you what are good companion plants. I've already decided to sow my peas and spinach and/or peas and beets together. I've realised that I should not start my brussels sprouts and broadbeans until midsummer. I've been googling container gardening and coming up with some positive results. I've also looked up if you can use cat poop as a fertilizer (you cannot)

Now I just need to buy some nice big pots and some soil for all my new babies. This led me to another wonderful discovery. I thought that I'd have to go out to one of the big gardening stores in Prague that are an annoying metro (plus bus) ride away. This is understandable, seeing as how I live smack dab in the center of the city. I remembered though that my aunt mentioned a gardening store by bila labut I went there, and it's absolutely amazing. They have seeds for EVERYTHING! (Almost: I wanted rainbow chard and red beets but they didn't have them, so I settled for black beets and no chard) But still, how convenient! Little shop but huge assortment. And so cheap too. I got 10 seed packets for only 128 ($5.75 USD) For those who may be interested, here's a map.

I also found a GREAT place that has every single kind of plant container you could ever want. It's on Dlazdena, and here is a map. They even have the degradable little seed cups for your starter plantings. I ALMOST bought some pots, but want to check out Tesco prices first before I commit. They have a lovely wide but more shallow pot that I'm imagining my greens and my onions in. Oooo this is just so much fun. I'm so glad that I have the time and space for it now. I even happily found out that the wall my windows (and plants) are on is south-facing. So hopefully, what little sun reaches the courtyard will direct hit my babies.

I think the hardest part for me with the plants and herbs will be thinning. I just can't bear to tear up little plants and THROW THEM AWAY. It just seems unnecessarily cruel to me. I think I'll need a couple of glasses of vino before I can bring myself to do it with the new garden. At least with beet thinnings, you can eat them (What CAN'T you do with beets?!? Amazing things...)

I'll keep updating and hopefully post pictures and recipes from my new little garden in the upcoming months...

Mashed Parsnips

2009-03-04T14:13:00.002+01:00

So I bought some more parsnips this weekend (on sale again) for myself. I don't know what I'll do when parsnips go out of season and won't be on sale. *sigh*

So I went home for lunch and wanted to use my parsnips for something quick and delicious. This is what I ended up creating:

Mashed Parsnips with Cheese and Mushrooms

2 large parsnips cut into 1 cm pieces
knob (about a tablespoon) of runny cheese such as Camembert
1 large shitake mushroom, de-stemmed and sliced into small pieces
tbs or two chiffonade of green part of leek
Pinch of salt and a few cracks of pepper

Boil water in a small pot
Put in parsnip cubes
While cubes are boiling, cut up cheese into small pieces and prepare shitakes and leek
after about 10 minutes, drain most of the water, but leave a bit in the pot
Blend the parsnips and water with an immersion blender
Stir in the cheese, salt and pepper until the cheese melts
When cheese melts, stir in mushroom and leek

Enjoy!

I actually had this right out of the pot. It was great because the only utensils I dirtied were the cutting board, knife, immersion blender, and spoon. Very quick, healthy, and easy and warming on a chilly day.

Petr's Spinach mess

2009-03-03T13:01:00.005+01:00

So I usually do the cooking in my home. Every now and then though, my boyfriend will make this dish (sometimes he subs peas for spinach, but I am not a huge fan of peas, so I always ask for spinach...)

It's quite good and quite cheap. I just don't usually like how much oil he puts in to start. You can also double the recipe. I call it "mess" because it's not the most attractive dish. However, like many unattractive things, it has a hidden quality: tastes delicious!!!

Petr's Spinach Mess

1 package frozen spinach
1 small can tomato paste
1-2 debrecinske parky (flavored hot dogs) sliced into rounds
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
assorted spices
1 egg

Defrost the spinach in a bowl in a microwave.
pour enough oil in a pan to cover the bottom
saute onion and garlic
throw in the hot dogs, cook for a bit
Then throw in the spinach (with any leftover water) and the tomato paste. Pour in about 1 cup (250 g) of water too.
Let it simmer for about 5-7 minutes til it thickens. While simmering, throw in any spices you want. There should definitely be about 1 tbsp of salt or podravka in it along with some pepper. We've thrown in garlic and onion powder, chipotle chile powder, Old bay, and he threw in some "mexicka gril" too. (literally, ALL of it. Trust me)
Personally, I think that some thyme, sage, garlic and onion powder would be good, and also any other poultry or fish seasoning

while the spinach is simmering, make a sunny side up egg.
Serve the spinach with the egg, and houskovy knedliky (or bread) Top with a dollop of plain yogurt.
I know the egg sounds weird, but it TOTALLY makes it so much better.

Red Beans

2009-02-25T09:23:00.002+01:00

Red beans are delicious and a great source of nutrients, including cheap protein. Usually (I suppose) they're supposed to go with rice, but I like them just on their own, as is. I made them yesterday in preparation for a friend's visit today, but she's not coming so I guess I'll have to eat them myself (*sigh* rough life, really) I was going to serve them with a chicken/roasted red bell pepper/tomato saute, but that's too much effort for just myself.

The market was out of normal red beans, so I had to buy organic. I was just reading an epi post addressing the topic, and found the arguments quite interesting. Honestly, I am sooooooooooooo antiorganic. I think the whole idea is just a load of crap. Science and genetics are GOOD tools, not the spawn of Satan. They can make food healthier, more resistant to parasites and diseases, and just more consistent and available. Why not use them to help a world experiencing a bit of a food shortage? In the words of many anti-organics, I believe that eating organic is a tool that people with enough money use to appease their guilt about the plenty that is available to them.

Yes, I'm a huge huge fan of farmers markets, but if my farmer is going to use pesticides or genetically modified seeds, power to him. I'd rather support local business than try to make a half assed ecological statement. Point being, I had to buy organic beans, and they didn't taste any different/better than regular. I find this with most if not all organic foods, with the exception of wild vs. farm raised salmon. In fact, I might even call organics (even the beans) more bland...

Red Beans

1 cup (250 g) dried red beans
1 oz (40 g) chopped salami (I used Uherak, or Hungarian salami)
1 small onion diced
5-6 slices pickled jalepeno
2 garlic cloves mashed with 1 tbs salt
few cracks black pepper

Put everything in a saucepan
Fill with about 75 ml (3 cups) water
Simmer on medium low heat (I used 4 on my electric range) for about 2 hours, stirring sporadically
After two hours, the beans should be soft. If not, just keep cooking. You won't kill them.
Mash some against the side of the pan and stir to make the liquid thick
If you want more liquid, add more water and mash some more

I just eat it out of a bowl with some cheese sprinkled on it. Yum.

Banana Cookies

2009-02-23T11:51:00.009+01:00

So I was vegan for a while (not anymore) and it was always a challenge baking. Most baked goods have eggs in them, and vegans don't eat eggs. Many vegans use an egg replacer, and there are always suggestions to use applesauce or mashed banana as well. I always thought egg replacers were a bit frivolous and frankly stupid, but I like the banana/applesauce idea. This was my thought when I saw that...

I had a very black banana in my fruit bowl, and love the taste of banana. I do not, however, like the taste of a very soft, almost rotting one (who does? Reminiscent of baby food). I recently made chestnut cookies/drops using a minimal amount of butter: about 2 tablespoons, so I thought I'd start with that. I was a fan of the lower fat content and didn't miss it at all. I suppose the sugar won't make these really the healthiest cookies, but you can switch out the white sugar with splenda, and I'm sure that'll help. If you want to make these vegan, just use vegatable spread or margarine instead of the butter.

Also, these cookies are pretty versatile: Instead of the vanilla you could use almond extract. You could also throw in some chopped nuts, chocolate chips, etc. The flavor could also be changed by adding a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg (or both) I kept these pretty plain just to see what they'd be like (Ok, I confess I did actually put some caramel pieces in mine, but it didn't turn out too well: melted and oozed out).

Banana Cookies

1/4 c. (65 g) packed dark brown sugar
1/4 c. (65 g) white sugar
1 and a half tablespoons (knobs) of butter
1 small, very ripe banana
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt.

Cream together the butter and sugar
Add the banana and vanilla extract and beat until smooth and combined
add the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix until thoroughly combined
Stir in a small handful of chocolate chips if you want
Roll rounded teaspoons of the dough between your hands, into balls, and place on baking paper lined baking sheet
Bake at 150 c (300 F) for about 10-12 minutes, until tops of cookies are slightly hard.

A note. These cookies have a very stiff batter due to the high flour and low butter content. Because of this, they will not spread when baking and retain their lovely little ball structure. If you want a flatter cookie, smush your balls flat. I like them better as balls though, because I think they look prettier/cuter and the middle is very soft; it's almost like you're eating raw cookie dough. The best part about this though, is since it doesn't have any eggs, you don't have to worry about catching salmonella by eating uncooked cookie dough. Ah HA!

If you think they look a bit boring (let's admit it, they do look a bit boring: light brown balls), dust them with some powdered sugar when they come out of the oven or drizzle with melted chocolate once they have cooled.

Squash and Parsnip chowder

2009-02-23T10:52:00.010+01:00

I bought a squash at Tesco the other day and made a lovely rice, corn, squash, and leek salad with some of the squash (the top) If you're interested, I cut the amount of rice in half and reduced the other ingredients by a quarter. Also used coriander (cilantro) instead of parsley and added a good teaspoon or two of garlic mashed with salt.

I still had the bottom (majority) of it left over, and a sprinkling of corn, so I thought I'd make a squash soup. I usually shy away from squash soups because they're pretty ubiquitous. Most, if not all, call for an apple or a pear along with nutmeg. I love the sweetness of squash, but don't want to try to pump it up with a fruit. I've recently mentioned my fondness for parsnips, and their sweet-ish delicious flavor. What better way to compliment a sweet-ish vegetable with another sweeter vegetable? Oh the heaven. I had this corn left over, and also some mushrooms that I bought at discount at Tesco. I also had some VERY VERY VERY sad potatoes that were demanding to be used before they turned into a moldy mess in my kitchen drawer, and I dreamed up this soup.

Due to my healthy eating attempt, I shunned cream/milk/etc. in favor of plain old water. I did this very complicated thing that I read in a recipe of boiling the squash seeds to extract as much flavor from them as possible. I'll leave it in the recipe, but do not feel like it's a necessary step. I tried searching for a Squash Chowder online, and every one had cream in it. I suppose a chowder by definition has to have cream in it. Kind of annoying. Anyway, hopefully anyone searching for a Butternut Squash Chowder recipe will come upon this one and delight in the fact that it is creamless (just realised it's vegan as well...hmmm) It's creamy enough as it is, and adding cream I believe totally overwhelms the flavor of the soup. Let the veggies stand alone by themselves, beautiful, sweet, tongue coatingly flavorful.

Squash and Parsnip Chowder

Bottom half of a Butternut squash (I KNOW the measure is so imprecise...lets say about 2 pounds (800 g) unpeeled butternut squash
1 medium onion cut into quarters
4 medium-small parsnips peeled and cut into thin rounds
3 garlic cloves
4 smallish (size of a tightly closed fist) potatoes, peeled and cubed
10 smallish cremini or baby bella mushrooms, sliced (not too thinly, they add nice chunky texture)
80 g (1/3 cup) corn kernels
generous teaspoon old bay seasoning
teeny pinch nutmeg (hypocritical, I know)

Cut Squash in half and scoop out seeds
Place squash face down on baking sheet with quartered onion
Roast on high heat until skin starts getting black bubbles
While Squash is roasting, put the seeds in a large pot and fill with about 2 cups (500 ml) water
Boil the water and simmer the seeds in it for about 10-15 minutes
Strain the water and remove the seeds, or be cool like me and fish them out with a slotted spoon
Add more water, and throw in the parsnips
Simmer them until the squash is ready
Smash the garlic cloves and make a paste with 1 tablespoon salt or Podravka
Add to the parsnips
At this point, the squash should be done or close to done (takes about 45 minutes)
Take it and the onions off the baking pan, and pour some water into the baking pan
Scrape up any squash and onion bits, and add them to the cooking parsnips and garlic
Peel and cut up the squash into cubes
Add it and the onion to the soup pot
Fill the soup pot to just under the level of squash pieces
Simmer about 5 minutes
Puree in blender or using an immersion blender
Add the old bay, nutmeg, and some black pepper. Also salt, if you think it needs some.
Throw in the potatoes, corn, and mushrooms, and simmer gently until potatoes are cooked through (about 10-12 minutes)
Adjust seasonings as needed

Serve with some nice bread, a sprinkling of finely grated Eidam cheese, and drizzled with some porcini and truffle oil (Yes, I'm a snob, just bought a bottle at Marks and Spencer's ) *smirk*

Frustration

2009-02-13T11:11:00.003+01:00

I've made a couple of things recently, a chestnut cookie/biscotti that was quite good, and more cinnamon rolls for the boyfriend. I will post those recipes once I actually measure the ingredients (I know, it's terrible for readers but great for me that I don't measure - I know what consistency to look for so I just add until I'm there...hopefully anyone who reads this will try it too)

I've been ridiculously frustrated by the usual thorn in my side: my boyfriend. Or maybe he will not be my boyfriend in the very near future. What he does is besides the point, the point is that I've stayed with him for much longer than I should have, and I stupidly told him to give up his apartment and move in with me to my new one. From then on, (November) it's been more or less one, big, AWFUL headache.

I'm frustrated by how he leaves the apartment messy and dirty. He tracks mud and dirt in the house (even though he takes off his shoes) and doesn't clean it up. I'm frustrated at the fact that I do the majority of the grocery shopping and he always says he'll help, but in reality he never does. I feel like he's using me: he's using my kindness, my cleanliness, my cooking, my place, my cat, etc. to help him deal with his life. I am his life. I'm frustrated that it's gotten to that point. I'm frustrated that he has no motivation to better himself by looking for a new job, or even just cruising the internet and seeing how things work, what's out there, reading the news, etc. He's content with just bumming off of me for the rest of his life. He's content with sleeping until 14h and then slowly stumbling to work (as a waiter) He's content to let me do all the difficult things (pay the mortgage, pay the bills, do the shopping, have a real job) while he just coasts. He's sucking all of my energy from me and I hate it. I'm getting more and more depressed and sad, and I just want him out.

The worst part is, I've told him that I want him out, and HE WON'T GO. This is primarily because he doesn't have a place to go. Also, he probably doesn't take me seriously because I've told him to leave (and never acted on it) many times before. There are ways that he could look for a place to go. I actually cruised some classifieds yesterday and totally found flats, people looking for roommates, etc. for his price range.

My dilemma is. Do I accept a flat for him and then move him out of my house? Or should I just take all of his stuff and move it to his brother's house (who lives further away?) I just want him out. I want him out so bad I want to cry every time I come home and he's still there. What amazes me the most is, how can he live with himself and still be there when he KNOWS that I don't want him there? Oh my God, if I knew that someone didn't want me living with them, I would get the hell out of there A.S.A.P. That is so embarrassing.

Carbaliciousness

Cinnamon Rolls
1/2 cup (125 ml) buttermilk
2 tbs butter
1/4 c (65 ml) sugar
1 package (about 2 tbs) yeast
About 1 1 /2 c (375 g) White flour

put the butter and buttermilk in a bowl together with the sugar and microwave about 20 seconds until butter has melted and mixture is warm (but not too hot)
Stir a bit to make sure the butter is completely melted
Empty the contents of the yeast package into the mixture
Wait about 10 minutes (wash some dishes or play with the cat)
the mixture should have little bubbles in it
Add the flour and stir gently
Make sure the mixture is combined and not too sticky. If it needs more flour, add some. If it's too dry, add a bit more buttermilk.
Knead it a little until it is soft and pillowy

Let rise for at least an hour

When ready, roll it out into a rectangle that is about 1-2 cm thick (1/4 inch)
Sprinkle the entire area generously with brown sugar (about 3-4 tbs)
Sprinkle the entire area generously with cinnamon (about 2 tbs)
Spritz or drizzle melted butter all over
Roll up the dough, and cut into rounds about 4-5 cm (2 inches) thick You should have about 8
Place the rolls, cut side up, in a baking pan
Let rise overnight in the fridge, or an hour by themselves
Bake in a 150 c (325 F) oven for about 15-20 minutes

Mix half a package of cream cheese (smetanovy syr, I use the tesco brand, but Lucina works too) with about 1/4 cup powdered (or regular) sugar and 1 tbs vanilla

Drizzle over the cinnamon rolls when they're ready.

I'm going to health-a-matise my chestnut cookies a bit, and I'll try to get them up over the weekend.

Healthy Soup

2009-02-09T17:04:00.003+01:00

I almost feel bad blogging about this because it's really kind of easy. But, it was delicious and you can eat oodles of it without feeling guilty.

I made this in an attempt to do a fridge cleanout before I lost some veggies. I've recently had a bit of a love affair with parsnips. I think after having been fed too many carrots when I was little (mostly because of my own begging) I've tried to avoid cooking with the orange rod. I have also never, ever (even when I was little) been a lover of cooked carrots. Raw: fine, cooked: not so fine.

Parsnips on the other hand, are DELICIOUS to me when they are cooked (raw is ok, but not half as gorgeous as cooked) They have a sweet, starchy, slightly potatoe-y taste that is a perfect compliment to several other flavors including buttery beans, salty bacon, sweet apples...Not to mention they're incredibly healthy (more so than carrots, I've read)

So the parsnips were the main veggie to be used in my dish (I decided to make a soup because of the cold weather and my craving for something warm and saucy) There was a bit of leek left over, along with a head of cabbage that I've slowly been paring away at. So that was really all it took. The name is a play on the color of my sun starved skin and the whitish/green of the soup

Pale Winter Soup

1 cube veggie builion
8-9 cups (1 litre, +/-) water
3 medium peeled parsnips cut into cubes
4-5 leaves (1 and a half cups, 330 grams) shredded cabbage
1 small onion, diced
1 small leek, white and pale green parts cut into rounds
3-4 cloves garlic, minced and mashed with about 1 tablespoon podravka or salt
1 heaping tablespoon (or four fingered pinch) of herbes de provence
teaspoon pepper
splash of vinegar

Put the water and the buillion cube in a pot.
Bring to a boil
While water is coming to a boil, prep everything else
Throw everything into the pot, stir and simmer actively for about 10-15 minutes
Adjust seasonings as desired
Puree slightly with an immersion blender for a thicker soup

AH so easy! And yum! I think I had about 3 bowls.

I'd like to add right here that there is no sauteeing, no fat, no thickening, nothing. I made this soup when I was tired and lazy, and honestly, I don't think presauteeing the onion, garlic, leek, etc. would have done anything. It's a lovely simple soup that looks quite pretty too. I'll try to take a picture of the leftovers before I scarf them down.

White Bean and Parsnip stew

2009-02-03T09:55:00.007+01:00

The inspiration for this dish came from several places. The first place was epicurious.com, my go to place for recipes. I was browsing white bean recipes and found this Tuscan Bean dish that sounded delicious (a whole head of garlic! Yum!) I also adore sage, but only go buy it when I can find it on sale. After a thorough scouring of Tesco this past weekend, no fresh sage for sale was in sight. I did, however, find parsnips for sale at Tesco...I decided to buy a kilogram, because well, it was only 20 crowns (91 cents).
So then I was browsing epicurious again, looking for parsnip based recipes. I had completely forgotten about the white beans, because they were dried, and it wasn't necessary that I use them up immediately. I came across this white bean and parsnip stew that actually had very low ratings and less than stellar reviews. What I got from reviews from both recipes was:

a) too watery
b) not enough flavor
c) bit too much garlic

Finally, (I said several places!!) I had a delicious white bean and tomato stew with a mashed potato crust at Bumpkin restaurant when I visited London 2 weekends ago.

So off I went to create my parsnip and bean dish. And make it healthy.

I started off by rinsing the beans and putting them in a large pot. I would say I used about 1 1/2 cups of beans (375 g) I basically made sure that there was a layer of beans at the bottom of the pot. No pot bottom visible. I'll list the rest of it the traditional way:

Half a head of garlic cloves, peeled and minced (I started with 4 cloves, then added more according to taste)
1 bay leaf

3 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into rounds/cubes about 1/2 inch thick (1.5 cm)
1 small white onion OR about 1 cup (250 g) of leek greens (Not the darkest parts, the medium to light green parts)
Use the leek greens if you want a more colorful stew
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 generous tablespoon dried thyme
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 generous tablespoon salt or Podravka
1 teaspoon of ground pepper

Put the beans, half the garlic, bay leaf and beans in the pot
Fill the pot with water (about 2 litres / 8 cups)
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer beans for about an hour and a half (I went shopping whilst they simmered)

When you get back (or while you're still home) prepare the parsnips and onions or leeks
Add in the parsnips, leek, the rest of the garlic, and the seasonings
Simmer vigorously until parsnip has softened.
Spoon some of the beans, parsnips, and liquid into a blender/food processor
Process until thick and creamy (If you catch some leek, that's fine too, but your stew will have a bit of a greenish tinge)
Stir it back into the stew.
If it's not thick enough for your liking, process some more beans and parsnips
Adjust seasonings to taste (I think I went quite heavy on the salt. But that's just how I like it)
stir in the tomatoes and cook until soft.

Serve with some yummy bread (I prefer Czech dark Sumavske bread. When it's fresh it's as soft as a piece of cake)

PS, notice how there is no butter or oil in this one? It STILL tastes delicious!! Feel free to add in a splash of oil/butter/whatever if you want a bit more richness.

More Weekend Cooking

2009-02-02T16:34:00.003+01:00

So I mentioned in my previous post that I attempted to make marrons glacees from this recipe. I have to say that it didn't really...work. Looking back on it, I think it's because I was impatient and cooked for too long too often. Well, I ended up with quite a bit of leftover sugar (about 3 generous tablespoons) So I decided to try to do something with it. I poured some water in the pan (about 1/4 cup/60 g) and put it over a burner on medium high.

I let it bubble a bit, and then threw in a bunch of leftover walnuts that I had (about 1/3 cup / 80 g)
I then kept stirring and stirring til the water was absorbed and I smelled a nice toasty/cooked aroma from the walnuts.
I then spread them out on some wax paper to dry. HEAVENLY! I have been looking for a good candied walnut recipe and I just stumbled onto this one in frustration! Not to mention the sugar has a distinct chestnut overtone. How delicious does that sound? Candied walnuts with a slight chestnut flavor hue?

YUM.

Can't wait to put them on some spinach leaves with slices of apple, onion, and blue cheese along with a peppery mustard vinaigrette.

By the way, I know this is totally random, but I discovered a great new salad dressing ingredient: Buttermilk!!! It's low calorie, thick, creamy, and tangy. I mixed some with some soy sauce, pepper, and garlic, and it was divine.

Here are my walnuts:

Weekend Cooking

2009-02-02T09:02:00.006+01:00

I actually cooked SEVERAL things this weekend, but didn't photograph them all. Also, some of my attempts (marrons glacees) were SOMEWHAT unsuccessful or experimental, so once I hone them I will post!!

Anyway, I recently developed an new appreciation for brussels sprouts. They're healthy, delicious, and pretty easy to cook. The only time consuming part is prep, but even that is not so bad. It's pretty relaxing to just stand there and peel and X. (I'll explain) I was fortunate enough to have the company of my cat, who kept a watchful eye on me on a chair whilst I worked. Here is my favorite way to do brussels sprouts. There's something about sprouts and blue cheese that is just DIVINE! I've occasionally thrown in some roasted chestnuts into this dish too if I have them.

Brussels sprouts with Blue cheese

2 lb (900g) brussels sprouts
75 g blue cheese
sprinkling of salt and pepper

Cut off the end of the brussls sprout and peel away any spotted leaves.
Make a shallow X (don't cut through all the way) in each brussel sprout
Lay in baking pan
Bake about 20-30 minutes on 425 F (200 C) shaking pan half way through, until tinged with brown
Place in serving bowl
Crumble blue cheese and a touch of salt and pepper over
Toss to coat

Sprouts with X'es. Is it bad that I REALLY love this picture?

Finished product. Yum.

Pivni Gulas...lightened

2009-01-30T15:01:00.005+01:00

So I was totally going to write out the whole recipe again, but I'm lazy. I made my Pivni Gulas the other day. It was a bit spicier than the original, because when I was sprinkling in the chile pepper I had a BIT of a heavy hand...another difference? I used potatoes instead of meat, and threw in a leftover hotdog. It was still as delicious, and cheaper and probably a touch healthier as well.

Instead of using flour to thicken it, you can spoon off a ladlefull or two and puree it til very smooth in a blender. Also cuts back on the carbs/calories. Another trick you could use is light beer instead of normal, but I just couldn't bear to do that...

Cheese Pairings

2009-01-29T14:40:00.006+01:00

I love cheese!

This is actually a recently new thing (about 1 year?) But I love trying new cheeses and pairing them with interesting things. I will definitely update this as I find new pairings.

I'll try to keep it different, but I'm sure I'll mention some obvious ones as well. A few of my favorites:

Bresse Blu stuffed in (or with) a dried date

Smoked Eidam (or gouda) on a slice of apple with a salted peanut

A creamy gorgonzola with a triangle of dark chocolate toblerone

Epoisses spread on a cracker with a dab of basil/tarragon mustard

Goat cheese with smoked salmon and a caper

Brynza (a milder feta) on tomatoes with a nice vinegar

I NEED HELP!!! When I was in London, I had this great, washed rind french cheese that had a fine fine layer of dark breadcrumbs on it...I totally forget what it was called, but I believe it began with a "B"...

Luscious London

2009-01-28T15:29:00.004+01:00

Gone are the days of bad food in London. I did not have one shabby meal whilst I was out there. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be taken to one of Gordon Ramsays restaurants (something I've always wanted to do!!!) This particular establishment was named the Boxwood Cafe. It's in The Berkley hotel. I took photos, so I figured I might as well post about it!!!

To begin with, I was not a HUGE fan of the setting. The restaurant is in a basement, and I felt like the tables were very institutional. The pictures on the website do not hint at this, they actually make it seem very light and comfy and ambient. The lighting for the photos was obviously added. The place was not DARK, but something about the lighting was off putting. not dark enough, but not very light either. There were tables that were placed along the walls with a long shared bench running the length of the wall. I hate shared benches, especially at fine dining establishments. The last thing I want when I'm (supposedly) enjoying my meal is to feel my neighbor flop their ass down next to me after having used the loo.

Fortunately, the food was not of the same caliber as the dining room.

A bread basket was brought out with light and dark breads, along with a pat of butter and a gorgeous anchovy butter. It was salty, creamy, just fishy enough, but not overpowering.

For a starter, I had the Baked Orkney scallops with sea urchin butter, watercress and apple. I actually couldn't taste the sea urchin butter very much, but the scallops combined with the crisp apple and crunchy watercress were an amazing combination. Served in large shells, the presentation was quite lovely as well. My dining partner had the Tagliolini of white and brown crab with chilli, parsley and spring onion. This was a gorgeous dish because it had depth and levels of flavors that the scallops did not. However, being a mild animal, I am of the school that scallops should be presented as they were: minimal dressing, so the fish could stand out. The crap was mixed in a way that reminded me of coleslaw. I didn't think it was the most appetizing looking dish, but the flavor did stand up to it. It was spicy in a woody, smokey way, which I absolutely adore. I do, however, think that the spices drowned the spice of the crab.

My main was the Pan-fried fillet of black bream with Shetland mussels, clams and leeks. The black bream was served on a lovely circular cake of the leeks, mussels and clams. The leeks were by far my favorite part. Creamy, oniony, with a hint of the clams and mussels. There were, hoever, only about 4 clams/mussels in the leek circle, which made me a bit sad. The bream was panfried without accutrement, to accent the flavor of the fish. It was cooked perfectly, with a crispy skin and melty inside. The amount of fish however, was too much. There were 2 fillets, and I could barely make it through one. After one, I had grown a bit tired of the fish as a whole, I suppose I wanted something a BIT more exciting.

My dining partner had quite the main: Steamed sea bass with langoustine, baby artichokes and coco bean purée. The flavors of this number were amazing. Having the puree (reminiscent of mashed potatoes, but better) artichokes, langoustine and sea bass on the toungue was exciting, flavorful, different, and comforting at the same time. A definite winner.

No dessert because we were full. Sorry! My partner picked the wine, and it was amazing. I don't know enough about wine, so you will have to ask him if you care!!

So I suppose the question is, would I reccomend it? Well, It WAS delicious. The portions were quite big. I'm not sure, however, if the price justified the experience. I felt a bit like I was buried underground, in a cave with good food. When I go out to restaurants, I like to have the experience be special. The place, the food, everything. I like to feel a bit like a celebrity. I did not feel like a celebrity at Boxwood. While I definitely do not regret the meal, (great company) I probably would pick somewhere else next time and not be a repeat visitor at Boxwood.

Tata for now. ;-)

Baked Pangasius with Cream Sauce

2009-01-28T14:26:00.004+01:00

So I know that I was attempting to eat healthy (go away, thunder thighs!!!) But I'm trying to introduce the boyfriend to fish. It's healthy, and I love it, and if you buy it here frozen, it's actually quite cheap and delicious. I also just got back from London, where I bought some absolutely lovely cheddar. So the other day I made this dish, and it was super easy and quick (with a bit of help)

Baked Pangasius with Cream Sauce

1 400g fillet of pangasius, frozen or fresh. (Pretty much any whitefish will do)
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
150-200 ml heavy cream (you could sub light cream, but all I had was heavy)
1 tablespoon mustard
1/2 c. (120 g) grated cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Rinse fish and pat dry
Place in baking pan
Sprinkle with salt and pepper
Bake at 350 F (175 c) for about 10 minutes, until fish flakes with a fork

While the fish is baking, make the sauce.

Process the onion and garlic in a processor
heat a bit of oil or fat in a pan sautee the onion and garlic until fragrant
pour in the cream and add the mustard
simmer gently
Add the cheese, and stir til the cheese melts
salt and pepper to taste

When the fish is done, pour the sauce over the fish. Serve with rice or veggies or potatoes

New Year

2009-01-23T13:09:00.002+01:00

Sorry. I have completely abandoned this blog, it's awful! I've wanted to write, but I haven't taken pictures of things, and always feel guilty about posting recipes without pictures. I myself am a HUGE fan of pictures, so any blog without is a bit blah for me.

Over the winter pause I went back home to Boston, where I cooked up a couple of delicious things and had great meals at all my favorite old restaurants. I also gained about 8 pounds (3.5 kg) and that was NOT fun at all. About half my clothes fit me now. So I will attempt to write more low cal recipes, as I'm trying to fight off the bulge and get back into my skinny jeans!!! The first recipe is....

Black Bean and Corn Salad

1 can of corn (400-500 g)
1 cup black beans from a can or cooked. This was the first time I cooked black beans from dry, and they were delicious. Takes a while though)
2 large garlic cloves
3 pickled jalapeno slices
1 smallish tomato chopped
1 small bell pepper (any color) chopped
1 small white onion or 1 medium red onion chopped
1/4 c. (60 g) packed fresh coriander (cilantro) chopped
generous pinch salt and pepper
dash of ground cumin
splash of lime juice (1 tbs or so)

Mash together the garlic and jalapeno slices with the salt. Put it in a large bowl.
Add all the other ingredients
Stir

Eeeeasy!!!

Top Czech

2008-12-12T12:00:00.007+01:00

I was thinking of the Omnivore's 100, and also thinking about Czech foods that everyone should try, so I thought I'd make a list. I love cheese, so I think that this will be very cheese biased...Also, I need to vent, so that will come after.

Top Czech Foods you must try:
1) Vepro knedlo zelo (pork knee, dumplings, sauerkraut)
2) Smazeny syr (Fried Cheese. But ALL of them: Eidam, Hermelin, Niva, AND Olomoucke Tvaruzky)

3) Dumplings (All of them: Houskovy, Bramborovy, Spekovy, ovocny [bread, potato, bacon, fruit])
4) Veprovy Rizek & Bramborovy Salat (Pork Schnitzel and Potato salad)
5) Nakladany Hermelin (Hermelin cheese marinated in oil, onion and spices)
6) Gulas (All of them: Madarsky, Znojemsky, Segedensky)

7) Pecene Kachna (Baked duck)
8) Skvarkove Sadlo with lahudkove cibule and Sumaske Chleba (Pork fat with cracklings with spring onions and dark bread)
9) Spanelsky Ptacek (Beef roll with hard boiled egg, pickle, and pork fat in the middle)

10) Cesnecka (Garlic soup)
11) Zelnacka (Cabbage soup)
12) Kapr, smazeny nebo peceny (Carp, fried or baked)
13) Langose (Dough with cheese, ketchup, and garlic)

14) Trdlo (dough baked on a long metal rod then dunked in almonds and sugar)

15) Blatacke Zlato (A Czech cheese)
16) Svickova (beef cooked in a vegetable cream sauce)
17) Kralik (rabbit, usually cooked in cream with spinach and dumplings)
18) Kulajda (A dill soup with hard boiled eggs. I hate this, but it's very Czech, as far as I can tell...)

19) Rakvicka (a cookie with whipped cream on it that represents a coffin)
20) Utopenec (sausages marinated in vinegar, onions, and spices)
21) Parizsky Dort (Literally "Paris cake", but actually invented at the Hotel Pariz in Prague)
22) Parek v Rohliku (Hot dog in a Rohlik, a penis shaped bread)
23) Bramborak (Potato pancake)

24) Klobasa from a Vaclavske Namesti street stand
25) Livance (Like an american pancake, served with cinnamon sugar)

26) Trhanec (torn dough served with whipped cream and berry sauce)
27) Tvaroh (Farmers cheese, used in lots of desserts)

28) Rajska (Beef cooked in a tomato sauce)
29) Bramborovy Knedliky plnenim s Uzenym Maso (Potato dumplings filled with smoked meat)
30) Karbanatek (A mix between a hamburger and meatloaf)

Hm that nicely rounds out to 30. Any other recommendations?

Broccoli Soup

2008-12-11T13:15:00.007+01:00

This soup was REALLY good and really quick to make. There is only one problem. It looked like crap. Literally. It was brown and had pieces of broccoli and feta floating in it. Hopefully my explanations will resolve that if you want to try it. (Please do, it's healthy and delicious, not to mention has a Greek style flavor scheme!!!)

So I read a while ago that when you're cutting up veggies, especially for a larger meal, you should save your trimmings and throw them in a pot of boiling water to make veggie stock. WHAT a good idea! Totally never thought of this!! (Am I stupid?) Anyway, when I was doing prep work for thanksgiving I was trimming brussels sprouts, cutting onions, peeling potatoes, etc. So all the things I was going to throw away went into a big pot of boiling water that I simmered for about 2-3 hours and then strained. I threw some cloves and a bay leaf there as well to make it interesting.

When I was done, it was a dark brown color but smelled absolutely fabulous and was quite good too. While making my broccoli soup, I decided to use the veggie stock I had created, thus making it a dark brown. I suppose if you used regular water or a mixture of water or milk, this soup would be more green or red (if you add the tomatoes) So here goes:

Broccoli Soup that Looked like Poop
400 g (about 15 oz) broccoli. I used about 200 g florets and 200 g stalk
2 small onions, sliced
2-3 minced garlic cloves
2 small sliced tomatoes (optional)
1 HEAPING tablespoon oregano
2 teaspoons marjoram
60 g (3 oz) chopped feta cheese (yes, I used balkansky syr...)
1.5 - 2 liters stock or a combination of water and milk

Method:
Peel and very finely chop the broccoli stalk, onion, and garlic
Sautee in a bit of oil on medium heat until onions have softened a bit
Add the tomatoes if using and cook until soft

Side note: I love thick soups and am obsessed with my immersion blender. Hopefully this explains the rest of the recipe.

Add the water, stock, milk, what have you, oregano, marjoram, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper
Take an immersion blender and puree everything until it is thoroughly combined (this is when my soup turned its very ugly shade of brown...)
Add in the florets and the feta cheese and stir for a bit until feta disintegrates and broccoli is cooked.

You will have a nice thick soup with bits of feta and broccoli bobbing in it.

YUM.

Picture time! I didn't take a picture of the prep because it's pretty self explanatory, but here it is simmering right before I ate it:

Turkey and Veg Pie

2008-12-10T10:02:00.008+01:00

This is a GREAT recipe for leftover turkey and veggies from thanksgiving. It's very versatile and you can put whatever you want in it. It is SLIGHTLY time consuming though, so I would recommend doing it on a Sunday. Then you can pop it in the oven and relax.

First you need to make a dough. I used an epicurious recipe which I highly recommend. Watch the video too so that you can see what the texture/consistency should be like. Here is the link

Copied and pasted:

Butter Pie Crust

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
6 tablespoons (about) ice water

Mix flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter; pulse until coarse meal forms. Gradually blend in enough ice water to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Form dough into 2 balls; flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic, chill 2 hours or overnight.

Then, roll out one disk and place it in a 10 inch pie pan.

Then you need to make the pie filling and assemble. This is what I used for the filling:

2 medium onions sliced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

3 cloves of garlic minced finely
1 stalk of celery sliced
1/2 cup (125 g) of mushrooms sliced
1 cup (250 g) milk
3 heaping tablespoons (or 6 normal ones) of flour.
1 1/2 cups (400g) cooked turkey meat

Method:

Sautee the onion and garlic on medium heat in a bit of butter until fragrant (5 minutes) Add the celery and sautee some more until the celery softens. Add the mushrooms and let them release their juices a bit. Add the flour and stir until you can smell the flour cooking. Pour in the milk and cook on medium high heat until milk thickens. Add in turkey and cook. If the filling seems a bit too dry, add in some more milk. Stir in the basil, and liberally salt and pepper.

Now when I was cooking the filling, I prebaked the bottom of the pie crust a bit (400 F, 200 C for about 15 minutes) After you've completed your filling, pour it into your prebaked pie crust. Roll out the second disk and cover the filling, pinching around the edges. When ready, bake at 350 F (175 C) for about 25 minutes.

Before adding the turkey, milk thickening

After adding the turkey, simmering nicely.

Filling, prebaked crust, unbaked top crustCarefully draping the top crust over the filled pie

Omnivore's 100

2008-12-09T10:40:00.007+01:00

I made a turkey and veg pie which was SO good, but will not post yet, as I do not have my camera with me to post the pictures as well (Yes! I took pictures!) Anyway, borrowing from a friend, I'm posting the Omnivore's 100, a list of things every omnivore should try. I had to look up a few of them before posting, I'll try to define all of them. In bold are the one's I've tried...

1. Venison (Deer meat. The saddle I had was way too tough, sadly disappointing)
2. Nettle tea (Tea made from Nettle leaves, a plant whose leaves sting. Ouch)
3. Huevos rancheros (Scrambled eggs and peppers in a fried corn torilla cup, smothered in cheese, salsa and sour cream)
4. Steak tartare (Ground up steak served with a raw egg and garlic toasts. Had this Thursday. Yum)
5. Crocodile (self explanatory)
6. Black pudding (Pudding made from blood. I've had blood sausage, but I don't think that counts)
7. Cheese fondue (Melted cheese with cream, milk, sometimes champagne that one dips breads, meats, or vegetables in)
8. Carp (A fresh water fish with many small bones. Common Czech Christmas fare)
9. Borscht (A soup made primarily from beets)
10. Baba ghanoush (A dip made from roasted eggplant and tahini)
11. Calamari (Fried squid)
12. Pho (A Vietnamese noodle soup. SO good!!!)
13. PB&J sandwich (Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwich. I have actually NEVER had one of these)
14. Aloo gobi (Potatoes/Cauliflower flavored with Tumeric, Curry, etc.)
15. Hot dog from a street cart (self explanatory)
16. Epoisses (The "smelliest cheese in the world" with a washed orange rind, and SO incredibly delicious...)

17. Black truffle (A rare fungus)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Self explanatory. I had black currant)
19. Steamed pork buns (a mixture of pork and chinese spices steamed in dough)
20. Pistachio ice cream (Self explanatory)
21. Heirloom tomatoes (Open pollinated non hybrid cultivar of tomato)
22. Fresh wild berries (Self explanatory)
23. Foie gras (The liver of a duck that has been force fed/overstuffed)
24. Rice and beans (Self explanatory)
25. Brawn, or head cheese (cold, congealed meat from the head of an animal, usually cow)

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (the hottest pepper in the world)
27. Dulce de leche (a brown sauce made from sweetened milk akin to carmel)
28. Oysters (self explanatory)
29. Baklava (A predominantly Greek pastry made from honey, filo dough, and finely chopped nuts)
30. Bagna cauda (an Italian dip made with olive oil, garlic, butter, and anchovies. I am TOTALLY making this in the next couple of days...)
31. Wasabi peas (peas fried and coated with wasabi, a plant akin to horseradish)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (clam chowder: a cream based soup with clams and potatoes. Sourdough bowl: a bread bowl made from sourdough, a complex bread made in a two step process with a starter and ancillary part. I've had both, but separately)
33. Salted lassi (Indian drink made by blending yoghurt with water salt, pepper, ice, and spices [traditiaonally cumin] until frothy)
34. Sauerkraut (Finely shredded cabbage fermented by various lactic acid bacteria. Hello typical Czech accompaniment! Vyborne)
35. Root beer float (root beer soda with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. I strongly dislike root beer)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (self explanatory)
37. Clotted cream tea (clotted cream is made by heating unpasturized cows milk and then leaving it in a shallow pan for several hours until clots of fat from. It is served as part of "cream tea": on scones, with rasperry or strawberry jelly)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (jell-o or jelly made by substituting vodka for all or part of the cold water element)
39. Gumbo (a stew originating in Louisiana consisting of shellfish and/or meat, bell peppers, celery, onions, and a thickener)
40. Oxtail (self explanatory)
41. Curried goat (self explanatory)
42. Whole insects (self explanatory)
43. Phaal (The hottest indian curry available, made with scoth bonnet or habenero peppers)
44. Goat’s milk (Milk from a goat)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (self explanatory)
46. Fugu (Japanese for Pufferfish, a fish that is lethally poisonous if not prepared correctly)
47. Chicken tikka masala (Chicken chunks in a curry sauce prepared with tomatoes)
48. Eel (self explanatory, I've only had eel sushi, but I think that counts)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (self explanatory I think, but here)
50. Sea urchin (hopefully people know this. I'm looking forward to trying one day)
51. Prickly pear (The fruit of the opuntia cactus)
52. Umeboshi (pickled ume fruit, akin to prunes, I was not a fan)
53. Abalone (a sea snail)
54. Paneer (a type of indian cheese. Mild and white)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (self explanatory. Never had one)
56. Spaetzle (a type of egg noodle / dumpling popular in Germany)

57. Dirty gin martini (an alcoholic drink made with vermouth, olive juice, and gin)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Self explanatory)
59. Poutine (A Canadian/Belgian concoction of french fries smothered in gravy and cheese)

60. Carob chips (Chips made from a carob pod, often used instead of chocolate chips)
61. S’mores (A sandwich consisting of graham crackers, chocolate, and a toasted marshmallow)
62. Sweetbreads (thymus glands of lamb, beef, or pork)
63. Kaolin (A food additive. Sorry, I couldn't find more on this one! Help?)
64. Currywurst (A German dish consisting of pork sausages cut up and cooked in a sauce of ketchup or tomato paste and curry. Usually served as street food with a bread roll or french fries)
65. Durian (known as the "King of Fruits" an incredibly smelly fruit)
66. Frogs’ legs (self explanatory)
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake (Any sort of basic dough that has been fried and doused in sugar)
68. Haggis (traditionally sheeps heart cooked with onion, suet, spices and salt and boiled in the animals stomach for several hours. Looking forward to trying this eventually)
69. Fried plantain (Plantain looks like a banana, but when green/yellow is bland and starchy and often used like a potato)
70. Chitterlings or andouillette (Fried intestines of pork)
71. Gazpacho (A cold soup made primarily from tomatoes)
72. Caviar and blini (Caviar: fish eggs Blini: plural of blintz, a thin pancake similar to a crepe)
73. Louche absinthe (Absinthe is an alcohol made from wormwood, which supposedly has hallucinatory properties)
74. Gjetost or brunost (A brown Norweigan Whey cheese that has a slight caramel taste. My roomates were Norweigian and brought some back. Lucky me)

75. Roadkill (Self explanatory)
76. Baijiu (A Chinese alcohol, usually between 40% - 60% ABV)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (Picture instead)

78. Snail (Self explanatory, also known as escargots. Delicious)
79. Lapsang souchong (A black tea originally from the Wuyi region of the Chinese province of Fujian, allegedly with a smoky flavour)
80. Bellini (Champagne mixed with a sweetened puree of fruit, usually peaches)
81. Tom yum (A hot and sour soup from Thailand)
82. Eggs Benedict (Half an [American] English muffin covered with ham, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce)
83. Pocky (A Japanese snack food consisting of a biscuit covered in chocolate)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (self explanatory)
85. Kobe beef (Beef from the black Tajima-ushi breed of Wagyu cattle raised according to strict Hyogo Prefecture tradition. Renowned for flavour, texture, and marbling)
86. Hare (Wild rabbit)
87. Goulash (A stew made from beef in a thick sauce flavoured primarily with sweet paprika)
88. Flowers (Self explanatory. Common eating flowers are violets and Zucchini flowers)
89. Horse (Horse meat. I had horse sausages. Incredibly good)
90. Criollo chocolate (Representing 5% of cocoa beans grown, Criollo is the rarest bean used in chocolate making)
91. Spam (a canned, precooked pork meat product)
92. Soft shell crab (A crab common to the Chesapeake bay area where shell and meat of the crab are eaten together)
93. Rose harissa (Harissa is a North African hot red sauce/paste made from smoked or dried chili peppers, garlic, and frequently containing coriander, caraway, cumin, and tomatoes. Rose Harissa is a version made with rose petals. I've had Harissa [very good, very spicy!!!] but never Rose Harissa...)
94. Catfish (a fish having barbels that make it look like a cat. Also very bony)
95. Mole poblano (Mole is a sauce prepared from dried chili peppers, seeds or nuts, and mexican chocolate. Mole Poblano specifically includes poblano peppers)
96. Bagel and lox (A bagel with smoked salmon)
97. Lobster Thermidor (A French dish consisting of a mixture of cooked lobster meat, egg yolks, brandy or sherry, stuffed into a lobster shell and served with an oven browned cheese crust. The accompanying sauce must contain mustard. HOW good does that sound?!? I must try)

98. Polenta (Boiling water/milk mixed with cornmeal into a paste that can be baked, fried, or eaten as is. Yum)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (a mild, un-bitter coffee grown in the Jamaican blue mountains and was the most expensive brand of coffee until the Bourbon pointu passed this mark)
100. Snake (Snake meat)

So my list is 59. That's not counting the chowder, blood pudding, and harissa, which I think I can safely say I've "tried". But, I'm being strict and following the list. However, there are some things that I never WANT to order, including:

(a) Hostess fruit pie (hello artificial...)
(b) Big Mac Meal (I've had a couple of bites of a big mac and obviously mcdonalds fries, and that would probably be near the bottom of my list of things to order at McDonalds
(c) Raw Scotch Bonnet chili pepper (I'd like to keep my tastebuds, thank you very much...)

Which goes hand in hand with:

(d) Phaal: I'd probably only have a bite or two of this
(e) PB & J: SO boring and I totally know what it tastes like, I've just never actually had it TOGETHER as a SANDWICH
(f) Root Beer Float: I really don't like root beer, and I've had a SIP of this, so I guess I can count it.
(g) I'd be ok trying haggis and sweet breads (I've already had a full portion of Calf's brains!) But the head cheese makes me a BIT squeamish...
(h) Crillo and Jamaican Blue Coffee: I hate paying excessive amounts of money for a product that just uses a unique variety of the same ingredient. If I were gifted these, or offered a taste from a friend, fine. But don't expect me to ever go out and buy these myself.

Any thoughts?

2008-12-01T14:04:00.003+01:00

Ugh I have been SO SO bad about blogging and posting. I've been cooking so many things and moving from the old place to the new place has been freakishly stressful. Additionally, I've been having relationship problems, which makes me just want to escape somewhere (bed perhaps?) and shut out everything.

Finally, the body can't handle the stress, so it's finally closing down. I'm sniffly, exhausted and achy and I think I may have to call in sick tomorrow. I did a thanksgiving dinner yesterday! Ah it was so much fun! It was the first thanksgiving I had ever done on my own! I made Turkey the same way I had done Lucky the previous year. However, I don't think it was as good. I only had leg meat, but I liked it. It didn't get rave reviews though.

For stuffing, I made a chestnut mushroom stuffing (I LOVE chestnuts)
Here's the rest of the menu:

Arugula salad with beets, blue cheese, and candied walnuts
Brandied sweet potatoes in orange cups
Sauteed brussels sprouts with blue cheese and bacon
Sauteed corn with roasted red peppers
Creme de Cassis Cranberry Sauce
Cornbread (from a mix)
Pumpkin pie (I even did the crust by myself! No prepackaged betty crocker-ness for me!)

Ok all of that is way too much to post now, so I'll just do the stuffing.

3 cups (750 g) Roasted shelled chestnuts
2 stalks of celery
3 medium onions
1 heaping tablespoon herbes de provence
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 cup chicken broth
Bread crumbs

Sautee onions, mushrooms, and celery in a bit of butter or oil. Add the chestnuts and herbes with lots of salt and pepper. Sautee until most of the liquid has released from the mushrooms and has evaporated. Put it in a small square baking dish and pour the broth in. SPrinkle bread crumbs over, and bake at 350 F (150 c) for about 50-60 minutes.

Maybe I'll put another recipe up because that one was fairly simple and I still have some writing left in me...

Sweet Potatoes in Orange Cups

6 oranges
4 average sized sweet potatoes
1/2 cup (125 ml) brandy
3-4 tablespoons maple syrup
dash of orange juice
pinch salt
mini marshmallows

Put the sweet potatoes in an oven at 200 C (450 F) for about 40 minutes to an hour (until easily pierced with a knife)
Halve each orange, and run a knife around the edge of the orange meat. Scoop out all the meat from the oranges and reserve for whatever you may want it for. Do this over a bowl, by the way, so that you can catch the juices.
Once the potatoes are done, peel, cut them into chunks and put them into a saucepan. Add the brandy, dash of orange juice, and maple syrup, and puree with an immersion blender. Simmer on low heat for a bit to burn off some of the alcohol.
Spoon the puree into the orange cups and bake at 350 F (150 C) for about 20 minutes. Top with mini marshmallows immediately after removing from the oven.

Anyway. I'm going to Boston soon for Christmas and I'm really excited. I love living here, I never would want to be anywhere else. When I first moved here though, I had no obligations, no one knew me, and I could basically do whatever I wanted. Now however, I have all these obligations, things to do, and while they're stupid things (i.e., take the cat to the vet) It still gets stressful and is a bigger difference than when I first moved here.
This is not helped by the fact that I have a boyfriend who is INCREDIBLY unhelpful in these day to day operations. He sleeps until he has to wake up for work, which means he sleeps through the entire daylight / getting things done period. This means that I then have to leave work and run around and do stuff that I wouldn't HAVE to do if I had simple help. Gah.
My big "to-do" items currently are making sure that I go to the bank to authorise Prazske Elektrina to withdraw money for the gas bill, order cable/tv, take the cat to the vet in anticipation of our Boston trip, and finish moving things out of my old flat (should have been done a LONG time ago, but again, SOMEONE kept me occupied in bratty ways and didn't even THINK of helping) I just can't wait to have it all done.

My crazed cooking look.

You can see the corn and the prepped brussels sprouts and the sweet potatoes in the mini oven.

Not so Lucky the turkey. Apparently he needed more salt(!)

Quesadilas

2008-11-06T12:57:00.002+01:00

In a kind attempt to help me get rid of food in my fridge before I more, some friends came over yesterday. I decided to use up some leftover tortillas that I had and make quesadilas! But what to fill them with? I had 2 ideas, that were as far apart from each other cuisine wise as possible. But, I made both, and both were delicious. No pictures (BAD Katka, BAD) again. Sorry. :-( they disappeared too quickly!!!

Pumpkin Quesadilas
250 g mashed pumpkin
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
300 g red kidney beans
2 tsp cumin
generous pinch salt and pepper
chopped bell pepper
100 g chopped fresh coriander
2 large flour tortillas
shredded cheese (cheddar or equivalent) (about 250 g)

Stir the pumpkin and beans together in a skillet til the pumpkin loses some of it's water content. add the garlic and onion and spices
Remove from heat

In a large nonstick skillet, lay a tortilla flat. Spread half with half the pumpkin bean mixture, sprinkle pepper and coriander on that, then cheese on top of that.
Fold the tortilla in half.
Flip the quesadila when the first side is toasted brown.
When the other side is toasted brown, remove from heat and cut into wedges

Pear and Spinach Quesadila
1 large clove garlic thinly sliced
300 g loosely packed spinach
1 pear, halved and cut into thin slices
Herbes de provence
salt and pepper
about 250 g smoked cheese
Chopped hazlenuts

Fry the thinly sliced garlic until light brown and crunchy.
Remove from heat
In a large nonstick skillet, lay a tortilla flat. Spread half with half the spinach.
Sprinkle generous pinches salt, pepper and herbes de provence on that, (used about 1-2 tsp of each) then sprinkle cheese on top of that.
Fold the tortilla in half.
Flip the quesadila when the first side is toasted brown.
When the other side is toasted brown, remove from heat and cut into wedges

Stress

2008-11-05T10:37:00.004+01:00

So I've been dealing with a lot of personal stress recently. I just got a mortgage but it's so incredibly complicated due to the fact that there are two names on the mortgage, one income is here, the other is in America. It's opened a can of worms that I really wish hadn't been opened. I have been cooking, but I've been terrible with pictures and lazy with blogging. So here's an update.

My boyfriend and I decided to make Romanian stuffed peppers on Saturday. It was delicious! We were a bit like tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber though. My mom used to make stuffed peppers, and I always thought she baked them (covered) . Also, we knew it had a tomato based sauce, but we weren't exactly sure if the sauce should be cooked separate from the meat. What we produced was lovely, but I don't think it was done the "traditional" way! But, for your culinary enjoyment, here is Petr and I's Romanian stuffed pepper recipe.

Stuffed Peppers
4 bell peppers, top cut off, deseeded and deveined as best possible.
3/4 lb (200 g) ground meat
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
2/3 c (150 g) cooked rice (very soft)
1 chopped tomato
1 tablespoon summer savory (or a mix of thyme, rosemary, and cumin)
1 tablespoon salt or podravka
generous pinch black pepper
4 heaping tablespoons (1 small can) Tomato paste
1 cup (250 g) water

Now, here is the first error. You're supposed to steam the peppers first to make them softer, but we didn't do this. Oops. It was still good. If you want to do it traditionally, steam the peppers first for about 10 minutes to soften.

Fry the onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and spices until they are light brown and aromatic
Add the beef and break up into small pieces.
Add the tomato paste and water
Simmer several minutes
Add in the cooked rice and let cook another 10 minutes. If it seems too dry, add more water.

Now here is what we did:
Over a small baking pan, hold a seive. Pour the meat and rice mixture into the seive and stir gently to seperate the tomato sauce from the meat and rice.
Stuff the peppers from the meat and rice remaining in the seive.
Place the peppers in the baking pan, cover with foil, and bake about 30 minutes (45 to an hour for softer peppers)

Serve with mamaliga (polenta)

Is that all? Oh no, readers. I havent been JUST cooking stuffed peppers! I made pumpkin butter last night adapted from a recipe I found on Martha Stewarts website. It was good, but I used only brown sugar (no white) so it's not as sweet as some might expect. Additionally, the brown sugar turned it a quite ugly shade of brown. However, the result is an aromatic, not too sweet butter that would go well with sweet and savory dishes.

Pumpkin Butter
250 g (1 cup) pureed pumpkin
50 g (bit less than 1/4 cup) packed dark brown sugar
6 whole cloves
5 allspice berries
teaspoon nutmeg
teaspoon cinamon
teaspoon ground ginger

Grind the cloves and allspice berries in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Add this and all other ingredients into a small saucepan. On low heat, stir until the mixture becomes thick and "buttery" a bit like gnutella or frosting, perhaps....
Spoon into a container and refrigerate.

Yes, it's that easy. It makes the house smell HEAVENLY too.

I also made a winter vegetable stew that I will write about a bit later. I'm doing a bit of a recipe overload today! I have one more, which I will NEVER EVER EVER recommend doing. Why am I putting it here? Because despite all the time, it was REALLY good. The only reason I cooked it for so long was because I had a glass (or 3) of wine and not much else to do (my boyfriend was going shopping) Additionally, I had promised him risotto, but the only rice I had was brown (believe me, I smacked my forehead even before I opened my mouth. I knew what I was getting myself into)

Southwestern Style Brown rice Risotto

1 medium onion diced
2 large cloves of garlic minced
1 small jalepeno pepper minced
1 tbs of butter
150 g (2/3 c) brown rice
1 chopped tomato
1 small red pepper diced
50 g (1/4 cup) cubed cooked chicken
50 g (1/4 c) packed chopped coriander
half a carrot, diced
60 g (1/4 c) cheese (I used Zlata Praha, which is a bit like Eidam but a little sharper. Colby or mild cheddar might be a good alternative)
1 tbs salt
1 tsp black pepper
I don't even know how much (I think about 2.5 litres...) chicken stock / water (I used water after my litre of chicken stock ran out)

You know the drill.
Saute onion, jalepeno and garlic in butter
Stirr in rice and toast a bit
Add carrot
Add broth. Stir until absorbed.
More broth. Stir til absorbtion.
More. Stir.
Test it as you go to see how soft the rice is.
Mine took about TWO HOURS of pouring and stirring.
When I noticed it was getting to the right consistency, I just threw all the other ingredients in with a bit more water and stirred it until I smelled the aroma of the peppers.

How nice to finally give my arm a break! Yes, it will be an ugly brown color, but it is GOOD and CREAMY. At the end of cooking, the last thing I wanted to worry about (obviously) was to take a picture. You'll just have to imagine the delicious mess yourself (Or try to make it at home!) I'd say I'd do it again, but I probably wont. How I wish it didn't take so much time to make...

More leftover chicken

2008-10-31T10:15:00.006+01:00

I actually made this recipe the day we got back from Romania, but was too tired/zonked to post it.

As an update on my earlier post, I finally figured out what the mystery spice is! In Romanian it's called "cimbra" and in English it's Summer Savory (I had guessed from it's thyme-y smell it might be summer or winter savory, but wasn't completely sure) Now my task will be to find it here in the Czech Republic once the supply that my boyfriend's grandmother gave me runs out. After researching, it appears the Czech name for it is "Saturejka" so I will just have to hit up all the spice stores I know of and see what they can do for me. At least it has a Czech name!

So (again terrible with taking pictures!) I made this the night we came back. I was tired and didn't want to cook much, and my boyfriend's grandmother had sent us home with peppers, tomatoes, and leftover cooked chicken. I had some potatoes and cheese languishing in the house that demanded to be used promptly, so I created the following dish. Also, after having been fed non-stop for 4 days, I tried to lighten it up a bit (you'll notice there is no cream or milk in the mashed potatoes)

Chicken, Tomato, and Pepper Ragu with Cheese mashed potatoes

Mashed Potatoes
5 medium potatoes
1/4 c (60 g) firmly packed grated soft cheese (I used "excellent" syr, which is akin to a mild cheddar or gouda)
1 tbs butter
Potato cooking water
2 small cloves garlic
salt and pepper

Chicken Ragu
3 cooked thigh and/or breast pieces of chicken, shredded
2 medium tomatoes diced
1 small pepper (I used one of those white ones I've blogged about earlier)
1 medium onion
3 garlic cloves minced finely
2 tbs tomato paste
1 cup (250 g) water or broth
2 heaping tablespoons poultry seasoning (I used "grill" seasoning)
1 tsp marjoram
1 level tablespoon podravka (use salt if you don't have it)
2 tbs flour dissolved in some hot water

Scrub potatoes well and cook in boiling water until soft

While potatoes cook, shred chicken, chop vegetables
saute onion, garlic, and pepper in a bit of oil in a non stick pan
add seasoning and marjoram and stir for a bit til fragrant
add remaining ingredients.
Give a stir, and simmer on low heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occaisionally.

While ragu is simmering, peel potatoes, add cheese, garlic, butter, several ladles of the potato water, salt and pepper. Mash with a potato masher or whip with a handheld whipper.

It's best to do the potatoes while they're still warm and right before you serve the ragu. Once the potatoes start to cool, the cheese may get a bit gummy. You can fix this by popping it in the microwave on low-medium heat for about a minute and then stirring again.

Ladle ragu next to or on the mashed potatoes.

Yum.

Back from Romania

2008-10-29T10:55:00.006+01:00

So I just got back from Romania yesterday. What a great trip with some great food! I'll do a run through of some of the dishes I had that were particularly yummy:

Papanache: This was a dessert. It's like a donut. You take dough, fill it with some sweet cheese (ricotta, farmers cheese) then pop a hole out, fry it, and drench the whole thing in berry sauce and sour cream (creme fraiche)
Yum.

Sarmale: I can't wait to try to make this. You start with cabbage (kale) leaves that have been soaked in water and salt in a warm place for several days. Then you fill the soft leaves with a mix of ground meat, rice, salt, pepper, garlic, onions, and a spice that I am still trying to figure out the Czech or English word for. Haha. Sorry, vacation makes my mind a little less sharp. Anyway, you take these filled leaves and bake it in a bit of the cabbage water, some tomato paste, and a bit more of the spice. Yum.
Mamelige: This is essentially polenta. But so good. Romanians serve it instead of potatoes or dumplings, and it's just delicious!! I had it the last night with sour cream and brynza (akin to Feta, but a bit more salty)

I have more pumpkin!!! I'm not sure what to do wiith it. The cookies were a huge hit with my boyfriend, so I may make some more. I haven't made pumpkin pie though...I do have canned pumpkin though, so I may make one for thanksgiving. I think tonight I may either roast some or make a soup. Curried pumpkin soup. Yum. Off to look for recipes!

Mushy bananas

2008-10-23T12:12:00.004+02:00

I love bananas. In all their stages of ripeness (well, maybe not the green ones...flavor is a bit weak)

I had two bananas that were ripening away, and yesterday I had to do something with them (the skin was almost black, and I'm leaving on a trip tomorrow morning. I would hate to think what they would look like when I got back) I don't have a loaf pan or a muffin tin, so I thought of doing banana cookies, brownies, or bars.

While searching through the cupboard, I found a package of oats that had been sitting there FOREVER. Eager to use two goodies that had been languishing away in my flat, I decided to go for bars, also excited because I had never made them before, and assumed they would be good for my future travels. I found a recipe on epicurious.com for banana oatmeal bars with chocolate chunks After reading the reviews, I garnered from the recipe that

a) there was too much sugar
b) it was too cakey.

Modification time! Also, I always need to halve recipes because I don't bake in a regular oven: I bake in a toaster oven, which means I can only use a small baking pan. I think the above recipe also calls for nuts, which I leave out for my boyfriend, because his jaw was broken and he is still quite sensitive to hard, crunchy items.

SO, for my bars. The full recipe calls for 2 bananas. I actually had 2, very overripe bananas. I wanted to use them both. When I was vegan, many recipes that I used said that overripe bananas could be used instead of an egg. I kept this in mind and decided that if the batter was too thick, I would add the egg. If not, then I would leave it out.

For oversweetness, I noticed many reviewers cut the sugar in half and it was fine. So I did the same, and used more brown sugar instead of white.

To correct for the cake-yness, (I wanted a more hearty, sturdy bar) I switched the amounts of oats and flour, and also used whole wheat flour. So there I was, mixing away, following the directions, and I added the dry ingredients. It still appeared (to me) very wet. Not bar like at all. More oats. Still wet. More oats. Still wet. More oats....getting better! I wish I remembered how much oats I used. The amount in the recipe below is my best guess, but I would suggest adding the oats until the batter gets quite sticky and sticks to the beaters a bit more than cookie dough. Even after baking them, I turned them out and the bottom was still quite (cake-y) soft. I will not be afraid to bring on the oats next time!!!

I've been really bad with pictures recently, I promise I'll get better! I just never thought of taking pictures of my food...

Banana Oatmeal Bars with Chocolate Chunks

1/2 cup (125 g) all purpose flour
1 cup (250 g) quick-cooking oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (125 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup (60 g) sugar
1/2 cup (125 g) packed golden brown sugar
2 large mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 c (100 g) semi sweet chocolate chopped into chunks

Preheat oven to 325°F (170 C). Butter and flour 8x8-inch (sorry, don't know the centimetres on this one...) baking sheet. Blend first 4 ingredients in medium bowl. Beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add both sugars and beat until well blended. Beat in bananas, then vanilla. Stir in flour and oat mixture, then chocolate.

Spread batter in prepared pan. I always bake uncovered the first 15 minutes and then cover with foil (this allows for the item to bake evenly and not get the top burned, which I believe is a result of the small size of my toaster oven) Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean and top is golden, about 1 hour. Cool in pan on rack. Cut into bars and serve.

Officially a snob

2008-10-22T11:56:00.004+02:00

Yesterday afternoon I had pumpkin gnocchi again.

I warmed up the gnocchi in a tupperware container on low microwave heat. While I did this, I I browned some goat butter on the stove and threw in some dried sage, salt and pepper. When the gnocchi dinged, I poured the butter over, and finished with some grated aged goat cheese (akin to Parmesan in consistency)

Cow's milk products, I fear, are just too plebeian for me.

I looked like QUITE the gourmand, eating my lovely gnocchi, awash in expensive goats milk products.....out of a tupperware container. :-)

Monday I made pumpkin cookies! I took a food network recipe and halved it, but essentially followed it to the letter. I think I added a bit more pumpkin than was called for though, which left me with a very soft batter. Also, in attempt to keep the cookies healthy-ISH, I used light cream cheese and whole wheat flour. I like what the whole wheat flour did actually: it left a lovely, nutty taste.

I love soft cookies, and I've actually figured out a couple of tricks to make them softer:

1) replace half the white sugar with packed dark brown
2) chill the dough in the refrigerator before spooning onto the baking sheet
3) take them out before you see brown on the edges (though for the pumpkin cookies, this was the sign that they were done...)
4) Rotate, rotate, rotate that baking sheet! At least halfway through cooking.

I will add a picture later, but for now, here is the recipe. Also, for excellent shaped cookies, roll the chilled dough into balls between your palms before placing on baking sheet. Do it quick though or it'll start melting on you....

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 (125 g) cup sugar
1 stick (125 g) unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon Maple syrup
1 egg
3/4 cup (175 g) canned pumpkin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground all spice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
1 cup (250 g) whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt

Frosting
1 (8-ounce) (125 g) package softened light cream cheese
1/2 cup (125 g) confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Zest of one lemon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a mixer, fitted with a paddle, cream the sugar and the butter until light and fluffy. Add the maple syrup and eggs. Mix to incorporate. Add the pumpkin and mix to incorporate. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix well. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden brown around the edges. Cool on racks. When cool, ice with the cream cheese frosting.

For the Frosting: In a mixer, fitted with a paddle, add the cream cheese. Beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the powdered sugar until smooth. Add vanilla. Beat until smooth. If frosting is too thick, thin with a little milk. Fold in the lemon zest. When cookies are cool spread with some of the frosting. Garnish with a pecan or raisin if desired.

True to my word...

2008-10-20T11:07:00.007+02:00

I've spent the weekend with pumpkin. I cooked down the rest of the meat Saturday. The way I did it this time was to just spread it out in a baking dish and bake it at 350 F (175 C) for about an hour and a half. I periodically stirred it and also carefully drained any released water out. The only sad part is that I really don't have a lot of total meat. I'd say the entire 6 kilo pumpkin yielded only about 640 g of puree. Sad!!

So as I mentioned Friday, I wanted to make pumpkin burgers. I actually followed the recipe pretty closely until it came to breadcrumbs/wheat germ. Instead of that, I used 1 cup of ground hazelnuts. I also used 2 tbs chopped coriander instead of the parsley. For some reason, parsley in a "southwestern" dish seems wrong. It's always coriander!! Also, I ended up using about 3/4 to 1 cup of pumpkin because I kept smelling the mixture and deciding it wasn't "pumpkin-y" enough. The only problem with adding more pumpkin though was that the mixture was decidedly more moist than it should have been. I ended up forming the mixture into patties, and baking the burgers on parchment paper for about an hour at 375 F (180 C) and flipping them halfway through. So they were GREAT with my homemade guacamole and salsa. My friend brought a gorgeous baguette and we had a veritable feast. I was unfortunately so excited, that I didn't take ANY pictures, and even though I promised my boyfriend I would save him a burger...they were so good that none were available for consumption by the time the night was over.

Last night I made more guacamole, more onion and garlic jam, and pumpkin gnocci. This was almost ridiculously easy.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

125 ml pureed packed pumpkin
50 ml whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
pinch of pepper.

Mix all ingredients together. Mine looked like this:

Here it gets interesting: At this point, the dough is not dry enough to roll out and cut into little squares. However, I REALLY wanted the taste of the pumpkin to shine through, and not have the flour be the star.

I had been watching Jaimie Oliver a couple of weekends ago and he had made edamame dumplings (I totally cannot find the recipe online!!!!). The way he formed them was interesting and looked easy, so I tried it with this dough. Absolutely perfect!!! You take two spoons, and spoon a bit of dough into one. Then you use the other to scoop it off, and between the two you keep scooping until a dumpling shape is formed. Very easy, here's a picture for the visual learners out there:
After this, I placed them on a baking sheet. I used the tines of a fork to make the classic gnocchi-esque grooves, but I don't think they're incredibly necessary.
After that, you just drop them in boiling salted water, and wait a couple of minutes until they rise to the top and start bouncing around. Remove with slotted spoon...

I had some last night with some smoked ricotta and sprinkled some dried sage and toasted hazelnuts on it. I think the ricotta overwhelmed it though. Today I would probably just have it with some browned goats butter, sage, and the hazenuts. Or even by themselves! They are QUITE yummy.

Pumpkin on my mind

2008-10-17T08:45:00.001+02:00

I LOVE Fall. It's such a great season. The weather turns a bit nippy, the leaves are beautiful, all the crops have been harvested, beer gets brewed, wine gets made (mmmmm, burčak...) Anyway, I have a tradition (aka, ever since I moved here, so 2 years) that I buy a pumpkin and carve it. For some reason, I always end up going to buy the pumpkin alone. This doesn't make me sad, I actually don't mind it. It's kind of fun to go and ponder over the pumpkins at Tesco (29 crowns (~$1.75) a kilo, by the way. Total steal) Then I pick one, and take it to the check out. The cashier woman/man inevitably always says something like, "Awwww, what a pretty pumpkin!" or "Oh my goodness that's huge! How will you take it home?" Very cute.
So I bought my pumpkin last Sunday, with the intent on hollowing it out soon after. Well, I got a bit lazy and it was only yesterday that I worked on it. Pumpkins are pretty easy to hollow out. You just cut off the top, pull it out, empty all the seeds, and then scoop out the meat with an ice cream scoop. It's a bit time consuming and messy, but fun!!! While I scooped out the pumpkin, I made toasted pumpkin seeds. VERY easy:

Toasted pumpkin seeds:
Pumpkin seeds
Chicken/grill/any sort of seasoning
Salt
Spread the pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet
Sprinkle seasonings and salt LIBERALLY all over
Bake at 350 about 10 minutes.
Take them out, give them a stir, spread them out again, and put them back in the oven.
Bake another 10-15 minutes until light brown.

That's them on the lower right.

As you can see, I had a MASSIVE bowl of pumpkin meat. All this needs to be cooked down into pumpkin puree. I plan on making cookies, pie, gnocchi, and tonight....Pumpkin Burgers! I found the recipe on foodnetwork.com but I think I already know how I'm going to change it.

So to cook down pumpkin, just take all that meat, put it in a wide saucepan, and cook at medium high heat for about 30 minutes. Basically all the water has to evaporate out of it, which you will see happen.

The only sad thing is that you don't get much puree from the pumpkin meat. I just got this much (about 200 grams) from about 700 grams of meat:
Anyway, I'm excited for Pumpkin burgers tonight! Pumpkin gnocchi this weekend.... :-)

Lunchtime

2008-10-16T15:37:00.000+02:00

So, I didn't have much to do at work today so I took a little longer lunch than usual. I went to the outdoor market on Havelska, which, as I've blogged about before, has GREAT deals on fruit and veg during the week.
I bought a bunch of coriander, a head of iceberg lettuce, about 5 tomatoes, and 2 small white peppers for 32 crowns ($1.80, about)

On a side note, a lot of Czech supermarkets/markets sell these white peppers that look like this I'm never quite sure what to do with them. They're very mild, but I feel like there must be something better to do with them than just slice them up for salads. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment.

I had some avocadoes that I bought over the weekend (sale at Tesco!) so I decided to make guacamole. I would have used all 4 avocados, but 2 were not ripe enough. Even one of the ones I used in the guacamole was bordering on unripe. Every time I make guacamole I fall in love with it all over again. I have no idea why I don't make it more often! I think the main reason is that my hands get so goopy and messy from all the chopping that it puts me off slightly. Anyway, I made the guacamole, and then threw some salad leaves in the mixing bowl after I had transfered the finished product to its own container. Delicious.

Guacamole

2 avocadoes, chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped finely
3 large or 4 medium garlic cloves, minced and mashed with 2 tsp of salt
1/2 tomato, deseeded and chopped finely
4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
juice from 1/4 of a lime
1 tsp pepper
dash hotsauce, or 1 tsp minced jalepeno

If the avocadoes are very soft, just mush it all together. If you like chunky guacamole, mush half of the ingredients together and then stir in the rest. If the avocadoes are not very soft, use an immersion blender or food processor to get your desired consistency.

Imitation is the sincerest form of...chutney

2008-10-14T11:24:00.001+02:00

I am a bargain hunter when I go grocery shopping. I often buy the vegetables and cheese that have been marked down because they are ABOUT to turn (or have possibly started already, as is sometimes the case with the vegetables) I do this because it MAKES you think of ways to cook/use a food. I sometimes also buy lots of things that have been marked down because they're sold in bulk. This offers another unique challenge: how can I make ____ into different, interesting, appetizing recipes before it goes bad?
I recently bought a bunch of garlic heads. Of course they were on sale. After pondering what to do with them, I remembered that my friend, VelkyAl, had made a roasted garlic and onion jam. I love garlic, I love onions, so....ding!

I was sitting at home yesterday, actually eating his delicious chilli chutney on vanočka with some cheese, and decided to get up and do it.

He also made it with beer, and I happen to have quite a bit of Burčak at my house. I love it, but don't want it to go bad (starts smelling like feet) so I thought I'd use that as a substitute for the beer. Also, it's a sweet drink, so that could take care of the sweetness!

First of all, I hate roasting garlic. The usual method, where you cut off the top of the bulb, bake it, then squeeze the cloves out is SO wasteful. You lose out on LOTS of the garlic and the resulting output is messy and ugly. So I took a few suggestions (mainly from VelkyAl) and did it another way.

take apart the bulb, throwing away as much of the papery covering as you can without exposing the cloves. Wrap the cloves up in foil. Bake at 350 F (170 C) for about 50 minutes. After that, you can pretty easily peel them and end up with gorgeous, golden cloves.

Now, I didn't really want a jam so much as I wanted something a bit more spicy/salty, so I followed the recipe albeit with a few modifications.

Garlic Onion Jam/Chutney

2 heads roasted garlic
4 largish onions peeled and chopped
2 tbs butter
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
3 tbs sugar (Note: I used splenda because I have way too much of it and need to get rid of it. No discernible difference)

1/4 c (125 ml) burčak (or other alcoholic beverage!!)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Saute the onions in the butter on low heat until they are soft making sure they don't stick to the bottom. (LOTS of stirring. My arm still hurts)
add in ALL the other ingredients. Simmer and stir on low heat til it gets to jammy consistency. Taste and adjust seasonings if so desired.

Put into storage container of some sort.

It IS simple, but it's just a bit time consuming watching and stirring all the time.

Next time I think I want to make it a bit more indian: throw in some garam masala, etc. I may also try doing it again with raw garlic. Though the roasted does add a lovely mellowness.

Here's a picture: doesn't look highly appetizing, but tastes YUM.

Sweet remix

2008-10-12T19:58:00.000+02:00

I look up a LOT of recipes online. I never claim a recipe to be my own unless I completely create it myself. There will be times, however, where I use the ratios in a recipe, and create something entirely new. Other times, I will take a recipe and make substitutions or shortcuts until I have to concede that the recipe is completely dissimilar to the original.
I had a lovely weekend with my boyfriend. We went to a castle, where we took a tour, and were lucky enough to browse around a medieval faire that just happened to be going on that weekend. We went to a gorgeous restaurant where he ordered rabbit, I had boar, and we each had a drink, and the whole thing cost 240 crowns (about 12 US dollars) My boar was cooked in natural juices with a bit of oil, and two kinds of sauerkraut and two kinds of dumplings. My boyfriend's rabbit was served in a carrot cream sauce with bread dumplings. Both were delicious, both were incredible value for what they were!
Yum.
Anyway, my big disappointment of the day was that the brewery attached to the castle was under reconstruction. To be finished in 2011. That would be TWO THOUSAND ELEVEN!!!!
I told my boyfriend: "That's it. We're waiting here til it's done"
"Ok" He lovingly conceded.
While I am obviously back at home, I was incredibly disappointed. So I decided to forget my unhappiness by baking brownies for my ever understanding boyfriend. It was when I was baking, that I realised the original recipe had been so far modified by me, it wasn't the original anymore.
So here is MY fudgy brownie recipe.

10.5 oz (300 g) bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup (125 g) butter

2 eggs
1/2 cup (125 g) packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (125 g) white sugar
1 tbs vanilla
1 tbs brewed black tea or instant coffee if desired
1/2 cup (125 g) flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3.5 oz (100 g) chopped bittersweet chocolate

Take the 300 g chocolate and 125 g butter and melt together. Gently.
while that is going, beat together the eggs and the sugars and the vanilla and the coffee or tea if you want (I never add the coffee/tea: too lazy) Do this rather by hand. If you use a beater, the eggs may get to thick and frothy.
Slowly add the chocolate butter melted mixture, making sure it's not to hot: it will cook the eggs if it is.
Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt)
Stir in the chopped bittersweet chocolate.

Pour into a buttered 8x8 inch pan. I use a 10 cm by 15 cm pan.
bake uncovered in a 350 F (170 c) oven for 15 minutes. Cover with foil, rotate the pan 180 degrees, and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven when toothpic inserted comes out almost clean. Let cool. Turn out. Cut into pieces.

Yum.

Lucky's Leftovers

2008-10-10T10:31:00.000+02:00

I would have liked to post this yesterday, but I was fasting, so I didn't exactly want to think about food whilst my stomach was growling on empty.
Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of atonement. Now, I personally believe in some higher force, power or being. I don't know if I necessarily identify Judaism or Christianity or Islamism with this force. Having been brought up as Jewish, I obviously know much more about that religion than others. However, growing older has introduced doubt and confusion into my mind about Judaism. First of all, I don't believe in half-assing things. My dad decided to behave more or less like an Orthodox, so I learned then EXACTLY what you SHOULD do if you're orthodox. As much as I don't like to admit it, I like and appreciate the orthodox way of worship a lot more than reform or conservative (minus the separating women part, that should NEVER be done!!!)
Me, the oftentimes abrasive and solitary creature that I am, have great respect for the individual praying that is more or less the hallmark of Orthodox worship. Yes, the rabbi/cantor oftentimes says something that the congregation has an answer to, but most of the time it is a hum of individual prayer. I like this, but I can't do it because I absolutely suck at reading hebrew. It takes me about 10 minutes to read one sentence, and even then I butcher it. So I can't read hebrew, and thus feel excluded when I go to Orthodox services. I also can't identify with some of their rules: Cut your hair off when you get married, no touching the opposite sex, covered collarbones, etc. etc. The funny thing is, I went to a temple where this was the norm, so now, I'm literally AFRAID to shake hands with any Jewish man I'm introduced to because I don't know if they are Shomer Negiyah or not. Lots of internal stress bubbles for me.
I went to conservative services on Wednesday night where they DONT have these stipulations, but it was still awkward. I STILL felt like I shouldn't shake hands. I hated how all these fat Americans walked in and then left after the first prayer. For many reform/conservatives, Judaism isn't about the spiritual or religious aspect, it's a cultural thing (much like christmas)
For some reason, I just get annoyed and angry at people like this EVEN THOUGH I AM ONE OF THEM! So to end the annoyance and anger, I try to avoid services.
I DO like the concept of Yom Kippur though. You fast for the day to atone for your sins. You think about all the people you have wronged and ask them for forgiveness. On an empty stomach, this is truly a humbling day. In a good way. To end it, you break the fast with...FOOD! So I decided to make a really quick open faced quesadila that I had prepped the night before with inspiration from Sara and Lucky the turkey's Leftovers.

Open face quesadila (or mexican pizza)

about 1.5 cups (300 g) cooked turkey or chicken meat
1 medium-large onion
1 small red bell pepper
1 can chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 heaping tablespoon mexican seasoning
3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)

Heat some oil in a pan. Saute garlic, onions, and pepper until slightly softened. Stir in tomatoes, meat, and seasonings. Simmer about 5 minutes. Stir in coriander.

For quesadila/Pizza:

Pita bread halved (so you have 2 circles)
Cheese.

Put halves on baking sheet.
Put turkey mixture on halves.
Put cheese on turkey mixture.
Bake at 170 C (350 F) for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan or hot pepper flakes if you feel so inclined. Serve with sour cream and salsa if you feel so inclined.

Note: this makes about 3 pizza/quesedilas, so you will probably have an extra half for something else.

Hidden Treasures

2008-10-08T09:03:00.001+02:00

I recently took some friends on a shopping excursion around Prague. Many people gently complain that you can't find ANY exotic food in Prague. I beg to differ, and I believe that you can find some great groceries in Prague for decent prices. You just need to know where to look. So here is my list of never fail grocery go-to's.

Asian Food Shop
Gorazdova 3, Nove Mesto
(Tram Stop Palackeho Namesti)
Map

This large place has anything and everything Asian. Sauces including soy, fish, hoisin. Vinegars, fresh tofu, frozen shrimp, frozen dim sum, MASSIVE bags of rice, even black rice! Why I go here? In a little fridge in one of the rooms they have little bags of bean sprouts. Delicious on salads, for only 20 crowns. Total bargain.

Arabian Food Shop (Farah)
Myslikova 5, Nove Mesto
Map

This not so large place has a great variety nonetheless. Consistently carries lamb. Large vats of spices, beans, etc. They make fresh harissa, baklava, and have olives galore. Tahini, garbanzo beans, baba ghanoush, roasted corn, rose water, orange water, halva...the list goes on and on. Why do I come here? Cheap garbanzo beans and tahini to make my own hummus, and yummy pita (white AND whole wheat!)

Happy Bo Ling Groceries (seriously)
Belehradska 81, Vinohrady
(Tram stop I.P. Pavlova)
Map

This place inevitably ALWAYS has a good deal on SOMETHING. They had figs for 9 crowns a piece one time, salad for 3 crowns a head, etc. etc. One of the best parts about them is that their grocery section is open from 7 to 23 EVERY DAY. They have an astonishingly comprehensive variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as frozen shrimp, fish, etc. Vats of chinese chip mix, banana chips, dried cranberries, nuts, etc. This place will ALWAYS have very large sweet potatoes as well as squash. I also come here for the certainty that they carry large bags of fresh coriander (cilantro) basil, mint, parsley, etc. Herbs are a bit expensive at 49 crowns, but they're always clean and fresh.

Olympia Greek Groceries
Radhostska 3,
Vinohrady (Tram stop Radhostska)
Map

REALLY friendly place. They have about 30 different kinds of feta, and make their own greek yogurt, eggplant spread, tzatziki, baklava, and all these different, interesting salads. A decent assortment of cheeses too: I recently got a smoked ricotta that was absolutely indescribably good. Also great greek spices that you can give as gifts along with greek wines. Why do I go here? The yogurt really. It's just so thick and good. How can you say no? The owner even gave me a goats milk yogurt to try (for free!) last time I was there.

International Food Shop (Diana Svet Orisky)
Belehradska 87, Vinohrady (Tram Stop I.P. Pavlova)
Map

This place has EVERY single kind of dried fruit or nut that you could want. Seriously. They also have chocolate coated, yogurt coated, carob coated, DIA chocolate coated yummies, as well as a wide variety of caramels. Good spice and loose tea assortment too. Why do I come here? My sister LOVES "Prazene mandle" (almonds cooked slowly with sugar so they devlop a sugary crust and are DELICIOUS hot). This place not only has almonds, but they have sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts and hazelnuts done in the same way. No fail. Every day. 32 crowns for 50 grams. Not bad!

U Zavoje
Havelska 25, Stare Mesto
Map

You WILL miss this place if you're not careful. It's actually down a little passage that looks like the entrance to a restaurant, but just look for the gorgeous yellow circle that says "syr" (cheese) and you'll be there. This place probably has the absolute hands down BEST assortment of cheese in Prague. The lady there is no nonesense, but speaks very good english and will usually let you sample all sorts of goodies. They have sheep, cow, and goat milk cheeses there. They even have a price list of all the cheeses they have in case you want to check it out. A tasting event goes on every Tuesday as well. My favorite? Small black tome, and raclette.

Havelske Trh,
Havelska, Stare mesto
Map

This open air market is only good during the week. You have to get there around 2 or 3, because the vendors are leaving soon, and they're marking down all their products. On Fridays, this ESPECIALLY happens. I have snagged massive bunches of coriander (cilantro), mint, basil and the like for TEN CROWNS a bunch. They will also mark down peppers, tomatoes, cucmbers, pears, and apples. The mean price per kilo for these? about 12 crowns. It's so cheap. So good. But you really have to go at the right time. Don't even try on the weekends, it's a total rip off.

Lucky Turkey

2008-10-05T00:18:00.000+02:00

This past week, there have been many turkeys. And many lucky people. Due to the credit crunch, congress is scrabbling to pass a bill that will bail it out. Having studied economics, I am internally (and oftentimes externally) screaming against this. I'm an Adam Smith, Laissez faire econmist: let the markets do what they will do. Things will balance out eventually.
I also, may be incredibly lucky, or I may be the turkey. You are reading the blog of an almost (within a week probably) sub-prime borrower. I wanted this apartment. I got the apartment. Can I afford the mortgage? Not really. Unless my boyfriend lives with me. And pays rent. Which he has promised. But will he? It remains to be seen...

So for the turkeys, the luckies, and the lucky turkeys, I have a recipe for you. I originally created this recipe last year, for thanksgiving. I was handed a 15.5 pound, 7 kilo turkey and profusely thanked for the next several hours where it would be roasting in my oven. Now, I've cooked, but I've never been responsible for a turkey that will feed about 25 people. Fortunately, after about 6 or 7 hours of all day cooking, I walked into the party, and my turkey (there were 2 others) was immediately named "Lucky". It was golden brown on top, gorgeous pink white underneath, and not a BIT dry. It turns out that the method I used is actually often used in Czech cooking, so it must have been my ancestors subconciously poking at my brain to "do it the right way" I recently recreated lucky, albeit on a much, much MUCH smaller scale! Same results, yummy turkey.

Lucky Turkey

one 2 kilo turkey breast, bone in, skin on
50 g fatty meat (you can use the czech slanina which is essentially just pork fat, extra marbled bacon, or leftover beef/chicken/pork fat that you might have trimmed from other cuts of meat)
1 tbs fresh chopped rosemary
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme
2 tbs fresh chopped basil
4 cloves of garlic chopped finely
2 small apples cut into cubes
1 large onion cut into cubes

take the fatty meat and fry it in a skillet. You should get a few crispies and a lot of liquid fat in the skillet. Pour it all in a heatproof bowl. Put the bowl in the freezer to quick chill. When the fat has the consistency of soft butter, mix the herbs and garlic in to create a paste-y consistency.

LIBERALLY salt and pepper the turkey. Gently open the skin of the turkey breast, and spread this paste underneath the skin. If you can't get under the skin in some spots, it is ok to insert a knife in, create a pocket, and just stuff some paste in here and there.
Put the turkey in a baking pan. Spread the apples and onions around it. If you'd like, you can pour in some water or white wine, but I've found the juices released are quite good on their own.
Broil uncovered for about 10 minutes. Lower the oven heat to about 175 C, and cover the turkey with aluminium foil. Bake about 45 minutes per kilo. About 10 minutes before baking is finished, uncover again, and broil for crispy skin. If at any point you notice the pan is dry, pour in some wine, water or broth. It probably won't be though.

Enjoy!

The Beginning

2008-09-23T14:35:00.000+02:00

I feel like I've been blogging for a while anyway. Most of my emails are essentially blogs to my friends and family about things that I do. I've realized, however, that a large part of these emails are describing culinary experiences that I've had. These culinary experiences include dining out, finding niche stores, trying new foods. I have no fear of anything that can be consumed, I'm always open to new experiences! I've found, however, that the more I experience, the stronger feelings I've developed towards certain things and the more knowledgeable I become (this would be a "duh" moment, of course) Anyway, my first blog will be devoted to guláš.

Commonly known to Americans only by it's Hungarian origins, it has evolved into a different yet similar dish in the Czech Republic (once under the control of those power hungry Austro Hungarians) Anyway, my fellow blogger, Mr. Velkyal of fuggled fame, and I have often discussed the merits of beer in food. Quite often, a good guláš will have a bottle or two of beer in it.

After a wonderful day spent at the slunce ve skle Beer festival in Plzen, I decided I just HAD to make a beer based goulash to enjoy with the 3 litres of tmave (dark) Purmistr that I had bought at the festival. This was further spurred by the fact that my dad, who keeps koser, had just bought two enormous t-bone steaks, after I had offhandedly mentioned that I could make kosher guláš, if I just had the kosher meat for it.

My secret is, I do actually KNOW how to cook many things, yet I've never actually PHYSICALLY cooked them. this was the case with the guláš. I know everything that goes into it, every little process, secret, what have you, but I had never actually brought out the stew pot and DONE it. So now that I had no option, I had to face up and meet the challenge that I had set for myself. The story ends happily however: the guláš was absolutely delectable, but one must remember: cook for a LONG time, and don't eat it til the next day.
Seriously.
Stifle the urge.

Pivni Guláš

800 g (1 and 1/2 pounds) of beef cut into cubes (you're supposed to use Klizka, which I think is beef shin. Just make sure the meat you use is marbled and not TOO lean)
1 large onion finely diced
3 cloves garlic
2 litres beer (about 4 cups) (11 degree zlatopramen dark is what I used)
3 tbs tomato paste
5-6 tbs flour
1 tbs sweet (hungarian) paprika
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs Podravka
(If you don't have this, use a crumbled beef bouillon cube) and 1/2 tablespoon salt)
1/2 tbs marjoram
1 teasp. pepper
1/4 cup sliced red pepper
1 - 2 tbs chopped parsley
1 tbs vinegar

Put about 2 tbs vegetable oil in a large pot. when it is hot (medium high), saute the onions and garlic until the onions are very brown (spaleny) add 1 tbs flour and stir a bit. Pour in 1 litre of beer, and scrape up any brown bits at the bottom. put in the meat, the tomato paste, the spices, the pepper, and the other litre of beer, and turn down the burner to low. With the rest of the flour, whisk it into a bit of hot water so there are no clumps. Add that to the gulas. Cook it on low, stirring occasionally, for about 4 hours. I think I got home and started cooking it at 8, and I turned off the stove at around 11:30. Check the seasonings and add more if you need. if it's too thin, add a bit more flour. If it's too thick, add some more hot water. Adjust seasonings if needed. I might have actually put in more seasonings than what I've written, but I'm not entirely sure. a bit before you turn it off, add in the parsley and vinegar and stir. Cover, and let it sit on the burner overnight. Enjoy the next day with dumplings, garnish with diced pepper and white onion :-)

More later...