Mar

Baked Brie and honey glazed radishes

I had baked brie the first (and last) time at an LL.M. reception held by a UC Hastings professor at his home in Sausalito. I always wanted to make and bake it myself but never have. Until today. The recipe is easy enough. Spread some jam or honey on the brie cheese, wrap it in puff pastry and bake it in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius until the pastry has turned brown and crispy.

As a side dish I chose a recipe that sounded very unusual to
me: honey glazed radishes. The recipe is from
a German magazine whose name I cannot remember. You need 3 bunches of radishes.

Cut off the leaves and sweat off tbe radishes in 30g butter.

Add 2 tablespoons of honey.

Add 1 dl water and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.

I added a handful of chopped radish leaves but in the end they did not add any particular flavour.

I served the brie and the radishes with a spinach salad.

It works a treat and the dishes go really well together. The radishes are still crunchy but are a lot milder (bordering on bland) after they’ve been cooked in butter, honey and water. I think I prefer them raw!

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dinner/Lunch/Savoury

baked brie/radish

Mar

Risotto NOT oven baked

Up until now I have always cooked risotto the traditional way, in a big pot on the stove. When I read Donna Hay’s recipe for oven baked risotto in her basic cooking cookbook I was curious to try it but at the same time doubted very much that it could work.
She uses 300g Arborio rice.

She then puts it an oven proof dish and adds 1l and 1.25dl chicken stock…

covers it with tin foil and puts in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

My suspicions were confirmed. After 40 minutes the rice was still hard and had absorbed hardly any of the liquid.
I put it in a pan and finished the risotto the traditional way.

I added roasted pine nuts, parmigiano and fresh spinach leaves.

Leaving aside the fact that the oven baking did not work, the risotto turned out really tasty.

12 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Dinner/Lunch/Savoury

Donna Hay/pine nuts/risotto/spinach

Mar

Yoga Monday

I briefly thought about doing a juice detox. Biotta Juice Week is a very popular juice fast in Switzerland. I also own a book called The Holford 9 day liver detox. The only problem with these programs is that I could murder and kill anything near me two days into a fast. Also, it would make for a series of very whiny blogposts. I’ve been going to yoga classes on Mondays for a couple of weeks now. Thus, I thought I’d make Monday my juicy day of the week and stick to healthy liquids for breakfast.
This morning I opted for a celery, cucumber apple juice with Twinings Cleanse Tea. I don’t have a juicer so I blended the veggies and fruit with the tea.

A lovely mix of green colours:

It tastes okay. I am off to my yoga class now and I am already looking forward to lunch!

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Breakfast

apple/celery/cucumber/detox/juice/Twinings Cleanse Tea

Mar

Raincheck

Got lost spending time with my son and so I am calling a raincheck!

12 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Raincheck/Wildcard

Mar

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

As I was stupid enough to use up all my Guinness recipes on earlier blogpost, I had to turn to my 20 year old (OMG!) Irish Cookbook by Georgina Campbell.

I chose her Irish Mist & Honey ice cream recipe. All you need is 4 egg yolks, 4 tablespoons of honey, 4 tablespoons of Irish Mist and 3dl cream.
Irish Mist is a whisky liqueur and I just couldn’t get my hands on a bottle. I therefore took the liberty of using Baileys (with a hint of crème caramel) instead of Irish Mist.

First, you have to bring the honey almost to a boil. Then add the honey to the egg yolks and whip for about 10 minutes.

Add the Irish Mist (or in my case the Baileys).
Whip the cream and fold in the honey/Irish Mist mix. Here I would like to point out that I had to whip the cream by hand today. A tough job!

Fill the mix into a container and put it in the freezer.

The author of the recipe writes that you neither need an ice cream machine nor need to stir the ice cream to prevent ice crystals. I was sceptical about this but of course Georgina knows better.
The ice cream is creamy and delicious. I definitely want to try it again with the name giving ingredient, Irish Mist.

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dessert

Baileys/cream/honey/Irish Mist

Mar

Oh my lovely Ovaltine

My macaron kit arrived!

But I have no time for making macarons today or this weekend.
I had time for an equally sweet but much less sophisticated treat: chocolate crunchies. We always received these as Christmas treats from a friend of my grandmother. They are heaps of cornflakes coated in melted chocolate.
I love all the new Ovaltine products that are available and chose Ovaltine cornflakes instead of the plain ones. The crunchies turned out tad sweeter as usual but seriously yummy!

Melt 100g chocolate and 125g couverture. Both either milk or dark chocolate whatever you prefer.

Mix with approximately 200-250g cornflakes.

Spoon the mix into paper cups (big or small) and leave to dry.

Scrumptuous!

12 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

Snack/Sweet

Chocolate/cornflakes/ovaltine

Mar

Retro dish

My macaron kit still hasn’t arrived… So I cooked a pasta casserole that is typically Swiss yesterday: Hörnliauflauf.
Hörnli are small tube-like pasta pieces. In Italian they are called cornetti.

Oven baked casseroles are probably a bit out of style these days and I only made it because my brother who was over for dinner asked me to.
You can easily prepare the dish in the morning and keep it in the fridge. My recipe is from Betty Bossi with some extra vegetables thrown in.
First cook 300g Hörnli pasta for about half the time that’s indicated on the package. The rest of the cooking will be done in the oven later.

Dice 2-3 carrots.

1 onion and clove of garlic each.

A handful of button mushrooms.

Add 100g diced ham, 100g grated cheese (I used Gruyère) and mix these with all of the veggies and the Hörnli.

For the liquid mix that goes on top scramble 4dl milk and 3dl cream with 4 eggs. Season with salt and pepper.
Pour over the Hörnli and put the casserole in the oven at 180-200 degrees Celsius until it forms a golden crust.

It tasted lovely! Even though I later realized I forgot to put in the eggs. And this morning I realized, not only did I forget to put in the eggs, I also forgot to publish my blogpost. So here it is, a couple of hours late while I am already mulling over which recipe to do today.I have a suspicion it won’t be macarons…

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Dinner/Lunch/Savoury

cornets/Hörnli/oven bake

Mar

Fennelicious

I expected my new macaron kit to be delivered today. It wasn’t. And I had to look for an alternative recipe.
At the weekend I bought a mortar and pestle so I decided to crush some caraway seeds (1 tablespoon) and white peppercorns (1 teaspoon) for a fennel salad dressing.

Add some sea salt and a teaspoon of honey.

Add 2 tablespoons of oil (I chose rapeseed oil), 3-4 tablespoons of vinegar (I used apple vinegar) and a teaspoon of mustard.

Slice your fennel very thinly. I used a kitchen gadget that is very common in Swiss households. A Börner slicer. I think it was the first thing my parents bought me for my first flat. It is a brilliant gadget but should come with a health warning because it is hellishly sharp. When using it you really have to watch not to slice off half your finger!

Mix the fennel with the caraway seed dressing and leave to infuse for a while. Fennelicious!

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Savoury/Side dish/Starter

caraway seeds/fennel

Mar

Birdseed Bar: the Sequel

Today I was looking for a recipe that would help me get rid of some leftover bits and pieces such as seeds, dried fruit and oats.
I chose a recipe from the bbcgoodfood website for a seeds and apricot bar. As I did not have any apricots I substituted them with dried pear and dried plums.
The stuff that should hold the bar together is not honey as in the first birdseed bar I made but sugar (140g), golden syrup (3 tablespoons) and butter (also 140g).

Slowly melt the sugar, butter and syrup.
In the meantime put all of the other ingredients in a bowl.
250g oats.

50g raisins.

50g mixed seeds (I used sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and linseed).

85g roughly chopped walnuts, 40g chopped dried pear and 40g chopped dried plums.

It almost looks like muesli.

Add the bubbling sugar-syrup-butter mix.

Mix well.

Press the mix into a baking tray until about 1.5 – 2cm thick and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes at 140 degrees Celsius.

You have to let the whole thing cool down before cutting it.

I will do that tomorrow and post an update because now I need some sleep!
Update: they taste delicious if a tad sweet. I cut the slab into squares rather than bars to make smaller pieces.

12 years ago Short URL Comments

Snack

bar/golden syrup/oats/seeds

Mar

Asian Asparagus Salad

Today I wanted a light dinner and chose a green asparagus salad with a sesame oil dressing. I love the taste of sesame oil, particularly in combination with rice vinegar.
First cut and steam 500g green asparagus.

For the dressing mix 1 tablespoon sesame oil, 1 tablespoon rapeseed oil, 2 tablespoons rice vinegar and 2 tablespoons of another mild vinegar (apple vinegar for example).

Add 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds and if you like its taste, add 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce as well.

I had 3 boiled potatoes left from my Röschti and I chopped and added those, too. Then season with pepper, salt and asian spices (I used a Thai curry mix).