about pumpkin oil and other important things

Just a little bit spoiled
I have to admit that I got a little bit spoiled the last two weeks; the food in India is just so great, and even if my colleagues got slightly tired of it, I was eating it happily until the end. Only when I came back to Europe, I realised how much I wanted something lighter and with less curry. And the tradition of good food continued also in the last part of the trip where I tried Ethiopian food for the first time (oh how good it was) and also some really delicious fish dishes. So one reason not to write anything for the blog is that I have been on a little culinary discovery trip...

Indian lunch - this time with pancakes

So after some time at hotels and restaurants, there are both good and bad things with being back home... The good things would include the possibility to cook, while the bad things could for example be that I have to clean my room and also serve my self the juice...And most of the time, there is only one type of juice in my fridge and not even freshly pressed...hehe

Anyway, after eating more or less the same every day for 10 days with lots of spices, I’m quite happy to enjoy some simple and light food. Since, I’m back I’m having salad and beans every day.

Steamed vegetables with pumpkin oil

Tonight, I made something really simple, but oh so good; steamed broccoli and corny flower with pumpkin oil. I learnt it at the first cooking course where we had it with the fish. Today I ate it with couscous, red onion tomato salad, some black beans and pumpkin seeds. Very nice!

As probably obvious from the name, this is something very simple to prepare. Just steam the vegetables until they are crispy, and serve them with pumpkin oil mixed with balsam vinegar (2 spoons of pumpkin oil for 1 spoon of balsam vinegar) and some salt and pepper.

Same same but different…

Of course it is impossible to fail something this simple, but I did notice some important improvement between this time and last. Tonight, I used very good quality pumpkin oil and what a difference it made! Last time, I didn’t like it so much, and after today I understand that it was the pumpkin oil that was not that good. The conclusion would therefor be that the secret is to use good oil.

The good pumpkin oil with it's friend balsam vinegar

In India I bought some really nice long black pepper at a local market. It had a really interesting flavor, somewhat a round taste - not so strong. I also like their shape and I remember the friendly man at the market selling it

Mysore Devaraja market.Unfortunately I didn't make a photo with the kind man selling the pepper, but this is how nice the market was.

baked fennel with Parmesan

I keep promising to post the receipts that I like from my cooking course.. so tonight it's about fennel. If you would have asked me if I liked fennel just a couple of month ago, I would quite surely had answered that I don't know.

I guess fennel belongs to a forgotten group of vegetables. When I bought it in Sweden, the guy in the supermarket couldn't find the price-code for it, and he even told me: it such a rare case that somebody buys this...:)

Anyway, there is a very simple way of preparing fennel, and it's really delicious. So far I served it together with the salmon that I wrote about in another blog post. Maybe someone has some other ideas on what else it could fit with?


Baked fennel with Parmesan

What you need
2 fennel heads, salt and pepper, Parmesan and some olive oil.

How to make it
Wash the fennel, cut the heads in half and remove the middle part. Slice them thickly and sprinkle with some olive oil. Cover with aluminum folio, and bake it until soft in medium hot oven. Add the Parmesan and bake for another 5 minutes.

Serve immediately and enjoy!!!!

aubergine avec amour

The last evening at my parents place for this time was a very nice one. We were cooking together at home and I really enjoyed the company of my mother, father and Edith Piaf very much.

We prepared stuffed aubergine, it was again something I had learnt at my cooking course. I guess most people already know how to prepare stuffed aubergine but there is one secret ingredient to add which makes the whole difference; grinded almonds. It absorbs the liquid from the vegetables and gives a round complete taste. Delicious!

The recipe below is good for approximately 3 people. The filling can of course be what you have at home, but the little trick is to not forget the almond, the love and attention..

Ingredients
2 aubergines, Olive oil, onion, little garlic, 2 tomatoes, 1 paprika or red pepper, 10 mushrooms, 5 grinded almonds and 100 gr fresh (green cheese) / seasoned (mature) ovine cheese or goat cheese, fresh parsley, salt and pepper.

How to make it
It's actually very easy to prepare, and I guess impossible or at least hard to fail. Cut the ends of the aubergines, and divide them into two. Scrap out the pulp with a spoon and cut it into small pieces. Cut also all the other ingredients into small cubes and fry it together a little bit. Start with the onion and add the other ingredients little by little. Paprika takes a while to make soft so it should go second when the onion are golden soft. Add the grinded almond, and the salt and pepper according to your taste and as much love and attention as possible. Put the mixture in the scraped aubergines. Bake it in the owen for approximately 25 minutes in 200 degrees. Ready!

Enjoy!!

Again the importance of love and attention
I think I said it in another blog post, but it cannot hurt to repeat that love, attention and good ingredients would be the basic for cooking, and the rest comes with practice. Cooking at home, I imitated a bit a TV-cook; I made sure to have enough time to prepared everything in advance - washing, cutting and measuring. Great fun! The difference is in the details. And eating it with love and attention will help to make even the simplest dish delicious; to enjoy the taste and the structure of the food consciously and to fully appreciate the company around the table. Again the difference is surely in the details.

And Edith contributed for sure to the harmonic atmosphere by filling the kitchen with her beautiful voice. And a little bit of dancing in the kitchen added to the happiness and love even if it likely did decreased a little bit of attention to the cooking...:)

La Vie En Rose..

sauteed apples better than appels cooked in butter

Sauteed apples is one of the ingredients in a new recipe for cakes that I just learnt to make. It sounds quite sophisticated, right?? It also sounds French and it's not a secret that I'm fascinated by all that is French. Actually before moving to France I kind of thought that everything was good there, and to me it sounded like everybody speaking French is really intelligent (hehe, actually it still does to me.. :) Now I know that not ALL is good and great there, and also not all French people are very clever, but I keep my fascination and still think that everything can get little improved by adding something French :) :) If so only the name...

Sauteed apples would normally have scared me a bit, but with the new inspiration from the cooking course, I was happy to give it a try. And, after a quick search on Internet I realised that it is very easy to prepare. I tried several versions, each time little different but still very good. One good piece of advice would be to choose sweet apples, and then not adding any sugar (or only very little).

Sauteed apples

1/4 cup butter
4 apples
2 teaspoon corn stand
1/2 cup cold water
some brown sugar (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

How to make it..
Melt the butter, cut the apples in pieces and add them to the butter. Stir until tender (approximately 5 min). Dissolve the flour in the water and add it together with (the sugar) and the cinnamon. Stir while it's cooking together for a couple of minutes

Ready..

Other versions..
In some other recipes, they also included apple cider, honey, juice from a half lemon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. I tried different versions, and it's hard to tell which one is best. Already the simple one was really good. It is melting in your mouth and if there is not too much sugar it still keeps the fresh taste.

So it sounds sophisticated but it's really basic to make. Maybe sauteed apples is a very good illustration of how everything gets improved adding some French to it. I mean, apple cooked in butter sounds already less appetizing...

Sauteed apples is delicious warm or cold, on it's own, with chocolate, with banana split, for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner or in between...:) You see I tried it all...


Dessert for Sunday brunch... Bananasplit with sauteed apples

Stuffed Salmon Fillet with Creamed Avocado

So, as promised in the last blog post Angelic cooking, I'll post the receipts so that you can also try! First one will be the Stuffed Salmon Fillet with Creamed Avocado. It was really really tasty and not difficult at all. Some of the photos repeat from the previous post as I'm speaking about the same yummie stuff. The receipt should be for 6 people.


Ingredients:
350 g white fish
150-200 g ground, skinned almonds
100 cream cheese (philadelphia or similar)
juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
1tbsp. chopped fresh parsley and chives
4 tbsp. light olive oil
2 5 inch pieces of salmon fillets
1 leek
salt, pepper

For the creamed avocado:
1 large avocado
salt, pepper, lemon juice
100 cream cheese
1 glove pressed garlic


How to make the fish:
Puré the white fish with the ground almonds, cream cheese, lemon grind and juice, green herbs, salt and pepper and 2 tbsp of olive oil. Season the salmon fillets and sandwich them together with the white fish mixture. Cut long strings from the leak and use them to tie the fish parcel together. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil on top and bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes.

Take out the bones in the salmon fillet with a pair of tweezers - one of the small little tips I learnt at my cooking course...:)

..and how to make the avocado cream
Skin the avocado and discard the pip. Mix the flesh with salt, pepper, a little lemon juice, garlic and cream cheese. Serve with the fish.

Enjoy!!! It's really really yummie - trust me!!



We ate it with Green bean salad and baked Fennel with Parmesan. I'll post these receipts little later

and if you have some filo pastry at home, you can easily prepare the little bags we made with the left overs of the white fish. They looked quite pretty, and it was sooo tasty!

Angelic cooking

I admire people who knows how to cook well.

A very good friend once told me that love is one of the most important ingredients when cooking. I totally agree, love and attention is absolutely needed to succeed in the kitchen. This also goes very well with what I'm currently learning with the yoga; to be present in the present and to enjoy what you are doing in the moment.

Angelic cooking course
I have realised how good food is very important to feel good. It helps to stay healthy and it is also so great to enjoy a good dinner together with friends. I have the love and attention to put into my cooking but I thought it could be also useful to get some inspiration and useful tips for cooking. So, I signed up for a reform cooking course. It's always so nice to learn new things, and to learn something useful and tasty which even looks nice is even better.

The very best thing with the course is that I get inspiration for every day cooking and I again found the great pleasure of cooking! Finally it is actually not that hard to prepare good healthy food and it is relaxing to take the time to eat at home.


We only cook vegetarian dishes, including fish which suits me perfectly. The teacher is really great and I feel so inspired every time! She gives us tips on cooking and also where we can find ingredients in Budapest.

Small useful tips on how the best way to get out the bones from Salmon fillets

The menu is very varied and yesterday we learnt to make:

• Stuffed salmon Fillet with Creamed Avocado
• Green bean salad
• Baked Fennel with Parmesan
• Florentine
• Christmas Chutney
• Spicy Christmas Cookies
• Mini Filo Baskets with dried Fruits Filling

Grean beans, stuffed salmon, Fennel and Avocado cream - yummie yummie!

Creative cooking
She makes us discover new things, and her attitude to cooking is very relaxed and creative. Also the most simply things becomes really tasty. She is not a slave under receipts but flexible and a really good attitude to food! It is more about take what you have, but make sure to have quality products at home. Yesterday we also made some kind of "bags" as the we had some fish filling left over from the fish dish and the filo pastry - so very tasty and also pretty!

what a simple but good idea: tasty bags with fish filling

Not only cooking but also learning Hungarian
It is also a good practice in Hungarian. The teacher speaks good English but as I'm the only foreigner, she explains everything in Hungarian and translates some parts for me. Maybe I miss a few things, but I don't mind at all. I also understand while we are cooking and I learn both how to cook and some Hungarian at the same time.. :) I get the receipts English and in Hungarian which has the good advantage that I can bring it to the market while doing my shopping and easily get exactly what I need.

Enjoying all tasty things we prepared

When I tell people that I attend a cooking course the reactions are different, but always positive. And, I guess I don't have to tell that I really suggest to attend a cooking course!

Later I'll post the receipts here on the blog to share some culinary inspiration

Vera's cake - a serbian pleasure

India was a great source of inspiration, and I also got some nice ideas for blogging that I hope to share here little by little later on. But first, as not all of you are lucky enough to have dinner with Vera once in a while, I want to share a recipe of a very delicious cake so that you can also try it. I'm positive you will also love it!

Yesterday I went to an African dinner with specialties from Uganda. It was a very nice evening, and in addition to the great pleasure of meeting friends again, I also discovered how tasty a mix of peanuts, cabbage and tomatoes can be, and I finally learnt to make the famous Serbian Vera-cake.

The cake is just amazing, so I will share the receipt here. All credits to Vera, a real expert in preparing this cake and who also composed the detailed description below on how to make it.

the famous Vera-cake

Vera's Cake!
2 cups of flour mix with 1 BIG spoon of soda bikarbona (NaHCO3;) and 3 BIG spoons of cacao.
add 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of sunflower oil and 2 cups of yogurt.
mix with wooden spoon, put in baking pan which is covered by oil and a bit of flour.
bake ~30 min on 200C, carefully! it should be soft, and separate from walls of pan.

mmmm CREAM
cook 10 BIG spoons of sugar and 10 BIG spoons of water till boiling.
move the pot from fire.
add 125 g of margarine,
when it is melted put 100 g of dark cooking chocolate and 150 g of coconuts.

hot CREAM should go over HOT cake!

cool it, cut and share with family and friends :D

Cultural adjustment
This cake was the last dessert I had before leaving and the first one when I came back, so even if it is not exactly in line with the suger-free diet that I'm doing, maybe it can be justified as cultural-adjustment assistance or jet-lag cure. This explanation is also quite convenient as I will be traveling a bit more in the near future, I may need such adjustment support :) And as I feel all fine, I make the conclusion that it did work well so far..:)