Fettucine with sundried tomatoes, parsley and shaved parmigiano

I was at the shop and a guy was buying before me parsley and a coke. Funny thing was that I rarely buy parsley, but I like it. I also had this great fetticine pasta and a ton of sun dried tomatoes from Rome, so it was time to put 2 and 2 together.
You get a simple, fast pasta dish that is suprisingly light.

Yes, light.

And the recipe is very basic. Add a tablespoon of salt to a pot of boiling water, add a drizzle of olive oil and cook pasta acording to package. Drain and dice dried tomatoes, chop roughly half a bunch of flat leaved parsley and shred some hard italian cheese like parmigiano. Drain the pasta, place in a pasta dish, sprinkle over with the tomatoes and parsley, add some  olive oil  over it, season with fresh cracked black pepper and top with the cheese. Serve!

Additional info: If you buy dried tomatoes, they are usually quite salty in the beginning. To make the taste bearable, try soaking in olive oil, and gradually change the oil or water out. This also works with capers.

Healthy Stealthy Breakfast

When you want to have a gluten free breakfast, it's good to remember, that you should eat some oats, yoghurt, white cheese (if you are lactose intolerant like I am), a portion of fresh veggies, like cucmber, tomatoes, or some lettuce, and if you're a meat eater, some cold cuts or ham. I had delicious italian ham leftover from Christmas, so basicaly that's my meal. And, if you want more flavour to the cheese, sprinkle some chili cayenne, and on the side, sprinkle a mix of your favorite dried herbs (basil and tarragon for me!) pour some good quality olive ol over it to refresh the taste of them. Then you can mix your cheese in the oil herbs and it's delicious. I was actually well fed for most of the day with this small plate. If you feel that this is not enough, have a soft boiled egg too.
YUM!

Herbed toasts

Serve these gorgeous bits with a thick soup for that extra ooompf:) Sadly, too easy to make, but only with the help of an oven....
Sorry guys without ovens :)

 Get ur choppers out, and a baguatte that can be a day old.
As for the ingredients, you'll be needing:

• 15 thin slices crusty baguette
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp dried parsley or oregano
• 1/2 tbsp garlic salt or granulated garlic

Heat up the broiler on your oven. Prep a baking tray with tin foil, and set aside. In a small bowl, mash together the ingredients with a fork, until mixed well. Smear the bread sliced with the butter paste and place on the tray. Broil for 5-10min and serve warm, not hot!

Boeuf Bourginion

I got a Le Creuset pan and I'm proud of it. And I wanted to make straight away this recipe. I will not repeat the full name, just call it "beef" , well, because I can.

First time, our friend Magali invited us over for this treat I have to say I was dissapointed. A stew? Come on. Then I tried it. Then the magic happened.
I will tell you no more, except that this is not her recipe, but it still gives off the magic of a slowly cooked meat in wine, tomatoes, and beef broth.
And the magic gets done somewhere in the oven, when the tastes frolic together. I adore it, and I will definitly advise everybody to get a cast iron saucepan with lid to make just this recipe. Go get one now if you haven't got one. Shoo!

Type of dish: main, stew
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 5
Time: 3h
Prep time: 30 min
Baking time: 2,5h
Oven temp: 160C


You'll need:
a cutting board, a sharp knife, a large frying pan, spatula, bottle opener, a cup, teaspoon, cast iron pan at least 20cm diameter with lid.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg cut beef for stew (it's diced)
• 1/2 kg mushrooms, cut in 4
• 1 can tomatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 1 bay leaf
• few fresh sprigs of thyme
• few sprigs of fresh parsley
• fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 bottle red table wine ( medium dry or dry)
• 1 cube beef stock, or 250ml beef broth, unsalted
• 500gr  short pasta (macaroni, penne, fusili), or rice
• olive oil

 Preheat oven to 150C. Heat the frying pan, drizzle olve oil heartily over the pan, wait for it to sizzle, then pop in the mushrooms. fry them up a bit, until they brown evenly. Transfer them to the pot. Saute the onions and carrots for 5 min, transfer them to the pot. Next, add more olive oil, and add the beef to the pan. We need to brown it on all sides before we add it to the pot. While cooking the beef, add the bay leaf, thyme, black pepper, can of tomatoes, beef stock to the pot and stir around so the flavours integrate. Open the wine, and once the beef is done, throw it in the pot, and pour the wine in the frying pan, heating and scraping the bottom of the pan, to get the goody stuff in the sauce. Once the wine has reduced by half, pour it in the pot, try to stir it up a bit, cover up with the lid and put in the oven for 2,5 h. No need to check the pot in the meantime, so clean up and relax. After 2,5 hours, check if the beef and carrots have incorporated most of the liquid, and the leftover liquid is more stewish. If so, remove the pot, cook some pasta al dente and serve with a hearty serving of the beef. Garnish with freshly chopped basil leaves ,or chopped thyme.
Serve!

Baked mushrooms- Crowd pleaser

We had a BBQ a while ago and I wanted to make some sides and salads as everyone else was bringing on the meat and wine. I had a few salads in mind but I got super cute mushrooms and just had to make something with them. While the stove was occupied on all four tops I had only the oven to make something. So I had them baked, and they came out delicious! Seriously, it was the first thing that disappeared from the table. To me, that's a sign that something is GOOD.
Deliciously easy. Make it for any potluck or party or for dinner. GUSH.

Type of dish: side, salad
Cost: cheap
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-8
Time: 25min
Preparation time: 5 min
Baking time: 20 min
Oven temp: 180 C

You'll need:
a shallow baking dish, knife, cutting board, spoon, oven

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• mushrooms ( as much as you want)
• butter
• 4-5 garlic cloves, finely minced or crushed
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley, finely chopped
• addional: 1/2 glass of dry white wine
• S&P

Go at heat the oven, chop up the larger mushrooms in 4, leave the smaller ones whole. Drizzle olive oil all over them,add the garlic, parsley, s&p, mix it over nicely and lay on small chunks of the butter over the 'shrooms. If you want the wine version, pour in the wine just before you put it in the oven. I swear to you, this is delicious. Now pop it in the oven for 20 min, just come back in 10 min to mix them so they brown evenly. After that they're ready to serve!
Serve with a fresh baguette to soak up the sauce. I'm hungry again:/

Potato pie with veggies

I usually don't do pies, because even though they look nice, they usually don't taste that great. I did this one because potatoes are cheap, I had veggies that I had to use or else I would forget about them, and I did have some odd pieces of meat (bacon, ham, some sausage). But you can make this meat- free, and it still tastes good.
A plus- if you make  or have too much mashed potatoes leftover, store them in the frigde and make the next day wonderful, fluffy and light gnocchi
There is a lot of peeling involved, some cutting, some mashing action, grating too, and in general, there should be a light gravy sauce to make this pie perrrfect.
Purr.
:)

Type of dish: main, pie
Difficulty: easy
Cost: cheap
Serves: 4
Time: 1,5h
Prep time: 45 min
Baking time: 45 min
Oven temp: 180C

You'll need:
peeler, cutting board, sharp knife, large frying pan, a large saucepan with lid, a deep round baking dish, spatula, masher, big mixing bowl, grater, spoon

Ingredients:

• vegetables of your choice (carrots, brocoli, parsnip, turnip, leek, peas, onions, cauliflower)
• meat of your choice ( bacon, ham, cold meat, leftovers, sausage)
• 40gr grated hard cheese like parmesan or pecorino
• 0,5 kg potatos, peeled and cubed (cooks faster)
• olive oil
• Cheese grated (edam, gouda, doesn't matter)
• 1 tbsp flour or breadcrumbs
• 1 egg and 1 yolk
• S&P
• nutmeg
• 2 tbsp butter
• herbs like thyme, basil, parsley,

How to you do? How to do:
Heat a pot  of water with the potatoes, salt a teaspoon, and cook 15-20 min. When the water boils, turn down heat to medium high and let it simmer. When the potato cubes are soft, you can pierce them easily with a fork, drain and transfer them to the bowl. Mash them up, adding butter, nutmeg and cheese as you go. When the potatoes aren't so hot anymore, add the eggs and mash more. Set aside.
Peel the veggies you'll use, and slice them. Cut up the meat. Cut up some fresh herbs.
Heat up the frying pan on hig meat, drizzle some olive oil and throw in the vegetables and fry them up, so they won't be as hard. Start by the harder vegetables, like carrots, parsnip, turnip, adding later cauliflower, brocoli florets and onions and leek at the end. At the very end, add the meat to heat it up a bit. Then remove from heat and when it cools down a bit, add the grated yellow cheese.
Heat your oven to 180C. Take the baking dish, smear some olive oil on the sides and bottom. Sift some flour or breadcrumbs on the inside surface. Take the cooled mashed potatoes and start covering the insides. Make  the crust at least around 1 cm thick. You should have some leftover mashed potatoes, roll them into logs and flatten out to 0,5cm.
In the midle toss the veggies from the frying pan, and cover the sides with the flattened logs. Drizzle a bit of olive oil on your finger and gently cover the rim with the oil. Sprinkle the herbs on top of the veggies and put in the oven for about 45 min. When the top starts turning golden brown, it's time to turn off the oven, and serve,

Baked crusty salmon with fresh dill sauce

I like salmon. At least I'm beggining to like it. I'm not big on fish. But anything that has a crispy crust, without a smelly interior, plus a great tasting sauce like a fresh dill sauce makes my day. Or evening. I prepared this with nice looking rice with peas and cumin seeds, but finally it would work better with plain rice, as the cumin is very fragrant and dominated the salmon. ( what?!)
When you buy ready fillet salmon, try to get the wider fillets. The smaller ones, which are more traingular in shape, are from the tail section of the fish, and have tougher meat. The wider, middle section is much more tender.

The salad is a nice addition to the salmon, and it very easy to make, just slice diagonally the cucumber with the skin on, add some fresh chopped dill and a bit of red bell pepper for color, and season with S&P plus some lemon juice with olive oil. Et voila!
PS. if you make this for a romantic dinner, skip the garlic.

Now get the salmon and sauce crackin'

Type of dish: main

Cost: medium

Difficulty: easy

Time: 40-50 min

Serves: 2

Preparation time: 15min

Baking Time: 20-30 min

Oven temp: 190C

You'll need:

a blender, paper towels, tablespoon, cutting board, sharp knife,baking dish for the salmon, tin foil,  gravy boat, small laddle, plates to serve

Ingredients: 

For the sauce:

• fresh dill
• 1 cup natural sugar free yoghurt
• 1 tbsp mayonaise
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 squeeze lemon juice
• 1 tbsp pepper 
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp dried or fresh parsley
• 1 tbsp dried oregano

For the salmon:

• 1 salmon fillet
• S&P
• Olive oil
• Lemon slices

Extremely hard to make. 

Preheat your oven. Pour olive oil in the baking dish and spread it around. Wash your fillet in cold water, and pat dry with paper towels and put in the baking tray skin side down. Rub a bit of oil on top of the fish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay enough lemon slices on top to fairly cover it up. Cover with tin foil and pop in the oven for 20 min with the foil on, then take off the foil and remove the lemons and bake for 5 min more. Turn on the broiler for the last 5 minutes for a nice crispy crust.

Fish is done. You can cut it in half and serve. If the skin sticks to the baking dish, don't worry, you weren't going to eat it anyway.

Sauce: 

Put all the ingredients in the blender and pulse until you have a nice green sauce with specs of dill. Pour in a gravy boat and keep in fridge until fish is ready.

How to serve:

If serving fish with rice, place fillet gently over bed of rice or next to it, and pour some dill sauce over it.

Addtional info:

The sauce is great as a dip sauce for croutons or pita.

Tender pork sirloin in red wine vinegar marinade

I cruise on the internet, I don't surf. I had a pork sirloin in the fridge, that I was going to make anyway with mashed potatoes and peas. For an uncomplicated dinner, but I wanted something better. And I came across the Pork Mommy, who made this with pan sauce. I dodn't bother with the pan sauce, although I could, but mainly I went with the recipe becuase T said he would be gone longer and dinner time was moved. So I had more time to do fun stuff, like pour in random liquids, plop in the meat and forget about it for a few hours.

The marinade is really vinegarrry- and your eyes may burn and pop out of your sockets, so I halved the quantities, as I was using only half of the sirloin anyway.
But it makes the meat really tender ( probably the lemon juice), and half cooked before you start frying it up. And it does make a delicous sauce, especially if you ignore either recipe and go for adding cream to the marinade for a sauce.


Suprise, it's easy.
Make his for saturday dinner, making the marinade in the morning.

Type of dish: main, meat
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2
Time: 45 min
Preparation time: 10 min
Frying time: 6 min
Baking time: 30-40 min
Oven temp: 180C

You will need:
cutting board, sharp knife, tablespoon, paper towels, a medium bowl, a medium baking tray, tin foil, a frying pan, tongs, cup



Ingredients:

• 1 pork sirloin
• 1/4 cup oilve oil
• 5 tbsp soy sauce
• 5 tbsp red wine vinegar
• juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 1 bunch parsley, chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Wash your sirloin, and cut off the silverish pieces so your diners won't make weird faces while eating. Pat it dry with paper towels and cut into medallions, 3-4 cm thick for faster cooking and more flavour.
Mix all other ingredients in a bowl, it'll have a nice lot of oily pearls on the surface, put your medallions in the marinade and set aside. Come back after an hour to turn the meat in the marinade if the liquid level is lower then the meat.
Give it best 2-3 hours to marinate, and once it's done, preheat your oven, and heat up a frying pan on high heat. Get the pan really hot before you put your meat on it- we want to seal the moist inside the meat so when we bake it, the meat doesn't dry out. And becuase you have medallions, it's easier to fry than a whole sirloin, trust me.
Fry on each side 3-4 mins, pop back in the marinade, cover with tin foil, shiny side down and put in the oven for at least 30 min.
During this time you can either cook and mash your own potatoes or use ready made puree or whatever else you want to serve this with. Rice is a nice option too.
Before serving, you can reduce the remaining marinade using the frying pan and add during this process, add a knob of butter for a richer flavour or go all the way by mixing it with 2 tbsp of cream.
Pour over the medallions and serve.

Minestrone soup- the good stuff

Ok. I will confess. I hated thinking about minestrone soup. It was a memory of a taste of pure hell, along with a particularily bad memory of some breakfast oatmeal with grits, warm apple slices and cold bananas topped with a shitload of honey. Memories from childhood can be a tragic blocker for kids or grown ups, to eat regular food without the terror coming back in the form of brussel sprouts.  And while I think everybody may have a dislike or distaste for certain things, thanks to some shitty granny or any other stupid grown-up, who force-fed us with "healthy" food, I know how hard it is to overcome this fear later as a grown up. So, forgive me for writing a "healing" post:)

I still haven't completely overcome my fear of certain foods, but I think I'm doing pretty well, considered the amount of trauma I had going on, for like, a long time.
Minestrone soup always brings to mind those nice holiday trips to Bulgaria or Croatia, camping out by the sea, and cooking that god-awful soup out of a bag. It was REALLY  DISGUSTING.
Whenever I'm in a store and I see this one on a shelf, I turn around and run. Looks quite weird. If you ever see somebody doing that in the ready-made soup aisle of a store, you just lost a chance to meet me:)
But, as I'm a sucker for making things at home, making them easy, as you may have noticed, and I know I'm a badass, but I try to give things and people a second chance. Hence my trial with this soup.

I'll tell you how to undo a terrible mind process like hating a specific thing. Food, of course, I'm not a shrink.
Either you hate the whole dish, or you hate just a piece of it, like fish. In a fish main course. Then it's hard to undo it, but still managable. Start out with shrimps:)
If you, or your loved one hates the whole dish, it's good to go through the ingredients. Like looking under the bed or checking the closet for monsters. You see there is nothing to be afraid of. Are you afraid of a can of tomatoes? Or a handful of pasta? Or, maybe you're terrified of broth? Baby spinach? Seriously, baby spinach can't hurt anybody. It's a baby, right? And it's cute. That helps.
So, now we see that the soup/thing is not that scary, you're in control, you're an adult and you know your worth. You rule!
Second option- you don't like broccoli? Oh, you poor thing, thank god we don't have to add it to absolutly everything:) Just take it out of the recipe and subsitute for something else. Green beans are usually stress-free. Hopefully.
Life gets real easy, if somebody just took the time to tell us those things before.

Ok, enough pschology for free. Time for a recipe!

Type of dish: soup, main
Cost: cheap
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2-4
Time: 15 min
Preparation time: 5 min
Cooking time: 10 min

You'll need:
a medium saucepan with lid, a teaspoon, a ladle, bowls

Ingredients:

• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can chickpeas
• 1 cups baby spinach
• 1/2 a yellow bell pepper, diced
• 2 cups water
• 1 cube vegetable broth or chicken stock
• 1 cup dry penne or rigatoni pasta
• 1 tsp dried basil or 1 tbsp fresh chopped
• 1 tsp garlic powder 
• for garnish fresh shaved parmesan and a few basil leaves
• optional- half a onion, thinly sliced, or a handfull of green beans
• S&P
• squeeze of lemon juice, pinch of sugar

Drain the chickpeas, rinse them, drain again. Mix all the ingredients in the saucepan, apart from the spinach and S&P , and heat on high heat till it boils. Turn down the heat to medium low and cook covered for 10 min, until pasta is cooked. Add the spinach and mix so it wilts, then taste and season. Spoon in bowls and top with parmesan shavings and fresh basil leaves for extra flavour.

This is nothing like the packet soup, and thank god for that!

Additional info: You can serve this with croutons.

Beef steak vs 2 "french style"

I'm commited to beef if you haven't noticed yet. It's a long process but I'll get there.
This one came out as an atempt to bring back a flavour of a sauce T. once had with his beef in Il Sole. Turns out they don't serve it anymore, woohoo, too bad. For them. Basicaly, the sauce had an amazing amount of tarragon, to which I am a slave. It's a strong, nice smelly herb that I use sometimes with a certain salad you will read about soon. Smelly in a good way, I mean. It's not that rich, I mean it's good but not fat, and I had it with a salad. Yes, green salad with nothing but olive oil and lemon juice. Disgusting.  So be more french than I was, and serve please with cooked, blanched green beans with either olive oil or melted butter. And for God's sake, use salt. I beg you.

Type of dish: main
Cost: medium, expensive
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2
Time: 40 min
Preparation time: 5 min
Marinating time: 10 min
Frying time: 10 min at most


You'll need:
a cutting board, a mallet ( meat beater, tenderizer), a kitchen cloth ( to put under the cutting board), a piece of cling film, paper towels, a medium bowl, 1 teaspoon, a grill pan with a heat proof handle, spatula

Ingredient:

• 400 gram beef steak
• 3 tbsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp dried crushed tarragon
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• S&P
• Green beans, cooked, or green salad with vinaigrette.

Do it:
Prep your board- put a cloth underneath. Wash the meat under cold water, pat dry with the paper towels. Cut your meat in two slices 2-3 cm thick if your butcher hasn't done that for you. Cover the meat with cling film on one side and beat it like a lady (gently) with the mallet so it flattens out a bit. We don't want it schnitzel thin, just 1,5 cm thin. Beat both pieces of meat and set aside. In a bowl mix together the oilive oil, mustard, tarragon and add a pinch of S&P. Mix well and put in the meat, and try to coat well  with the mustard mixture. Set this aside for at least 10 min, best overnight and clean up your mess. Well aren't I an Anthea T. :P
Before frying your meat- if you put it in the fridge, take it out about 15 min before frying. This way it will cook faster.
Heat up on high heat your pan, and when very hot, turn down to medium high and put on the meat. Fry however long you want it to on one side ( from well done to rare, it's usually 2-3 min for rare, and 3-6 for a well done steak).Try to spoon out as much as you can of the marinade on top of the cooking meat. After cooked to your likes, set aside on cutting board for at least 2-3 min so it "sets", then serve.

Serve with the salad or green beans.

Stuffed peppers/ bolognese sauce

Stuff anything you want, just make a hole first. So stuff tomatoes, bell peppers, baby aubergines, zuccini, whatever you like.
I'd use red pepper because I like the colour but I used yellow because I like their colour too and I really don't care.
This is great to make after making lasagne the day/two days before.
Because you have a sauce you don't have to make anymore.
But if you didn't make the lasagne before, no worries, I will tell you the ultimate high-top-level-red-code-secret.
I'm really nice today:)

Situation one: make the sauce:
get some ground meat. Beef, pork the mixed version. Fry it with a medium diced onion and 3 minced garlic cloves. When meat is brown, onion gold, add a can of chopped tomatoes, some S&P, lemon juice, basil, oregano, thyme, mix it up, medium heat till it's reduced by half.

Situation two: make the stuffing:
Cook a bag of rice. Whatever kind you have, plain is best. Cook according to package, drain, empty in a medium bowl. Add to the bowl the sauce. Mix well. Let it cool.

Heat your oven to 180C.

This "recipe" goes for 4 portions. Get 4 medium bell peppers in your desired colour. Maybe green?
Cut off the top of the peppers, where the stem is. you should make something like a lid. With a stem. Cut out the white parts and seeds from inside. Prepare a high baking dish, but small enough to fit your peppers standing. Get some hot broth in a bowl, and some tomato paste or concentrate. And sugar and lemon. Love it. Mix it.
Okay, back to the peppers. Fill each of them with the rice mixture, and pop on top the lid. Put them in the baking dish, pour in the basic tomato soup you made from the stock and paste.
Put the dish in the oven and forget about it for the next 30-40 min. Then bring it out and enjoy.

Version 2:
Make it without the bolognese sauce:
get the meat, onions, garlic, herbs and seasoning, plus half a cup of breadcrumbs. Add some olive oil to a bowl, add the former, mix well. You'll have meat similar to the patties for hambugers. This meat, put in the peppers, and proceed the same way. Put in the baking dish, just add instead of the soup mixture, a can of chopped tomatoes with herbs and seasoning. Bake in the same temperature, just longer, because the meat is still raw. So this might take even 1,5 hour to bake.

Take your pick!

Lasagne by Garfield

As a kid I would watch the first cartoons with Garfield, but I don't remember much of them. Then, I found the comic books with strips from various years, translated to polish. That was cool. Then, when we got the iPad, we found an app that has every comic strip from Garfield since the very beginning. Now that's what I'm talking about.

Throughout all those years of drawing a fat mean cat and his owner, one thing was sure: that cat loved food. Let's call him a foodini. So his nightly trips to the fridge to say hi to to food are normal. His stealing Jon's food by switching plates- is classic. And his ability to walk through a fresh lasagne is just marvelous. That way nobody want's to eat the lasagne anymore.
Pure genius. But this means Jon can really cook :)
And so, the lasagne.
The first one I made was disgusting. I tried one spoon and it went in the bin.
Second time I decided to experiment a bit around. The problem with lasagne recipes is, that you don't know which one to follow, because you have/don't have all the ingredients. Most famous lasagne recipes comes from the USA, where they get sweet pork italian sausage, whick I can't find here. And mozzarella which is pre-cut and is square-ish. Which mozzarella ever was made square? Americans, I don't get your logic sometimes.
Then there are varieties in recipes from Italy, USA, UK, Poland: beschamel sauce, slices of mozzarella or shredded mozzarella, cottage cheese, or ricotta cheese, parmesan, or yellow gouda
 ( seriously).
Cook the pasta, don't cook the pasta. Go F*(&)k yourself.
This is all very confusing and it makes me want to stop cooking and scream a lot. I hate those kind of different recipes, that just have one thing in common- you're supposed to love it.

I decided to finally go with the "original" edamer/gouda mix cheese, parmesan and ricotta blend.
Without any sweet italian pork sausage, becuase even my Piccolo Italia didn't have it.
And the chase for ricotta cheese was wonderful. Finally, after running around 3 districts I found 1 container of the cheese. Had to do the job. And it did.
Brace yourselves for the magnificent, not-so-original-but-delicious-and-makeable Lasagne!


Type of dish: main
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4
Time: 110 min
Preparation time: 40 min
Baking time: 40 min
Cooling time: 30 min ( or you'll cry of a burnt mouth, trust me)
Oven temp: 180C

You'll need:
a super large frying pan, cutting board, sharp knife, spatula, teaspoon, a medium sized baking dish at least 7 cm high, some aluminium foil, medium sized mixing bowl, glass, egg beater.

Ingredients:

• 1kg ground beef. Use the store bought or go to a butcher and ask him to grind some nice beef for you)
• additional: 1 small carrot
• additional: 1 small celery stick
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 1 can of tomato puree
• 2 cans chopped tomatoes
• 12-16 lasange noodles ( precooked or cook them al dente)
• 100gr gouda/edamer, yellow cheese, without holes
• 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 container/200gr ricotta cheese
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• S&P
• dried herbs: basil, thyme, oregano ( 1 tbsp of each), sugar, lemon juice
•  olive oil

 Begin:
Chop up all you have to chop, heat the frying pan, fry the beef until it's brown. Yeah, brown. Add the garlic, onion,and if you decided to use the carrot and celery, you should have added it before the meat turned brown. Like, just after it started to dry up and turn greyish in colour.
Fry that up, add the tomatoes, puree and half of your chopped parsley to the pan, and turn the heat to medium. Let it thicken up. This is what you would also call a basic bolognese sauce. Great for freezing.
In the meantime, crack the egg, ricotta, parsley, a pinch of S&P to the bowl and mix it well with the beater to get a smooth texture. You can lick your fingers, this stuff is good!
Check on your tomato sauce, it should have reduced a bit, mix it every once in a while, this needs to get thick, but not paste thick. When the consistency is thinner than paste, try a bit, add some additional herbs, a lemon shot, sugar pinch and S&P. Taste it. You can add some cayenne pepper if you want to. I certainly did, because food without a hot spicy kick is simply not food to me.
Prep your baking dish. Did you cook your uncooked noodles? If not, you're a bad person and you'll have to wait longer for your yummy dish. Know what you're missing out on. Preheat your oven.
Okay, let's layer:
1 cup of the tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish. Done.
Put on 3-4 lasagne noodles to cover it up, with no spots peeking.
Now, a layer of the ricotta mixture,
yellow cheese layer,
parmesan layer,
tomato layer,
pasta layer,
ricotta layer,
yellow cheese,
parmesan
and
BAM!
you're out of noodles or ricotta. Hah.

Put aluminium foil on top of the baking dish, just so the foil doesn't touch the lasagne.And foil- shiny side down. We want the lasagne to bake faster.
Get a ziploc bag for the leftover sauce. I'll tell you what to do with it later.
Pop it in the oven, bake for 25-30 min with the foil on, after that time, take the foil off for the next 10-15 min. Lets get the top bubbly and sexy and looking handsome. Or beautiful. You'll still eat it, belive me. Okay, you're done baking after 40 minutes after you put the lasagne in, now turn off the oven, leave to oven closed and think about who you should invite to dinner, or what should you paint next- the ceiling or the walls, and what colour.
Do this kind of thinking for 25 min, paint your nails instead, and start setting the table. Don't call out anyone yet for dinner- do this last minute. Because when you say LASAGNE, everybody's there in 3 seconds flat.
Why, I don't know. I think it's because everybody has a little Garfield in them:)
Enjoy!

PS. Oh, and if you have more time on your hands, this is great for pre freezing. Make the lasagne, just don't put it in the oven, but wait till it's cold and pop it in the freezer. Defrost it the night before in the fridge and bake as usual.

Hamburgers! with fresh herbs

We're a lazy bunch ( I mean my husband's lazy, while I do all the work :)), but while it's much easier to go to MC Do for a burger, it does take more time to make your own. But at least you know how to make it, what's in it, and do it your way. If you have one.

The basic 100% hamburger is actually not made of ham, pork, but Italians use both. I mean one kind of patties from pork meat, others from beef. T. prefers beef to pork and while I don't really care, I wanted to make them beefy. So search in your shop or at your butchers for some ground round beef. Round beef is from the back/hind part of the cow. You can check it up. Don't be lazy like my T.
I didn't find ground beef so I had to buy some for goulash, which came in chunks that I had to ground by myself. That was a big mistake. I could have waited 1 day and bought the ground stuff. Instead I tried to kill my grinder by stuffing the knife and holey bit with the tendons. It was a tragedy. And it took to much time, so too bad.
Ok, let's do it!

Type of dish: main
Cost: medium or cheap ( depends on the
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2-6
Time: 20 min
Preparation time: 10 min
Frying time: 10 min

You'll need:
a frying pan, a spatula, a medium bowl, a fork or spoon to mix, sharp knife, cutting board, plate and paper towels.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of ground beef or pork around 500gr
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 bunch of parsley, finely chopped
• 1 bunch of thyme, oregano, dill, chives, finely chopped ( basicly any fresh herbs, apart from coriander, but if you're aiming for a slightly curry flavour, go on with that base)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 chili pepper, finely diced
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• additional: 3 tbsl lemon juice, 1 tsp worchester sauce,
• olive oil

How to do, youhoo:
Get your bowl. Plunk in the meat, add all of the ingredients  except for the oil, mix well with fork- you know you're on the right track when the meat is nicely forming in a ball and not sticking to the sides of the bowl. Take a handful of the meat in your hands and form a ball, flattening it down on the cutting board to form a flat patty that will be no thicker than 1 cm. When you're halfway through making the patties, heat up on high heat your frying pan, finish making the patties, pour a small amount of oil on the pan, decrease the temperature to medium. If my cooker has a max 9 level, I heat on 9, pour in the oil, decrease to 6/7, depending on the strength of the cooker.
Plop the patties on the pan. 3 at a time, or 4 if you start. I came up with 7 patties, so I did 4 and 3, so I cooled down a little the temperature of the pan when I finished the first batch. Fry 3-4 mins each side, flipping them over to check if they're not burning. when brown on both sides, transfer to plate with paper towels to suck away excess fat.

Serve by themselves, or on warmed hamburger buns, or Kajzerki ( polish  buns), with ketchup, mustard, mayo, sliced pickles, tomatoes and lettuce. Go crazy and make add some caesar sauce instead:)

You can also freeze the done hamburgers and refreeze them for a quick lunch option. Ta da!

Oh, we didn't have buns today, so we just had them on a slice of bread and it was okay too. But not very hamburgerish.
Too bad:)

Potato salad german/austrian style- it ROCKS

I love a good pickled flavour. One that has a tangy kick is just perfect for me. This one came from T. who had this many times in Vienna on business trips, that he loves it and please please please, make it.

So, sceptic about any potato salads (apart from one my dad makes- but thats a different story), I had a few potatoes in the fridge and decided to give it a go. Use small potatoes unpeeled or larger peeled. It sounds weird, but actually comes out great!  Loved it! Nailed it! Whatever!
You can serve this badass with fish, or some other stuff or just eat it without anything else. It's gorgeous! You'll know what I'm talking about once you make it.

Get going:
Type of dish: side, salad
Cost: cheap
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 2-4
Time: 30 min
Preparation time: 10 min
Cooking time: 15-20 min

Will need to cook:
a large bowl ( preferably a steel/metal one), a spoon, medium saucepan with lid, frying pan, spatula, cutting board, knife, a measure cup, plates to serve


Ingredients:

• 8-10 small potatoes, unpeeled
• 6 medium pickled pickles, diced
• 1 medium white onion, diced
• 50 gr bacon sliced
• 30 ml hot/warm broth ( I used the cubed veg stock)
• 30ml white vinegar, but you can also use apple vinegar or white wine V too
• S&P
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped

You do this: heat the pan with water, boil it, add the potatoes, boil them for 15 -20 min, depending on their size. Chop up the stuff, and fry up bacon till golden brown. In the bowl, add the onions, broth and vinegar, add a pinch of S&P, but not much. Stir well the mixture, and set aside. When the potatoes are done, drain them, pour cold water over them, peel ( there is a great japanese method I use sometimes ( and looks freakishly cool) here, and cut in slices straight in the bowl with the broth. mix it well, add the bacon, pickles, and parsley. Set aside so the potatoes soak up the mixture and the flavours start mixing together. I swear it's delicious!
Served when not hot anymore. That's about 5-10 min, perfect to clean up :)
Enjoy!

Watermelon salad

You think watermelon is good for a dessert or kids time. I had some more to spare and was in need of a salad that could work as a side or main. Just try to get out as many seeds as you can. Be happy about it! Why not?


Type of dish: salad, side, main
Cost: medium
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-8
Time: 10 min
Preparation time: 10 min


You need:
cutting board, knife, large bowl, spoon


Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg ripe watermelon, deseeded, diced the size of half a dice
• 1/2 box of feta cheese ( Arla, or the crumbly wet type, doesn't matter as long as it leaves you with pieces that don't melt away)
• 1/2 bunch fresh mint, chopped finely
• thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced

How to:
In the bowl, add the watermelon, feta, mint and ginger. Mix well and serve chilled. That's it!


Additional info: you can spice it up a bit by adding a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper, or some minced fresh chilli.