Tuna cream with celery

So far I have only made tuna cream with mayo and lemon juice but this time I tried this recipe I found in a book that uses celery and hard boiled eggs. I must say, it was surprising how good it was, it is already my favourite. 

Ingredients for a smaller batch:

• 1 can of tuna (approx. 15 dkgs) 
• 2 tbl spoons of grated celery
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• 2 spring onions
• 1 tbl spoon of olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• salt and pepper 

Chop the eggs fine and add to the tuna. Then add the celery, the onions, the oil, the lemon juice, salt and pepper. Stir it well and taste it, you can add more of any ingredient, according to taste. Let it rest for a couple of hours because that's when the flavours really come out.  
 

Mustard and chili chicken wings with roasted red beet

This dish is not very complicated but rather slow because of the red beets, it takes at least an hour and a half to cook and roast. The chicken wings cook quickly, 30-45 minutes in the oven. This is a square meal but but not very heavy, it's perfect for a weekday lunch that you can easily  put together if you have chicken wings in the freezer and some red beets.

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• 10 chicken wings
• 2 tbl spoons of mustard
• 2 tbl spoons of chili sauce
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 2 teaspoons of barbecue sauce
• 4 red beets
• 2 big tbl spoons of sour cream 
• 4 cloves of garlic
• oil, salt, freshly ground pepper

Peel the beets ( I suggest using rubber gloves ) and dice them. Sprinkle some salt on them and put them in a pan with some oil. Cover the pan and let the beet become soft, stir it from time to time. Meanwhile chop the garlic fine and add to the beets at some point. 

Lay the chickens into a fireproof dish, add salt and pepper. Mix the ingredients of the marinade together and pour it onto the chicken. Stir it well so that all the pieces are covered in the marinade. Cover the dish with aluminium foil and put it in the oven at 200 deg Celsius for 30-45 minutes, then remove the cover and roast the chickens until the skin becomes golden and crispy. 

When the beets are done, pour them into another fireproof dish, add the sour cream, stir it well, add some salt if neccessary, then put this into the oven too. Roast them until the sour cream becomes creamy, stir it from time to time. And it's done! :) 

Walnut filled crescent rolls

Now, that I finally have some free time, I can start baking more complicated pastries too, and these crescent rolls are always a huge hit around Christmas time. I saw a very good recipe on a blog for this lovely cake but I wanted to make a sugar free version so I modified it a little. I substituted sugar with xylitol and liquid sweetener. Just a note: they can be made with poppy seed filling as well.

Ingredients for the pastry:

• 40 dkgs of sifted plain flour 
• 16 dks of cold butter 
• 6 dkgs of xylitol
• half a coffee spoon of baking soda
• half a coffee spoon of dried yeast
• two big tablespoons of sour cream
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons of milk

Ingredients for the walnut filling:

• 50 dkgs of ground walnut
• 10 dkgs of xylitol 
• liquid sweetener according to taste
• zest of one lemon
• 2 packs of vanilin sugar
• rum flavour

For the eggwash:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 egg white

The first step of making the pastry is mixing the flour with the baking soda and the xylitol. Separately, mix the milk with the yeast. Cut the cold butter in pieces and crumble it with the flour, then pour the milk into the bowl, add the egg yolks, the salt and the sour cream. Start kneading the dough. At first it will fall apart but if you keep kneading, in the end it surrenders and sticks together. Let it rest for half an hour in the fridge, wrapped into kitchen foil. 

For the filling you have to grate the walnuts. Mix the milk with the xylitol, the vanilin sugar and lemon zest,s start heating it up and when it comes to a boil, add the walnuts. With a wooden spoon keep stirring it until it becomes a thick filling. While stirring, you can add more sweetener and the rum flavour.  I advise you to make it two grades sweeter than you want it to be in the end because it looses its sweetness when cools down.

Divide the pastry into 24 equal pieces and form little balls from the pieces. One of the biggest advantages of this pastry is that it can be rolled out very well and thin. Place a portion of the filling in the middle of the rolled out pastry and just wrap it up so that it has a crescent roll shape. When all of them are done, give them an egg wash, first with the yolks. Let it dry and then give the rolls a wash again but now with the egg whites. Again, let the egg dry and then put the rolls into the oven, at 190 degrees until they become golden brown.