Chocolate and orange pie - sugarfree

It is official: I love xylitol. It is a natural sweetener, looks and behaves exactly like sugar and it doesn't have this nasty after-taste that most sweeteners do. The only downside is that it is quite expensive but if you buy bigger amounts at a time, it's pretty economic. This pie doesn't contain any sugar, except for the 74% dark chocolate, I wouldn't say that it's completely diabetic but I would recommend this pice to people with diabetes in small amounts.

Ingredients for the crust:

• 10 dkgs of plain flour
• 10 dkgs of Graham flour 
• 2 tablespoos of cocoa powder
• 10 dkgs of butter
• 10 dkgs of xylitol
•  zest of one lemon

Ingredients for the cream:

• 2 dls of milk
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 10 dkgs of butter
• 20 dkgs of 74% dark chocolate
• 60 grs of xylitol
• one tablespoon of rum
• zest of one orange
• juice of half an orange

Mix the two types of flour together, rub the butter in it, add the cocoa powder, the xylitol and the zest of lemon. Start kneading it, if it wants to fall apart after kneading for a while, add a teaspoon of sour cream. When it's done, let the dough rest for a while. Then roll the dough out and place it into a fruitcake pan. Stick it with a fork a couple of times, and then bake it for 15 minutes at 190 deg Celsius in the oven. Meanwhile mix the xylitol, the orange juice, the zest of the lemon and the butter with the milk and wait until it starts boiling. Then add the cocoa powder gradually (it's better if you sift it) and then the chocolate. Stir it until the chocolate melts completely. Then get an egg whisk and whisk the cream until it cools down. Then pour the cream on top of the crust and put it in the fridge until the cream sets completely.

Chicken curry with sweet corn and bamboo slices

I'm not always the biggest fan of curry flavoured things but sometimes I'm just in the mood, like today, plus I had this jar of bamboo slices for ages that I wanted to use. The secret to a good curry is the impressive amounts of spices that you put in it, possibly in the beginning when you can roast them a little bit in the pan, that's when all the flavours come out. You can do a curry with basically any vegetables, I had carrots, sweet corn and these bamboo slices at home right now.

Ingredients for a bigger batch:

• 1 chicken breast sliced
• 2 carrots
• 1 can of sweet corn
• 1 jar of sliced bamboo
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons of sour cream
• cumin
• chili powder
• curry powder
•  ginger (fresh)
• coriander seeds
• 2 smaller onions
• 4 cloves of garlic

Chop the onions fine and start cooking them in a bit of oil. When it's almost done, add the cumin and the corander seeds. Fry them a litle bit and then you can add the chicken and the rest of the spices (add as much as you like according to your taste but I think at least a teaspoon of every spice is neccessary). Add the carrot too and give it a good stir. Then cover the pan and wait until the carrot is cooked. Then you can add the sweet corn, the bamboo, the coconut milk and the sour cream. Give it another good stir and let it boil for another 15 minutes. Cooked rice is perfect with it.

Barbecue chicken thighs with carrot rissoles

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons of ketchup
• 1 tablespoon of barbecue sauce
• 1 tablespoon of chili sauce
• one squeeze of lemon
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 2 carrots
• 1 dry bread roll soaked in water
• 1 smaller onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
•  2 eggs

Stir the ketchup, the barbecue and the chili sauce, the lemon juice and the honey together. Pour the whole mixture on the chicken and give it a good stir so that each leg is covered with the sauce. Put the legs into a heatproof dish and cover it with tin foil. It needs about an hour at 200 deg Celsius, the last 15 minutes is without the foil so that the skin can become crispy. Meanwhile cut the carrots into match sized bits and gently crush them with your hands. Add the eggs, the bread roll, the finely chopped onions and garlic, some salt and stir the whole thing very thoroughly. Heat just a little bit of oil in a pan and fry the rissoles in the oil, until both sides are golden brown. I also cooked some brussels's sprouts as garnish. 

Pirog with red cabbage

This is a bit different version of pirog than the original one because it's not made of flaky pastry and I used red cabbage as well for the filling. The dough is half part Graham flour, half part plain flour. I was curious if it tastes good with red cabbage in it and surprisingly I liked this version even more. The next day there were only a couple of pieces left :)

Ingredients for 2 big oven pans

• 15 dkgs of plain flour
• 30 dkgs of Graham flour
• 20 dkgs of butter or margarine
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 6 tablespoons of sour cream
•  half of a red and a white cabbage, rasped
•  caraway seeds
•  2 tablespoons of sugar
•  grated cheese
•  1 egg

 

Rub the margarine or butter into the flour and add the salt and the sour cream. Knead the dough until it becomes easy to handle. Let it rest until you make the cabbage filling. Start heating up the sugar in a pan and when it's golden, add the lightly salted cabbage. Cook it until it becomes soft, stir it often. When it's done, let it cool down. Roll the dough out quite thin and cut squares out of it. Put some filling in the middle, sprinkle some cheese on it and fold the dough into a triangle shape. Push down the edges with a fork, put the triangle on the oven pan and give it an eggwash. It needs 15 minutes in the oven at 200 deg Celsius.

Creamy asparagus soup

I bought two packets of asparagus today, although it wasn't part of the grocery shopping plan I couldn't resist, so I made the first creamy asparagus soup of the year. It isn't the easiest recipe, but can be done in an hour, maybe a bit more if you are as clumsy with the peeling as I am...:)

Ingredients for a bigger batch

• 2 packets of asparagus (1 kg)
• 1,25 l of water
• salt
• 2 tbl spoons of cream
• 2 tbl spoons of starch

Peel the asparagus. In this recipe you will use the lower and upper parts separately. The easiest way to separate these parts is to bend the asparagus gently so that it breaks. You will need the lower parts for their taste only. Cut these in equal parts so that it is easier to handle them, and cook them in the water with some salt until they become soft. Blend the soup and separate the water and the fibers of the asparagus with a sieve, press all the water out of the fibers. Throw the fibers out. Cut the remaining upper parts in equal pieces and cook them in the soup base. Meanwhile mix the cream with the starch and add the mixture to the soup when the asparagus pieces are cooked. 

Chicken stew with white wine and vegetables

After doing my usual gorcery shopping round, I  occupied the kitchen and cooked for at least two and a half hours. This is the result of not having anything in the fridge to cook of, for a week. After making the creamy asparagus soup, I moved on to this chicken stew, which is very easy and quick to make.

Ingredients

• 1 packet of chicken legs (upper or lower parts)
• 3 spring onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 carrots
• quarter of a turnip root
• quarter of a celery
• 25 dkg of brussels sprouts  
• 2 tbl spoons of sour cream
• 1 tbl spoon of mustard
• 1,5 dl of dry white wine
• 2 dl of water
• salt, freshly ground pepper

Chop the spring onions fine and start cooking them in a bit of oil. Skin the chickens, remove the bones and cut them in equal parts. When the spring onion is half cooked, add the chicken and cook them for a while together. Smash the garlic with the flat of the knife, chop it and add it to  the chicken. Peel the vegetables, and cut them in equally sized pieces. When the chicken has the usual white colour, add the vegetables, add some salt and pepper, and pour the white wine and the water in. You cook it with the cover on until the vegetables become soft. You might need to add some more water during the process. When the vegetables are ready, add the sour cream and mustard, mix the whole dish carefully and wait until it boils again, in that exat minute the meal is ready! :) 

Salmon smoked in a biscuit tin

This was yesterday's big surprise. We have wanted to build a smoker for quite some time but I couldn't wait one more second so I decided to try Jamie Oliver's biscuit tin smoker idea. To be honest I thought it wasn't gonna work but I couldn't have been more wrong. You can make an amazing smoked salmon like this, and you really don't need anything else besides the tin, a rack and some wood shavings. It doesn't fill your kitchen with smoke at all, and it's very quick too, 15 minutes and you have a perfectly smoked salmon. :)

You will need: 

• an empty biscuit tin
• a piece of rack that will fit into the tin
• 2-3 handfuls of wood shavings
• a piece of salmon

Pierce the top of the tin with a screw driver a couple of times so that the smoker has an air inlet. Get the biscuit tin and place the two handful of wood shavings into the tin. Place your wire rack in the tin, so it sits halfway down. Rub the salmon with salt and olive oil and place it on the rack. Put the lid on and place the tin on the smallest cooker of your stove at lowest heat possible. When it starts to smoke, keep it there for another 10 minutes or so and then turn the heat off. Wait until it cools off and then open the tin. There you have your homemade smoked salmon! 

Cheese sticks with seeds and fresh cheese

 We have tried lots of cheese stick reciped but this one was a winnter. You need less flour because of the fresh cheese and it gives the dough a very nice taste. You don't have to wait until the dough raises because it doesn't contain any yeast. It is a very quick recipe, the only trick is that you have to be patient until the dough sets, but once you are done with that, you only need to sprinkle the seeds and the cheese on it, cut it up and put it in the oven :)

Ingredients: 

• half a kg of plain flour
• half a kg of fresh cheese
• 3-4 teaspoons of salt
• 30 dkgs of cheese
• 1 egg
• 25 dkg of margarine
• sesame seeds, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds for the top
• grated cheese for the top
• 1 egg for egg wash

Rub the margarine in the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and then add the fresh cheese. Add the 30 dkgs of cheese, the egg and the salt. Knead the dough until it sets and it becomes a flexible, easy to handle dough. Let is rest for a while, meanwhile sprinkle some flour onto the table. Get your rolling pin and roll your dough until it's 5 mms thick. Give it an egg wash and sprinkle the seeds and the cheese. Cut it up, place the bits on an oven pan (lay some baking paper under it first) and put it in the oven at 180 deg Celsius for 15 minutes until they become golden. Let is cool completely, that's when it tastes the better.