A very easy fresh cheese spread

As per my friend's request, here comes the recipe for this fresh cheese cream.

Ingredients:

• fresh cheese or cottage cheese
• garlic
• basil
• rosemary
• thyme
• salt, pepper
• sour cream

Mix the sour cream with the fresh cheese. The amount of sour cream depends on how creamy you want it to be. All of the basil, rosemary and thyme has to be chopped fine, and the garlic needs to be smashed. Add everything to the mixture plus the salt and the pepper. Give it a thorough mix, and taste it.

Asparagus and potato tart

This recipe is from Jamie Oliver's show, "Jamie at home", more specifically from the second season, the episode about asparagus. Its quite easy and quick but really filling, we liked it a lot :)

Ingredients

• a packet of filo pastry
• 2 bunches of green asparagus
• 8-10 potatoes
• 2 dl of cream
• 10-15 dkg of grated cheese
• 3 eggs
•  2.5 dkg of butter, melted

Blanch the asparagus in boiling salt water in about 5-10 minutes. Peel the potatoes and cook them in salt water as well. While doing that, get the filo pastry, do a little bit of wallpapering with the melted butter on each of the layers, and lay them in the tart pan. Drain the asparagus and let it cool. Drain the potatoes as well and start mashing them in a dish. Add the cheese, the cream, salt and pepper and basically make mashed potatoes. Add the 3 eggs and mix the whole thing. Pour the mashed potatoes into the pan and lay the asparagus on top of it. Cover them with the rest of the melted butter so that it doesnt dry out in the oven. My tart spent 30 minutes in the oven at 180 C, but Jamie said 20 minutes, anyways you can always check it with a needle or knife. Allow it cool for 20 minutes, and serve it.

Mushroom caps stuffed with eggplant cream

Ingredients for 2 large servings

The mushrooms:

• 8-10 pieces of mushroom
• 1 eggplant
• 1 clove of garlic
• a little bit of lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons of cream
• cheese on the top of the mushrooms according to taste

The garnish:

• 2 dl of rice
• 4 dl of water
• the stalks of the mushrooms
• 1 packet of sliced bacon or any similar kind of meat
• 2 pieces of spring onion

Start roasting the eggplant in a dry pan, with the peel on, like when you roast it on the grill. Let it become black, it doesnt matter if the peel gets burnt, because you will have to take it off anyways when its done. When its done, put it into a dish and cover it so that the steam softens the peel, and you can take it off easily. Then take the inside of the eggplant, cut it up a bit, and add the garlic, the lemon juice, the cream and salt to it in a pan. Take the stalks of the mushrooms out and put it away for now. Sprinkle salt on the mushroom caps, and fill them with the eggplant cream. You can also sprinkle a bit of cheese onto the top, according to taste. It gets ready at 180 degrees in about 20 minutes.

The stalks can be used for the garnish. Chop it, and fry it in a pan along with the spring onion and the bacon and then add the whole mixture to the rice. Its a realitvely light but a filling lunch.

Homemade bread with paprika and seeds

This was my first attempt to bake homemade bread without a bread machine, luckily it turned out to be good, maybe a bit saltless but you can always set that off with delicious things on the top :)

Ingredients:

• 25 dkg of plain flour
• 25 dkg of full wheat flour
• 1,5 tablespoons of paprika powder
• 1 dl of milk
• 5 dkg of yeast
• 2 dl of lukewarm water
• a bit of oil
• sunflower seeds
• linseed
• salt, pepper

Warm the milk up a bit and add a bit of sugar, sprinkle the yeast into it, and let it run up. Meanwhile mix the two types of flour, the paprika powder, the salt and the seeds. I used the bread machine to knead the dough, cause my hands aren't that strong :) So pour the flour mixture, the oil and the milk with the yeast in it into the machine. Start kneading and add the water carefully, only add as much as it needs to be "flexible". When its done, put it in a bowl with a bit of flour on the bottom, and let it raise for an hour. Then knead it again a bit and put it into the baking frame. Bake it at 180 degrees for 45-50 minutes, and you'll get a nice bread that you can slice up nicely.

Chicken braised in white wine wine with leek

Ingredients:

• 6 upper thighs
• 1 leek
• 1 packet of mozzarella cheese
• 1 dl of white wine
• oil, salt, pepper

Take the skin off the chicken, and sprinkle salt and pepper on them. In a heatproof dish pre-fry them for a couple of minutes, so that they get a nice colour, and then add the wine, cover it and put it in the oven at 200 deg celsius. Meanwhile chop the leek and steam it in a pan under cover. Add salt an pepper according to taste. When the chicken is done, pile the onions on the top of them, and cover them with the sliced mozzarella. Put it back in the oven until the cheese fries.

A Sunday lunch for my friends

All of it disappeared, I hope that was the sign of success.

The menu:

Mozzarella and tomatoes with basil
Mustard and rosemary chicken rolls
Rapsberry-coffee cream

Mozzarella and tomatoes with basil
Cut the tomatoes in pieces and mix it with the mozzarella balls and olives. Mix some basil leaves with olive oil and pour it on the tomatoes. Add some freshly ground pepper and salt.

Mustard and rosemary chicken rolls





Ingredients:

• chicken breast
• rosemary
• mustard
• garlic
• salt, pepper
• yarn to hold the chiken together

Cut the chicken breast in halves. Its better if you marinate it the night before, all you need to do is to mix the mustard with the smashed garlic and slush the chicken with it. The next day put fresh rosemary leaves on the slice of chicken and roll it up. Fix it with the yarn. Pre-fry the pieces in a pan and then put them in the oven, covered with aluminium foil, at 200 degrees celsius until its done. You can sprinkle some cheese on it in the end and wait until it goes golden.

Rapsberry-coffee cream

 
















Ingredients:

• mascarpone
• rapsberry (can be frozen)
• instant coffee
• milk
• caster sugar
• ladyfingers
• rum or rum flavour

Dissolve the coffee in a little hot water. Mix the mascarpone with the coffee, the sugar, and the rum or rum flavour. Modify the amounts according to taste. Dissolve some coffee in the milk and add some rum or flavour. Dip the ladyfingers in the milk for a couple of seconds and then put them on the bottom of the cup. Put some of the rapsberry on the ladyfingers and then comes part of the cream. Then rapsberry again and the rest of the cream. Let it rest at a cool place for some time.

Muffins filled with dried fruits

I changed the original muffin recipe but the result was very good so here is the new kind of muffin :)

Ingredients for 12 muffins

• 30 dkg of flour 
• 10 dkg of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder 
• 2 eggs 
• 2 dl of milk 
• dried fruits (apricots, plum, papaya-pineapple mix) 
• crystallized orange and lemon skin 
• 1 tablespoon of oil 
• cinnamon, ground cloves, rum flavour
• 1 packet of baking powder

Mix the eggs with the milk, the sugar, the oil, the cinnamon and the cloves. Add the baking powder to the flour, add the cocoa powder and the chopped dried fruits along with the lemon and orange peel. Mix the milky mixture with the flour. Fill the pastry cutter and put in the preheated oven. It needs 20 minutes at 170 degrees celsius.