cheese

Rollin, rollin, rollin…

Remember that old Limp Bizkit tune? Rollin’? Yeah, that was the soundtrack of my teenage years and it suddenly started playing in my head again the moment I started rolling this puff pastry perfection. This again is not an everyday food as this is nowhere near healthy. This is rather a weekend treat, or more say a monthly treat as the only healthy ingredient here is the parsley and, to be honest, there is not much of that either. But just as all teenage pleasures are, this is something amazing and not at all healthy. However, this is extremely easy to make and it can be really filling and satisfying during a cold rainy autumn day.

I can honestly say that this has all my favourite ingredients in it, including the puff pastry and, as with all the great food inventions, I have not had something similar in ages – like ever since my metabolism decided to give me a kick in the ass and make me adopt a more healthy lifestyle. Now that I am pregnant, I do try and keep it healthy and I am rather careful about the quantity of food I ingest, but from time to time (‘a weekly or more often’ time to time) I indulge in all of my favourite foods because hey, I am going to get fat anyways so I might as well enjoy life a bit. That being said, I try and indulge in mostly homemade fat-bombs as I have some sort of control where the ingredients are concerned. Which brings us to today’s recipe… as the temps lower, I tend to crave more fatty, not-necessarily-healthy foods that give me that much needed mental sanity during pregnancy.

Here’s the ingredients we used, but you can actually use whatever makes your tummy and brain feel happy:

1 layer puff pastry – you can buy this in virtually any supermarket and if you want to make a sweet roll try the slightly sweetened version though I prefer to use the unsweetened variety for sweet treats as well
1 cup of olive Philadelphia cream cheese – I use this variety for the earthy olive taste and because it is light and easy to spread
100 g diced bacon
1 red onion – medium sized
80 g graded emmentaler
80 g grated mozzarella
50 g parmesan flakes
20 g fresh parsley – the healthy ingredient (notice the ratio between the one healthy ingredient and all the rest)

The mechanics behind this amazing roll:

Mince the onion and the parsley and place all the ingredients in (preferably) clear bowls for the photos.
Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C.
The fun part begins… Gently unfold the puff pastry layer and spread the Philadelphia cream cheese first – this way all the ingredients will stick to the pastry.
This is where it becomes interesting. No matter which order you close to add the ingredients, the important thing is to always add a layer of cheese in between the other stuff thus making everything stick together because everyone knows that cheese is the glue to life!
This is my ingredients order: cream cheese, onion, grated emmentaler, parsley, grated mozzarella, bacon and parmesan flakes.
This is the step where that Limp Bizkit mega-hit kept playing in my brain – now you gotta roll that thing up making sure you do not a)spill the contents, b)rip the pastry.
Once you safely roll the ‘thing’ you gotta cut it – again a BE CAREFUL! moment – I cut in into 2 cm thick loaves.
Place the rolls on a tray and into the oven they go for about 20 minutes – make sure you check on them after 15 minutes as the buggers tend to burn quickly.
That’s about it!

Since this is a very unhealthy and amazing dish, packed full of fats (the unhealthy type) and calories, you should consume it with caution. It does not look extremely unhealthy if you decide to only have one serving, but let’s be honest, can you really stop after only one roll? I couldn’t and hence this is definitely a dish that I will make as rarely as possible.

It is however extremely tasty and filling and you will probably stop after two or three servings. The nutritional info is curtesy of MyNetDiary and since they rated it as a class D food it only goes to prove my theory – this is not a healthy food! But it is great for those long weekend chilly afternoons so give it a try!

November 6, 2016

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4-5 days per week…

…more like 4 days per week, but hey, I try… Most weeks I manage to go up to four days per week of eating healthy and keeping my cravings in place, but I confess that there are some weeks when I don’t even make it to three days without craving something sugary or fatty. As for the other two to three remaining days of the week, well, since recently I have become able to ingest some meat, I try and incorporate it into my diet because I feel that animal protein is important during pregnancy and my baby should not miss any nutrients because of my eating choices – this does not mean that I am a vegetarian or a vegan in my day-to-day normal non-pregnancy life, but usually I only eat meat once per week at best because of some digestive problems that I discovered a few years ago. That being said, as you can see I do not feel sick towards cheese hence I have to keep it under control as I do tend to over-indulge in all cheesy things. YES, I looooove cheese!!! It is the glue to my life, but I confess that cheese immediately travels on my beee-hind so no over-eating it for me!

I am the type of person that weights every single food that is on my plate, to the point where some might say that I have mental problems, but over time I have come to realise that this is the only way to know exactly what goes into my body and when. Before my pregnancy, I ate way less fruit and I think fruit is actually responsible for my weight gain so far – well, that and the fact that I am having three cheat days per week as opposed to 1 1\2 before. Since I am not allowed to go to the gym, I have to keep everything in check hence the 1200-1300 kcal per day and the abundance of small snacks (that are actually not so small). Before, I ate my last meal of the day at 5 p.m. and then off I was at the gym for two hours and by the time I got home there was absolutely no way I was prepping a meal, no, my only goal was to reach my bed as fast as possible, but now, I feel hunger striking as late as 9 or 10 in the evening so I always keep cucumbers at hand as they seem to not disturb my sleep much.

These photos represent my actual situation and they were taken on Tuesday. While I try and keep everything as easy as I can, both the calorie count as well as the food options depend on the actual season I find myself in. For example all of last summer I craved garden tomatoes and watermelon and I have to tell you, the amount of watermelon that I ate on a daily basis is somewhat illegal hence I did pack a bit more calories than this autumn menu provides. Now I am currently dreaming of iceberg salad and kiwis even though iceberg salad was never my favourite, on the contrary actually, I have always hated it, but now I absolutely love it. On Tuesday I did not have any cottage cheese at hand, but I have to tell you that I try and eat one serving (175 gr) of cottage cheese – try the lighter versions – just for the high protein levels it provides. While during the summer my menu was way redder than my autumn picks (this one is mostly green), I do try as much as possible to eat all the colours of the rainbow but I do tend to listen to what my body craves right now and apparently it wants green stuff.

Breakfast:

I always try and have a healthy full breakfast and, if you look closely, this is the one meal that packs the most kcal as well as fibre and good fats and that is all thanks to the half avocado I eat daily no matter what. I always start my day with a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice and water because I have to tell you, catching a cold during pregnancy is the worst thing that can happen to you (no nose-drops hence lack of sleep and mental sanity) and this juice provides lots of vitamin C on a empty stomach. At first I started eating avocados because of the high cholesterol levels in my blood, but now, since that is sorted out, I eat it for the all-around benefit it provides. I like to eat it raw as dessert after I indulge in two hard-boiled egg whites – great source of protein – and one yoghurt – much needed calcium. I always have a cup of coffee and my usual choice is a Nespresso capsule. This quantity is fine during pregnancy and it gives me the much-needed energy throughout the day. Since I was never one to drink my coffee black I like to top it up with coconut milk – but no sugar for me because as you’ll in the nutritional analysis at the end of this post, I get a lot of sugar from the fruits throughout the day therefore I do no add sugar in anything.

Lunch:

Lunch is probably my favourite meal because it is both sweet and hot. I like to have a cup of tomato soup and most of the time I do not make it myself but buy it ready-made from the supermarket. I will try and make some more varieties of cream soups myself – I really want to try and make a mushroom soup for a while now – as I always love a good hot soup in the middle of the day. This is the only hot meal I eat throughout a normal day and I think it is very important to not skip cooked meals. For dessert I love to eat a big bowl (about 300 gr) of seedless grapes. These are the only grapes I like and I am always quite happy during autumn the moment D starts buying them for me.

Dinner:

For dinner I usually have some sort of leafy green salad with a dash of avocado oil and a bit of cheese. I think it is important to eat your leafy greens daily as they provide lots of iron and fibre while not packing virtually any kcal and definitely no fats or other nasty stuff. I know, it would be a lot better if I replaced the iceberg salad with baby spinach, but hey, cravings are cravings! I usually put no more than a teaspoon of avocado oil in it and about 40 gr of light white cheese (calcium and proteins), but normally I use a cup of cottage cheese (it is a lot healthier!). For dessert – it seems like I can’t have one meal without something sweet and that must be curtesy of the little lady growing inside me – I like to eat a Granny Smith apple. As with the grapes, I am very strict about my apples – I only like the Granny Smith type. The apple provides lots of fibres and vitamins and is very good for the baby.

Snacks:

I usually have two snacks per day and while you might think that they are evenly distributed, they are not! Both of them are after lunch and both of them contain cheese (did I mention I love cheese?). The first snack of the day consists in a cup of cherry tomatoes – I already miss summer’s garden tomatoes – about 20 gr of cheese and a kiwi fruit. Ever since I got a cold in August and could not really treat it with anything I try and ingest as much natural vitamin C as possible and therefore kiwi is a daily must!

The second snack usually comes later – at around 9:30 in the evening hence the reason it needs to be lighter than the other – and consists of two, maybe three cucumbers, 20 gr of cheese and a kiwi fruit. This snack does not disturb my sleep at all and it is quite satisfying thanks to all the water content of the cucumbers. Usually after this snack, both D and I go out to walk our doggie (here she is) for about 30 minutes and that’s all the exercise I get during the day.

Liquids:

Before being pregnant, I usually drank 5 l of water per day, but now my usual consumption comes at about 3,5-4 l daily. I always try and listen to my body where hydration is concerned and never try and force myself to drink more or less. The glass of lemon drink in the morning is included in this quantity. I think it is very important to drink lots of water throughout the day, but mainly I trust my body to tell me when and how much water I need.

That’s it, this is what I eat during the week, from Monday to Thursday and sometimes Friday (very rarely!) during my pregnancy. These eating habits haven’t changed much, besides the extra 200-300 kcal per day and a lot more fruit, but then again, I used to go to the gym daily for about two hours, so most of the weight gain is explained solely by that. On the remaining days of the week, I try and satisfy all my cravings (see here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) as well as some other things that I never usually eat (yes, I had a bucket of KFC twice during this pregnancy – let the shaming begin!). All in all, I try and stay sane and eat whatever I like but mostly healthy, hence the 4-5/2-3 ratio. I find it a lot easier to stick to my diet for longer it we manage to do our shopping for the entire week on a Sunday. For some reason throwing food away does not sit well with me so I feel obliged to eat it. I feel lucky that my last month of pregnancy will be during Christmas as I am going to get big by then anyway and I will be able to indulge in all the Christmas goodies without feeling guilty or fat – yes tons of gingerbread and panettone included! But until then I am trying to not pack lots of kgs as I am well aware that this is not healthy for me nor for my baby.

Scroll down a bit more to see a full nutritional analysis of what I ate on Tuesday – vitamins and all – all curtesy of the new apple watch D got me and the lovely MyNetDiary app which is quite complete where nutrition is concerned.

October 21, 2016

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Get him to the Greek!

Today is all about my favourite Greek dish! We have to confess, we didn’t make this one, but it did emerge in our kitchen, so it is blog worthy! Last Wednesday some friends came over to watch the football match with us and they decided to make Bouyiourdi, which is the simplest, most delicious recipe ever! Naturally being cheese-based I’d say that, but trust me, this is heaven! True and simple foodporn, that can be made in less than half an hour with only a handful of ingredients.

So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty as looking at yesterday’s post, I realised that lately I do tend to write a bit too much off-topic. What you need to get this amazing, easy dish:

500 gr of tomatoes
1 bell pepper
300 gr of white cheese (we used 150 gr of simple white cheese and 150 gr of herb white cheese)
350 gr of Mozzarella
250 gr of Gouda cheese
1 tsp gried oregano
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

That’s about all we used but you can add chilly peppers, onions and whatever other type of cheese you like, making this a versatile and perfect-for-anyone dish. Besides the fact that you need only a few ingredients, making it is actually easy as 1-2-3!

Preheat the oven at 175 degrees and take all sorts of angled photos of the lovely cheesy ingredients.
Slice the tomatoes and the cheese, and dice the bell pepper.
Arrange all the sliced/diced ingredients into identical bowls and take 100 photos.
Toss all the ingredients finishing with the oregano and olive oil into a clay vessel and put it into the oven for about 20 minutes.
After those what seemed like forever, 20 minutes, take it out of the oven and, if you had any Mozzarella that didn’t fit into the vessel the first time (like we did), now’s the time to add it and stir the whole content with a wooden spoon.
Put it back into the oven for another five minutes and that’s it! You’ve got yourself the most delicious dish on the planet!

Considering just how amazing this was, I would’ve expected it to be the most unhealthy dish ever, but my UP app surprised me, giving it a score of 7.9 and only drew attention to the elevated amount of saturated fat. One serving from this heavenly dish gets you about 350 kcal which is actually way better than expected on my part and I decided that if I ever want to get fat, this is the one thing I’d like to get fat on!

June 19, 2016

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We messed up! Badly!

Yup, we did it! Me messed up! Well, not the food, that turned out great, but we did mess up the quantities! We forgot to weight them and write everything down. I guess we were quite enthusiastic and hungry. As I’ve mentioned in other food posts, we don’t really follow any recipe, for us cooking is more about buying whatever we like and combining them, so no Masterchef experience here. We like to call it instinctive cooking.

Every since we started this blog we ended up in the kitchen a lot more often and we always try and measure everything and write down all the details. Well, this time we forgot all about these little details (read: we were extremely hungry!), however, considering the fact that D loves taking photos, we didn’t forget about that! Basically this post is written following the photos we took, so if you’re going to want to try and recreate this recipe, it’s going to be a bit more complicated. Here it goes!

What we bought:

1 turkey breast (I’m actually amazed we only bought one-guess we’re getting used to cooking just for the two of us)
2 broccoli heads
2 red onions
A bunch of new potatoes (maybe about 500gr, but we overdid it in this departement, so you should buy less)
3 coloured bell-peppers (they looked great both in the pics and in the food, however, we only used about half of each)
2 garlic cloves
One chunk of red cheddar (about a cup grated)
One chunk of gouda (again, about a cup grated)
2 eggs (for the home-made mayonnaise)
Mustard (about a teaspoon, again for the mayo)
Olive oil (another mayo ingredient)
Jamie Oliver’s BBQ seasoning
Ground curry (add to taste)
Butter (for the tray)
Some oven-baked bread (to make the breadcrumbs for the crust-we bought some ready made bruschetta)

Well, that’s about it. Here goes writing the steps following the pics… I hope I won’t forget anything!

We started by using the hand blender on the baked bread to make breadcrumbs. I have no idea why we started with this, as you’ll need the breadcrumbs right at the end, before putting everything into the oven.
Preheat the oven at 205 degrees C. I think this one is the actual logical first step.
Wash all the vegetables, grate the cheese and cut the meat into approximately equal pieces.
Make the mayo or buy it ready-made, but I prefer to make it myself:

put two yolks into a bowl
Add one tsp of mustard
1/2 lemon juice
Mix slowly adding oil until you have as much may as you need, in this case, about a cup

Butter the tray you’re going to use. We suggest a teflon one as the vegetables taste best baked in that type of tray.
Add a lot of seasoning to the mayo. I think D must’ve ground for about 15 minutes – you should just try and find some sort of BBQ seasoning that is already ground.
Add all the cheese and half of the sliced garlic into the mayo and mix it really good.
Put the broccoli, potatoes, bell peppers, sliced onions and the remaining garlic slices into a bowl, mix them up evenly and add half of the cheese-mayo mix over them. Mix them all together until the mayo is distributed equally over the vegetables.
Pour all the mayo-vegetables into the tray.
Arrange the turkey pieces nicely over the vegetables. Prior to this step (I know i’d screw up some steps with this ‘following pics’ method) you should cover the turkey with curry and seasoning.
After you’ve arranged them on the tray, cover them with the remaining mayo-garlic-cheese and add the breadcrumbs allover the tray.
Put it into the oven and 45 minutes later you’re going to end up with the best oven cooked turkey and vegetables you’ve ever had!

We ended up with about 6 servings, so as per usual you should divide all the numbers on the nutritional info by six. We actually are very proud that we didn’t end up with at least ten servings!

Hope you’ll enjoy it and not find it too complicated to follow the recipe! Yes, we know we messed up, but the food was great!

April 23, 2016

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Taking responsibility for one’s own actions!

As you all know, I overslept on Sunday, and my significant other decided to go grocery shopping without a list and on an empty stomach, therefore we were stuck with enough food to feed a small third world country. He did however take responsibility for his errors and ended up cooking all day. The end-result that was supposed to be our lunch mesmerised into our dinner (taking photos and cooking doubled the cooking time) and it was DELICIOUS! And this is coming from someone that doesn’t necessarily appreciate a meat-based dinner. Knowing this all too well about me, the sneaky bastard incorporated cheese into the meat roll and ended up with a lot of praising (on and offline) from yours truly.

I do have to mention this, before we start with the technicalities of this dish, that this time, D went all the way and apart from the main course he also made an amazing side dish, therefore, this recipe will have two distinctive parts. If you plan on recreating this recipe, take into consideration the amount of ingredients D bought and the fact that we ended up eating this meal all week long, so unless you plan on cooking for your neighbours as well, divide the quantities at least by 2.

What you’ll need for the main course:

625 gr flank steak (that’s two flank steaks, basically the moment I saw those two pieces I realised we were going to eat this all week long-not that I am complainig)
500 gr mushrooms
30 gr rucola (you can basically add whatever type of leaves you like – baby spinach, salad, etc)
15 gr of chives
5 gr of fresh thyme (rosemary works well with beef as well)
2 medium red onions
50 gr grated cheese
butter (beef tastes infinitely better when cooked with butter instead of oil)

Steps you’ll need to follow:

As per usual, arrange all the ingredients for that perfect photo.
Start by putting a little butter into a non-stick pan and let it melt over small flame.
Put the minced onions in the pan and stir well until it turns soft.
Add all the diced mushrooms and stir until they halved in volume.
Add the minced chives and stir until the mushrooms turn brown (see photo for reference).
Lay the meat flat and put some of the mushroom stew on it. Keep the rest for a little variety on the side.
Add the rucola on top of the mushroom stew.
Finish the combo with grated cheese and thyme.
Roll the meat, securing it with skewer-sticks and then cut it into 3 cm thick slices.
Heat some butter into a cast iron pan – if you’re going to fry meat, this is the best type of pan for the best taste (D already tried every other type of pan, save your money)
Put the slices into the pan and cook them 2-3 minutes on each side, or until you decide they’re good to eat (we’re normally having medium-rare beef)

Congratulations! The main course is done! Moving along to the side dish…

What you’re going to use:

500 gr new potatoes
500 gr sweet potatoes (1 large will suffice)
250 gr cherry tomatoes (use cherry tomatoes so you won’t need to chop them)
10 gr thyme
1 medium red onion
50 gr grated cheese
butter
1 tbsp pomace olive oil (do not use virgin olive oil for cooking)

The road from a bunch of ingredients to some of the best baked potatoes:

Butter the inside of the vessel you are going to use.
Pre-heat the oven at 185 degrees C.
Throughly wash the potatoes and dice the sweet potato.
Evenly spread the sweet potato on the vessel.
Top them with the cherry tomatoes and the sliced onion.
Cut the new potatoes into halves and put them over everything (they are last as the sweet potato needs more heat)
Sprinkle the thyme and pour the tablespoon of olive oil evenly.
Add salt and pepper and in the oven they go!

Depending on your oven, they should be done in 20-30 minutes. Right at the end, grate them with the cheese and you’re done. This whole post actually took me to write, a fraction of the time it took D to cook. Even though it took us 4 hours from start to finish, it was so worth it! The combo of beef, greens and cheese alongside new and sweet potatoes is amazing, and once again D won my heart with this dish!

As you’ve been accustomed by now, the nutritional information is from my UP app and it’s for the whole amount of food. You should divide it by 8 in order to get the info for one serving. All in all, this is actually a healthy meal, in spite of the frying part, but only because we used very little butter instead of oil.