garlic

Holiday Series: Christmas Feast!

Starting our Holiday Series late this year as we had tons of stuff to do these days, plus we found out that we do not have five more weeks until the little bundle of joy joins us, but only about three so we had lots to do and lots to panic about. That said, we did do a lot of stuff for the blog as well, a Christmas feast included that will take you two days to make. I think this is actually the most elaborate thing we ever did in the kitchen and this all happened because of D. Because he just loves ribs!!!

To keep with the Romanian Christmas tradition, this time he chose pork ribs and we decided to make them in the oven with a wedge-potatoes side – that happened because I still crave potatoes like crazy! As well as craving chocolate, sweet bread and other fattening stuff, except for meat.That said, I do admit that those ribs were amazing eating them felt like heaven in my mouth. They were just the right amount of cooked, seasoned, moist and they simply fell off the bone. I am telling you D outdid himself with these ribs! Thus I am absolutely recommending his recipe! So this post will go two ways: the ribs and the side with a simple mayo dip.

Part 1: The Ribs!

What we used:

4 racks of pork ribs
1 bottle of Jack Daniels Barbecue Hot Chilli Sauce
4 tbsp honey
1 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp hot chilly powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon (you can skip the cinnamon if you do not like it)
10 g fresh basil
20 g fresh chives
20 g fresh rosemary

What we did:

We took a large amount of photos – as you can see this has to be the most photo-infused recipe post.
In a large bowl, mix the barbecue sauce, the chopped herbs, the honey and the spices.
Take each rack of ribs and generously cover them in the mixture.
Cover them with transparent foil and place them in the fridge overnight.
The next day, carefully line a tray with aluminium foil, place the ribs on it covering them with the barbecue mixture.
Pre-heat the oven at 160 degrees C.
Grind some Barbecue spices all over the ribs, cover the tray with foil and into the oven they go for about 3 hours making sure you flip them mid-way.
At the end of those 3 hours, take the covering aluminium foil off and leave them in the oven for another 30 minutes.
That’s it! Despite this one taking 24 hours to perfect, it is very easy to make.

Part 2: The baked potatoes and the dip!

What we used:

1 kg small potatoes
10 g fresh basil leaves
10 g fresh rosemary
10 g fresh chives
30 g butter
3 white onions
1 small pot of Hellman’s mayonnaise (we usually prefer fresh home made mayo but being pregnant, I am not allowed to eat anything unpasteurised)
2 garlic heads
1 tsp barbecue seasoning

What we did:

Again, we took lots of photos – did I mention how much I love food photography?
We roughly cut the potatoes into wedges (no, we did not remove the skin) and we cut the onions into rings.
Chop the greens, mix them together but keep about half of the chopped chives for the dip.
Heat the butter until it is liquified and smash the garlic.
Mix the butter with the greens, the seasoning and half of the garlic – this will be your potatoes seasoning.
In an oven-safe ceramic bowl carefully place the potatoes and paint them with the butter-herb mixture, add a layer of onion rings and then repeat with a layer of potatoes and butter mixture and off into the oven they go at 160 degrees C (yes, you can add them in the oven with the ribs) for about one hour.
For the dip you will need the mayo, the remaining garlic and the remaining chives and all you have to do is mix them together to end up with a perfectly balanced garlic dip.

That is about it! You will end up with an amazing dish for the holidays that is both filling and delicious. And it was all D‘s idea! Since this is a festive time, I will not, under any circumstance think about how healthy/unhealthy this dish is and thus I will not post any nutritional info as I feel this is a time to celebrate life and not count calories and fats.

Stay close by as the next post will be the first one from the Christmas Tree Series that we plan to do every year and we will reveal the theme we chose this year! Until then, just enjoy a full plate of ribs with your family!

December 22, 2016

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Weekend Breakfast Perfection…

After about 100 weekends when D surprised my very pregnant self with breakfast, I thought it was about time I returned the favour, so here we are… I baked him the best breakfast muffins I could come up with (being in the kitchen involves a lot of improvising for me). Just to get you in the mood, they contain prosciutto (because I forgot to buy bacon and prosciutto was the only thing I had in the fridge), red cheddar and a touch of garlic. Since it is the weekend, we tend to not count calories, fat or any other nasty stuff that could get our morale down, but I am telling you, these muffins are not for those that are on a diet, no, they are a cheat meal!

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Thankfully, if you have them for breakfast, they are not as bad as they seem on paper because you have an entire day to consume all that savoury goodness. That being said, I tried to keep them on the healthy side by not using white flour and by switching from sour cream to a much lighter yoghurt and low fat milk. I did not keep that in mind where the red full fat cheddar was involved, but you could easily switch to low fat mozzarella and skip the butter if you want them to actually be diet-friendly. I did not really want that because, hey, I am pregnant, and I need a day or two to indulge in my cravings fatty or not!

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So, getting down to the nitty gritty, here’s what you need for these dreamy breakfast muffins:

200 gr wholemeal flour
300 gr red cheddar
125 gr plain yoghurt
300 ml milk
80 gr butter
one garlic head
3 tsp baking powder
1 egg
A bit of oil for your tray (I used avocado spray oil)
12 slices of prosciutto

Processed with Snapseed.

Processed with Snapseed.

Following the steps is quite easy and it takes you about 7-10 minutes:

Grate 200 gr of cheddar, cut the remaining cheddar into small slices, lightly beat the egg and mince the garlic.
In the flour bowl mix together the baking powder,milk,yoghurt and egg.
Incorporate the grated cheddar into the mix.
Put the butter in a pot and slowly heat it up. When the butter is all melted add the garlic and stir well for about 1 minute. Take the pot away from the stove.
Spray the muffin tray with a bit of oil.
Now you are going to make muffin sandwiches with quite a few layers: first, put the prosciutto in each muffin shape, add about one tablespoon of batter, add a teaspoon of the garlic infused oil, the cheddar slices and finally another tablespoon of batter.
Put in the over (pre-heated at 180 degrees) for about 20 minutes, until they are brown on top. Yes they are not the best looking muffins once you get them out of the oven.
That’s it! After they have cooled a bit, carefully take them out of the tray and serve them.

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The combo of aromas is just too amazing and we both ended up finishing the entire tray of muffins in one sitting, but, to be honest, since it is the weekend I do not want to ruin my mood by thinking of how the scale is going to tip at my next doctor’s appointment. I can tell you that the little bundle of joy (which is very energetic these days) enjoyed them very much and I hope you will too!

October 9, 2016

evenlymatched1 Comment

Craving potatoes…Again…

We haven’t posted a recipe in a while now… Not necessarily because we have lacked in the cooking department – in fact we kinda did, with all the construction works going on – most of our cooking has been about D cooking wonderful breakfast recipes as surprises for me during weekends, therefore, no photos were taken to document that. Since some (all) of his dishes turned out AMAZING we will re-do them and post them here. Today is all about yesterday’s dinner and me craving potatoes again.

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This is a very easy to make dish, basically you can add anything in it, but I have to warn you, it needs 1.5 hours to be ready from the point when you only have the ingredients until you can actually enjoy it, so start before you are hungry. The ingredients are basics and to be honest, we had most of them in our house. This is yet again a no-meat dish because I still seem to have an adversity towards meat these days.

What you will need for about 30 potato patties:

1kg of white potatoes (but you can use whichever type you like)
2 eggs (we use free-range eggs that my mother brings me from the countryside every week)
1 garlic head (not too big as you still want to feel all the other ingredients and potatoes tend to absorb the garlic flavour better than anything else)
about 8 young green onions
300 gr of cheddar (we used both white and red cheddar – about 150 gr each)
50 gr of butter (use full fat butter as it is better)
15 gr of fresh oregano (you can use whatever fresh greens you like)
salt
pepper

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What you need to do:

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees Celsius.
Grate the potatoes and put them in freezing water as you do not want them to turn brown. I was lucky enough to have D help me with this step as he knows how important my manicure is to me and I always seem to grate my fingers whenever I attempt to grate anything.
Cut the onions, mince the garlic and the oregano and grate the cheese.
Whisk the eggs and melt the butter (we used the microwave for the butter for about 30″)
Get a big bowl as you are going to mix all the ingredients together. It doesn’t really matter what order you put them in, but it is really important to mix them really well.
Start making patties from the mixture and arrange them on a tray (use some baking paper otherwise they will stick to the tray and that is very messy).
Put them in the oven for about 40 minutes after which time you should add some cheddar on top of them and leave them in the oven for another 5 minutes.
That’s it! Enjoy!

Processed with Snapseed.

Processed with Snapseed.

This is not the healthiest meal out there, but it is an ok one according to my UP app. Yes it is packed with saturated fat, but it is also almost equally packed with unsaturated fats and fibres. Now all the data you see here is for the entire quantity – that is about 30 patties – yes, we used two trays to bake the entire composition, but you can use half of the ingredients. That means that one patty provide about 70 kcal which, in the grand scheme of things, is not that much. Naturally, nobody can only eat one, so I’d say that one serving consists of three-four patties, so it is rather ok for dinner.

September 29, 2016

evenlymatched2 Comments

Potato cravings…

Continuing the ‘Cravings’ series during my pregnancy. Like I said in a previous restaurant post, I am currently craving potatoes in any form possible – I do prefer them fried but I am way too lazy to do them myself. It is weird, as I normally do not like potatoes very much, I do love the sweet type, but not plain potatoes, but hey, what can I do? To all those wondering out there, I am gaining fat in a normal and steady pace that is healthy for our baby, and yes, once I end this pregnancy period it will be my goal to get in better shape than I used to be before the bundle of joy decided to enter our lives.

Back to the potato cravings… I really wanted something similar with french fries, but I hate eating unhealthy, especially now, so I decided to try and cook them in the oven with as little oil as possible, and judging by the Jawbone score, these are probably the healthiest and closest to french fries I will ever get at home.

Here’s what we used:

10 small potatoes
1 sweet red pepper
2 small pots of greek yoghurt (we like the buffalo type as it is supposed to be healthier)
50 gr of grated parmesan
1 cup of grated low-fat mozzarella
15 gr of fresh dill
15 gr of fresh chives
10 gr of fresh thyme
3 garlic heads
1/2 teaspoon of hot chilly powder
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of soya sauce
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon of BBQ seasoning

The way this dinner is made is quite easy and it takes you less than 40 minutes – photoshoot included – to complete it. The steps are very simple:

Arrange all the ingredients and take photos of them
Wash the potatoes and cut them into medium sized pieces – yes, we did not remove the skin!
Dice the sweet red pepper as little as you can
Finely chop all the greens and mince the garlic
Take some more photos!
In a big bowl put the olive oil, the soya sauce, the chilly powder, the BBQ seasoning, the diced sweet red pepper,the parmesan, all of the thyme, half of the chives, one third of the garlic and the sesame oil and mix them all together really well
Put the potatoes in and make sure they are well covered in the resulted seasoning sauce
Pour them on a tray, sprinkle some parmesan over them and into the heated oven the go (we heated the oven at max) for about 30 minutes – you should start tasting them after about 20 minutes
In a bowl, mix the greek yoghurt with the remaining chives, dill and garlic and there you have it – the perfect dip!
Arrange everything as nicely as possible on a plate, put a decent amount of mozzarella cheese on top of them and enjoy after taking some more photos!

I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious this dinner was! This is definitely a very comfortable way of cooking potatoes for those people that are afraid to cook with hot oil – it seriously attacked me every time I attempted using it! My Jawbone app deems it as ok health-wise, so this dinner will occur more often during my pregnancy! Just remember that the data shown is for four servings so do the math accordingly!

August 22, 2016

evenlymatched1 Comment

Cravings!

Right, by now you should’ve gotten used to the fact that I am pregnant and therefore cravings are coming full force ahead! I crave the weirdest healthy things, unlike the first two months when all I really wanted was cheesy pizza and pretzels, for the last few weeks I’ve been craving lots of vegetables and fruits. The thing that got me all dinner obsessed lately (for at least three times) is steamed broccoli and garlic yoghurt. The great thing about this dinner is that it will not upset your stomach as the vegetables are cooked, but they are not cooked to the point where they lose all nutritional value.

Yes, I know that this is a very simple and not really blog worthy recipe, but aside from the lovely looking photos, I want to also use this blog to keep track of my cravings and at the same time, to let mamas-to-be that are in their first trimester that all your unhealthy cravings will soon pass and you will start feeling like a healthy human being again.

So, back to this easy healthy dinner option – I can’t even call it a recipe! Here’s what we used:

2 broccoli heads
2 yoghurt pots – one for each of us so that we don’t fight over the dip
6 garlic cloves
1 tsp olive oil – to bring down the acidity of the garlic (pregnant ladies will know what I’m talking about)

The entire process take you about 15 minutes, which, again, is a big plus when those pregnancy cravings kick in! Here are all the steps:

Wash the broccoli heads really well and then set everything up for a small photoshoot.
Cut all that needs to be cut (broccoli and mash the garlic) and take lots of photos as well.
Prepare a pot with hot water and let it come to a boiling stage. Put the broccoli spears in a special steam pot on top of the boiling water and let it steam for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile mix the garlic with the yoghurt.
Arrange a nice plate, take photos and enjoy!

This is a very healthy dinner as you can see from the Jawbone UP analysis (10/10 on the food scale) and that entire quantity of broccoli on the plate is about 300 gr which is more than enough. All that food gives you about 230 kcal and a very full stomach but it doesn’t upset even the most sensitive pregnant woman and lets you rest very well during the night.

I know I’ve said that this will not turn into a pregnancy blog, but hey, this is the most important phase in my life and I need to eat accordingly, so the food part of the blog will turn into a cravings diary!

July 30, 2016

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Egg Feast!

It’s funny how, whenever we have to leave for a vacation somewhere, everybody seems to throw food at us. This is what happened last Sunday…my mother gave us 12 eggs! I mean, I know egg-season is here with Easter right around the corner, but what are we supposed to do with 12 eggs when we are one foot into our vacation. Good thing D is smart and full of cooking ideas! He decided we should make a frittata on Sunday morning. As all is fun and jolly in our kitchen, we, yet again, decided to use whatever we already had in our fridge for the magical Sunday frittata. Yes, I know Saturday is our day for the food post, but I had to share this with you before our departure. This was so easy to make and so delicious that it would be a pity to not share it prior to next Saturday, plus we have another mouth-watering recipe for next weekend.

Here’s what we used:

1 red onion
1 garlic clove
6 asparagus spears
1 bell pepper
100 gr bacon
150 gr cheddar cheese
4 green onions
2 large mushrooms
6 eggs
butter

Yes, for some random reason, we had all that in our fridge. Told you we were chaotic chefs!

How to get from random ingredients to a tasty frittata?

Chop all the vegetables and beat the eggs. Arrange them for a lovely photo! Do not forget to pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees C.
Heat a cast iron pan. You’ll need a pan that goes into the oven as well. Melt a small piece of butter so all the stuff you are going to put in won’t get stuck on the pan.
Fry the onion and the garlic first, then add the bacon and mix them really good until the bacon is half-crispy.
Add the mushrooms and the asparagus and fry them until they are a little cooked. Don’t cook them for too long as the mushrooms will leave a lot of water.
Mix the eggs with the bell peppers,the green onions and the cheddar and pour everything over the vegetable and bacon mix in the pan.
Mix them all up really good and then off in the oven they go!
After about 15 minutes, grate the frittata with a bit of cheddar and put it back into the oven for 5 more minutes.
That’s it! Take some pictures, share them on Instagram and enjoy!

This turned out really really delicious and D was right to use the eggs for the frittata, he also ate two boiled eggs each morning and we managed to finish them by the time we had to leave! This is a truly successful story and unlike all the other times we cooked, there weren’t enough dishes to even fill the dishwasher!