Chickpea, arugula and pine nut salad

A week ago, I made some delicious almond butter hummus, arugula pesto, some bruschettes. The next day I was looking through the fridge and all the ingredients I had met beautifully in this 3 minute salad.

To make 1 serving you need:


1 cup chickpeas, drained
1 cup arugula
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 tbsp pesto

In a large bowl, toss the ingredients together till they are mixed well. Serve and enjoy! To make a family sized salad, double, triple, etc. the amounts. Enjoy on it's own or serve as a side to chicken, lamb or roasted eggplant.

Hint: this salad transports easily to work, and makes a very satisfying lunch.

Kiwi, cucumber and avocado tabbouleh

Parsley has officially moved into our fridge. From the look of it, it has kicked out lettuce, and it has almost replaced arugula, which I thought I would never see missing from the crisper. Ask my why - other than the clear craving that we have developed for it, it comes with some awesome health benefits.

A sprig of parsley may be a good decoration, but once it takes the center part of your plate, it now brings significant amounts of vitamin K, vitamin C, iron and folate - all of which we need to usually supplement with. So think of this salad as your supplement on a plate :) Of course, we need calories - and here avocado comes to save the day, with fiber, great fats and smooth texture. Then we need a crunch - boom - cucumbers provide crunch and cool. Something was missing though - so I added kiwi for the flavor and sweet and sour tang, but it ended up proving to be a great addition of vitamin C. As winter ends and we enter into spring this is one very green way to celebrate it!

To make 2 servings you need:

2 cups chopped parsley

1 medium avocado

2 small kiwis

4 persian cucumbers

juice of 1/2 lime/lemon

1 tbsp olive oil 

sea salt to taste

Clean parsley well. I like to soak it in a deep bowl of water with some salt and let the cleaning happen on its own. After I remove the rough stems, I chop it finely. Once done with the parsley, cut the avocado and kiwi in small cubes, followed by the cucumbers. Mix everything well, season with the olive oil, lemon juice and salt and let the salad sit for 20 minutes before enjoying ( I dare you!)

Hope this brings you satisfaction and joy, it certainly made us very happy :)

Roasted cauliflower with cranberries

It's nearing the end of cauliflower season and it seems like we've been buying it even more. Sometimes we just have it raw or gently steamed with some lemon juice and nuts and sometimes we go crazy and make roasted cauliflower steaks or rich and creamy soups.

This time I went for roasted cauliflower - really simple to make and like all oven recipes - you barely have to watch it. This gives me plenty of time to focus on other tasks around the house while dinner is cooking.

To make 2 generous servings you need:

1/2 head cauliflower (or 1 small head)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/8 cup sundried tomatoes
1 tbsp light olive oil or coconut oil
1 tbsp sea salt

Heat the oven to 325 F (160 C). In the meantime, soak the cauliflower in water with a bit of salt and then rinse thoroughly. This will help clean it well. Separate the florets and place them in a bowl. Sprinkle olive oil and sea salt and mix. Place in a pan, cover with the cranberries and sindried tomatoes and cook for 30 minutes.

The aroma is deep and comforting and I suggest you enjoy this great cauliflower whether in place of a salad or as a side to chicken or turkey!

Carrot ginger salad

One thing I like about taking pictures at night is that orange colors look even more orange - in this case we got to use 3 different colors of carrots - yellow, light and intense orange and they all shine like a traffic light. Hope that brightened your day! Now to the salad.

This recipe is inspired by a late night dinner we had with our friends Stella and Rick, in one of LA's most famous sushi restaurants. While I remember the sushi which was perfect, the memory of the iceberg with carrot ginger sauce has stuck with me ever since. The carrot sauce was a lot sweeter than this salad, but I like to be able to taste the carrot's own sweetness and I find that adding honey or sugar would overshadow it. Let me know what you think after you try it!

What you need for 2 generous servings:

400-500 gr (1 lb) carrots
5-6 cm (2.5 inches) thick ginger root
Himalayan salt to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider or rice vinegar

Wash and prepare the carrots. Grate them and place in a large bowl. Peel and grate the ginger using the fine grater or a ginger grater (look at this really cool one on Wandering Chopsticks)

Mix the carrots and ginger, season with the olive oil and vinegar, salt and let it sit for 30 minutes.
This salad is great by itself, but if you want to enhance it, you can mix in fresh spinach leaves and a handful of raisins.

Enjoy as a side to fish or chicken, and don't hesitate to serve stir fry right on top of it!

BLT salad

I will admit it's not just bacon, lettuce and tomato, so it's more like BLTEA adding the egg and avocado, but this salad is a super satisfying lunch, especially if you are on a diet. As part of the JP Fitness 2012 fat loss challenge, I have slightly decreased my intake and I am constantly coming up with high volume, nutrient dense and satisfying meals. This has been one of my go-to meals, especially since leftover bacon is something we often have in the fridge. I hope you do too!

For 2 servings, you need:
1 medium head lettuce (we had iceberg, but anything works, including spinach and arugula)
2 tomatoes
1/2 avocado
2 hard boiled eggs
4 slices cooked crispy bacon (ideally left over from breakfast)
black pepper to taste
1 tbsp sour cream and 1 tbsp mustard for dressing (optional)

Cut up the lettuce, toss with the tomatoes, cut in large pieces, and the cubed avocado. Arrange in a deep bowl and cover with the cut up eggs and bacon strips. Add a dash of black pepper and if you wish, finish with a dressing made by combining sour cream and mustard. Enjoy this salad as lunch or a late day snack, it's barely 270 calories per serving including the dressing.

Curry cauliflower soup

 

I love the simplicity and flavor of this soup. It's a delicate creamy texture, with a slight curry bite and a warm and comforting aftertaste. One of my wonderful clients, who has a thing for cauliflower, saw this soup in my food log and asked for the recipe. Since my husband cooked it and blogged about it, I am going to afford myself the luxury of pasting this from his blog :) Thank you, darling!

Curried cauliflower soup

This soup is even better the next day, so feel free to make it yesterday, so you can eat it today.

4 servings


Ingredients

1 large head cauliflower
1 large tart apple (like a Granny Smith)
1 clove garlic (optional, but highly recommended)
1 tbsp garam masala (aka curry powder)
1 tsp turmeric (optional, but makes for a nice color)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp ghee or unsalted butter
salt to taste

Directions

Discard the greens and leaves of the cauliflower. Roughly chop the entire cauliflower, including the core. Peel, core, and chop the apple. Peel the clove of garlic, if using.

Place the apple, garlic, and cauliflower in a soup pot, with enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cook for about twenty minutes, until the cauliflower is tender. Blend with an immersion blender. Alternately, you can use a regular blender, just make sure to allow it to cool for a few minutes first, then blend it in batches.

Bring the soup to a slow simmer, and stir in the garam masala, turmeric, vinegar, salt, and ghee. Allow the soup to simmer for a few minutes. If necessary, add enough water to bring the pot to eight cups of soup.

Makes four, 2 cup servings, assuming you added enough water.


Nutrition
Per 2 cup serving – 120 calories, 3.5g fat, 21g carbohydrate, 7g fiber, 5g protein

Spiced quinoa tabbouleh

It's strange living in a place where parsley is considered a garnish. I am fighting back by making tabbouleh a couple of times per week, serving it to friends and pretending everything is normal. I've had great feedback so far, so I decided to share today's version of tabbouleh, prepared with quinoa.

Serves 2:
1/4 cup quinoa measured dry, cooked, drained, washed
2 cups parsley, chopped coarsely
1 cup dill weed, chopped
1 large tomato
3 small sweet peppers
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
salt to taste
juice of 1 lemon

 

To make, wash and drain the quinoa, and bring it to boil in some salted water. Cook for 10 minutes and then cover to let soak it up some more moisture for 5 minutes. Once ready, drain, wash and cool. In the meantime, chop the parsley and dill weed, cut peppers and tomato in small cubes. Mix quinoa with the vegetables and herbs, season with all the spices and lemon juice, let it sit for 10 minutes and it's ready to eat.

I had my salad with some sardines on the side, and they made a really good match.
Enjoy and let me know how you do your tabbouleh!

Polenta and tomato tart

You know I love slow roasted tomatoes, so I use any excuse to incorporate them into a recipe. This morning I went to the farmer's market with two wonderful ladies and an adorable little baby so we could all buy our favorite fruits and vegetables for the week ahead. I got some tomatoes that spent the nicest last days of summer in the sun and took them home to further condense the sweetness by slow roasting. 

 

What could I make from them? Hm....a tart. But how to make a tart without having to make the crust and using dough? Pre-made polenta to the rescue. You can read all about how polenta became a meal survivor approved item, here. You can make your own if the premade is not something you enjoy, either way, my recipe calls for ready made polenta.

To make 1 tart (serves 4), you need: 

2 cups polenta (cooked) 

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese 

1 tbsp olive oil 

12 or more slow roasted tomato halves 

4 oz feta cheese 

1 fresh tomato 

6 olives 

2 tbsp fresh herbs, chopped 

 

Preheat the oven to 375 F. In a bowl, mix the polenta, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil. You can taste it and add salt if you need to. Lay the polenta flat in a baking dish, and cover with the slow roasted tomato halves and feta cheese. Place thin slices of fresh tomato on top, and end with the olives. Cook for 25 minutes and 

sprinkle the herbs right before serving.  

I used sage, thyme and lemon basil to top the tart

This polenta tart is great for a late brunch, if you serve it warm, but you can also let it cool off and snack on it later. It also makes a delicious post workout meal. Let me know how yours turned out!

Arugula flower salad

We've been shopping at a new farmers' market, and have encountered some unusual, delicious and beautiful ingredients. My favorite of all are arugula flowers. Yes that is correct.

Most greens end up flowering and while some cultures discard of the flowers or feed them to their chickens, others cherish, utilize and proudly display their flowered vegetables.

The farmer we get these amazing flowers from sells them like it's the most usual thing in the world, yet every week someone is delighted to try them, proceeds to hopelessly fall in love with the flavor and takes them home. The great news is because noone knows what they are, they are really cheap - they go for 2 dollars for a huge huge bunch at our market.

Here is how to use them:

Take home, wash thoroughly, inspect for insects (what, you thought only you like the flavor of arugula?) and pull off any larger green leaves. Then place the flowers in a vase or jar, just like any bouquet.

To make the salad above (serves 2) I used:

2 cups arugula
1/4 cup arugula flowers
6 slices prosciutto
2 oz hard Parmesan cheese, grated
1 plum
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

To make, tear the larger arugula leaves, tear the prosciutto, cut the plum in crescents and arrange on top, grate the Parmesan coarsely, and season with the vinegar and olive oil. Decorate with the arugula flowers, you can use them as a single flower or a few on a small section of the stem - this is your true cherry on top!

Enjoy immediately - the flowers are bursting with delicate flavor, you will love them!

Stuffed zucchini blossoms

Let's vote this the most elegant appetizer ever made and say no more.

A couple of months ago, while Diana and I were looking at exciting new items to prepare for the Art of Real Food, vol 4, I was looking online to see what people had to share about the taste of zucchini blossoms.

Someone said that they tasted like air. If that is the case, then they taste like the air in heaven and kind of look like they belong there, too.

You can buy squash blossoms at a Farmers' market, you can pick them in your garden, your neighbor's garden or convince your grandpa to look away while you destroy the future of what could have been the largest squash in his greenhouse. Either way, if you've ever bit into a warm, soft, airy and delicious stuffed squash blossom, you will find a way to get your hands on them.

A few years ago I talked to a Chinese lady who claimed the only proper way to handle a squash blossom was to stuff it with ground meat and then steam it. She was so insistent on it that it took me a couple of years to build up the courage to approach squash blossoms with another idea.

So I stuffed them with cream cheese, olives, and arugula flowers. Were they amazing? You bet!!!

Here is what I used to stuff 12 of them:

12 squash blossoms
3 tbsp cream cheese
1 tbsp arugula flowers (chopped arugula leaves will do the same job)
2 tbsp chopped black olives
a really small spoon
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch sea salt

And that is all. Cream cheese has enough softness to carry the saltiness of the olives, and arugula adds a necessary bitterness to the mixture to make it perfectly matched. If you don't have arugula, use an herb you like, such as basil or parsley, or dill weed or Verbena, you can make it work!

To make the stuffing, mix the softened cream cheese, chopped olives and arugula. Wash and dry the blossoms, making sure no insects are hiding inside. Open each blossom up carefully and stuff with a couple of teaspoons of the mixture. Close by twisting the ends together. Salt all of the blossoms lightly.

In a pan over medium heat, heat up the olive oil and place the blossoms inside. Wait until they have turned slightly golden and turn over. Take out by the stems and arrange on a plate to enjoy immediately. These are addictive, so be sure you will make them again. Experiment with different stuffing, such as ricotta and Parmesan, prosciutto, blue cheese, mushrooms, nuts and even seafood. You can bake them or steam them, just bear in mind that they really carry the flavor of the oil, so use delicious and flavorful oils you enjoy! Let me know how yours turned out!

If some of your squash blossoms don't open or break, feel free to put them in an omelet :) Maybe there is a hungry Paleo guy in your kitchen, too :)

Oven roasted salmon with sweet potatoes...

...and lemons out of this world.

Praise Frank Nicolas Meyer, said to have brought the Meyer lemon, a cross between a lemon and a sweeter citrus (mandarin or orange) to North America. Those lemons are my favored variety, and luckily, they are grown all over California. We get them at farmer's markets, pick them from friends' trees or sometimes even find them hanging over fences and about to fall of a tree (and yes, I sometimes reach up and get them, it's called gathering).




This recipe is one of the few that I have ever created specifically targeted at recovery from heavy training. As I have added more strength training back into my routine, a salad with feta cheese does not quite work for lunch anymore.

Please enjoy this nutrition packed meal after your training and let me know how you feel!

Serves 2

2 medium salmon fillets, with skin
2 sweet potatoes (medium)
1/4 cup coconut flakes
1 small Meyer lemon
5-6 Verbena leaves
3-4 Sage leaves
dash Himalayan salt
1 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 cup water



Preheat oven to 375F. Use a cast iron pan and place your ingredients down as follows: potatoes, peeled and sliced, salmon fillets on top of them, skin up, herbs, chopped next, dash of salt, half of the coconut chips and then the slices of Meyer lemon. Melt the coconut oil over medium heat and drizzle over the potatoes. You can add more salt to the potatoes if you wish. Add 1/4 cup water to the pan. Place in the oven for 25 minutes. Take out, remove the lemons from the top of the fish and place the rest of the coconut chips. Return to the oven until you see the chips turn lightly brown. This will give them a crunchy feel and makes for a wonderful combination on your fork, contrasting the delicious, soft flesh of the fish. Serve immediately while still warm.

For the love of eggplant

We recently visited Roland's mom, who invited us to stay over for dinner and served some delicious eggplant, tomato and cheese sandwiches, generously topped with basil. We've always loved eggplant and decided to play with the recipe a little bit and suggest serving eggplant with various delicious and highly nutritious toppings as an appetizer, rather than making it the main star at dinner.

This recipe is only a platform for developing your own relationship with eggplant (or zucchini squash or sweet potatoes or peppers or any vegetable you can use as a base for your toppings).

To make 2 generous servings, I used:

1 eggplant
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 avocado
3 oz feta cheese
2 oz olive tapenade
basil leaves for decoration

optional toppings: tomato salsa, caramelized onions, pine nuts, walnuts, pesto sauce, sour cream

Slice the eggplant in 1/2 cm slices. Coat them well with olive oil and cook them in an iron cast pan over medium heat. When they are ready, place on a serving plate and top each slice with avocado slices or paste (you can leave the pieces whole or mash finely as I have done above), and feta cheese or olive tapenade and feta cheese. Decorate with a fresh basil leaf and enjoy immediately, while still warm.

This recipe is in the company of many other delicious and health-boosting recipes over at Chowstalker, your primal source of cooking ideas and recipes on the net :)

Morel mini kabobs

update: Thanks to Marx Foods for choosing this recipe to be the winner of the 2011 Morel challenge! We are touched and thrilled!

Our friends at Marx Foods had another exciting challenge - creating a morel mushroom hors d'oeuvre recipe. For that purpose, Roland and I were sent flavorful and beautiful dried morel mushrooms.

Your first encounter with the morel is like no other, they look like mushrooms that are more fit for a fairy tale book page, than for a kitchen counter. See them in nature, and I promise you can get lost in the marvelous texture, wondering how something this unusual popped up from under the leaves. I can see you thinking: "is this mushroom for real?''.

In Bulgarian, we call them ''frowning mushrooms'', perhaps to illustrate the deep wrinkles on their surface, but we had nothing to frown about when we cooked them. They were delicious!

It's not easy to come up with a recipe, specifically tailored to one type of mushroom. Enter the Flavor Bible, our favorite companion in tough times. The authors smartly lined up paragraphs upon paragraphs of items we could successfully match with morels, so we used our kabob idea and some inspiration from the list of flavor affinities! The result was more than we had hoped for.

To make 12 mini kabobs, we used:

12 teeny tiny potatoes
6 oz Fontina cheese
12 small dried Morels
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
2 tbsp olive oil
12 bamboo skewers

We started with soaking the morels in a bit of warm water and letting them reconstitute for about 20 minutes. We boiled the mini potatoes and cooled them off. Then, we cut the cheese in 12 cubes. We lined a potato, a piece of cheese and a morel on each skewer. Then, we mixed the rosemary and olive oil on a plate and rolled each skewer so that the rosemary could stick. At the end, we heated a large non stick pan over medium heat and cooked the skewers on both sides, until the cheese had melted. If you feel like your cheese has melted too much, just take the pan off the heat and let it cool off before removing. Less than 5 minutes for each side of the skewer should do the trick and have the cheese cooked to golden and slightly crispy. Let the mini kabobs cool off slightly and serve with rosemary. Enjoy with your favorite dark beer or a glass of red wine.

To get your fresh or dried morels, head over to Marx Foods. You can also check out their extremely rich morel recipe section!

Fish en papillote

It's really just fish in parchment paper...but en papillote just sounds so sweet :)

We just taught a great cooking class on healthy and delicious food and a couple of days before that we thought we should really retest the temperature for making a couple of thick fish fillets. Our test recipe came out very delicious and satisfying, so it's more than worth sharing.

Mahi mahi in parchment paper

Serves 2:

two large mahi mahi fillets (use any meaty thick fish)
1/2 bell pepper
1 zucchini squash
2 carrots
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive tepanade (or chopped up olives)
lemon pepper to taste
parchment paper



Preheat the oven to 400 F (200C). Prepare the vegetables, by cutting them in long strips or large slices (for the pepper). Proceed to cut a large piece of parchment paper and lay the vegetables tightly in a row. Place the fish on top and season with the lemon pepper. If you don't have lemon pepper, just sprinkle salt, pepper and some lemon zest or place whole slices of lemon. Place olives and butter on top.



Bring the ends of the paper together at the top, roll tightly in and fold under. You can staple it to make sure no moisture escapes. Roll in from the ends and staple again. The goal, no matter how you fasten the paper, is to let no moisture escape, as the steam is what cooks the fish and vegetables.

Place in the oven for 20 minutes. If your fish fillets are smaller, feel free to cook less - 10-12 minutes.



Serve by cutting the tops off the paper packages with scissors and letting some of the moisture and heat escape, then placing on a warm plate.

This recipe can use about any type of fish, vegetable or spice you can think of. If you want to try something very simple, use olive oil, lemon, salt and some cherry tomatoes when you next cook salmon. Just don't forget to do it en papillote!

Spinach and peppers fritatta - 2 ways

Spinach fritatta is one of those recipes that allow you to get all the components of a healthy meal rolled up into one. Let it cool off and take it to work or have it warm while the cheese is still soft and melting.

T0 make 2 servings of spinach and pepper fritatta you need:
1 small bell pepper, cubed
1 cup spinach, sliced

1 green onion, sliced
1 tbsp butter
3 whole small or medium eggs
2 oz sharp cheddar cheese

Start by heating up the butter in a pan and cooking the onion, pepper and spinach. When they are all soft you can decide whether to cook your fritatta over the stove or in the oven. If you choose to cook it over the stove, mix the cooked vegetables with the eggs and scramble well. Pour back in the pan and cook like an omelet. When it's done, grate the cheese on top. It always looks good to cut up the omelet like pizza and enjoy one piece at a time.

If you choose to cook it in the oven, more like a casserole, place the vegetables on the bottom, follow with the scrambled eggs and place the cheese on top. Cook in an oven heated to 400F (200C) for 25 minutes.

I think this recipe shows clearly that the same ingredients can look and taste differently because you prepared them differently. Give it a try and let me know!

Каle chips

You might have heard of kale, seen it at the store or even cooked it. Kale is extremely nutritious and is full of antioxidants, anti carcinogenic elements, and last but not least - Calcium. Think of kale as cabbage with lots of texture that is extremely easy to prepare. You can steam it with some garlic, nuts, chili powder and raisins or cranberries, add mushrooms or meat. For vegans, it becomes a great option mixed with couscous or quinoa.

I love green veggies, especially spinach and dock, and even though kale is cabbage, I like to think of it as a leafy green and choose to like it more than broccoli.

If you like crunchy food, you will LOVE kale chips, since they provide a lot of nutrition, but very few calories for the enjoyment. Here is what you need to make them:

For a couple of servings, you will need 4-5 kale leaves. Wash thoroughly with water (I like to soak them in water with some salt added to it), rinse well and pat dry with a towel. Cut the tough stems out and then tear the leaves into bite sized pieces. It's time to preheat the oven to 325 F. Place the pieces of kale on a large sized paper covered cookie sheet and drizzle with some olive oil. Sprinkle sea salt on top. To add spice, you could also sprinkle some black pepper or paprika on top. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Make sure you watch the chips after the 8th minute because depending on their texture they may start to turn crispy earlier. Remove at the first sight of brown, since the more brown they turn, the less you will enjoy the taste.

Serve on their own or as a side to scrambled eggs, the combination is unbeatable!

Roasted pepper hummus

We just visited a Turkish restaurant last week. I ordered hummus after the owner insisted that he had '' the best mmm ... hummmus..." and it really was the best I'd had in a long time. It was smooth, had just enough tahini and they had been easy on the garlic. It came with a generous serving of beef on top and was extremely satisfying to the last bite.

Our lunch reminded me of how much I love hummus, yet I must admit I rarely take the time to make it. You may remember my recipes for red beet hummus and my favorite pumpkin hummus, which was so good that it made the second volume of the Art of Real Food. Today's hummus is also a variation off of the original hummus recipe, with some ingredients omitted and some skillfully added. Enjoy!

Serves 4 (but really you want it more to serve 2, it's so good)

1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (you may use canned)
2 large red roasted peppers (freshly roasted and peeled or canned)
3 tbsp fresh cilantro (or parsley)
1/2 small lime (juice only)
1 tbsp pine nuts
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
optional: clove garlic: crushed

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. You can serve with vegetables for dipping, use as a side dish to accompany various meats or baked potatoes, or as a sandwich spread and wrap filling. I served it with baby carrots and some boiled eggs today, and it was really really good. Please let me know how yours turned out!

Green mango salad

If you are like me, you have probably bought a green mango before. It doesn't smell ripe, it's hard and it's, well...green. The good news is you can still use it without waiting for it to ripen, you just have to use it as a vegetable.

You can make a really easy crunchy and tangy salad, using the following:

serves 2:
2 small cucumbers
1 large bell pepper
1 green mango
1-2 green onions
Himalayan salt to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Slice all vegetables in long thin strips. Add the onions, diced. Mix well with the salt and olive oil and set aside for 30 minutes. The salt will work its magic and when you serve the salad, everyone will be impressed. Green mango is very full-bodied and at the same time almost reminiscent of citrus, without making your meals sour. In India dried and powdered green mango, called amchur (after the Indian for mango - ''am'') is very often used to add tart and slightly sour taste to curries. If you happen to visit an exotic spice market, definitely get some.

Let me know how your green mango changed your salad experience.

Mini salads and chocolate mousse...a Valentine's dinner report

I hope your Valentine's day dinner was as tasty as ours. While everyone was crammed in restaurants or still rushing to get to their reserved table for that special day, we did what we do best - we cooked together.

Roland made some amazing Parmesan crisps while I prepared pepperoni and cream cheese rolls and cut some really good smoked and peppery Mahi-mahi. Meanwhile, for the traditional shots of Bulgarian rakia, we needed some shot sized salads.

Taster spoons are a great way to raise the party spirit, since they make serving and eating anything fun. These particular ones in the shot were a timely gift from Roland, but if you are not so much into tiny cute porcelain objects, you can always get disposable tasting spoons at Amazon (they even have bamboo and biodegradable ones now, so you don't have to feel bad).

shot-sized salad

To make shot sized salad, I used:
10 pear tomatoes
1/6 avocado
1/4 cup cilantro
4 Calamata olives

I chopped everything up very well, added a tsp of olive oil and some salt and divided it in the spoons. You could serve practically any salad this way and really impress your guests.


avocado chocolate mousse with a touch of chile pepper

The chocolate mousse-mousse is an all time favorite from the second volume of The Art of Real Food. We faced a huge culinary challenge in that volume, since we wanted all the meals to be strictly vegan. Avocado came to the rescue, providing the best texture to house the rich chocolate flavor we wanted to experience. For Valentine's day, I added a touch of chile pepper, which is always nice if you want to perk up the chocolate aftertaste.

To make 4 small or 2 large servings, you need:

2 small avocados
8 tbsp water
6 tbsp brown sugar / 3 tbsp honey
8 tbsp cocoa powder
1 inch vanilla pod

In a pot over medium heat, melt the sugar with the water, scrape the vanilla bean inside, and slowly add the chocolate powder, stirring until you get a smooth chocolate mixture. In a blender, blend the avocados and start to add the cooked chocolate. Mix very well. Cool after you have served it in smaller or larger bowls and sprinkle a tad of chili powder on top right before you offer it.

Chocolate mousse always make me think of this guy, and I can't help posting this :)

Happy Valentine's Day and a Valentine's recipe idea

This morning my fiance officially stated ( in the proper Valentine card form ) on Facebook that he loves me more than bacon. I replied, again in Valentine card form that I love him more than cheesecake.

Valentine's day is all about saying what you feel, but sometimes words are not enough. Food ( and drink) come to the rescue as the ultimate way to express yourself.

A couple of weeks ago, on February 3, Diana and I released the third volume of the Art of Real Food recipe cards. We called them 100% aphrodisiacs, because the recipes we collected, invented and adapted, are all based on time proven arousing foods. We talked a lot about the power of good nutrition, but moreover about the power of good intention and how much sharing food really means. I would like to quote someone who said:

'' sharing food is the most intimate act you can perform with your clothes on''

and I hold this to be true in my own life. I feel like putting a ribbon around a home made cookie says more than '' I really care how you feel'' and making cheesecake for a friend the night before their birthday means more than '' I really like to be your friend''. Making food that glows, speaks, shines and flows, melts and invites the next bite is surely the way to a friend's or a lover's heart.

We discussed our menu ideas last night and decided to make an assortment of starters, cheese and some prosciutto, possibly crackers with olives and some amazing smoked mahi mahi we found at the farmers' market this weekend. We'll also make my favorite zabaglione sauce ( a wine and yolk custard sauce) to serve with fruit. I will try to take pictures and see how the dinner idea turns out. We were a bit split between champagne and wine...and shots...but as the day proceeds I am sure we will get even more overwhelmed with the options.

Until tonight, I offer you a recipe idea from our third book.


asparagus wrapped in prosciutto

We made asparagus with prosciutto which later Roland changed to asparagus with bacon, but we seem to like both. I feel like bacon takes a lot longer to cook, since it's richer in fat and thicker than prosciutto, but if you find a way to get it sliced real thin, it will probably work out very well.


asparagus wrapped in bacon

All you need to do for this recipe is find good looking asparagus and wrap one or two stalks, depending on how thick they are, in a long slice of meat. Place over a baking sheet or in a cast iron skillet in an oven heated to 400F (200 C) and cook for 8-10 minutes. Bacon, depending on the thickness, may take longer.

Enjoy responsibly, they go very fast, especially accompanied by some red wine. Our own recommendation would be Malbec for a deeper aftertaste or something light like Pinot Noir, if you would rather favor a more delicate experience.