Short Sushi Ideas

Here are just a couple of quick sushi ideas. 

Vegetarians, look away, Matic also made salmon sushi (not me, I don't touch dead fishies)!

We served fresh sliced cucumbers with sesame on the side, along with tofu that's been grilled in soy sauce and sesame seeds (put the seeds on the pan first, the the tofu, flip it over and pour soy sauce over everything and serve), which I pretty much make every chance I get. We also put out ginger and wasabi, of course.

For the filling, we used avocado, marinated shitake mushrooms, cucumber, egg omllet and lots of seame! Some of them were filled with salmon and cucumber.

This was the first sushi that we made ourselves, so I hope it's recognizable!

Muffins, as promised! (a.k.a. The Poof)

Here are the muffin pictures I promised to go with my basic muffin recipe. This one is some kind of spelt-banana-chocolate-pecan muffin miracle.They came out extra puffy, so excuse the deformed poofs at the top.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to say there is NO WHITE WHEAT and NO SUGAR in this recipe.


INGREDIENTS
2 cups spelt flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup goat milk
1 tsp. bicarbonate soda
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup (roasted and chopped) pecans
4 super ripe bananas

3 eggs
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips


PROCESS
Mash up the bananas with a fork. Whisk the eggs and mix them with the bananas. Add the milk and the maple syrup and the chocolate chips. In another bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, blend them together. Then combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir them together.
Simply spoon the dough into the muffin cups (that you have prepared) and stick it in the 180 C for 20 minutes.

Mother of Mini Cakes

I am finally reunited with my darling mother and in our total bliss, we bought adorably cute cake molds and decided to try them out. This is what happened:

Buckwheat Lemon-Poppy Mini Cakes

INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons poppy seeds
Juice of 2 lemons
1/2 cup brown (preferably molasses) sugar
2 vanilla sugars
2 cups buckwheat flour
1/2 cup kamut flour
1/2 cup goat milk
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda (so it gets fluffy!)

PROCESS
This is all very much like making muffin dough, except without the muffin tops.
If you know what I mean...


Whisk together the eggs and sugars and then add the milk. Combine the rest of the ingredients in another bowl. Then mix them all together and scoop the batter into the cake molds. Bake for 25min at 180 C.

Once baked, you will most likely have to cut off the bottoms of the cakes, so that they will lay flat on your plate, because it can always get poofy.


This recipe is naturally dedicated to mom herself, the woman who taught me how to bake in the first place. Whenever I turn on the oven, I'm home.

Vegetable Kingdom

Cooking song:

I Believe To My Soul- Ray Charles

My friend Elena and I got together on a lazy Saturday, rolled up our sleeves and made a full luxury lunch (whatever that means!), using the vegetables and fruits from my seasonal, ecological basket that gets delivered to my house every week. Since I had an excess of apples, we mainly played with the apples and even invented Apple/Vegetable Soup. But trust me, it's not as crazy as it sounds. The whole time I'm thinking: I believe, yes, I believe these recipes are going to work! It was all pretty improvised, so these recipes are going to be a little bit vague...

The menu was as follows:

Green Salad with Mixed Seed Dressing

Apple soup

Zucchini Casserole

Spelt Boobie Pie

Green Salad

Everyone can make salad. The special thing about this one is that it's topped with sizzling hot seeds that have been roasted, just to the point when they start jumping around on the pan. I like to use sesame, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds. Then I simply pour some olive oil and some freshly squeezed lemon juice over it and that's it!

Apple Soup

INGREDIENTS

5 super ripe apples

Fennel

Leek

3 potatoes

1 carrot

1 onion

PROCESS

Really just chop these things up, and boil them in boiling water for about 20 to 30 minutes. Then simply puree all the ingredients so that you get a smooth, creamy consistency. As for spices, use organic vegetable mix, sweet paprika, and a lot of salt.

Be sure to decorate with pumpkin seeds, it really looks like a springtime flower when served in nice big soup plates.

Zucchini Casserole

INGREDIENTS

Scallion

Leek

Zucchini

Cherry Tomatoes

Potatoes

Feta cheese

3 eggs

Here goes:

Thinly slice the potatoes and distribute them in two layers at the bottom of your baking dish. You then grate about four sizable zucchini and chop up the scallions. You layer each in a baking dish. Then comes a layer of chopped tomatoes, and then the zucchini, again grated. As you're layering, throw in some feta sqares and leek every now and then. Sprinkle the top with Parmesan. Soak the whole Casserole in three eggs and let the veggies soak them up before you pop it in the oven for half an hour at 180 C.

Marzipan Pudding (Vegan, GF)

This my own little invention, great to go along with cakes or even as a single dessert.  I always improvise this little recipe, so please excuse my general directions, but I truly don't know the specifics. The trick is to just keep tasting and mixing until it feels right to you (or until it disappears)!

INGREDIENTS

Almonds

Hazelnuts

Wallnuts

AKACIJEV Honey

Dark chocolate powder or hot cocoa powder

Dates (soaked overnight)

Hazelnut Milk

Rice Milk

PROCESS

Mix all the nuts in a mixer, slowly adding the nut and rice milk for consistency. Add chocolate poweder by the spoonfulls and see how it goes. When you're happy with it, scoop it out and miix up the dates (that have been soaked over night, pitted and cut up into little pieces). Keep adding chocolate powder, nut milk and coconut oil to get the right consistency all along. Then layer both mixtures on top of one another in some sort of dish. For the final touch, add a layer of chocolate powder, mixed with honey and coconut oil, with which you should completely cover the pudding.

You can feel free to use different kinds of nut milks, whichever suits you taste.

Keep the pudding in the refrigerator. Let it cool and harden and before serving. It should last at least a week in there, but, of course, it won't stay uneaten for that long.

Pudding song:

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay- Otis Redding 

Two Birthday Cakes

Matic's Flower Cake

Please excuse the lousy picture (I was not at home), but I went to my boyfriend's family's house, where his sister, mother, and I made him a spectacular birthday cake. Scientifically, I think what happened is that brotherly, motherly and romantic love combined into a delicious goo of adoration, with then baked in the oven at 180 C and then presented itself as a manifestation of good wishes and all good things in general, which we then ate, while grinning like the cheshire cat in Alice.

That, with all the drama, is how birthdays are made.

INGREDIENTS

The dough:

150 g coconut oil

150 g brown sugar

4 eggs

4 spoons of dark cocoa powder

200 g ground almonds (you can also use walnuts, if you like)

The filling:

100 g ground almonds

100 g brown molasses sugar

1 dcl water

100 g coconut oil

The decorations:

200 g dark chocolate

100 g butter

Almond slices

The dough:

Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and melted coconut oil. When smooth, stir in the chocolate powder and almonds. Be careful to keep the mass fluffy! Be sure to be stirring very gently and slowly, especially in the last step.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg whites into kind of a solid cream. The ultimate egg white test goes like this: turn the bowl over. If the egg whites you have been dutifully whisking start sliding down and onto your kitchen counter, you have much more whisking to do! But, if the egg whites stay in the bowl exactly like they were, like a solid cloud, then you can give yourself a pat on the back for yet another job well done.

When the egg whites are ready, slowly stir them into the first mix with a soft spatula, making sure to very gentle.

Bake at 180 C for 1 hour.

When the dough has cooled off, cut in in half and spread the filling on the both pieces. Then close up the cake and spread the chocolate glaze all over the top. Then decorate.

The filling:

Bring the water to a boil and then mix in the sugar. You should get a little foam on top and the smell of caramel should be filling the kitchen. Then stir in the almonds.

In another skillet, heat up the almonds (so they release their delicious aroma) and pour orange extract and/or orange liqueur over them, along with the coconut oil.

Then pour this mass into the water skillet and stir under low heat, until fully combined. Pretend you are spreading Nutella as you moisten the dough with the marzipan filling.

The decorations:

Make the classic chocolate glaze, using a double skillet. You simply melt the chocolate with the butter and let it cool a little. That is all.

What we did to decorate, though, besides for covering the whole cake in luscious chocolate, was a little trick that just happened to turn out very cute. We put tons of little chocolate lumps onto a baking sheet and let it harden the the fridge. We then arranged them onto the glazed cake, with enough spaces in between to arrange the almond slices around them, to make the cake look like field of flowers.

Luka's Buckwheat Cake

Luka is my cousin, whose house I went to, to make him a celebratory birthday cake. You will thus once again have to excuse the pictures, taken with my ipod, but at least a happy Luka is recognizable on them! This is really all the documentation I have of the event...

I have even have a reputation within the family as the Birthday Cake Maker.

What? Someone is celebrating? No fear, the Cake Maker is here!

Luka likes it creamy and fruity, so even though this cake is not my style, he was happy.

The dough:

7 eggs (no joke.)

140 g buckwheat flour

200 g brown molasses sugar

Rum, rum extract, or rum sugar

The filling:

Non-dairy whipped cream

Peach compote

Cherry compote

The decorations:

Almonds

Fresh strawberries

Non-dairy whipped cream

Cake song:
Build Me Up Buttercup- The Foundations

Polenta Fun: TV Dinner for One

Total cooking time: 10 min



For some reason, this little dinner always puts me in a good mood. Just make some polenta, let it cool, cut it up and grill it on low heat. Put on some homemade pesto (or store bought, if you're a busy person, like moi) and thin slices of hard goat cheese. Let the cheese melt a bit and serve yourself!


I usually eat it with some oven baked veggies, just whatever I have at hand on a bed of rocket salad.

Cooking song:
Anyone Else But You- The Moldy Peaches

Classic Spelt Pie (a.k.a. Boobies)

This is my classic pie that I bake whenever I get the chance. It's great at buffet dinners, tea parties, or even as party food.

INGREDIENTS
300g spelt flour (sometimes I use 150g buckwheat and 150g spelt flour)

150g butter 

Ice cold water

PROCESS
Mix the cubes of butter and the spelt flour together with your bare hands. Add a bit of water to get the right consistency. When the dough is ready you should be able to put it into a ball, or rather, a sausage. Then wrap this in cellophane wrap and put it into the refrigerator for half an hour. 

When you have taken it out, simply cut the 'sausage' up into slices (cut them as thick as you want the dough to be) and mush them into the bottom of the pie mould with your fingers.

You can fill it up with whatever ripe, seasonal fruit that's around. But for your visual convenience, I used an impromptu mixture of slices apples (five apples, to be precise), combined with ground hazelnuts and whole roasted almonds. I threw in some cinnamon and vanilla sugar to taste, and this is what came out:

The decoration seemed like a good idea at the time- to make the pie look like almonds boobies. Now it's not so funny.


Baking song (obviously):
Making Pies- Patty Griffin

Jana's Lunch

PLEASE excuse the gross pictures, they were taken in bad lighting on some ipod, since I was not at home to perk up the shots. Nevertheless, this is just to give you an idea, it is the recipe that counts.

One gloomy Saturday, I took the bus, bearing ecological vegetables, over to my boyfriend's mother's house to try out some recipes. We made lunch together, and this is what came out.

Potato Casserole

Spanish Potato Casserole

This is kind of an off-the-record recipe. I made it few weeks ago and although it has nothing to do with Jana or this post, it's still a casserole and very delicious!


INGREDIENTS
Potatoes (depends on how big they are, but I usually use about six)
2 Green peppers
1 Red pepper
2 onions
2 tomatoes


PROCESS
Slice up the onions and throw them onto a sizzling pan with some sesame oil (or coconut or whatever good oil you have at hand). Over that, throw the thinly slices potatoes.
Let this sizzle for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. About halfway through, throw in the peppers and tomatoes as well and cover it up.
When the potatoes have gotten softer, slide the contents of the pan into a baking dish and bake for 20min at 180 C.
Serve hot, with salad.

Vegan Pear Pie (absolutely GF!)

INGREDIENTS
150g ground hazelnuts
150g ground almonds
Raw chocolate powder
Cinnamon
2 eggs
Coconut oil
5 nice ripe pears


PROCESS
Simply mix together the ground nuts, add some cinnamon and a few spoonfuls of chocolate powder. The scoop in about 5 heaping teaspoon of coconut oil (or coconut butter, if you wish) and knead the dough with your bare hands hands. Then add in the two whisked eggs to bring the dough together.
Lay the dough out evenly on the bottom of your pie mold. In the middle, distribute the thinly pears evenly, as shown on the picture. Sprinkle the whole thing with chocolate and cinnamon and pop it in the over for 45min at 180 C.

Lunch Song:
Try A Little Tenderness- Otis Redding

Basic Muffin Recipe (GF if you like!)

GOOD TO KNOW


You can put in anything you like, from powedered chooclate to different chocolate chips, to banana puree, to big chunks of fresh or frozen fruit (but please be careful when using frozen berries, they really should be ecological!) You can even alternate the flours, using any two from the list in the 'Hello' section. For sweet muffins, I always combine a flour that has a strong taste with a milder one, usually anything with rice or corn flour works (ex. spelt and rice, buckwheat and corn), but eventually you see what suits your taste. But my most frequently combination is still spelt and buckwheat, because I feel they truly compliment each other, even though they both have a strong flavor.


They can even be salty, you can mix in spinach, cheese, cherry tomatoes, carrots, as you wish! But in this case it's best if you use corn and/or rice flour and some spices to taste. You'll figure out what goes with what, just keep tasting!


For your visual convenience I am going to make tons of different muffin doughs, all spin offs of the basic recipe, so you can see examples of all the variations you can do! And I might also add in more detailed recipes of the best ones! This here is just to give you a basic idea...


INGREDIENTS: SWEET VERSION


1 cup milder flour (ex. spelt)
1 1/4 cup more flavorful flour (ex. buckwheat)
1 cup oats
1 tbsp baking soda
1 cup nut milk (almond or hazelnut)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup agave syrup
2 eggs (you can even go vegan without them, but in that case add a lot of nuts and less of the nut milk)
pinch of salt (always)
spices like: cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla extract, etc.
then fold in fresh fruits, dried fruits (raisins and cranberries are especially nice), nuts (soaked and chopped up!), chocolate pieces and so on.


INGREDIENTS: SALTY VERSION


1 cup rice flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1 tbsp baking soda
1 cup sheep cheese
3 eggs
1 cup rice milk
salt and pepper (always)
spices like: paprika, chili, basil, rosemary, thyme, curry... depending on which direction you're going in, in terms of flavor. I'm usually choosing between spicy, Mediterranean, and Indian.
When adding in tomatoes, it is automatically best to go Mediterranean, with herbs like rosemary and thyme, and trust me, it's good to go with tomatoes, because they come out so incredibly juicy in the muffins, especially in combination with the cheese and corn!


AND definitely: shredded parmesan (parmegano rigano) or goat cheese to put on top!


PROCESS
Very easy. Mix the dry ingredients (including spices) in a bowl with a spoon or your hands. Whisk together the wet in a different bowl. The combine the wet and dry, mush together (using your bare hands) until the dry are completely mixed in (no streaks or lumps.) Let the flour absorb the liquids for a few minutes. Then fold in the fruits or vegetables or chocolate chips or whatever it is that you're folding in. Spoon the batter into the muffin pan. Put into the oven for 20-25 minutes at 180 C. Be sure to do the fork test before you take them out for good. Allow to cool before serving.

Katja's Cranberry Morning Cookies

GOOD TO KNOW

First off, if you don't have ghee, please do not fret. Ghee gives the cookies a bit of a sour taste, which goes well with the cranberries and molasses, but feel free to use coconut oil instead, or even regular butter, but I suggest you soften it first (by heating it up). You can also substitute cranberries for raisins if you prefer. Also, if anyone would like to experiment, I'm thinking vanilla would go nicely with all of this, but I haven't tried it yet myself.This recipe is dedicated to Katja and her mysterious grandmother, who kindly inspired the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

200g oat flakes 

70g ghee

2 eggs

1/2 cup hazelnut milk

1/4 cup maple syrup

70g molasses sugar

150 g cashew & 50g almond nuts grounded

1 cup dried cranberries

1 teaspoon baking powder

100g spelt flour

PROCESS
It's so easy. Mix the flour and baking soda (with your hands). Then throw this into a nice big bowl and add the rest of the ingredients, with the exception of the the nuts and oats.

Chop up the cashews as much as you can using a good knife. It's enough if each nut is chopped into three of four pieces, then roast them until they unleash their delicious aroma and their wonderful smell spreads across the entire room. That's when you know it's time to set them aside to cool off. Then roast the oat flakes and wait for the signal from your nostrils. Then add both things into the batter.

Mush all the ingredients together using both your hands. The batter will be chunky no matter what you do, so don't worry. It will take a while to get to the right consistency, so, when in doubt, add hazelnut milk! I like to set the batter aside for about 10 minutes before I mold the cookies, so that the liquids absorb the flours.

Then make little balls out of the batter (don't worry if a cashew sticks out here and there). Align them nicely on baking sheets, with an inch or two in between the cookies.

Bake for 20 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius.

BAKING SONG

Banana Pancakes- The Faces

Chocolate Mini Souffles (Salty Style)

   

This recipe is dedicated to my friend Neva, who inspired this recipe with her glorious Fondant Au Chocolat!

Prep time: 10 min

Baking time: 10 min

Makes: 8 mini-souflees (depending on how mini your ramekins are!)

GOOD TO KNOW

The key to a nice soufflé is very obvious. Simply DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN UNTIL THEY ARE DONE.  And they will- no matter how tempted or concerted you might be about their fragile fate- be done in 10 minutes. If you open the oven too early, the much admired soufflé puff will die down and you will get a flat mess resembling pudding (I speak from experience, sadly). There is no fork test, no poking or prodding or pounding or any other p-related activity of any kind. After ten minutes, carefully take them out and I recommend you carry them straight to the table, because sometimes the puff dies down while you're not watching! It's best to serve them hot and with whipped cream, berries, ice cream or sorbet. But don't worry: they will remain moist and gooey even the next day.

Why so much salt?

Because it brings out the chocolate flavor and spices things up a bit, without distracting from the creamy-chocolately taste of the soufflé. Be sure to taste the batter before you put the egg in. If you don't like it salty, add no more than a pinch.

Why mini?

Because small things are cuter (big culinary lesson!) and they look wonderful on the table, especially at parties. I like to use many ramekins of different sizes, which is just more party-ish.

INGREDIENTS

250 g dark chocolate (never use the powdered kind. Trust me, you need it creamy, not fake-powdery)

200 g butter

2 tablespoons salt (no joke.)

2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

3 eggs

PROCESS

Cut up the chocolate bars and butter sticks into chunks. Melt the chocolate and butter until you get a smooth, consistent viscous liquid. Add the salt and leave to cool off until warm. In the mean time, whisk the eggs, and when the butterchocolate is ready, pour them in. Still whisking or stirring slowly, add in the flour until completely mixed in. The batter should look something like this:

Transfer straight into the ramekins and bake for 10 minutes at 200°C.

BAKING SONG

I Feel It All - Feist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-iAS18rv68&ob=av2e