Cuisine: Quick & Easy

Wild garlic and walnut pesto

Pasta mit Bärlauch-Walnuss-Pesto

It’s been a long time, since I posted the last time. I am sorry, somehow I could never find the time. But there are plenty of recipes I wanted to share with you. So today there’s a wild garlic and walnut pesto.

I guess the season for wild garlic is already over (typically me …), or maybe not? You can still try it next year :-)

This recipe comes together in a few minutes, and still tastes very good. Perfect for me.

Ingredients

  • 1 bunch wild garlic
  • 80g walnuts
  • 4 Tbsp Parmesan (optional)
  • olive oil
  • salt & pepper

 

Start with chopping the walnuts coarsely and toast them in a pan without any grease, stirring to prevent them from burning. As soon as the walnuts start to smell nicely toasted, take them off the heat and set aside to cool.

Wash the wild garlic and pat the leaves dry, as dry as possible. Place the wild garlic and the walnuts in a food processor and blitz a few times until you have a coarse mixture. Add olive oil, and blitz adain, pouring the oil as you go until you have your desired texture. I prefer my pesto quite runny, so maybe I use more oil, than others would. Now season with pepper ans salt, add the parmesan and blitz a few times again.

Pour the pesto in a clean jar and smooth the top. I poured a thin layer of olive oil on top, hoping this would keep the pesto longer fresh.
this pesto tastes very nice in the classical way with pasta and topped with parmesan. But you can also mix it into your salad dressing or pour it over roasted vegetables.

 

Pasta mit Bärlauch-Walnuss-Pesto

Tarragon-Aspargus-Salad

Salat mit gebratenem Spargel

The season for white aspargus is about to start.Yeeeah!
It can happen, that I eat white aspargus twice a day, that’s how much I like it.
Today I bought aspargus for the first time in 2015, only a small bunch, so I had a nice salad with roasted aspargus on top.

Ingredients Salad

  • 6 spears white aspargus
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 bowl mixed salad leaves, respectively rucola, lammbs lettuce, radicchio
  • 4 sprigs tarragon, bzw. a small handful
  • 2 cherry tomatoes
  • pepper & salt

gebratener SpargelPeel the aspargus and snip off the ends. Cut the stalks diagonally into 7 mm pieces, keep the heads intact.
Heat the olive oil in a griddle and roast the aspargus for about 10 min. When the pieces begin to colour, add the heads and roast for about 4 min.
Wash the salad, if the leaves are too big, rip into 2–3 cm pieces. Pick the tarragon leaves off the stems, wash with the salad and spin or shake dry.
Depending on size cut the tomates in four or six pieces.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients Vinaigrette

  • 6 Tbsp olive oil
  • 4 Tbsp balsamico
  • 1 small shallot, finely chopped
  • 1 heaped Tsp jam/jelly, if possible raspberry or elderflower
  • 1 heaped Tsp whole grain mustard
  • pepper & salt

Mix the finely chopped shallot with the olive oil, balsamico, jam and mustard, until everything is nice and smooth. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

To assemble the salad, first layer the salad and tarragon leaves in a large soup bowl, add the tomatoes and pour over as much dressing as you like. I prefer mine quite soaked. Top with the aspargus and grind some more pepper on top.

If you haven’t tried the combination of aspargus and tarragon: it is heavenly!!

Salat mit gebratenem Spargel

 

Topinambur bruschetta | jerusalem artichoke bruschetta

Topinambur Bruschetta

This is my new favourite easy and really great recipe.
Thanks to my colleague and friend Golnar, who introduced it to me.
Usually I find it quite elaborate to peel and cook topinambur only to have major flatulence in the end, wishing to never have eaten the stuff in the first place.
I guess it is only a question of the amount, so this is the perfect dish. Topinambur as a starter.

Ingredients

  • ca. 8 topinambur/jerusalem artichoke bulbs
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • salt & pepper
  • ciabatta or baguette

Peel, wash and finely chop the topinambur.
Mix it in a bowl with the olive oil and season with pepper and salt to taste. If you think it needs more oil, then go for it.
Top two or three slices of the bread per person with the mixture.
And that’s it, ready to eat.

 

Topinambur Bruschetta

Pasta with cabbage

Congrats, you read this posts title and still clicked on it to read the recipe! Great!
I spent some time trying to come up with a better name for this recipe, because it is surprisingly tasty. Up until now I don’t have a good idea, if you have one, please let me know :-)

This dish is again a result of my organic delivery box (Bio Kiste in german, I don’t know how to translate properly, comes once a week with regional, organic fruit and vegetables).
I am always amazed about how much cabbage is in this box.
Even in summer. You would think, no one grows cabbage in summer, anything else grows in summer, no need to plant cabbage. But yeah, somebody does, and there it is, in my box.

I cannot recall how we first came up with the idea to pair pasta and cabbage, but when we did, we liked the result very much. It is the perfect office lunch. Only a few ingredients and quickly made.

Ingredients

  • 500 g spaghetti
  • 1/2 head white cabbage (if it is a small head, use the whole)
  • 200 ml cream (oat or spelt works nicely)
  • 200 ml white wine
  • 2 tbsp butter/margarine
  • nutmeg, salt & pepper
  • parmesam (optional)

WeisskohlPut a big pot with water on the stove and bring to a boil.
Halve the cabbage, and put the unused half in the fridge.
Remove the outer leaves and cut the cabbage again in halve or in quarters, depending on it’s size. Remove the stalk and slice the cabbage in approx. 1 cm slices.
Melt the butter/margarine in a pan, add the cabbage and steam for a couple of minutes. Season to taste with pepper, salt and the nutmeg.

Now the water should be boiling, add 1 tsp of salt and the pasta. Cook according to packet instructions.
Pour the cream and the white wine into the pan with the cabbage and mix well.
Take 1/2 cup of pasta boiling water an add to the cabbage, check the seasoning and let reduce a little bit. It is important, that the cabbage still has some bite, and is not overcooked.

Drain the pasta and arrange everything nicely on the plates. Sprinkle some parmesan on top if you like.

 

IMG_6413

 

red lentils with quince

rote Linsen mit Quitten

You might call this recipe a stew, it is a lot of frangrant food in one bowl for sure. You can eat it with basmati rice or maybe some fried sweet potato cubes, but usually I eat it all by itself.

Zutaten

  • 2–3 quinces, peeled and cored
  • 2 Tbsp soft brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp coconut oil or neutral oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, chopped
  • 250 g canned tomatoes (pureed or chunky)
  • 300 g red lentils
  • 500 ml vegetable broth
  • 2 kaffir lime leaves
  • 1 star-anise
  • 400 ml coconut milk (1 can)
  • 2 fresh chillies, chopped
  • 1 small handful coriander, stems and roots (if available) finely chopped
  • 1 small handful thai basilic (optional)
  • salt & pepper

IMG_5573Chop the quinces in bite-sized chunks and simmer them with the sugar and some water until soft. This shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes.
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and steam the onions until soft. Now add the garlic, chillies, star-anise, lime leaves and the coriander stems and roots. Simmer everything for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently.
Pour in the lentils, broth, coconut milk and the tomatoes and mix very well. Cook until the lentils are soft, around 15 min., then add the quinces and their cooking liquid.
Check seasoning and add salt, pepper and maybe some more brown sugar to taste.
Serve sprinkled with the coriander leaves and thai basilikum (if using).

rote Linsen mit Quitten

quince and plum chutney

Quitten-Pflaumen Chutney

Today I go on with my quince special.
This time I offer you something spicy, a chutney.
To be honest, I was never a chutney person. Actually I didn’t know, how to combine it, so some chutneys, I recieved as presents, still wait quite dusty in my cupboard. I am sorry.
But after cooking my first chutney, I had to taste it, so I tried it with basmati rice and some joghurt. That is the only way I enjoy my chutney until today, so if you have ideas, what to do with it, I’d be pleased to know!!

Ingredients

  • about 1 kg quince fruit
  • 500 g fresh plums
  • 150 g soft brown sugar
  • 180 ml apple cider vinegar ot white wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp neutral oil
  • 1 shallot
  • 1–3 fresh chillies, depending, on how spicy you like it
  • salt & pepper

Peel and core your quince fruits and chop into 1 cm chunks. Halve and pit the plums.
In a non-reactive pot heat the oil and gently fry the shallot until soft. Add the quince, cover and let cook on low heat for a couple of minutes. Now add all the other ingredients and let simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Fill in clean glasses up to the rim, close and turn bottom up for at least 20 min.

That’s it.
And here is a photo (I know it is horrible) of my dinner with persian saffron rice, chutney and soy-joghurt. But it was very tasty.

Abendessen

Turmeric-melon-coconut Shake

Kurkuma-Melonen-Kokosnuss-Shake

Two weeks ago, I made this incredibly good turmeric almond milk from Healthful Pursuit.
I used fresh turmeric instead of the powdered stuff and the flavour was unexpected fruity. I don’t know if that was because of the fresh turmeric or if it would have tasted the same with the dried turmeric powder. But I liked that. A lot!
And that’s why I thought this morning, that the turmeric (there is still a fresh piece in my fridge …) might taste very good paired with melon. And with a charentais melon waiting in my fridge as well, I changed the recipe to a very delicious, exotic milkshake.

Zutaten

  • 5ooml coconut-rice milk (or rice-coconut milk :-) )
  • 1–2 cm fresh turmeric, peeled
  • 1/2 charentais melon, deseeded and flesh scooped out (I guess any honeydew melon will do)
  • 1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
  • 8 stoned dates
  • 4–5 ice cubes (optional)

Simply staple everything in your blender. If the dates are quite dry, it might help to soak them for some minutes in the milk. Blitz until everything is smooth.
Divide between 4 small glasses (0,2l) or 2 larger ones (0,4l).

Kurkuma-Melonen-Kokosnuss-Shake

french green bean salad

französischer Bohnensalat

Today I am enjoying one of my summer classics. Green beans are in season now, so this salad is the choice of the day.

Al dente cooked green beans in a delicious vinaigrette made of grainy mustard, shallots and capers. Very nice.

Zutaten

  • 5oog green beans, stalk ends removed
  • 1 small shallot
  • 1 Tbsp grainy mustard
  • 4 Tbsp olive or rapeseed oil (or both)
  • 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp white balsamico
  • 2 Tbsp capers
  • 1 Tbsp chives
  • salt & pepper

First trim the beans. You only need to cut of the stalk ends, if the tops don’t look too good, snip them off. Very long beans can be halved.
Put a pan of salted water on to boil. Once boiling, boil your beans until al dente (with a bite, a little bit squeaky). This may take from 4 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of your beans. Check after 4 min and decide if they are fine.
Vinaigrette für frz. BohnensalatWhile the beans are cooking prepare your vinaigrette.
Put the mustard, oil, vinegar and the capers in a bowl and mix very well to emulgate. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

Drain the beans well, then tip the cooked beans into the bowl with your dressing and toss everything together, making sure all the beans get coated. Have a final taste and top with the chives (I usually cut them with scissors directly into the bowl). Now enjoy.

 

 

französischer Bohnensalat

Gazpacho

Gazpacho

GazpachoI still owe you this recipe. I already had that gazpacho last weekend, when it was so incredibly hot. It was perfect. A cold, spicy drink :-)
I prepared everything the evening before and let it chill in the fridge overnight. And everytime I opened the door of the fridge, I was looking forward to eating it.
And gazpacho is so easy to prepare.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

  • 5 medium tomatoes
  • 1 red pepper
  • 3/4 cucumber
  • 1/2 small bunch of parsley
  • 500 ml tomato juice
  • 1/2–1 tsp tabasco sauce ( I used the chipotle version)
  • 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • salt & pepper
  • 1/2 small garlic clove (if you like raw garlic you can use more)
  • 4 tbsp basil leaves

Gazpacho im BlenderPut everything except 3 tbsp of the basil leaves in a blender and mix until you yield a smooth soup. Season with pepper and salt.
Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, then season again to taste.
To serve divide between your choosen bowls or plates, garnish with basil leaves and olive oil (if you like).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gazpacho

Aronia-pear-smoothie

Aronia-Birnen-Smoothie

Since the smoothie yesterday turned out so well, I gave it another try with some other ingredients. Also very tasteful … and short ingredient list :-)

Ingredients

  • 1 big pear
  • 2 small oranges, or 1 big orange
  • 1/2 cup aronia juice
  • 1 small handful parsley
  • 1 small handful blackberries (I guess any other berry will be fine, or omit the berries)
  • 1 cup water (or same amount in ice cubes)
  • 1 Tbsp agave nectar or sweetener of choice
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp hemp seed

Put everything into your blender and blend well. Divide between 2 glasses and enjoy.

Aronia-Birnen-Smoothie