I’m a big fan of colorful books (well, there is an explanation 🙂), with simple, nutritious and balanced recipes. What I liked about the book is that there are recipes that can be cooked by children or with children – knowing that in these modern worlds these little ones think that everything grows on the shelf in the supermarket or in the oven at McD.
Of all the books I have read so far, it is the closest in style to what I cook in general, fast food or salads. As a result, this Friday we will have a feast of several kinds. 🙂 Yeah, I couldn’t just decide on a recipe. :)))
From our gang we will also have a vegetarian recipe. Next week. 🙂
And I don’t know why, but I have a feeling we’ll meet it again. The book and its recipes. 🙂
The next virtual meeting of our club will be at the beginning of July.
In the local culture, the classic meatball soup (or cousins, as we call it – is a Romanian language joke) is a test for the informal citizenship exam. If you destroy the aforementioned soup, you will have ninety years of bad luck, you will reincarnate as prime minister and you will never get married again. 😀 Of course, if you share this article 7 times you will cut your bad luck and your soup will come out as great…
As with any other respectable soup, we have several options. In that very good version (which is eaten directly from the pot) you start by boiling some pork or beef bones with its meat, then, when it is cooked, you remove it from the bones, then add the vegetables and meatballs.
Because we have already established that I do not have the talent in the kitchen – well, disasteeeeeeer!!! – we will test the quick version. In which we will fry some vegetables in a pot, e.g. carrot, parsley, celery, pepper, onion, cleaned and chopped, along with salt, pepper, vegeta, oil, we will fill the pot with water and when it starts boiling, we will add the meatballs. These are a mixture of minced meat with rice, a raw egg and spices; if you want them beautiful and equal (assuming you want to impress the audience), you prepare them in time, with a teaspoon, you put them on a tray. If not, use the classic way, by hand, round them and release them in the pot. Let it simmer over low heat until appropriate, until meat and vegetables are cooked through.
In the most unfortunate situation, when the result is very bad, I know a place where you can eat an extremely good meatball soup. 😛 😀
Many years ago I told an Italian how we eat pasta with breadcrumbs – an absolutely unimaginable thing :)) – and he gave me a recipe for pasta with tuna in exchange.
Take a frying pan, throw in the contents of a can of tuna, some cloves of garlic, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, chopped tomatoes or tomatoes in sauce and put it on the fire. I also added some red peppers.
The sauce is mixed with short pasta, cooked al dente.
There can be no disaster if you don’t ruin the pasta. 🙂
The second variant of pasta is even simpler. 🙂 Boil some broccoli, then throw it in a pan with olive oil and some chopped garlic cloves. If you also want meat, well, you can be creative. 🙂 Or you can see what you have in the fridge. At the end add basil and the boiled pasta.
No matter how disastrous you are, don’t boil pasta until it sticks. 🙂 And don’t cook vegetables until they become pasta. 🙂
An option for the days when you don’t know what to eat for breakfast. 🙂 Banana pancakes are the version with a thick dough, which still flows easily. I made you dizzy, I know! :))
Well, the quantities are approximate, because I never measure the ingredients. Sorry. 🙂
A ripe banana, crushed with a fork, a pinch of salt, an egg, a couple of tablespoons of flour and a couple of tablespoons of water. Mixed with a fork or a whisk. If you want to put milk instead of water, it’s perfect. Sugar, you don’t have to, because ripe bananas are very sweet. A thick dough comes out and you pour it into a pan, greased with a little oil.
The pancake (or pancakes, because you might make two) is fried over low heat on both sides. If it burns easily, it’s not a disaster. :))
Consume with a simple fork or with fruit sauce. I had some apples that I grated, boiled them with cinnamon and a little lemon juice and blend them into a sauce.
Carbohydrates with fruit, but worth it. On the word of disaster. 🙂
Obviously I’m a big fan of salads. And more obviously I prefer food prepared from scratch, because in this way you can control the ingredients, calories, amount of salt, sugar and so on.
Well, don’t think I was born with salads under my nose. 🙂 Plus it took me a while to form some skills and automatisms and not just live with pretzels and pastries. Given that I did not eat sandwiches at school, because I could not stand them. :)) (being picky and dwarf talents, what do you expect? 😛)
The good part and not at all disastrous is that since the Americans invented tupperware, it is much easier to prepare your salads for the office. 🙂 Basically you make a stock of casseroles, prepare the ingredients, portion the salads, label them, put them in the fridge and voila, you have the food for the next three days. The same philosophy goes for children’s packages at school. Of course, we have logistical dilemmas, related to keeping the pots in temperature conditions, until the lunch break and heating them, but there are solutions. At the office it is even easier because the employer is obliged by law to offer you a lunch break and conditions for it. (If they comment, there’s ITM.)
There are many salads on the internet, it is important to combine vegetables, fruits, proteins and carbohydrates for a balanced meal. The variant below is vegetarian (you can put meat instead of beans for a meat recipe or remove the egg for a vegan recipe). It includes canned beans, 1 boiled egg, some couscous, tomatoes and green parsley. It takes less than 15 minutes to prepare it and it has a decent number of calories, being nutritious. You can season it with salt and pepper, the dressing should be separate, in a closed bottle / jar (keep for several days, if it is a vinaigrette – oil + vinegar / lemon).
Ragu is a meat sauce invented in the XVIII-th century, which is combined with pasta. You’ve probably heard of bolognese sauce (ragu alla bolognese), which is not eaten with spaghetti, but with short pasta. Or ragu used in lasagna.
I tried to make lasagna with meat about twice and it turned out pretty nasty, which is why I stayed with the vegetarian version, still dreaming when I will be able to make an edible meat sauce…. And it happened that we came from Cluj, and on the way, to talk – about what? – food, so I stole the next recipe from the Chef. 😀
Minced pork or beef or mixture, salt, pepper, minced garlic and onion, put on the fire with some oil, until the meat changes color, then add 1-2 glasses of water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil over low heat, when the water has dropped, add vegetables (if you want, e.g. carrots, parsley, peppers) and tomato juice, spices (thyme, basil, mint, etc.) and more water (I think I put 2 glasses or more), possibly some wine and let it boil well, over low heat, until the water evaporates again and the sauce thickens. And obviously, the meat is well cooked.
Officially, I think it’s one of the most complicated things I’ve ever done, because I’ve been cooking the sauce for almost 4 hours. 🙂
The good part is that you can make a larger portion, then put it in boxes/ bags and freeze it for the next time when you don’t have time to cook.
The bad part is that I didn’t have time to put anything in the freezer, because I ate it with pasta, in lasagna and with a spoon, straight from the pot. :))))
Well, the beginning of June is approaching, therefore it is a good time to rediscover the child in you (option 1) or to cook with your child (option 2). Of course there is also option 3, both and a little extra. 😛
I looked over a few books, I had almost chosen a vegan one (are there vegan books for kindergarteners? Yes, of course, in which he learns that milk sucks because the calf is disposed so that people drink the product, that also requires tons of water… or something like… brrr), but to be honest I didn’t find it too varied, given that there are countless fruits, vegetables, seeds and combinations between them. (More than kale and almond wash). As a result, I preferred a classic, colorful and diverse version.
The deadline for reading, choosing a recipe, trying, photographing and sending feedback is June 10. 🙂 Give me a message to tell you where to find the book. 🙂
Beets: washed, peeled, cut into thick slices, placed in a tray directly or on baking paper and sprinkled with oil, plus spices (salt, pepper, thyme, etc.). Bake over medium heat.
Vegetable mix: carrot, celery, parsnip, red onion, zucchini, red pepper. The same principle, oil and spices, in the oven. Eventually put the roots first, when they are half done, the rest of the vegetables. So as not to wake up with some burned and others raw. 🙂
Brussels sprouts: Also, I just put olive oil and a little salt. This yummmy.
As a garnish or eaten as a main course. They are very good.
What do you say there, Claudia, shaorma with whaaaaaat? Pork, arugula and quince, to be specific. 😛
Well, let me explain the process behind this disastrously good recipe. 🙂 I read and reread Bourdain and among drops of swearing, I cooked one, two, three things, depending on what was in the fridge. Of course, I also made a list of what I would have liked to cook, but, as we already know, my lists are only indicative. In the happiest case. :))))
As a result, on a day with too much sun outside (seriously, I want a little, every day, not a sunny day and a week of cold and rain: D), I found that 1, I have to cook some food, something super fast, 2, I don’t feel like eating the yesterday food, although I could recycle steak pork and 3, ooooo, yeah, I have some pitas that need to be eaten, because I don’t want to freeze them.
So I found 2 ingredients, the shaorma/wrap pita and a piece of pork already cooked and sliced, I needed to combine them with something. Some arugula, because I had to finish it and a sauce. Of course I could have used the classic mayo, ketchup and yogurt sauce, but my brain was activated at the sight of the jar of homemade quince jam. Yummmy. I also threw a pickle cucumber (bought from lidl/ kaufland which is more sweet than sour), wrapped the ingredients well and enjoyed them with an episode of Billions.
The only major disaster is that I will soon run out of quince jam… 😛
So, my mouth watered at all the meats in this month’s cookbook, but I was afraid I’d go to the butcher’s and get a cleaver between my eyes if I start with:
-Was this cattle fed on grass?
-Yes, ma’am, is it possible? We feed only organic, eco, not sprinkled grass for export to our cows!
-Ntzzzz, it’s not good, because Mr. Bourdain says that the meat is a bit sticky, it has to be feed with grains grains at some point… Let me take some baby… across the road or as they say in baby beets. :)))
Not that the book is good, it’s just for people who aren’t hungry. People with a lot of patience and plenty of time to look for all the ingredients and spices on the list. That’s why Anthony was so skinny, rest in peace, he walked a lot after stars dust to put in the food. I didn’t even have the energy to look it up in the dictionary :))). The recipes are for people with sophisticated tastes that make the difference between different kinds of omelet, I said :))).
We are not like that. In our family we always have only that essential spice that makes any boiled potato DE-LI-CIOS: it’s called being very hungry :))). With us, sophistication means that we peeled the potato and haute cuisine that we put butter and salt on it :))).
For me, when I see recipes in which various mixtures “rest” with the hours in the fridge or chops that sleeps full time in the oven, I get jealous that I rarely afford such luxuries, it is not right for my food to have a better life than me :))), I grease a slice of bread, any kind of bread, with butter and I look at the pictures further :))). In this book I discovered the culmination of slow food: a sandwich that is prepared in two days :))).
But let’s go back to the recipe I chose. By the way, this is how the vegan man ends up, he doesn’t know how to choose meat, he’s intimidated, he thinks he won’t do well and he chooses Ratatouille because he knows all the ingredients, including where to get them.
All you need plus a few cloves of garlic, half a cup of tomato sauce, olive oil, balsamic vinegar if you don’t have the two years old, put some that you have, I thing you can, salt, pepper, thyme and green basil.
I started by taking a week off. I wanted to retire because I was sure that a human life was not enough for me to get the perfect cubes from the illustrative picture in the book, but they refused my request :))). Judge for yourselves. Know that I have endeavored.
Professionally chopped ingredients.
How they turned out for me. It is worth mentioning another moment of disobedience on my part that I put all the eggplant, even if they did not have all the skin cubes as Mr. Bourdain said that you must be in the idea that I disobeyed it, I eat it :).
The chopped part was easy-peasy, wait and see when you have to harden se-pa-ra-te-ly the onion and garlic with the tomato, then the eggplant with the eggplant, the pumpkin with the pumpkin, the pepper only with the pepper, the solo zucchini… If you have one pan like me, that you have to wipe after each vegetable according to the instructions, you are glad that you do not have children that you would miss their adulthood and graduation only so that the tastes do not mix too quickly :))).
But look what a beautiful picture… :))) It was worth it, really :). Yes, the pepper was the last hardened and yes, it’s almost cruel that I didn’t have the patience :)))
Well and when you are ready with the hardening, let it all cool separately and then mix the vegetables and herbs, sprinkle with oil and balsamic vinegar to taste, and leave the project alone, this time 3-4 hours, during which time you run to the nearest McDonald’s so you don’t starve :))). You also have time to sign the divorce papers because your husband is a bit carnivorous, incompatibility, this and that, and you didn’t even have to give him dessert – why? Read the book and find out, I personally agree with the approach, but the ex-husband does not, character mismatch :))).
The end result that I bet looks even better next to a piece of meat :)))
When you return, enjoy the food at room temperature, according to the instructions, meditating on how short life is :))). It’s good, I’m not saying no, and colorful. But I don’t think I do it anymore :))) Do you know any recipes with raw potatoes? :)))
