Ep. 36 – mango smoothie

Useful for the holidays, when you hope that this year will be the last time your friends visit you. :)) Or, even better, when you want to test his beloved love – if he drinks the glass to the end and does not run away eating the earth, is a catch, keep it, because a better one will not be for sale at the store. 😛

Take a ripe mango, freshly cleaned and throw it in the blender. Add half an ripe avocado. Plus a handful of almond flakes. Blend the ingredients. At the end, add some orange juice (100% fruit).

This is the basic version, vegan, gluten free, lactose, gmo, super bio, eco and… with a rather dubious taste :))) If I did it a second time (please, don’t !!!) I would improve it with many spices, such as cinnamon or cardamom, and with some Porto wine :)) Or in the most unfortunate case, gin or vodka :))

2 glasses came out.

No person was killed during this experiment, successfully surviving to another successful disaster. 😀

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disaster in the kitchen

Ep. 35 – apple tart

I intended to make a plum tart, only to find out that I had no edible fruits, while I had already made the dough. So an apple tart came out, a really good one. :))

Three large apples, cut into cubes and put on the fire, in a saucepan (sugar is optional), until softened, at the end, add some cinnamon and a tablespoon of butter. Well, butter, why? Because the recipe comes from overseas. 🙂 Leave it to cool and make sure they have not too much juice, in which case you will have to keep them more on the fire and you will have to sprinkle some more semolina on the dough, when you bake them.

Classic tart dough: 150g butter, 350g flour, salt, 1 egg, 80g sugar, 4-5 tbsp. of cold water kneaded with the mixer and / or hand, then put in the fridge for at least half an hour. From two thirds (applied mathematics: P) comes out a round sheet for the bottom, then you add the apples and from the remaining dough, cut into strips, the model below is prepared. Or another, depending on creativity and inspiration. 🙂

Bake on the medium heat for 45 minutes – an hour. Try not to burn it. 🙂

I thought it would be a disaster again, but in fact a very good tart came out, even better than the one from Mc Donalds. 🙂

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disaster in the kitchen

Ep. 34 – fish tacos

Everything from scratch and adapted, because well, we are on the wrong continent. 🙂

Salsa: a raw mango, more sour than lemons – the specialty of local supermarkets – combined with some canned papaya, a red pepper and some pickled jalapenos. Finely chopped, let the flavors mix.

Fish: fish fillets – cod, in my case – put them in the oven on baking paper, with salt, pepper, cumin and some lemon.

Tortilla: I recommend you buy them from the store. I made it in the pan (flour, water, salt and a little olive oil), but after they smoked my whole house, they still came out of the consistency of the pancake. A rubber pancake. :)))) The real ones are made from some very fine corn flour, honestly I didn’t even look to see if there are any in our store… Anyway, if you make them at home, the dough should have at least the consistency of bread (note to myself, for the next time: D).

Vegetables: finely chopped red cabbage, green parsley, red/ green onions.

Sauce: mayo with lime. Jar mayonnaise thinned with lime juice. Some salt and pepper.

Combined. You eat until you pop. 🙂

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disaster in the kitchen

Ep. 33 – yogurt pie

Well, let’s me tell you, I have an extremely complicated relationship with dairy products. But some year ago I attended a course in Bucharest, where I discovered chees puffs. After several years (I told you, complicated) I started to appreciate the cheese pies from Obor. And after many more years, I didn’t turn my nose at my mother’s cakes made with cottage cheese or yogurt. Luckily I had experienced the Turkish and Greek pastries before… Oh and I didn’t tell you that only recently I started to appreciate the cheesecake (you’re a disaster, Claudia! I know 🙂).

My mother made yogurt pie with what she had in the fridge. Originally is made with yogurt, but if you have to finish cream, cottage cheese and yogurt with different fats, go for it, the worse thing that could happen to you is eating the whole tray alone.😀

A packet of pie sheets (of the thin ones, I used 400g of Linco) are divided into three parts – you will use about 3-4 in a layer and put them in the greased pan, one layer at a time, with the sheets individually greased with 125g of margarine melted mixed with oil; on top of the them you add the yogurt mixture. The top layer of yogurt is very thin, the other two layers inside are thick.

Yogurt cream: 8-10 eggs lightly mixed, salt, 150g sugar, 1 vanilla pudding, 1 kg. of 3.5% or 10% yogurt, according to preferences. If you want raisins or more sugar, your problem. 🙂

You need a deep tray to fit all the pie. In the pre-heated oven, for almost an hour, on low temperature.

UPDATE 05.2020: I updated the quantities for my steak tray. 🙂

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Ep. 32 – cake with poppy seeds and berries

This is some unbelievable recipe that I tried.. :))))

Do you know all those beautiful pictures on pinterest and professional blogs with cakes as if they were taken out of the magazine? Well, they’re just in magazines, right? :)))) Because in reality they look like the mixture below. 😛

So, at one point I looked for recipes with red currants and I came across a cake with poppy seeds. The thing is, I didn’t get the currants, but I got a new tray, so I said, let’s combine the new tray with the recipe and some berries from the freezer.

Cake top: 125g butter, 200g sugar (yes, I put as it was written in the recipe, who would have thought :))), some salt and vanilla sugar, all rubbed with the mixer, then I added 4 small eggs instead of (I suppose) 2 size M (which are those??? who knows???) and, at the end, 200g of flour, baking powder and 125g of poppy seeds. I spread it in an 18cm tray instead of 24cm – don’t do it like me – greased and lined with flour. On top I put 300g of berries, preferably thawed well and without juice. :))) In the oven on the medium heat to low, almost for an hour.

Well, because I left the low heating, I woke up after an hour that the mixture is not baked, so I had to increase the temperature. :))) And, I guess, because of the slightly frozen fruits and the tray too small, they were left in the middle of the tray. In the end it was ok that it baked and didn’t burn completely. :)))

Out of 200g fruits with 4 tablespoons of jelly (in my case cherry jam, because I had this in the fridge), kept on the fire for about 4-5 minutes and poured over the fruit top, a kind of decoration came out.

It looks like a mega-disaster, but it’s ok to taste, reason to share it with you (now you didn’t think I was showing you inedible stuff, right??). To be consumed after cooling for about 2 hours, with a hot coffee. 🙂

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Ep. 31 – sort of tabbouleh

It is a sort of tabbouleh, because it does not have bulgur (the natives say that it must be salad with bulgur anyway and not bulgur with salad 🙂), although the base is all green parsley.

In the Mediterranean tabbouleh, chopped parsley is mixed with green or red onions, as appropriate, some fresh mint, chopped tomatoes, lemon and olive oil. Plus bulgur.

In this case, the chopped parsley was mixed with things from the fridge – red onion, grated carrot, chopped tomatoes, some traces of red pepper and a few sour pomegranate seeds. Plus oil and lime.

Eat it with a fork or combined with others, it really doesn’t matter, is a tasty variant of the classic lettuce.

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disaster in the kitchen

Ep. 30 – sponge cake with cherries

There is nothing better to celebrate a long autumn than a classic cherry cake. Well Claudia, cherries from where? From the freezer or a jar. 🙂 Drained well.

I had a fat-free sponge cake recipe in my notebook, after which I remembered the sponge made with oil, so I called a friend. 🙂 Chef said that the ingredients are usually calculated 1 by 1 – to 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and oil / water, the same or slightly less. Beautiful!

In the old version, we beat the egg whites, then we add sugar, egg yolks, oil or water and finally the flour and baking powder.

In the new version (which also works for the cake) the yolks are rubbed with sugar + vanilla sugar + salt, water or oil; whisk the egg whites separately; after which half of the flour and baking powder, the egg whites and the other half of the flour are incorporated in the yolk composition, mixing well with a spatula.

I made a sponge cake from 6 eggs and put about 2 tablespoons of oil and 3 tablespoons of water. The composition is poured into a pan greased with oil and a little flour and on top add the cherries drained of juice. Mine all went straight to the bottom of the tray. :)) But at least I managed not to burn it. :)) Although it looked like after the war because I kept checking it with a toothpick to see if it is baked or not. 🙂 Disaster, I know!

This kind of sponge cake can be filled with other fruits. I baked it on the medium heat for more than half an hour. Then it is left to cool and only then cut.

(Did you manage to let it cool without tasting it? Of course not. :)))))

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Ep. 29 – some quinces (again)

For reasons beyond my control, autumn came, it got cold (brrrr) and I got a bag of quince. I would have cooked them with some meat, but I thought it was too much effort… I would have turned them into pie, but I’m not allowed carbohydrates… To look at them, well, it worked for about two days, after which I realized that they will spoil and I had to do something with them. 🙂

So I cleaned and cut them – couldn’t someone invent a quince that cleans itself ?? 😛 – after which I threw them in a pot with enough water to cover them. It was written on the internet that they should be boiled for about an hour, but mine were jam in a quarter of an hour :))) I kept them on the fire for more than half an hour, then I took the water out in another pot and I measured approximately. To a quantity of fruit I put half the amount of sugar – in my case a cup of sugar to about four ladles of super cooked fruit and half a lime, because I didn’t have lemons. After that, back on the fire for another half hour. Maximum. Mixed continuously so as not to burn them. 🙂 The recipe said that you can put them in the blender before the sugar, but I didn’t need it.

Four jars came out plus what I ate directly from the pot. :)) If you want to season them, you can add cardamom and cinnamon. To keep in the fridge because it doesn’t reach the end of the year. :)))

And what did you do with the juice? Well, I wanted to make jelly. 😀 But as I’m a disaster, I didn’t realize I didn’t have pectin in the house. :)) I cut the amount in half, over low heat, hoping it would bind into something. :)))) After that I put it in a jar in the fridge, because it will surely be good to syrup a countertop or something. :)))

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disaster in the kitchen

Ep. 28 – carp brine

Weeeeeell, Claudia, don’t you tell us now that you know how to make brine? 😛 Me, only in theory, but my father knows ❤

I thought you got bored of so many cakes and it would be time to have some more proteins. :)) In this case, carp brine with the fish caught by my father. Because when we catch the fish, we eat it. 🙂

The carp is washed, cleaned and salted, then is grilled. We also cook on the grill some capsicums, bell peppers, hot peppers and tomatoes. We peel the peppers and clean the seeds and do the same with tomatoes, and cut them into big pieces.

In a saucepan we put the fish, on top of it the vegetables, we add water, salt, pepper and let it boil until is ready (not too much, but the juice should taste like all the ingredients).

Well you little disaster, but who is fishing now on this time? You can fish from the store, from the fishmonger or from the freezer. 🙂 You can find vegetables at the supermarket, you still have to find a grill and time to grill the ingredients. Hmm, you might find ready-baked peppers in the store or you can cook some hot peppers quickly on the stove, so you see, there are lots of possibilities, you just need some will. 🙂

The carp brine is eaten hot, with polenta and garlic sauce or with a fork, if you are not a fan of polenta. :))

And if you survived, I’ll be waiting for you next week, with other recipes. 🙂

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Ep. 27 – Chinese from the fridge

To make it on a day when you have a complete lack of imagination.

I had some green beans in the fridge and after I cooked it, I realized I need some more veggies, therefore I searched through the vegetable box and got a carrot, a parsnip, a red pepper and a green zucchini. I peeled them, gracefully cut them into larger slices (lack of imagination and maximum laziness :))) and pan-fried them with a little oil. First the roots, then the rest, to remain slightly crunchy. I added the boiled green beans and soy sauce. To eat with Chinese noodles.

It’s something quick, with what you have in the fridge. Apart from the fact that I had to use a couple of pans, because I didn’t appreciate the quantity of vegetables correctly, I didn’t destroy anything. 🙂 Well, it happens. :))

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