Glutenfree Goat Cheese Pie

This pie is actually a combination of multiple recipes. The result is very good anyway!

Add caption

Ingredients

Pie crust

3,5 dl chickpea flour

75 gram butter

1 egg

0,75 dl red quinoa  

1 teaspoon salt

Filling

2 dl whipping cream
2 eggs
400 grams goat cheese
300 gram colorful small tomatoes
2 big or 3 smaller onions
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Cook the quinoa in lots of water for around 20 minutes (follow instructions on the package).
Mix the chickpea flour with the butter and salt. Add the egg. Add the cooled quinoa when it is cooked.
Put in a buttered pie tin. Bake for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Slice the onions and fry in a pan with butter until soft. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and the grated garlic. Cut the tomatoes in halves. Cut the goat cheese in slices. Mix the whipping cream with the two eggs and add 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Put the onions in the half baked pie crust. Add the cheese and the tomatoes. Pour the egg mix into the pie crust.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.

Savory Gluten free Belgian waffles

It is hard to find good gluten free recipes of stuff that normally isn't gluten free.
This recipe gives actually quite good results even though it is gluten free. Probably not as good as the "real one" but then what can one do?

Ingredients

125 grams butter
3dl milk
1,5 dl water
25 grams yiest
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
5 dl gluten free flour

Instructions

Mix together the flour, the salt and the baking powder.
Warm up the milk. Mix in the butter so it melts. Add the water and when it is all mixed and the temperature is around 27 degrees, make sure the yiest is melted into it.
Whisk in the eggs into the mixture. Add the dry ingredients a little at the time. I normally beat the mixture for some time even though I do not really know if it helps given the fact that there is no gluten in there.
Let us put it like that. It does not hurt.
Put around 3 tablespoons into a waffle iron. That will make a waffle. Normally you need to put the mixture in when the iron is showing green and then remove the waffle as done when it shows green again. But I guess that this depends on the type of iron you are using.
Top with creme fraiche, caviar and shrimps.

Mousaca Wannabe Quick and Dirty

Let us make my life easier. Moussaka I love. But as much as I try, I will never become Greek. So I will never manage to do a real moussaka. I can't even spell it without Googling it out.
This makes for food for 4 people and it will be left for the lunch the day after.

Ingredients 

4 tablespoons olive oil

4 onions

4 garlic cloves

8 tablespoons tomato puré

2 grated aubergines

600 grams minced lamb meat

300 grams grated cheese

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons chili flakes

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

4 dl water

2 pieces meat bouillon cubes

800 gram crushed tomatoes

1200 gram waxy potatoes

1 liter milk

100 gram butter

100 gram flour

1 teaspoon salt

nutmeg

4 eggs

Instructions

Cut onions in small cubes and put in a frying pan with the olive oil.
Grate the aubergines.
Grate the garlic.
Grate the bouillon cubes.
Slice the potatoes thin.

Fry the onion until the onion is soft.
Add the minced lamb meat, the aubergines and the grated garlic.
Cook until the meat is done.
Add then the tomato puré, the sugar, the cinnamon, the chili flakes, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper.
Add the grated bouillon cubes, the water and the crushed tomatoes.
Cook until the water has gone away and remember to mix regularly so it does not burn.

Take a gratin form and do layers of meat sauce and potatoes, starting with the potatoes and finishing with the meat sauce.

Melt the butter, add salt and flour. Mix so you have no lumps. Add the milk and mix until no lumps are present. If you get lumps, just use a mixer to mix away the lumps. Cook up until the sauce is thick.
Remove from the stove. Mix in the eggs, the nutmeg and the grated cheese.

Chunk on the reinforced bechamel sauce over the minced meat sauce.

Bake at 210 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes.

Quinoa pie crust (egg free and dairy free)

Ingredients
Crust
1 tablespoon chia seeds
3 tablespoons water
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr milk free margarine
If you can eat eggs and milk/lactose, see the regular recipe.

Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Put the chia seeds and the water in the mixer and let it be there for some 15 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Use your preferred filling and bake it again for about 40 mins or so depending on the filling.

Feta, salami and tomato pie

Ingredients
Shell
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr butter
1 egg

Filling
4 eggs
4dl double cream
150gr Neaples salami
150gr feta cheese
150gr green olives without kernels
10 small tomatos

Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Mix the ingredients for the shell in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Cut tomatoes in cubes and heat it up in a pan so that the water goes away and put it in the pie crust after its first bake.
Make small crumbles out of the feta cheese and distribute it in the pie crust.
Cut salami slices in pieces and distribute it in the pie crust.
Slice the olives. and distribute them in the pie crust.
Mix eggs and cream and pour the mix in the pie crust.
Bake for 40 more minutes or until the filling is stiff.

Quinoa and zucchini dairy-free salmon

I created a recipe that I really loved, but being my baby allergic to dairy products (milk protein), I did a variation of it just for him. It is not as tasty as the original recipe, but I do dare to state that it does taste rather good anyway. If you are though not on an healthy streak, nor allergic to dairy and milk protein, nor scared of fats, it might be a better option to follow the original recipe.

Ingredients

800gr salmon filé
600gr zucchini
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 dl cooked quinoa
1,5 dl oats cream
2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Grate the zucchini on a large grater. If it is old zucchini, try to press out as much water as possible. If it is small zucchinis, it is not necessary as they do not contain so much water. Fry it in the olive oil and grate garlic into it. Make sure the water from the zucchini is gone and they taste done.
In the meantime, put some olive oil in a form. Cut the salmon in 8 pieces and put it in the form.
Mix all remaining ingredients together with the zucchini and put the mixture on the salmon so it is completely covered by the mixture.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Quinoa and zucchini salmon

This dish is very very tasty. I found a (completely different) recipe that sounded somewhat weird to me, but it inspired me to do something good out of if instead. Here is my suggestion.
If you are scared of fats, are on a healthy streak or are allergic to dairy or milk protein, you can follow my dairy free alternative, which is also quite good (but not as tasty).

Ingredients

800gr salmon filé
600gr zucchini
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 dl cooked quinoa
2 dl creme fraiche
2 dl grated parmesan
2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Grate the zucchini on a large grater. If it is old zucchini, try to press out as much water as possible. If it is small zucchinis, it is not necessary as they do not contain so much water. Fry it in the olive oil and grate garlic into it. Make sure the water from the zucchini is gone and they taste done.
In the meantime, put some olive oil in a form. Cut the salmon in 8 pieces and put it in the form.
Mix all remaining ingredients together with the zucchini and put the mixture on the salmon so it is completely covered by the mixture.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Broccoli pasta

One day you get up hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Or actually, you do not get up at all. You simply lie down hungry. Hungry. Hungry. You start reading Elle À la Carte, Swedish Edition. Nooot a good decision. End of the story, you are just forced to cook something out of it. Not necessarily the healthiest recipe, you might guess....

Broccoli pasta

 Anyway. Here is the result of my cooking activities: a broccoli pasta! Not really as it was described in the original recipe, but well... If you want the original one, go buy Elle À la Carte. It is a wonderful and inspiring newspaper anyway.
The pasta was rather good. Not a carbonara, but well....

Ingredients 

For 1 (hungry) person
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 anchovy filés
200gr broccoli
1/2 stock cube (I actually would use salt instead)
1/2 lemon (zest and juice)
Salt
1/2 tablespoon of olive oil (to top the pasta with)
3 tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese
100gr pasta (I used spelt spaghetti, but probably any whole wheat spaghetti or linguini would be good)

Instructions

Boil the broccoli in pieces with some salt water until they are done. Spare the water from the broccoli.

Mush the anchovies and the garlic and let them melt in the oil at medium temperature in a frying pan. Then add the sunflower seeds until they become a little more golden.

Add the broccoli. Add the lemon zest and the lemon juice, some of the broccoli water and also the stock cube. Personally, if I cook this pasta again, I will use salt instead! The stock cube just gives that artificial tone to everything...

I reused the broccoli water to cook the pasta, just to spare some energy and time maintaining some of the broccoli taste and vitamins, if you get what I mean...
When the pasta was done, I just sealed it but kept the pasta water, threw the pasta in the pan and mixed it together with the dressing.
Added the parmesan and some of the water to help the creaminess of the pasta. At the end, added necessary salt and the half spoon olive oil.

Black rice risotto

This is the weirdest recipe I have come up with for a while now. But I personally think it did not taste that bad. The concoction was born on a day with focus on savings. Used black rice that went old one year ago or two, used coconut milk that went bad for some reason (even though the Best before date was actually still "ok"), re-used the rests from juicing apples and carrots, took the chocolate that was stuck in a pot since last baking and I have not had any chance of actually using it. It was not going to make it to a three star in the Michelin guide, but well.

Ingredients
3dl black rice
6dl water
5dl water
4 stock cubes
2 cans of coconut milk
50gr dark chocolate
1kg carrots (remains after juicing 1kg carrots)
1kg apples (remains after juicing 1kg apples)

Instructions
Boil up 6dl water and rice for 15 minutes. Top the rice with the rests of the carrots and apples. Let it cook for 5 more minutes so the rests become warmer and mix it in. Add at the top the 2 cans of coconut milk.  Let it cook some minutes until the milk "melts" and add the remaining 5dl cooking water and the stock cubes. Mix thoroughly. Add the chocolate. The rice should cook in total around 30 minutes.

Pork loin à l'orange

This recipe has no story at all. Just found something very similar on the internet and modified it (as usual) to fit my taste buds and my limited available time. Just to give some anecdote anyway, I can tell you that not everything went as expected when working towards this course... The meat had originally to cook for about 4 hours in the oven at 100 degrees. I actually came home less than 4 hours before the dinner and found this recipe. Wanted to go shopping in a hurry when I realized the kind of time pressure I had. But got stuck in front of the internet instead. Took myself out somewhat 2,5 hours before dinner had to be ready (-1,5 hours behind budget), went to the shop and did not find the necessary piece of meat. Went to the next shop, which luckily had it, otherwise I would have had to add 30 minutes to get the next potential place that could have had it in. In a hurry I found it, paid and got home. Just to find out I left the meat and the spices at the cashier. Calling the shop, I found out they found the spices, but someone had stolen my piece of meat. So I had to go back and buy a new one. By the time I was home, I hardly had 1 hour before the dinner. And nothing prepared. So 200 degrees it was and a cooking time of one hour made it. Maybe somewhat drier but who cares. Nobody had to starve at the end anyway.

Ingredients
800 g pork loin (in one piece, with some fat coating)
1,5 teaspoon grill spice
1 pressed garlic (solo)
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1 orange
0,5 teaspoon cinnamon (you can leave it out. Gives somewhat a special taste you might not want)
Grounded white pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil

2dl whole milk
2dl cream (38-40% fat)
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1,5 tablespoon orange liqueur (e.g. Cointreau or Grand Marnier)

Instructions
Mix the grill spice, pressed garlic, grated zest of the orange and if you want the cinnamon into a paste. Rub it in on the pork loin as evenly as possible and place it in a oven-safe dish. Sprinkle the olive oil over the meat.
Place it in the oven. Ideal temperature seemed to be 100 degrees but 4 hours were required. With 200 degrees less then one hour will do. Temperature should be under 80 degrees Celsius when you take out the steak from the oven. Whatever temperature you decide you go for in between, keep the meat under 80 degrees. The lower the temperature, the more tender the meat will get, but the longer the baking time will be.

When it is done, take it out of the oven and let the meat rest during the time you are cooking the sauce.

Take 1,5 deciliters from the juices that came out of the meat. Cook it with the juice of the orange until the quantity is reduced to half.

Mix the corn starch with 1dl cold milk. Mix it in the juice. Add the remaining milk, the cream and the soy. Add the orange liqueur and cook at a high temperature until the alcohol has vaporised. Make sure you keep stirring the sauce with a manual beater just to make sure the sauce won't stick. If you have a pot with antiadherent coating, it will be much easier to keep the sauce from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Slice the meat thinly and put it on a serving plate.

Serve with baked broccoli or sweet potato chips or whatever comes to mind.

Gai Phad Med Mamuang - Thai cashew chicken

Before I went to Thailand last Winter 2010 I believed Thai food was no good. This statement I kept onto for a few days after arriving in Thailand and I started to loose some weight. Until I started to find out they have some real pearls when it comes to food. One of those was the extremely fatty thai banana pancake with condensed milk. One other dish that was pretty appreciated was also the Thai cashew chicken. We learnt how to cook it when on Koh Phi Phi where we went to a Thai kitchen school where this Thai guy kept us under control under a few hours (we had to pay attention not to do something else than what he said we should do...).

November 2010, Koh Phi Phi

Anyways here is the recipe:

Ingredients
1 Handful Sliced chicken
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon chilli paste (done with our own chillies)
3-4 drops chilli oil
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons cashew nuts
1/2 handful onion
1 spring onion

Instructions
Toast cashew nuts in a dry wok at low temperature and then set aside.

Keep at a low heat, put the oil in the wok. Add the chicken. Stir fry until it is half cooked. Then add the chilli paste and garlic and mix well. Add the toasted cashew nuts. Then add the oyster sauce, light soy sauce and sugar. Stir well.

Add the onion. Stir fry until it is half cooked. Add the spring onion, stir well and turn the heat off.

If you like put some drops of chilli oil in the dish until you reach the desired heat.

Panang curry

Background
November 2011 we were on Koh Phiphi in Thailand and one of the last days there, we landed in a "hole in the wall" restaurant with the best food ever. There was a guy standing in the door producing pad thai and other very good food. Then there were a few ladies in the back doing curry on demand. We ordered panang curry and were so positively surprised by it, we were forced to simply try it at home. We even decided to start a chili production to guarantee the supply of chilis for panaeng curry.

Ingredients
The dish
1 can coconut milk
1 tablespoon shredded lime leaves (I did not have this)
1/2 teaspoon palm sugar
200gr sliced pork or beef (actually I had double as much and it worked anyways)
2 teaspoons fish sauce (original recipe said 2 tablespoons, but that was not correct. I tried it with that amount last time and I thought I was about to die of salt excess!!!! So 2 teaspoons is just right)

The curry
1 chilli (original recipe says 1/3 big dried chilies) soaked with seeds removed
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons galangal, cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons lemon grass, cut into thin rounds
1 tablespoon coriander root (I did not have this)
1 teaspoon roasted coriander seeds (could not find whole seeds so I used grounded ones, 1,5 spoons to make up for the missing coriander root)
1 tablespoon roasted cumin seeds (actually should only have been 1 teaspoon but I like the taste of cumin)
2 tablespoons garlic
2 tablespoons shallots
2 tablespoon roasted peanuts (actually should only have been 1 tablespoon but I love peanuts)
1 teaspoon shrimp paste (make sure you do not use more as it tastes like fish food...)

For a different recipy for Panaeng curry, also refer to the Curry paste post. The only Panaeng curry I tried to cook was this one though.

Instructions
Preparing the curry

1. Start by soaking the chillies in water until they’re soft. This could take up to a half hour. When they’re soft, cut them open to remove the guts & seeds. If you have fresh chilli use that, of course, so you skip the soaking and waiting
2. Toast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds and peanuts separately in a pan over medium heat. Roast each until fragrant, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Grind up the seeds together in a stone mortar and pestle until powdered. Remove and set aside. I actually used a grinder as it was quicker.
4. Add your chillies with the salt to the stone mortar and pestle and pound until a paste. This will take awhile — the skins are difficult to mash indeed.
5. When your chillies are a uniform paste, add the lemongrass. Pound until a paste. Then add the galangal and coriander roots, and again, smash until paste. Actually tried to use the grinder but it was not so easy to grind.
6. Add the peanuts, shallots, garlic and your powdered cumin & cilantro seeds. Mash until paste. Add the shrimp paste and pound to mix well. Set aside. As it did not really mix so well in the mixer, I added some of the coconut milk, which was a good idea. Not really the thai way, but who cares... :O) I have a good excuse: my mortar is too little and the whole amount does not fit in it... :O)

Preparing the dish

1. Cut your meat cross-grain into thin slices (about 1.5″ (4cm) long x 1/2″ (1.25cm) tall x 1/8″ (.25cm) thick).
2. Heat up your pan first on medium-high heat, then add 1/2 cup of the coconut cream. It should sizzle right away and boil. Add all the paste and mix well.
3. Fry the paste. You want to keep the paste dry, but not too dry that it sticks and burns. Keep adding a little bit of coconut milk when it gets too dry, maybe about 1/4 cup every minute or two. Keep stirring so it doesn’t burn.
4. Keep adding coconut cream about 1/4 cup at a time, every minute or two. You should start to see a lot of oil coming to the top of the curry. This is normal and a sign that you’re doing it right! Personally, even though it is not the real thai stuff, I am no friend of oil swimming around so I actually tried to keep it emulsionated and not that thick as it is supposed to be. I think it tastes better. The one I got in Koh Phi phi was not completely thick either.
5. Your paste should start to smell really good after 4-5 minutes. You’ll start to see a lot of oil rising to the top, especially where it’s bubbling. When it does, add your meat. Myself, not being a fan of the oil floating around, I actually added the meat earlier, and I am indeed happy for that.
6. Cook the meat until cooked, add the lime leaves, fish sauce and palm sugar, then keep going about 3-5 minutes so the meat is soft. The consistency of the curry should be similar to the photo. If it’s too dry, add a bit more of the coconut milk. Remove and serve.
7. Feel free to garnish with shredded lime leaves and a few leaves of Thai basil. In the original recipe, it says that some fancy restaurants serve it with a bit of thickened coconut cream (thickened with a bit of tapioca flour) which you’re welcome to do too! I personally could not bother... :O)

Took some pictures, but I first need to upload them on my computer. There will be more to come!
Note to self: doubling up the sauce amount instead of the meat could be a better idea.

Brasato

This is a typical Italian dish that my grandmom used to do on Sundays and we used to eat it together with Polenta.
This is not the traditional recipe, but something that tastes and smells pretty much alike and has very similar ingredients.

Ingredients
3 teaspoons oil
25gr butter  (but if you ask Mom, you'll have to at least double the amount of all mentioned fat :O) )
1/2 carrot
1/2 celery stalk
5-6 leaves of sage
3-4 small pieces of rosmary
500gr small steak onions (originally, the flat onces should be used, not available at ICA though)
3 cans of mashed tomatoes
500gr prime rib (Swedish: Högrev)
1 solo garlic
1 can of water
1 teaspoon salt
2,5dl red wine

Instructions
Grate the carrot and the celery stalk. Do holes in the meat and chunk in sage, rosemary, garlic in them. Salt (and pepper if you wish. I don't). Put carrot, celery and possibly sage and rosemary if you haven't chunked it all in the meat already in the oil and butter. Let it go slowly so that the fat catches taste. Brown the meat in it. Put onions in. Through the wine in and let the alcohol evaporate a little.

Put everything in a croc pot including the tomatoes and the water and let it cook for about 6 hours starting with 3-4 hours high heat and the rest low heat. Grandmom would actually cook it in a pot for 2-3 hours instead. Of course, Grandmoms tastes better, but I am not sure what more magic she did on the stove. :O)

Actually, I did brown meat first and put it in the crocpot and then reused the fat for the onions. That worked fine, too.

I do recommend to eat it with sliced hot polenta and gorgonzola.

Polenta

When I was little, I used to eat polenta nearly every Sunday lunch with brasato that grandmom used to cook. That was a real tradition. As you were supposed to continuously stir the polenta while cooking it in a copper calderon for around 45 minutes, the whole family made turns to cover up the long 45 minutes.

Now the world has developed and with the caldron you also have a stirring device, so no manual stirring is required any longer. I got to take over the copper caldron as my parents do not use it as often any longer.

So today we tried to cook the "original Italian Polenta" in a Swedish kitchen with a copper caldron. With stirring device:

Polenta in copper caldron - 8/8-2011

Ingredients (per person)
100gr Old style polenta flour (the grounding is rough)
4dl water
1ml salt

Instructions
Cook the water. Add the salt. Stir for 30-40 minutes depending on the flour cooking instructions. If it says less than that, you probably have some strange precooked type of meal that does not give the perfect results.
Heat should be slow, but the polenta should bubble at least once every few seconds.
It is done when tilting the pot yields the meal to separate itself from the pot.
Do not worry if a patina builds up around the pot. It is also normal that it burns lightly.

Serving
Serve it hot with brasato and with gorgonzola. I normally slice up polenta, put gorgonzola on it which leads to obvious melting and add some brasato sauce. I then pile up more slices that way and eat!

Collaterals from a Sunday pizza baking session...

A little background
Today, I wanted to use the oregano from the our garden, so I went for home made pizza for once instead of the classical Sunday pizza from Catarì that Janne is so good at baking.
Also a good occasion to test our new baking stones.

Ingredients
1 liter water
1 tbs salt
100gr yiest
1dl olive oil
flour (can be 1,5kg, can be something else... I'll double-check tomorrow)
This gives though a far too large amount of dough:

So I do strongly recommend you to halve the quantities unless you want to "go industrial"...

Instructions
Mix water (can be cold) with half the amount of flour and all the yiest for a while. I use my Kitchen aid. Some 5 minutes give a good result.
Let the dough rest for about 45minutes-1hour.
Add oil, salt and the rest of the flour. Mix some 5 minutes again.
Let it rest some 45minutes-1hour again.
Do your pizzas...
I go the "margherita" style and simply have tomato, oregano, salt, oil mixed together and topped with mozzarella cheese.

I got bored after my first pizza and realized I could do something else instead so we made some smaller pizzas, and some different breads. Apart from the pizza, which I forgot to take a picture of as I was too hungry (looked very good though... :O) ), here is a picture of the collaterals...:

The collaterals will, of course, be frozen. To warm up, use the oven at 100degrees Celsius.