Today photos only please ;)

Todays takings... ;)

Holidayzzzzzzzzzzz

It must be low-maintenance... all the cooking part I mean. Because you want to have as much sunny time relaxing or doing sports as you can.

And so I took some pre-made meat capelleti (If you recall from my face book page I did actually make past myself but almost died trying. It was amazing in taste and texture, but so not worth it all the pain and scratches all over my hands, not to mention the muscles pain... oh my!) and kajmak cheese I got from the deli.

Cook the capelleti as instructed. Put some olive oil in the pan and wait it heats. Add the capelleti and stir. Now season with dried rosmary and oregano. I wanted to use fresh, but unfortunately there was only mint and some other green stuff available. Add about two spoonfuls of kajmak cheese and mix well. Serve and place a little bit of kajmak on top just before. You can also serve some Parmesan cheese.

Mmmmmm, yummy meal, easy and simple.

Strawberry marmalade surprise

After a long trip, when you get home too late for a very complicated meal, but still want something eatable, warm and light, preferably sweet, yet easy and fast to make... what to do? Well described happened to me past Monday and since my better half (or he may think that :P) was so tired and hungry (ha almost fell asleep while eating) I just had to do something. I had flour, eggs, milk and strawberry marmalade from his mom's. Ok! Let's go! (Recipe is here.)

Make 'šmorn' or schmorn or something you do when you have the mixture for pancakes but don't want pancakes. Make a silky mixture from milk, flour and 1 or 2 eggs; some also add some mineral water (I don't). Pour some oil into the pan, wait a bit (so it heats up) and then pour the mixture in. Now wait till it's a bit baked and when it starts turning golden, start to dissect this large, thick pancake. It must be torn into small (cm x cm) pieces, stir all the time.

While doing this, put three spoonfuls of strawberry marmalade into a smaller pot. Now add any seasonal berries you may have. You can use strawberries, raspberries, black currant, blackberries or any other similar a bit sour fruits. I used fresh blueberries and red currants, about two spoonfuls of each. Let it heat up and then lower the temperature, just to keep it warm.

Place the torn pancake mixture on to the plates and spread the marmalade/fresh fruit mixture over. I believe the combination is due to the sweetness of the marmalade sweet enough, so I don’t recommend adding any sugar, but if you do have a bit of a sweet tooth... it’s your choice! :)

Serve with a glass of a homemade redcurrant or blackcurrant juice.

Just a simple Sunday lunch

Simple Sunday lunch?? Where??!!! Well, I don't make much of beefsoup, potatoes, horseradish and cooked beef for a typical Slovene Sunday lunch.


So here's something rathercute and innovative, but simple and delicious! Find the recipe here.

For two take 4 medium sized potatoes (keep it on the lower half of medium-sized!) Put some baking paper into the baking tray and bake for about an hour at 150°C.

In the mean time you can prepare some veggies to go along: I took some beans, peas and soybeans, just cooked them and spread some butter over. You can either choose some other type of veggies or meat of course. :)

Just before the time's up, slice some portobello mushrooms, but since now is the season, you can choose any light mushrooms you have. You will also need a bit of oil, some salt, an egg and a little parsley (I'm not really a fan, so I usually use dried one). Take a pan, oil and throw in the muchrooms, stir them for a while (5 minutes or so). Add the parsley and salt. Beat the egg and sip it into the mushroomy mixature :) stir well. Now take out the potatoes but live the oven on, 'cause you'll need it soon. Place the baking tray onto a heatproof surface and carefully make an incision along each potatoe (watch out for your fingers, potatoes are very hot!). Now put 1/4 of the mixature into the opening of each potato. Place a small slice of chees on top and back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so.

Aha, and obviously (you probably recognize the pink bowl... a big bowl of salad! :)
Enjoy!

Prosciutto, olives and capers pasta

Hi again! Sorry for having a pause for some time, but I have been trying and testing and mixing and matching and taking photos of course!

Yesterday I made a very fast, easy and nutritional pasta. Recipe is here.
I took about 6-7 slices of prosciutto and sliced them to small pieces - if you have children helping you out with your cooking, let them do it (WITHOUT the knife of course!! just let them tear the slices into small pieces :)
I chopped the olives - you can either use filled (usually tomato paste filled) or natural. I cooked about 180 g (for two) pasta - I took Barilla tagliatelle.

Put some olive oil into the pan, use a deeper one, since you'll be adding pasta later on. Heat the oil and put the prosciutto in stir for a few minutes and add the olives. They will release the juice and make the prosciutto taste less dry. Now add the cooked pasta, four spoonfulls of sour cream, capers, a pinch of salt. Stir well. Just before you finish add some grated cheese (I had some left and it makes the whole thing more mooshy :) ) and a few fresh leaves of basil (our balcony garden is bursting right now, so I had to boast myself a bit with adding basil to the mix) ;)
And that's it!!

You'll love it. And If you're not so into sour cream, you can use ordinary cream instead, or just leave it out - though, leaving the cream out my leave you with a bit dry pasta, so try adding tomatoes or some lemon juice.

Bon appetit!

Pizza!

Today my cooking skills were again put to test... Again? you might say, but yesterday I was making tenderloin for the first time and it went extremely well. Even I liked it, even though I don't eat pork :D but more about it tomorrow...

So today it was pizza day! I tested the dough before one or two times, and again I can only say the recipe is amazing. I got it from the book 'Osnovna italijanska kuharija' (original title is Italian Basics by Cornelia Schinharl and Sebastian Dickhaut). Originally in German it's been translated to English (under title Basic Italian: Everything You Need to Live the Dolce Vita at Home) and in Slovene (published by ValeNovak) however it's sold out in Slovene :-/ But if you manage to get it, I strongly recommend it to all who like Italian food and la dolce vita in general :)

So here it goes: originally recipe is for 1 large or two smaller baking trays or for three people :D but I agree, it depends on what you put on.
So keep this in mind. Today I only took 2/3 of each ingredient and it was more than enough for two hungry :) (I put these quantities in brackets):
300 g (200 g) flour, 4 (3) spoons of olive oil, 21 g (14 g) of fresh yeast.
And that's basically it. You make the dough (dissolve yeast in 1 dL of warm water and pour in the flour and add oil) and leave it rise for 30-45 minutes. In between you prepare all the ingredients that you want to put on the dough... tomato sauce (I only use tomato squash or fresh tomatoes), grated cheese, ham, bacon, sweet corn, olives, sour cream, capers,... I had some shrimps left and I put those on a smaller pizza (I love them - pizzas - to be round so I had to use two trays :))


Heat the oven to 200°C and bake for about 20-25 minutes, depends on how big the pizza is and how much you put on :D