Chicken salad

I'm baaaaack... yeah I know I'm starting to repeat myself... ;)
Anyways I've got something really good for you! A CHICKEN SALAD!!! really low in calories, nutritional and fresh and awsome for these summer days...

So here's a list of what you need:
- 200 g chicken breast pieces
- great big bowl of fresh green salad - you can mix different salads, chicory, make it colourful!
- a spoon of mustard-seeds (you can get it as a whole-seed mustard)
- pumpkin oil
- juice from half lemon
- 2 small tomatos
- half of paprika
- and everything else that you can think of, because it is basically up to you...

It is best if you marinade those chicken pieces for at least half hour (some olive oil, the other half of the lemon juice, coriander seeds, pepper, salt, sweet paprika powder, thyme and basil leaves). Then you just heat up some oil, or just pour the one you were marinating chicken pieces in and grill till nice and orangy. Distribute salad and give the chicken parts on top. Serve! Done...

If the weather is really hot.... lemonade or a cold beer makes it the best company :)

Long time no see...

...been here and done some cooking. Lot's of it actually :)
But today I wanted to make something different. Something I've never done before and had all the stuff I needed.


When I saw these little pumpkins (or squash or whatever you want to call them) I just fell in love. And of course had an idea about what to do with them. So I did. Pumpkin soup served in real pumpkins (small sized of course, not those halloween ones :D)


You will need 3 pumpkins (for two). Cut out the top and take out the middle part (mainly seeds). The thing is that all the 'meat' of the pumpkin is on the outside, the inner part is mainly seeds, so just taking the middle out, won't give you much to work with. Now take a small pan, since there won't be much soup you can put in the 'pumpkin pots' (around 1,5 dL), and pour in a spoon of olive oil. Cut the third pumpkin, take out the seeds and chop into small pieces - these you will use for the actual soup. You will also need 3-4 spoonfuls of chopped ripe tomatoes. Add the pumpkin pieces to the oil, add some salt an pepper. Now add the tomatoes and spread some cumins. Leave for about 5-7 minutes and add about 1,5 dL water (don't worry, because it will boil out later :). Now just leave until both pumpkins and tomatoes are tender and soft.

Now whizz with a hand blender till smooth and silky ;) and basically you're done!!
Place pumpkins you prepared earlier on a middle sized plate and place the top beside - that's because you can only pour so little soup into the 'pumpkin bowl' that the cap won't do :-/

After pouring the soup into the bowls drop a few droplets of sour cream or plain youghurt... and spread some cumins. Bon apetit!

Let's go to China!!

Damn, but we're not, unfortunately... at least not in the current future :)
But why not make something that even Chinese would be proud of ??? :)
So, you'll need about 250 g of chicken breast pieces, some spices (chinese Kotany mix, mustard, olive oil, soy sauce), bamboo sprouts, egg and two handfuls of French beans cut into about 3 cm long.

Cook beans and rice (in separate pots of course :D). In the mean time put some coconut butter in to wok and wait til it gets hot, then throw in the meat pieces. Season with all of the above spices. When the meat is done, lay it on a plate, leave the rest of the juice and butter in the wok and throw in cooked rice. Add a spoonful of peanuts. Now beat one egg and pour into the rice. It will make little crumbles. Roast for about 5-7 minutes, then just put it in bowl to serve.

Leave the stove on because you will need it straight away. In the mean time the beans got cooked as well. Strain the water and put them into the wok, add bamboo sprouts (from a can) and roast for about 10 minutes or until they start turning a bit brownish. Throw in the meat pieces (you roasted earlier) and mix well. Serve!

Apricot surprise

ok... so it's been some time. But it's been toooooooooooo hot even for me to sit behind my computer and even think about food (which, of course, I did) yet alone make some (which, also... well...)! Anyways... some days I wasn't cooking, because it made me so tired just to make me those three cups of coffee and we just ate salads and sandwiches or similar...

But today it's a bit different and I made this amazing apricot tartlets... simple (pastry excluded...) but great... I loved shooting it before serving :)

So... I used simple short pastry (slo. krhko testo) made of plain flour (250 g), butter (125 g), 1/2 bag baking powder and three or four spoons of water. I strongly advise you to melt the butter and cool it down a bit, otherwise you will give up before anything gets done! Trust me... it took me some time to figure it out :-/
Then you just roll the dough and make circles (with a glass or cup) for each of 12 holes (I use 12-hole baking tray for muffins).



Since I wasn't making upper parts of the tartlets and just used crumbles I had some dough left over and I made two more in separate little pie dishes.
Now fill each dough-set hole with the following mixture: 6-8 ripe apricots (chopped), spoonful of brown sugar or honey, cinnamon (as much as you like), and 2-3 tbs of cream. mix all ingredients together and fill in the holes. Now to the rest of the dough add a spoon of flour and rub between your hands until you get all the dough into little crumble which you then spread over each tartlet. And your done!

Don't forget to preheat the oven to 180°C and bake until golden yellow.

You can eat them hot, or when cooled. In the photos I added some ice-cream - choose vanilla or some other neutral taste or apricot to go along with the fruit!

ok....

...here you go! Cause it's so hot and summery and great! And we must drink a lot! OK... to some of you out there - TOO MUCH drinking (and I don't mean alcohol now) is not good either!!! You know who you are...

Anyways... even we, cactuses of the world, drink. And summer is the best time of the year to try different fresh fruit drinks... and compotes. And since I adore red currants and don't really like black currants I decided to do something about it. I namely had too much black currents to just throw away so I made a compote.

And this is how it goes... Take a big pot - let's say about 2 - 2,5 litres. Cover the bootom of the pot with berries. I took mainly black currants, and added some red curants, raspberries and some gooseberries (slo. kosmulja). Add about two full teaspoons of brown sugar (I don't like sweet drinks, so you may have to add more).
The quantity of sugar depends on which berries you are using - black currant is not a very sour fruit, whereas red currant is.

Now add the water - stop at about 2 cm from the top. Put it on the stove and wait till it starts boiling. Stand beside the top as it tends to rise over the top!! :D

Turn down and leave to cool. Pour it through the stainer and add some ice cubes!