My very 1st encounter w/ one-pot-pasta: my better half & I got a food & wine basket as a present from friends containing among others a package w/ Italian pasta, dried porcini, dried Mediterranean herbs & finely grated parmesan. The instruction said: Put 1000 ml water and 5 tbsp olive oil in a pot or pan, add all ingredients except the parmesan, bring it to a boil and let it cook for about 10 min.…
Potato salad is down-to-earth … so down-to-earth … Time to get it dressed to kill by adding an avocado dressing! Potatoes are year-round vegetables & avocados are on their way. What do you think of replacing mayonnaise and/or double cream and/or sour cream by a real heap of mashed avocado? What do we need for a fresh potato salad?
In the past: Aubergines (aka eggplant) & I – we did never become close friends. I’m fond of beautiful aubergines, but coming to preparing them I vividly remember some bitter, salty tastes, some rather undone oily vegetable … So I always tried to forgo aubergines. I was working hard on Pasta alla Norma,(and I am still!), however, until now there wasn’t any outstanding success. (Especially my better half wasn’t convinced of the test series …)…
My last post was a resumé about our stay in Athens – for about 5 weeks – in 2017. It was then when found the ultimate recipe for tzatziki. Tzatziki was always one of my favored dips, but then for a start based on my experiences during our stay when I was able to do a deep dive into different versions of tzatziki and as well recreate it at our home in Athens. So now…
We won’t need so many ingredients: … and pasta – big rigatoni!
Imagining it’s happy hour: chilled white wine (or rosé wine) & smooth red wine are awaiting their destiny, gin tonics & vodka tonics are mixed or whatever else – in the very middle of all the drinks sits a plate w/ crispy crumbly cheesy spicy shortbread cookies … We’re only mixing flour, Parmesan, pepper & salt … & dried rosemary! So far nothing changed compared to my earlier approach … however, I used grated Parmesan…
So we start w/ a bunch of beautiful fresh green beans … (no changes so far!) The main point I adjusted the salad was not creating my very own tuna cream, but relying to a cup of rilette de thon which I smoothened w/ some liquid cream. It worked well!
It’s pasta time: we often enjoy pasta dishes because they are so easy to create. I especially like the one pot pasta approach. It’s quite a long time ago that I posted about one pot pasta tomato, but it’s one of my favourites, although I adjusted the dish a touch. Back then I thought about my approach as the mother of all Italian pasta dishes. Generally we are talking about: Is there anybody out there…
Happy hour is on the agenda … what about some homemade salmon paté? I found this easy approach to salmon paté years ago, worked then with the ingredients available at the moment in my kitchen … & we had a delicious happy hour snack! So for now I decided to do just the same once again – adjusting the recipe to what I had in my kitchen … Simply it’s just some cooked salmon w/…
Some years ago I posted a Shakshuka recipe – I think it’s time & appropriate to renew the post & add some simplifications fitting into our present-day life. Back then I stated: Shakshuka is everywhere!Then Shakshuka was some sort of It-meal because it seemed that any food blogger had just stumbled across Shakshuka. Then I created some Shakshuka from the scratch – today I live w/ some simplifications. Both versions will be found in this…
Le Lac (the lake) and Le Boudin (black pudding): where is the connection?There isn’t any. On a rather cold day in February we went to Lac de Montagnès in Southern France in La Montagne Noir, the most southern part of the Massif Central. The sky was blue, the sun was brilliant, only the temperature was rather low. We were at about 600-800 m & some snow had survived here and there – not only on…
Avocados are very popular w/ us. I think we are no exception. Especially since we are in Southern France we like to create some avocado mess & indulge w/ fresh baguette for our dinner. Afterwards we may have some cheese … for the finish. Cong back to the avocados: There is more than 1 recipe for avocado mess or – the next step – guacamole. I tried quite a lot, but finally I ended up…
I wrote about this tomato tart some years ago … & in the meantime I made a lot of tarts similar to this very 1st approach. So now I like to re-write the recipe based on my experiences so far. A tomato tart – resp. any savory tart – isn’t finger food although it’s perfect for nibbling. It may pass for a complete meal although merely a simple one. A tart is ready to be eaten…
Over the years I created several posts about ham … Now we are approaching Xmas season – so I thought that some sort of roundup might be quite a good idea, because a delicious big chunk of ham is appropriate for any winter get-together if before Xmas, during Xmas or after Xmas. In general the process to create a ham dinner is always the same – so I’ll present 2 different results … We always…
Fortunately there is always pasta & vegetables & some additional delicacies to prepare quick & dirty pasta dishes – like pasta w/ broccoli. What do we need?