Breadlove project: recipe #1 onion softbread

I am not bored at all. The contrary, I'm pretty busy, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't have fun. So I decided to start a little project and practice bread baking. Nothing sophisticated, just simple home baking.

I don't have many tools. Let's see how far it will go and maybe I would want to get something extra, but at this point my toolbox looks like this:

Blue cheese salad with warm maple syrup dressing

I love salads, especially in summer. This one is comforting, nutritious and yummy meal!

Makes 4 portions

Ingredients:

• 200 g rucola 
• 100 g iceberg salad
• 200 g blue cheese (any you like)
• 100 g walnuts
• 100 g cucumber (optional)
• 50 g snap peas (optional)

for dressing:

• 60 ml maple syrup
• 60 ml olive oil
• 20 ml apple cider vinegar 

Procedure:

1. Roast quickly in the pan walnuts to give them a nice touch of heat and smokiness.
2. In the bowl, put salad, cut in cubes cucumber and add to the bowl.
3. Cut in 1 cm chunks snap peas and add to all the ingredients.
4. Crumble blue cheese using your fingers.
5. Add warm walnuts.
6. Heat slightly (not boil!) maple syrup, add oil and vinegar. Shake the dressing nicely.
7. Mix the salad in the bowl, put on the plates to serve and dress each plate individually, making spiral moves while dressing.

Estimated preparation time: 10 minutes

Estimated cooking time: 5  minutes

Kladdkaka, or swedish chocolate cake

Literally translated as mud cake. Chocolate mud. Yum!
Want to make someone happy with your baking? That's a right recipe to choose.

Tastes heavenly with whipped cream.
Personally, I prefer it with vanilla ice cream or cold just from the fridge (will resemble brownies a little).
The Linda's version I make here is without flour, so those who avoid gluten could be satisfied as well.

Simple: mussels in white wine

One of the best things about Italy: you can always find good, fresh and relatively cheap mussels here. Local white wine is not rear as well - so Friday dinner is settled.

Onion soup

Being a student, I am the Queen of soups. Fast, tasty and healthy. Together with fresh baguette, crackers or toast with butter - such a yumm!

Recently, I even got this super idea to freeze my soups, so I could cook more and, in addition, change them frequently without spending time for cooking. Just freeze your soup in portions (2-3 meals) and pick any you like that particular day.

This one was originally taken from classic French recipe, modified according to what my fridge had contained at that time. And then adjusted dozen of times, so at some point I started to have doubts about its canonic presentation. Well, still tastes good and goes perfect with some roasted whole-grain bread slices with cheddar cheese. Don't forget to butter them up generously.

Everyone knows that best soups are cooked on stocks. You can use either chicken or vegetable stock, purchased or homemade. Feel the freedom.

How to preserve fresh chillies

Fresh chillies in the fridge are my essential product. They could  highlight any dish so easily. But I find it hard to keep track of them, or using the whole pack until they get to rot. So here I present you a simple conservation that I eventually came up with.

Ingredients:

• bag of chillies
• salt
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil

Procedure:

1. Wash chillies.
2. Peel them from seeds. 
3. Blend the part you have peeled
4. Add some salt (around 1 tsp for 200 g of product), sprinkle with olive oil. And blend again for 20-30 sec.
5. Pour in containers and freeze.

When you are out of chillies, just take another container from the freezer and leave it to defrost naturally. 

Note:Note: Blending chilly peppers with their seeds would give you a lot more heat. So use it as an advantage or remove totally.

 

 

 

Salty snack: puff pastries

Incredibly quick and easy to make snack meal - spiced puff pastries. Toppings could be of choice - pick any you want to have in the fridge!

In my opinion the best spices are cumin and rosemary - small enough to chew, big enough for a slight crunch and aroma.

Elderberry lemonade or Fläderblomssaft

In case you have never tried elderberry lemonade/drink/juice, run to the closest IKEA store! Haha. In the section with typical Swedish products, there is definitely some of this delicious beverage.

Without doubts, the best is home made, so let's try making one ourselves.

The good thing about elderberry trees, they might grow at any place. Look around, maybe there is one on your way to work :)

Pasta salad with sweet cherry tomatoes, walnuts and olives

Pasta has never really been my food. At the restaurant it would be my last choice. Though, when I happened to be visiting my boyfriend's uncle, I couldn't stop eating that delicious seafood pasta, cooked by his Italian wife. So I admit, that can be super delicious.

On the other hand, it is hard to get fresh seafood here in a supermarket, so, in my opinion, the best one could do with frozen stuff is this Mediterranian pasta I wrote about before (check out new pics ;). I sometimes do it with the double mussels portion - quick for feeding a big family.

But let's go back to the pasta salad! Tried it once in Germany. Not good. A while ago I even considered potato or pasta salad as an offensive usage of ingredients. Not anymore, haha. When doing grocery shopping, I ran on a great deal for magnificently sweet cherry tomatoes. My parents, unfortunately, do not consider salad as dinner. That's why I have come up with an idea to combine a salad and a full meal making pasta salad without "killing" the royal taste of cherry tomatoes :)

Princesstårta, or Princess Cake

I was waiting for a day, when I will make my first Princesstårta - traditional Swedish cake with cream, marzipan and jam. And I made it, in Sweden! Haha

Recipes can vary, every family has developed its very own taste. This one will be with raspberries - not jam, pure unfrozen raspberries, collected in the forest.