3 minute brownies

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Pumpkin shrimp chowder (camarao na moranga)

I first ate this delicious dish on a cold winter night in the mountains outside of Rio. (Amazingly, Brazil can have cold winter nights, especially in the mountainous regions.) I tried this recipe from Ofélia at home with some friends and it turned out rather well. Very satisfying on a winter night and a beautiful sight to behold in the centre of the dinner table.

Ingredients (serves four):

• 1 small pumpkin
• salt and pepper
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2 kg of shrimps
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 big onion, chopped
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup of chopped coriander
• 1 tbsp maizena
• 1 cup of milk
• 2 tbsp of ketchup
• 1 cup of chopped canned tomatoes
• 200g of cheese spread

Wash the pumpkin, making sure no earth or other dirt remains. Cut off the top and keep apart. Clean the pumpkin on the inside, clearing away the seeds. Season the pumpkin with salt, pepper and crushed garlic.

Marinate the shrimp in salt and lemon juice. Glaze the chopped onion in the butter, add the shrimp and the coriander. Season with pepper. Lower the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Dissolve the maizena in the milk and add to the shrimp, stirring until the sauce thickens. Add the ketchup and the canned tomatoes, stirring well. Take of the stove and let cool slightly.

Put the cheese spread on the bottom of the pumpkin, and fill up with the shrimp mixture. Close the pumpkin and put in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for approximately 50-60 minutes, or until the pumpkin flesh is soft.

Serve with white rice, mixed with a bit of coconut milk for a creamy and exotic touch.

Pastel de forno (cheese pasties)

In Brazil, these cheese pasties are typically served as appetizers at parties or as a snack with a cold beer. I took this particular recipe from a fantastic Brazilian cookbook, Ofélia: O Sabor do Brasil.

Ingredients (for about 12 pasties):

• grated cheese
• oregano
• pinch of salt
• 1,5 cups of flour (self-raising)
• 50g of butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup of cream
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 egg

Dust the flour into a bowl and add the butter and a pinch of salt. Stir with a fork, gradually adding the cream and the milk. Dust a clean surface with flour and unroll the dough until 1-2mm thin. Cut out rectangles of approximately 3-4 cm by 6-8 cm. Beat the egg and paint the sides of the rectangles with egg. Season the grated cheese with oregano and salt, and add small heaps of cheese to the rectangles. Close the rectangles and press the sides together with a fork. Coat them with the leftover egg. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for approximately 10-15 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

Brigadeiros

This is a Brazilian recipe for toffee-like, chocolate-y sweets. They are typically served at parties, and made in large quantities together with other sweets to decorate vast tables filled with all sorts of delicious treats.

Ingredients:

• 2 tins of condensed milk
• 4 tbsp of dark cocoa powder
• chocolate sprinkles (or sugar, or chopped nuts, or whatever... but I like it with chocolate sprinkles)

On moderate fire and using a wooden spoon, stir the condensed milk and the cocoa powder for approximately 20-30 minutes, until a thick, fudgy mass remains. The fudge should more or less let go of the bottom of the pot when stirred with the spoon.

Let the fudge cool. Butter your hand so the fudge won't stick to your fingers. Using a teaspoon, take small amounts of fudge and roll them into balls approximately 1,5-2 cm across. Roll the balls through the chocolate sprinkles. To top it off, put each 'brigadeiro' into a small paper holder. Enjoy!

Sachertorte

I first made this scrumptious Viennese delicacy with two girlfriends on a dreary November afternoon after a sleepover party. It takes a few hours to prepare, but it makes for a great afternoon activity and the result is oh-so-worth it. We took the recipe from a cookbook with chocolate recipes, and tweaked the original recipe here and there.

Ingredients:

for the cake

• 140g soft butter
• 70g sugar
• 6 eggs
• 140g dark chocolate
• 70g sugar (yes, again, this is no typo)
• a pinch of salt
• 140g flour

for the syrup

• 100g sugar
• 1dl water
• a few drops of vanilla extract (or vanilla pod)
• a teaspoon of amaretto (or two tbsp of rum, like the original recipe said)

for de icing

• 200g raspberry jam
• 200g dark chocolate
• 1 tbsp butter

Beat the butter and sugar to a creamy mass. Separate the yolks from the egg whites and add the yolks, one by one, to the butter and sugar. Melt the chocolate au bain marie (read: put it in the microwave on moderate power for 3-4 mins) and spoon it through carefully.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and the sugar until stiff and carefully spoon 1/3 through the chocolate dough. Dust the flour and spoon it in carefully together with the rest of the egg whites.

Butter a tin and add the dough. Bake on a pre-heated oven at 180°C for approximately 45 mins. Leave the cake to cool outside of the oven.

For the syrup, boil the sugar, water and the vanilla essence for a few minutes. Let is cool and add a teaspoon of amaretto.

Peel off the upper crust of the cake (this part is hard and the fluffy cake underneath will absorb the syrup much better). Cut the cake in half horizontally and coat with a royal layer of raspberry jam. Put the upper half of the cake back on the lower half, and soak the top of the upper half with the syrup. Then add a layer of raspberry jam. Melt the chocolate for the icing and add a tablespoon of butter (to keep the chocolate soft and shiny). Coat the entire cake with the chocolate icing. Optionally, decorate the cake with whole walnuts, or something else to your liking.

Lime cream dessert

Remember that creamy lime pie from a few weeks ago? Well, I still had limes in my freezer, and can of condensed milk and cream, but no cookies for the crust nor the willpower to spend an hour in the kitchen for the full-blown dessert. So I made a lazy version of the creamy lime pie recipe - essentially withholding only the creamy lime part of it. Quick and easy, but fresh, creamy and very satisfying.

Ingredients:

• 4 limes
• 1 tin of condensed milk
• 3/4 tin of cream

Squeeze and filter the juice of 4 limes. In a bowl, mix the condensed milk, the cream and the lime juice into a thick, yummy cream. Basically, you're done.

I still divided the cream over individual glasses, and topped it off with some crumbled betterfood cookies for a crunchy finish.

Potatoe oven dish

I had a bag of potatoes growing legs, so it was time to make a potatoe dish. I hopped onto Nigella Lawson's website, a treasury of scrumptious and easy-to-make recipes. I quickly found a yummy-sounding potatoe oven dish, and adapted it to accommodate all my local supermarkets' shortage of halloumi cheese.

Ingredients:

• two-three handfulls of potatoes, peeled
• 1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 red onion
• half a head of garlic
• olive oil
• salt & pepper
• a piece of brie, sliced (instead of the halloumi cheese Nigella uses)

Preheat the oven at 200°C. Cut the peeled potatoes, the peppers and the red onions into medium-sized chuncks. Peel the garlic. Toss everything into an ovenproof baking dish, cover with a few spoonfulls of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for approximately 45 minutes in the oven, add the sliced brie on top and let it melt & get golden brown under the grill.

It was heaven on a plate. A perfect recipe for fall.

Rosemary & parmigiano omelette

I made this for Sunday brunch. Nothing fancy, but isn't beauty in simplicity?

Ingredients (for 2 persons):

• 5 eggs
• a good splash of milk, depending on how dense you like your omelette
• a large pinch of rosemary
• a small pinch of thyme
• salt and pepper
• freshly grated parmigiano cheese, in generous amounts
• butter

Melt the butter in a frying pan. Beat the eggs and the milk and add the herbs. Season with salt and pepper. Fry the egg mixture on moderate heat. When the egg has almost completely solidified, add a good handfull of parmigiano cheese and fold the omelette down the middle. Let the cheese melt for a few minutes more before serving.

Great with a few slices of tomato and a chunck of nice multigrain bread.

Pita pizza (pitza!)

I invented these 'pitzas' one day when I really wanted to make homemade pizza, but my local supermarket was out of ready-made pizza dough. Yes, I am lazy, I do not make my own pizza dough. So instead I got some wholewheat pitta bread and used that instead of pizza dough.

Ingredients:

• a bag of pitta bread (wholeweat if you like, amount depending on how many hungry stomachs you have to fill)
• canned tomatoes
• fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
• oregano
• a few drops of olive oil
• whatever else you like to throw on your pitza, really

Preheat the oven at 200°C. Spread out the chopped canned tomatoes on the pitta. Cover in slices of mozzarella cheese. Season with oregano and finish with a few drops of olive oil for the real italiano touch. Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes until the cheese had molted into a gold crust of cheesy goodness.

Creamy lime pie

I learned this recipe from my Brazilian cousin Renata. It's made with lime juice, but since those come cheap in Brazil but not in most of the rest of the world, you can use lemon juice instead. The taste is best with limes though, so it may be well worth the investment! Plus, if you buy limes in bulk you can make caipirinhas or mojitos with the rest. It's a party!

Ingredients:

• juice of 2 or 3 limes, depending on how sour you like your lime pie
• a can of condensed milk
• 3/4 of a can of cream (just use the condensed milk can to measure it, Brazilian style)
• a roll of Maria cookies, or any dry-ish cookie you like, such as petit beurres or Betterfood
• 175g of butter
• 2 egg whites
• 2-3 tbsp of powder sugar

Pulverize the entire roll of cookies in the food processor, or if you do not own a food processor, like me, put them in a clear plastic bag and go ballistic on them with the rolling pin (or a hammer, or a baseball bat... whatever suits you). Put the cookie pulver in a bowl, and knead in the butter to make the pie's crust. The dough should be moldable and should not crumble too much, but should also not be too moist. Spread out the dough in a rectangular pirex bowl.

Next, squeeze the juice out of 2-3 limes. In a separate bowl, mix the condensed mild, the cream and the lime juice to form a homogenous, thick cream. Put the cream in the pirex bowl on top of the crust, and put in the refrigerator to cool.

Beat the egg whites with the powder sugar to a mérengue-like consistency. (Tip: a drop of lime juice helps to keep the texture foamy.) Spread out the mérengue on top of the pie, and put the pie under a pre-heated grill for 1-2 minutes until the top of the mérengue layer is golden. Chill in the refrigerator until served.

Lazy tomato sauce

This tomato sauce is for when I'm really, really, REALLY lazy.

Ingredients:

• 4 large tomatoes, preferably those tasty oval ones
• salt, pepper, oregano
• olive oil

Wash and chop the tomatoes into large chuncks. Heat some olive oil on moderate heat and stir in the tomatoes. Let simmer for 15-20 minutes on low heat. Season with salt, pepper and oregano.

I served this supersimple tomato sauce with fresh gnocchi (from the cooling section in the supermarket) and some chopped basil leaves, one night when I was in need of a quick healthy dinner that did not involve frying anything.

Chick pea puree

Ingredients
• 2 tins of chick peas
• Za'atar spice mix
• 1 tbsp of butter
• Salt and pepper

Boil the chickpeas on moderate heat until soft. Drain them and purify them in the food processor, or as in my case, with the mixer (takes slightly more effort…). Heat the puree again on very low heat, and stir in a tablespoon of good butter. Season with za'ater spice mix from Oxfam Fair Trade, salt and pepper.

I served this chick pea puree with zuchini fries and falafel, but I think it would go well with any slightly arab inspired dish. Lots of protein in there!

Also, I suspect I could use this chick pea puree to make my own falafel. I'll keep you posted if I ever get that far.

Zucchini fries (or something like it)

Zucchini fries (or something like it)

Ingredients
• 1 zucchini
• A cup of water
• Flour
• Sunflower seed oil
• Salt and pepper

Wash the zuchini and cut it into 1/2 cm think slices of approximately 5-8 cm length. Heat a good centimeter of sunflower oil in a frying pan. Dip the slices of zucchini in water, roll through the flower, and fry for a few minutes on each side in the oil. Put the zucchini fries on a piece of kitchen paper so it can absorb some of the excess oil. Season with salt and pepper.

I served these zucchini fries with chick pea puree and falafel (with a squirt of andalouse sauce, mmm).

Homemade pesto

Yesterday I made my very own homemade pesto, and it tasted good! This is sooo easy to make.

Ingredients:

• a whole basil plant
• 2 tbsp pine nuts
• 2 tbsp grated parmezan or pecorino cheese
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 dl of olive oil
• salt 'n' pepa

Put the basil plant, washed and rougly chopped, the pine nuts, the garlic and the olive oil in the food processor and blend until you obtain a smooth paste. Add the grated cheese and season with salt and pepper. Voilà!

Oven dish with wholeweat pancakes, leeks and cheese sauce

This recipe is a variation on the galettes with leeks, egg and cheese. This one I didn't steal from a crêpe cart in Valencia though - I came up with it entirely by myself. :-)

Ingredients:

• wholeweat pancake mix (yep, still lazy)
• whatever else the pancake mix requires, usually 1-2 eggs and a whole lot of milk
• a bushel of leeks
• butter
• cream
• nutmeg
• salt & pepper
• a bag of cheese sauce in powder (if you're feeling exceptionally lazy)
• Maizena Roux, grated cheese and milk (if you're feeling regular-lazy)
• butter, flour, milk and grated cheese (if you want to have a go at making a roux from scratch)
• more grated cheese to sprinkle on top

Cut the leeks into rings and wash. Melt the butter on moderate heat and toss in the leeks, stirring them until soft. Take off the heat and mix in the cream, then season with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.

Make the pancake batter following the instructions on the package. Bake the wholeweat pancakes and leave to cool a little.

Meanwhile, prepare the cheese sauce. I usually go for option 2, the semi lazy option. That is, I heat milk on moderate heat (something between 500ml and 750ml, I think, but I usually exaggerate a little when it comes to cheese sauce). Then I add in Maizena Roux, to make a white sauce, and add a good 100g of grated cheese. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

In the meantime, preheat the oven at 200°C. Put a good few spoonfuls of creamy leeks on each pancake, roll up and place into a buttered oven dish. Then ladle over the cheese sauce, and sprinkle some more grated cheese on top (there is NO such thing as too much cheese). Put it in the oven until the top cheese has molten and turned into a sumptuous, golden brown crust.

Enjoy!

Galettes with leeks, cheese and egg

I 'stole' this recipe from a cart at a medieval fair back when I was living in Valencia in 2006. I suspect the owner of the cart must have been French, as this is a recipe that reminds me of the typically french galettes, salty pancakes often served with cheese, ham or tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

• wholeweat pancake mix (yes, I'm a lazy cook, I work full time you know)
• whatever else the pancake mix needs (usually eggs and milk)
• a bushel of leeks
• butter
• cream
• nutmeg
• salt & pepper
• grated cheese, I use gruyère for example
• eggs

Cut the leeks into ringlets and rinse. Melt the butter and toss in the leeks, letting simmer on low heat for a good 10 minutes until the leeks are soft. Lower the heat to a mininum, stir in the cream, and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Make the wholeweat pancake mix as described on the package. Bake a pancake on one side, and when you flip it over, crack an egg into the pan and sprinkle some grated cheese on top. Let the cheese melt and the egg get ready, then remove the pancake onto a plate, add a good spoonful of the leeks'n'cream, and serve.

Aubergine and spinach lasagna

This was one of my first 'inventions' on the culinary front. I don't really know what thought process led to this recipe, but it's been a hit with friends and family ever since.



Ingredients:

• 2 eggplants
• 3 tbsp of olive oil
• oregano
• salt and pepper
• 250g of spinach (I use pre-cut frozen spinach, but you can use fresh spinach, blanched and chopped, too)
• 250g of ricotta
• nutmeg
• milk & Maizena roux (or you can prepare a white sauce from scratch, of course)
• grated cheese, I like gruyère
• lasagna

Preheat the oven at 200°C. Cut the eggplants lenght-wise. Mix the olive oil, the oregano and some salt and pepper, and rub both sides of the eggplants with it. Grill the slices in the oven until soft and light brown.

'Unfreeze' (I could hardly call it melt, now could I?) the spinach and mix with the ricotta, nutmeg and some salt.

Heat the milk at moderate heat, and when it's almost at boiling point, mix in the Maizena roux to make a white sauce. Season with some nutmeg and salt, then add a little bit of the grated cheese to make a light cheese sauce.

Now you're ready to start layering. In a lasagna dish, alternate a piece of lasagna with either a spoon of white sauce and eggplant or a few spoonfulls of the spinach mixture. End with a layer of aubergines covered in white sauce on top, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake in the oven at 200°C for 20 minutes (or however long the lasagna package says is necessary).

Super easy pancakes

I learned this super easy recipe for pancakes on a Tupperware demonstration. You actually need a piece of tupperware called the Shake It. It's a measuring cup and a shaker in one, and it's very useful for beating eggs with other ingredients to prepare omelets, or even to beat cream into whipped cream. Or for the fantastically easy pancake recipe below - yields around 3-4 pancakes.


Ingredients

• 200ml milk
• 1 egg
• 6 table spoons of flour
• a bit of vanilla sugar

Measure 200ml of milk in the Shake it, add an egg, the flour and some vanilla sugar, shake and voilà! Pancake batter in a matter of seconds.

Lemon risotto with grean beans

I found an awesome recipe for lemon risotto on Nigella Lawson's website. Cooked it for my boyfriend and myself and served with blanched grean beans, and we are fans.

Ingredients:

• 2 shallots
• 1 stick of celery
• 60g unsalted buttery
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 300g risotto rice
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• zest and juice of 1/2 unwaxed lemon
• rosemary, preferably fresh, but I used dried and it tasted just fine
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 tbsp grated parmesan (I didn't measure this out, because there is no such concept as too much cheese)
• 60ml (4tbsp) cream
• salt, pepper

Heat the stock in a saucepan and keep to a low simmer. Chop the shallots and celery very finely, preferably in a food processor so they become juicy mush. Heat half the butter and the oil andsimmer the shallot-celery mixture for a couple of minutes. Mix in the rice, stirring to each rice grain is coated in oil and butter. Ladle in the stock bit by bit, and let the rice absorb it. Mix the lemon zest and the rosemary into the risotto. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolk, lemon juice, parmesan, cream and pepper. Take the risotto off the heat and mix in the egg-lemon-cream mixture. Add butter, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated parmesan. Great in combination with grean beans, or any other green vegetable such as green asparagus or broccolis.

Serve with grean beans cooked al dente, or with any other tasty green vegetable, such as green asparagus or broccoli.

Exotic Lentil Stew

I came up with this recipe when I was trying to figure out what on earth I could do with a can of lentils. I found inspiration in a vegetarian world kitchen cookbook (link will be added later, I forget the exact title of the book right now). Anywho, this recipe is perfect for a chilly autumn night, and leftovers can be turned into a hearty soup by adding some vegetable stock and mixing.

Ingredients

• a can of lentils
• 200ml of coconut milk
• one large onion, or two smaller ones
• 2 or 3 large tomatoes
• indian spices
• salt, pepper
• olive oil

Cut the onion into large chunks. Cut the tomatoes into large cubes and remove the seeds. Sauté the onion in some olive oil. Add the tomatoes and stir for a few minutes. Then add the can of lentils and the coconut milk. Season with plenty of indian spices and some salt and pepper. Let the stew simmer for 10-15 minutes so the vegatables get soft and creamy. Serve with some tasty dark bread.

Aubergine, potatoe and quorn hotpot

Perfect for when you don't want to eat spaghetti from the freezer yet again. Serves 2.

Ingrediënts

• as many potatoes as you think 2 people should eat
• 2 eggplants
• 1 red onion
• diced quorn, with italian seasoning
• paprika
• olive oil
• salt'n'pepa

Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes. Boil them for approximately 10 minutes. Chop the onion, dice the eggplant and sauté in some olive oil. Season with salt, pepper and some paprika powder. Add the diced quorn and the boiled potatoes and stir until the potatoes get a nice light brown crust.

Aubergine Pizza Bianca

Really easy to make for lazy evenings, but not quite your regular comfort food: pizza bianca, or pizza without a base of tomato sauce. Serves 2, or one really hungry person.

Ingredients:

• ready made pizza dough (or you can make pizza dough yourself, plenty of recipes out there)
• 250g ricotta
• 1/2 small egg plant
• 1/2 onion
• grated mozarella
• olive oil
• salt, pepper, oregano

Preheat the oven at 200°C. Roll out the pizza dough and sprinkle some olive oil on top. Divide the ricotta cheese more or less evenly on the dough. Slice the egg plant and the onion thinly, and add on top of the ricotta. Finish with a generous sprinkling of grated mozarella cheese, and season with salt, pepper and oregano. Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, until the mozarella cheese has melted and turned golden brown.