Pasta with roasted vegetables and feta cheese

      Quick dinner -

 

Roasted until soft
         
          > 1 sweet red pepper
          > 2 courgettes (zucchini)
          > 1 onion

Mixed with cooked pasta and baked in the oven (for a bit) 

Topped with feta cheese (as much as you like)

Lavender Tea

    Hey, sleepyhead :) did you know there's an international sleep day? 

          Neither did I but now I do and it's 21st of March which is today :)

I wish I could just roll on the other shoulder and nap until I would get a headache. 

   Middle of the week - time to the day-job with a definate maybe spring in my step?!

            Read the Lavender benefits here

Drying Lavender

• Place the lavender between two piece of wax paper
•  Place a weight on top of the wax paper
•  Wait one to two days until the blossoms are dried
•  Remove the weight and take out the flowers
•  Remove the leaves from the stem
•  Crumble the dried leaves and place into the plastic bag

 Making the Tea

• Add hot water to tea pot
•  Place dried lavender in to a teapot
•  Bring to boil
•  Remove from heat
•  Pour onto lavender, let steep for 5-10 minutes
• Serve hot or iced.

***

Lavender Tea as featured on oC online food magazine,

 Spring 2012

Flapjacks with coconut, raisins and brown linseeds

 Some years ago I was a bit mad about flapjacks and I had them very often,
                      I mean - very very often :)

         They came with all different toppings and my favourite used to be cappuchino one.

As all obsessions this one faded as suddenly as it came,

      till last Friday when S. brough some to work...

Recipe

• 4 ½ oz/ 6 tbsp Golden Syrup or corn syrup
• 2 sticks/200g unsalted butter
• 12 oz/330g porridge oats

 Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas 4

• Line the baking tray with baking parchment.
• Place the syrup and butter into a large saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted into the syrup and stir well. Make sure you add all the golden syrup, sometimes it is hard to get it exact and more is always better than less if you want your flapjack gooey but not falling apart.
• Put the oats into a roomy baking bowl, add a pinch of salt then pour over the butter and syrup mixture and stir to coat the oats.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and spread evenly to fill the tin making sure the surface is even.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven while the flapjack is still slightly soft, they will harden once cool.
• Place the tin on a wire cooling rack and cut the flapjack into squares and leave in the tin until completely cold.

The flapjack keeps well stored in an airtight tin.

Lavender Sugar

 

             Lavender Sugar

•  Mix white granulated sugar and dried lavender buds in a jar
•  For every cup of sugar add a 1/4 cup of lavender
•  Seal and store for 1-2 weeks

   Adapted from 'A Bowl of Mush'

***

Lavender Sugar as featured on oC online food magazine,

 Spring 2012

Rhubarb and Coconut tart (with meringue topping)

There's some sort of celebration every March in my life -
    Sometimes it's someone's birthday so it's party anyways but usually it's just a remembering thought.

     This year is the 8th year of living abroad. I do count - suppose it didn't make a proper home..
so this year was marked with a rhubarb and coconut tart :)

 serves 8

for the rhubarb filling

• 700g trimmed rhubarb, cut into 3 cm pieces
• 160g golden caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp extra to taste
• grated zest and juice of 1/2 orange
• 4 tbsp cornflour
• 4 large egg yolks 
• 50g unsalted butter, melted

for the coconut pastry

•  50g desiccated coconut
• 200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 110g unsalted cold butter, cubed
• about 2 tbsp iced water

for the coconut meringue

•  3 egg whites
• 175g caster sugar
• 40g desiccated coconut

PART 1

1. For the coconut pastry - mix coconut with flour (you can put them into food processor for a fine mixture)
2. Stir in the sugar
3. Add cubed butter and using your fingertips, rub into flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
4. Add just enough iced water to bind
5. Knead until smooth, wrap in cling film, then chill for 20 minutes.

PART 2

1. Preheat oven to 200C/fan180C/gas 6
2. Roll out the pastry, use to line a 20cm x 3.5cm fluted loose-bottomed tart tin
3. Chill for 30 minutes
4. Line pastry case with baking paper and baking beans or rice and blind-bake for 12 minutes
5. Remove the paper and beans/rice, bake for 5 minutes or until crisp and golden

 PART 3

1. Turn the oven down to 190C/fan170C/gas 5
2.  Mix the rhubarb with 70g of the sugar, and the orange zest and juoce
3. Roast for 20 minutes
4. Puree the rhubarb and it's juices in a food processor (i've done it straight in a roasting dish with a masher), then pass through a sieve, pushing the rhubarb through with a wooden spoon.
5. In a small bowl, mix the remaining sugar with the cornflour and enough rhubarb puree to make a paste.
6. Return to the pan containing the rest of the rhubarb.
7. Bring to boil
8. Mix the egg yolks with the butter, then stir into the rhubarb mixture
9. Scrape into the bowl, cover, cool and chill.

PART 4

1. Pour the curd into the pastry case and bake for 30 minutes.
2. Cool completely, then chill

PART 5

1. For the meringue, whisk the egg whites untill stiff, add 1 tbsp of the sugar, whisk again
2. Add the remaining sugar in this way
3. Fold through the coconut and spoon the meringue over rhubarb curd. Form pretty peaks.
4. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes until the meringue is golden and crisp on the outside.

The End!

     The longest and the most difficult recipe I've ever tried and it was worth all the hard work. I didnt do the meringue part properly tho. Let me know if anyone will try :)

from -
delicious magazine, april 2012 (103p).

Lasagna by Jamie Oliver

    One Saturday afternoon I was itching to make lasagna by Jamie (again!). It's so easy to make and so deliciuos!

    I liked that recipe and I already used it for quite a few times but there's always a disaster with the white sauce -

                and I'm  not too sure why...

    Jamie uses crème fraîche instead of usual white sauce.

    Sometimes I use natural yoghurt (don't ask me why), sometimes white sauce, then 'pasta bake' sauce and every single time this recipe works whatever I would use :)

    I usually use Parmesan cheese but then I had just a normal mature Cheddar cheese in the fridge and I decided just to use what I had.

     I find it quite difficult to follow Jamies recipes as he writes them the way he talks - one big long sentence.. so the book is now full of underlined words :)

 serves 4-6

For the Bolognese sauce

• 2 medium onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• olive oil
• 500g minced beef, pork
• 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
• salt and ground black pepper
• 50g Parmesan cheese

 For the lasagne

• 250g dried egg lasagne sheets
• 1 x 500ml tub of creme fraiche
• 100g Parmesan cheese
• 1 large ripe tomato

To make your Balognese sauce

1. Chop the onions, garlic and celery
2. Place large pan on medium heat with a bit of olive oil
3. Add the veg to the pan, stir until softened  and lightly coloured
4. Stir in the mince meat and the tinned tomatoes
5. Fill one of the empty tins with water and add to the pan
6. Stir in a good pinch of salt and pepper
7. Bring to boil
8. Turn the heat down and simmer with a lid on for 45 minutes, stirring every now and again to stop it catching.

***

1. Preheat  the oven  to 190C/375F/gas 5
2. Remove Bolognese sauce from the heat and stir a quarter of Parmesan
3. Boil some water in the kettle and pour into a separate pan
4. Add all your lasagne sheets with a drizzle of oil and blanch for 3 to 4 minutes
5. Drain the sheets

To make your lasagne

1. Spoon third of your Bolognese sauce into the bottom of an ovenproof dish
2. Follow with a layer of lasagne sheets
3. Smooth over a third of your creme fraiche (white sauce, pasta bake sauce)
4. Sprinkle with good pinch of salt'n'pepper and another quarter of Parmesan
5. Repeat the layers twice more, finishing with a layer of creme fraiche and Parmesan
6. Top with slices of tomatoe, drizzle with olive oil (you can also put some basil leaves)
7. Cover with foil, bake for 20 minutes
8. Remove the foil and cook for further 35 minutes until bubbling and golden
9. Serve with fresh green salad.

Adapted from Jamie Oliver 'Jamie's Ministry of food', 2008

Chocolate heart cookies and New England

I was so craving for something sweet and then I thought I shall kill that monster inside me with a few cookies. I decided to use the old chocolate cookie recipe.  You can find it  here

I baked cookies just before Valentine's Day so I 'pimped' them a bit so that they would look more in theme of Love ♥

• Just take some dough, make a ball, flatten it - that's your cookie.

• Form shape of heart, also flatten, dip it into sugar sprinkles (whatever colour or shape you would like) and place the heart on the top of the cookie dough ball. 

On my trip across the pond we went to Boston, Newport, Providence - the beautiful Rhode Island. Shame the weather conditions were freezing but I did enjoy every single minute of it!

• Preheat oven to 163 C / 325 F degrees
• Bake for 15 minutes

P.S. Make sure you will place cookies at least 2 inches / 5 cm apart; if not, you might get a 'Big Heart' effect or ''ET''... as you can see bellow.

3 cookies in 1

Baking sheet curled and made a smile - how convenient?!

I thought I will decorate it with red sugar sprinkles - what a happy cookie I made :)

  Amazing bridge to Newport that finished with a yummy Birthday meal. Lobster soup - never had that before and I can recommend everyone who likes soups or fish :)
  Sweet potato chips were so surprisingly delicious and I will try to make my own sometimes. Here, in England I've never had them before and I would vote for sweet potato chips to make into little restaurants around the country.

 Thank you Mrs.B, Mrs.D, Mrs.K and the girls! ;)

  How to bake Chocolate heart cookies