Zucchini - Tarte

I have a new favorite Cookbook: "the Forest feast" from Erin Gleeson. On every page there is a tremendous recipe, easy to make, not to many ingredients and mouthwatering pictures and drawings. So  I already tried some of the recipe. One of them is a sort of Tarte with little yellow pumpkins. As I couldn't find some small pumpkins I did the Tarte with zucchini. The result was great! And here is the recipe....

You need (serves 2):

1 puff pastrie 

1 small zucchini 

1glass Italian Pesto Genovese 

100 g Ricotta

A handful, roughly crashed cashews and some sweet corn

Some salt and a good lug of olive oil

To prepare:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C.

2. Cut the Zucchini in thin slices.

3. Roll,the puff pastrie to a square. Smear on it the ricotta and then the pesto.

4. Place the Zucchini slices on the pesto, disperse all over the nuts and sweet corn and fold in the edges.

5. Season with a little bit salt and sprinkle all over some olive oil.

6. Transfer the Tarte on a baking tray armed with some parchment paper and bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes until golden brown. 

Enjoy warm or cold, with some salad as side dish, also delicious when cut in small pieces to accompain a after work Drink.... 

Vegan Champignon Pie

Here is once again a very simple and quick done recipe that I found in the ccokbook from Jérome Eckmeier: Champignon Pies. Those Pies are ideal to take away or for a buffet and they can be eaten hot as well as warm.

You need (for 6 pies):

- 200 g champignons, cut in cubes

- 100 ml liquid soy cream for cooking

- 1 small onion cut in cubes

- 1 garlic glove, cut in small cubes

- Some baby spinach leaves

- 3 tbsp. Almond puree 

- 40 ml white wine

- 1 package puff pastry

- Salt and pepper to season, some olive oil and a little bit oat milk

To prepare:

1. In a deep pan preheat about 2 tbsp. Olive oil and add the onion. 

2. When golden brown add the champignons and garlic. Cook, while stirring, for some minutes.

3. Stir into the champignons the almond paste and pour in the pan the white wine. 

4. When the wine is more or less absorbed add the soy cream and cook for some minutes. Now fold in the spinach leaves.

5. Season with salt and pepper. Let cool down this mix before continuing.

6. Cut your puff pastry in squares with a length and width from about 10 cm.

7. Put 1 tbsp. of your cooled Champignon filling on each puff pastry square, fold so that you create a triangle.

8. With a fork squeeze together the edges. Cover each Pie with a little bit oat milk.

9. Bake in the to 200 C preheated fan oven on a baking tray armed with parchment paperfor about 15 minutes.

Creamy Cabbage Soup with cream cheese pastries

Thinking about what to cook for a dinner with friends and family and talking about it with my best friend I decided to make a cabbage Soup. My friend also intended to do one for her family Dinner. Here is my recipe for this creamy winter soup that one may enjoy after a walk in those grey, cold, little bit rainy days that we have at the moment... But after every rain sun comes sooner or later, isn´t it? Perhaps this soups gives you a little bit of somewhat of a sunny side.. :). My friend made it with a litle bit of orange juice. Next time I would add to my soup a little bit more stock because for me it was a tick to creamy... My friend told me that also her soup experience went very creamy.... But our guests ate all and did not complain.... In my case perhaps of my cute cream cheese pastries.....?

You need (for 4 - 6 persons)

300g Shredded Cabbage

200 ml heavy cream

400 ml vegetable stock

1 small, fine cut onion

1 garlic

1 Thyme sprig

Some Milk, white Balsamico, salt an pepper to season, some sunflower oil
For the cream cheese pastries:
Some ready rolled puff pastry , some herb cream cheese, 1 small egg, shortly beaten with a fork 
To prepare:
1. Heat up a good lug of oil in a big pan and sweat in it cabbage and onion.
2 . Fill up with the warm stock , heavy cream and a big dash of milk. Add crushed garlic and the thyme sprig. Let simmer until the cabbage is soft.
3. Take out the thyme and season with salt, pepper and a dash of white balsamico. Mix all until creamy (if you do it with your kitchenblender or your freestandmixer you should do it in portions or you have a great machine like I have :). With my "wondermachine" I cook and mix all in- and with- only this one kitchenmachine: My Thermomix from Vorwerk!)

For the decoration:
- Cut the puff pastry in stripes and smear the herb cream cheese on one part. Then lay over an other stripe without cheese. 
- Cut out with cookie cutters different forms.This way the edges will be pressed automatically together.
- Brush every pastrie with the eggmix, put on a oventray lined with parchment paper and bake in the 180 C preheated oven for 20 minutes until golden brown.
- Then put them on a wooden schaschlik-spit and decorate the bowls with the soup....

Onion-Bacon-Cake

Ok I confess I have also started to bake my christmas biscuits. Did´nt you? This year I swear, I will do less different sorts than the years before... Let´s see... At the moment on any occasion one offers you some biscuits to taste. I love biscuits, especially those that you only get during christmas time. But eating all the time so much sweet things I feel the strong need for something salted. So this Onion-Bacon-Cake was the right treat to balance my "oversugared" stomach.

You need:

-  1 roll  puff pastry (275 g)

- 3 medium - big onions

- 200 g bacon

- 200 g sour cream

- 100 ml liquid cream

- 200 g grated cheese (I used a Pizzamix)

Salt and pepper to season

To prepare:

1. Roll the puff pastry on a oven tray armed with parchment paper

2. Bake for 10 minutes in the oven (preheated to 210 C). Do´nt be afraid the puff pastry will rise...

3. Meanwhile cut the onions and the bacon in fine slices

4. Put onion and bacon in a pan and fry them until transparent

5. Mix together sour cream, cream and cheese. Season with salt an pepper (be aware: onion and bacon might be spicy enough)

6. Put on the prebaked puff pastry the onion-bacon and cover with the cream-cheese mix. Bake for 20 min. at 225 C and then for further 15 min. at 180 C until golden brown and crispy.

7. Cut in slices with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter and savour hot (wait some minutes because right out of the oven it is very hot!) or cooled down

Catfish Fillet en Croute

As we eat not so often meat and prefer instead fish I often have the difficultie to find some new Recipe, some delicious combination to vary the preparation...  Looking through my recipe books I stopped by a recipe from Jamie Oliver in his Book Ministry of Food which I like very much as it contains a lot of simple but very tasty recipes. One of those is this fish en Croute what mainly consists in a fisch wrapped in puff pastry. Basically not a very surprising combination fisch and puff pastry.. but he adds tomatoes, olive tapenade, fresh basil leaves and mozzarella..and here it is the recipe with this little twist that makes out of a simple fish a great meal. In the original recipe it is prepared with salmon in one piece and then divided among the eaters. I did it this time in single serving sizes. In my opinion this looks nicer to serve on the plate especially when you have guests...
You need (serves 4 - 6 persons):
- 700 g Catfisch Fish fillet (or you take a big one or you divide it in piece or you buy smaller filets to use directly as single portion..)
- 2 ready rolled puff pastry; 275 g
- a bunch of fresh basil (with rather great leaves)
- 4 Tomatoes
- 4 Tbsp. black olive Tapenade paste
- 200 g Mozzarella Cheese
- Olive oil, salt and pepper
- 1 Egg
To prepare:
1. Roll the puff pastry and divide according to your intended serving sizes and fish fillet pieces
2. Slice the tomatoes not to thin
3. Place the fish fillet on the puff pastry, season with salt and pepper, spread the tapenade out over the top

4. Place the picked basil leaves, then the tomatoe slices over the fish

5. Tear the mozarella into pieces and scatter on top

6. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil

7. Gather up the sides of the puff pastry and paint the edges with a beaten egg

8. Place on a oven tray armed with some parchment paper (if you do one big piece it is easier to start by placing the puff pastry right from the beginning on the tray) and bake for about 30 minutes (until golden brown and crispy) at the bottom of your to 200 C preheated oven

 

aats = Apricot - Almond Tartelettes

It´s high season for Apricots. You see small ones, big ones, some with a little bit red on her skin (as if they had put some cheek blush on.. :). Really ripe they smell and look gorgeous. As I needed to bring some sweets for my collegues at work I was thinking about what to make. At the moment summer is making a (hopefully only short) pause and so I thought about making something expressing summer. So what could be better than using those tempting Apricots that I could´nt resist to buy on the Market? As puff pastry is one of the thing I have quite ever at home I decided to make some AATs = Tartetelettes with Frangipane topped with Apricots .

You need:

- 500 g apricots

- 275 g puff pastry (ready to use)

- 125 g ground almonds

- 75 g softened butter

- 100g icing sugar

- 1 egg

- 1tbsp. amaretto sirup (or liquor) (would not be a problem if you have´nt but in my opinion the almond taste becomes more stronger)

To prepare:
1. Start with the Frangipane by mixing together butter and sugar until well melted. Than stir in the rest of the ingredients (almonds, sugar , sirup, egg)

2. Cut the puff pastry in rectangular pieces

3. Put 1 good tsp. Frangipane on each piece of puff pastry

4. Top with half of an apricot and cut their skin lengthwise with a sharp knife 2 -  3 times. Fold the pastry around your filling.

5. Place on a oven tray armed with parchment paper and bake for 25 min. in the preheated oven (180 C)

I like to serve those tarteletts with some sweetened cream or a scoop of vanilla ice

grissinis for Impatients and Kitchendummies :)

I confess that I am a little bit impatient especially when I am hungry or of course when I am late or when I have an idea in my mind that would need more time that I don´t have.... As the sun is shining bright the last days you see people making a picknick or opening the barbecue season... That´s for me also the time for snacks, for Prosciutto, some glass of chilled wine and some Grissinis... I´ve read different recipes of Grissinis the last days and came home today quite hungry = quick please, something to savour. So all the different recipes that sound really great about grissinis have one problem: they would take too much time (even if I wanna try some of those recipes one day..). And as I said I want Grissinis right now! Taking some puff pastry combined with cream cheese with herbs, some sesam, some salt, some fresh herbs and 18 minutes later I had my fresh, tasty Grissini.

 You need:

1 ready rolled puff pastry (275 g)

100 g cream cheese with herbs (I took a Gervais with herbs)

Some fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary, some sesame seeds or for example some poppy seeds.... 

Preheat your oven to 180 C and place a parchement paper on your oven tray.

Spread the cream cheese on your puff pastry plate and cut in small about 5 mm stripes.

Twist each stripe and place on your oven tray.

Sweep some water on them with a kitchen brush and disperse the seeds and herbs

Bake for 18 minutes

If you wanna bring them to your Barbecue invitation or to your new neighbours or to your friends or ... bundle them with some ribbon and place in a small basket. Have you baked enough Grissinis?

Zucchini - Cheese Pastry

I don´t know why but at the moment I seem to be in love with puff pastry. Probably because it is very variable and you can make in a short time a great treat...sweet or salty..... So you can find puff pastry in my fridge quite on all time as well as some cheese. I like those Zucchini-cheese pastries beeing served as a little dish with salad.
What you need (serve 4 - 5 person):
1 roll of puff pastry (275 g)
1 medium sized zucchini
200 g Camembert
2 Tsp of a dried herbs mix (like Herbes de Provences)
Some fresh thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil
For the salad:
1 small lettuce, 1 little onion, ketchup, mustard, white vine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper
To prepare:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C
2. Cut the puff pastry in some rectangles

3. Slice the washed zucchini, as well as the camembert

4. Put the zuccini on the puff pastry, season with herbs, salt and pepper. Top with the cheese, fresh thyme and drizzle with some olive oil

5. Bake in the preheated oven on a paper lined tray for about 20 minutes until golden brown and the cheese is melted (I did meanwhile the pastries baking too much things and nearly forgot them, so they turned a little bit too brown..... : ) )

6. While the pastries bake: wash, cut and season your salad. I mixed for the salad a vinaigrette out of sliced onion, 2 Tsp mustard, 2 Tsp ketchup 3 Tbsp white vine vinegar, 6 Tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper.
I put everything in a little jar, close it with a lid and shake until well combined. Pour the vinaigrette over your salad.

7. Prepare for each person a plate with some salad and the quantity of zucchini-cheese pastries you like.