This is a classic Mexican dish of beans, feta cheese, lightly fried salsa and sunny-side-up eggs. You''l love it for breakfast, you'll love it any other time of the day as well. Tastes yummy and spicy and hearty while remaining reasonably light.
The slightly weird color of the corn tortilla in the picture is due to the fact that I experimented with creating tortillas out of corn meal in lack of proper masa harina. The recipe still turned out great anyways, though I'd always recommend buying the tortillas ready-made if you can't find masa.
You can serve this next to any refreshing, lime-infused drink, although Mojitos (with or without alcohol are always the best) :). Enjoy.
I needed Mexican corn tortillas for a recipe and, of course, I wanted to do it myself instead of just buying a pack from the supermarket. After researching it, I found that it calls for masa harina, which can only be found easily (without ordering it by mail) in Mexico and South USA. Since I'm very far from either of those regions, I wanted to attempt to do them with regular corn flour (corn meal). And well... that's precisely what this was. An attempt. I wouldn't say a completely failed attempt, but I would definitely recommend buying them ready made from your grocery store.
The source of inspiration was this (very good instructions if you happen to get some masa!).
I'm just posting this as a cooking experience for any of you who might be tempted to try to achieve a corn tortilla without the special lime-treated Mexican flour called masa harina. Definitely edible, but not worth making.
Ready to assemble in 10 minutes or so and baked in 25. Very chocolate-y, rich, crumbly and occasionally crunchy from all the walnut bits they're filled with. You'll love them.
For us, these are the typical comfort-sweet thing we can just make without to much fuss and then have around to dig into whenever the mood strikes for the nest 2-3 days. They keep quite well too - the third day they were still moist and crunchy and delicious and we honestly couldn't tell the difference from when they were freshly out of the oven. After three days we can't guarantee but what we can say is that they won't last that long ;)
This is one of my favorite pizzas. I had it in many Italian restaurants, sometimes also with a topping of sweetcorn (which we skipped here), but mainly the chicken and mascarpone combination is what makes this pizza so good. A really really must try.
Another nice little bonus this recipe has, besides the great taste, is that it's a great way to use up leftover chicken, but you need to make sure you use leg meat and not breast file. The leg meat will stay moist through oven-baking, while the breast will get dry and hard to chew, so trust us on this one. We pre-cooked a chicken leg for this recipe by placing it in a cup of red wine and herbs, seasoning with salt and pepper and frying it on medium heat, covered, for about 30 minutes (turning midway). Anyway, feel free to use any baked, roasted or fried chicken leg meat you have available.
Another must of this recipe is the fact that tomato sauce would really ruin it. So as much as you're accustomed to having your pizza crust topped with tomato sauce, restrain yourself for this one. The whole point is to enjoy the single sauciness of the creamy mascarpone.
Other than that, it's not a pretentious recipe and you'll have it ready without too much fuss. :)
Easy as walking to the fridge and taking out the ingredients. It's a lovely, yet simple, combination of flavors. Although we usually recommend using fresh ingredients, in this case canned mushrooms work best (they're moist and don't get too dried up in the oven). Try this snack whenever you feel like munching on something crispy and yummy. :)
So far, this is our favorite soup. Hmm or maybe fighting for supremacy with the French onion soup but anyway - the maybe first, maybe second in our soup priority list :).
Anyway, after tasting this soup no one should be able to say anything bad anymore about the cuisine of Holland, which used to be reputed for being kind of bland. No way. Taste this soup and reconsider :).
After drooling about it for days we finally gathered up the ingredients and time to make it - although, as you'll see, it doesn't require any fancy stuff nor does it take more than half an hour - and were thrilled. It tastes like pure delicate, sour-ish, creamy heaven.
We recommended you to try it as soon as possible and to serve it with some freshly toasted buttered bread or home dry rustic-style crackers (like dried bruschetta snacks or such), as we did.
Adapted from Crazy mother cooker.
The Aloo Gobi (meaning potato and cauliflower) is a classic Indian vegetarian main course. Very spicy and curried, with a little addition of peas, it tastes buttery and melted and lovely although it doesn't contain fat almost at all. It's best served with plain basmati rice (as bread) and a nice fresh raita, pictured above to the right. The raita is a typical Indian yogurt sauce that accompanies a lot of meals. You'll make everything quite easy enough, you'll see.
Adapted from Mark. I added more spices traditionally used in the Indian cuisine and modified the quantities a bit after researching the dish around the internet. Still, his version is the one ours resembles most, so we'll give him the proper credit. His site is full of other awesome stuff, by the way. Enjoy this lovely Indian dish with plain herbal tea and candlelight :).
The Pasca is such a staple in Romanian houses not a single Easter holiday goes by without having the two main desserts on the table, which are this and a good loaf of cozonac (here's an example of the original version of cozonac and the faster and easier version). In most of my years spent at home with my folks, I used to purposefully annoy my mom when she asked me, year-round, what I wanted for dessert. I would answer "Pasca" although I knew all too well it's something we do, traditionally, only on Easter and that there are plenty of other yummy desserts we could have. I would especially say that on Christmas just see her roll her eyes at me :)
Back to this wonderful dessert, you need to know that it's basically a pie dish filled with a combination of sweet cheese (but not cream cheese like in the New-York style cheesecake, it has to be slightly more chunky and crumbly, more like cottage fresh cheese) and fruits (usually raisins, but other dry fruit and nut combinations are practiced). It's not very sweet (the whole thing only has a few spoon of sugar, but it tastes sweet because of the delicate cheese and fruit mixture.
This is a very basic and easy version of the pasca, and while I didn't have access to the fresh cow milk cheese one is supposed to use for this, I improvised quite well and I can honestly say I couldn't feel much difference from the original in the end. Enjoy your Easter holiday and be sure to give this a try :).
Now I don't think there's anybody out there that's not a fan of cheese and pasta (or, in general of cheese and carbs) combinations. To create the cheesiest pasta dish :D I used a very special aged cheese, deeply flavored and a little spicy, some emmentaler, some sour cream as the vessel and topped it up by sprinkling grated Parmesan on top. For a hint of freshness, but also flavor depth, rucola (arugula) was added. For a little crunchy touch, the dish still needed sesame seeds and ground hazelnuts. The result was perfect. Really cheesy :D - with strong and different cheese flavors - a little fresh and crunchy at the same time. Enjoy.
We love rosemary potatoes. And this is one of our favorite ways to make them: baked and with no oil or fat whatsoever. The other method, which we'll present at a later time, calls for making more of a rosemary-olive oil marinade for the potatoes before cooking them.
Both ways are great. So here's the first :).
A little advice: don't use more rosemary than the prescribed amounts. The stuff is great, but very powerful and it can ruin a dish if used in excess.
