The reason for silence the past month…

Well, the blog suffers due to many (un)expected responsibilities I had these few months… And then there was a mini-vacation as well… Beautiful sunsets on the incredible Santorini island, local wine and specialties, volcanic black sand beaches…

However, the august will be a working month, so expect the blog to come to life again!

Simple, light and very healthy! This soup has a very rich creamy taste, yet it is made without any cream or shortening!

Ingredients:

1/2 onioin

1 kg zucchini

100 ml white wine

3 tbsp olive oil

a handful of fresh basil

salt, pepper

Saute finely chopped onions on olive oil, until soft, for about 5 mins. Add white wine and cook until about half of the wine evaporates. Add chopped zucchini, salt them according to taste, and saute for about 10 mins, until they are softened. Add about 4 dcl of water (you can use less or more water, depending how dense you want your soup), and cook for about 20 mins over medium heat.

Remove from the heat and let it cool a bit.

Add fresh basil, and puree everything in a blender. Be careful if it liquid is still hot. Serve with fresh basil on top.

If you are used to a more rich taste, feel free to add as much cream as you wish. For me, it was just fine without it, but I can understand that this can look “too healthy” for some of you :)

It’s very hot the last few days, it’s unbearable. Along with the fact that I don’t have much free time the last couple of weeks, it means I am not cooking much at all. And when I do cook a meal, I try to make something very light. That’s what makes this risotto salad ideal for hot summer days. Usually I make it a day in advance, as a lunch to take to work the next day.

This time I made it with a combination of brown rice and some wild, red rice that I bought at a local healthy food store, but you can make it with whatever type of rice you have at hand.

Ingredients:

2 cups brown rice

1 cup wild rice

200 gr ham or turkey breast

200 gr hard cheese (emmentaler, gouda, or whichever you prefer)

marinated/pickled red peppers

black olives

basil

olive oil

Cook the rice in salted water until it’s al dente. Drain and chill.

Cut the cheese, ham, and peppers into cubes, and together with olives and chopped basil mix with the chilled rice. Season with olive oil, and keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

I have written before about how much I like Chinese food. This is one of the easy, quick things to make, and it is very satisfying with its multidimensional hot-sweet and salty-sour flavors. Serve with rice.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts

50 gr peanuts

60 ml soy sauce

4 tsp brown sugar

20 ml rice vinegar

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 red peppers

3 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp chilli (optional)

In a bowl mix sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and cornstarch, and add the chicken cut in strips. It is not necessary to add any salt since the soy sauce is salty enough, as well as the peanuts.

Fry the peanuts a bit and set aside. In a larger pan or wok, saute the pepper (cut in larger strips) on olive oil. Add the chicken with the sauce mixture and stir fry until the chicken is done. When it is done, stir in the peanuts. Serve with rice.

When I make something for guests, or to take somewhere, I tend to make something I have never made before (instead of  choosing tried out, fool-proof recipes). And I don’t have a slightest fear that it won’t turn out alright :)! That’s because I usually have more patience on these occasions… and believe me, this cake required quite a lot of patience… but all the hard work definitely paid off – everybody loved it!

The recipe is adapted from Sweet Sensation. I didn’t make the final layer like it usually goes with Dobos torte, but instead I made a crocant to go over.

In a bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar until light and fluffy. Transfer the bowl onto a double boiler and cook while whisking constantly. Cook for about 10 minutes or until it starts to thicken. Add the chopped chocolate and mix it in well until thoroughly melted and combined. Cook for another 5 minutes and in the end stir in a tablespoon of Amaretto (or rum). Remove from the heat and let it cool down completely.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy and add it to the chocolate cream. Mix thoroughly with your mixer until you get a smooth and silky buttercream. Divide the buttercream into six equal parts and refrigerate until the assembly.

Sponge cakes

8 eggs, separated

8 tbsp. granulated sugar

pinch of salt

10 tbsp. flour

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. Set aside. Beat the yolks with sugar until light in color. Slowly add the flour while mixing with your electric mixer. In the end, gently fold in the egg whites. Divide the batter into 3 equal parts.

Place the parchment paper on the baking sheet. Grease the paper and spread one third of the batter onto the paper. Try to spread the batter as evenly as possible. Bake the cake layer for no longer than 5-6 minutes. The cake is very thin and it bakes really quickly, so you have to make sure it doesn’t burn. It should stay light in color and kind of spongy, but if you overbake it, it will become crispy, very fragile and therefore hard to handle. Transfer the baked cake layer onto a clean kitchen cloth and remove the parchment paper. Cover the layer with a clean cloth or a piece of aluminum foil so it doesn’t dry out. Repeat the process with the rest of the batter.

Crocant

100 gr hazelnuts

100 gr sugar

Melt the sugar over low heat until it turns to caramel. Mix in the hazelnuts until they are coated. Transfer to the oiled baking sheet and let cool. Once it is cooled, chop it coarsely in the food processor.

Assembly

Cut each sponge cake into half, in order to get 6 layers. Place one layer on the platter and spread 1/6 of the cream. Place second layer over the top, spread the cream, and repeat with the rest of the layers. At the end, sprinkle the crocant over it and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.

I tried many different kinds of cheesecakes, but I’ve been making this one for quite some time, and it’s my absolute favorite.

When I came back from the US, about two years ago, my sister asked me to make typical American cheesecake which she ate there and can’t find any similar variant here. Considering that American cheesecakes are typically made with Philadelphia cream cheese, finding its substitute here was the first step to make. I went to different supermarkets, and literally bought all different kinds of cream cheeses they had, in order to find the closest substitute!

This cheesecake is so good, that I made two in two days. On Saturday I had some guests, and there wasn’t even a crumble leftover, so I made it again on Sunday :)

Preparation

Mix crushed graham crakers with melted butter. Place parchment paper in springform cake pan and press the crackers mixture onto it. Freeze for 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

With the electric mixer beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla until light and foamy. Gradually add cream cheese, mixing after each addition until smooth. Add cornstarch, lemon juice, cinnamon, and mix well. At last add the cream, and mix with a spoon (do not beat with the electric mixer at this point!). Take the crust out of the freezer, and poor the filling into it.

Bake for 30 mins at 180C. Then lower the temperature to 160C and bake for another 30-40 mins (important: do not open the oven door during the first 40 mins of baking). Turn off the oven, slightly open the door, and leave the cheesecake to rest for about 30 mins. This will prevent the cracking of the top. When it cools down, refrigerate for at least 5 hours (it is the best to serve it the day after). Make the topping of your choice to put over the cheesecake.

There are many different recipes for chocolate mousse. This one is adapted from Sale&Pepe magazine. I quite liked it, it is very sweet so even a small cup of it is satisfying. Get your chocolate fix with this easy to make choco mousse!

Coarsely chop the chocolate and melt it with butter on a double-boiler. When it cools a bit, add 3 yolks. In the mean time whisk 3 egg whites to soft peaks and gradually add sugar. Split open and scrape the vanilla bean and add the seeds to the egg whites (you can use vanilla extract instead). Add the chocolate mixture and carefully incorporate.

Pour into 6 small cups, cover with foil and leave in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours. Decorate before serving.

The theme of this month’s “kuvarijacije” game are gnocchi made of home-made ricotta!!

I have to admit that this is the first time I am making home-made cheese. Instructions were very clear and preparation simple, so there were no doubts about what to do. I bought the whole milk and double cream, as well as the cheesecloth, made the ricotta in the evening and left to drain during the night :)

After it drained, the ricotta was pretty firm, but not firm enough for gnocchi to stay together during cooking. So I added a bit of flour to the ricotta mixture, before shaping them. After cooking, gnocchi were still very soft in the middle, but on the outside they maintained their firmness just enough not to fall apart.

About the chicken meatballs… With addition of parmesan, parsley and pepper, they were very tasty. I tried to make them as small as possible, to get them approximately the same size as gnocchi.

So… I liked both gnocchi and meatballs. Not bad put together. Although I didn’t have fresh sage leaves, so I put some parsley. I think I’ll make both again, but not together… I’ll make the meat more like chicken burgers (it’s easier to fry, considering my fear of raw chicken meat), while gnocchi would wonderfully go together with some tomato-based sauce, or with gorgonzola sauce!

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi

(adapted from the The Zuni Café Cookbook)

First of all, you will have to make your own fresh ricotta. Here is an excellent how-to video by Gourmet Magazine’s editor Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez. The recipe uses 2 quarts (1,9 l) milk and I managed to make 400 g (out of 450 g needed) ricotta using 3.2% fat milk. Follow the recipe from the video, but let ricotta strain for a day or at least overnight.

The next day, mash the ricotta as best as you can, add 15 g grated Parmesan cheese, 1 Tbsp melted butter, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 small cold eggs, lightly beaten and beat all the ingredients together very well. Put in the fridge for a half an hour, then, shape the gnocchi and roll each one into flour. Boil water in a large pot. Salt it generously. Cook gnocchi in it for 3 minutes from the moment they come up the surface.

Chicken Meatballs

(adapted from magazine Sale&Pepe Serbia, April 2009 issue)

Soak 50 g bread in some water, squeeze out the water, crumble it, and add it to 300 g ground chicken breasts along with 1 egg, 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, 2 Tbsp chopped curled parsley leaves, salt and ground black pepper. Form meatballs of the similar size of your gnocchi. Fry them on a non-stick pan on no or a very little oil.

When you’re done with everything, melt 100 g butter with a few leaves of finely chopped fresh sage and pour over the gnocchi. Serve with meatballs, sprinkled with more Parmesan.

Something quick to make and very tasty, in accordance with the amount of free time I have the last few days :)

Ingredients:

puff pastry

cherry tomatoes

blue cheese

black olives

origano

salt

1 egg yolk

Preparation:

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees C.

Defrost 250 gr of puff pastry and make two rectangles (or 4 if you are using 500 gr package). Slice the tomatoes and put on top. Evenly arrange olives and crumbled blue cheese. Add salt according to taste, and sprinkle a bit of origano. Coat the edges of puff pastry with lightly beaten egg yolk, and bake for about 15 minutes (or until the edges are starting to brown).

I’ve put mushrooms on the other tart, but the combo of the above mentioned ingredients is the best by far :).

Enjoy!

My Dad is a diabetic. When he fond out the diagnosis, my mother tried to lower his blood sugar levels by diet which he strictly followed. Now he takes medicines, but he still tries to avoid eating food he shouldn’t, and he doesn’t consume any sugar. At the beginning it was hard for him to get used to skipping desserts, but now you can find all kinds of stuff for diabetics, in bigger supermarkets. There are sugar free chocolates, cookies, wafels etc.

When making desserts for diabetics, sugar (sucrose) can be replaced by some substitutes (fructose, sorbitol, Maltitol). I can usually find only fructose in the stores here. But making a replacement is not so simple. Firstly, you have to put in a smaller amount of fructose (instead of 100gr of normal sugar you have to put in approx 60 gr fructose), and also because of the different chemical composition, cakes turn out noticeably different! This especially tends to be true for creamy cakes, but dry cookies usually turn out much better and you can’t really taste the difference from the ones made with sugar.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

100 g of fructose

225 g of flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

100 g of sugarfree chocolate

100 gr of hazelnuts

50 gr dried cranberries

Preparation:

Toast hazelnuts in the owen at 180 degrees C for about 10 minutes until they are browned. When done, wrap them in a kitchen cloth. When they cool a bit, rub them against each other in the cloth, until most of the skins fall off.

Whip 2 eggs with fructose until the mixture is light in color and foamy (you will not achieve quite the same density as with the normal sugar, but it doesn’t matter). Add flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Coarsely chop the chocolate and hazelnuts, then mix it into the batter along with the cranberries. The dough should be very thick, and hard to work with. Form two flattened logs of dough and put them on the parchment paper. It is easier to shape the dough if you wet your hands a bit. Bake at 180 degrees about 20 minutes until the dough starts to brown and becomes firm. Remove it from the owen and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 160 degrees. When cooled, cut each strip diagonally to get these cookies. Put them back on the parchment paper with the cut side down and bake for about 10 minutes (at 160 degrees). Turn them on the other side and bake for another 10 minutes. Allow to cool. Biscotti can last quite long, for about 2 weeks in a closed container, but mine never survived for so long:).