Kitchen Desires

About Vegetarian Cooking, Food, Cravings and stuff you can fill your kitchen with.

[kitchendesires]

I got home late yesterday and felt like something quick and heathy and so I made lentils, a dahl actually, inspired by the Kitchn. I think it took me less than half an hour and I used kale as my hearty green which gave the dish a bit of bite as the lentils go mushy really quickly and some naan bread as a spoon. Great autumn dish, would also  work with some baked squash. Enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

I just made my first vegan cake! Cherry-lemon and it tastes amazing. Unfortunately I was a bit impatient and dropped it when removing it from the baking tin but I feel that this picture has a more rustic feel to it, capturing the crumbly yet moist center of the cake. 

for recipe go to Food52 I choose the chickpea water as an egg substitute since this was what my kitchen cabinet provided and contrary to what you might think, doesn’t influence the taste.

Enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

And then, there was more polenta! I obviously made way to much for one person and I put the leftover in some tupperware, lined with clingfilm, in the fridge for lunch the day after. It clots and is easy to slice if you leave it over night. Put three polenta slices in the grillpan with a lot of oil, beware it can become somewhat messy, and added some sliced mushrooms, oregano, salt and pepper. I tried to poach an egg and it turned out ok, proud as I am. The polenta just needs reheating, I haven’t been able to get any grill stripes on it as it sticks so quickly to the pan. Arrange the polenta, mushrooms and egg on you plate, sprinkle with basil, salt and pepper and your lunch is served.

[kitchendesires]

Polenta! my new favourite carbohydrate, and a healthy one at that. 

I made this yesterday after work in half an hour so no excuses there.  I just boiled a cup of polenta in about a litre of vegetable broth (the cubed stuff) and stirred it very frequently for about 30 minutes on medium to low heat. While this was cooking I sliced some zuchinni, aubergine, mushrooms and tomato and put them a grilling pan with some oil, salt and pepper. Than I grated some parmesan cheese, added some lemon zest and minced garlic to the cheese, pepper and salt. When the polenta was about done, sticky and soft, add the cheese mixture to the polenta. Stirr it all in and keep it on a low heat.  Pour it on a plate, add the chopped, grilled vegetables, some chopped basil and extra cheese on top and enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

Easy dinner 2: some bought Chinese crêpes and spread some hoisinsauce over it. Bake the mushrooms in soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, 5spice and sesame oil. Add some chopped spring onion, cilantro, lettuce and avocado, roll your pancake and enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

Easy dinner; grilled capsicum soup with fresh parsley and cilantro, grilled green asparagus, soft boiled eggs with chives and bread. Simple yet delicious. 

[kitchendesires]

Simple potato appetisers I should have posted this before the holidays but since I only made them yesterday... Anyway here goes: You need potatoes, broccoli, melted butter, parmesan or cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. Get some medium sized potatoes, the crumbly kind. Rub them clean, prick some holes in them with a fork, cover with salt and olive oil and put them whole in the oven for about 45 minutes at 200°C Go and read a book, watch your favourite show, do yoga, whatever tickles your fancy! After the 45 min are up, get them out and let them cool for a bit. Meanwhile cut the broccoli in small pieces and boil them for about 5 minutes. Slice the potatoes in half and carefully scoop out the insides. Grate the cheese in a bowl, add the broccoli and the potato scrapes. Mix it al up and add the butter to make it smoother. Add salt and pepper to taste and fill the potato shells. Top the shells off with some some more grated cheese and put the filled potatoes back in the oven for 20 min at 220°C or until the cheese is brown. Enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

Autumn Pumpkin Chili

Autumn is here! My favourite season, the colours, the storms, the comfort food. A good reason to restart the posts again so here goes.

I took this recipe from The Kitchn, one of my favorite cooking sites. Here is the original recipe. It looks like a load of ingredients but you can use whatever you have in the pantry. Just chop it up, put it in the pan and let it simmer into excellence. 

1/2 pumpkin 1 big parsnip 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1/2 cup olive oil 1 tbsp cornmeal/maizena 2 red bell peppers, chopped 1 large onion, chopped 6 garlic cloves, minced 2 tablespoons tomato paste 4 cups vegetarian broth 1 16-ounce cans chili beans, drained 1 can of corn 1 tablespoon chili powder 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon cumin Several dashes vegetarian Worcestershire sauce Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste Splash of red wine Chopped green onions, to serve

Peal the pumpkin and the parsnip and cut them into dice. you can keep them quit big. Heat up a pan and add the oil and the butter. When the butter has melted, whisk in the cornstarch/maizena. Then stir in the chopped pumpkin, parsnip, bell peppers, onion, garlic, and tomato paste. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes.

Add the broth, diced tomatoes, beans, and corn. Stir in the chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring back to a simmer then reduce the heat and cook for at least 1 hour. I made it on a rainy Sunday afternoon and let it simmer for over 2 hours. The longer, the better. Make sure you stir it every so often so it won't stick to the bottom of the pan. 

After at least an hour you can serve in a bowl, sprinkle the spring onion on top, maybe some cheese or creme fraiche if you like. Some toast and butter and ENJOY! 

[kitchendesires]

Melanzane

I love this dish, for me it's absolute comfort food. Make a big ovendish full of it and you can have people over or enjoy it by your self for two or three days. lovely. 

We need for 2 generous servings:

1 big aubergine or 2 small ones 1 can of chopped tomatoes 1 can of tomato purée 1 onion 2 cloves of garlic 1 mozzarella balsamic vinegar 1 tblsp brown sugar oregano and/or fresh basil salt and pepper olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 220 C. Chop the onion and garlic, heat up some oil in a saucepan and let the onion and garlic sauté on medium heat for 2 minutes. At that point add the chopped tomatoes and the purée and heat them up.

Add the dried oregano (about a teaspoon), a splash of balsamic-vinegar and a tablespoon of brown sugar to the tomato-sauce. Taste and add to preference. Season the sauce as well with salt and pepper. If you want to add fresh basil, add them last since they lose flavour when heated to much. 

At this point you have a tomato-sauce, grilled slice of aubergine and a mozzarella. Slice the mozzarella into thin slices. Get an oven tray and start with a layer of grilled aubergine, than a layer of sauce and top this of with some pieces of mozzarella. Repeat until everything is used. End with mozzarella and if you like you can sprinkle a lot of parmesan cheese on top. Stick this whole thing in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and golden.

Serve with a nice salad (rocket with a dressing of good olive oil, lemonjuiche pepper and salt) or some fresh pasta. 

Enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

Inspired by my Desire to have the most perfect Pantry I decided to pay a bit more attention to spices and herbs. One herb that I love but don’t use a lot is sage. That’s why I made these (bought) gnocchi with grilled vegetables and a  butter sage sauce. It was delicious although more an autumn dish. I will learn more about spice and herbs and I will share!

[kitchendesires]

This summer in Berlin I visited in a nice restaurant called Zula. They fully dedicated themselves to hummus. I ordered a shakshuka on the side and immediately thought, I think I can do this better....And so back  home and with the help of Ottolenghi's Plenty I made this lovely shakshuka and I was right. It was better!

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Berlin

Okay so it's been quiet on Kitchen Desires. That's because I've been in Berlin for the last four weeks and I'm almost going home. But unlike my other trips [which you can find on the categorie page under 'Veggie Cities'] this trip wasn't about food, it was about shopping in vintage stores. Which I did [a lot] and successfully so.

But since this is a food blog I will talk about food! When I go to Berlin, I go because of a lot of reasons, but one big reason is the Frühstuck (breakfast). You can have breakfast here from 7 in the morning until 4 or 5 in the afternoon which is the perfect time-frame if you are a wanderer of the city like I am at the moment. But that's not even the most important part. The part that I love the most is this:

The ridiculous amount of choice you get. These are servings for 2 persons. They really take breakfast seriously here. And no you will not eat this every day if you actually live here...although I did for the first week.  But in the weekends it even gets better because they have this, but in buffet style, you can just go nuts in there and breakfast like your life depended on it. So if you ever go to Berlin, look for a nice table in the sun, order a Milchkaffee (piping hot latte), a Rabarberschorle (fizzy rhubarb drink) and a Frühstuckplatter and just enjoy your life, I know I am!

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Desire #2 for 2013 is incorporating more vegan recipes to my diet. I don't want to become a fulltime vegan but just learn more to make make things more interesting. The first thing I made are these nutty date bars as a healthy snack.

I'm a bit unsure about the quantities since I just threw some stuf in my food processor but here goes: about 200 gr of dates, 100 gr of mixed nuts (I used hazelnuts and almonds) and some grated coconut, about a handful. add a few drops of vanilla extract and mix the whole thing up. Put the mixture in a square oven tray to shape it, press down really hard and stick it in the fridge. I put something heavy on top to compress the mixture. after about an hour take it out and remove the slab from the tray, cut it in long squares. I tested 2 bars in the oven, baked them on 220 for about 15 minutes and now they are hard on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. And they are delicious! I can think of 1000 combinations with seeds, different nuts, lemon, chocolate. I think I'm going to make all of them and snack healthy forever!

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Desires 2013 #1

After having a busy 6 months at work I lost my focus on cooking. And now that time is again in my favour, I feel the need to reinvigorate my passion and take things a bit more seriously.

There are 2 things that sparked my renewed enthusiasm. The Big Family Get-together where 4 cooking friends and myself made a complete (semi vegetarian) Indonesian spread for 30 people from scratch. We spend 2 days in a small kitchen and made the biggest buffet full of flavour. I loved making all the sauces, marinades, atjars and complete the dishes from start to finish.

Creating the most Awesome Pantry Ever!

I want to have an ultimate selection of grains and pulses, herbs and spices and tools to make, well, everything!! I can't wait!! I think I'm going to tackle several aromatic kitchens like Arabic, Indian, Thai and Spanish until I get the hang of flavour and spice. To get a head start I'm going to this vegetarian cooking 'festival' on Saturday to attend a workshop on flavours and vegetarian food. There is also a food market and a big Asian veggie BBQ to end the day properly. I'm excited to start and follow through with this new desire! My other desire will follow later.....

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Desire #5 Pasta

I made my own pasta! Finally something that seemed difficult to me, not to make but to get right. And truth be told I did not get it exactly right but it worked! and I'm proud for making this desire reality. It was just a simple dough (made with organic pasta flower and egg) and since my pasta machine wasn't in the mood to make spaghetti I made ravioli with a classic filling consisting of ricotta and spinach. As a side dish I put together a melanzane from grilled aubergine, mozzarella cheese and a tomato-sauce covered in parmesan cheese. the recipe of my easy way of making a melanzane will feature later on this blog.

the pasta:

220 gr pasta flower 2 eggs

a pasta machine

put the flower on your counter top or in a bowl and make a dent in the middle. Crack the eggs and put them in the middle of your flower dent. shake the eggs loose with your fingers and slowly take in more flower as you go. it will be sticky but you just keep on adding flower from the edges of the dent. When it forms a ball kneed it firmly for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then put it in a bowl and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

Divide your dough in quarters and flatten the quarters. Take your pasta machine and put it in the highest and widest position. feed one quarter in to the machine for about 3 times and reset your machine to one thinner mode. repeat and go on until you reach the narrowest mode. Take a cookie cutter or a glass and press them in the dough to get perfect circles.

the filling:

spinach, quickly baked in oil ricotta capers grated parmesan cheese pepper/salt

Mix all this loveliness up and make sure it isn't to wet. leave the spinach in a strainer to get all fluids out, press it if needed. Make little balls and put them in the middle of your dough circle. wet the edges and put another circle on top and press down the edges so no air is in side. Put the ravioli in boiling water and cook for a few minutes. Fresh pasta cooks much faster than dried pasta so keep a close eye. Serve with a sauce and a nice salad and Enjoy!

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roasted sweet potatoe with chickpeas and avocado salsa

  I wanted something light and easy for dinner and found a recipe on a vegetarian cooking site http://www.thefirstmess.com/  and changed it a bit. I made it for myself as dinner but it could be a nice side dish aswell. And it's totally vegan this way but you could add some Greek Yogurt mixed with spices and herbs to give it a fresh touch.

we need:

  2 sweet potatoes (or 1 big one) 1 cup of cooked chickpeas or dried chickpeas soaked over night  good quality oil smoked paprika powder (pimenton) salt + pepper + squeeze of lemon 1 avocado 1 tomato almonds  

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

Pierce the sweet potato a couple times with a fork, wrap it in some tin foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until tender.

Meanwhile, toss the chickpeas in enough oil to coat, salt + pepper to taste and a little smoked paprika. Spread them out in an oventray or on a bakingsheat and put them in the oven for 15 minutes, or until crispy and golden.

Chop up the avocado and the tomato, toss them together and add some salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon.

When the potatoes are done split them open and season slightly. Spoon the roasted chickpeas over the potatoes, and pour the leftover oil from the oven tray on to the potatoes. Add the avocado and tomato salsa and sprinkle on the almonds et voilà!

Enjoy!

[kitchendesires]

Polenta-chili cake

I was invited to diner at a friend and she made this delicious polenta-chili cake (which, as it turns out, is still delicious after a couple of days in the fridge) with some oven-roasted veggies. Maybe add some chunks of feta for a fresh pop. the recipe is in Dutch apologies