17/08/2015

Mussels & white wine recipe

Hello dears!!!
Summer is here, with high temperatures and not so much desire to stay in a hot kitchen cooking :)
Well this recipe is fast and the it can be a perfect romantic dinner for your loved one.

I absolutely adore seafood and mussels in particular, especially with a glass with a wine ;)

So let's get down to business.

Ingredients:

  • 1 kilo mussels
  • 2 onions
  • 7-8 garlic cloves 
  • 1/2 kilo fresh tomatoes
  • tomato juice 
  • 1/2 glass of white wine 
  • spices
  • basil or parsley or mint 

Start by peeling and cleaning the garlic and onion, while keeping the mussels in fresh water. 
In a pot, fry the garlic and onion in a bit of butter and olive oil, then add water to cover the content. 


Be careful not to get splashed by hot oil, so cover the pot with a lid. Boil some water and then drop the tomatoes inside that pot - it helps to remove the peel faster. 
Add the tomatoes and tomato juice in the pot, along with the glass of wine and the spices. 
After 8-10 min, you can add the mussels as well. 
Cover them with a lid, and steam for another 7-8 min. Hint: the mussels which didn t open, throw them away.  


 
You can serve them warm with the sauce in which they boiled or next to some pasta. A glass of wine is mandatory :) 

Et voila: 



Kiss, kisses, 


11/07/2015

Onion soup with a twist

Helloooo :)
This time I thought to share with you a little recipe for impressive results - the onion soup.
I tried to follow the French recipe so here are the ingredients I used:


  • 1 kilo onion 
  • 1,5l water but it would be better to use chicken stock 
  • fresh black pepper 
  • butter  - 2 tea spoons 
  • salt 

So I guess the most difficult part is to cut the onion, after cutting 2 of them, I almost gave up so I remembered I have this little vegetable chopper in my kitchen: 


Then I fried the onion only a bit in the butter, then added the water/stock, spices, and let it boil for abut one hour. 
When it got a more jelly-like texture, I added again some fresh pepper ;) 

For serving, I wanted to keep it more diet friendly so instead of the French recipe which calls for croutons, I decided to replace them with fried mushrooms et voila: 


It is delicious and as you can see very easy to make. 
Let me know your opinions. 

Kiss, kisses, 




12/04/2015

Easy bake and no egg cake!

Hello :) 
Hope you all enjoyed the Easter Holidays and  had a wonderful time with your families. 
Because it is spring and we are already looking forward to the bikini body, I know cakes are out of the question, but once in a while, I guess we can indulge ourselves :) 
Here is what I managed to put together, with whatever ingredients I had in the fridge/cabinets. 
It is very easy to bake and not (very) fat either. 

So what you need: 
- 1 banana; 
- 250 gr flour; 
- juice from 1/2 orange;
- 1/2 cup sugar; 
- 2-3 spoons of oil; 
- baking powder; 
- 1 cube of dark chocolate; 
- 50 ml milk; 
- peel from an orange;
- baking paper. 


First, pre-heat the oven at 180 °C. I peeled the orange and grated the little piece of chocolate, also I smashed the banana and squeezed the juice from the orange (only half of it): 


The rest is easy: you need to mix the banana, the chocolate flakes, orange peel & juice, add the sugar, and the oil. And then gradually add the flour. I also mixed the baking powder with a bit of lemon juice and added the milk to the overall dough: 


Then I prepared the baking tray, covering it in baking paper and poured in the dough.
It stays in the over for about 30-40 min, at 180 °C. When it is done, don't take it out immediately, but let it "rest" in the oven. 



The result is very fluffy and yummy, you can actually feel the banana taste. For the future I would try to add more orange ;) 



Bon Appétit!



11/02/2015

Healthier meatballs in oven

Helloooo!!! Although Valentine's day is approaching I am not going to post a recipe for cakes to sweeten your days. I have something more filling and less "cheesy" :) 
So here it is my recipe for meatballs done in a healthier way - meaning no frying. 

Ingredients: 


  • 500 gr minced meat (whatever you prefer, I had pork)
  • 2 eggs
  • 6-7 cloves of garlic
  • one small onion
  • one carrot
  • 2-3 potatoes, depends how big they are
  • spices :) 




The potatoes are grated and then pressed between hands to release the water from them. 
The carrot and onion are boiled, garlic is just minced. 
In the mean time, you pre-heat the oven at about 150 degrees C. So now it comes to the messy part of mixing all these ingredients together, add the eggs in the end, and of course as many spices as you please. 




Then I made more or less equal meat balls and placed them on baking paper, in a tray. 




I left them in the oven for about 30-40 min at 200 degrees C. 
They become golden and the are simply delicious. 

The result: 




They can served as they are, they work like snack for beer, or next to some garnish or salad. 

The only downside to this process, is that you would have to roll them a bit in the tray when they are getting done, otherwise they will be flat on one side :) 


Bon Appétit!




24/09/2014

Banana bread

Helloooo :)

Don't you have days when you crave for something sweet but easy to bake, and perhaps healthy? I do. And recently I was wondering how to make banana bread and I found out - the result is delicious :)
So here it is the recipe I used:

ingredients: 

  • 2 cups flour 
  • 1 cup sugar 
  • vanilla sugar or vanilla essence
  • 100 gr butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 bananas 
  • baking powder 
  • baking paper

estimated time: baking 1 hour + 20 min preparation

Start by preheating the oven at 180 degrees. 
Then separate the egg yolks from the white parts and mix the white parts very very well, with just a pinch of salt. 



In another bowl, mix the yolks with sugar, vanilla sugar. the flour, butter and baking powder. The baking powder needs to be mixed with some lemon juice before. 
You can peel the bananas and blend them or just use a fork for this purpose. 


Then you can add the bananas in the bowl with flour and at the end add the white parts and mix gently. 
Now it's the moment to pour the entire mix in a tray which you covered with baking paper before. 



Put it in the oven at 180 degrees C and leave it there, without opening the door for one hour.
After one hour, you can check if it's ready - the wooden stick test - and if it'sok, still leave it in oven for 10-15 min to get colder.


You can serve it like this or next to vanilla ice- cream. It makes a perfect cake for coffee or tea.
Bon-appetit :) 






21/09/2014

Magic Prague

Hello dears :)

I want to share with you some of the photos from my latest trip to Prague - been there couple of times already, but every time is different and magic :) The architecture, Vltava river, Charles' bridge, the  Castle, the crowd, the food, the beer, the absinthe everything adds up to the amazing atmosphere of this great city.
So here are my recent impressions:


 architecture 



view from Visherad




National Theatre - classic and modern 




Charles' bridge from ship 


art is everywhere





Cafe Louvre, a very special place


always  wonderful sight  - the old town square Staroměstské náměstí

03/08/2014

Oatmeal cookies

Hellooooo :) I want to share with you my latest discovery in the kitchen  - I was craving something sweet and I also wanted something more "healthy" so I thought of oatmeal.
Here is what you need for about 15 cookies:

- 2 cups of oatmeal flakes
- 1 cup flour
- 3 eggs
- 100 gr butter
- 1 cup sugar - you can mix vanilla sugar with brown sugar
- baking powder - one tea spoon
- jam


The rest is easy - you mix the eggs with sugar and gradually add the oatmeal flakes and flour. In a small glass, you prepare the baking powder with some lemon juice and add it in the bowl. It is up to you if you want to add more flavor - cinnamon, almond essence. etc. I made mine with cinnamon :)


I guess the hardest part is to choose the right amount of mix for one cookie and arrange it in the tray. So on a tray with baking paper, I tried to make some uniform shapes and added a bit of jam on top, like this:


Then I put the tray in the preheated oven. They should be there for max. 20-25 min

And the final result looks like this and works great with coffee and tea  :)



P.S: Let me know if you tried the recipe.



21/06/2014

Cupcakes fun

Hello dears :) Long time, no post. Busy time, but... still here it is my little adventure with cupcakes. As I know I would have messed it up, I cheated a bit (maybe a bit more) and bought a package of already mix for cupcakes.
So what you need after you such "kit":

- 150 gr butter ;
- 350ml milk;
- one egg;
- new plastic bags ( they will help you when decorating)


Ok, so here we go:


You prepare the dough by adding the melted butter, 250ml milk, the egg and the mix for cupcakes in a big bowl and mixing well, till you have a nice texture. Then you put this mix in the cupcakes forms - about one table spoon and a half. So mine looked like this:


Then you bake them for about 25min at 180 degrees( the oven must be preheated at 150 degrees).
And when they are done they look like this:


While they are baking, you can prepare the frost - mine had a bubble gum flavour and was green :)
You need the rest of the milk which you add step by step and mix well.
You can keep it in the fridge for couple of minutes, it will be easier when you set it on cupcakes.
Soooo the final result was this:



Kiss, kisses, 


10/05/2014

Coconut and blackberry jam cake

Helloooo :) I want to share with you this recipe for a fast cake with ingredients you can easily find. I craved for something sweet and pull this together. So here we go:

Ingredients: 

  • 5 eggs 
  • 100 gr flour 
  • 100 gr coconut 
  • one jar of blackberry jam - 250-300gr 
  • 50 gr brown sugar 
  • baking powder
  • lemon juice 

Time : 20 min to prepare + 40 min in the oven 

You start by dividing the egg parts and in a bowl you mix the white parts with sugar till you get a texture that wont' leak out of the bowl. In another bowl you add the yolks, along with flour, coconut and baking powder, previously dissolved in the lemon juice. 



See? it's very easy. Ah, almost forgot to remind about the oven that needs to be pre-heated at 180 degrees C. 


Then you mix everything and lay it in the tray, on a baking paper. Depending on the oven you have, it might take 35-40 min to bake it. When it's done, it looks like this: 



Now it is the moment when you lay a pretty thick layer of blackberry jam on top of the cake and then you put it back in the oven for another 5-10 min. The result looks like this: 


You can cut into pieces when it gets colder, after 30 min or so. I took it to work the next day,  and I can tell you that my colleagues found it delicious :) So bon-appetit :)