Recipe: Gorgonzola toasts with poached figs

 

 

How about a little snack? Dinner party, wine tasting, bbq, birthday party..these little toasts will serve you well. Easy and will be ready in no-time. Especially now, when figs are in season, you can easily replace the poached figs to some fresh ones with balsamic glaze. For this one I used ciabata bread, but any thick crust dough will be nice, especially french baguettes!

To prepare the poached figs will take some time, depending of course how many you are making, to me 40 pieces were 20 minutes, it also cools fast, and in case you wont be using all, it can be stored up until a month in the fridge!

Ingredients for 10 toasts

10 slices of ciabata bread, or any other bread

50 g of Gorgonzola cheese

20 figs, dried..or fresh ones, which don`t need to be poached

100ml of red wine

100ml of water

2 spoons of sugar

1 spoon of white wine vinegar

little bit of salt

Combine the water, wine, vinegar, sugar and salt in a small sauce pan, add figs, and bring it to boil. Cook until liquid is reduced, and you end up with a thick caramelized. Put it aside to cool.

Spread the gorgonzola on the bread slices, add as thick as you like, depending how much you like the taste of the cheese. Some prefer a bit less, some a bit more. Put it in the oven to 180C for a couple of minutes, until golden brown.

When toasts are ready, add 2-3 figs each, spread some of the caramelized wine jam, on the serving plate!

Enjoy!

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Recipe: Herb rosti with grilled vegetables and feta cheese!

And an other vegetarian treat. Weird thing is, I’m not a vegetarian, but I do love vegetables, salads, and fruits. I can`t wait to eat at New York`s “Whole food market” again, the salad bar just  blew my mind:) On the other hand, I`m the one in the kitchen who has to come up with the vegetarian meals all the time. Dunno why, maybe they think, if I`m the only female, I should do all the “girly food”. To be honest, I don`t think vegetarian meals are “girly” at all. This general thinking of some people ” I must eat meat, otherwise the food is shit” it`s kind of ridiculous. I love putting these people up to a challenge. I give them a delicious meal, they like it, eat it, compliment it..after that I ruin their mood by telling them “sorry dude, it was a vegetarian dish” Sometimes the general reaction is “OMG I gotta go to eat half of a cow now”, but if I get just one positive feedback, I’m fine with it. Don`t get me wrong, I`m not trying to convince people to be vegetarians, I’m just simply annoyed by meat being overrated and vegetarian food tagged “girly”.

To be honest with you, the morning I created this meal, I had no idea what or how I’m going to do it. I went for a “safari” among the fridges, and started collecting stuff. To be honest, that day, we were almost out of everything, so I didn`t had much to chose from. When Ive put down everything on the table, ideas came in to mind, and started to put a recipe together.  Potatoes I had plenty, and I didn`t make any rosti for a while.  When all of a sudden it was all clear. I make big pancake sized rosti and fill it with Julienne grilled vegetables, and some feta cheese. It was soooo easy to make and the result was absolutely delicious. It’s a great and easy meal. Nice and filling too!

Ingredients (3-4 portion)

3 medium potatoes

2 eggs

half a kg of white flour

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

salt, pepper, fresh herbs

For the filling I used just a little bit of these:

carrots, parsnip, red bell pepper, red onions, spanish onions, mushroom- all thinly or Julienne sliced.

200 g of feta cheese crumbles

Great the potatoes in a bowl. Add eggs, seasoning, garlic, mix well together, add flour, mix well. If the mix is too dry add some milk, or sour creme. It has to be a bit runny, but not as much as a pancake mix. Oil a frying pan, make it very hot. Ad a spoonful from the potato mix, and push it evenly among the sides. Make sure it`s not thicker then 3 mm. Fry both sides. Set aside.

In an other pan, fry all your vegetables on very hot oil. It needs to be sizzling hot otherwise your vegetables cook instead of frying. Add salt, pepper. From here you can add any other seasoning you wish.

When ready, fill the rosti with vegetables, only on one side. Add feta cheese and fold over.

Ps: it`s great with some pesto-sour creme dipping sauce!

Enjoy!

 

 

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Recipe: Sunday Brunch treat, poached egg with lemon spinach and fried bacon.

It`s sunday morning, maybe you just woke up, and a brunch would be just amazing? Too lazy to go out and spend your lunch with the noisy crowd? Brunch at home could just be as much fun, especially if you invite some guests. You really don`t need to do anything over the edge, some eggs, grilled vegetables, and maybe a fruit salad with yoghurt and you are done.

This recipe is one of the last stops of my spinach addiction. The idea came almost a year ago when I visited London`s “Bocca di lupo`s” where one of the side dishes was cold spinach with some lemons…that time it came with lentils and sausage, and i thought well, it could be amazing with poached eggs. From all the eggs, poached is my favourite, first of all they just look cool, and i do love the “traditional” asparagus and hollandaise combination, but I wanted to create something different.

When you go shopping for the bacon make sure you buy whole and not sliced ones, so you can slice it up yourself, into medium big cubes. And leave a bit of time for the spinach to cool. Also don`t worry if your poached egg doesn`t turn out to be perfect straight away, it needs some practice, also be patient with it, and follow the steps written.

Ingredients (2 person)

0.5 kgs of fresh spinach leafs

1 big ciabatta bread, cut 4 four triangles

8medium b cube slices of bacon

1 lemon

bit of chopped garlic

salt

white pepper

white vinegar

2 eggs(you can have more with bigger appetite of course)

Fry the well washed clean, and chopped spinach leafs over a little oil, and when almost ready add the juice from the lemon.  Add salt, and white pepper. Set aside in a colinder to cool and reduce the liquid.

Bring water to boil in a small saucepan. Add vinegar, and salt. Break the egg in, carefully, not far from the water and don`t drop it in too fast…be easy with it! With a wooden spoon start folding the whites over the yolk, untill it covers. Cook a little bit more until it gets a bit harder. Take it out carefully with a spoon.

Fry the bacon until crispy. Toast the ciabatta breads.

Serve the spinach on top of the bread, then the bacon and the egg. Enjoy your brunch!