Noodles with Sweet Ginger Scallion Sauce

Noodles with Sweet Ginger Scallion Sauce
(serves 2, adapted from Simply Reem)

It's a very simple and time efficient recipe that only requires one pot - little cleaning up afterwards.

Ingredients:

for the sauce:
3/4 cup chopped scallions
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon neutral tasting oil
1/2 red chilli, cleaned of seeds and chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
salt, pepper to taste, optional sugar

2 servings spaghetti - or soba noodles if you happen to have them, or any noodles
handful cashew nuts, or peanuts, chopped.
bean sprouts, original recipe suggests cucumber, optional.

to garnish:
a few reserved nuts
parsley leaf


Directions:

1. In a jar, place all the ingredients for the sauce. Shake vigorously until combined. Let stand for 15 minutes or more, so that the flavors blend.

2. Cook the pasta/noodles according to instruction on the packaging. Drain.

3. Sprinkle the pasta with the chopped nuts, add bean sprouts if using. Stir until combined. Add the sauce on top, stir for 2-3 minutes to fully coat the pasta - the sauce will be rather thick.

4. Serve, sprinkling with remaining nuts and a parsley leaf.

spicy red salad

          

Only recently did I start to discover a variety of leafy greens that nature offers. Rich in calcium, iron and a variety of vitamins, available at this dull season, with countless methods of preparing, be it cooked, sauteed or raw, even, they make a really great addition to my menu. But on my last trip to the groceries, drawn by the vivid color, I picked up radicchio, which I've never had before. It has a really surprising, intense, slightly pepper-y taste.

If you want to replace it with some other leafy veggie, like spinach or iceberg salad, you may want to add a generous pitch of pepper to the dressing, and maybe increase the amount of onions added, to keep the warming-up sensation this salad gives.

It seems to be an excellent choice for a day like today: snowy, grey, with hardly any sunlight. Even the colors cheer you up.

Spicy Red Salad:

(serves 1, can be easily multiplied)

Ingredients:

for the salad:

4 leaves radicchio

1/3 red bell pepper

handful cherry tomatoes 

1 slice white onion

3-4 slices hot peperoncino, optional

a couple slices shallot, white part, optional 

+ for dressing

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

3-4 fresh sage leaves

splash lemon juice, salt to taste

Directions:

Wash all the veggies, cut radicchio and pepper in thin strips, half tomatoes, separate onion rings. Place the leaves in a bowl, top with pepper and tomatoes. 

Mix olive oil with the vinegar, add chopped sage and salt. Drizzle the salad. 

Chop shallot and peperoncino - or leave them in thin slices, which will give a spicier taste. Put on top of the salad. 

Finish with a splash of lemon juice or additional pitch of salt, according to taste preferences. 

apple, cinnamon and browned butter cake

             
               I never wanted to post iPhone photos here, but the cake is so good I just couldn't keep myself from sharing the recipe, and recipes without illustration never appeal to me: hence, very bad quality of shots (second thought: which are not too appealing either, but I don't even have access to Photoshop at the moment) and a very good, very easy cake to make. Maybe even now. While listening to Joni Mitchell.

Apple, cinnamon and browned butter cake:
(slightly adapted from White Plate)

Ingredients:
2 large apples
4 eggs
120g butter
120ml milk
150g sugar
1 pack sugar with real vanilla (or an equivalent)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
200g flour
+ 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon for topping

Instructions:

1. Peel and core the apples, slice them thinly. Set aside. Preheat oven to 150*C. Line a 20cm round tin with baking paper, butter it so the cake doesn't stick. Set aside.

2. Make the butter: melt it on medium low heat until foamy. Then, lower the heat a little and keep on cooking until tiny browny pieces form on the bottom of the pot, mixing from time to time. Browned butter will smell very nutty and sweet. If this seems too compliacated or too fussy (it takes roughly 10 minutes and a pot that's hard to clean), you can always skip that part and just melt the butter until liquid and in its regular color and go straight to point 3. But I think it's worth the additional effort!

3. Mix eggs with sugar until frothy. Slowly add in butter and milk.

4. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and vanilla sugar. Add to egg mixture.

5. Pour the batter into the tin. Lay out apple slices so they cover the batter completely; it should look like an apple mosaic. The centre is tricky but here's help: sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top to a) cover lack of skills b) add amazing crust and cinnamon-y flavor that makes life so much better.

6. Bake for 60-70 minutes, but test with a toothpick before taking out. Let stand for some 15 minutes in an open, turned-off but still warn oven. We ate it warm. It was delicious. I think it could benefit from vanilla ice cream on the side, but tea was perfect nevertheless.

Have a nice evening!

red currant muffins

         
           I consider myself to be quite lucky as it comes to my family's food preferences: they like the simplest foods the most, maybe because of how little time it takes to make them. Especially my brother isn't one to find joy in awaiting treats, and these muffins, photos of which I just stumbled upon, are, I believe, his favourite. They look so extremely plain that it might be difficult to want to make them, but it's worth a try.\

          They are really super easy and super simple to make, and if you don't have to collect the currants before, you don't need more than 10 minutes to make them (plus baking time). They don't grow, and are very buttery; to me, they taste like a cake we used to eat when we went to the seaside before my brother started school. Currants could be swapped for anything, maybe even nuts (I'll try that sometime soon and report on the results), but here in Italy, you can still buy fresh currants, so maybe you can get them in other places, too. 

Red currant muffins:

(makes 12, based on Nigel Slater's recipe)

Ingredients:

125 g flour

125 g sugar (I used brown sugar)

125 g soft butter

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs 

125 g red currants (or any other berries)

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a muffin tin with paper muffin cups.

Put all the ingredients but fruit in a bowl, mix until smooth. If the batter is stiff, you can add a spoonful or two of milk (I never do that).

Using a spoon, mix in the currants.

Divide the batter between cups evenly. You can sprinkle brown sugar on top to get a crust, which I didn't do  with the photographed batch but I do at other times.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, checking doneness with a toothpick before turning the oven off.

chocolate cookies and honey and spices cookies

These are really easy to make, the recipes are super simple! The dough can be prepared in 5 minutes if you prepare the butter earlier - it has to be soft! The chocolate cookies are rather cruchy and not really sweet. The honey ones are soft in the middle and rather flat - due to the honey added, it makes the cookies soft and moist, if you can call a cookie moist!

Chocolate cookies:

(adapted from www.marthastewart.com) 

Ingredients (makes 24 cookies, more or less)

• 150g plain flour (1 cup)
• 30g cooca powder (4 tablespoon)
• 250g brown sugar, 70 g caster sugar (1 cup total)
• 1/3 teaspoon baking soda
• 110g butter
• 1/2 teaspon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 175*C.

Line a flat tin with baking paper.
Mix butter and both sugars until uniform and fluffy. Beat in the egg, add vanilla and salt. Mix until well-combined. Sift cocoa, flour and soda to the mixture. Mix until just combined. 
Make balls of dough of 1 tablespoon each.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on how crisp you want the cookies.

 

Honey and spices cookies

(heavily adapted from www.marthastewart.com) 

Ingredients (makes 24 cookies, more or less)

• 150g plain flour (1 cup)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1-2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2-3 tablespoon honey
  
• 250g brown sugar, (2/3 cup)
• 1/3 teaspoon baking soda
• 110g butter
  
• 1/2 teaspon salt
• 1 egg
  

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 175*C.

Line a flat tin with baking paper.

Mix butter and both sugars until uniform and fluffy. Beat in the egg, add vanilla and salt. Mix until well-combined. Sift all the spices, flour and soda to the mixture. Mix until just combined. 
Make balls of dough of 1 tablespoon each.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on how crisp you want the cookies.

chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

I had this real need to bake these cupcakes ever since I found the recipe - which was yesterday. My family normally loves peanut butter and a chocolate cake, so I though it would be great!

But my brother and dad both declared that they are trying to cut down on fats and sugar,

and my mom was perfectly happy eating the unfrosted cupcake. Which is kind of bad, because now I have an excuse to eat them all.

They came out lovely. The cake is soft and moist, and the frosting isn't too sweet - there is something salty to it from the peanuts, which is great.

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting:

(adapted from www.browneyedbaker.com) 

Cupcakes:

Ingredients (makes 12 muffins)

• 100 g butter
• 55g dark chocolate
• 40g Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 100g plain flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspon salt
• 2 eggs
• 150g caster sugar
• 1/2 pocket vanilla sugar
• 110g sour cream 

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180*C.

Line a muffin tin with paper cups.
Put butter, chocolate and cocoa powder in a bowl, place the bowl over a pan with simmering water. Heat, mixing, until completely combined. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
Now, whisk flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder in a small bowl. 
Take a yet another bowl, whisk eggs until combined. Than, add both sugars and a pinch of salt. Whisk, until you get an almost white, fluffy mixture. This should take about 5 minutes. Add cooled chocolate and whisk carefully. Now, sift in 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Whisk quicky. Add the sour cream, whisk it in. Add the rest of the flour and mix until the batter is thick.
Divide the batter among muffin paper cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes. You may want to rotate the tin after 15 minutes.
Cool the cupcakes for an hour before frosting.

Peanut butter frosting:
Ingredients (makes enough for 12 muffins + surplus for enjoying on its own. Or you can just frost with more than I did)

• 3/4 cup well-sifted confectioners' sugar
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 4 tablespoons soft butter (unsalted)
• 3-4 drops of vanilla extract
• 1/4 tablespoons salt (but you may want to taste the peanut butter - they come quite salty sometimes)
• 1/3 +  3 tablespoons cup heavy cream 

Directions:
Mix everything but the heavy cream until smooth and well combined. This should take about 5 minutes. The longer you whisk, the smoother the frosting gets. Scrape down at least once. When the frosting is satisfyingly smooth, add heavy cream and whisk for another 2 minutes.
Frost the cupcakes in whatever way pleases you: I find using spatula (or a knife) the easiest. Piping isn't quite my thing (yet!). Sprinkle with specks of chocolate and dust with some cocoa powder.


Keep refrigarated, or eat right away.

raspberry mousse

What I anticipate the most about summer is the selection of fruit that you can't buy fresh during the rest of the year. I especially await raspberries, partly because I am not a strawberries freak since we can have them all year round (my parents always freeze enough to satisfy strawberry cravings in winter months), partly because, well, raspberries are just delicious and they taste great just as well fresh as being a main ingredient of a more complex treat. 

This recipe comes from a book that I was gifted on Christmas, and used today for the first time, "1000 desserts". I used a 7cm x 15 cm silicon tin. If you have a bigger tin, you may want to double the recipe. It is not a very sweet dessert. It has got a very strong taste of raspberries, and it a little tart from the orange juice. It's also refreshing and light, so it makes a perfect thing to end a summer dinner with.

Raspberry mousse:

Ingredients (serves 6) :

• 250 g raspberries
• 65 g sugar
• 100 ml heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 10 g gelatin

For topping:

• Handful of raspberries
• 4-5 teaspoons confectioner sugar

       

      Directions:

Wash the raspberries, discard any that are molded. Mix the good ones with sugar and 1/3 cup of water, until you get a smooth liquid.

Whip the cream.

Pour the orange juice into a small saucepan on low heat. Add gelatin, mix until dissolved. Be careful not to bring the juice to boil.

Put the gelatin mixture in a bowl. Add raspberries. Stir until combined.

Prepare a bigger bowl. Fill it to half with cold water. Place the bowl with raspberries into the cold water and stir until the consistency is a lot thicker. Carefully add whipped cream.

Pour the mousse into a tin. Cover with foil, place in a fridge. The mousse will take about three hours to set, but if you are impatient, I think that two hours is enough to be able to cut it.

Now, prepare the topping. Mix washed raspberries with sugar.

When your mousse is set, take it out from the tin using a sharp knife. Top it with the sauce. You can also put some fruit on the top.  

Good luck!

peach muffins

Since I had little time at the end of schoolyear, I haven't posted a recipe in a long time now. I made cupcakes last night (they didn't make it to the morning, so I couldn't take photos), and thus reminded myself about a recipe that I wanted to post a while ago. 

These muffins are my family's favorite. They all seem to fall for the combination of soft fruit and crunchy top of the muffin, which is a great alternative to any frosting, and compliments the taste of this treat, which contains oat flakes for texture (it fights morning hunger as well!). And these muffins always come out perfect. I have changed the recipe slightly. It was originally posted here. It calls for can peaches and syrup, but you can also use fresh peaches and increase amount of both oil and buttermilk by 40 ml.

Peach muffins:

Ingredients (makes 12 muffins)

• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup oat flakes
• 1 large egg
• 100 ml buttermilk
• 80 ml peach syrup from the can       
• 1/2 cup oil      
• 250 g can peaches (about 5 halves)

For the crunchy top:

·         Brown sugar

·         Almond flakes

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 190*C.

Mix dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and soda, sugar, oat flakes, in one bowl. Mix liquid ingredients: buttermilk, oil, egg, syrup, in a second bowl. Add the dry mix to the liquid mixture, mix until just combined. Add diced peaches.

Line the muffin tin with cupcakes lining paper. Divide the batter evenly into cups of the tin, filling to more than 3/4 of it. Sprinkle with  almond flakes and brown sugar so that there is no batter visible.

Bake for 25 minutes. Test with a toothpick before you turn the oven off!

Marshmallows

They are sweet, they are delicious, they are pink, they are covered with sugar - perfection. I never liked bought marshmallows so much, but those home-made make one of my favourite candies. They take a lot of time - I recommend leaving them to set overnight, and make them in the evening. You will also appreciate company when whisking for about 15 minutes. 

I made this marshmallows, alternating Martha Stewart's recipe.

Ingredients:

• 20 g gelatin
• 1/3 cup cold water
• 2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cups corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt 
• juice of one orange (about 1/4 cup)
• juice of one lemon
• 1 tablespoon orange flavour
• food color 

Directions:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 cup cold water in a large pan, set aside. Prepare the tin - 23 x 23 cm. Line it with parchment paper, oil it to prevent marshmallows sticking.
2. In a medium pan, heat remaining water, sugar, corn syrup, juice of oragne and juice of lemon. Bring to boil, cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Pour sugar mixture into pan where gelatin is. Add salt, mix until completely white, about 15 minutes.
4. Add flavour and food color and mix until color is even.
5. Pour fluffy mixture into pan, smooth surface with rubber spatula. Let set overnight, though when you use corn syrup, marshmallows set very quickly.

Now you need to cut marshmallows. This is so far the quickest way I found out:

1. Take thee paper out of the tin, place on cutting board. Using very sharp, long knife, preferably oiled, cut into stripes as wide as the marshmallow is high to get cubes.
2. Put icing suger into a plate, then the stripes - into the sugar. Cover them carefully. Take one to the cutting board and cut into square cubes, covering with icing sugar once again. Sugar prevents those candies from sticking to each other. Put them in rows on a plate or any other flat surface of choice.

They should be eaten within 3 days, kept in air tight container.

I just realised how much pink there is on my blog. I never knew I liked it so much!

Home made twix squares

I often feel like baking, and it's very therapeutic to me. After a hectic day at school, no matter if I need to do tons of work for the next day, I make a cake. I have a very long list of things I want to give a try in my kitchen, but sometimes I find a recipe that needs to be done straight away. The home made Twix bars from Not Without Salt had to be prepared as soon as I got home!

For the shortbread, I followed the recipe carefully. I enjoyed the crips effect that ground rice left - my family on the other hand hated it. My dad would just cut it off and eat caramel with chocolate. If I make this again, I will definitely skip the rice because I prefer when other people eat the super high in sugar and fat goods that I make :) The caramel seemed too much of work for a Friday night, so I just melted toffee candies which I got at store and added some salt. For chocolate glaze, I used half milk and half bitter chocolate to balance the sweetness.

The caramel had to set overnight. I cut my twix into 1-inch squares, because I though they would look prettier that way. My mom requested smaller pieces. Also, I am no good at cutting in straight lines. It was easier to eat them in this shorter shape, since they crush and leave a lot of crumps. On the photo below, there is one bar I wrapped in paper.

A lemon pound cake is in the oven right now. I really wanted to have a piece for a while now, and I took a long break in studying to make that cake. I really hope it will come out good!