Tag Archives: recipe

Meatless or not Monday

It’s supposed to be Meatless Monday inspired by a recipe of veggie lasagne I came across here.

However, I found few strips of bacon in a fridge and had to use it. 😀
Below the adapted version of wonderful, yummy and cheesy lasagne! 
It’s a pretty flexible recipe and adding more vegetables would be tasty (peas or zucchini). I love chunky pieces of cottage cheese (also it’s a good source of Calcium!), but you can sub it with ricotta. 
Veg lasagna-2

Ingredients (serves 4):
6 sheets dried lasagna
300g cottage cheese
3-4 strips of smoked beef bacon, cut into medium pieces (escape it for veg option)
100g mozzarella cheese
50g pecorino cheese (or parmesan)
1 can*400g chopped tomatoes
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
10-15 basil leaves, chopped
100g spinach leaves, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled
150-200ml vegetable or beef stock 
1tsp muscovado sugar (or any)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
 
 
Let’s cook it!
  • Heat a pan, fry bacon for 1 minute. Add garlic, onion, celery and fry until softened (during the process the garlic gives out the nice flavor, so at the end just take it out). Add the tomatoes, sugar and stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-12 minutes. Add basil leaves. Season to taste with salt, pepper.
  • Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.
  • Meanwhile, in warm water soak the lasagna sheets for 8-10 minutes.
  • Spread few spoons of the tomato sauce and chopped spinach in the base of greased gratin dish. Top with 3 sheets of lasagna then spread over half of the sauce and half of the cottage cheese.
  • Repeat layers. Spread over grated cheeses.
  • Bake for 30-40 mins until the top is golden. 

Serve with green salad and a glass of white wine. 😉

Veg lasagna-1

Sponge Cake with Strawberries

The summer is over in some countries, and autumn’s come. Hope you enjoy it!  If only it could be here for a day..

It was usual hot summer day, when ‘why not to make a nice cake with strawberries’ idea came into my mind. I went for the widely known sponge cake, which in Russia is often called biscuit cake. In the US it’s known as pound cake, while in the UK as Victoria cake. Pretty simple to make, could be layered with various berries and feelings.

I soaked sponges with cherry brandy to pep it up.  😉

strawberry cake-2

Ingredients for 20 cm/8 inch round pan:

200 g self-raising flour
3 large eggs
160 g butter, melted
100/150 g granulated sugar*
1 tbsp lemon or orange zest (optionally)
1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla extract (optionally)
a pinch of salt

For cream filling:

200 ml whipped cream
80/100 gr caster sugar*

For brandy syrup:

6 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp brandy**
300-400 g strawberries***
2 tbsp icing sugar

Directions:

  1.  Heat oven to 160C (350F). Butter and flour a cake pan.
  2. Whisk together eggs and sugar until light cream texture. Add melted butter, salt, lemon zest, vanilla extract and beat in.
  3. Sift the flour over bowl and gently start to fold in.
  4. Bake 25-30 minutes or until top of cake is golden.
  5. Meanwhile, prepare brandy syrup. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan, simmer until sugar is dissolved. Remove from a heat and stir in brandy.
  6. Remove the cake from oven, cool in a pan for 10 minutes. Take cake out of pan and put onto a wire rack and let it cool completely.
  7. While cake is cooling, cut strawberries into medium-thin slices. Sprinkle with icing sugar.
  8. Whisk whipped cream and sugar together (for 4-5 minutes).
  9. Time to assemble our cake. With long knife cut cake horizontally into 2 layers.  Brush each layer with brandy syrup. Spread 2/3 of strawberries over one layer, then half of whipped cream.  Cover with another sponge. Spread whipped cream over it, top with remaining strawberries.
  10. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Serve with tea and enjoy!

strawberry cake-1

*In every day life I consume very small amounts of sugar. In all recipes I put it roughly. But you can increase amount as much as you like it.

**Substitute brandy with cognac/rum or non-alco liquor. 

*** Substitute fresh strawberries with preserved.

Purple peppers and chickpeas!

This summer I’ve been making lots of salads.

It’s still extremely hot in Dubai and one more salad has been done:)

black pepper-4

    I found these beautiful capsicums at a store, grown by farmers in the Netherlands. They’re absolutely marvellous, aren’t they?

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Never seen such deep purple, blackish color of bell peppers. 🙂 They are green inside and have got the same taste as green ones.

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So, about the salad. One of the main ingredients are capsicums, as you could guess 😉

I promise, the salad won’t leave you hungry.  Chickpeas in it are high in protein! Usually I make it ahead (before fitness class, for example, after I’m so hungry!) so it has plenty of time to marinate.

We need:

  • 1 can chickpeas (drained)
  • 2 big capsicums
  • 100 g feta cheese
  • juice of  ½ lemon + zest of ¼ lemon
  • extra virgin olive oil (for frying and dressing)
  • 2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme (or dried one is good as well)
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • fresh mint or/and parsley

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Heat the olive oil with thyme and cumin just for 1 minute, add shredded capsicums, toss and stir-fry until they become soft. My purple peppers turned into greenish color 😀

In a large bowl, combine chickpeas, capsicums, feta cheese and lemon zest. Toss to combine.  Pour 2 tbsp olive olive and lemon juice over the mixture.

Add some fresh mint and parsley; season to taste with grounded black pepper.

You can serve it immediately, but I heartily recommend to leave it  for 30-60 minutes to marinate.

Enjoy!

black pepper-5

 

 

 

 

Layered salad with chicken and prunes

In Russia you can find large variety of salads, especially with mayonnaise dressing. Such salads are little bit heavy and could nourish you easy, especially during winter time.

Despite the fact that they’re tasty, better to cut down mayo dressings and replace it with sour cream or yogurt.

The below wonderful salad could be served not only for a family dinner, but for any festive occasion. It consists of simple ingredients, tastes good and deserves to be in your cooking book 🙂

Cucumber salad1

Ingredients

  • 2 medium chicken fillet
  • 12 prunes (dried plums)
  • 200 g mushrooms (champignons)
  • 1 onion
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cucumbers
  • 1 tbsp olive oil

Dressing

  • 150 g sour cream
  • 1 tsp plain mustard
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • salt, pepper

Put the prunes in a cup and cover with hot water, let stand for 30 minutes. Remove stones and cut prunes into pieces.

Boil the chicken, let cool, then cut it into small cubes.

Boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Shred the cucumbers and cooled eggs.

Cut the onion and mushrooms, fry together with 1 tbsp olive oil until golden-brown; set to cool.

Mix ingredients for the dressing.

 Layers

  1. Prunes
  2. Chicken fillets
  3. Spread 1/2 dressing
  4. Mushrooms with onion
  5. Spread 1/4 dressing
  6. Eggs
  7. Spread the remaining 1/4 dressing over eggs
  8. Cucumber

Done! Let the salad stand for 1 hour and you can enjoy! 🙂

Cucumber salad-2

Red spinach

  Hi guys! 🙂Have you ever tried red spinach? First time I tried it in Dubai. Unfortunately, I never seen it in Russia before. It has mild earthy and green flavor, very similar to green spinach. I use leaves in salads or garnish, adding nice color to any dish!

  Today for the lunch is baked crusted creme dory fillet and carrot-spinach salad.
фотография
 Ingredients (Serve 3)
3 medium-sized creme dory fillets
2 eggs
 For the crust:
1 cup breadcrumbs (homemade is better)
1 tsp crushed coriander seeds
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp crushed white pepper
some salt to taste
 For the salad:
3 carrots, shredded
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 bunch coriander 
1/2-1 bunch red spinach
sour cream
 
Preheat oven to 190C (370F). Pat the fillet dry with paper towel. 
In a bowl combine the crust ingredients. Dip the fish fillet in beaten eggs, then in crust. 
Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Meanwhile mix salad ingredients together gently and coat with sour cream.
Serve the hot crusted fish and the carrot salad together.
Enjoy!
cremedory
 
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