Let's wrap again - Mushroom & Courgette Wraps

Come on, let's do a kettle wrapping. The good thing, there is not just one way to do it and you don't always have to use wheat tortillas to do so, although you can, of course. Well, you don't even have to use chicken or any other kind of meat. With that spirit, let's wrap again and do it the veggie way ...

Fine, you don't have to use cheese in it, but I simply can't do it any other way ... or ... rather don't see any point in leaving out cheese for me.
So, no matter how you like to have your wraps, here I tell you what I did this time ...

Ingredients:
A bit of oil
250 g mushrooms, cut into smaller pieces
1 medium courgette, cut into cube-like objects
1 red chilli, finely chopped (deseeded or not)
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp. tomato puree
Salt and pepper
Some fresh coriander
Some feta cheese or similar
Some lettuce or wheat tortillas

Method:
Heat up a pan with some oil in it. Then add the chopped garlic. Do you smell the loveliness of the garlic in your kitchen? Good, add the courgette and mushrooms. Give it all some heat. While you are at it, toss in the chilli.
Once the courgette starts to soften, add the tomato puree and if you have the feeling you need to, because things look to dry, add some more oil.

Adjust the taste with a bit of salt and pepper. When the things are finished in the pan, you can assemble the wraps or wait a few moments to let the mushrooms and courgette cool down a little bit.
So, place a bit of the mixture on a large piece of lettuce, that will hold. Add a few cubes of feta and a some chopped coriander leaves.
Of course, you can place the plate also the other way around like this ...

Fine, you can even use some wheat tortillas and wrap things that way ...

Enjoy your wrapping. Now I have to continue to do some preparations for a little party I am having tomorrow ...

Just make it simple: Ratatouille

After my meat laden last post, I decided it would be nice to go just vegetables for this one. Fine, for the ongoing reason of the Bloggers Around the World World Cup challenge, I also wanted to have something French for today. Now we just make it simple and have a typical French vegetable stew, which we know as Ratatouille. I tried this recipe from The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo. I only made minimal adjustments according to what I could do with. Really, the only problem with that book is, the index isn't working properly.

What we need:

Olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely mashed

Some thyme (and time as well, of course)

1 aubergine, finely sliced

1 courgette, finely sliced

1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper, cut in stripes

6 tomatoes, quartered

A bit of sugar

Salt

Just do it:

First we start in a pan and heat up a splash of olive oil. Then we add the onion, garlic and thyme and let it go until the onion is translucent. After that comes the aubergine and we cook it soft in a few minutes.

Now we concentrate on the oven, which we like to heat up to 180 °C. We have a baking try ready. In there we toss the courgette, peppers, tomatoes and the content of the pan.

Off it all goes to the oven ... but wait, don't forget to cover the tray with aluminium foil.

Hm ... eh ... about one hour should be enough for the vegetables in the oven. Then remove it, sprinkle a bit sugar on it, add salt to taste, mix it through and transfer it back to the oven in the top section for about 4 minutes.

You can now go and eat it just like this, maybe with a bit of extra olive oil on top, maybe with some lovely bread or maybe you eat it cold the next day ... maybe if you have leftovers.

Whatever you do, I hope you enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy the res of my day whether it rains or not, whether the sun will shine for me or not. I'll just do it.

Will You Remember ... Forgotten, Not Forgiven

Do you still remember the last time I did a weird, strange, crazy, bonkers, whatever kind of post? Well, I could check, but that wouldn't mean I remember, rather the opposite.

I can still hear the voices in my head - no, not those voices - rather the singing kind of voices, music that is.

One such song is called 'Will You Remember?' from the album 'To the Faithful Departed' by The Cranberries. Well, I don't want to tell you right now what I think most of the time when that song is in my head, but you can be sure, I'm telling you in a minute, what I am thinking of right now.

However, there is another song, 'Forgiven, Not Forgotten' by The Corrs. Right away, I can tell you my thoughts are not tending towards the suicide part. I have a feeling I am stable at the moment. After all, there is no 'one eyed furry toy' on the bed ...

... right, it has two eyes and besides that, I have absolutely no idea of the 'bleeding heart torn apart, left on an icy grave'. As far as I know, stones don't bleed.

While we are at it, just a quick side fact, a concert of The Corrs was the only one I ever have been to in my life and I don't know, whether I will ever make it to another concert of someone else still.

Now, if you are not that woman from California, who is just called "AJ" in medical literature and who remembers every day of her life since age 11, you forget things and can't remember.

For sure I have some things in my life I don't want to remember, but on the other hand there are a lot more things I want to remember, like for example - and that's especially, if you are a food blogger - 'what was it I had been cooking there' or 'where did I got that idea from'. Yes, I will not forgive myself I have forgotten and ... I won't forgive myself a few other things.

Anyway, due to several reasons, there are some food photos piling up in my 'to blog' folder and I have no clue what to make of some. In order not to have them just for nothing, I present you now ...

THE FORGOTTEN

We can only call this 'Steamed Vegetables'. Right, some ingredients are obvious, but that's all ...

I'm sure it was tasty and filling, but, yes, really, indeed that's all.

Then I can offer you some pasta: 'Fussili Putanesca'. While the name should give us already some more hints on how to prepare this dish, I don't care t do some kind of research on what I might have done to it ...

Now you might say, why bother anyway, those dishes don't look too good either. Maybe I can improve things a tiny little bit with this board of tapas ...

Fine, just a tiny little bit ... maybe. When you look at it, the things on he board are no big deal to reproduce. It's cheese with thyme and honey, garlic prawns, a coleslaw with red bell peppers and chilli, just some simple black olives and a piece of baguette. Well, I can't remember, why I took this photo in the first place. For sure I was not planning to do any kind of post with it ... but I'm doing it now this way.

Like some dessert? Maybe some sort of brownies. Well, some sort of brownies you get ...

I don't have to remember how they tasted, for I am sure they where utterly yummy.

What else?

Burgers. Sure. Homemade chips. Sure. So what?

And yet, there is more pasta ...

This time it's orecchiette al forno. Of course, you can do it by mixing the almost cooked pasta with your favourite tomato sauce, toss over some mozzarella and basil, grate over some parmesan and make it al forno in your oven for about 30 minutes, I reckon.

On the other hand, you could always have some vegetables together with chorizo ...

... I guess I did it already before. So why this picture. Yes, 'why' always seems to be the hardest question.

Apart from this, forgetting can also pop up with a different face. I was reading 'a certain blog' with a post about making chocolate buttons. Well, a lovely idea. So I made some with dates and pistachios. No big deal. Melt chocolate, give it in round shapes onto baking parchment and drop a few pieces of dates and pistachios onto them ...

Those are a real treat ... oh, oh ... memories seem to come back. I think, I added a bit of vanilla extract to the melted chocolate, too. Once they have cooled down, you can wrap them up nicely and give them away as a foodie gift ...

... oopsy ... I must have forgotten. Some time later they were still standing in that shelf and I had no choice but to  eat them for myself. What a shame! 

I don't like to give myself credit for those date and pistachio chocolate buttons, but I simply forgot the blog I got the idea from. So, if you notice, give me a shout and we rectify this.

At this point I'd say we better stop. After all, we can't go on like this forever and ever. I even think, some of these photos could have given me an advantage in this month's Bloggers Around the World. Spontaneously, quickly and without much further hassle I could have produced an Italian or Spanish posts to link up on days Italy or Spain would be playing in the World Cup.

Fine, one more ...

I made some utterly scrumptious courgette fritters. Already on their own they where a hit, but I had something bigger in mind for them ... and I will still do it ... if I manage to get them like this again. Then I make sure not to forget, but to go for it.

In the meantime ...

I won't remember the food that I ate. 

I won't remember champagne (because I didn't have any). 

I won't remember the things that I cooked. 

I will just shoot it in vain. 

Will you remember? 

Will you recall? 

Will you remember?

Warning: Extremely Delicious Vegetable Lasagne

Ha, you weren't expecting this. You thought this crazy guy would give you another one from his loose bottomed tart tin. Nope! Instead I give you something from the bottom of my heart and i hope you will love it too. Today I have a vegetable lasagne for you. 
Simple? Yes, but be warned, in my opinion this vegetable lasagne tastes extremely delicious. Of course, I have to say this, but there is only one way to prove me wrong. You would have to try it for yourself. Besides that, you will also find some ... eh ... what to call them ... eh ... let's try ... twists and an unexpected ingredient.
Less talking more cooking ...

Ingredients:
6 lasagne sheets
1 medium aubergine
2 small courgettes
A few splashes of olive oil
1 large tomato
1 clove of garlic
2 tbsp. tomato puree
100 ml water
50 ml red wine vinegar
A few basil leaves
Salt and pepper
200 ml crème fraîche
1 egg
A hand full of grated parmesan
3 tbsp. grated radish

Method:
The times I made a vegetable lasagne before, was to cook all the vegetables into a kind of sauce. However, we are not doing this today. We like to preserve the pure individual tastes of the single vegetables ... at least most of them. I was inspired to do it in a different way by watching an episode of MasterChef Australia.
Therefore we cut the aubergine and the courgettes in a way they fit to the lasagne sheets, that is they are going to be cut into fine slices. Then get a baking tray ready with some grease proof paper and heat up your oven to 180 ºC.
Be generous with salt to the sliced vegetables. Off into the oven they go for about 15-20 minutes. Just make sure, they don't get burned.
Meanwhile get your tomato sauce ready. Get a pan ready on heat. Be generous again. This time with olive oil in the pan. The ancient principle 'those who give bountifully, will receive bountifully' still applies.
Cut the tomato in small chunks and throw them into the hot oil to let them sizzle away. Finely chop your clove of garlic and toss it into the oil as well. When you start to smell the beautiful odour of the garlic on your kitchen add the tomato puree, the water and the red wine vinegar. Go through the sauce with a spoon and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. On a low heat reduce the sauce for a while. When the sauce is thick enough and you are almost finished use the basil leaves to finish off the sauce.
Before we can start putting the lasagne together we have two more jobs to do. The fist one is to pre-cook the lasagne sheets in boiling salted water for about three minutes. The second job is to prepare some kind of white sauce to put between the layers.
For this white sauce we simply ... yes, very simply ... spoon together, the crème fraîche, the egg, the parmesan and the grated radish. Well, I suppose you could use horseradish, too. 
Anyway, I used to have radish when I was way younger and then ... didn't have it for a long time. Due to the fact, that radish is in season right now, I thought I give it a go again. For sure I had something in mind for it, but I just ended up eating most of it raw. So far I never had used radish in cooking. Bravely I decided to grate some of it into my white sauce for my vegetable lasagne. Well, it worked ... well.
After this brief detour into my use of radish we get back to our lasagne. We are almost there.
Now get yourself a 20 cm x 20 cm oven-proof dish. Remember that the oven is still at 180 ºC. We start the lasagne with a splash of olive oil that you rub onto the bottom of your dish. Then a few slices of aubergine follow, two sheets of lasagne, white sauce, courgette, white sauce, lasagne sheet, aubergine courgette, white sauce, lasagne sheets and white sauce.
Well it all depends on the amount of sliced vegetables you have. Feel free to change things a tiny little bit. Just make sure, you have three layers of lasgane sheets.
Before the vegetable lasagne goes into the oven, grate some extra parmesan on top and while you are at it allow some olive oil to be drizzled on it, too.
The lasagne should go into the oven for about 15-20 minutes. It may look like this afterwards ...

You see, there is a bit of colour on it. If you want more, you have to give more. This vegetable lasagne will make for four humble portions, but be warned ... I said it before ... it tastes extremely delicious. So you might want to plan ahead for this.
Whatsoever. serve the lasagne with a few spoons of the tomato sauce on top.

You know, if you add more sauce there is more of it to enjoy and it will all drip onto your plate and you might want to do something with the plate later.
In my opinion, this vegetable lasagne was the best I had so far. You can still taste the aubergine and the courgette individual and you have a gorgeous tomato sauce, too.

I can only recommend to try it for yourself. I might be wrong here, but ... you'll never know if you don't go for it.

Speaking of going for it, this post will go to some blog challenges in no particular order ...

Elizabeth's No Waste Food challenge hosted by Ness at Jibber Jabber UK this month. Fine, I would never have thrown the remaining radish away, but here I used the left over radish in a delicious way.

Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays. Check it out for yourself!

Helen's and Michelle's Extra Veg Blog Challenge. If I haven't used some extra veg here, I don't know and then again, I used the radish as I have never used it before.

Camilla's Credit Crunch Munch. Having a vegetarian meal with vegetables either on offer or in season or both will help you to save some money.

Manjiri's and Jacqueline's Pasta Please challenge. The theme for April is Olive Oil. No, I wasn't especially generous with it because of this challenge. I just wanted to and found it necessary for the sauce to work properly.

The Four Seasons Food April Challenge from Delicieux and Eat Your Veg. The goal was to celebrate vegetables. In my opinion ... again ... this is what this very vegetable lasagne is doing.

Then we have the Simple and in Season challenge from Ren. Do I have to say it again that radish is in season?

Just because I can, I add this post to Recipe of the Week from Emily, too.

Last but not least we have Karen's Cooking with Herbs challenge. Guess why?

Still Italian - Saltimbocca alla Romana with Roasted Vegs

I am still in the mood for Italy or was it Italian food? I would right away do a food trip to Italy, if I could. However, as there is no room for thinking about that at the moment I have some more Italian food: Saltimbocca. It may be strangely, but that was something popping into my mind when thinking further about Italian food. I wanted to make it for some time now. The only problem so far was, to come across some nice veal escalopes.
A few days then, it was the case, so I started searching for some ideas and found something from the Jamie Oliver magazine: Saltimbocca alla Romana.

That sounded perfectly good for me ... eh ... almost good for me. I just made a tiny bit of adjustment.
First of all, I concentrated on what to have with my saltimbocca. The original idea was to have some rosemary potatoes. Instead I went for a bit more colour. So, feel free to use any kind of vegetables you love to have or want to use up.
I used potato, courgette, carrot and celery. I simple chopped up the vegetables in different shapes, seasoned them with some dried rosemary and salt and dripped enough olive oil on top of them.

Because that wasn't good enough for me, I tossed in some whole garlic cloves, which to squeeze over the vegs after roasting them for about 30 minutes at 200 °C in the oven.

Just before the roasted vegetables are ready, you can prepare the saltimbocca.

Ingredients (for 1 person):
1 veal escalope (about 100 g)
Black pepper
Some sage leaves
2 slices of Parma ham
A splash of olive oil
2 knobs of butter
A splash of sweet white wine

Method:
I started my saltimbocca with flattening it out. Sometimes I need to make some noise, so the neighbours know I am still alive.

Then I went on seasoning the meat with some black pepper. After that I placed a few of the tiny sage leaves I still had left from the bunch of sage I had bought a few weeks ago.
Just a few stems had survived them. I had put them in a glass with some water. One of the stems had developed some roots now. So I planted that one into a pot and used the leaves from the other stem.
Over the sage leaves then, the two slices of Parma ham were placed.

Time to heat up the pan with some olive oil and a knob of butter. From here on, things go quite fast. The saltimbocca needs two minutes on each side. Then you remove it from the pan, cover it with aluminium foil and leave it to rest until you are finished with the sauce.
In order to do that, you add another knob of butter and a splash of sweet white wine to the pan you have still on the heat. Add some more sage leaves to the pan and quickly reduce the sauce, because I am hungry.

Plate up the Saltimbocca alla Romana with some of the roasted vegetables and enjoy a very delicious meal. Now I remember, why I always wanted to make saltimbocca, because it tastes so great - that is, if you have used good quality ingredients.

Before I come to end here I like to add this post to some challenges.
First of all to Javelin Warrior's Made with Love Mondays. I didn't see anything wrong in the ingredients I used. It's all from scratch here.

The herbs in that dish are obvious. You can even see them on the photos, the rosemary and the sage. So I even used herbs according to this month's Cooking with Herbs, which is managed by Karen from Lavender & Lovage.

Now it's just time to continue thinking of Italy. I don't know whether reading Romeo & Juliet will help ... or some Italian wine is necessary ... who knows!?

Still Summer - Zingy Chilli and Chocolate Gazpacho

I can't remember having a real summer last year, although the two weeks I was out hiking had been fine apart from the first day, where I got soaked completely. Fine, we had some rain, storm and sort of things this year, too, but mainly it was a real summer thing ... just a moment ... still is a real summer thing.
However, some people manage to complain all the time. "It's too hot", "I can't stand the heat" ... fine ... if you must. Should you belong into this category of people, you maybe also think, I would be too hot to stand in the kitchen at the stove and cook.
I'd say, it's no problem to have some more heat in the kitchen, but ... hey ... I can so also without and ... have some gazpacho ...

Jamie Does' Ratatouille-Style Briouats

How are you? That is a really difficult question. Well, it depends also on who is asking. Some ask and immediately move on. They wouldn't even notice when you say 'miserable'. Anyway, I feel miserable and things are good at the same time. While there are aspects in situations in life that can really make you feel bad, there are also other things that can help you keep going and still feel good. You know what I mean. I don't have to mention all the details. 
For instance when you are home alone, feeling lonely and having no power to cook something good for you, a ringing telephone can make a difference. So I really was happy yesterday, when that happens and I got a surprise invitation for dinner ... at once. So everyone can make a difference for someone else.
At times you also can make a difference for yourself, if you have the power to cook something. You can enjoy something really lovely. That's what I did the other day, enjoy something really lovely: Ratatouille-Style Briouats.

I freak out or ... rather have some Puff Pastry Courgette Tarts

I had a beautiful day yesterday ... not!
Anyway, no need to complain. All settled! I came home kind of late-ish, moved around some furniture in the living room just for the wind of change, went to the kitchen to do some cooking for one hour or even more and ... had some chilli sin carne, but instead with about 10 hot chillies. Well, that should have settled things ...
But now there is another day and lots of time to do lovely things, digging a bit in memories and preparing some nice puff pastry courgette and bacon tarts.

Those are lovely as a snack or an entrée. Well, you will figure that out by yourself anyway.
Well, before we can start, I just like to mention something else.
Two other things lately happened in my life. I started reading a book about food photography and I found my old camera. I hope I will be able to work with that a bit.
Let's get the puff pastry and other things ready and start cooking or baking or ... ah ... just do it.

Ingredients:
250 g sour cream (yeah, we could call them Puff Pastry Sour Cream Courgette and Bacon Tarts, if you prefer that)
125 g cubes of bacon (or goats cheese for a vegetarian version)
Leaves of 3 sprigs of thyme
Pepper
1 small courgette, cut into small cubes
1 egg
275 g of puff pastry (or in whatever size they sell it)

Method:
The first step is very very simple. Just mix everything apart from the puff pastry together in an appropriate sized bowl.

Then roll out your puff pastry. Cut the pastry into squares and then cut angles in two opposite corners of the squares as you can hopefully see on the picture.
Yes, I forgot a few cuts before I made the picture. Found out later. No worries!

Place one tablespoon of filling on each square or in other words, divide the filling among those squares.
Now you can fold those cut corners towards the middle and stick them together somehow.
With having achieved that, they go into the oven for 30 minutes at 200°C. They should gain at least some colour.
After that you can enjoy your puff pastry courgette and bacon tarts.
If you can not enjoy them, because you don't want to eat bacon, simply do a vegetarian version with maybe some strong and tasty cheese. I would go for goats cheese. I can imagine that to be very lovely as well.

This is how the puff pastry tarts would have looked 6 months ago.
No, we can not sell it that way.

Maybe some decoration ... a sprig of parsley will do. A bit better. I'm not sure. We should do some more. Well, there is still a lot to learn and bit by bit things can be improved.

What about some background. Anyway, I look really look forward to read through that book. So far I haven't even finished the first chapter.
I hope you can't resist those puff pastry tarts and give them a shot. If, let me know, how you liked them.

Red Hot Pumpkin Curry for #BestOfBritish

This time the Best of British challenge takes us to London as Fiona from London Unattached takes over. It's lovely to visit London and there is much to see and, of course, many different things to eat. I like going there and have done so accordingly quite a few times. On one of my last visits I went to this lovely Indian Supper Club. A few days later I was on the streets, somewhere to where a lot of shops with goods from India were. There I bought this.

Now I have an Indian spice tin, a masala dabba. That's what I want to use this time for my Red Hot Pumpkin Curry. Yes, I'm still working on using all my fresh chillies from the windowsill.

Ingredients:
Oil for the pan
2 small onions (or one big one - ha ha), finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, squeezed
2 carrots, in cubes
1 courgette, in cubes
1 green bell pepper, in stripes (kind of)
1/2 Hokkaido pumpkin, in cubes
1-4 fresh red chillies (you know what to do, to make it red HOT)
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp nigella seeds (don't get this wrong)
1 tsp crushed coriander seeds
400 ml tinned tomatoes

Preparation:
The battle is on now. Well, I bet you have a lot of fun with all this chopping and crushing and squeezing and cutting into pieces and stripes.

To get the base for our curry, we heat up the oil and then gently cook the onions and the garlic for a while, but don't let them go brownish.
Then add all the other vegetables, apart from the tinned tomatoes. Fry it all for about ten minutes, together with the nice spices.
Then we can add the tomatoes and if you like liquid, add a bit of water, too. Cover it and let it all simmer for some minutes.
To be more precise, if you want to have steamed rice together with it, which takes about 20 minutes, you can leave the curry to simmer for the same time it takes to prepare the rice.
When all is done, you only have to serve it and eat it.
I still had some mini papadums, I wanted to use together with it. On the package it says, they would be suitable for the microwave as well and so I did. I thought one minute would do. That was a grave mistake. Well, I had to live with a horrible smell in the kitchen for a few days and some black papadums.
However, after adding some more and watching while they unfolded, I was still able to enjoy some with a little bit of mango chutney.

Time is really running by. Here goes another Best of British challenge together with The Face of New World Appliances.
Well, as I said, it is always a pleasure to go and visit London. I wonder, when I will go next time ...