I think I haven't got any more space left in my kitchen to put things. Well, maybe a few small things could fit in somewhere. However, if I wanted to have any possible special cooking gear, I would be in real trouble. After all my raclette grill and my wok are already in the cellar. Ah, my barbie is there as well, of course. Yes, a bamboo steamer basket would be lovely or something that could be used more regularly, a food processor, a slow cooker, a pressure cooker, or a pasta machine or a quiche tin. Wait, I definitely have to work on the last one tomorrow.
But something else, a tagine. That would look lovely and it would be another good experience to cook with. Nevertheless, I haven't got one. Still I wanted to cook a Beef and Fennel Tagine. Let's see whether we can cook a Beef and Fennel Tagine without a Tagine ...
So far, things are still fine. After all, the sun is shining today and it's still quite warm. So I enjoy it ... and while we are at it, we can go for some more Mediterranean food. My mind is still on the current Bloggers Around the World: Greece. And once more I like to go for a vegetarian dish: Spanakorizo. Some rice, spinach and egg is involved. Of course I make sure we aren't going to miss out in the feat department. Whatsoever, the name of the dish would be translated spinach and rice.
If you have some fresh spinach available go for it. However, I had to use frozen one. No worries, both ways it's going to work ... Wish I could say the same for my spinach in the garden, which didn't work at all this year.
Now, though, we want to cook ...
Finally we have about 4000 °C outside. Great, that's what we always wanted. At least that is what we dreamt about when we still had -40 °C in March. Must have been somewhat like that. Anyway, now we have perfect weather for some Moroccan food. Therefore it is not coincidence we are having Morocco as the current theme for Bloggers Around the World. Very clever and smart of me, don't you agree? At least I'm still in control and am smarter than my phone and my television. However, that of course is of no particular interest at the moment ... as usual.
After all this still tries to be a food blog and not a wisecrack blog ... I suppose. Then it's food we are going to talk about and Moroccan Chicken Kebabs in particular.
When you buy a new cookbook, what's more important for you, the text or the photos? Do you appreciate well written texts with lots of information and how to do things and some extra tips? Or will you rather go for books, which have delicious pictures in them?
Questions over questions. It seems, I have just questions for you today. But do you have answers?
Decide for yourself. Maybe you like to comment and leave your thoughts. For sure you know a lot of good cookbooks that don't have many pictures in them, yet to speak about photos. For example, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck has no photos at all in it. There are some illustration, though. To me, that's a great book, despite the lack of mouth-watering photos. Still you are able to create some mouth-watering dishes by following the detailed instructions.
Do you know any other brilliant cookbooks without photos?
Oh, another question, sorry, but I did this deliberately. Now we like to turn the tables. What about cookbooks with mainly photos and not much text or not so well written or useful text?
I don't have any examples for that. Do you?
Anyway, it wasn't my intention to just go on talking and talking and asking and asking and so forth. I still have some food for you. Once more there was a bit of experimenting going on in my kitchen. Here we go for an Onion and Feta Puff Pastry Pie.
However, we are doing things slightly different today. I give you the list of ingredients and some photos and you figure out the rest. Have a try!
Ingredients (in order of use):
3 onions
3 cloves of garlic
Splash of Greek Raki
180 ml cream
300 g puff pastry
Olive oil
200 g Feta
A small bunch of freshly chopped Parsley
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
20 ml cream
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
Method (if you can call it like that):
I told you, you'll be getting just some pictures. So, here we go ...
Did you enjoy it? Are you now able to do such an Onion and Feta Puff Pastry Pie?
Of course, you only would be willing to have a try, if the photos would have made you hungry for it. Come on, there is feta in it!
What do you think? Maybe I should try it the other way around sometime and post a recipe without photos and try to make you hungry just by the description.
What do you think is easier? Text over photo or photo over text?
Disgusting! Since I was disposed to this word spoken by a friend of mine in his typical Yorkshire accent at various occasions I came to use it too often as well. Yes, I know, that is disgusting!
While I don't want to classify the following cheesy meatballs as disgusting, you have to judge for yourself as regards the chili sauce.
The meatballs themselves are based on a recipe by Jamie Oliver: Mountain Meatballs. I simply adjusted at to my personal amounts and availability.
The chili sauce contains a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I will roughly state the ingredients, but the real content has to remain shrouded in mystery.
Ingredients Meatballs:
1 red onion, finely diced
300 g minced meat
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp dried oregano
A few bashed cumin seeds
1 tsp bashed up coriander seeds
1 handful of breadcrumbs
1 egg
Salt and pepper
50 g grated cheese
Ingredients Chili Sauce:
1 onion, finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Tomato puree
Honey mustard BBQ sauce
Water
Curry ketchup
Sweet chili sauce
Coffee liquor
Method:
Heat up some olive oil on medium heat and then soften the red onion dice in it. 10 minutes will do. Remove the onion pieces from the pan and put away to cool down.
Then start the sauce and do the same with the stated onion as you did with the other onion. Hm ... sounds strange to me ... ah ... forget it ... no worries ... just do it. Then add the garlic.
Meanwhile you can also start heating up your oven to ... eh ... let's say 250 °C.
Now add all your other ingredients for the sauce to the pan, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.
Back to the meatballs ... mix all the other ingredients apart from the grated cheese together and form ... eh ... 4 large meatballs out of it. Get a quarter of the grated cheese ... wait ... that's about 12,5 g and press it into each meatball and close with meat around it so the cheese is more or less in the center of the meatball.
Throw your meatballs into an oven-proof dish and transfer ... no throwing here ... to the oven for 25 minutes.
In the meantime the sauce is disgustingly bubbling away. It gets more and more sticky ...
The 25 minutes are over. Remove the meatballs ... don't burn yourself ... and pour the disgusting sauce over the meatballs and ... shove the dish back to the oven for 15 more minutes.
After that you still can decide whether to eat it or not. Well, surprisingly the sauce didn't taste disgusting as to be expected or announced. It rather tasted interesting.
Oh, I know what people mean, when they say interesting. It's the polite way of saying disgusting. But, really, it didn't taste like that. Frankly, it was rather good. It simply was a sticky mix of sweet and hot and ... there is only one way of finding out ...
