Spinach and Feta Tart

I am really feeling great. Life is beautiful, and so is my lovely wife. Surely I am feeling wonderful and in part it is also because I stick to the three pillars of healthy living: regular exercise, health diet and sufficient sleep.

Sometimes we tend not to belief in simple advice, but … usually there is only one way to find out: try it!

Accordingly, in order to find out, whether you like my dish for today, you simply have to try it: Spinach and Feta Tart. 

Well, there was some kind of pondering going on in my head, whether I should call it Spinach and Feta Tart or Feta and Spinach Tart. Looking at the ingredients, there would have been other options, too, like Spinach, Feta and Pine-nut Tart. Continuing from that one, yet more options would have been possible: Feta, Spinach and Pine-nut Tart or Pine-nut, Spinach and Feta Tart or Pine-nut, Feta and Spinach Tart. Then there is the option of abbreviating things: SF-Tart, FS-Tart, FSP-Tart, PSF-Tart, PFS-Tart, SFP-Tart or SPF-Tart … and we haven’t even mentioned there is garlic involved as well, nor is there any hint towards the kind of pastry used.

Nothing of that doesn’t really matter, so we stick with Spinach and Feta Tart. After all those are the main heroes. Here we go with the recipe …

Ingredients:
400 g puff pastry
Knob of butter
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
500 g spinach
1 tsp. nutmeg
200 ml cream
200 g feta
80 g pine-nuts
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Method:Lightly oil your tart tin. I just rub it all over with butter, fine only the inside of course. Then line it with the puff pastry. It could look somewhat like this …

In a large pan, melt the knob of butter and then add the finely chopped onion and garlic. Fry them until translucent. Get your fresh spinach ready and wilt it down in the pan, even bit by bit when your pan can’t hold it at the same time. Season with nutmeg.

Get yourself a large bowl and mix the crumbled feta, cream, pine-nuts and the two eggs. Once the spinach is ready, incorporate the contents of the pan in the bowl as well. Season with salt and pepper.

All that goes now onto the puff pastry and then into the pre-heated oven at 180 °C for about 30 minutes. Honestly, I always try every dishes at 180 °C for 30 minutes. That’s my favourite baking temperature and time. In between I check, though, if it’s necessary to reduce or extend the time. Once the Spinach and Feta Tart got some nice colour to it, I reckon, we are ready to remove it from the oven.

It already has been a while since I did it and I nearly lost the recipe since I forgot to take notes, but since I have been rejuvenated recently, it worked well with my brain.

At this point, you just need to slice up the tart, serve it and enjoy it.

That should be possible. I don’t know what you think, but the combination of spinach and feta somehow sounds Greek to me. Just a feeling. If you like to give it a more Greek touch, you should use a few sheets of filo pastry instead of just normal puff pastry. Optionally you could also drink an Ouzo or two while preparing it. It’s entirely up to you, though.

Anyway, dig in …

See you another time then. I only need to watch now, how this rejuvenation thing is working out, how far it will take me back and, whether, it will result even in doing some stupid things …

F-Game Toad in a Hole

Lately, around here I am not giving my a-game. I’m not sure, what it would be like, though. No worries!

Anyway, life is like this: sometimes you loose and sometimes the others win. Nah, it's not that bad. Sometimes you simply have other things to do.

Therefore we go right away into food, for at least here we know, that it will go to a meal. Leftovers! There were those pork sausages in my fridge, those tiny ones. Here they are called Nürnberger. I used some of them for my English breakfast some time ago, but what to do with the rest of them.

Now I know, why I put all those knowledge into my head. At some point a bell will ring and I know what to do. So, toad in the hole. I never had. Therefore I never made it before. I now, it involves sausages and … something else.

Now I give you my F-game Toad in the Hole …

 Well, the F-game in this recipe doesn’t refer to it being rubbish. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even think about putting it up here.

No! It’s time for Lord Feta to strike back …

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tsp mustard powder
120 g flour
100 ml milk
Some parsley, finely chopped
Some sage, finely chopped
Salt, pepper
100 g bacon, preferably 10 slices
10 small pork sausages
200g feta

Method:Heat up your oven to 180 °C.

Get yourself an ovenproof dish, 20 x 20 cm will do for this amount of ingredients. Put it aside.

Now get a bowl and mix in it the eggs, mustard powder, flour, milk, parsley and sage. Season with salt and pepper. Pour that mixture into the ovenproof dish.

What a coincidence, the amount of bacon was just enough for the number of sausages I had left. Go for it and wrap one slice of bacon around one little sausages and arrange in the batter in the ovenproof dish.

All done? Proceed with the feta. You can either crumble it into the ovenproof dish or cut it into cubes and scatter them over the sausages in the dish.

Anyhow, put into the oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, you have sufficient time to whip up your onion gravy and get whatever vegetables you want to put on the side ready.

For sure, you have a good recipe for onion gravy and know quite perfectly well how to do it. No?

I took a pan and melted some butter at low heat, tossed in the onion rings of a large onion and let things go until the toad in the hole is almost finish.

To complete the sauce, season with salt and pepper, add a tablespoon of flour and a generous splash of sherry. Briefly cook so the sauce thickens.

The finished dish from the oven could look somewhat like that or when you have a closer look, it will look a bit like this …

Ah, that wasn’t really that much closer. Anyway, plate up. With the right amount of vegetables you could even manage to satisfy four people with that, but than you can’t be as generous with the onion gravy as I have …

However, that was only, because I wanted to have fresh gravy for the leftovers another day and maybe enhance the gravy with some mushrooms then.

If, though, you don’t have four people for tea and decide to have a second go, you can have less or no gravy at all …

You could always have some more peas, though.

Whatsoever, I enjoyed it very much. If you want to have a more traditional version of toad in the hole, I guess, you just have to omit the feta.

In case you want to have a vegetarian version, you could omit the bacon and use veggie sausages or use something completely different, but then again, you might get a totally different dish here. So, why then, not cook something completely different.

Burn a Little - Bean and Feta Enchiladas and Steak

You can’t mess with time. Even if you could go back in time to change things you have done in the past, things will most probably end even worse.

What you could do, though, is a trip on memory lane, thinking about the things that you did and that happened and if you are clever enough, you could also learn from your mistakes. Or you could rediscover things you liked to do.

Anyway, today we will have at first some prawns and later something Mexican. After all we want some food. Some time ago, I bought a bag of Panko – Japanese breadcrumbs. I saw a dish on television – Panko Fried Prawns. For a long time I wanted to try it. Now I did.

Together with some chilli sauce it’s a lovely snack.

Side note: Just keep an eye on how much Panko Prawns you have going in the hot oil at the same time. If you use too many, the oil might just … eh … bubble over and spread on your oven top and … who knows what mayhem that might cause there.

Now we can go on with some Mexican food ...

Bean and Feta Enchiladas and Steak

The original idea was to make some vegetarian enchiladas, which indeed happened, but I felt I needed some more food, so I added the steak to the side. While the recipe mainly focuses on the Bean and Feta Enchiladas, I will mention a few things regarding the steak as well.

Ingredients:
Wheat tortillas
Creme fraîche
Chilli Sauce:
A splash of olive oil
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1-3 dried red chillies, finely chopped
400 ml tinned tomatoes
400 ml vegetables stock (or chicken stock for non vegetarian)
1 tbsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. sugar
A splash of red wine vinegar
Enchilada Filling:
A splash of olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
140 g sweet corn
1 red or green capsicum, chopped
250 g kidney beans
Salt, pepper
Bunch of parsley, chopped
200 g feta cheese

Method:
First of all, we need to do our own chilli sauce. Start in a sufficiently sized pan with a splash of olive oil at medium temperature.

Chuck in the garlic and the onion and have them work in the pan until translucent. Then add the chillies, the tinned tomatoes, the vegetable stock, the oregano and the sugar.

Bring it all to the boil and leave to simmer.

Now you have plenty of time to prepare the filling for the enchiladas.

Somehow, we start in a similar way, here – another pan and another splash of olive oil at medium heat. Toss in the onion and … you know … until translucent.

Add the sweet corn, capsicum and kidney beans. Season with salt and pepper and let it all simmer for a while until the vegetables have softened a tiny bit.

Remove the content of the pan to a bowl and let it cool down slightly. Then mix in the parsley and the feta.

Check the chilli sauce. If you where not super fast with the filling, you can remove the sauce from the heat now. If you don’t like all the chunks of onion and tomato in your sauce, you can pass the sauce through a sieve.

Get yourself an oven-proof dish, that will hold at least five enchiladas. Lightly oil it.

Then get yourself a plate. Place a wheat tortilla on it and spoon a bit of the chilli sauce on it. Spread the sauce onto the tortilla. Place a part of the filling on the tortilla, roll it up and place it in the oven-proof dish. Pack those enchiladas all nice and tightly in the dish. When all enchiladas are in the dish, pour over the remaining chilli sauce and transfer the dish to the oven for about 30 minutes at 180 °C.

Meanwhile you could prepare the steak, if you wish to have it.

Have some butter in a pan and cook the steak to your liking in it. Once you have removed the steak from the pan and leave it to rest, you have some pieces of tomato and some stripes of capsicum go into the fat. Season them with salt and pepper.

When everything is finished, you can plate up.

Place the tomatoes and capsicum first, the steak on top of it and some roasted onions on top of that (figure out yourself how to get those onions).

Put one enchilada on the side. You can garnish it with some chopped up parsley and add also a spoon of creme fraîche on the side to mellow the effect of the chilli sauce.

Enjoy!

Of course, I used three dried chillies in the sauce, but I didn’t feel it so much. So, don’t be afraid. While the chilli sauce itself might be quite hot, you won’t feel it so much in the finished product.

Lovely! I enjoyed my meal very much and I reckon and I keep on saying, I need some more Mexican food in my life and ... apart from that hot food will help you to burn and by that I don't just mean that it will burn in your mouth, but it could also aid you in burning off some fat you might not like in your body. I guess it always works for me.

Anyway ... keep enjoying your life and ... we will do the same here!

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 ...

Rice, Spinach, Egg, Feta ... Spanakorizo

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 ...

Quick and Easy Greek Lunch - Strapatsada

I have quite a lot to do and to decide at the moment. Not really an easy job. Every day a little bit more is accomplished. Nevertheless, the show must go on and ... will go on ... as far as it is in my hands. Right now I prefer to cook larger amounts of food so I have some for the days ahead. Otherwise I appreciate quick and easy food as well. As you know, cooking some Greek food is on my list for this month. Therefore, it is only logical to have a quick and easy Greek meal ... or two.
Here is what I came up with today: Strapatsada. It is popular in many regions in Greece. It's really quick and easy to prepare and for sure you have all the ingredients ready with no big fuss about it.

Let's see ... 

Text over Photo or Photo over Text? Onion and Feta Puff Pastry Pie

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?

Tomato and Feta Slice

Did I mention feta cheese lately? I reckon it's about time I do. You can have something lovely to eat by ... eh ... just eating it. Some friends of mine used to eat a slab of it simply with a few onion rings on it and then sprinkled with olive oil. Well, that's not much of cooking, but who cares, if it tastes good. Quick, simple, enjoy!

Anyhow, I'm not just telling you to do just that, but I like to go a step further and add a few more things to the ... eh ... eh ... eh ... dish. I think may brain isn't doing me some good lately.
Whatsoever, here we go:

•  Toast a slice of bread.
• Have some lovely garlicky thick tasty yummy delicious self-made tomato sauce ready. I had some left from my latest pizza adventures. Spread this lovely garlicky tasty yummy delicious self-made tomato sauce on the toasted slice of bread.
• On top of the lovely garlicky tasty yummy delicious self-made tomato sauce on the toasted slice of bread you place a good slab of feta cheese.
• Said and done! It's time to put the slice of toasted bread with lovely garlicky tasty yummy delicious self-made tomato sauce and a slab of feta cheese on top under the grill or into the microwave. You decide how long. We want the feta cheese to start melting. Either just slightly softened or totally running over the bread.
• Get your toasted slice of bread with the lovely garlicky tasty yummy delicious self-made tomato sauce and melted feta cheese on it out, throw a few pieces of onion on it and finish off with a bit of parsley and good olive oil. You might season it with pepper as well, if you want to.
• Then ... we stop this repeating of the lovely garlicky ... stop! Enjoy your feta!

I hope you do!

Somehow over the past few weeks a few things ... photos and dishes have been piling up. There were a few things I wanted to write about, but simply haven't managed yet. There is always a lot going on in my head ...
Another thing was this cookbook cooking thing. I had this voting going on at my Facebook page. There wasn't really too much participation. Maybe it's too hard to find now or it is simply too boring. I don't know.
Anyway, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I narrowed the book thingy down to three books. I'm planning now on getting them. Do you have any experiences with one of these?

• Tasting India - Christine Manfield
• Bill's Sydney Food - Bill Granger
• Jerusalem - Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi

I have to get things rolling before something rolls over me. I'm having this strange feeling each time I pass the place were I had the ugly accident about 11 years ago.
It seems to me I'm getting into this distracted mode again.
There is yet another thing. When I started out this blog I had in mind cooking something African I got to eat when visiting some refugees around here a  few years ago. Have to do this soon.
Besides that, I wanted to cook a dish from my favourite TV series, which you most probably will never guess. But then again, you never know.
You see, there is still plenty to do. Sadly, though, you might be familiar with the gap (mind the gap) between knowing something and doing something. I reckon you will know, when I managed to do just that.
On the road there will always be feta and some lovely garlicky tasty yummy delicious self-made tomato sauce ...

The Musings of Lord Feta ... Quick Bread'n'Tomato'n'Feta-Bake

Usually I do write down things here that come to my mind. So I want to do today ...
...
... well ...
...
... anything?
...
... hm?
... 
.... there ought to be something!
..... not just dots!
......
oh ...
... really?
...
... you see sometimes things are quite tough.
...
... but wait! I'm getting a signal ... finally!
By now we have enough dots to fill a normal blog post. Anyway, I never claimed to be normal. I didn't claim the title 'Captain Fitness', either ... at least not in the beginning. In fact I embraced it for a while.
Then there was the title 'Lord Excel' bestowed upon me at my place of work. I rather not embrace that one. But it seems to help the others to give all the extremely thinking and developing kind of work to me.
Here then come a title I would really like to embrace - totally from the heart - 'Lord Feta'. You can check my blog as to the usage of feta or even other cheese and you may find out that it plays a prominent role around here.
So once more we grab some of it and go for it ...

Let's say make it quick and painful ... eh ... painless.
You know the important questions to ask? Who? When? What? How? Why?
Today, we are trying to get answers.

Who is going to do it?
So, if you like this recipe, I hope YOU are going to try it.

When are you going to do it?
Basically it would be YOU to answer, but let's agree on: whenever you feel like to doing it.


What do we need?
A few slices of white bread cut into kind of cubes
As many tomatoes as you would like to go with it: 200 g maybe, cut into pieces
2 to whatever you feel you need amount of cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
I would say, at least 200 g of feta cheese, cut into cubes
A small bunch of parsley, chopped
Pepper at own will
Olive oil

How do we go about?
Since everything is cut already into small or not so small pieces, because you faithfully stuck to the list of ingredients, we can right away put the bread into an oven-proof dish. I decided to use the one I got from the point farthest to the west of Cornwall.
Then arrange the tomatoes pieces somehow between the bread. Add the chopped garlic and onion and ... why not the parsley as well.
Don't forget to also put the feta in. Then everything might look like this.

Oh, that looks fresh. Maybe we don't bother with the rest and eat it as it is. Or ... we add a splash of olive oil.

Hm, fine! Then we just do as I originally planned to and put it into the oven for 30-40 minutes at 180°C and let heat do it's work.
When it comes out of the oven you can - that is if you want to - sprinkle some more olive oil over it and then eat it right away without burning your mouth.

Why am I so crazy?
That now is the final question remaining. 'Why?' is a very important question. So many things happen to us in life and we ask 'Why?' Often we get no answer, at least no satisfying one. Maybe we need to dig deeper, to exert ourselves to get the answer. What about asking the right people?
Whatsoever: smiling or laughing is a lot better then crying all the time! Don't you agree?
Some things can not be changed, so why bother ... (some more dots to finish things ...)

Going Greek? What about some delicious Moussaka

καλημέρα! How is your Greek? Mine is no better then everyone else's. For sure you can be sure (sure?) that everyone speaks a bit of Greek, since you find it everywhere. Just one example, or maybe two. The expression 'philosophy' comes from Greek words meaning 'the love of knowledge' (or similar). You remember Socrates? He said: "I know that I know nothing!" I'm still wondering, though, how he could new that. 
Anyway, wrong subject. Then there are terms like 'democracy', 'biology' and most probably we could go on and on and on and on ... but we don't want to.
At least I can eat Greek food and that is what matter now. So why not have some then?!
I can offer you some moussaka kind of dish today. 

What follows now, is moussaka the way that came to  my nind, when I was longing for some food using aubergines.


Ingredients: 
Olive oil
400 g minced meat (beef/pork)
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
2 medium sized aubergines, in slices
400 g plum tomatoes or tinned tomatoes 
200 ml water
200 g Kritharaki (Greek rice noodles)
150 g yogurt
1 egg
250 g feta cheese
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Let's say, we begin by slightly frying the onions in the olive oil. How about that?
We go on by adding the meat and, well, eh, yes, give it the appropriate colour, as you may have guessed already.
Then we add the tinned tomatoes with some extra water, let things boil and then simmer for a while, as we finely season it with salt and pepper. Plan about 30 minutes for the simmering.
Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix the yogurt, the egg, the feta cheese and the finely chopped garlic. Season with salt and pepper as well. 
Have your oven-proof dish ready and grease it with a little bit of olive oil and then put in one layer of aubergine slices. On top of this simply bour your Kritharaki.

Then follows a tomato meat layer. In fact, just put on all of it. Go for another aubergine layer and then finish it off with the yogurt-cheese mix.

Have it in the pre-heated oven at 200°C for 45 minutes.
Then plate it up and ... enjoy this moussaka kind of dish ... Καλή όρεξη!

However, before I leave, I like to link things up a bit.
Since I found those Kritharakin in my pantry, this goes to the December Pantry Party at The Law Student's Cookbook. 

A Good Start of the Day with Shakshouka

While browsing through blogger world, I found a post about a visit in Melbourne In it a certain dish was mentioned and shown: Shakshouka. I had never heard of it before, but it sounded and looked so lovely that it made me want to try it.

While I would have even loved to eat it at the same place and travelling to Melbourne, I had to pass this time. As for now this is out of reach. Impossible as well would be finding a place that has it on the menu.

Therefore once more, it is time for action on my part, trying to do it myself.

Although you get some information from the description and the photo, some more research is necessary.

The belief is that Shakshouka originates from Tunisia. Further research revealed what usually goes in it and how it can be prepared. 

Now a tiny bit adjustment to my possibilities and circumstances and we are ready for action.

Ingredients as I used them:

1 splash of olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 yellow pepper, cut into small pieces

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

250 g tomatoes, sliced into small bits

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 tbs tomato paste

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander seeds, freshly ground

salt and pepper according to taste

3 eggs

100 g feta cheese (I used one that was seasoned with garlic and chilli)

a few leaves of basil (more authentic would be flat-leaved parsley)

How I went about:

Heat up the oil in your pan and gently fry your onions until soft, but not browned.

Then add the yellow pepper and red chilli and cook for about 8 minutes. I already like the looks of it with the bright yellow colour.

After that put in the tomatoes, the garlic and the tomato paste. Season with cumin and coriander ... and salt and pepper as you like.

Let things work together for a couple of minutes more.

Now you can move the vegetables around a bit, so you get three free spaces or holes. There you put an egg each. Scatter the feta cheese all over the pan.

Cover the pan and leave for five minutes until the eggs have started to set. If you do everything right, the egg yolks will still be runny.

Once this is done, sprinkle the basil (or parsley) leaves over it.

When everything is finished, get yourself some crispy bread and dig in!

If you haven't tried it yet, I can only recommend Shakshouka. Just think about it: can a day start any better than having this for breakfast?

Non-rhyming Chorizo Pasta Salad with Courgette and Tomatoes

What rhymes on Chorizo? I don't have a clue!
Yes, I could think hard about it, but I'm not the rhyming type. Good, fine, if you insist. I have a try:

Do you love a good chorizo?
Why not have it with tomato!

You see what I meant? Then let us rather cook with chorizo. Many moons ago, while I was on ... better not tell you ... well, I watched television and they were doing these pasta salads, looking for the best one. Somehow I roughly memorized how to do it.
Nevertheless, this one is going to be a bit different, for courgette wasn't on the list back then with this pasta salad and above that, I don't claim that the following is the best one, but I like it.

Anyway, if you have a peek below at the ingredients, you'll see chorizo and feta. Since I love those, the result must be something, I thoroughly enjoy. Let's go for it!

What to put in:

400 g of pasta (what about fussilli)

100 g Chorizo

Half a medium sized courgette or one small

A few cherry tomatoes

Olive oil
Sherry vinegar

100 g feta cheese

Salt

Pepper

One shallot

A few leaves of mint (if appreciated)

How you maybe achieve it:

Cook the pasta according to the instructions of the packaging, rinsing it afterwards with cold water.
Heat up a splash of olive oil in a pan and add the chorizo, which you have cut into small pieces beforehand according to your own personal desire.
Cut the tomatoes into eight pieces each and put them in a sieve. Salt them with a lot of salt. This should bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes and make some of the water from the tomatoes to be removed (or something like that).
When the chorizo pieces have gotten crispy, transfer them to a paper towel and pat them a bit dry. Afterwards put the pieces to a bowl.
In the same pan, where the chorizo pieces where just a moment before, put in the courgette, which, once again, have cut into pieces (or sliced?). Hm, I have cut it in the same way as the chorizo. I don't know, how you want it. Thin slices might be cool as well. Whatsoever you decide to do, fry the courgette and ... have a guess ... transfer them from the pan to a paper towel to ... yep ... get rid of some of the fat.
As to the feta, I suggest to cut it into small cubes ... not tiny ... small.
Let me just think for a moment ...
... Now you can put everything together. Season with as much pepper as you need (be careful, when you take too much, no one might like to eat it anymore). Drizzle over some olive oil and sherry vinegar and mix through gently (whatever that is). Garnish with some mint leaves. Then you can eat it, share it, put it in the fridge and eat another day, or ... you know what to do!

You could throw into the conversation the point that we already had some courgette a few days ago. Yes! I had it every single day ... leftover Rosemary and Courgette Quiche and ... I tried a recipe from the book Two Greedy Italians eat Italy. It is called zucchini e pomodori al forno and looked like this ...

Apart from that, I still have some courgette left. So what else is on the menu? Time will tell. Or what is your favourite courgette recipe?

Wrap it ... if you can - Lebanese Tomato and Feta Wrap with Harissa

I'm home again after work - home sweet home - whatever! I'm hungry. Somehow I'm not so much in the mood for proper cooking - whatever!
This week I went again to my favourite Turkish shop to get some red chillies. While there I grab some Lebanese flat breads as well. I could do for a while - maybe five or ten minutes - with just eating the plain breads with nothing added at all. After that, though, it gets boring and something with more flavour would be nice.
By the way I'm not so much focused at the moment. So preparing food can end in just throwing some things together. For lunch I just whipped up the ingredients I would use in a nice Phở, but ... without stock - I used chilli sauce instead.

Back now to the Lebanese flat bread. I like to have a wrap with it. Therefore I just take one of those breads and spread some harissa on it. I got it from that same aforementioned shop. Harissa is a seasoning paste containing cumin, coriander seeds, garlic, salt, olive and most importantly chillies. So we be generous. We want it to burn. It helps sometimes burning your sorrows away. At least you have something else to worry about.

Just throw in some erratically sliced tomatoes and some feta cheese. If you feel like having more seasoning, why not try some oregano or thyme or even some more garlic or ... that is if you are a totally crazy weirdo ... add some more chilli (I didn't do it - that means there is still a bit of hope). You might even drizzle some lemon or lime over it.

Now wrap the whole thing - if you can. I succeeded only the first try, the second one unwrapped itself again. Whatsoever, it tasted acceptably and I might even recommend to have a go at it, that is if you like the above mentioned ingredients.
If you want to be on the safe side, you can serve it with some yogurt on the side.
What else is going on? I bought an avocado as I said I would. Now initiated the process of growing an avocado tree.

However, the avocado is not just for having an avocado tree. Of course, it is also for eating. But what? Leafing through my cookbooks didn't bring any satisfying results and I didn't want to make guacamole again. After all my Lebanese wrap was satisfied with harissa already.
Then I remembered the Vietnamese Supper club with Uyen for the food revolution day this year. I had some avocado sorbet there. A recipe you can find on Uyen's blog.
Again we have a minor obstacle, not having the stated coconut juice at hand. No worries, we find a substitute.

I'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out whether it worked. I  will go to the freezer and beat it once more before I retire to bed. Somehow I'm a bit lacking of sleep. Last night it was only about four hours of sleep. I hope I don't have too many more 'sleepless' nights!