Apples and Marzipan once more ... Stuffed!

These days it can be a bit hard to do things. Somehow my motivation is somewhere else. Maybe it was tired of winter and went South to a place with a more temperate climate. I wouldn't mind joining myself, but somehow I have to stay due to ... a lack of motivation. Oh, that sounds like a vicious circle.
Yesterday I had set my mind on braking the circle. I wanted to do some extended and lovely cooking. Therefore I went shopping and came home with five items, of which I needed two already anyway. To me that sounds already like ... eh ... not working. Rightly so, no special and tasty cooking.
However, I don't want to leave you with nothing.
A few days ago I brought you a chicken soup with apple compote in it. Now I bring you back the apples (not the same as in that apple compote). Last year I posted about an apple cake with marzipan in it. Today, I bring back the marzipan (also not the same one as in that cake).
The marzipan goes into the apples. How? We shall see ...

Ingredients:
3 apples
3 tsp apricot jam
about 50-100 g marzipan, depending on the size of the apples
2 walnuts, if you are good at opening them flawlessly
Splash of amaretto
A wee bit of brown sugar

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180 °C. Mine has a speed heating function, so I could do that later as well, after preparing the apples.
Here we go then. We start by coring those apples. I start with a knife and then go in with a spoon to scoop things out. Said and done!
Give one tsp of apricot jam into each apple. 

After that you fill the apples with the marzipan to the brim making sure the apricot jam doesn't come out again whilst pushing in the marzipan.
If you have whole walnuts it would be time to crack them open. If you are good at it you get three undamaged halves of walnut easily. Otherwise, you just eat the not so nice looking parts. Should you manage flawlessly, you get only one excess part for eating right away. On the other hand you could also use pre-opened walnuts and ...
Whatever, push a half walnut into the marzipan in each apple.
Pour a splash of amaretto over each apple and then sprinkle a wee bit of brown sugar over the apples.

Finally add a little bit of water to the bowl and transfer it for about 35 minutes to the oven.
I hope you enjoy them afterwards for pudding.
I guess then, as far as I am concerned, the apple season is over for me. I also tried to bake some apple cookies, but they were not that spectacular.
What do I do know? I'm not sure. Maybe relax a bit, go to bed ... it doesn't matter, I'm not overly motivated ...

Quick, simple Walnut Pesto Omelette

What a beautiful day! The sun is shining already since I got up and there is no sign of it being over soon. It might even get that far we are having more sun in two days then in two months.
Everywhere you see buds on the trees and the bushes. Somewhere, flowers are making there way up out of the soil. Will winter now be over? Have we made it?
I don't know!
The thing I know is, that my pot of basil didn't make it. Already was it knocking on death's door and it was only a matter of time until it would make it's final decline. Would it be a time to mourn?
There would be other causes for just that. However, in a last attempt to make itself useful, the basil made it's last stand to join in a quick and simple meal.

That is just so, because I read somewhere a blog title with 'walnut pesto' in it.

Ingredients:
2 hand full of basil leaves
6-8 walnuts
A hand full of grated parmesan
Olive oil
Salt, Pepper
3 eggs
Butter
Serrano ham (I promised you)

Method:
Good if you have a mortar. Get you basil leaves in it and start bashing them until it gets all juicy and mushy. Add the walnuts (without shells) and continue bashing. 
Then put it together with the grated parmesan and season with salt and pepper. Pour in just enough olive oil to bring it all together. It doesn't need to be runny, unless you want it to, of course.
Get your eggs ready. Crack them into a bowl. Carefully season with salt and pepper and give them a quick whisk.
Next we need a medium sized pan or a large one, if you don't have a medium sized one just like me. Bring the pan on high heat. Rub the bottom of the pan with butter.
When the pan is sufficiently heated up, pour in the eggs. Make sure they are well distributed throughout the pan. Let the heat do it's work. That shouldn't be too long. Once the omelette takes shape, that is, you can see it is getting firmer towards the top side.
Smear on the walnut pesto all over the omelette. Wait a tiny bit before you place the serrano slices on top. Now we are as good as finished. When you see, that all the egg is as good as firm, transfer the omelette to a plate and ...

... you know what you have to do. That would be a perfect meal for weeknights. in fact that is what it was in my case. I came home from work ... it was late ... I was kind of frustrated ... I didn't want to do anything and ... then I saw the basil. The rest of the story you know.

Anti-Rabbit Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing

"Hey, are you eating again the food of the rabbit?!" "Poor rabbit, you are eating up all it's food!"
Did you hear a comment like this before, while enjoying a portion of salad?
From time to time I'm getting such comments.
What can we say about this? A lot!
My rabbit like some good fresh green salad leaves. Carrots it appreciates as well. She even gladly goes for some herbs. Well, some days I gave her some Thai basil and ... she absolutely devoured it.
Well, it's true then! Are you eating up the food of the rabbit?

Not exactly! A good salad is more than just a few green leaves of salad.

A keen observer might see a few things in that salad a rabbit for sure would not appreciate at all.

Let us though go a bit into detail with preparing our Anti-Rabbit Salad. That way, the rabbit for sure would never like it, but I hope you do.

Ingredients (amounts according to taste):
Rocket
Tomatoes, according to size halved, quartered or even further
Physalis, halved
Gorgonzola, in big chunks
Walnuts ... obviously without shell, broken into smaller pieces

Honey Mustard Dressing:
Balsamic vinegar or lemon juice
3 x as much olive oil
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp honey
Salt and pepper according to taste

Method:
Put the ingredients for the dressing into a dressing shaker (old, empty and clean jam jar) and give it a good shake to bring all the ingredients together.
Put the rocket, tomatoes, physalis and the walnuts in a bowl. Pour over the dressing and mix it through carefully.
The gorgonzola I reserve for the finish in order that it doesn't fall further into smaller pieces because I like big fat chunks of it to get the full blast of the cheese flavour.

Well, a good salad isn't just a few green leaves. You have different flavours: bitter, sweet, sour, peppery, and have different textures: soft, crunchy and so forth.
This time I thought, the physalis would look nice in  the salad and taste nice as well. I have never seen them before in salads or even thought about using them that way, but ... hey, why not! Just use your imagination ...

So, I hope you enjoyed this Anti-Rabbit Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing. 
What is your favourite combination when it comes to salads?

French baking - bâtard with red wine and walnuts

The bread baking spree goes on. Or shall I say, time for exercise. Considering the amount of kneading necessary you don't need to go the gym. Well, at the moment I have to, it's prescribed from the doctor. However, I would say: "Baking a bread a day, keeps the gym away!"

Coming back to the baking itself, though, now it's time to use red wine for the bread. Also with this run I reduced the amount of liquid used, that is just 200 ml - half water and half red wine. The result looked nice to me. In the first step the walnuts come to the dough when it starts looking like a dough. The recipe said to use 300 g of walnuts, but I just used the amount I had left at home. To be honest, I would have had a lot of more walnuts at home, even more then 300 g. The only problem, they are all whole nuts, so cracking them open and all the work ... I was a bit too lazy for that today. I can live with it.

Finished product

Again, I used cling film to cover the rising dough, but this time I oiled it lightly as I learned it from the Cardamom Twists from Scandilicious. You see, bit by bit you can learn things and improve.

As you can see on the picture (hopefully you see it), the crust looks quite nice. Today I was not so shy with the knife and cut a bit deeper into the dough before baking.

the first cut is the deepest (I think I remember hearing something like that)

So, if you don't see the crust being crispy on the first picture, you can trust me that it is/was. It worked out really good. The bread tastes really nice. When you cut it open, it looks a bit pinkish - lovely.

If you are not so much into baking your own bread, honestly, you should have a go. This would maybe also a good idea for Food Revolution Day on May 19th: learning, how to bake your own bread.

When you buy your bread in the supermarket you don't know what really is in there. If you always buy your bread at the bakery you cannot be sure with every baker, or it maybe is a bit more costly. Whatsoever, if you do your own bread, you know what is in there, you can have a greater variety, you can have fun, and (look above) you can have exercise for free and don't have to go the gym.