Quicker than a Crumble!!!!

Today, I'll present you a desert idea that I came up with by looking at what I had in my fridge. Not only is it very simple, but it is also delicious!
Ingredients:
- a commercial or already made sweet short crust pastry (this is usually used as a base for pies)
- 400g of berry fruits (these are ideally fresh, but if you have frozen one they will do.
- sugar

Preparation:
1. Mix your fresh or now de-frozen berries with a bit of sugar (depending on your taste, you can add no sugar at all if you want to)
2. Disperse the fruits in different little bowls that go in the oven.
3. Cut pieces of the sweet short crust pastry that are the size of the top of your bowls. Place the pieces on the top of the fruits on the bowls.
4. If your short crust pastry is not sweet, you can also top it with a bit of sugar.
5. Heat the oven at 180°C.
6. Place the bowls in the oven and let it cook for 30 minutes.

Opinion: I think this is a good recipe when you need to quickly do a desert. It is rather simple to do and therefore is a very simple desert in terms of flavors. However, it is a desert that would easily be improved with a bit of imagination and creativity. Additional ingredients could increase the complexity of the taste of this desert.
I Cook For...: Friends or family. Due to its simplicity this desert is not necessarily appropriate for quality guests, except if improved or served with additional elements.

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

Prawn Risotto

Today I have tried a new type of risotto: A prawn risotto!!

Ingredients:
- 350 of risotto rice
- 25g of butter
- 1 onion
- 30cl of dry white wine
- 1 liter of broth of poultry
- 3 tablespoons of mascarpone (you can replace it by fresh creme)
- 20 prawns (can be replaced by gambas but not as ideal)
- olive oil
- 30g of parmesan
- 1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder (if using gambas)
- 1 teaspoon of curry powder (if using gambas)
- salt and pepper


Preparation:
1. If you are using gambas, you are going to make a marinade with the ginger, curry and a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, in which you will put the gambas and let them 30 minutes to an hour in the fridge. However, if you are using nice prawns, the marinade is really not necessary and would 'waste' a bit the already fine taste of the prawns, which are already delicious to eat plain.
2. To the boiling broth of poultry, add the heads and tails of the prawns, as well as 10 cl of the dry white wine. Reduce the fire a bit.
3. For the risotto, in a different pan, mince the onion and sweat it with the butter.
4. Add the rice and let it cook slowly for 2 minutes.
5. Add the rest of the wine and let it cook until all the liquide has evaporated completely.
6. Then, add a laddle of broth (that you have sieved to take out the prawn heads and tails). Let the liquid evaporate once again, and add ladle by ladle of broth until the rice is cooked (the rice must be creamy but slightly firm at places).
7. When you believe that your rice is cooked, add little pieces of parmesan that you will let melt as well as the mascarpone.
7. Fry the prawns in a touch of olive oil (prawns cook very quickly).
8. Serve the rice and top with the prawns.
VOILA! :)

Tips: To sweat an onion, means to cook it in a pan with a bit of oil or butter without coloring it. The onion has to be cooked at a very low heat, it has to be stired from times to times, and the pan has to be covered.
Opinion: I really like this recipe, especially with prawns. It is better if the prawns are large because they will not break in peaces when you peel off their shells.
I Cook For...: Friends or guests!! The only thing about this recipe is that the risotto has to be served as soon as it is ready, therefore if you have guest you will not be able to really be with them when you are making the risotto. On the other hand, the risotto rice cooks rather fast so it is not necessary a problem.

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

LEAVE YOUR RECIPES!

Hey everyone!

I was thinking that I would be very interested in trying some of YOUR recipes!!
So please leave your recipes in the comments or even link me your cooking blogs so I can check them out and maybe add them to my list of links to different cooking blogs! :)

Thanks in advance, and have a great day!

Julie M.

Risotto Cherry Tomatoes, Paprika, and Parmesan

Ingredients:
- 1 onion
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 300g of Arborio rice specific for risotto
- 10cl of dry white wine
- 1 liter of broth of poultry
- 1/2 teaspoon of paprika
- 1/2 a bunch of parsley
- 250g of cherry tomatoes
- 5cl of fresh cream
- 75g of grated Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper


Preparation:
1. Peel and mince the onion
2. In a pan, let it melt with the olive oil.
3. Add the rice and let it cook for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add the wine, and let it boil until it is entirely evaporated.
5. Add a ladle of broth and let it cook again until the liquid is once more evaporated, continue to do so with the rest of the broth.
6. Add the paprika, minced parsley and minced cherry tomatoes.
7. In the end, the risotto must be rather creamy.
8. Add the cream, the Parmesan, as well as salt and pepper according to your taste.

YOU HAVE YOUR RISOTTO!!!

Tips: Make sure you try the rice before putting each new ladle of broth, to avoid overcooking the rice. Also, the risotto is a dish that should be eaten in fairly small quantities, to not put too much on each plate, rather let people take more if they wish to.
Opinion: This risotto is very nice and doesn't require too much preparation since the base product is the tomato. Personally, I like prawn risottos better, but this recipe is still very nice!
I Cook For...: Friends, guests, family...but maybe not for your diet.

As always, don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions! :)

Madeleine

A typical French sweet is of course the Madeleines. These little cakes come from the Loraine region of France.
They are easy to make and can be cooked in a small amount of time!

Ingredients:
- 100g of butter
- 125g of sugar
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 4 eggs
- 125g of flower
- salt

Preparation:
1. melt the butter in a sauce pan (I use the microwave when I don't have much time. If you do so, do it only right before adding it to the mixture).
2. In a bowl, put the lemon juice, add a pinch of salt, and add 3 eggs and the yolk of the 4th one only.
3. Mix well to avoid lumps.
4. Add the flower slowly why stirring the mixture.
5. (Melt the butter now if you decided to use the microwave) and add the melted butter.
6. Butter the Madeleine pans. Put the paste in the pans. Put the oven at 220°C and cook for 10 minutes.

Variation: You can add 40g of melted cooking chocolate if you want chocolate Madeleine.

Tips: The Madeleines can accompany a light desert such as an ice cream or cottage cheese with fruit coulis.

Opinion: This is a nice recipe that doesn't require any specific knowledge in cooking to realize. However, do be able to made real Madeleines, you need the Madeleines pan. You can make them in other little individual pans, only what makes a Madeleines is often its shape.

I Cook For...: A birthday, a party, tea or coffee with friends, myself, family, when I don't have too much time.
by M&J

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

Spicy-Sweet Sauce to Accompany your Meat

This is a spicy and sweet sauce that goes very well with chicken and other kinds of meat.

Ingredients:
- 1 onion
- 1 shallot
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 table spoons of honey
- 8 table spoons of ketchup
- 2 table spoons of cider vinegar
- 3 table spoons of peanut oil
- a few drops of Worcestershire sauce
- a few drops of Tabasco
- salt
- pepper

Preparation:
1. Peel the onion, the shallot, and the garlic clove, and mince them.
2. Take a sauce pan and put the 3 tablespoons of the peanut oil with the minced onion, shallot, and garlic to cook slowly.
3. Add the vinegar and 15cl of boiling water, and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Add the ketchup and the honey, mix, and let the sauce boil for 5 minutes.
5. Stop the heat and add to Worcestershire, the Tabasco, the salt, and the pepper.

Your sauce is ready!!
Tips: This sauce on your meat is great when served with sticky rice!!
Opinion: This combination of honey and ketchup..etc, is rather surprising but in the end, really good!
I Cook For...: Family, guests, friends, yourself! This sauce is really nice, especially for people who like sweet sour tastes.

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

Curried Mussels

Mussels are really quite famous where I am from in Brittany. Because it is near the sea, but also because they are delicious and super easy to prepare!

Here is my curried mussels recipe!

Ingredients:
- 2 kg of mussels
- 2 shallots (can be replaced with ognions)
- 20 g of butter (because as you know, French people are known to LOVE butter)
- 10 cl of dry white wine
- 10 cl of liquid fresh cream
- 1 table spoon of powder curry (you can put more if you like spicy dishes)
- 2 table spoon of minced parsley
- some pepper


Preparation:
1. Clean the mussels well, to avoid eating sand and algae.
2. Peel and mince shallots.
3. In a large and fairly high pan, put the shallots and butter and let it melt for about 5 minutes over low heat.
4. Add the mussels.
5. Increase the heat, add some pepper and the whine. Cover the pan and let it cook until the mussels start opening.
6. Add the cream and the curry and let cook for 3 more minutes.

Tips: Mussels are usually served with French fries!
Opinion: This recipe was delicious and super light!
I Cook For...: Family, friends, guests, anyone really. The only thing is that it cannot really be eaten with forks and knives (so maybe not fancy guests). The little plus is that mussels are poor in calories, but a great source of proteins. So I cook for my diet? Definitely!

Bon Appetit!!!

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

Easy-Improvised Pasta!

This is a recipe that was improvised by a friend, and I found it super simple and delicious for when I don't have much time to cook!
This recipe is perfect for anybody due to its simplicity!

Ingredients:
- Spinach flavored Pasta
- Tomatoes
- Parmesan

Preparation:
1. Cook the Spinach flavored pasta (in water with salt and a bit of olive oil so it doesn't stick)
2. cut the tomatoes in medium pieces.
3. use a peeler kind of knife to make thin strips of Parmesan
4. To prepare the plate, put the pasta and top them with a bit of Parmesan strips and tomatoes!

Tips: To know how much pasta to cook, you can usually count 100 grams per person.
Opinion: This recipe is not only super easy, but also delicious, and light!! Plus, it looks beautiful and colorful in the plate.
I Cook For...: when I don't have much time to cook, when I want my children to eat vegetables, when I want to eat light but don't want to be hungry in the middle of the afternoon or the night. Also, I can cook this for friends or family. This recipe can even be elaborated a bit, with spices or a sauce and meat and be cooked for guests.

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

5 Reasons to Eat Peaches and Nectarines

Peaches and Nectarines are...
1. A great source of potassium
2. Deliciously sweet
3. Rich in vitamins A and C
4. Very easily digested
5. Fruits which have a sort of almond situated within the core, which has the ability to flavor a jam during the cooking stage.

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

Tip of the Day: What to do with fruits that are too ripe?

If you have fruits that you feel are too ripe to eat, make jam or marmalade!! It's super easy.
Yesterday I had about 6 apricots that were much too ripe to eat.
In the evening I took out the seeds, put them in a small saucepan with a bit of sugar. You can put more or less sugar depending on what you want, the usual amount is as much grams of fruits as grams of sugar, but I put much less most of the time. You need to cook the fruits and the sugar (and lemon juice if you want to) very fast at first, and then much slower for a fair amount of time when the mixture start to stick to the pan. You then put the mixture in a jar when you think it is cooked enough for you. The then jar goes in the fridge.
AND this morning...(drum roll) I had jam ready for breakfast!!

 




You can then eat it with bread, or bread and butter. But you can of course eat it in many other ways, such as with a nice plain yogurt or cottage cheese.

Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!

Tiramisu!

Today I decided to make a real Italian Tiramisu! The word 'tiramisu' means 'pick me up' in Italian. I've always wanted to believe that this has something to do with the deliciously smooth texture of this dessert that makes you feel as if you were flying maybe. But it seems that the real sense of the expression is much less sophisticated as it is simply a reference to the idea dessert itself talking and saying "eat me...pick me up and eat me!". Anyways, I've only made this dessert once in my life so I don't yet have a favorite recipe, but today I'm going to try the recipe below for you!
WARNING: This recipe has to be prepared 6 hours before being served.

So here is the recipe I am going to test AND taste for you! (4-6 people)
Ingredients:
- 3 large eggs
- 100g of brown sugar
- 1 packet of vanilla sugar
- 250g of mascarpone
- 25 to 30 ladyfingers
- half a liter of unsweetened black coffee
- 30g of unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 table-spoon of Amaretto (optional)


Preparation:
1. Separate the white and yolks of the eggs.
2. Mix the yolks with all of the brown sugar and the vanilla sugar.
3. Add the mascarpone to it and whisk together (also add the Amaretto if wanted).
4. In a different container, beat the egg whites, and gently stir them with a spatula to the above mixture.
5. Make the coffee and wet the ladyfingers in it. As you go, fill the bottom of a dish with the wet ladyfingers.
6. Cover the ladyfingers layer with a layer of paste that you have previously made.
7. Continue to fill the dish with alternate layers of wet ladyfingers and paste but make sure to finish with a layer of paste.
8. Sprinkle the dessert with cocoa powder and keep in the fridge for 5 to 6 hours before eating.


Variations:  If you find the unsweetened cocoa too strong, you could replace it with sweet cocoa such Nesquick powder, or even create a mix of sweetened and unsweetened powder.
If you don't like coffee, the same kind of techniques could apply in making a different kind of tiramisu such as a red fruits tiramisu.
I'll now go bake it, and run back for the results!! I kind of feel like a scientist doing an experiment actually!

VOILA!!

Tips:

- The tiramisu should be made with rather fresh eggs. It can thus only be kept for 24 hours as the eggs are raw. To verify if your eggs are fresh, you can plunge them in salt water: if they sink completely, they are fresh, if they float completely, the eggs are rotten. If the eggs stand vertically, they are fresh enough but not extra fresh.

- To make it easier to beat the egg whites, add a bit of salt to the egg whites. You can then use an electric whisk to beat the egg whites, or you can do it by hand, what I did today (it is, by the way, rather tiring).

Opinion:  This recipe is, in my opinion, delicious. It is very sweet and very soft. I however think that I should have wet the ladyfingers even more in the coffee as they were a bit too dry still when I ate it. Also, a negative point about this recipe is that it is not extremely presentable. You do not end up with a perfectly regular tiramisu like would be served in a restaurant.

I Cook For...: Family and friends, but maybe not at a fancy dinner due to the lack of aesthetic. I cook for fun though, definitely. Wetting the ladyfingers in the coffee was definitely entertaining!

Hope you like it! Don't hesitate to leave comments, feedback and questions!! :)