Posts from — November 2007

Ingredients for two

• 10 carrots
• 4 parsley roots
• 1 small celery root
• 2 apples
• 200 g. of mayonnaise
• salt, pepper

Preparation:

1. Grate all the vegetables and the apples on the medium side of the grater.
2. Dry them by wrapping them in a clean towel and pressing gently.
3. Mix them up with the mayonnaise, the salt and the pepper.

Serve after refrigerating for 10 minutes. For fancy dinners, put the salad in small bowls, cover the surface with a thin layer of mayonnaise and decorate with pieces of olives, red peppers and parsley.

Ingredients for two:

• ½ kg. of green beans
• 250 g. of mushrooms
• 300 g. of mayonnaise
• salt, pepper

Procedure:

Boil the beans; leave them to chill up and cut them small.
Fry the mushrooms; leave them to chill up and cut them small.
Mix up the beans with the mushrooms, the mayonnaise, the salt and the pepper.

Refrigerate for about 10 minutes before serving. It is suitable as a cold appetizer.

Suggestion for serving: make some small garlic toast (you can slice a baguette), put on each slice of toast a teaspoon of salad, arrange them nicely on a plate, and decorate with a small cube of red pepper or some parsley.

Important tip from the chef: make sure the mushrooms and the beans are cold when you mix them with the mayonnaise, otherwise you may have the surprise that the mayonnaise becomes watery.

Ingredients for two:

• ½ kg. of potatoes
• 4 eggs
• 2 onions
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 cucumber
• 1 mild pepper
• 200 g. of bacon
• 100 g. of olives
• garlic sauce
• salt, pepper

Preparation:

1. Cut the potatoes in small cubes and boil them for about 15 min. Leave them to chill up.
2. Boil the eggs for 5 min. When they are cold, cut them in small pieces.
3. Cut the vegetables and the bacon in cubes.
4. Mix up all the ingredients and add salt, pepper, and garlic sauce.

You can skip the bacon in case you are vegetarian.

Ingredients for two:

• 500 g. of chicken breast
• 5 endives
• 100 g of red bell pepper
• 3 potatoes
• 200 g. of mayonnaise
• 1 lemon
• salt, pepper

Cooking procedure:

1. Boil separately the chicken breast and the potatoes. After that, leave them to chill up and cut them small.
2. Add the salt and the pepper.
3. Cut the endives and the bell peppers in small pieces, salt them and pour the lemon juice on top. Leave it like this for one hour.
4. Mix up all the ingredients.

Refrigerate for minimum 20 minutes before serving

Ingredients for two

• 6 red bell peppers
• salty cow cheese
• 100 g. of sour cream
• dill

Preparation:

1. Empty the bell peppers without cutting them.
2. Cut the dill very small.
3. Grate the cheese.
4. Mix up the cheese with the dill and the sour cream.
5. Fill up the bell peppers with the composition.

If you have some fancy guests invited for dinner, you can decorate the bell peppers with small parsley leaves.

Ingredients for two persons

• 2 eggplants
• 3 red bell peppers
• 1 vegetable marrow
• 4 bouquets from the cauliflower
• 2 onions
• 300 g of green beans
• 500 g of tomatoes
• 300 g of peas
• 2 carrots
• 250 g of potatoes
• parsley
• 1 garlic
• dill
• olive oil
• salt, pepper

How to cook it:

1. Cut all the vegetables, except from the parsley and the dill, in medium cubes. Add salt and pepper.
2. Fry them in olive oil, at medium temperature, for 10 min. Stir.
3. Add 100 g. of hot water.
4. Put the pot in the oven, at medium temperature, for 30 min.
5. Add the parsley and the dill, cut very small.

Serve hot. In case you don’t want to fry the veggies and you have more time to spare for cooking, you can try a vegetarian lasagna based on the same ingredients, plus the lasagna typical ones. You’ll see how delicious a vegetarian’s life can be.

Ingredients for two big portions

• 6 peppers
• 2 vegetable marrows
• 4 tomatoes
• 2 big onions
• 500 g of pork and cow minced meat
• 100 g of rice
• 1 onion
• 50 g of flour
• vegetable oil
• tomato sauce
• salt, pepper

How to cook it:

1. Fry the rice, at small temperature, for 5 min. Add 2 spoons with water after the first min. Leave it to chill up.
2. Grate the onion. Salt it.
3. Mix it up with the minced meat and the rice. Add salt and pepper.
4. First, cut in half the vegetable marrow, in order to have the same size with the rest of the vegetables. Peal it off.
5. Cut the vegetable’s edges and take out the contents.
6. Fill them up with the mixture.
7. Fry them for 5 min., turning on each side.
8. Place them in a big pot. Fill the pot with hot water almost up to the top.
9. Put the pot in the oven, uncovered, at medium temperature, for 40 min.
10. Fry the vegetables content, for 5 min, with 2 spoons of hot water.
11. Add flour. Stir. Add hot water.
12. Add tomato sauce.
13. Pour the sauce in the pot.
14. Put it back in the oven and leave it there for 20 min.

Serve hot, with sour cream on top.

Quantities for two portions:

• 1 kg of spinach
• 1 garlic
• 1 lemon
• 100 g of milk
• 5 spoons with flour
• vegetable oil
• salt

How to cook it:

• Boil the spinach, at medium temperature, for 5 min. Leave it to chill up and cut it small.
• Cut the garlic very small or grate it.
• Slice the lemon.
• Fry the garlic, in vegetable oil, for 2 min. Add hot water. Flour. Stir until you obtain a white sauce.
• Mix up all the ingredients and stir for 5 min.

Serve hot. Spinach with garlic and lemon can also be served as a side dish for steaks or fried eggs.

Vegetarian recipes require creativity in order to satisfy the most pickiest eaters. This is why veggie cuisine has developed to a very high degree of refinement. For example, leek is just an ordinary vegetable that most people wouldn’t have for lunch, no matter what. However, creative chefs added a few black olives and the scent of laurel, in order to create a true delight of the senses. You can now recreate this great, flavored taste at home, in this inexpensive but good meal.

Ingredients for two:

• 500 g of leek
• 200 g of black olives
• 1 leaf of laurel
• 1 lemon
• 4 spoons with flour
• 100 ml tomato sauce
• salt, pepper

Cooking Procedure:

1. Cut the leek in 5 cm long pieces. Fry it, at medium temperature, for 3 min, than pour 200 g of hot water. Stir.
2. Boil it for 5 min.
3. Add the olives, the laurel leaf, the slices of lemon, the salt and the pepper and boil it for 10 min.
4. Put the flour, one spoon at a time, adding water in between. Stir.
5. Pour the tomato sauce. Boil for 5 min.

Serve hot.

Cabbage makes great foods. It is nutritive and tasty, but you have to know how to cook it. What’s so good about cabbage recipes is that they aren’t boring at all, like in the case of other vegetables. Cabbage can be prepared in so many ways: from the famous cabbage soup diet for weight loss, to the delicious cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice, the Chinese cabbage or the Savoy cabbage, all these recipes are among the top foods in the international cuisine. Cabbage juice is known to have healing properties in case of stomach affections, so it is indicated in the alternative medicine as well.

Now, back to our cabbage recipe which is also known as Cabbage a la Cluj (Cluj is a city in Romania and I have no clue why this cabbage dish is called like that).

Ingredients for two

• 1 big cabbage
• 50 g. of savory
• 300 g of pork and cow minced meat
• 1 onion
• 3 big tomatoes
• vegetable oil
• salt, pepper

Cabbage with Minced Meat Preparation

1. Grate the cabbage and salt it. Squeeze the cabbage and leave it to rest for 30 min.
2. Boil the cubed onion in 300 g. of water, at medium temperature, for 5 min.
3. Take it out and put it in a pan with vegetable oil.
4. Add the minced meat. Stir, from time to time, for 15 min.
5. Put the cabbage with the savory in a pan with oil and the remaining water from the onion. Boil it for 30 min., stirring from time to time.
6. Cut the tomatoes in cubes.
7. When the water is ready, add the meat with rice and the tomatoes.
8. Boil the food, at medium temperature, for 5 min.

Stuffed cabbage rolls are usually served with sour cream. This cabbage recipe is also good with sour cream and a hint of mosaic pepper freshly milled.
If you didn’t know it, you should find out that cabbage is part of many easy Chinese recipes, in combination with meat or other veggies and with specific spices that give it that wonderful taste.