Chicken Cutlets

This is a recipe from my grandmother.

Chicken Cutlets:
1lb chicken fillet
2 eggs
2 heaped tbsp mayonnaise
2 heaped tbsp potato flour
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
salt, pepper, paprika, cumin
Cut the chicken fillet in small pieces (about the size of a fingernail). Mix all the other ingredients together. Add chicken, mix well and let the mixture sit in the fridge for 6-8 hours (I only waited 30 minutes and it still worked well).
In a frying pan, heat some oil and use a tablespoon to drop the mixture onto the pan. Fry for a couple of minutes from both sides until golden.
Keeps well in the fridge for a couple of day and can be frozen.

Beans with Spinach and Cheese

Since the Christmas beans turned out so yummy, I as eager to try more bean recipes. Christmas beans are a variation of the traditional Lima beans. So I got some traditional Lima beans to try out this recipe with beans, spinach and cheese.

I cooked the beans (with pieces of carrots and celery), used frozen spinach which I fried up with onions, garlic and seasoned it with salt and pepper. I put beans and spinach in a baking dish and topped everything with cheddar and mozzarella (since I don't like feta cheese much).

The result was really yummy, especially with the cheese. When heated up the next day in the microwave the cheese melted though and around all the layers. Mmmh, my kind of dish :)

curcuma smoothie

The original curcuma smoothie recipe calls for mango and ginger. I didn't have either. But as I finally found out that turmeric and curcuma are practically the same thing, I had finally found where I could buy it and was itching to try it out in my smoothies.

Banana-Orange-Turmeric Smoothie
1 banana
1 orange
1-2 cup of buttermilk
1 tsp turmeric
some lemon or lime juice
honey or maple syrup for sweetness.
Blend well and enjoy. It has a pleasantly fresh and slightly Indian taste.

Baked Eggplant

Half a loaf of bread dried out so I cut it into little pieces and used the blender to make breadcrumbs. I wanted to make an eggplant dish using the breadcrumbs and nutritional yeast. After looking up a couple of recipes, I combined some ideas. This one for Eggplant Parmesan with Crisp Bread Crumb Topping is the closest to what I ended up making.

My version:
- 1 small eggplant (or half a big one)
- egg mixture
  1 egg
  1/2 tsp basil
  1/2 tsp parsley
  pepper, salt
- breadcrumbs
  3 tbsp breadcrumbs
  3 tbsp nutritional yeast
- tomato sauce
  4 small fresh tomatoes
  2 tbsp tomato paste
  1/2 onion
  1/2 tsp basil
  1/2 tsp parsley
  pepper, salt
- olive or canola oil
- mozzarella
Wash eggplant and cut into 1/2 cm round slices.
Blend the ingredients for the tomato sauce except for the onion. Cut the onion into small pieces and add to the sauce.
Mix ingredients for egg mixture and ingredients for breadcrumbs in two separate bowls.
Cover the bottom of an oven proof dish with oil.
Dunk eggplant slices in the egg mixture and then in the breadcrumbs. In the oven proof dish, arrange one layer of eggplant, add one layer of tomato sauce. My dish was small enough to add another layer of eggplant and tomato sauce. Finish with a layer of mozzarella slices.
Bake for 15 min at 450 F.

Christmas Beans Salad

After we bought a bunch of dried Christmas beans (of the family of Lima Beans) for their fun name I started researching how to cook beens and found this wonderful article which consoled me with the idea of continuing to buy dried beans in the future: No need to soak them! Isn't that great?! No need to plan ahead what shall be cooked tomorrow and no need to postpone bean dishes because there isn't enough time for soaking!

Happy about this unexpected good news I fried up some garlic, onions, carrots and celery (later realizing that I didn't need to chop them up into such tiny pieces) and added the mix to a pot of well washed Christmas beans, filled it with water so that the beans were covered by what I judged to be one inch and then cooked them for about an hour or an hour and a half until they had the right consistency.


Then I chopped up some more onion, carrots and celery to make this bean salad.

For the vinaigrette I used:
lemon juice of half a lemon (I didn't have vinegar)
olive oil
a couple of tbsp of the water from beans
chives
dried basil
dried parsley
salt, pepper

The beans taste wonderfully nutty and satisfying. The fresh carrots and celery as well as the lemon juice in the vinaigrette are a fresh complement. Nom nom nom!

Salmon Quiche

I tried this recipe once in a big pie form and then again in my muffin form.
It features cheese and almond meal in the pie crust and refreshingly little instructions. I changed it a little bit, adding more cheese and baking the crust at a lower temperature. Despite the crust being so brittle before baking it comes out great and is quite easy to get out of the pan.

Crust:
1 cup flour
1 cup cheddar, grated
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 tsp paprika
6 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
Combine all ingredients and set aside 1/2 cup. Press the rest of crust into bottom and sides of 9 inch pan, bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Quiche:
1/2 lb frozen salmon
3 beaten eggs (I used 1 egg and 1/2 cup of egg whites to get rid of some of the egg whites that had piled up in our fridge after all the Tiramisu we enjoyed)
1/4 tsp dill weed and/or other herbs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup cheddar, grated
1/2 chopped onion
chives
paprika, salt and pepper
Thaw, fry and flake the salmon. Add all other ingredients. Put in baked shell. Sprinkle reserved 1/2 cup crust over top. Bake at 325 F for 45 minutes (or less when using the muffin form) until the tops are golden.

Tiramisu

I first encountered this tasty and easy recipe when a friend brought it as a dessert dip to a dip party. I recently tried it out myself and was delighted how quick it is, just a couple of minutes and you have a wonderful dessert!

Tiramisu:
1-2 egg yolks per person, I use fresh organic eggs
1 tbsp coconut sugar per person
1/2 tub of Mascarpone
rum
cocoa powder for decoration
Beat the egg yolks for at least 1 minute, until they form a light and fluffy cream. Add the sugar and continue whisking. Add Mascarpone, try the mix and add more if needed, but you don't want it to be too cheesy. Add as much rum as you like (for 6 egg yolks I used 1/4 cup of spiced rum). Use a sift to decorate the Tiramisu with cocoa powder.
Very tasty with strawberries!

Nine Layer Dip

This dip is usually called 7 Layer Dip (we used this recipe). But when making it for the super bowl weekend, we added some more cheese and avocado and ended up with 9 layers.

8 oz refried beans
1/2 pack taco mix spices
8 oz sour cream
4 oz cream cheese
8 oz mild salsa
1 avocado
lettuce
green onion
1 big tomato
1 green bell pepper
cheddar
black olives

Mix refried beans with taco mix spices and put in a dish as the first layer.
Mix sour cream and cream cheese. Spread over the refried beans.
Mash avocado and add some salt, pepper and lemon juice. Spread over sour cream.
Add a layer of mild salsa.
Add a layer of grated cheddar cheese.
Chop lettuce, green onions, tomato and bell pepper. Make one layer of each.
Top with a layer of  cheddar. And another one if you like. No one will know. They will just think it's one thick layer.
Garnish with black olives.
Enjoy with chips, nachos or bread.
This is also a great left over food.