Xmas in the holy land

My non existent attitude towards religion doesn't stop me from celebrating religious holidays as any chance is good to cook, have friends around and eating an insane amount of crisps (why the hell am I running my ass off otherwise?). Ok, next year we will be more prepared about what we are actually celebrating and won't spread false news about the 20 days pregnancy of mary, but quoting a friend of us, perfect is the enemy of good :)

SALMON AND BROCCOLI PIE

Prepare the besciamella sauce melting 50 gr of butter and 50 grams of flower in a pan, then add up to one litre of milk and stir until it boils. When it is ready, add nutmeg and salt. Boil the broccoli in water for few minutes and then add them to the besciamella. Take one sheet of puff pastry and place it in a baking tray, add the broccoli besciamella and the smoked salmon in thin strips to decorate. Cook in the oven for 30 mins @180 degrees.

 

SPICE BRAD STICKS

Evergreen. Taken from here.

PASTA SCEMA

As the chef (that wasn't me) defined it :). A very nice pasta with roasted breadcrumbs, sundried tomatoes and tuna.

Ribollita im pita

Winter in Tel Aviv means a week with some rain and some 7 degrees. Ok, readers from abroad, no room for complaining but please understand that the apartments here are damn cold and the only way of heating them is either rivers of cava (and yes, we VERY reluctantly did it) or a hot soup. 

And now that the winter is already gone, the sun shines high in the sky and the parka coat can rest in peace into the closet until I move to Maastricht, Silviot are left with ribollita soup for the whole week and for the whole building :) 

But ribollita without bread is like peas without carrots, like AS Roma without Totti, like, to come back to the main point, TLV without sun. I had mini pitot in the kitchen and no will to go fetch more suitable bread, so here we go:

RIBOLLITA IN THE PITA POCKET

I started with the celery-onion-carrot mix chopped and fried in a big pot with two spoons of oil evo. I then added cannellini white beans, a whole peeled potato, one can of crushed tomatoes, mixed herbs and filled the pot with water. I let it cook for a lot doing a bit of catch up with my online spanish classes, until the potato was soft. I mashed the potato, took out some of the beans (40%) and blended them, hence added everything back into the soup. I also added a package of unknown green vegetables (I dreamed about finding black kale, then hoped to be surprised by regular kale, sincerely wished to find a cabbage but eventually settled for this weird 7 shekels dark lettuce). I served it with the vegetables inside a pita pocket and the soupy part outside, and I will serve it again, and again, and again….

A siculoisraeli salad

One of the most heart-warming rituals I take part since I am living in the holy land is the pomelo break: during the pomelo season, my boss comes in the morning with this giant heavy orange and we all gather after lunch to have a piece of the holy citrus, amen. As passionate as he is for italian cousin, the idea of exporting pomelo (unknown to most of Europe, as far as I know) into italian food came naturally, so hey, challenge accepted :)

POMELO, FENNEL AND SYRIAN OLIVES SALAD

I peeled the pomelo (which is already quite a challenge, as this obese orange has a very thick skin :) ), squeezed half of it and cut the rest into pieces. I sliced the fennels keeping the small leaves for decorating the salad. I took the seeds out of a bunch of green bitterish olives (yes, sometimes I buy food only because it has a fancy packaging!) and mixed them with the pomelo pieces and the fennels. I made an emulsion with half lemon, oil, the squeezed pomelo, salt and pepper to season the salad. Nice :)

SICILIAN LINGUINE WITH CARAMELISED CHERRY TOMATOES

As refreshing and patriotic as it was, a salad is not enough to have two young and sporty people still in their 20ies satisfied (me and A), so I stayed on the track of Sicilianness and made this linguine with breadcrumbs, anchovies and caramelised tomatoes. 

I cut the tomatoes in halves and place them in a baking tray with some caster sugar, salt, oregano and oil EVO. They need to dry in the oven @ 150 for about one hour. I boiled the linguine; in the meanwhile, I took a large pan and add oil EVO, two garlic cloves and the anchovies. When the anchovies were melted, I take the garlic cloves out and add breadcrumbs (a shame I didn't have real bread!). I fried the breadcrumbs in the pan for a couple of minutes and seasoned the linguine with this mix and the cherry tomatoes. 

Finger food contest AKA pick the right glass!

After a few days in which my italianhousewifeness gave its best, I restored the cosmic balance of poshness with a finger food night, that was a very enjoyable rehearsal for a very special event yet to come ^__^

5 judges tasted 6 different dishes, all arranged into small cups. Cups are horrible, I know, but the german el-al security is the one to blame for this as they spotted a possible threaten for Israel in my pink Vivienne Westwood shoes and shipped them separately, delaying all my afternoon schedule. (BTW, the only threaten that those shoes might have is that Israeli girls will understand that in Israel they don't know how to make shoes and book a flight to Heathrow)

Back on track: the judges were extremely helpful with their suggestions, but hey, I hope the people attending the event will be a wee bit easier to please or I will have to take a month off only to study the presentation! :D :D :D

DE-STRUCTURED CAPRESE

Tomato cream at the bottom is made by blending a few red tomatoes with salt, oil EVO and fish gelatine. The white layer is mozzarella and the quenelle on top is made with basil and courgettes pesto (basil, parmigiano, oil EVO, pine nuts and pan-fired courgettes). Sort-of-borrowed from www.giallozafferano.it.

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER IN TEHINA DIPPING

This is very similar to what I made here (but with no crunchy quinoa and no chicken)

BARLEY AND ROASTED PEPPER FLOWERS

I boiled the barley until tender and seasoned it with thyme leaves and oil EVO. I roasted the peppers in the over for 45 minutes and then peeled them, seasoned with salt and cut them in stripes to make the shape of the flower.

AUBERGINES WITH FETA AND TEHINA

Aubergines are grilled in the oven for 45 minutes, then peeled and seasoned with chilli, basil, mint, salt and oil EVO. Feta is cut in small cubes and seasoned with chilli too.

PEA BALLS WITH SESAME SEEDS AND TZATIKI

I cooked the peas in a pan with a spoon of oil EVO. When ready, I blended them with one egg, parmigiano and cubes of bread from the day before. I made small balls and covered them with sesame seeds. The tzatziki is explained here.

BRIE, PEAR AND HONEY

Superfast but super tasty…. this is nothing more than pear and brie cubes with honey on top

RTD or UTD?

Ohhhhhh, cooking. That sweet relaxing and satisfying thing you can do when you have gas and you cannot do when, instead, the gas tank is empty and the gas guy keeps standing you up like the worst of the boyfriends :D

I came back on scene with a great show at my friend O's place. The menu was discussed on Saturday morning at around 5:30 AM in front of a succulent burger with chips that made its job in giving me the strength and the lucidity to get back home, plus to put together a respectful menu. These dinners always give me the opportunity to make some masterpieces of italian cousin without feeling the moral need to decrease the amount of saturated fat and increase the lavishness of the dish name. One example is the notorious RTD aka Ridicolously Tasty dish aka Parmigiana di melanzane (layers of fried aubergines, tomato, mozzarella and parmigiano) that by now I give for granted in every italian dinner. But something else made its way into the olympus of italian dishes that cannot be missing in such events: the UTD, aka unbelievably tasty dish:

UNBELIEVABLY TASTY DISH

Boil some milk and add rice, stirring from time to time and adding more milk if needed as if it was a risotto. When it is ready, add nutmeg and parmigiano. Cook spinach leaves for some minutes in boiling water and dry very well the leaves. Oil a baking tray and add breadcrumbs; then place layers of rice, layers of spinach and layers of smoked salmon. Cook in the oven @ 180 for ~30 minutes.

        

The breadsticks in the first picture are another big classic of my italian dinners, aka puff pastry with one egg on top, parmigiano and poppy seeds.

For this, as usual all the credits go to S1 that is becoming amazingly in both taste and aspect of her cupcakes ^__^

The therapeutic fish

Today I feel like an era has come to an end. I started this blog talking about my previous life, and just today I realised it's totally-completely-without-regrets-on-either-sides... over. Plus, I heard with my very own ears the magic words: it was not your fault. S2, you can go in peace now and enjoy an unexpected friendship that came out of it, amen :)

Anyway, tanta tanta roba, i.e., a lot to process today, and cooking with slowness helps the processing step indeed :)
Four small mackerels were calling me from the fish counter a couple of days ago, so I decided to make a vintage recipe that actually comes from the same past I buried today (quite a forecast!):

MACKERELS WITH TROPEA ONIONS, BLACK OLIVES AND PEPPER

Open the mackerels in two halves, cutting the spine and the head away. Prepare a marinade with black pepper, salt, squeezed orange and oil, cut some red onions and remove the bone from a bunch of olives. Prepare a foil bag with the mackerels, a layer of onions, olives and rosemary, seal the bag leaving a small opening and pour the marinade inside. Let it rest for 30 minutes and then place in the oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes. Match with an intense melt-out lunch session with your personal shrink (in my case, my mum)

A fishy disappointment

I am sure my criticisms towards some tiny negligible features of my host country will be well accepted, given the affection for Israel I show on a daily basis.

After many independent samples, i can say it loud and statistics is on my side: fish sucks here. No matter if I go in that specific place warmly recommended by this or that food lover. I can basically choose between being disappointed by buying frozen shrimps and disappointed and poor by buying fresh shrimps. The other day I surprisingly went for the former option and made the following:

LINGUINE ZUCCHINE AND FROZEN UNTASTY SHRIMPS THAT BECOME TASTY THANKS TO FISH STOCK

Good fish stock is mandatory in this case. First I sliced the zucchine and grilled them in a pan with one teaspoon of oil EVO. Then I cut them in sticks and put them aside. I took another pan with one spoon of oil EVO and cooked quickly the frozen shrimps, adding a sip of white wine halfway with gas at full power to let the alcohol evaporate. In the meantime I boiled the linguine for a few minutes (they need to be hard inside), added them to the pan with the shrimps and started pouring the fish stock one spoon at time. When the linguine were almost ready I added the zucchine sticks, salt and pepper. I served with parsley and oil EVO.

Chicken, beer and love

It has been quite a while since my last post, I have to say this is because my mind was still focused on the amazing food I had in Portugal/Spain and I couldn't come up with anything nice myself (this is a cheeky way to say that I ate like a duck before turning into foie gras and my stomach had to recover from the pork fat loading :D). Hints of the trip:

1) as much as I love Portugal and think is the best country in the world, I didn't like the Algarve, it looks like Portugal that has been cleaned up because the british are coming

1 bis) the fact that in Portugal they still sell the magnum double caramel is a strong sign of its high level of civilisation

2) a country whose colors are yellow and red can only be awesome

3) it is never too early for a tostada with jamon

But the past weekend a super nice guest was around @arlozorov73 so my italian housewife mood switched on (when it happens, OMG, I can't help it) and I made a couple of dinners quite tasty (in the spare time between crashing a wedding and watching a chef cleaning 20 kg of fish). The recipe I am going to post has a long story, and it is not mine actually, it comes from my past welsh life :)

BEER CHICKEN

Pan-fry 4 chicken thighs (if you also have an israelorussian butcher, since you can't choose whichever part of the chicken he has planned to give you is fine) with some EVO oil, a couple of garlic cloves and rosemary. When the skin is golden, add a can of your fav beer (guinness is supergood!) and let it cook until the beer is evaporated and only a sticky kind-of-bitter juice is left (that's the best part!). I served it with israeli salad and cauliflower with tahini.

THE pizza.

This trip back from Torino is the most appropriate moment to talk about something else that was soooo good I want to recall its amazing taste in my mouth again and again: my focaccia. Yes, after many trials, after being scattered from one food blog to another, I found THE recipe and I want to share it with the entire universe (BTW, there is some aficionado of my blog that reads it from Russia - wow - this is very cool as I do not know any Russian except the one with vodka and coffee)
A note for my non-italian readers: this is not the round pizza that you get in the pizza restaurants; this is more something similar to the pizza al taglio that you get as a quick lunch in shops, thicker and with more variety in the toppings.

THE PIZZA (for three big focacce)

500 gr regular white flour
500 gr semola flour
600 gr warm water
25 gr fresh yeast
5 teaspoons of honey
5 teaspoons of EVO oil
7 teaspoons of salt

Melt the yeast and the salt into the warm water and add honey and oil. Mix the two flours in a bowl and make a hole in the middle, then pour slowly the water inside the hole and start mixing with the hand. When all the water is added, start working on the dough on the table until it is solid and homogeneous, then let it rest for at least one hour in the oven turned off (with just the light on).
Prepare the baking trays with EVO oil, place one third of the dough in each tray without touching it more than necessary, and flatten it with the fingers VERY GENTLY, leaving the surface as irregular as possible, i.e., leaving the holes made by the fingers. Place the trays back into the oven and let the three dough rest and raise for another hour minimum.

I made three focacce: one with slices of potatoes, mozzarella, black olives, black pepper and red onions; one with tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil and speck, and the last I cooked it plain with just coarse salt and rosemary and then I stuffed it with prosciutto and mozzarella. I suggest to always sprinkle with coarse salt as the grains have a superb taste when they melt in the mouth. Enojoy!

Un po' di cazzi miei (Some business of mine)

Few hours ago I was walking down Ibn Gavirol with 2 thoughts in my mind: 1) the interaction between my low blood pressure and TLV's burning whether is making me useless for research in particular and for society in general; 2) I feel happy. I know this latter feeling is going to expire soon, as in 20 minutes I'll have an appointment with Natasha the russian waxing lady around the corner, but let's not think this far in advance :)

I am happy about the life I am living lately, happy because of all the awesome experiences that are involved in living in a place so different from what I was used to. The connection with food is that this happiness sometimes clashes with the picture of all the crazy stuff I was cooking when I was in a relationship (see picture below) that at that moment I thought was forever. And now I am so happy it was not, because the abrupt change in perspective (from a mortgage in Cardiff to a shared flat in Tel Aviv), in the CV of my life, will look like something that made me more open, more experienced, more balanced and eventually happier :D

I do not envy people who did not have the possibility of such a variety in life, and also I think one should share the life with someone only if, before that, he/she was able to feel happy alone (potentially indefinitely). BTW when I see this same independence in a man, I feel more keen on undressing than in front of Javier Bardem with a 2-days moustache :D

Gnocchi (again!) with caramelised cherry tomatoes and aubergines (again!) pesto

I know I know, it looks like I am always making gnocchi, so please, all of you who live nearby my place and might consider coming over for dinner at some point, would you mind organising a collection for buying me a pasta machine, to increase my blog's entropy? 

And now that I think about it, I was meaning to post another recipe today (chicken stripes with red pepper and mint) but it was magically disappeared from the kitchen before I managed to take a picture, which perhaps means it was too good to last? Anyway, I had such a stuffed day I didn't even find time to eat what I cooked, but that made the taste of the rogalach(ot? im?) I had after the movie night even better ^__^

GNOCCHI WITH CARAMELISED CHERRY TOMATOES AND AUBERGINES PESTO

Caramelised cherry tomatoes: cut each tomato in half, place in a baking tray and sprinkle some caster sugar on top, then salt, some EVO oil and let the tomatoes dry in the oven @ 130 degrees for one hour or so.

Aubergines pesto: bake the aubergines in the oven for one our, peel them and remove some of the water. Blend with garlic, mint, basil, pine nuts, EVO oil and salt. 

And before going back to work, a snapshot from one of my fav mangas ever, that talks about two roommates that had met by chance but become absolutely necessary to each other in almost no time: sounds familiar? :D

Hachi actually is very loud, loves cooking and naively believes in the goodness of all the human beings. But as a consequence of a much stiffer attitude towards contraception, my Hachi is happily dating Nobu at the moment :D

Fish ravioli and baked salmon, AKA meet the family!

I am back to work after three weeks overseas during which I had many many occasions to prove my cooking skills, but  the one I was more worried about was the planned meet-the-family dinner that I hosted to introduce S1 and S2 's families. And it turned out an A-W-E-S-O-M-E night! 

Before life abruptly taught me so, I did not believe in the influence of the family in a relationship, but well, I learned the lesson I guess :) 

As it's been already 3 months since S1 and I moved in together, we thought it was about the time for us to introduce our families, in my case there was a chunk missing (my nephew and my sister-in-law were at the beach, lucky them) but not having constantly to check that my nephew was not trying to kill himself allowed a smoother conversation. Conversation that was as usual mastered by my brother, and the more I get to know him, the more I love him (funny that the process started only a few years ago even if our existence overlaps by 30 years)!

FISH RAVIOLONI WITH AUBERGINES AND FENNEL FLOWERS

Make circles out of the pasta dough and fill them with raw cubes of stone bass, an aubergines baked in the oven for 45 mins, salt and fennel flowers from the countryside around Roma. Make the ravioloni folding the circles in the middle and pressing the edges with a fork. Boil and season with a sauce made with cherry tomatoes and one spoon (one spoon only!) of cream fresh.

       

BAKED SALMON

Put the salmon fillets in oil, lemon and herbs for a few hours. Mix breadcrumbs, paprika and crushed almonds and add the filtered juice of the marinade. Cover the fillets and cook in the oven for 10 minutes. I served the salmon with zucchine a scapece (fried zucchini with vinegar) and baked potato slices.

Barley with rocket and mussels

Cucinareconlentezza is on tour in Rome! Which means several things: 

_I spend my days helping out my mum and despite my very progressive ideas I realised I am a perfect housewife

_I can take pictures with the big Nikon

_I can cook mussels

The other day I was looking for something light but fancy to cuddle my mum without loading more weight on her recently refurbished back and I though about a nice pasta salad I ate once upon a time in my previous life, when I happily was a fashion designer :) so I came up with the following:

BARLEY WITH MUSSELS AND ROCKET

I boiled the barley and added chopped cherry tomatoes, rocket, EVO oil and the mussels I cooked with a garlic clove and EVO oil. 

Ars

Death by Pizza

In my many monologues against the capitalistic society, the culture of inducing the needs for strawberries in December and the Ikea packagings that always contain double of the amount of what you actually need, I never really say that there are (at least) two fields in which I cannot manage myself to apply whole idea of enough: shoes (of course!) and food. While when I buy shoes I am aware that I am violating the same principles I passionately defend for the rest of the day, with food is more of a primordial italian housewife kind-of-thing, the chubby italian mamma for whom it is a matter of honor to stuff her guests until death. And I think I did recently with pizza. 

PIZZA DOUGH

Make a nice fountain with 1 kg of flour and place in the hole 25 gr of yeast melted in warm water and 2 spoons of sugar, some more warm water with 6 spoons of oil EVO and some salt and start mixing. Add slowly warm water until the dough is nice and elastic (total water should be around 600 ml). Leave it to rest in a warm place for a couple of hours. 

PIZZELLE FRITTE

I made little squares of pizza dough and let them rest for another half an hour, then fried in oil and seasoned with coarse salt, tomato-garlic-basil sauce and grated parmigiano

PIZZA WITH RED PEPPER, POTATOES AND CAPERS

(I added red pepper, mozzarella, potato slices and capers)

GIRANDOLE WITH ZUCCHINI AND PINE NUTS

I made a rectangle of dough and added mozzarella, zucchini cubes, dill, basil and crushed pine nuts. I rolled it and cut small girandole about 3 cm thick, then placed them in the baking tray to rest another 30 mins

PIZZA WITH TROPEA ONION AND PEPPER

My fav. Also black olives if I had them.

PIZZA WITH NUTELLA

If your guests, for some reasons, are still breathing, this will be the final straw (guaranteed!)

Quinoa with zucchini tagliatelle and shrimps

How many of you work for a boss that saves the shrimps' heads and delivers them to your door, so that you can make fish stock? That's what happened last Friday, and I was able to make stock frozen cubes that will last for a few times. First recipe is this quinoa thingy that I prepared listening to Matthew Bellamy singing (with his typical I-have-a-very-bad-stomachache voice) Supermassive Black Hole to get ready for the Muse concert happening in 10 days :D :D :D

QUINOA WITH ZUCCHINI TAGLIATELLE AND SHRIMPS

I prepared a fish stock with the shrimps' heads and used it to cook the quinoa, adding fresh dill, hot pepper and oil EVO when ready. Shrimps were pan-fried for few minutes and the zucchini tagliatelle recipe belong to S1 :D

Pesto couscous with patate and fagioloni

When you invite someone for dinner and only then open your fridge and realise that 1) your fridge only contains pesto, potatoes and broad beans and 2) shabbat is already started so no chance of increasing the variety, well that calls some very healthy-but-still-possibly-fancy pestopatatefagioloni :)

PESTO COUSCOUS WITH POTATOES AND BROAD BEANS

Boil the broad beans in salty water until tender, then boil the potato cubes in the same water. Potentially both of them could be pan-fried for a couple of minutes with a garlic clove and some EVO oil, but I preferred to stay on the light side. With the same water, prepare the cous cous adding one cup of boiling water to one cup of couscous, sealing with a lid. 

I made the pesto the day before using half basil and half rocket, plus parmigiano, EVO oil, garlic and cashew nuts. I took one round ikea tupperware, put some pesto couscous inside and made the nice dome in the plate, then added potatoes and broad beans. I made the parmigiano disks pouring grated parmigiano in a hot non-sticky pan for a few seconds. 

Petite aubergines with chicken&ginger balls

I fell in love. Few days ago. True story! No idea aubergines came also in their petite 2.0 version for singles. For singles not because one makes a portion, but rather because only singles may have evenings to waist digging holes into petite aubergines (I made kind of 20 of them). 

So we are in the supermarket to buy milk and cucumbers (as we consume milk and cucumbers as if tomorrow never comes) and 20 petite aubergines are calling us from the shelf, so we decide to give them a shelter. From that very moment, at least 20% of my CPU has been running on a continuous basis only to give my aubergines the death they deserve. 

We are definitely in our stuffing period @Arlozorov73 (see below), so stuffed aubergines, but with what? I thought about something very light and easy: aubergines cubes, tomatoes and the very mint that grows between the life science and the biotechnology buildings (chance of severe food poisoning: very high, but in Silviot's mansion mint plants generally die before we even agree on their name)

PETITE AUBERGINES WITH CHICKEN&GINGER BALLS AND TZATZIKI

Dig the petite aubergines not thinking about the fact that you are spending the evening digging into petite aubergines. Make small cubes with the inside and place in salty water for ~30 mins. Place the outside upside down with some salt inside. Mix the cubes with tomato concentrate, breadcrumbs, fresh mint, chopped garlic, lemon zest, little oil. I added also some shredded hard cheese that was left in the fridge, and was about to add chopped cashew nuts but S1 is not a fan. Fill the aubergines with the stuffing and a lot of love.  Bake in the oven until shiny and tender.

In the meantime, I blended one chicken breast and mixed with bread (wet in milk for few minutes and then well squeezed), ginger, salt, hot pepper and one egg. Made small balls and rolled them in breadcrumbs, then placed in a baking tray with little stock and baked until golden, checking from time to time there is some liquid. 

Lastly I made tzatziki by grating one cucumber and squeezing it to release the water. I added greek yogurt, garlic, salt, lemon juice and pepper. 

If I am the aubergine queen, I share my flat with lady courgette :) so the previous night she made a dinner that deserved my nikon: round courgettes stuffed with smoked salmon and curry. Yummy and superlight. Ask her for details!

A non-post

The past week a friend of mine was visiting Silviot's mansion, hence we did not use the kitchen almost at all and tried out a few yummy places around TLV instead. 

Awesome, except I have no material now. I was getting superbored in the bus, before deciding to write a non-post instead with a picture of non-food :) 

Two friends of S1 came over and we were in the post-Shabbat superlazy couch mood, so to maximise the siesta time we served mixed vegetables, tahini (S1 is the queen of tahini, amongst other thing) and humus, wet with a couple of glasses of red wine. Because to cook with slowness it is fundamental to admit that cook with slowness is not always the best choice :)

While I am thinking about the next "postable" recipe, I'd like to suggest an amazing reading to all my italian friends: Spora is my new guru as far as high heels, being independent and pursuing happiness (even though she is better than my mum only for the first bullet point). 

And to conclude, the quote we have in our fridge:

Stay tuned!

Canapés and the thin difference between puff pastry and shortbread

Last week I hosted a lab night to warm up out new flat and the task to accomplish was to feed 11 hungry neuroscientists (just to give you a picture, one of them spontaneously compares herself to a truck driver when it comes to food), luckily hungry AND very talented in the kitchen so it was not only because of Silviot that the night was a success :)

Actually, one of the Silviot (me) did her best to sabotage the night misreading the package of frozen puff pastry, that turned out to be frozen shortbread, hence I had to make a great story up about the long-standing italian tradition of using sweet pastry in association with cheese and curry to create a unique combination of flavors in the mouth. Not sure I persuaded them but they still hold me in the lab so it is fine!

I will not describe in details the recipes but I'll give the idea. I made canapes with roasted cauliflower and tahini, canapes with roasted red peppers and dill, red pepper muffins, a sort-of quiche with broccoli besciamella and salmon, S1 made the tuna roll with potatoes and capers and my colleagues made two delicious desserts, a meringue with halva and cream and the balcanic version of the pannacotta. As the queen of aubergines, the main was of course pasta alla norma :)

Tuna spaghettoni in aubergines mugs, AKA the Aubergines Queen

Like a small child I cannot wait until my next bus ride for posting this, so I reckon my keyboard will be very dirty with oily fingerprints coming from my lunch by the end of it (clear indication than women are indeed multi-tasking but, sadly, not without unpredictable consequences for surrounding objects).

Please, let the bottom line of my epitaph be "Aubergines Queen", because I am sure I can establish a spiritual connection with the chatzilim/eggplants/aubergines/melanzane so that they are proactive in reaching perfection. So let's quit small talking and get straight to the point: yesterday we had a dinner with 6 girls in total, that turned out to be an excellent combination of very different people, all interesting in a different way. The menu was inspired by my secondary never-ending source of inspiration, the blog giallozafferano, and my primary never-ending source of inspiration, mum's pasta with swordfish. I decided to combine the two for this:

TUNA SPAGHETTONI IN AUBERGINES MUGS

I took one aubergine per guest and cut them in halves. I cut the upper end in cubes and emptied the lover end, also making cubes out of the inside. Sprinkle some lemon and coarse salt inside the halves and put the cubes all together to rest into salty water, so that they lose the bitter taste. After at least 30 minutes, place the halves in a baking tray and bake until tender but still in one piece (30 mins in my case). Dry the cubes and fry them in a pan with enough sunflower oil (don't be cheap with oil!), then place the cubes on paper to dry and eventually in a colander with some stone on top of them, so that they release the oil in excess. I pan-fried cherry tomatoes for five minutes with a garlic clove and EVO oil. Separately, I pan-fried tuna cubes (I could not find swordfish, and apparently it is not kosher, god knows why... literally in this case) with EVO oil for two minutes adding a glass of white wine for the last 30 seconds. Mixed the boiled spaghettoni with the aubergines, the tuna and the tomatoes, adding thyme leaves. I placed the spaghettoni inside the aubergines mugs, decorated with some more thyme and EVO oil. 

Shavuot gnocchi

Statistics is kind of giving subtle hints about the fact that I love gnocchi (2 out of 8 posts are about gnocchi, which using the resources of my PhD means 25%). Gnocchi is the food my mum cooks when she wants to cuddle me, and her recipe is so scrumptious that I am constantly challenged to invent variations of gnocchi, as she is the only one that is allowed to make the original one. Combine this with the Israeli cheese-based holiday, Shavuot, and you end up with thyme gnocchi stuffed with cheese (after a loooong queue at the supermarket as everyone in the entire country is willing to purchase cheese)

THYME GNOCCHI STUFFED WITH ASIAGO CHEESE

... or as in this case, given the Asiago is hard to find and given my recently-developed deep love for Spain, Manchego cheese :)
Follow the recipe of the other gnocchi (but without the basil) and add nutmeg to the dough. I also added one egg because I wanted it to be solid enough to hold the cheese. Cut the cheese in cubes and insert a cube in each gnocco, rolling the dough all around the cheese. Cook the gnocchi in boiling water until they float and stir for a couple of minutes in a pan with some butter and thyme (if you do not have sage) leaves. Add a few friends, an Israeli holiday and enjoy :D

Roasted cauliflower, chicken and crunchy quinoa salad

This post might as well been called "a wrong day, that eventually, as many wrong days, turned out to be not totally wrong (except for my tiffany earring lost somewhere between ramat hasharon and dizengof... that still sucks)"

So why cauliflower, why chicken and why crunchy quinoa? Well, my neighbor, colleague, friend and mate in the NYC trip, that after a few months already falls in the "Ireallylikeyou" category, introduced me to Miznon in Ibn Gabirol, aka art within a pita. In the holy pita temple I had a taste of the Gods' food, that happened to be pita stuffed with roasted cauliflowers, served with tomato juice and tahini. That's why roasted cauliflower (and tomato and tahini). Two more to go.
Chicken, well because if you do not like chicken you do not want to go to Israel, unless you are vegetarian or know a reliable pork pusher.
Why quinoa? Because quinoa is soooo cool, bro. I mean, it is not a cereal, it is a PSEUDOcereal, how cool is that? And comes from south america, like the best soccer players and the best white powder (ofter they come together too). And finally, crunchy.... well, many things become crunchy if you leave them on the stove while you are trying to fix a portrait to a wall, and the portrait falls on the (supposedly) empty bottles of red wine, and the wine that was not supposed to be there is magically all over your pants, and so on and so forth until the stink of burned quinoa.

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER, CHICKEN AND CRUNCHY QUINOA SALAD

I boiled the cauliflower cut into small florets for few minutes and then placed them into a baking tray and baked until golden (adding some of the water when dry). I cooked the chicken on a grill adding lemon juice when the meat changed color, then cut it into small stripes. I (over) cooked one cup of quinoa in one cup and a half of water for 15 minutes after boiling and then left the lid sealed for other 10 minutes. I mixed the cauliflower, the chicken, the quinoa and some fresh celery chopped in stripes and seasoned with oil and lemon. Serve on top of blended cherry tomatoes and S1's plain tahini.

Ready in 10 minutes!

Yesterday I was very pleasantly delayed by a phone call coming from far away, hence when I got @arlozorof73 there was really no time for cooking with slowness :) still we had a very nice quick one with S1 and another super funny girl belonging to the Italian crew, who will be thanked forever and ever for sharing her quote "ci si affeziona pure ai cani" (literally: one grows fond even of dogs) that surprisingly fits to describe many social interactions we had here in the holy land!

SALMON BURGERS

I made 6 mini burgers by mixing two salmon slices chopped in small cubes with one egg, chopped spring onions, dill, breadcrumbs and salt. Grilled in the pan for two minutes/side and served with Israeli salad (cherry tomatoes, cucumber and carrots).