Re-fried beans

I picked up some really nice avocados last week, so we had to make some guacamole and everything else that goes with it. In our house that includes re-fried beans. The beans are super easy to make if you have access to canned kidney beans. If you don't have the canned variety you can use the dried ones, but then the process takes way longer. Just soak your beans for a good 8 hours and then boil them until they are tender. I can't tell you how long it takes or how many beans to use, because I have never done it myself. If you do try it share it in the comments below so we can all profit from it.

Preparation time: 30 minutes ; serves 4 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp.	Oil
250 g	Diced onions
1/2 tsp.	Garlic puree
2 cans	Kidney beans (1 can = 425 g)
1 tsp.	Cumin powder
1 tsp.	Coriander powder
1/2 tsp.	Salt
150 ml	Water + possibly more

Method:

This recipe is pretty simple. The key to perfection is to cook it in a heavy bottomed pan. I use a cast iron frying pan. There are two reasons for this choice. The first being that the beans are less likely to burn and the other you will find out later!

You can add more or less onion and garlic depending on your taste so go ahead and experiment. I usually use yellow onions, but I assume you can use any available type.

While the onions are doing their thing crack open the cans of beans, empty them into a colander, drain the liquid and rinse them under running water. Of course not forgetting to stir the onions every now and then!

Place the pan on medium-high heat and heat the oil. Once the oil is hot enough add the onions and fry them for a couple of minutes. If you are not sure when your oil is not enough don't fret. It doesn't really matter! Sometimes I just put my onions in before the oil is really hot and it does not seem to do any harm. If you like the taste of caramelized onions you can fry them until they are slightly brown, otherwise once they start looking transparent should do. The main thing is that they are evenly cooked, so stir them every now and then.

Once the onions are cooked to your satisfaction add the garlic and fry for another 1 - 2 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients into the frying pan, stir well and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat so that the beans remain simmering. Now comes the fun part (and the second reason for using a cast iron pan). To make your beans come together they need to be mashed. If you like your beans to be a smooth paste you could always put your beans into a food processor before adding them to the frying pan. However, we like a bit of texture in this household so I use first the back of a wooden spoon and then I move to a potato masher. Of course it would be much more efficient to just use the masher but I really like attacking the beans and crushing them with a wooden spoon. At some point I get bored with it and that is when I move to the potato masher!

When you mash the beans the insides come out and start forming a paste. This absorbs a lot of the water that you added to the pan. The beans should not dry out, so keep a jug of water on the side and add about a 1/4 cup when ever you feel like the beans are sticking to the bottom of the pan. Mix it in well each time and continue mashing until you have the desired consistency. I cannot tell you what this is, it will depend on your taste. All I can say is that if you don't smash any of the beans you won't have real re-fried beans :(

Serve with mexican rice, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, grated cheese or wrap it up and make a burrito.

Half an Hour Crows Nest

My mother always used to make us this when we were at home. I always loved it especially when she fried the bread extra crispy. Now my kids love it too. They can't get used to the name because its just too out there to be comparing a yummy breakfast dish to a crows nest! You can really cook it in less than half an hour depending on how much you are making. In this particular case I made it with a day old baguette that had to be gotten rid of. I happened to make it for lunch because I needed something quick and my kids don't eat much for lunch right now.

Preparation time: 30 min. Serves 4 (as a side dish)

Ingredients:

8	Eggs
8 cups	Cubed, stale (at least not fresh!) bread
1/3 cup	Milk
1/4 cup	Oil
	Salt and pepper

Method:

Put a large skillet or frying pan on the stove on high heat. For best results use a cast iron pan. If you use any non- non-stick pan you will be fine. With a non-stick you will not get the bread to be as golden brown and crunchy and you also run the risk of ruining the surface of your non-stick pan. Eggs tend to have this nasty way of ruining the non-stick surface.

While your pan is heating up cube, or dice, your bread. Around 1.5 cm cubes are good.

Once the pan is hot add the oil and then the diced bread. Toss them in the oil so that all the pieces of bread get some oil. If the bread does not have oil on it it won't become crunchy and golden brown. You can always add some more oil if it doesn't seem to be enough. I think I might have added a bit more (my memory says a quarter cup more but its not very reliable!). Then fry them until golden brown. They need to be stirred every now and then to make sure they brown evenly and depending on your cooker and pan you might need to reduce the heat to medium to prevent it from burning.

While the bread is frying beat the eggs together with the milk, salt and pepper.

Once the bread is golden brown pour the egg mixture over the bread and mix until all the egg is cooked. Remove from the heat and serve immediately. Definitely best hot!

As you can see, not all of my bread was golden brown. It doesn't have to be all golden brown because that would take you forever and a whole heap of oil!
And here is the finished product which was devoured within a few minutes!!

Oh and I tried sprinkling it with Parmesan cheese (that's the white stuff you see on the side) but the kids did not like it although they do love Parmesan cheese and find it an absolute treat to be able to eat it by itself.

Hummus - Quick, Easy, Delicious!

I'm back!!!

I have figured out how to work my new phone and things have settled down enough that I actually have time to cook peacefully. Only when cooking peacefully does one have time to take pictures.

Today I wasn't really "cooking", since I never even put the cooker on.

My kids absolutely love hummus and given that it is nutritious and delicious I wonder why I don't make it more often. Whenever there is a pot luck and I don't have time to bake anything I grab for a large can of chickpeas. Its always a hit. Today I needed something quick for lunch so we picked up some Lebanese flat bread and made some hummus.

Just as a warning, don't omit the tahini (don't buy the cheapest either) because without tahini it does not taste half as good.

Preparation time: 15 min. Serves 4 (as an appetizer) 

Ingredients:

1	14 oz can chickpeas (or 225 g dried chickpeas soaked in cold water overnight
1	Lemon, juice of
75 ml (1/4 cup)	Tahini paste
2 tbsp.	Olive oil
1 clove	Garlic
	Salt and pepper
1 pinch	Chilli powder

Method:

I almost always use canned chickpeas. They are easy to come by and make this recipe really easy to make.

One mistake that I always make when putting my hummus together is that I throw away the water in the chickpea can. DO NOT throw away the water!! You of course have to drain the water because you don't want that much but you do need a little. 

Once you have drained the chickpeas put them into a food processor. Cut the clove or garlic into about 3 and put it in together with the olive oil, tahini and lemon juice. Be careful with the lemon juice. If you don't like things too sour put in the juice of half the lemon first. You can always add more juice later. Add some salt and pepper to taste (you can also add more later).

Then whizz it in your food processor until it is nice and smooth. If it doesn't get smooth it's probably because there is not enough liquid in the mixture. Taste the hummus and see if it needs more lemon juice. Add as much as you like and then whizz it again. If it is still too dry add the liquid that you drained from the can a teaspoon at a time. Whizz it each time and check the consistency. I like mine not so dry because then the hummus is smoother. So in this batch I ended up putting almost all the lemon and a tablespoon of chickpea liquid. Once you have a smooth paste you are done. 

To serve it place it in a bowl and flatten the top with a spoon making a swirl in the hummus. Drizzle a bit of olive oil onto the swirl and then sprinkle with a pinch of chilli powder. You can also use paprika or any other hot powder. 

Serve as an appetizer or snack with flat bread or vegetable sticks.

For a chef friendly version click here. 

Half an Hour Vegetarian Pumpkin and Potato Soup

Well this one was never truly meant to be! My shopping schedule is all off due to the kids vacations and as usual I forgot that on Sunday the shops are closed. Something that I have never quite been able to get used to. The fridge was almost bare except for some butternut squash and a few potatoes. So I decided to throw them "all" together and make a soup. I happened to have half a loaf of bread left over from yesterday and a few cheeses so I figured we could manage.

Oh and I forgot to mention it was day 2 of the girls musical performance so I only had ... yes, you guessed it, 30 minutes to prepare dinner. When we picked up the girls their first question (as always) was "what are we having for dinner?". They were not too happy when I said soup and bread.

I pretty much grew up eating soup. My mum's soup is famous! I remember my aunt, uncle and cousins coming to visit one evening and they joined us for dinner quite sporadically. My mum made soup and my aunt asked my mum what she put in it because it was delicious. The reason that this stuck in my mind was that my mum made the soup from the beans left over from lunch! Actually whatever was left over from lunch went into the pot together with onions, garlic, water and a vegetable cube. It was then boiled, put in the liquidizer and served with bread and butter. Hmmm delicious... if you only knew! Okay that's not to say that my mum didn't make soups from scratch. She did that all the time, with spinach soup being our all time favourite. Always made with organically grown spinach, freshly plucked from the back garden. And in case you are wondering left over soups really do taste good, depending on what was left over of course!

Serves 4; Preparation time 30 mins.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp.	Olive Oil
1 small	Onion
2 cloves	Garlic
500 g	Butternut squash or Pumpkin
250 g	Potatoes
750 ml	Water
1	Vegetable cube
12 stems	Thyme
	Salt & Pepper

Method:

Soup is ultra easy to make. First peel the pumpkin and potatoes and then cube them. The smaller the better because they will cook quicker and be easier to pulverize at the end. Also dice the onion and the garlic.

Then take a large saucepan and heat it on high. Throw in the oil, onions and garlic and stir fry until soft. Around 1-2 minutes. Then add the pumpkin and potatoes and mix it well. Let it fry for 5 minutes or so, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. 

Add the water, vegetable cube, salt and pepper stir it all up, put the lid on and let it boil. Reduce the heat as necessary. 

Now I have this thyme plant left over from making the caramelized leek quiche so I decided to put some of that in too. But I really could not be bothered with picking the leaves off so I just took around 12 stems of about 7 - 8 cm length and chopped them up. I picked out a few of the harder stems once I was done chopping and threw the rest of the leaves into the bubbling pot.

The vegetables didn't have to boil for more than 10 minutes and they were done. I then pulled out my Kenwood stick mixer (Stab or Bamix depending on where you live and your age!), stuck it in the pot and mashed everything up. If you want a lumpy soup you can just use a potato masher. If you only have a liquidizer your in for bad luck because you can't put hot liquid in a traditional liquidizer. Actually there is a way around it. If you prepare the vegetables with a minimum amount of water you can then add cold water to them once they are cooked. This is usually cool enough to use in a liquidizer. However, afterwards you have to heat it up again. 

The girls just looked at the soup and said "what is it?" After I explained what was in it our oldest agreed to having one soup spoon full and the youngest demanded half a spoon. But half spoons don't exist (according to my husband) so she had to make do with a whole spoon. Then they tried it and couldn't get enough of it! I had to fight to have some left over so that I could pack it up as a school lunch for the next day!!! So it was successful (otherwise I would not be sharing it here, no?).

Half an Hour Vegetarian Linguini in Creamy Mushroom Sauce

I was not planning on cooking so many quick meals in a row. After all it was the weekend. Weekends usually equal a quick lunch and an elaborate dinner. But I totally forgot that the girls were performing this weekend and would be out of the house from 1 to 4.30 pm. This meant that us adults got some time together. And what a wonderful weekend it turned out to be with bright sunshine and warm air. On Saturday we visited a flea market and picked up some CD's, puzzles and books for the kids. Then we had a huge ice-cream and went shopping. But all this meant that there was only half an hour to get the dinner on the table by 5:30 pm! Good for you :)

So this was Saturday's dish. One I have not made for ages because the spaghetti is so cheap here and the linguini, which is called Tagliatelle here (and might be different), is so expensive (comparatively). If pasta is not readily available or extremely expensive then stay tuned and I'll post my favourite pasta recipe. It's easy to make but it increases the time needed to make this dish exponentially.

Serves 4 (if you have a hungry lot you might want to serve a quick green salad with it); Preparation time 30 mins.

Ingredients:

250 g	Linguini
2 tbsp.	Butter
1 small/medium	Onion
2 large cloves	Garlic
500 g	Mushrooms
1	Red bell pepper
2 tbsp.	White wine
250 ml	Whipping cream
1/2 cup	Grated parmesan
	Salt & Pepper

Method: 

I first put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. If you want to speed up the process put a little bit of water in the pot on the stove and while this is heating up boil the rest of the water in a kettle. Once the water boils add it to the pot. I use this method when I'm in a real hurry!

After putting the water to boil I peeled the onion and sliced it and then peeled and finely chopped the garlic. 

Then I washed the mushrooms and sliced them rather thin (<1 cm). 

For the red pepper I used some frozen char broiled peppers, but you can use a regular red pepper instead or leave it out altogether. If you are using fresh pepper now is the time to wash and cut it. Next I took a large wok and melted the butter on medium heat. Once it was melted I put in the onion and the garlic and fried it for about 1 minute. Then I added the mushrooms (add the bell pepper if you are using a fresh one) and fried them until they were fully cooked. 

At some point during all this the water for the pasta boiled and I threw the Linguini into the boiling water. I then brought the water back to boiling point, stirred the noodles so that they didn't stick to each other and then set the timer according to the recommendations on the packet. I always use a timer with pasta. Hubby does not like over cooked pasta it has to be just right! 

Once the mushrooms were cooked I added the char broiled peppers and increased the heat to high. Then I added the wine. I actually don't like alcohol and that's why I increased the temperature to high. This way the alcohol will all burn off leaving just the taste of the white wine. I'm always careful not to inhale the fumes otherwise I would be drunk before dinner! 

Once the alcohol has evaporated the rest of the ingredients are added. The sauce is then done and if you are lucky your pasta will be done too. 

I always drain my pasta and wash it under cold water so that it doesn't stick together. Then I added it to the sauce and mixed it all up, tasting for salt and pepper and adding accordingly.

And I forgot to say that I happened to have spinach tagliatelle so that's why my noodles are green. 

Serve immediately! Does not reheat well.

Half an Hour Vegetarian Stir Fry (Chinese)

My husband read my previous post and came home expecting a European stir fry (although I'm not quite sure what that would look like!). Unfortunate for him it turned out to be Chinese style :( But it still hit the spot.

So I decided to do this right and I set my kitchen timer to 30 minutes to make sure that it truly took half an hour. I must admit that together with setting things up to be photographed and taking the photographs half an hour is really stressful. But at least this time I managed it!

What I love about stir frying is that the cooking is done really quickly and you can use almost any vegetable you have at home. The down side is that all the chopping and cleaning of the vegetables takes a while. In keeping with my promise to have adequate protein in these meals I went out and bought some fresh tofu. We have this awesome Asian store just down the road from us that sells super fresh tofu. The tofu sits in a big blue basin of water in the fridge and is packed in a little bag for you to take home. The stuff doesn't last more than 3 days but it sure beats the vacuum packed type. And all that for just 1 Euro 10!! My mother-in-law frequently asks me to bring a stack when I go to visit. According to her it's the cheapest tofu around (okay that was when in cost only 90 cents!).

So here goes:

Serves around 8; preparation time: 30 mins!

Ingredients:

??	Jasmine rice
2 tbsp.	Oil
1	Onion
3 cloves	Garlic
6 slices	Ginger
3	Carrots
1 small	European eggplant
250 g	Mushrooms
1 block	Tofu
1 cup	Shitake mushrooms
2 cups	Chopped napa
3 tbsp.	Soya sauce
3 tbsp.	Corn starch
1 cup	Water
1	Vegetable cube
	Salt & Pepper
2 cups	Bean Sprouts

Method:

The very first thing you need to think about is whether you are going to use dried Shitake mushrooms or fresh ones. If you are then you have to soak them ahead of time. Anywhere between 24 hours and 30 minutes would do. Wash them first and then pour boiling water over them. Make sure every one is covered and then forget about them. Of course alternatively you could use fresh Shitake mushrooms but they are way more expensive and harder to get. We use the dried ones for three reasons. The first two are above and the third one is that I don't like the taste of fresh Shitake mushrooms!!

So first of all you need to cook the rice. With a bit of luck you have a rice cooker to do this. So you just have to figure out how much rice your family will eat and then throw it in there. I think we all pretty much know how much will be consumed. My family eats between 1 to 1.5 rice cooker cups of raw rice and they all dislike reheated rice so I try to guess if it's going to be a 1 cup day or a 1.5 cup day.

Once the rice is set to cook it's time to get busy with the washing and the chopping. First peel and cut the onion into 2 cm dice. Yes, I like the onions in my stir fry to be big just like in the tacky Chinese restaurants! Then peel and mince the garlic and slice the ginger. I slice my ginger very, very thin.

Next up are the carrots which have to be washed, peeled and then sliced. The thinner the slices the quicker it will cook and the longer it will take to chop. It's a bit of a trade off. 5 mm is probably optimum. Next wash and dice (1.5 cm) the eggplant. I'm in Germany, so I get Italian eggplant. It's large and fluffy and that's why I say use a small one. If I were to use a Chinese, Japanese or Sri Lankan eggplant I would just use a regular sized one.

Finally, wash and quarter the mushrooms. As you can see I used button mushrooms. If you are in SL you can use oyster mushrooms. They need to be super fresh and you don't have to cut them too small. Just keep in mind that oyster mushrooms lose a lot more water so you should probably reduce the added water to around 1/2 cup.

For this stir fry I used the largest wok that I own. Okay, it's not humongous but it's pretty big. There are a lot of vegetables here and before they are fully cooked they take up a lot of space. So the wok gets heated up and then the oil goes in. I used to put the oil in the wok and then heat the pan, but my father-in-law does it this way and he owned his own Chinese restaurant so... go figure! I later found out that the cold oil prevents things from sticking to the pan!

Put the oil in the wok and then the onions, garlic and ginger and stir fry for around 1 minute. [While it's frying take out your tofu and dice it into 2 cm pieces]. Then add the carrots to the onion mix and stir it well. Carrots take the longest so they go in first. Make sure you stir it and cook for 1-2 minutes during which time you can finish off chopping the tofu.

Next in go the eggplant and the mushrooms and that gets stir fried too. While you are stir frying you can cut up your shitake mushrooms. Since I use the dried variety I had to remove the stems and cut the caps into halves. How you cut the caps will depend on how large they are. Mine were really, really small. Taking the stems off takes forever but luckily the vegetables now need to cook a bit.

Once you are done with the shitake mushrooms then chop and wash the nappa, which is also known as Chinese cabbage. Throw this, the tofu and the mushrooms into the pan and stir it all up.

Now comes the sauce. Well I'm a bit lazy when it comes to sauces. I don't like to dirty an extra bowl to mix the sauce unless it is really necessary. So I just pour the sauces into the saucepan. I was running out of time because my vegetables were on the verge of being over cooked so there was no time to mix and photograph, so the sauces went directly into the pan. Pour in the soya sauce and then mix the corn starch with the cold water and pour this into the pan. Crush up the vegetable cube and sprinkle it on top. Then mix it all up. Now my family likes it's gravy so you'll find that this is a bit of a gravy heavy stir fry. The amount of gravy is adjustable, you just have to add less water. If you want a thicker gravy then once the water and corn starch has boiled take out a bit of the gravy from the pan, mix in some more corn starch and add it back into the pan. Make sure you allow it to boil because only then will the starch thicken the sauce.

Finally, while you let all the juices absorb and the tastes combine, quickly wash the bean sprouts and throw them in. I like to add them right at the end so that they are still crunchy when they are served. Oh and don't forget to season with salt and pepper. I almost always don't have enough salt in my cooking!! Generally I just forget about it. I've been trying really hard lately to remember to put enough salt but unless my recipe says "1 tsp. salt" I just sprinkle some in and hope for the best. I guess less salt is better than too much!

Serve pipping hot with the rice.

Vegetarian meals in half an hour

Germany is definitely a meat eating country if ever there was one. Even today, you will be hard pressed to find a decent vegetarian meal in a traditional German restaurant. Around 10 years ago it was hard to find ANY vegetarian food here, but things have changed radically since then. So much so that people seem to feel bad when I tell them that we are vegetarian. The typical response I get is "we don't eat that much meat either, only twice or thrice a week. My husband is a heavy meat eater so we have to have some meat". Well I don't expect everyone else to be vegetarian and I certainly don't judge you differently if you eat meat. For our family the choice is personal and not dependent on health or religion. 

A full vegetarian meal: Not cooked in half an hour!

Another common response that I get is that it just takes so long to cook vegetarian food. And it is this statement that inspired me to write a series of posts with vegetarian meals you can cook in half an hour, that are protein rich and taste good. 

Peanut dip with toast and deep fried tofu

As you can imagine these are not going to be gourmet meals. They can't be. Any quick meal, even if it contains meat, cannot be gourmet if it's been cooked in half an hour. Meat has to be marinaded and you still have to cook some starch to accompany it. 

Hummus: A firm favourite!

Don't expect these meals to be vegan! We eat eggs over here and depend a lot on cream and cheese. In my view the best vegan food in the world is Sri Lankan food!

Lumpreis: No it's not supposed to be cooked in half an hour but it is vegan!

Happy vegetarian cooking and stay tuned to discover how easy it is to cook vegetarian food. I'll see you tomorrow with a vegetarian stir fry.

Simple, Delicious Chocolate Mousse

Have you ever eaten something that was so simple to make and yet so extremely godly?

NO? The only things that are godly are sooooo difficult to make...

Well then you really need to try out this amazingly simple chocolate mousse. You should be warned... it is extremely unhealthy. Although I was told by my German friend who gave me the recipe that "it's all good fat!" Whether you believe this or not the mousse is heavenly.

I only make this recipe when I can get ultra fresh eggs because the list of ingredients includes RAW EGGS. My "ultra fresh eggs" come from my friend who keeps hens as pets. She picks up an egg box, walks out to the hen house, fills the box with eggs and then drives to work. I then get a phone call, or a text, or a Whatsapp message to come and pick up the eggs. The eggs are divine.

Last week I received such a message and went to pick up my eggs. Immediately when I got home I put together my mousse so it would set in time for dinner.

This recipe makes 8 servings (servings size - VERY SMALL - as seen in the above photo). I usually make half the recipe because I don't like to keep any in the fridge owing to the raw eggs.

Ingredients:

200g	Dark chocolate (otherwise known as semi-sweet)
4	Eggs
1/2 l	Whipping cream

Method:

Melt the chocolate. I like to do this in the microwave but you have to be very careful that you don't burn the chocolate. You also have to be careful that you don't make it too hot because if the chocolate is hot it will cook the eggs and you will not have chocolate mousse for dinner tonight!

I leave the microwave on high and put the chocolate in for 30 seconds. Then I take it out and look to see how far it is melted. If more than half of it is melted, and the bowl is hot, then I stir the chocolate and let it sit. If not, I put it back in the microwave and keep heating it until enough is melted. By the time I'm done with the eggs the chocolate has completely melted and it's not very hot. If your microwave has hot spots I would recommend using a double boiler (Fill a pan 1/4 with water and suspend another bowl with the chocolate in it over it. Let the water simmer and stir the chocolate until it is melted. Allow to cool).

Oh and one other thing, make sure you get absolutely no water/moisture into your chocolate. If you do it will seize and again... there will be no chocolate mousse for you tonight!

Melted Chocolate

Next beat the eggs until they are fluffy.

Note there are only two eggs in the photo

Add the melted chocolate to the beaten eggs and mix until well combined.

Add the whipping cream and whip till the cream gets thick. This is the only step that is a bit tricky and how tricky it is depends on what cream you are using and in which country you live in. In the USA I've beaten heavy whipping cream for ages and nothing bad ever happens. If you do this in Germany with regular "schlagsahne" it will curdle i.e. turn into butter, so one has to be really careful. I rather under beat it than over beat it. If you use Kothmale fresh cream it will also curdle. 

Another trick to beating your cream quickly is to make sure it is cold. It's not a problem if you are using fresh cream because it would have been stored in the fridge, but if you use a long life variety make sure you chill it first. It's a real time saver. Since I never know that I'm going to make mousse in advance I just stick a pack, or two, in the freezer before I begin and by the time I get to using it, it is decently chilled. 

At the end the mixture looks like this:

You can then be lazy and put this directly in the fridge to set or you can pipe it into individual bowls as in the photo all the way at the top. Then chill the mousse for 2 - 3 hours. You can serve it how ever you like but mine like it with a bit of fruit a dollop of fresh whipped cream and a few pieces of grated chocolate.