lunch Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Use Your Noodles

Goat Cheese & Pear Chutney Burgers

September 12, 2019

The recipe for these goat cheese and pear chutney burgers are the true fall delights that are going to make every fall grill party a success!

I’m so happy to post this recipe. We’ve been making a ton of burgers this summer. We bought a badass extra mini grill that we can use on our tiny balcony and it doesn’t smoke. So we do lotsa grilling these days 🙂

I’m slowly accepting that the fall is actually here and it’s not going anywhere for a while. Hello, sweater weather! So with that in mind, our burgers have gone from summery fresh to delicious mouthwatering warming delights. Too poetic? Sorry ’bout that. I just love these so much!

One more thing! I’ve created this recipe in collaboration with Trauth Design Gastrowear. They provided me with the most beautiful apron, that you can see in the photos. I just love the sense of detail that they put into their aprons.

Anyhoo, wanna know what these burgers are all about?

If there are burgers that screams fall they’re these pear chutney burgers, for sure!

I mean homemade pear chutney and goat cheese? Paired with super simple avocado cream, pancetta, and arugula? Is there anything better?

And the good thing is that it’s a mixture of indulgence and healthy stuff. I don’t like burgers that are too heavy and overly greasy and just plain too much everything. So I’d like to think it’s well balanced and still super delicious. You should have seen our little guy nibbling on one of them 🙂

Do I need to make my own pear chutney?

Of course not! If you can get one somewhere, go for it. Nothing like that here, so I have to make my own. The recipe makes more than you need for four burgers, but you can easily store it for a week in a refrigerator or freeze it for later.

I won’t keep you away from the recipe for much longer. Let’s start cooking!

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Burger

Course Main Course

Keyword beef burger, burger, pear chutney

Servings 4 burgers

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

Brugers

4 burger buns
4 beef burger patties
1/2 cup goat cheese
4 pancetta slices
a handful arugula

Pear Chutney (makes more than needed for 4 burgers)

3 cups finely chopped pears (400g)
1/2 cup brown sugar (80g)
1 cup apple cider vinegar (200ml)
2 small onions finely chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1/2 tsp crushed chipotle
1 tsp salt

Avocado Cream

2 avocados
3 TBSP lime juice
1-2 TBSP water
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Pear Chutney

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 40-50 minutes stirring every now and then.
Let the chutney cool for a few hours before use.

Avocado Cream

Make avocado cream right before cooking the patties.
Place all ingredients in a food processor and mix until smooth and creamy.

Burgers

Cut buns in half and place them in a grill pan and cook until char marks appear.
Place the bacon slices into the same grill pan and cook on medium heat for a few minutes, until they get golden. Turn around halfway through.
Use the same pan to cook burgers. Increase the heat and cook the burgers to your desired doneness. Cooking them 3-4 minutes a side will give medium-rare burgers.
Cover the bottom halves of the buns with avocado cream. Add some arugula. Place the burger patty on and top with crumbled goat cheese, pear chutney, pancetta, and some more arugula. Cover the top halves of the buns with avocado cream and place on top of the burgers. Serve immediately.

Creamy Chard And Fennel Soup

August 28, 2019

Super easy and quick recipe for delicious healthy chard and fennel soup. Creamy and sweet!

I hope you’re all feeling great and excited about slightly (but really just slightly) cooler late Summer days! These are my favorite. The weather is great and the produce this time of year is just perfect. We’ve been eating a lot of corn lately (mostly cooked, but I have plans of grilling it one of these days) and whenever we can, we make the cream cheese tart with tomatoes and other veggies that I posted last week.

Tomorrow I’m meeting my dear friends from Story On A Plate blog and we’ll prepare something sweet with plums. I love Kristina and Mateja, the girls behind the blog. Both so creative and the nicest people. But I’ll let you know more about what we’ll be making next week. Make sure you subscribe, so you don’t miss this!

Let’s focus on this beautiful soup…

We’re growing fennel for the first time this year and honestly, I can’t believe we haven’t tried it before. They are so easy to grow and do I need to mention how pretty they look in the garden?

I’m not a huge fan of raw fennel, but I love it when it’s either cooked or roasted. It loses its strong anise-like taste and becomes very sweet, perfect for a late Sumer soup.

We also grow lots of green leafy veggies including chard. I love how these match the sweet fennel with their earthy flavors. If you don’t have chard on hand, you can replace it with spinach or arugula.

A quick story…

After I made this soup, I gave it to my two-year-old son to try for dinner. He ate the whole bowl. I cooked fish and some potatoes to eat after the soup (which he absolutely loves). Instead of eating potatoes and fish, he asked me to pour him more soup. He ate three full bowls of this soup!

It’s either the soup or I’m lucky to have a kid who loves veggies. I’d like to think it’s both 🙂

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

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Creamy Chard And Fennel Soup

Course Appetizer, Side Dish, Soup

Keyword chard soup, fennel soup, soup

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 4 servings

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

1 medium-size fennel bulb
1 small onion
200 g chard (about 5 cups whole leaves)
1 medium-size potato
2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
seeds for garnish (pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds…)
olive oil for cooking and garnish

Instructions

Clean the fennel bulb to remove dirt and cut in quarters lengthwise. Thinly slice each quarter.
Peel and cut the onion in half and slice thinly.
Peel and wash the potatoes. Cut into 1 cm (1/2 inch) cubes and leave to rest in cold water.
Wash the chard. If there are any bigger leaves, cut away the stems. You'll be cooking those separately.
Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a hot pan and add sliced onions and fennel. Sauté for 10 minutes or until they turn golden. Make sure to stir now and then to prevent burning.
Drain the potatoes and add them to the fennel and onions. Add the separate stalks from the chard at his point too. Add boiling water and cover the pan. Reduce the heat to low and let cook for 10 minutes or until the potato is fork-tender.
Add the rest of the chard, cover and cook for two to three minutes. Remove from the heat and pour everything in a blender. Add heavy cream, salt, and pepper and blend until the soup is smooth and silky. Add more boiling water if necessary.
Garnish with some olive oil, heavy cream, and seeds. Serve warm.

Summer Harvest Cream Cheese Tart

August 21, 2019

Celebrate the late Summer produce with this delicious summer harvest cream cheese tart.

Can you believe it that it’s almost the end of August? Before the Summer begins I always have lots of plans and prep for all the activities like it’s going to last for a year. And then it goes by so so quickly. I don’t usually mind because I love Autumn, but this year the Summer was super short here. I would love for it to last for at least a couple more months.

Anyway, tomatoes are here. And peppers! I found these perfect colorful tomatoes at a local farm before we had our own. Well, we had a few and I mixed those in. Aren’t they pretty? I mean the color is amazing but they taste even better.

They are getting more abundant now so I’m planning on making this summer harvest cream cheese tart again sometime soon along with the roasted tomato galette that I’ve been making for years.

After finding these beautiful tomatoes and peppers I really felt like making something similar to pizza but with less work. I love how easy it is to make it. A puff pastry crust, a garlicky cream cheese spread and fresh summer harvest veggies like tomatoes, peppers, and onions. It’s a perfect late Summer dish! You can add other veggies that you find in the garden right now.

How to make a perfect puff pastry crust?

This crust doesn’t need any pre-baking, but I do have a few tips that make this crust beautiful and delicious.

Score a cm (1/2 inch) edge around the crust. This is going to separate the edge from the middle where the filling will be.
Make some holes with a fork in the center part of the crust where the filling will go. This will prevent the crust from puffing up and give a nice crunchy crust.

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Sumer Harvest Cream Cheese Tart

Course Appetizer, Main Course, Side Dish, Snack

Cuisine Mediterranean

Keyword puff pastry tart, summer tart, tomato tart

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 4 people

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

1 sheet of puff pastry
4-5 big tomatoes
1 bell pepper or any other pepper

Cream cheese Spread

1/2 cup cream cheese (100g)
1 TBSP honey
1/2 tsp salt
1 garlic clove
a few basil leaves

Garnish

basil
pine nuts
sesame seeds
1 egg for egg wash

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F.

Cream cheese spread

Finely chop basil and garlic.
Add garlic, basil, salt, and honey to cream cheese and mix with a spoon to get a silky consistency.

Tart

Place the puff pastry onto a sheet pan lined with baking paper. You can make a rectangular tart or make them any other shape.
Score a 1cm (1/2 inch) edge around the puff pastry like shown in the images above.
Using a fork make holes in the center part of the pastry.
Spread the cream cheese filling onto the center of the tart.
Cut onions, tomatoes, and peppers into thin slices and place them on top of the tart.
Using a fork, whisk one egg and spread a thin layer over the edge of the tart. Sprinkle with some sesame seeds.
Bake in a preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden and crunchy.
Serve warm or cold. Garnish with fresh basil and pine nuts.

Mediterranean Garlic Ricotta Shrimp Pasta

July 12, 2019

This quick and rich garlic ricotta shrimp pasta is incredibly creamy and luxurious and has a lovely sour and salty flavor from lemon and glasswort (sea asparagus).

Even on the busiest and most stressful days, I want to eat a real meal. Something delicious and creamy with a character. It’s pasta I usually crave on these days. What do you crave in the busiest of days? Let me know in the comments below. Sometimes I make pasta salad and nibble on it during the day. Pssst… don’t tell anyone!

But for reals, the amount of pasta we eat. And it’s not only because we’re busy. It’s mostly because we love pasta. If you’re a pasta lover like me, then this is the recipe for you.

The flavors here are mild but so indulging and balanced. The lemony ricotta sauce with peas and shrimp is to die for on its own, but then you add some garlic and glasswort and you’ve got a treat that you can make in seconds.

Have you ever tried glasswort?

It is apparently also called sea asparagus and grows in salt marshes. It is edible both raw and cooked and delicious either way!

I tried it for the first time last weekend when I randomly saw it in the store and I just had to try it.

What does it taste like? It’s like eating the sea and I mean that in a good way. It is very salty so you should be careful with how much you put in a dish. I especially love the crunch. It kinda reminds me of the exploding candy that I ate as a child. Remember, the ones that feel like there are bubbles popping in your mouth.

Not to worry. If you can’t get your hands on sea asparagus, you can still make a super delicious garlic ricotta shrimp pasta. You can add some pickled capers for the salty Mediterranean flavor. Works just as nicely.

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Mediteranean Garlic Ricotta Shrimp Pasta

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Keyword shrimp pasta

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 4 people

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

250 g dried pasta
1/2 cup ricotta (100g)
1 cup fresh or frozen peas (100g)
300 g shrimps peeled and deveined
15 g glasswort (sea asparagus) or alternatively, 2 TBSP pickled salted capers
2 TBSP butter
3 cloves garlic
a few springs of thyme
zest of 1 small organic lemon
juice of 1 small lemon
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
grated parmesan cheese for topping

Instructions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta as long as stated on the packaging stirring every two minutes. Once cooked, drain the pasta, but leave some pasta water to use for the sauce.
While your pasta is cooking prepare the sauce. Place a large skillet on medium heat. Add butter and garlic and fry for a few minutes stirring occasionally. When the garlic turns lightly golden, add the shrimps, peas, glasswort, and thyme. If you are using capers instead of glasswort add them midway through cooking (when you turn the shrimps). Season with salt and black pepper. Cook for 4-5 minutes and turn the shrimps midway through. Shrimps are done when they turn pink. Remove the shrimp, peas, and glasswort (or capers) from the skillet.
Add ricotta, lemon juice, lemon zest and a little pasta water to the skillet and whisk to make it creamy. Add just enough pasta water for the sauce to be creamy but not runny. Remove from the stove. Season with salt and black pepper.
Save a few shrimp, peas and glasswort (or capers) for decoration. Return the rest of the to the skillet and mix.
Add the cooked and drained pasta to the sauce and mix to coat the pasta with the sauce.
Serve warm and top with the remaining shrimp, peas and glasswort and some grated parmesan cheese.

Vegan Pea And Asparagus Quiche

June 12, 2019

This simple vegan pea and asparagus quiche recipe is so easy to make and a great way to treat your guests!

I can’t believe it’s already the middle of the year! I feel like the Winter has been way too long this year (although, I love it so much). Not even a month ago I was still wearing a winter coat and this past weekend I’ve been swimming in the sea. Crazy!

I’m so glad it’s summer already. Okay, late Spring, but it feels like Summer 🙂

If there’s one ingredient I love about this time of year it’s asparagus. I love it raw because it tastes kinda like peas and I love eating peas raw just as well. But both of those are also incredibly delicious cooked. So, today I’m sharing a recipe for a vegan pea and asparagus quiche that I created together with the lovely Tereza Poljanič from Teresamisu.

We were secretly admiring each other’s work for a long time, so we met a while ago and came up with the idea of creating a couple of recipes together. If you don’t know her yet, go check her out! Tereza is a multi-talented lady. She runs her blog, a TV cooking show, writes cookbooks and so much more. Such an inspiring lady!

Back to the recipe!

This was my first time trying out tofu filling. I don’t cook with tofu very often so I was pleasantly surprised by how flavorful the filling came out. It’s a very simple filling. All you need is some onions, garlic and some herbs like basil and mint. We used pumpkin seed tofu, but you can use any firm tofu. The almond milk makes it all very creamy and ties everything together.

Place some fresh asparagus and peas on top, bake and that’s it.

Oh yeah, and we included a delicious crust recipe. Here are some tips on how to make the crust flaky and how to prevent it from shrinking during baking.

How to make a flaky pie crust:

Use cold ingredients and use your hands as little as possible so you’re not warming up that dough.
Little chunks of butter (or coconut butter) should still be visible in the dough. The size of the chunks shouldn’t be larger than a pea.

How to prevent pie crust from shrinking?

Resting the pie crust is crucial. It should rest after making the dough and after you’ve rolled out the dough and placed it in the pie tin
Don’t overwork the dough. This way it gets too firm and shrinks.
Don’t stretch the dough when placing it in the tin.
Poke holes in the bottom.
Use pie weights or dry beans to weight down the crust while pre-baking.

5 from 1 vote

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Vegan Pea And Asparagus Quiche

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Keyword vegan quiche

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Resting Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 35 minutes

Author Anja Burgar & Tereza Poljanič

Ingredients

Dough

280 g all-purpose flour (1 1/3 cup)
140 g coconut butter (or regular butter for a non-vegan quiche) chilled and cubed, (1 1/4 stick)
4-5 TBSP ice cold water
2 tsp salt

Filling

400 g Tereza’s Choice pumpkin tofu or any other firm tofu
100 ml almond milk (1/3 cup + 1 TBSP)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
bunch of basil and mint chopped
handful of peas
handful asparagus

Instructions

Dough

Combine flour and salt, in a food processor. Pulse to mix. Add the butter and pulse a few times. You should still be able to see some small chunks of butter no bigger than peas.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of ice water over flour mixture at a time. Pulse a couple of times. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready. If not, keep adding water one
tablespoon at a time.
After the dough has chilled in the refrigerator for an hour, you can roll it out. If it is too stiff, let it sit for 5-10 minutes at room temperature before rolling.
Sprinkle a little flour on a flat, clean work surface and on top of the dough.
Using a rolling pin, roll it out from the center of the dough. Every once in a while you may need to gently lift under the dough and add a sprinkle of flour.
Using a rolling pin, roll it out from the center of the dough. Every once in a while you may need to gently lift under the dough and add a sprinkle of flour.
When the dough has reached the right size, gently roll it around the rolling pin and place it over the pie tin. Do not stretch the dough.
Use your hands to gently press the dough into the tin.
Use a rolling pin to roll over the edges to trim them.
Place the prepared crust into the refrigerator for another 30 minutes, then take it out and use a fork to create small holes on the bottom. Don't worry, once the dough is baked the wholes will disappear.
Place a piece of aluminum foil onto the crust and add dried beans or pie weights onto the crust and bake it for 15 minutes at 200 °C.
Take the baked pie out of the oven and leave to cool slightly.

Fillling

Meanwhile prepare the tofu filling. Caramelize the onion and add garlic at the end. Then blend the tofu in a food processor with 100 ml of almond milk and the caramelized onion and garlic, blend until smooth consistency.

Finishing the Quiche

Add the filling on top of the pie crust, lastly add peas and asparagus on top. Brush with a little olive oil and bake another 20-30 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Wild Garlic Risotto

April 16, 2019

A beautiful and delicious spring wild garlic risotto recipe that complemented with parmesan cheese and garlic roasted prawns. The best Early Spring feast!

One of my favorite things to forage this time of year is definitely wild garlic. I love the green patches of this aromatic herb and I love how delicate it is.

Lately, there’s been a lot talk about picking other poisonous plants instead of wild garlic. The reality is, if you pick carefully and smell and feel every leaf, there’s no reason to worry, as long as you know how it should look and smell. So if it’s your first time picking, I suggest you go with someone that knows wild garlic. I always pick one leaf at a time, so I’m sure I don’t pick anything else.

Did you know the wild garlic blossoms are also edible? And very pretty, too 🙂 You can see some buds in these photos, but they weren’t open yet when I shot this. I haven’t’ been in the forest this past week, but I’m planning on going today and see if I can find some wild garlic blossoms 🙂

If you follow me on social media, you probably know I’ve been featured in Odprta kuhinja magazine two weeks ago. I created this wild garlic risotto recipe for the magazine together with two other delicious recipes, that I’ll also be sharing on the blog sometime soon. You can find Slovenian versions of the wild garlic risotto recipe here. The other two recipes (I’ll be just a little mean and not tell you what they are), also in Slovenian, are here 🙂 and here 🙂

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Wild Garlic Risotto

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine Italian

Keyword risotto

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 4 people

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

350 g short-grain rice
5 cups vegetable stock
2 shallots peeled and finely chopped
3 TBSP butter
60 g Parmesan cheese finely grated
80 g wild garlic finely chopped
200 g cooked prawns
2 cloves garlic peeled and crushed
1 TBSP cooking oil
black pepper
salt by taste

Instructions

Heat the stock to a simmer in a medium saucepan, then remove from the heat and cover so that the stock stays hot.
In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped shallots. Sauté for 2 to 3 minutes or until slightly translucent.
Add the rice to the saucepan and stir it with a wooden spoon so that the grains are coated with the oil. Sauté for another minute or so.
Add a ladle of hot vegetable stock to the rice and stir until the liquid is fully absorbed. When the rice absorbs almost all the stock, add another ladle of stock and repeat the process.
Continue adding the stock, one ladle at a time, for 20 to 30 minutes or until the grains are tender but still firm to the bite.
Stir in finely chopped wild garlic, 2 TBSP butter, and some black pepper. Remove from the stove, cover and leave to rest for a minute.
Meanwhile, heat the oil over medium heat in a medium saucepan. Add crushed garlic and sauté quickly until golden. Add cooked prawns and cook for 30 seconds, stirring occasionally, to cover them with garlic and butter.
After the risotto has rested for a minute, stir in the Parmesan cheese and mix to combine.
Serve immediately with garlic roasted prawns and some extra Parmesan cheese.

Notes

Be careful seasoning the risotto with salt. If your stock is already salty, you probably won’t need to add salt at all. Remember, you are adding Parmesan cheese at the end, so this will also season the risotto!

Wanna try something else with wild garlic? Try these sardine pâté and wild garlic sandwiches.

Pan-fried Brussels Sprout & Chicken Gyoza

April 4, 2019

These delicious Brussels Sprout & Chicken Gyoza with a dipping sauce are so delicious, you won’t be able to stop eating!

Happy Thursday guys! Hope you are all having a great week. It’s been wild here this week. I was a busy week for me. Besides being sick I have a ton of projects and my son is turning 2 tomorrow so I have to think of a delicious egg-free cake and make it tomorrow.

I’ll make just a teeny tiny cake for him and maybe a bigger cake for Sunday when all the family comes 🙂 Or maybe my mother-in-law will make one. She makes great cakes! So plans for the weekend. Birthday party, obviously, and a photoshoot with some amazing burlesque dancers on Saturday. It’s gonna be fun, I’m sure!

No matter how busy, I always like to make some dumplings. I love all kinds… veggie, meat, fish, you name it, I’ll eat it 🙂

So today I’m making a combo thta I love very much – pan-fried Brussels sprout and chicken gyoza dumplings with a yummy dipping sauce.

These delicious Brussels Sprout & Chicken Gyoza with a dipping sauce are so delicious, you won't be able to stop eating!

Okay, I’m always intrigued by the origins of the dish. Since I ate similar dumplings in a Chinese restaurnt before, I was wondering what’s the story behind gyoza. Here it goes…

Gyoza originated in China as dumplings called Jiaozi. Those became very popular in Japan after the WWII when soldiers brought back the story about Jiaozi and wanted to recreate it. Gyoza was born and it can be filled with all kinds of fillings.

In general there are three types of gyoza – pan-fried, cooked and deep-fried. My favorite – pan-fried called yaki-gyōza.

If you are wondering what’s in these wonderful satchets, let me explain. Besides chicken and Brussels sprouts, there’s also spring onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro and soy sauce. The filling is very easy to make and if you have no time you can always go and buy the wrappers.

But trust me when I say, the wrappers are not difficult to make at all. It does take some time, but you can take it as a meditation. For me working with dough is always a great way to relax and be alone with my thoughts.

Did I tell you about the dipping sauce. I love soy sauce based dipping sauces. The first time I ever tried it, was when I made some spring rolls a long time ago and wondered where I should dip them. They needed some sauce. And I love dipping sushi in soy sauce (probably too much) so the idea was born because of that. I added some lemon juice and freshly chopped chives and to this day I love the sauce so much! Of course, later, I found out that soy sauce based dipping sauces are very common. And for a good reason.

I’m pretty sure you’re all waiting to get to the recipe by now. So here it is!

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Pan-fried Brussels Sprout & Chicken Gyoza

Course Appetizer, Main Course, Side Dish, Snack

Cuisine Japanese

Keyword dumplings, gyoza, potstickers

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

Gyoza Wrappers

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
potato or corn starch to prevent sticking

Gyoza filling

200 g ground chicken
100 g shredded Brussels sprouts
1 small onion chopped
1 spring onion chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 thumb size ginger peeled and chopped
1 TBSP cilantro chopped
2 TBSP soy sauce
2 TBSP cooking oil

Dipping sauce

2 TBSP soy sauce
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP sesame oil

Extras for decoration

chopped cilantro
chopped spring onion greens
sesame seeds

Instructions

Gyoza Wrappers

Add salt to the water and mix until it has dissolved.
Sift the flour into a large bowl.
Add water to the flour and mix with a rubber spatula. If necessary, add a tablespoon of water.
Transfer the dough to the work surface and knead the dough for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes the dough will be much softer. When it is done, cut it in two.
Shape each half into a long log, about 3 cm in diameter. Wrap each log with plastic wrap. Let it sit for 30 minutes.
After the dough has rested, cut each log into 20 pieces and cover with a damp cloth. Roll out each piece so you can cut out a circle with an 8 cm cookie cutter. If the dough rolls back, wait a few seconds, then cut out the circle. Sprinkle with some starch to prevent the wrappers from sticking. Save the scraps under the damp cloth and use them to make more wrappers.

Gyoza filling

Heat up a skillet and add 1 TBSP cooking oil. Saute the onion until golden, then add garlic, ginger and the white part of the spring onion. Saute for a minute or two. Remove from the pan and let cool for a few minutes.
Add this mixture to ground meat, chopped green parts of the spring onion, cilantro and soy sauce. Mix to combine.

Making Gyoza

Run a wet finger around the edge of the gyoza wrappers. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center and Fold the wrapper in half and seal the edges by pressing with fingers. This will create a simple dumpling. If you want the edges to look more artistic, there are a lot of good youtube videos to show you how to do it.

Cooking Gyoza

Place dumplings in a heated skillet with 1 TBSP cooking oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes or until you get the nice deep brown sear on the bottom.
Add 1/3 cup water per 6 dumplings and cover. Cook for 7-8 minutes. If the water runs out, you can add more one TBSP at a time.

Dipping Sauce

Combine all ingredients to make the dipping sauce.
Sprinkle the dumplings with chopped cilantro, spring onion greens, and sesame seeds. Serve with the dipping sauce.

Kale and Radicchio Quinoa Salad

March 24, 2019

This healthy Kale and Radicchio Quinoa Salad is a Winter favorite at our house. With fresh kale and radicchio, quick spring onion pickles and feta cheese I’m sure it will be in yours too.

Today’s recipe is inspired by all the delicious Winter leafy produce that is still available although the long-awaited Spring has arrived. This salad is loaded with some of my favorites like kale and radicchio.

A lot of you have been asking me to share more quick lunch recipes. So here’s another one. And the great thing about it? It’s meant to be cold so it’s super easy to take with you to work! Yay 😀

Alight, so here’s the deal. I usually make quinoa warm and throw in some roasted veggies when I need to take lunch with me. So it occurred to me I should make it a dish that’s meant to be eaten cold in the first place. Like a salad. And whoa, was I right! You should see my husband’s reaction to this kale and radicchio quinoa salad. He was super excited. Who wouldn’t be, just look at these colors!

The best part of this salad is the quick spring onion pickle. It literally takes a few minutes and you can make a bigger batch so you can use it on other dishes as well. In this recipe, I use the pickling liquid as a vinaigrette. Since I cook chunks of beetroot with the spring onion the dressing has a beautiful vibrant pink color. And this salad is all about color.

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Kale and Radicchio Quino Salad

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

3 cups quinoa cooked
5 big kale leaves chopped finely
1/2 radicchio (I used Chioggia variety, but others can be used as well), chopped finely
50 g feta cheese crumbled
2 TBSP sunflower seeds
parsley for topping

Quick Pickled Spring Onions

2 spring onions white parts, sliced into 5mm strips
1/4 small beetroot chopped into 4 chuncks
4 TBSP apple cider
2 TBSP water
4 TBSP caster sugar
salt to taste

Instructions

Quick Pickled Spring Onions

Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Let cook for about 5 minutes. Remove beet chunks and cool before using as a dressing.

Kale and Radicchio Quino Salad

Mix cooked quinoa, chopped kale, chopped radicchio, feta and pickled spring onions with the pickling liquid. Mix well.
Sprinkle sunflower seeds and chopped parsley on top.

Roasted Orange Chicken

January 31, 2019

Tender roasted orange chicken marinated in orange juice and soy sauce served with roasted potatoes is a quick and easy dinner recipe everyone will love.

Hello guys! I have an exciting new recipe

A lot of people have told me lately that they look for quick lunch and dinner recipes that are healthy as well. I always loved anything roasted, more so lately with my son keeping me busy. Anything that can be prepared in advance and doesn’t take a lot of my time is super handy.

I made this roasted orange chicken last week and I love how it turned out. I need to make something quickly with a few ingredients I had in the fridge. You really don’t need a lot of fancy ingredients to make a fancy meal. Doesn’t this look fancy? Trust me, no fancy ingredients were added. Oranges are the not-so-secret ingredients that add such a nice color and make it looks like you worked your but for the meal 🙂

The marinade ends up making the most delicious sauce and adds so much flavor to he chicken. Wanna know the best part? I took me less than 10 minutes to prepare before tossing into the oven and relaxing!

The whole family was sick the past month and a half. It’s been only a few days since we’re actually all okay and we’re hoping it ended. There’s nothing less fun but being home with a sick kid or being sick yourself or even worst both of you sick. We weren’t able to go out for more than a few minutes a day and we were FREAKING OUT!

We were drinking lots of elderflower turmeric tea and eating a ton of soup! And finally got better… fingers crossed.

To be honest, a lot of the time I wasn’t even able to cook anything even slightly decent. Thank god for my mum, we were crashing her lunches a lot. Parents rock, right? I hope my son says that about me some day!

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Roasted Orange Chicken

Course Main Course

Keyword chicken, roasted chicken, roasted potatoes

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Servings 2 people

Author Anja Burgar

Ingredients

500 g chicken thighs (approx. 2 chicken thighs)
400 g young potatoes
1 orange cut in slices
1 whole garlic bulb
1/2 TBSP soy sauce
2 TBSP freshely squeezed orange juice
1 tsp ground garlic
1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 TBSP olive oil
salt to taste
10 thyme springs

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 190 °C.
Combine together soy sauce, orange juice, ground garlic, crushed black pepper, cayenne pepper, and 1 TBSP olive oil. Pour over the chicken thighs and let sit until you prepare the potatoes.
Cut potatoes in 2 cm chunks and drizzle with 1 TBSP olive oil and add salt to taste. Mix well.
Place potatoes in a baking tray and add chicken thighs skin side up. Add orange slices and thyme springs.
Roast in the preheated oven for 50 minutes.

Shredded Chicken Enchiladas With Homemade Enchilada Sauce

December 24, 2018

These shredded chicken enchiladas are my absolutely favorite enciladas. The recipe is super easy and it even includes a homemade enchilada sauce that’s made with little effort in only 15 minutes.

I can’t believe tomorrow’s Christmas already. Hasn’t December just begun??

I had plans to do some thorough house cleaning plus some more baking and decorating, but my son’s been home all week long with a cold and an ear infection. Although I can do some cleaning with him around and helping, there’s just no way I can do it in detail. Still, it was fun having him at home, we haven’t had the whole day to ourselves since he started kindergarten.

We’re making plans what to eat during holidays. Me and my husband are huge fans of Mexican food. So I’ve made a recipe for chicken enchiladas with a homemade enchilada sauce. The recipe is very easy! We usually end up making too many so we eat them again next day for breakfast. Okay, I admit, maybe we make too many on purpose 😛

We have a favorite Mexican restaurant and we used to only order beef enchiladas there. We’re crazy about beef! Then one evening we decided to try chicken enchiladas. I guess we always order them with chicken ever since. They use cabbage in the filling and it just goes so well with chicken and the tomato sauce. So that was the inspiration behind this recipe.

For the filling you can use leftover chicken, because we all know big Christmas dinners leave us with a ton of leftovers. I hate throwing food away and love recipes that transform those into something very delicious.

I hope you are having wonderful holidays and I wish you peaceful and loving moments with the ones you love!

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Shredded Chicken Enchiladas With Homemade Enchilada Sauce

The BEST chicken enchiladas, hearty but full of veggies!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword chicken enchiladas

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Chicken enchiladas

8 corn tortillas (20cm/8inch)
1 cooked and chopped chicken breast (leftovers can be used)
1/4 cabbage head
1 carrot
1 red bell pepper
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
400 g mozzarella (shredded)
1/3 cup pomegranate arils
1 lime
1 avocado (cut into thin slices)
chopped coriander

Homemade Enchilada Sauce

800 g canned tomatoes
1/2 cup pomegranate juice (or cranberry juice)
juice of half a lime
1 TBSP peanut butter
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 fresh chilli
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Place all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes or until it thickens a bit.
Use a blender to make a smooth sauce.

Chicken enchiladas

Thinly slice cabbage and onions. Cut red bell pepper in small chunks and grate carrots.
In a skillet sauté onions, cabbage, carrots, and red bell peppers. When they soften add garlic and sauté for another minute.
Place the sauteed vegetables in a big bowl and add shredded chicken breast, half of the shredded mozzarella and 1/3 of enchilada sauce (or more if the mixture seems too dry). Mix well and divide into eight parts. Use each part to fill one tortilla and roll them o keep all ingredients inside.
Add 1/3 of enchilada sauce to the bottom of the baking pan. Place rolled tortillas on top and pour the remaining 1/3 of enchilada sauce over the tortillas. Add the other half of mozzarella on top and bake for 15 minutes or until the cheese is golden.
Use pomegranate arils, avocado, lime and coriander as garnish. Serve warm.

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

July 6, 2017

Italian flavors with a twist in one delicious spicy goat cheese pesto pizza loaded with fresh cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and black olives. I could eat this pizza every day!

Wow, the summer this year. I can’t complain. Sunny weather, nice breeze and Aperol spritz in the evenings – what else could I wish for? The baby is sleeping very well so far, during the night as well as the day and his playtimes are getting longer. Finally! I absolutely love singing to him with his curious eyes on me all the time 🙂

In a couple of days we’re heading for some much needed vacations beside a beautiful lake under the mountains. Even though we love the seaside, we’re more of a lake and river type of swimmers. We love the sunny beaches and the waves by the sea, but hate the salt. The place we’re going to is quite isolated with just a couple of vacation houses nearby. So hopefully we’ll get some peace and quiet.

Okay back to the recipe. I have a ton of basil in the garden. A couple of years ago I sowed an entire bag of seeds in one small pot and it turned out the best idea ever. Why? Because you can start picking basil as soon as it starts growing leaves. Of course it’s way too crowded and I pick the whole plants in the begining to decrowd the pot. I leave some to grow into big bushy plants.

Basil was the whole inspiration for this recipe. I love pesto esecially with basil. I tried making it with goat cheese and it is seriously delicious. Add some mozzarela, tomatoes and olives and put all of them on the best pizza dough and you’ve got a treat. I included an amazing and very easy pizza dough recipe, but you can use your own. My whole-grain spelt dough would work just as well.

This pizza dough rises slowly in the fridge for a day and it is the best pizza dough I’ve made to this date. In fact most pizza places will make the dough in advance as well. Slow rise at low temperatures makes the dough nice and elastic, so you can strech it out very thinly. I didn’t do this with this pizza, but I love making it super thin for my tomato sauce pizza only. Which reminds me… I should totally share the recipe.

Second thing with making your pizza dough perfect is high temperature. Although I sometimes bake it at 230°C only, to make it more bready. Again look at the photos, the dough turns out looking something like that. If you crank up the temperature you’ll get an even crunchier crust. One thing I always do is place the baking tray in the oven when I turn it on, so it heats uo nicely. A pizza stone would be an even better option, but I don’t have one (yet) 🙂

I’ll stop babbling and get to the recipe. Have a lovely day you guys!

Italian flavors with a twist in one delicious spicy goat cheese pesto pizza loaded with fresh cherry tomatoes, mozarella and black olives. I could eat this pizza every day!

5 from 1 vote

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Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 sachet of yeast (7g)
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt

Goat Cheese Pesto

1 cup chopped basil
30 g mild goat cheese
20 g parmesan
3 TBSP pine nuts
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp chilli flakes
3 TBSP olive oil (or more if necessary)

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

pizza dough
goat cheese pesto
400 g mozzarella
500 g cherry tomatoes
100 g black olives
2 tsp chilli flakes
basil for decoration

Instructions

Pizza Dough

Mix all ingredients in a stand mixer or by hand. Knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and soft, but not sticky.
Slightly oil a big bowl with at least double the volume of the dough. Leave the dough rest in the bowl covered with plastic wrap for about an hour or until double the size.
Knead again and return to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and save in the fridge for 24 hours. Be sure to use a large bowl, because the dough will continue rising in the fridge!
Remove from the fridge, divide the dough into four an knead again to for four balls. Cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature at least an hour before using the dough.

Goat Cheese Pesto

Place all ingredients except basil into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add basil and pulse for a few more seconds.

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

Preheat the oven to 230°C or preferably as hugh as your oven goes leaving the baking tray or pizza stone in the oven. If using pizza stone make sure you leave it in the oven long enough to be extremely hot.
Uncover the dough, but don't knead again from this point on. Use a small amount of flour to spread the dough into a desired shape. In this recipe form a 20 cm circle with a thick edge.
Spread basil pesto over the thin center of the dough and cover with sliced or pulled-appart mozzarella. Top with cherry tomatoes, black olives and chilli flakes.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the crust.
Decorate with more basil leaves before serving.

Cherry Braised Beef Brisket With Creamy Mashed Potatoes

June 1, 2017

This cherry braised beef brisket is incredibly tender and comforting. When served with some creamy mashed potatoes it makes a perfect dish for the rainy spring days.

We are actually having very hot days for days now. It almost feels like summer, so I’m only wishing for rainy days. Don’t get me wrong, I love summer and sunny days, but the heat came way too quickly, I’m not prepared! Well, at least I get to wear some nice summer dresses and I get to diss the socks, which I hate 🙂

Okay, our cherry tree is again full of cherries, we can’t eat them all, they ripe so fast. We’re making juice for the winter and save some in the freezer. Besides we eat tons of them every day and I’m not complainig. Who doesn’t love fresh cherries?

Even though I L.O.V.E. cherries in desserts and drinks, I’m also loving how wonderfully they complement savory dishes. Remember the Cherry, brie and bacon grilled quesadillas? So yummy!!

Me and my husband absolutely love braised beef and when we got hold of a nice piece of brisket with ribs we couldn’t resist but adding some cherries and some lovely herbs from the garden to some classical braising veggies, like carrots, onions and celery. Result… AMAZING!

Seriously. It’s not like you can tell there are cherries in the dish besides the pieces of cherries, obviously. But they add such a nice sweet flavour. I can’t get over it, I’m doing this dish again for the whole family this weekend.

Since this recipe takes 6 to 7 hours to make, we started cooking at five in the morning. Luckily we wake up at that time anyway to feed the baby 🙂 I’m guessing we’ll be braising more now that we’re waking up at night 😉

One more thing that’s completely unrelated. I’ve been on the best treasure hunt since I’ve started shooting food. My friend is cleaning her grandma’s old apartment so she invited me to go and take a look if there’s anything I’d need for my photography. Well, I found a huuuuge bag of goodies 🙂 I’ve even used some of them in this photoshoot. I know I’m bragging, but I can’t help it 😉

Have a great day you guys!

This cherry braised beef brisket is incredibly tender and comforting. When served with some creamy mashed potatoes it makes a perfect dish for the rainy spring days.

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Cherry Braised Beef Brisket With Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 7 hours

Total Time 8 hours

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Cherry Braised Beef Brisket

1 kg beef brisket
400 g cherries depitted
2 big carrots
2 onions
2 celery sticks
5 cloves garlic
3 rosemary springs
a handful of basil
5 thyme springs
1 l chicken stock
salt
black pepper
cayenne pepper

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

8 medium sized potatoes
200 g butter room temperature

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 140°C.

Cherry Braised Beef Brisket

Season the brisket generously with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.
Sear all sides of the brisket on a hot skillet with a splash of oil for about a minute or two.
Move the brisket to a plate.
Cut carrots, onions and cellery into 1 cm chunks.
In the same skillet sweat the carrots, onions and cellery for about 10 minutes.
Move the brisket and the vegetables to a baking tray and add cherries, garlic, rosemary, basil and thyme and add the stock.
Bake in the preheated oven for 6 to 7 hour or until the meat gets very tender and almost falls apart. when sliced.
Remove from the oven and move the meat to a plate. Cover it with tin foil. Meanwhile use a hand mixer to thicken the liquid. You can mix all of the liquid with vegetables, or you can keep some vegetables to be seen in the sauce.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Cook potatoes in salted water until tender. Start with cold water! Cooking time depends on the size of potatoes.
Remove the skins and add butter. Mash with a masher until creamy.

Flourless Green Pea Fritters

May 19, 2017

These soft and fluffy flourless green pea fritters with seasonal herbs make the most delicious healthy breakfast.

I’m ending this wonderful week with these fluffy green pea fritters. It’s really been a great week. The baby gave us his first real smile. He’s smiled to everyone in the family at one point during the week. I couldn’t imagine how exciting that milestone was before it happened. The most wonderful thing 🙂 Now I’m looking forward for more and more of these cute teethless smiles and the sparks in his eyes.

He’s been letting us sleep during the night enough not to feel tired during the day, although I do take at least one short nap with him during th day. It’s just so cozy lying next to him and feeling him next to me while I’m sleeping 🙂

Okay, let’s head to the recipe. I’m very excited to share it with you. I’m a huge fan of pancakes, I make them at least once a week for breakfast, but they are usually sweet. I wanted to make a savoury recipe for easy and quick pancakes, that I’ll be able to prepare while taking care of a newborn. And it really is that simple.

The batter is made in a food processor or a blender and the pancakes take only a few minutes to cook. So perfect! There’s a little cottage cheese for extra creamines and flavor and rolled oats to bring it all together. Since so many herbs have started to grow, I’ve also added some from the garden and the forest. I used wild garlic and chives, but you can add whatever you can find in the garden, like mint, basil, thyme, oregano… So many yummy variations 🙂

And I realised that they are also super delicious cold, so they’re perfect for picnics 🙂 Hoping for lots of those these summer. ‘Cuz who doesn’t love picnics, right? We’re going on one today. Yay!!

I’ve been working on this recipe before the baby, when we’ve had a new roof window installed. I had to test the new light source for photography. I like it so far. A bit different than the straight side light, but just as interesting. What do you think?

Have a great weekend you guys!

These soft and fluffy flourless green pea fritters with seasonal herbs make the most delicious healthy breakfast.

5 from 1 vote

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Flourless Green Pea Fritters

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Total Time 10 minutes

Servings 15 fritters

Ingredients

Green Pea Fritters

1 cup peas (if using frozen, thaw and drain before making the fritters)
1/2 cup roled oats
1 cup parmesan cheese grated
1/2 cup cottage cheese
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
a handful seasonal herbs (wild garlic, chives, basil, thyme...), coarsely chopped
salt
black pepper

Sauce

1/2 cup sour cream
2 TBSP lemon juice
zest of 1/2 lemon

Instructions

Green Pea Fritters

Place all ingredients in a food processor or a blender and mix until the batter is uniform.
Fry spoonfulls of the mixture on preheated frying pan with a little oil for 2 minutes on each side or until golden.

Sauce

Place all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk.
Serve with warm or cold fritters.

Pull-Apart Chicken Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie)

March 16, 2017

This chicken spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) is the best comfort food I can imagine for spring. Hearty and rich, flavored with cheeses, leeks and chicken, but also loaded with fresh spinach. And to top it all, it make s a perfect early picnic dish, since it is pull-apart. I don’t think anything could make me more excited right now.

You all know by now, how excited I get when I see spring starting to blossom. If I’d have to choose I’d say winter is my favorite season, but there’s something magical about early spring. The thing I love the most is to go out in the forest and pick fresh new wild foods. By now I’ve already picked the earlies small fragrant leaves of wild garlic and I’m waiting for more spring goodies to start growing.

I didn’t use wild garlic in the recipe, although it would fit in just perfectly.

Since we’re talking about wild food, I’d love to know your spring wild food favorites? 😀

Chicken Spanakopita

I love anything wrapped in phyllo dough or even making my own phyllo dough. Okay, I cheated with this one, I bought it 😉 But whenever I have time I make my own. It makes a huge difference. If you have the chance to find freshly made phyllo dough in your local food market, buy it. Your dishes will go from great to awesome.

I mean it!

Spanakopita is originally made without meat and in layers of phyllo dough. I added chicken for some extra flavor and to make my hubby happy 😀 I figured why not make it easier to serve and make it more like individual böreks. Imagine if börek and pie would have a baby, it would look like that! Wrapped in mini rolls and served without cutting.

The ingredients are pretty basic but delicious each on it’s own. For sure, spinach is the hero of the dish. And you can get amazing fresh baby spinach in spring in any food market. I like combining it with leeks, since it makes the food so incredibly sweet and fragrant. The combo with feta, chicken and nutmeg is so good.

To hold it all together, I made a ricotta, egg and cream mixture and poured it over the rolls. This also makes the pie dense and creamy in the bottom, but the top stays crunchy. So make sure you dont pour the mixture all the way to the top.

It might no be a traditional spanakopita, but it is just as delicious and the main ingredients remain feta and spinach.

With some extra foodies 😉

These would be awesome at a picnic party or any party for that matter. They take a little time to assemble, but the cooking process is sooo simple. Since it is quite rich, you can actually feed up to about 8 people with it, if they are not huge hungry men 😉 or me!

This is by far my favorite spring pie and I’d serve it with spring strawberry layer cake in a glass following as dessert.

Picnic menu, done!

A glass of roasted peach and strawberry fizz to go along and you’re good to go 🙂

This chicken spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) is the best comfort food I can imagine for spring. Hearty and rich, flavored with cheeses, leeks and chicken, but also loaded with fresh spinach. And to top it all, it make s a perfect early picnic dish, since it is pull-apart. I don't think anything could make me more excited right now.

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Pull-Apart Chicken Spanakopita

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 55 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

Chicken Spanakopita

16 sheets phyllo dough
300 g chicken breast 1cm cubes (or use leftover chicken)
1 small leak cut into quarter lenghtwise and thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic finely chopped
500 g fresh spinach (or frozen and drained of excess water)
200 g feta cheese crumbled
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup olive oil

Egg Mixture

2 eggs
60 g ricotta cheese
60 ml whipping cream
a generous pinch of salt

Instructions

Egg mixture

Mix all ingredients for egg mixture together with a fork or a whisk, to get a smooth creamy texture.

Filling

In a preheated skillet roast chicken breast cubes with a tablespoon of olive oil for a minute or two until they get golden.
Add leaks, garlic and spinach and cook uncovered for about a minute or until the spinach cooks down. I you're using baby spinach this will take a minute, older spinach takes two to three minutes. If there is any excess water in the skillet drain it before filling the pie otherwise it will get soggy.
Remove from heat and add feta, nutmeg and black pepper. Mix well and set aside.

Assembly

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line a 23 cm (9 inch) cake mold with baking paper.
Lightly coat one pyhloo sheet with olive oil, cover with another phyllo sheet and coat with olive oil again. Over the long edge of the dough spread one eight of the filling about 4 cm wide. Roll the dough to get a long roll. Now roll this into a snail shape and place it in the cake mold. Repeat until you've used all the sheets. I like to start placing the rolls on the sides first and add the last one in the middles, since the last one usually has less or more filling than the others. This makes the pie look more even.
Coat the tops with more olive oil and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and pour the egg mixture over the baked rolls.
Return to the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes.
Remove form the oven and wait for 5 minutes before removing the rim. Be careful, it's still hot!
Serve warm or cold.

Roasted Broccoli & Cauliflower Mole Tacos

March 2, 2017

These quick and easy roasted broccoli and cauliflower mole tacos are such a nice healthy fresh lunch or dinner. With the addition of a 5-minute pickled radish and avocado yogurt sauce they make a perfect meal.

What have you been up to lately?

I’m all about mexican food these days and I’m enjoying spicy food while I still can. Apparently when you have a baby, you’re stuck with bland and boring unseasoned food for a month or so. I’m dreading that!

If there’s anything I love about cooking is that there’s always a way to make super fast lunch or dinner and still make it incredibly delicious. Most of the time I’m enjoying spending hours and hours in the kitchen. It’s my absolute favorite spot in the house. But sometimes it happens I have to whip up something in five minutes or so, but still want it to be super delicious and healthy if possible. I love how tacos make this possible every time. You can use whatever’s in your fridge and add some nice spices, some yogurt or nut sauce and you’ve got a five minute meal right there.

One of the simplest versions I make is, I just quickly sauté some red peppers, add some fresh avocado and a glug of yogurt in a tortilla and I’m good to go. Other times I have a couple more minutes to spare and I play around with food.

That’s kindda how these mole tacos with broccoli and califlower came to be. I love broccoli, it’s probably one of my favorite green veggies and I could eat it every single day. Cauliflower is great too, so I added it to make it a more fun recipe. In this recipe you can actually use either one of these or both.

Mole Tacos

Moles are actually a variety of sauces and dishes that include these sauces. We’re not making a mole sauce today, though. This recipe is an interpretation of a mole sauce, my style. Some hot chillies, cocoa powder and lots of other spices. It’s basically a rub or a spice mix for the broccoli and cauliflower that we’re gonna roast. And it’s a spice mix that you can make in advance and keep in your pantry.

Quick pickling

Loving the pickles!

They usually take time to make, but there’s a quicker cheaty way to make them. And it takes literally 5 minutes or less. The main ingredients in pickling are vinegar and salt, sometimes water. Besides the veggies of course 🙂

What we’re going to do is cut the veggies real thinnly, which will make them pickle faster. Then add some salt, which will bring out the water from the radishes. And of course add some vinegar to make it sour. And that’s it. So simple!

Making your own tortillas

You can also try making your own tortillas and find the recipe here. But double it if you’re making this whole recipe.

I’m making my own tortillas all the time and I make the dough in the morning. I divide it into balls and cover in plastic foil and leave it on the counter or in the fridge until I’m ready to make them. Sometimes I even make a big batch and keep it in the fridge for a couple of days and have a taco marathon week 🙂

A new awesome flavor combo each day. Yay! Try that, if you haven’t already 🙂

So, have a good day and hopefully get some sun!

These quick and easy roasted broccoli and cauliflower mole tacos are such a nice healthy fresh lunch or dinner. With the addition of a 5-minute pickled radish and avocado yogurt sauce they make a perfect meal.

5 from 1 vote

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Roasted Broccoli & Cauliflower Mole Tacos

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 16 tacos

Ingredients

Mole Spice Mix:

2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp salt

Mole Tacos:

1 broccoli
1 cauliflower
mole spice mix
1/4 cup olive oil

Pickled Radishes:

200 g radishes
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP vinegar

Avocado Sauce:

1 avocado
1/2 cup natural yogurt (180 g)
1/2 cup water
2 cloves garlic
juice of 2 limes
a handful cilantro
pinch of pepper
pinch of salt

Other:

16 small tortillas (find recipe in my Turmeric Falafel Wrap post and make it double)
pickled radishes
avocado sauce
peanuts
cilantro
chopped chillies

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Mole Spice Mix:

In a bowl mix all ingredients to get a uniform seasoning mix.

Mole Broccoli And Cauliflower:

Chop broccoli and cauliflower into small florets and cut the harder stems into 1 cm sized chunks.
Add them to a big bowl and sprinkle with mole spice mix and olive oil. Toss around to coat them evenly with seasoning.
Move them to a lined baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes or until tender.

Pickled Radishes:

Slice radishes thinly. Add them to a bowl and sprinkle with salt. Massage them vigorously for a minute or two, so they start releasing water. Leave them to rest for another minute, then pour away the excess water. Add vinegar to the radishes and set aside.

Avocado Sauce:

Mix all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Add more water if necessary.

Serving;

Fill the tortillas with broccoli and cauliflower, add pickled radishes, avocado sauce, peanuts, cilantro and chopped chillies.

Tag Archive for: lunch

Anyhoo, wanna know what these burgers are all about?

Do I need to make my own pear chutney?

Burger

Ingredients

Brugers

Pear Chutney (makes more than needed for 4 burgers)

Avocado Cream

Instructions

Pear Chutney

Avocado Cream

Burgers

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A quick story…

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Instructions

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Sumer Harvest Cream Cheese Tart

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Cream cheese Spread

Garnish

Instructions

Cream cheese spread

Tart

Have you ever tried glasswort?

Mediteranean Garlic Ricotta Shrimp Pasta

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Instructions

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How to prevent pie crust from shrinking?

Vegan Pea And Asparagus Quiche

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Dough

Filling

Instructions

Dough

Fillling

Finishing the Quiche

Wild Garlic Risotto

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Instructions

Notes

Pan-fried Brussels Sprout & Chicken Gyoza

Ingredients

Gyoza Wrappers

Gyoza filling

Dipping sauce

Extras for decoration

Instructions

Gyoza Wrappers

Gyoza filling

Making Gyoza

Cooking Gyoza

Dipping Sauce

Kale and Radicchio Quino Salad

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Quick Pickled Spring Onions

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Quick Pickled Spring Onions

Kale and Radicchio Quino Salad

Roasted Orange Chicken

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Instructions

Shredded Chicken Enchiladas With Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Ingredients

Chicken enchiladas

Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Instructions

Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Chicken enchiladas

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

Goat Cheese Pesto

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

Instructions

Pizza Dough

Goat Cheese Pesto

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza