Wednesday 21 September 2011

Healthy vegetable soup


Ingredients
1 onion
1/2 potato
1 leek
Celery
4 carrots
4 parsnip
some parsley
some pasta ( I use macaroni)
salt

Directions
1. Chop the vegetables
2. Put them all the in the pot and add water and salt. Let it boil for 1h 15min. and add the pasta. Let it boil for 10 minutes more.

That's all!!! you have a tasty and healthy soup perfect for dinner now that summer seems so far. As you can see this is a really easy recipe, you can cook it on the weekend and keep it in the fridge for some days. I usually add a chicken or vegetables stock cube, but it's not really necessary. Bon profit!

Saturday 17 September 2011

Marc's way lasagna

Marc had a really good idea last week and today I bring it to you.This lasagna is not the tipical one, there is no pasta and there is no bechamel but trust me, you will like it!!! The best part of it is that is perfect for those who are on diet! Instead of pasta we use courgette sheets, and instead of bechamel white asparagus cream. Today we cooked it for lunch and I must say it was really really good!!! I hope you like it!

Ingredients
2 big courgettes
750gr minced beef
4 tomatoes
some light grated cheese
1 onion
white asparagus cream



Directions
1. Wash the courgettes, slice off top and bottom tips, and cut the courgette in halfs. Slice thin layers and boil them for 3 minutes.
2. For the tomatoe sauce: Peel the tomatoes and chop, do the same with the onion an put both in a saucepan. Add halfspoon of sugar and halfspoon of salt, some oregano and cook for 20 minutes.
3. After those 20 minutes cook the minced beef with the tomato sauce, you can add any vegetable you want to, for example we added chopped courgettes and carrots.
4. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with the courgette slices. Now cover the courgettes with the minceed beef, some asparagus soup, and again with courgettes.
5. Pour the remaining asparagus soup and cover with cheese. Bake 5 or 10 minutes.

You can do the asparagus soup yourself or just buy it ready to cook (like knor soups and so), next week I will publish this soup recipe. I hope you like this special lasagna! Bon profit!

Friday 16 September 2011

Three chocolates cake

Today I post the perfect cake for chocolate lovers! It's quite long doing it but is worth and it's not difficult at all. I hope you decide to do it, you will surprise all, family friends.


Ingredients

250gr dark chocolate
250gr milk chocolate
250gr white chocolate
600mL milk
600mL cream
3 sachets of curd
For the crust: (amount depends on how thick you want it)
Some butter
Biscuits

Directions
1. First of all we will make the crust. We crush the biscuits and mix it with the sliced butter. We spread the dough in the sprinform pan and try to make it as flat as possible. Then we put it into the oven for a few minutes, until it's crispy. 2. We put in a saucepan the dark chocolate, 200mL of milk and the same of cream we heat and once the chocolate is melted one sachet of curd. We heat it for 7 minutes aprox at 90ºC ( just don't let it boil) and we pour this mix on the crust.Wait five minutes before starting the next layer mixture.
3. We do the same with the milk chocolate (is better to clean the saucepan, because if not this mixture will look darker than what we expect). Take a look at the picture I show later, you should pour the chocolate layers that way so that you don't break the one poured before.
4. Just do the same but with the white chocolate.
5. Put the cake in the fridge until next day and decorate it as you wish!! You can sprinkle grated chocolate or cocoa powder usig a patterned template.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!! you can add sugar to each layer if you are very greedy, but I think it's sweet enough this way! ... Bon profit!!



Thursday 15 September 2011

Light courgette soup

It's starting to get cold and there is nothing better than a hot bowl of soup for warming up when you get home. Today I've done a light courgette soup, so if you are trying to lose some weight you may be interested in this tasty and easy recipe.

Ingredients (2-3 portions)
2 courgettes
1/2 potato
1/2 onion
1 leek (the white part)
50gr Celery approx
2 teaspoon philadelphia extra light
whater


Directions
1. Wash the courgettes, slice off top and bottom tips and cut the courgettes into slices. If you want you can peel the courgette, it's said that it might be a bit bitter, but I don't really notice that.
2. Peel and slice the potatoe, wash and slice the celery and the leek.
3. Heat the wather and add all the vegetables. Let it boil for 25 minutes.
4. Put all the vegetables with just some of the boiling whater in the blender. You can add more whater (or skimmed milk) if you want it more liquid.
5. Finally you add the cheese and mix a bit more.


For a not so light soup just put the sliced leek and onion into a bit of heated olive oil and cook for five minutes,then follow as in the light version. You can also use a  whole potatoe and mozzarella cheese instead of extra light cheese.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Chocolate Bomb

Here is one of my favourites desserts....the chocolate Bomb! This is the perfect choice if you want to impress your guests, it's easy to do, you can make it when you have time and keep it in the freezer and the most most important reason... everybody loves it! You can serve it as you wish, but a good option is vanilla icecream. For the picture I used icing sugar.

Ingredients:
250gr dark chocolate
150gr sugar
200gr butter (better if it's not salty)
6 eggs
120gr flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Muffin ramekins


Directions
1. First of all we whip egg whites into stiff peaks with the sugar.  That will be easyer if the eggs are not cold from the fridge.
2. In another bowl we beat the yolks until we can se a bit of foam.
3. Make sure the chocolate is chopped into uniform pieces. Put it in a microwave-safe bowl with the butter and heat it for 1 or 2 minutes. It is prefereable to melt the chocolate on a low power setting to avoid burnint it. Stir the chocolate every 30 seconds so that all is equaly heated.
4. Mix the chocolate with the egg yolks and add the flour and the cinnamon.
5. Finally mix it with the egg whites and stir the mixture with a rubber spatula.
6. Pour the dough into the muffin ramekins filling them about 6/8 of the way to the top. For me the bests ones are the ones I show you in the picture. I usually place baking paper in the ramekin before pouring the mixture, this way is much more easy to remove the cake and to clean the ramekin.


If you are planning to eat the bomb another day now is when you put it in the freezer!

7. Preheat the oven 200ºC and down to 180º when you put the ramekins in. Leave them for at least 12 minutes (15 if they come directly from the freezer).

Each oven is different so, what you should do is try with one of the bombs which is the best time for yours. Be careful because if you leave them too much in the oven you will have normal muffins...which are ok but not what we are looking for. I hope you like it.
Bon profit!!