Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Week 3: Tacos Salad

The Recipe
Cook 500g minced meat with spices of your taste.
Meanwhile toss a salad with lettuce, cucumbers (remove the seeds if you think you'll have left-overs), cherry tomatoes, corn, bell pepper, avocado and whatever else catches your fancy.
Mix salad, nachos chips, cooked meat and shredded cheese. Serve with dressing or salsa of your choice as well as olives and jalapenos.

The Verdict
I've had this several times and always loved it, but this was my first attempt at making it myself, and unfortunately it didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped for. Something about the different tastes not meshing right. I have no idea what I did wrong, but unfortunately it was rather disappointing.

Week 2: Roasted asparagus

The Recipe
2 tbsp olive oil
6 slices parma or serrano ham
12 fresh green asparagus
Salt, pepper
Aioli

Heat the oven to 200C. Remove the very bottom of the stem of the asparagus - see where it snaps easily, that's the place to cut it off. Wrap the ham around the asparagus and put it in an ovenproof dish. Drizzle with oil and add salt and pepper according to taste.

Let the asparagus roast for 8-12 minutes according to thickness. They should still be firm when bitten into.

Serve hot with aioli for dipping.

The Verdict
Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy! Perfect for an appetizer or part of a tapas meal. They're really easy to make and the result is both delicious and fancy looking. Definitely worth a repeat!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Week 1: Empanadas

The Recipe
5 dl flour
10g fresh yeast
4 tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 dl lukewarm water
1 egg
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
175 g bacon, chopped
salt, pepper

Mix the yeast with salt and let it dissolve. Add water, butter and flour and mix thoroughly. Leave the dough to raise for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the filling:
Warm the oil in a pan. Add onion and garlic and cook at high heat for 2 minutes. Add bacon, bell peppers and tomatoes and reduce the heat. Leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper according to taste.

Now make the Empanadas:
Preheat the oven to 200C. Roll out the dough until it's about 3mm thick. Cut the dough into 12 pieces. Place a bit of the filling on about half of the piece - it shouldn't reach the edges. Paste the edges with some whipped egg and fold the empanadas over. Use a fork to press the edges together.

Place them on a baking sheet and bake them for about 15 minutes until they're golden brown.

Serve them with a dipping sauce of your choice.

The Verdict
A HUGE job to make! And I obviously didn't manage to roll the dough thinly enough, so some of the empanadas seemed to be more dough than filling. It did taste very, very good though - especially with a tomato-cheese sauce or ali oli for dipping. Wouldn't be worth it for an everyday meal, but adds a nice touch to a fancy tapas supper.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

52 Weeks - 52 Recipes: Completed!

For the first time ever, I actually kept a New Year's resolution 100%. I'm rather proud of myself :)

Trying out so many different new recipes has been a good challenge and lots of fun, so I'm going to copy the resolution for 2011, as I still have a lot of recipe books to go through - I think I ended up getting rid of about 4 in 2010, leaving me with another 30 or so to go.

Thanks for reading along. I hope you will join me for 2011 as well. I'm going to continue posting the recipes here, but will also include some "tried and tested" recipes since Vox has now closed, so I need to copy the recipes I had there.

Happy 2011!

Week 52: Mexican Chorizo

The Recipe
Placeholder, as I've temporarily misplaced the recipe. Basically a meat sauce with minced pork, chorizo, squash and bell peppers. I'll type it up properly when I find it.

The Verdict
Honestly, having misplaced the recipe is no great loss. It was okay, but no more than that. I've made similar meat sauces several times before, only typically with minced beef and bacon instead.