Posts Tagged ‘fancy’

Cream of celeriac soup and salad of grilled radicchio, pear and blue cheese

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December 31st, 2009

Soup and salad is my go-to simple meal for nights when I don’t feel like cooking anything but still want to eat something relatively healthy. But I love it so much that I sometimes fancy it up a bit. While today’s version totally defeats the purpose of the original concept (since it’s neither “easy” nor particularly “cheap”), it’s totally worth the effort.

This soup is a hearty, seasonal soup. It’s pretty simple to make, and freezes well. It’s a bit sweet, a little creamy, with a slightly nutty flavor from the celeriac. The salad, on the other hand, is a bit on the fancy side. The bitter radicchio is grilled on a griddle pan, and is topped with slices of pear, crumbled blue cheese, and caramelized pecans. While they don’t need to be served together per se, they compliment each other very nicely. (more…)

Canneloni redux: grilled pepper, eggplant and mascarpone filling

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December 31st, 2009

Hello Chompers!

Remember those hand-rolled canneloni I made a while ago? I liked them a lot, so I experimented with a different filling. This time, I used eggplant for the center filling and grilled red peppers and mascarpone for the outer filling. The canneloni were baked in a batch of D.I.Y. tomato sauce made with cherry tomatoes and a few dried chili peppers for spice. (more…)

Poll winner: Boeuf Bourguignon – my style!

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December 31st, 2009

While I promised you all this recipe a long time ago, I am only just now am getting around to posting the recipe. I actually have a massive backlog of recipes to post, but this poll winner gets top priority!

I’ve spent quite some time working on this recipe, and I really hope you like it! I’ve gotta say: while it involves a little work and a lot of time, boeuf bourguignon is the perfect comfort food for cold wintery nights. And it’s nearly impossible to have too many leftovers. Below the recipe I’ll explain how to turn boeuf bourguignon into little pies!

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Pommes Duchesse with cheese and parsley

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October 26th, 2009

I guess it’s tie to admit that I have very little experience with preparing Dutch food. Not that there’s anything wrong with it…per se. Or, you know, maybe there is!  Its main flavor components are “salt” and “fat,” textures range from “gooey” to “gluey” and its main themes are “meat” and “potatoes.”

But even Dutch cuisine has its highlights, and a good “gehaktbal” (meatball) is one of them. Every grandma has her own top-secret recipe, and some of those recipes are fucking brilliant! Sadly, I don’t own one. Marbles’ mom, however, is widely renowned for her meatballs. And today I found out why! Marbles brought home some of her mom’s balls this weekend, and they were really damn delicious. But I can’t give you a recipe, it being Top Secret and all.

Instead, I’ll live you the recipe for my cheese-and-parsley pommes duchesse. They are the pretty little potato rosettes sitting next to that delicious looking meatball. And they’re surprisingly easy to make. (more…)