HURMI TWIST

" VERY BERRIE" BREAKFAST BOWL

MONDAY MIX

RAW CARROT SPAGHETTI

I love to eat healthy and yummy food. The RAW food wave is all around me last months. No matter if I read some articles about healthy food, go trough recipes, surf the Instagram or Pinterest – RAW is everywhere. In cakes, pasta, salads, wraps sushi…. So why not to try it? It want become the center of universe for me, but I should give it a try. Yesterday I’ve made my self my very first raw spaghetti. Here is the recipe:

RAW CARROT SPAGHETTI 

what you need for one portion

1 large carrot

½ avocado

½ of tomato

¼ of fennel

¼ of salad cucumber

2 large spoons of virgin olive oil

½ of lemon

Flore de salt

black pepper

red pepper (whole)

1 spoon of honey

step by step

Use the spiral machine (if you don’t have any, you my use the carrot cleaner to get thin slices – like tagliatelle pasta) to get nice thin carrot spaghetti. Cut tomato and cucumber in to small squares, then fennel in to thin slices. Clean ½ of avocado, leave 3-4 slices for decoration and cut the rest also in to small squares. Place carrots on the plate (like you would do with plane pasta), and then start to top with all the other vegetable (pretend it’s the base of Bolognese sauceJ). Make nice decoration with avocado slices and young fennel leafs at the end.

Then add olive oil, sprinkle of Fore de Salt (I have plane and lemon flavor at home, have used the lemon one this time), grain black pepper and few red pepper seeds. Squeeze ½ of lemon and use the juice for the topping. Add sweet liquid honey which gives the whole dish nice semi sweet taste.

Hope you’ll enjoy!

AUTUMN HUMMUS

Hummus - Middle Eastern Cookery. A paste or dip made of chickpeas mashed with oil, garlic, lemon juice, and Tahiti and usually eaten with pita – that is what you find browsing at Google. But do you know that this delicious dish can be also served as main course? It’s very healthy, refreshing, tasty and nutritious. Let’s see what happens when you mix it with autumn season vegetable – pumpkin. Z iVery simple but interesting recipe:

AUTUMN HUMMUS

1,5 kg of fresh pumpkin, you may use Hokkaido – nice sweet taste

1 can of pre cooked chickpeas (or 1 large cup of dry chickpeas - cooked)

½ cup of fresh yogurt

olive oil

garlic clove

bunch of cherry tomatoes per one person

small spoon of fennel seeds

small spoon of cumin

black pepper

salt (I have used Flore de salt  - lemon taste)

bread – brown, pita, tortilla – depending on you - bio if possible

1 large cup of vegetable stock

½ of lemon

4 large portions

 

 

Step by step:

Clean the pumpkin and cut in two similar halves. Cut the first half in small pieces, add butter, pepper, salt, vegetable stock – and then cook in a pot for max 10 minutes, till it gets soft, but still compact in texture.

Pre heat the oven to 185 degree Celsius, cut the second half of pumpkin in to suitable pieces (depending if you wish to serve one big piece or several small pieces on one plate), use baking paper as a base in the pot, then place the pumpkin, cherry tomatoes. Use salt (Flore de salt), pepper, olive oil, and fresh herbs (what you have by hand – basil, rosemary, thymine – they all fit great with this dish). Cover nicely all the vegetable with oil and then bake for aprox 25 – 30 minutes, till they get nice & crispy.

While baking concentrate on the first part of pumpkin – cooked! Drain the cooked water, pour the pumpkin in to a higher bowl (or mixer – Vitamix) and add cooked chickpeas, yogurt, 4-5 spoons of olive oil, grain one garlic clove. Mine while take the fennel seeds, cumin, salt and pinch of brown sugar. Bake them on a pan, till you smell the flavors – 3-4 minutes. Then use a mortar to crush the hot mixture. This is a traditional way, how rise the flavors and taste of the herbs and spices. You will fall in love with this procedure. I always feel like a old witch – hahahahaaaa! Add the spices and lemon juice to the pumpkin / chickpea bowl – and mix till you get nice smooth compact texture. And yes – our pumpkin hummus is ready. Always taste your result. It may happen, that you’ll have to balance the flavors little bit.

The rest is very easy. Just place the hummus on a plate. Add crispy baked pumpkin & tomatoes, sliced bread. Give it the last touch of olive oil, Flore de salt and pepper…..and enjoy!

 

SUNNY SALAD

Well what can I say? We should not complain about silly things and be grateful for all what we have. Everyone around me knows that I’m not that kind of person complaining about small thing sin life. I’m a very happy person 99,9% of my life. But there is this one thing I miss so much – summer sunshine! We can’t fight the nature, but why did someone up there decided to pour rain on our heads for more than a month??? I really charge my batteries each summer. There fore this colorful salad full of summer flavors:

SUNNY SALAD

1 large yellow zucchini

1 large cucumber

1 fresh fennel

8 – 10 cherry tomatoes

15 pc anchovies

1 lemon

1/3 cup of olive oil

large spoon of honey (or two if you feel like it!)

chili

½ spoon of estragon mustard

black pepper

salt

4-5 portions

 

Step by step:

Use the carrot peeler. Peal the zucchini in to thin slices. Bring a pot of water to boil and let the zucchini cook for 2-3 minutes. Then take out the zucchini and let it cool down under cold water – Blanche it! This process helps to keep the zucchini in nice color& softens the structure.

Peal cucumber the same way, cut fennel in to nice thin pieces. Cut cherry tomatoes in half.

Place all vegetable in to salad bowl. Add anchovies.

Prepare the vinaigrette as follows:

Mix olive oil, estragon mustard, honey, juice from ½ lemon, cut chili, pinch of salt, pepper in to a nice vinaigrette sauce. To smooth the thickness of the sauce, add 2-3 large spoons of cold water.

Pore the vinaigrette over the salad and leave it for at least 30 minutes, till the flavors combine.

Serve it as a main course, but is also suitable as adding to meats, or dips for party. Enjoy!

RECYCLED HOMEMADE BREAD ROLL CAKE

 

Bread is holy in our family. When I buy it, we newer eat it all up. When there is none home, everyone wants a piece. The same is with bread rolls. I do not eat that much bread anyway, but my kids and hubby just can’t live without it. So what to do, when you end up with 2-3 days old bread rolls in your kitchen? Newer throw them in to trash! There are so many animals out there, which will thank you for it! Fish, bunnies, pigs…. But you may also try to bake a recycled cake with them. Here is the recipe:

RECYCLED HOMEMADE BREAD ROLL CAKE

4 old bread rolls

2 cups of milk (almond optional)

4 large eggs

4-6 spoons of coconut sugar

2 apples

1 spoon of cinnamon sugar

optional:

dry fruit, coconut chips, berries, chocolate

It’s so simple! Mix the milk with eggs, than add sugar. Cut bread rolls in to similar pieces, grate apples. Mix bread rolls, apples, cinnamon (or optional fruit). Than combine dry and wet ingredients.  You end up with kind of mash (don’t be scared!). Take baking bowl, wiped with butter, and sprinkled with flour. Heat up the oven to 185 Celsius. Place the mash in to the bowl and bake for aprox. 45 minutes.

The result should be a nice crunchy cake on the top, with nice soft spongy middle. Let it cool down. When serving – sprinkle the cake with cinnamon sugar and garnish it with home made marmalade or compote.  Yum!  

SATURDAY KICK OFF SMOOTHIE

Smoothie definition

Green smoothies are a type of health shake or smoothie, made by blending green raw leafy vegetables, such as spinach, kale, swiss chard, collard greens, celery, parsley or broccoli with fruit such as oranges, kiwis, apples, mangoes, pears, and bananas, some of which may be frozen, and water or ice.To balance flavor and nutrition the typical ratio in a green smoothie is about 60% fruit to 40% leafy greens. (Wikipedia)

SATURDAY KICK OFF SMOOTHIE

½ red grapefruit

½ lemon

½ banana

1 green apple

fresh ginger root (depending how spicy you like your smoothie)

mint

2 cups fresh coconut water

1 tea spoon of honey

ice

Preparation 5 minutes, 2-3 portions

Place it all in to a blender. Mix it well. I do personally use Vitamix blender.

Store the smoothie in glass cups or bottles.

Serve cold & enjoy!

TOMATO MARMALADE

Cook books. They join my whole life. The first cook book I remember was a very thick blue book my mother use to cook from (was probably age 4 that time). She got this old book, full of traditional recipes as a gift from her grand mum. These days you may find recipes everywhere – manly on the internet. But for me is nothing better than to flip trough a book full of great pictures, my notes, favorite recipes. One of my biggest treasures is this old book from 1943. Cook book written by Iren Bárovičová  “The Slovak housewife helper”. I have found this book at the flea market 7 years ago. I could not believe my own eyes. Not only that it is a book full of treasures, recipes you’ll not be able to find anywhere these days. This book is really special – it is signed by the authoress - as a gift for one of her friends. I have translated one of the recipes for you – Tomato marmalade.

 

TOMATO MARMALADE

1kg of ripe tomatoes

40 dkg of brown sugar

1 lemon

1 vanilla bean

 

Clean and peal the tomatoes. Then cut to bites, put in to a pot and lat cook on a low heat level. After few minutes of cooking you may mash the tomatoes (but if you like bits of fruits and greens, like I do – just leave it as it is!). When the mash starts to get thicker add sugar, slices of lemon and vanilla (scratch the seeds out, but use also the bean. Just leave it in the pot while cooking). Cook till it gets nice thick. Then fill in to jars or use right away. I think this marmalade may be great also as addition to meat or cheese. I would recommend using bit of fresh chilly and thyme to make the marmalade even more interesting.

 

GOLDEN CHANTERELLE MUSHROOMS RAGU

500g of golden chanterelle mushrooms

2 large carrots

1-2 pc green celery stalks

1 clove of garlic

½ large onion

1 spring onion

bunch of parsley

bunch of thyme

½ cup of fresh cream

½ cup of yoghurt

Ghee butter

salt

pepper

chilly (optional)

 

 

 

I cooked this dish for the first time – but it won’t be the last that’s for sure!

It is a very simple and delicious meal for everyone in the family.

First heat up Ghee butter in the pot. Once hot, add the onion (spring & classic) and garlic. Wait till they get glassy and then add carrots and celery. Stir well and after 2 minutes add mushrooms and thyme. Stir again for another 2-3 minutes and then add the stock. Very carefully – you are not cooking soup today. Remember that the mushrooms loose plenty of water. The stock should not cover the mushrooms – better add it gradually You want to finish up with a nice semi thick sauce after all! Put a lid on the pot and steam for approx. 10-12 minutes. The mushrooms should be soft, but not soggy, just right to bite in. Add fresh parsley, cream and yoghurt into the mixture. Stire again and taste. If you feel the need for more salt or pepper – go for it. Everyone has differet tastes (but remember, too much salt is not good for your body!). If you are a “hot” person, you may add chilly as well.

Bon Appetit!