noodles with peanut sauce

So I am a big back logged on the recipes I have made recently, but in an effort to catch up, I will go out of order and just post the one I made last night for my Monday dinner. Of course, recipe from SK and it turned out delicious. I was sort of nervous because I haven't really cooked Asian cuisine in any way before, and of course getting the ingredients in Bulgarian is a bit of a toss-up, but it all turned out well. I don't know if I got the exact right noodles, but they looked similar and were in the Asian section (very small that it is) and they tasted good. It was a cold dish which I don't normally like with pasta, but it was quite tasty. I added broccoli and mushrooms and less peppers because I prefer those vegetables.

For peanut dressing
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup warm water
1 tablespoon chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 medium garlic clove, chopped
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons Asian toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes or a splash of the hot sauce or chili paste of your choice

For noodles
3/4 lb dried soba nooodles (dried linguine fini or spaghetti will work in a pinch)
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
1 head of broccoli, cut up and steamed
4 mushrooms, cut up into slices
Half a seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
1 cup tofu, cut up

I put the dressing ingredients in a bowl and then used the immersion blender until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until tender. Drain in a colander, then rinse well under cold water. Whatever pasta I made cooked really quickly, so if it is the soba noodles or whatever, I would advise having everything ready before putting them in.

Add pasta, scallions, bell peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, cucumber and tofu to dressing, tossing to combine. Serve immediately.

parmesan cauliflower quiche cake

This is the recipe I made for last Monday night's dinner. Of course, it was from SK and tasted pretty darn good. It was definitely different from anything I have had or made before, but it turned out pretty well. She calls it a cake, I call it a quiche cake because it does have a lot of egg and this way people sort of know what the are getting themselves into. The texture is different, but once you adjust your expectations for it, I think it's pretty good. My roommates liked it too, and I ate it for lunch the next two days.
One of my roommates, ready for dinner:

parmesan cauliflower quiche cake


1 medium cauliflower (1 1/2 pounds, 23 to 24 ounces or 650 to 700grams)
1 large red onion, peeled (I used white because we didn't have red)
5 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
10 medium or 8 large eggs
Handful (3/4 ounce or 20 grams) basil, chopped
Scant 1 1/2 cups (180 grams or 6.3 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 cups finely grated parmesan cheese (200 grams or 7 3/4 ounces - I used 150 grams) or about 1 generous cup of grated Romano cheese
Salt and black pepper
Butter, for greasing pan
2 tablespoons black sesame seeds (I used white)

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C) degrees. Break cauliflower into medium florets (this will cause less mess than chopping it). Place floret in a pot with a teaspoon of salt, cover them with water and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until quite soft. (I think it took mine longer than that, so worry less about the time and more about getting them soft). Strain and let drip in the colander for a few minutes so they dry and cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the batter (I actually started on this while my cauliflower was cooking once it was longer than 15 minutes). Halve your red onion and cut a few thin rings off the end of one side; set them aside. Coarsely chop the remainder of your onion. Heat all of your olive oil in a saucepan and saute the chopped red onion and rosemary together until soft, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Whisk eggs and olive oil and onion mixture together. Stir in basil. Whisk flour, baking powder, turmeric, cheese, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (use 1 teaspoon if you are nervous about this amount) and many, many grinds of black pepper together in a separate bowl and add to egg mixture, whisking to remove lumps. Stir in cauliflower gently, so most pieces remain intact.

Line the bottom of a 9-inch (24cm) round springform pan with parchment paper. Butter the sides generously. Put the sesame seeds in the pan and toss them around so that they stick to the sides. Pour in the cauliflower batter, arrange the reserved onion rings on top and bake cake in the center of the oven for 45 minutes, until golden brown and set.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Before you serve the cake, be sure to run a knife around the pan.

Okay, this is just my salad - but it was yummy! Spinach, cyrene (like feta), tomatoes, sesame seeds, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette (balsamic, olive oil, salt, pepper, onion, garlic)

vegetable soup, cheddar apple scones

I haven't been cooking, really, lately because of my trip to Athens last weekend. The week leading up to the trip, I made my Italian host mom's vegetable soup for my Monday night dinner and then cleared out my fridge and pantry so nothing would go back while I was out of town (only for 3 days, but I don't really stock up on much). We got back plenty early on Monday for me to go to the grocery store, but I decided to be lazy and lounge around the house instead. I made Pia's tomato sauce, always simple and delicious, and SK's pizza dough with the alteration of 1/2 cup of wheat flour instead of the 1/2 cup of white flour. I then spent the rest of the week eating peanut butter on rice cakes for breakfast, lunch in the cafeteria, and my roommate's meals for dinner. Thus, it wasn't until Saturday that I made it to the HIT and got groceries (after a delicious stop at the bagel place for bagel sandwiches, oh America, and 12 dozen frozen bagels to go!). I picked out a recipe to cook for dinner tomorrow, which I will post about once it's done, and the cheddar apple scone recipe. It was fun to sort through SK's recent recipes and pick out which ones I want to make. Autumn is a wonderful time to cook.

***

Briefly, Pia's vegetable soup. It is so simple, healthy, and delicious; I love having it as an anytime option. Essentially, you chop up whatever vegetables you want to use, throw them in a pot, pour in a can of diced tomatoes or paste, cover with water (an inch over the top, ignore the floaters), add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and boil. Once the vegetables are all soft, use an immersion blender to puree everything into a smooth soup. Season to taste - I found that it makes a lot of soup and I need a lot of salt to get the flavors to be evident, but I just kept sprinkling and adding until I got there. Add a handful (about 1/4-1/2 cup) of small pasta per person and bring back to a boil for as long as it takes to cook the pasta in the soup. When the pasta is cooked, serve! I like it because it uses potatoes and tomato paste as a base and then you can add in whatever vegetables are around and that you like. It tastes really healthy but still yummy, and was a hit with my roommates. It also made quite a bit of soup, so even after seconds, I had it for lunch for the next four days.

recipe, as I made it on Monday - I starred the items that I added to her basic recipe

2 cups peas
2 medium onions
3 potatoes
3 carrots
1 stick of celery (I didn't include this)
*1 lb chunks of pumpkin
*1 head broccoli, cut into florets
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
water (enough to cover and a little above vegetables)
½ cup tomato paste (I used canned diced tomatoes because it was available)

Pia's instructions (translated):

if water goes down, add hot water while cooking
cook/boil for 30 minutes (until soft)
mix with electric mixer
when its mixed and boiling again, add handful of small-type pasta for each person,
cook until ready

***

Now, onto the cheddar apple scones from SK. 

I followed her recipe except that I used whole milk instead of heavy cream, because I have yet to find heavy cream here (or maybe I just don't know where to look and how to translate it) and I just used some regular cheddar instead of sharp cheddar because our non-cyrene/kashkaval options are pretty limited. I also was terribly disappointed in myself for my first batch - I don't know what all the symbols on our oven mean, and I must have been on the wrong one because it burned the outsides of the first scones (not terribly but enough to be brown and make me sad) even though they hadn't even cooked the full 30 minutes. I kept a close eye on the second batch and they turned out fine, so that was a relief. And they were quite delicious. 

2 firm tart apples (1 pound or 2 454 grams)

1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces or 195 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons for sprinkling (total of 2.2 ounces or 63 grams)

1/2 tablespoon (7 grams) baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (3 grams) plus additional for egg wash

6 tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams)unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes plus additional for baking sheet if not lining it with parchment

1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 65 grams) sharp cheddar, shredded (white is recommended, I assume for aesthetics)

1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream

2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and core apples, and then cut each into 16ths. Line a baking sheet with parchment, place the apples on, and bake them for 20 minutes. SK says until dry, but mine were pretty juicy - I am not sure if I should have let them go longer or if it was because I used a different type of apple, but they were fine anyway. Set aside to cool.

Sift and whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. 

In a separate bowl, mix cubed butter, 1 egg, grated cheddar, heavy cream, and apple chunks. I couldn't tell from her instructions exactly the order for all of this, so I put them all in a bowl and mixed them together with a wooden spoon. Then I poured in half the dry ingredients, mixed it a bit, poured in the rest of the dry mix, and mixed it until it came together. It started out really dry, but after some patient mixing, ended up being a sticky wet dough. In my experience, that is pretty standard for scones.

Roll the dough out into a thick circle and cut into 6 (I made 8) triangles. Mix second egg with some salt and brush on top of scones. Sprinkle with sugar. 

Bake on either a parchment lined or buttered baking sheet for about 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, you don't want yours to burn like mine did. Enjoy!