Strawberry and chocolate cake

Thanks to Cléa I discovered this wonderful cake. It is tasty and refreshing. Sure, you need half a day to make this, but it is worth the effort.



For the sponge cake:
3 eggs
90g light raw sugar
90g self-raising white flour

For the strawberry jelly:
300g strawberries
100g raw sugar
2g agar-agar (or gelazone)
200g silk tofu

For the chocolate mousse:
80g 37% milk chocolate
2g agar-agar
100ml rice or soya milk
200g silk tofu

Strawberries to decorate

1. Sponge cake
In a heatproof bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Cook in a bain-marie whilst whisking. The mixture must become paler and double in volume.
Remove from bain-marie and stir again to cool the mixture down a little.
Mix in the flour in 3 times with a wooden spoon. Take care in not removing the air from the mixture.
Place into a 22cm diameter cake springform and place in a 180 degrees preheated oven for 15min.
Leave to cool down completely and cut in half to make 2 identical disks.

2. Strawberry jelly
Wash and remove the stems of the strawberries. Place in a food processor with the sugar. Add the agar-agar and place in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 seconds. Pour back into the food processor with the tofu and process.
Place one sponge cake disk back into the form and cover with the strawberry jelly. Leave to cool down completely until set and cover with the second disk.

3. Chocolate jelly
Melt the chocolate. Process with the tofu.
Mix the milk and agar-agar in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 seconds. Process with the chocolate mixture and pour over the second disk of sponge cake. Leave to cool down completely until set.

Remove the form. Place onto a serving dish. Decorate with fresh strawberry slices and serve cold.


Pour la recette en francais, faites-donc un tour chez Cléa !

Orange and apricot jelly

I am no big fan of jelly as such, but this is refreshing and fruity, and does not have the texture of jelly. The secret ingredient to this? Agar-agar. I discovered this ingredient a year ago and it is great to facilitate the setting of jellies or cheesecake.

The following recipe makes 4 jelly moulds:

225g dried apricots
300ml orange juice
3 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP honey
1 g agar-agar
3 TBSP water

For the cream:
125g mascarpone
125g fromage frais
cinnamon to sprinkle

orange slices to decorate

1. Place the apricot and orange juice in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Process in a food processor with the lemon juice and honey.
3. Boil the water, add the agar-agar and stir well for 20 seconds
4. Add the agar-agar to the apricot mixture and process again.
5. Place in individual moulds and leave to cool down completely.

6. To make the cream, stir the mascarpone and fromage frais together.

7. When serving, unmould the jellies onto serving plates with a spoonful of cream. Sprinkle with cinnamon and add a slice of orange to decorate.

Plavac Mali

During the show in Munich we received many visitors, including existing customers and distributors from all over the world. My contact in Croatia came with two bottles of wine as a gift. The one I kept was Plavac Mali, a dark red wine from the Dalmatian coast. It was nice. I never had tried Croatian wine before.

Vegetable lasagne (home-made pasta)

We took the time to make our own pasta yesterday. With the dough we made some lasagne and some tagliatelle.


The following recipe for a basic pasta dough will produce enough to make lasagne for 4-6 people and a batch of tagliatelle for 2 people.

450g white flour
4 eggs
3 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt

1. Sift the flour in a bowl. Add the salt and make a well.
2. Stir the eggs and oil together and place in the center of the well.
3. With a wooden spoon, incorporate the egg mixture to the flour. When it becomes too hard to use the spoon, knead the dough thoroughly for 15-20 minutes until soft and smooth.


4. Place the dough in a bowl, cover it with cling film and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough into thin layers or use a pasta machine.

Pizza bianca

Nice pizza which Trave made on Friday. Use your favourite pizza dough recipe (Trave used 1/2 plain, 1/2 wholemeal flour). Once the dough rolled, we added a can of chopped tomatoes with herbs on the base, then sliced courgettes, topped with fresh rosemary from our garden and slices of mozzarella. In the oven for 15 minutes, and here is the result:

Cranberry juice cocktail

I had cranberry juice to use up so I made the following cocktail:

For 2 people:

8 oz cranberry juice
8 oz apple juice
2 oz spiced amber rum
2 oz Galliano
ice


Mix it in a shaker, add the ice, relax!

Let me know if you come up with a nice name, I could not find any!

Caribbean sunset

Fancy a nice summery cocktail? This is for you! We had this yesterday night and it was delicious.


For 2 people:

1/2 pineapple, cut into chunks
300-400 ml orange juice
1 lemon
60ml golden spiced rum
60ml Cointreau
dash of Grenadine


1. process the pineapple chunks with the orange juice. then pour into a cocktail shaker.
2. add the juice of 1 lemon, the rum and Cointreau, shake well.
3. pour into 2 glasses
4. add a dash of grenadine to each glass

You can add ice if you like.

Enjoy!

Coucher de soleil des carraibes

Pour 2 personnes

1/2 ananas, coupé en dés (ou bien jus d'ananas)
300-400 ml jus d'orange
le jus d'un citron
60ml rhum ambré épicé
60ml Cointreau
syrop de grenadine

1. Passer l'ananas au robot mixeur avec le jus d'orange.
2. Dans un shaker, melanger tous les ingrédients excepté la grenadine.
3. Verser dans 2 verres
4. Verser un peu de syrop de grenadine

Servir frais

Wildlife on my way to work

Since we have moved (7 weeks ago) I take a different route to cycle to work. I take the countryside road. Just as busy with car traffic, but nicer views. I found it even spooky a couple of times when we had very thick fog and mist, particularly cycling through Offchurch.

In the past week, I have heard a wide range of birds and have seen the following animals: a rabbit, a badger, birds, a pheasant, and a fox! I must admit that a few had been hit by motorists, but surely this means there are more out there? So I think positive and believe that dead animals on the road show that the species is still alive, hidden in the bushes.

I also see animals in farming fields (this is less nice): horses, cows, sheep, lambs, goats. There is also a smelly poultry farm passed the canal, yuk yuk!

I am really struggling this week on the bike. Maybe to do with not cycling for more than a week whilst in Munich. Dunno. I hope I'll get fit and energised again very soon.

Tofu stir-fry

I felt lazy and tired yesterday evening so instead of making a bake, we opted for a stir-fry.

Nothing special but satisfying, especially with the weather we are having right now. We had a very dry winter and sudddenly, comes May and it has not stopped raining! I guess it is good news for farmers and garderners. We have not planted anything out yet. We were waiting for the "holy frost" ("Saints de Glace") to be over. According to my grandparents, this was 11th, 12th and 13th May so I guess we will be planting next weekend. By the way, after checking things on Google, I don't think that "holy frost" is a good translation, since most links are related to Batman, for a reason unknown to me.


Going back to my stir-fry, this is what you will need to feed four people:

800g potatoes, diced and parboiled
2 leeks, sliced
4 tomatoes, cut into chunks
250g smoked tofu, diced
herbs and seasoning

Fry the leeks until softening, then add the potatoes and tofu. Add the tomatoes, herbs and seasoning. When all vegetables are cooked, it is ready to be served!

Mars bar alert!

I do not buy manufactured chocolate bars (real chocolate yes, but no mars-bar type, yuk, yuk!) but I thought I would warn those of you who are vegetarian and eat this type of product. This follows Masterfood's decision to use animal rennet for many of their products, like "Snickers, Mars, Twix, Maltesers, Bounty, Minstrels, Milky Way products, and the ice cream versions of all Masterfoods' bars".

More information on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6653175.stm.

Taste of Brittany: Buckwheat galettes

I like galettes and the really good thing about them is that you can accompany them with ANYTHING! The only limit is your imagination.

Galettes come from Upper Brittany and are similar to crepes (French pancakes) but made with buckwheat. I just discovered that buckwheat was brought back from Asia by crusaders during the XII century. It 'took off' in Brittany because of the right acidity of the soil. There were two ways of making buckwheat crepes, which bore two different names: galette in Upper Brittany and buckwheat crepes in Lower Brittany. The latter takes longer to make and is more fragile, therefore difficult to prepare with fillings. The former is the comon dish you will find in CREPERIES (crepe & galette restaurants). Galettes are usually used for savoury dishes whereas crepes are prepared with sweet fillings

Ingredients for 8 galettes:

250g buckwheat flour, sieved
1 egg, beaten (optional)
500ml water
pinch of salt

1. mix the flour with the salt in a big bowl and make a well.

2. dilute the beaten egg with the water and gradually add to the flour, stiring constantly with a wooden spoon, until very smooth. You cannot remove the water once it is in so make sure the batter is not too liquid! Your first galette may be too thick but you can add more water if necessary.

3. Heat a large frying pan (or a pancake pan if you have one!). Spread a small quantity of vegetable oil with a brush (silicone brush, or hairs will burn!). Spoon a soup-ladle of the batter onto the pan, avoiding holes. Turn after 1 min. Repeat until all the batter has been used, stiring the batter between each galette.

You can eat them plain, or fill them with anything you like: place a galette onto a frying pan, place the filling on one half, cover with the other half. Cook on both sides and serve with a green salad or some vegetables. If you like cider, this is the perfect drink to go with your galettes.
Yesterday, I filled the galettes with grated cheddar and slices of tomato, served with mushrooms cooked in soya cream, and a fried egg.

Now it is your turn! What is your favourite filling?

Leek and mushroom curry

Leek and mushroom curry

To finish this spicy week, here is a quick curry recipe.

Ingredients - Serves 4

2 leeks, sliced
250g mushrooms, sliced
200ml soya cream (or coconut milk, but I am not a big fan of coconut)
2 tsp curry powder
1 TBSP chopped coriander
salt & pepper

2 cups of basmati rice

1 handful of cashew nuts


1. Fry the leek and mushrooms, add the spices, herbs and season to taste.

2. Meanwhile, cook the basmati rice.

3. Roast the cuts under the grill.

4. Serve into warm bowls, it is ready!

Curried rice patties with tahini dressing

These are incredibly nice. If you like curry and/or spicy food, this is for you!

Ingredients (Makes 4-6 patties)

70g basmati rice, cooked, drained and rinced
2 TBSP olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 red pepper, finely chopped
115g peas
1 small leek, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
300g canned chick peas (rinsed & drained)
90g fresh bread crumbs
1 TBSP chopped coriander
1 egg, beaten
salt & pepper

For the tahini dressing:

120 ml tahini
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
pinch of cayenne pepper
5 TBSP lemon juice
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
~125ml water

=> this makes a very generous quantity of dressing (see picture). Half of this would be sufficient for us but it depends how much you like tahini.

To make the dressing, process the tahini, garlic, cumin, cayenne and lemon juice in a food processor until creamy. Sloly pour in the oil, then gradually add enough water to make a creamy dressing.

To make the patties:

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and garlic and fry until soft. Stir in the curry and chilli powders and cook for 2 minutes. Add the vegetables and cook for another 7 minutes.

2. Process the chick peas in a food processor. Add half of the cooked vegetables and process again.

3. Transfer to a large bowl and add the remaining vegetable mixture, breadcrumbs, coriander and egg. Mix weel. Stir in the rice and season to taste. Leave to chill for 1 hour.

4. Shape into patties and fry. Serve with vegetables, the tahini dressing and lime wedges.

Spicy Mexican Pie

Spicy Mexican Pie

For the filling:

3 tomatoes, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
400g sweetcorn
300g red kidney beans
4 sticks celery, sliced
100g peas
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 tsp hot chilli powder
2 TBSP chopped coriander

For the topping:

125g cornmeal (I had none so used wholemeal bread flour instead)
1 TBSP plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
6 TBSP milk
1 TBSP corn oil
125g grated cheese (mature cheddar in our case!)

Variation 1 here.

1. Fry all the vegetables together then place in an ovenproof dish.

2. To make the topping, mix together the cornmeal, flour, salt and baking powder. Make a well, add teh egg, milk and oil and beat until you obtain a smooth batter. Spoon over the vegetables and sprinkle with the cheese.

3. Cook in a preheated oven (220 degrees) for 25 minutes.

4. Serve with a tomato and avocado salad.

Carrot and leek quiche (multiseed pastry)

The amazing taste of this quiche comes from the unusual but yummy texture of the pastry for which I used the following ingredients:

100g plain flour
40g millet flakes
40g mixed seeds (poppy, crushed hemp, sunflower, pumpkin, linseed, millet)
80g margarine
3TBSP water

We used 2 big leeks and 4 carrots. Trave cut the veg into tiny bits which added to the great taste. Once fried, place the vegetables into the pastry case, cover with grated cheese, sprinkle with parsley and black pepper.

Mix 2 eggs with 150ml soya cream and pour over the filling. Cook in a 180 degrees-preheated oven for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Update on our plants

Some are doing better than others. I think I watered them too much before I left, which some seeds clearly did not appreciate. The courgettes are doing great, so are the radish (not surprisingly). Only one tomato plant seems to be growing and it looks like I will have to sow most herbs again, bah…

Vegetables and bulghur

Vegetable stir-fry with bulghur

2 courgettes, sliced
1 red pepper, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced
1 small broccoli, cut into small florets
Mushrooms, sliced
2 cups of bulghur
1 handful cashew nuts

Fry all the vegetables, add your favourite herbs.
Meanwhile, cook the bulghur in boiling water. Roast the cashew nuts under the grill.
Drain the bulghur and add to the stir-fry.
Serve into warm bowls and sprinkle with the nuts.

Back from Munich

Where shall I start? the past few weeks have been really, really busy. The exhibition was great. Incredible atmosphere and I met so many new people. One of them was a chimney sweeper: I had never met a chimney sweeper before! Have you? In seven days, half a million people visited the show, thankfully not all visited our stand, or we would have been short of staff and beverages! We had nice evenings too. Personally, I enjoyed more walking through the city than dinner itself: no offense but Bavarian cuisine is not my favourite. The good thing was, we went there right in the middle of the "Spargelzeit" (asparagus season) so as a veggie, as long as you don't mind eating asparagus with boiled potatoes and sauce Hollandaise, you're alright.

I love this city. Loads of space for pedestrians and cyclists. And... I don't know, this German je-ne-sais-quoi which gives me this immense feeling of regret whenever I have to leave this country. I left on Mayday and there were many families taking their bicycles on the S-Bahn to the nearest village and from the train window one could see all these people cycling peacefully among the fields, only 10 minutes away from Munich city centre without taking the car. and many other things. I love this country. The longer I stay there the more difficult it is to leave it.

Anyway... enough of this! I have some recipes to post:

- Mexican chilli pie
- Vegetable stir-fry with bulghur
- Yummy leeks & carrot quiche

+ update on our seeds!

In other news, as I have finished my management course and until I start the exam revision programme in August, I have started a "teach yourself Dutch in 3 months" book. I don't expect to be fluent in three-month time but if I could just be able to have a short conversation with my Flemish customers at the exhibition I am going to in September in Kortrijk, I would be very pleased! Let's hope I am not over ambitious. After all, there is a wedding to prepare...!