Summery avocado chickpea salad with chicken skewers

   It's summer, so you might want to try a light dinner. I have the perfect idea! It's a new recipe from "Yum and yummer" recipe book written by Greta Podleski. Super healthy and super nutritious! I love all Greta's recipes! :) 

Here it goes:

Ingredients for 3-4 people:
Salad:
- 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups peeled, diced cucumbers
- 1 1/2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup minced or thinly sliced red onions
- 1 medium avocado, diced
* my addition: a can of corn (God knows how much I love it :D)

Dressing:
- 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp olive or sunflower oil
- 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 Tbsp minced fresh dill
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp pure maple syrup or liquid honey
- 1/4 tsp each sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Skewers:
- I bought marinated chicken skewers from Lidl, but you can marinate your own with chicken thighs or chicken breast

Steps:
1. In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients, being careful not to squish the avocados.
2. Whisk together all dressing ingredients in a small bowl or measuring cup.
3. Pour over salad and mix well. Taste and add more salt and pepper if you like.
4. Grill your chicken skewers.
5. Serve immediately. Bon appetit! :)

Oven BBQ Ribs

   Finger-licking good!!! Two nights in a row of first time tried recipes that took me to heaven. We bought these ribs from Lidl (of course, did you still expect something else? No, Lidl doesn't pay me to promote them, I just love it either way :))) ) and we played around with some BBQ marinade from American Week @ Lidl and some BBQ sauce from Auchan and... ta-ra! Deliciousness on a plate! I have to admit this is aproximately the third ribs recipe that we tried for me to love, but man, we hit jackpot this time! ;) Wanna hit jackpot too? This recipe is not necessarily about what marinade/sauce you use, but about slow cooking the dish :) Niiiiice and sloooow :)

Ingredients for 2-3 servings:
- 1 kg of pork ribs
- a pack of barbecue marinade from American Week @ Lidl (for 350g of meat)
- AND/OR a bottle of BBQ sauce (we used "Sos pentru gratar Steakhouse V6 BBQ" from Auchan)
- salt and pepper
- a big tomato cut into slices
- about 250g of broccoli, slightly boiled

*We used both the BBQ marinace and the BBQ sauce because the marinade alone wouldn't have been sufficient for 1 kg of meat, but if you can't find the exact ingredients I used you can just take a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce and it will do.

Reference photos:

Steps:
1. Put salt and pepper on each side of the meat.
2. "Brown" the meat (i.e. cook it) for a about 3 minutes on each side.
3. Put it in a baking tray and cover it with marinade.
4. Fill up about half-way the rest of the tray with a pool of BBQ marinade (marinade can be created by mixing your BBQ sauce of choice with water).
5. Cover the tray with aluminium foil.
6. Pre-heat the oven to about 120 degrees.
7. Place the tray in the oven at that temperature for about 2-3 hours.
8. Periodically check to make sure that the marinade pool has not evaporated (if need be add more water/marinade).
9. Serve with a side of tomatoes and broccoli or other favorite veggies. Bon appetit! ;)

Thai Beef and Pineapple Red Curry

   Oh my God, you guys! Tonight I reached culinary Nirvana once again. You know a recipe is good if it makes it on the blog. If I had tried it in a restaurant I would have totally wanted to make it at home! It's the best combo between Lidl, Auchan and a friend's pineapple :))) I know it might sound weird but bear with me. It all started from randomly finding a red curry marinated beef @ Asian week at Lidl, then receiving a fresh pineapple from a friend and looking up recipes that contain those two ingredients. That's how we found this amazing Martha Stewart recipe (who doesn't love Martha?) and then we ended up in Auchan to buy the rest of the ingredients: more red curry paste and coconut milk. Auchan has a great variety of International ingredients! You'd be surprised! (For foreigners, Auchan and Lidl are two supermarkets found in Romania.)

   I just LOVE how Oli and I find new absolutely mouthgasming recipes so randomly. Or maybe it's fate? Hmmm... Let me bring fate in your life by giving you this amazing, MUST TRY recipe:

Ingredients for 2 servings and a bit of leftovers:

- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup red curry paste (@Auchan)

- 1 pound sirloin steak, trimmed and cut against the grain into very thin strips

-  225g green/yellow beans, trimmed and cut in half crosswise
- 2 cups large diced fresh pineapple (fresh is always king, even though it might seem like a pain in the ass to peal it)
- 1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk (@Auchan)

- cooked jasmine rice, for serving
- 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn (dry basil is OK as well if you don't have fresh one)

Steps:

1. In a large skillet or wok, heat oil over medium-high. 

2. Add curry paste and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. 

3. Add steak and cook, stirring, until browned, 2 minutes. 

4. Add green beans and pineapple and cook, stirring, until pineapple starts to release juices, 1 minute. 

5. Add broth and coconut milk and bring to a boil. 

6. Reduce heat and cook at a rapid simmer until green beans are crisp-tender, 8 minutes. 

7. Serve over rice, topped with basil. Bon appetit! :)

LIDL's Deluxe Gnocchi with pesto

   Everybody knows how much I love Lidl by now, right? If anybody is still wondering why, here's a short reason: amazing products and great marketing! The fact that they only bring a certain amount of delicious products for special weeks makes you want to GO BUY those products because they sound so good (if you haven't cooked with them before) or because you already know how good they are! 

   I just LOVE Lidl's special weeks! They help us plan our weekly meals and they keep our life more interesting! It was the same this week. It's Deluxe week (I've been eagerly awaiting this one) and while I was browsing through their magazine I saw a new product:

    My eyes widened because I love pesto and I love gnocchi so I knew I just HAD to buy these :) I cooked the gnocchi today and I'm happy to share the recipe with you! Lidl has done it again! Thanks for pimping my dinner one more time, Lidl! 

   If you liked the picture of the dish, you decided you want to try this recipe and you're from Romania, go to Lidl and buy the gnocchi this week because they're going to be out afterwards. But don't forget to also enjoy all the other products from Deluxe week (we especially love the salmon en croute, the potato gratins and the "frutti di mare")! They're absolutely fabulous! (No, Lidl didn't pay me to say all this!) 

   Ok. Now let's prepare dinner! I first cooked the gnocchi according to the instructions on the package (they are enough for 2 people) and then I came up with a white sauce that I thought would complement the gnocchi fairly well. I made it from: 

- a bit of oil

- a small diced white onion

- 3 grated garlic cloves

-150g of diced Pikok Pastrama Taraneasca or Bacon bits from Lidl (since you're there for the gnocchi)

- around 100g of cooking cream 15% (add a bit more if you want)

- 50g of Bluedino Gouda cheese spread from Lidl

   I fried the onion and the garlic for a bit and then I added the pastrama for another minute or so. After that I gave the onion, garlic and pastrama a bath into silky cooking cream and made everything extra rich with the cheese spread and that's all. Easy peasy, huh?
   When you serve the dish make sure you also add some pepper and parm cheese on top. Bon apetit! :)