Beer honey chicken with oven-roasted potatoes

   This recipe was recommended to me by a friend a loooong time ago and it's heaven on a plate! The chicken is sooo moist, the sauce is very flavourful because of the beer and honey combination and the potatoes are crunchy on the outside but soft in the middle. I'm telling you, you need to try this recipe! One of the best dishes I've eaten lately! :D

Ingredients for 2 people:

- 2 chicken thighs

- 250 ml beer

- 2 Tbsp honey

- 3 Tbsp water

- 4 Tsp soy sauce

- 1 Tsp grounded mustard seeds

- 1 big onion julienned

- 8 - 10 garlic cloves, minced

- 4 medium potatoes, cut into cubes

- salt and pepper to taste

- oregano to taste

- sunflower or olive oil for coating

Steps:

1.  Preheat the oven at 200C. Cut the potatoes into cubes, then put them in a pan and add salt, pepper, oregano and oil. Mix well. Cover with tinfoil and put them in the oven for about 30 min then take the tinfoil off and leave them for 15 more minutes to get crispy on top.

2. Heat a large pan over medium-high heat, Add oil, then place the chicken thighs in the pan. Season them with salt and pepper, cover the pan with a big metal bowl and let the chicken cook for 3 minutes on each side. Then put the chicken on a plate.

3. To the same pan add the grounded mustard seeds and the minced garlic and stir a little.

4. Add in the julienned onion. Stir fry until translucent.

5. Add soy sauce, the water, the beer and the honey to make a sauce. Mix well.

6. Put the chicken back in the pan and cover again. Let the sauce reduce to half on medium-high heat (it will take at least 10 min, 5 min on each side). Check the thighs from time to time and don't forget to baste them.

7. Add more water if the sauce is too reduced before the chicken is cooked through. Also reduce the heat if you do this :)

8. Once cooked, transfer to a plate, take the potatoes from the oven and enjoy your dinner! 

Bon appetit! :)

Looneyspoons veggie pizza with pesto, mozarella and feta

Hey!

Tired of too much meat in your meals and you feel like switching it up? Then this veggie pizza with yuuuummy cheeses will make your world go round! The original recipe is taken from The Looneyspoons, an all-time favourite book written by Janet and Greta Podleski. There it's called "It's a little pizza heaven" and the title doesn't lie ;) Of course, I tweaked it a bit, like I always do :))

By the way, I decided to go wild and I made my own pizza dough so I'll include the recipe for the dough too, just in case you wanna make your own.

Let's get started, shall we?

Ingredients for 2 pizzas:

Thin and flavourful dough: *recipe from chef Adrian Hădean
- 3 cups of 650 flour
- 1 1/2 cups of warm water
- 10g fresh yeast or 3g dry yeast
- 1 tbsp warm milk
- 2 pinches of sugar (used separately)
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 tsp dry oregano
- 1 tsp dry basil
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

OR 2 pizza doughs from Lidl ;)

Topping for 2 pizzas:
- 2 tsp olive or sunflower oil
- around 6 sliced mushrooms (put a variety of them if you can)
- a haldful of broccoli florets cut small
- a medium zucchini
- 1/2 red bell pepper thinly sliced
- a small red onion thinly sliced
- 1/2 jar Barilla pesto sauce
- 1/2 jar pizza sauce or any tomato based flavored sauce (I used Barilla Napoletana)
- 2 tbsp freshly grated Parm cheese
- aprox. 150g mozarella di bufala balls
- around 60g shredded feta cheese
*my addition, optional: corn (as much as possible :P)


Steps:

Making the dough:
1. Mix the flour and water.
2. Add a pinch of salt and sugar.
3. Dissolve the yeast in the milk and a pinch of sugar, then add to the flour mix.
4. Add the oregano, basil and olive oil.
5. Knead the dough for about 15 min by hand or with an electric mixer (I used the second option) until it's soft, elastic and it comes off easily. You might need to adjust the water/flour combo.
6. Let it rise for about an hour close to a source of heat.
7. Separate it into 2 doughs for your two pizzas and work it like a true Italian pizzaro until you fill your 2 trays of pizza:

Adding the topping:
1. Tomato sauce (I added too much and the pizza ended up soggy, so make sure you don't add too much)

2. Cooooorn

3. Add Parm cheese :)

4. Add the sauteed veggies coated in pesto - In a big pan or a wok over medium heat add the oil and all the cut veggies. Cook and stir for about 6 min until they are tender, then take them off the heat and add in the pesto. Mix well, then spread on top of the pizza.

5. Add the mozarella balls, yummm!

6. Final step: Add the shreded feta :)

And this is how the pizza looks before going in the oven for about 10 min if the dough is fresh or 8 min if the dough is store bought and thawed. Bake it at 230C until the crust is lightly browned and cheese is melted.

7. Final product:

Bon appetit! :D

Guacamole Egg Toast

Hey, friends!

Lately I've fallen in love with this simple yet absolutely addictive breakfast recipe. So much so that I keep craving it every other day! Since it's mouthwatering, healthy and super easy, I thought I'd share it with you! ;)

So here goes:

Ingredients for 2 toasts:
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 medium tomato
- 1 small red onion
- a bit of lime or lemon juice
- salt and pepper
- 2 eggs
- 2 slices of bread
- Chipotle flakes or Chilli flakes

Steps:
1. Make the guacamole by peeling the avocado, then mashing it down with a potato masher. Then dice the tomato and the onion, add the lime juice, salt and pepper and mix everything.
2. Poach your eggs or simply put a bit of water in a pan then add the eggs and cook them like a regular sunny side up. Season with Chipotle or chilli flakes.
3. Toast your bread.
4. Assemble: toast, guacamole, egg.

Eggcelent breakfast, I'm telling you! Bon appetit! :D

Creamy roasted red pepper and sun dried tomato pasta

   Hi, pasta lovers!

   Today I want to present to you my new discovery! If your mouth is watering when you hear about roasted red peppers and you loooove sun dried tomatoes because they remind you of Italy, then read on! 

   I found this recipe shared on Instagram by a Romanian influencer who made it at home. She also took it from servingdumplings.com, a blog I've never heard about before. BIG mistake! If you take a glance around you'll instantly feel hungry and you'll become a follower! Yep, that's what happened to me too! 

   Now, you know that I usually love to improvise and tweak recipes to make them my own and I did that with this recipe as well. I decided not to blitz the roasted peppers and sun dried tomatoes into a sauce because I wanted to feel their texture and I skipped the tomato sauce and the lemon because I added Pesto Rosso from Lidl. Other than that, I decided to made my own pasta from scratch. Why not? Fresh pasta is always better, right?

   So here's how I did it:



Ingredients for 2 people:

250g pasta (or make your own from here)

3 red bell peppers

100 g sun dried tomatoes, oil drained but reserved

50 g grated parmesan

200 ml milk

1 shallot or small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

1 jar Pesto Rosso from Lidl

salt + black pepper

1/2 tsp crushed dried chili

+basil and grated parmesan, for sprinkling



Steps:

1a. OPTIONAL: Make the pasta yourself.

1b. Place the bell peppers on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Turn on your broiler to 250°C and if you can, place the peppers on the highest rack, close to the heating element (in my case it was the second highest because the tray wouldn't fit on the first one). Roast for about 5 minutes or until black spots appear, flip the peppers and continue to roast until all sides have been charred.

2. Place bell peppers in a plastic bag. Seal and let steam for about 5 minutes. Pull off the skins and remove the seeds, then dice them. Dice the sun dried tomatoes as well.

3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the pasta until al dente and then drain.

4. In a medium pot, heat the oil and add garlic and shallot. Cook over low heat until soft, for about 5 minutes. Stir in the roasted bell peppers, sun dried tomatoes, pesto rosso and Parmesan. Pour milk, 50 ml oil from the sun dried tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.

5. Toss with pasta. Adjust chili, salt and black pepper to your taste and serve immediately with Parmesan and fresh basil.

Bon appetit! :)

Cheesy tuna pasta bake

   This recipe was born from a craving. Let me explain myself. After a lot of heavy meaty meals during the winter holidays, I felt like tuna for a change and I realized I missed pasta as well so I decided to marry the two and make a tuna pasta bake. I made a similar recipe once before but I wasn't super impressed with it, so this time I looked up some inspirational recipes. I found one I liked and I decided to tweak it and this is how this recipe was born :)  It's soooo cheesy and soooo delicious you'll really want to go back for more! ;) I feel like cooking it again already :)))

Ingredients for about 3-4 servings:

- about 200 g of fusilli pasta or your preferred pasta

- a tin of tuna chunks in sunflower or olive oil 

- 3 cloves garlic, crushed

- a pinch of dried oregano 

- a pinch of chilli flakes

- 1 teaspoon mashed anchovy filets or paste

- salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

- a 500 ml bottle of home made tomato sauce (Romanian "bulion") or a good quality store bought one

- about 100 g of grated Gruyere cheese or Parm cheese 

- about 6 slices of smoked cheese 

Steps:

1. Combine tuna and its oil from the tin, garlic, anchovies, oregano, and chilli flakes in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir and cook for 1 minute once oil begins to sizzle.

2. Stir in the tomato sauce. Increase heat to medium and simmer for about 10 minutes.

3. Fill a large pot with oregano salted water and bring to a boil. Cook your pasta until just slightly undercooked (2 min less than the package advice), then drain. 

4. Stir cooked pasta into the tuna tomato mixture, then add the Gruyere or the Parm.

5. Pour everything in a glass tray and cover it with the slices of smoked cheese.

6. Put the tray in the oven at 185C for about 15-20 min or until the cheese on top starts to melt.

Bon appetit! :)

Soft ginger cookies

   I found this recipe when a good friend of mine had to prepare something sweet for her Multicultural Christmas representing the UK and I got the "ginger cookies" recommended by an English friend. Oh, it couldn't have been a better idea! 

   I have to say from the get go that I'm not a huge cookie person because Romanians love the creamy cakes and we're not used to eating cookies with tea or something else so we don't make them at home either. I only started getting into them since my husband received a family recipe book for Christmas cookies and we're baking those every year. Mighty great cookies! 

   Therefore, the ginger cookies were something totally new and exotic for me, but I decided to see it as a challenge that my friend and I accomplished for sure! These cookies are so delicious you'd LOVE to have them on your Christmas table and you'd be munching on them after Christmas is done if you have leftovers. So, naturally, I had to share the recipe with you guys! It's pretty easy peasy, so let's get started! :)

Ingredients for 24 cookies:

- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

- 2 teaspoons ground ginger 

- 1 teaspoon baking powder 

- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup white sugar

- 3/4 cup margarine, softened

- 1 egg

- 1 tablespoon water

- 1/4 cup molasses

- 2 tablespoons white sugar

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. 

2. Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. 

4. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. 

5. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 5 cm apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly. The cookies are going to grow quite a bit so make sure you're respecting the distance rule! 

6. Bake for about 20 minutes in the preheated oven until they are turning slightly brown (uncooked dough will be rather white and VERY soft to the touch). 

7. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

8. Store in an airtight container.  

Bon appetit and Merry Christmas! :)

Oli's Meatball Pasta

Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 400g Fusilli pasta or your preferred pasta
- 800 g tomato pasta sauce (or home made tomato sauce)
- 450 g ground pork
-150 g ground beef
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 1 egg
- 100g bread ground up into bread crumbs
- a handful of fresh sage, finely chopped up
- a handful of fresh basil, finely sliced
- salt and pepper to taste
-100 ml water (when you cook the meatballs)
- grated parm cheese (to sprinkle on top)
OPTIONAL: garlic bread

Steps:
1. Place ground pork, ground beef, diced onion, egg (whole egg), breadcrumbs, chopped sage, salt and pepper all in a bowl and hand-mix thoroughly, until everything is evenly mixed.
2. Make meatballs that are slightly larger than a golf ball.
3. Put the Fusilli pasta to boil until it is al dente.
4. Place the meatballs in a hot frying pan with a bit of oil.
5. Cover the pan with a lid so that the interior of the meatballs also gets cooked.
6. Rotate the meatballs to a different side every few minutes, so that all sides get evenly seared.
7. Once all sides are evenly seared, add 100 ml of water into the pan and cover it again. This will allow the inside of the meatballs to cook without the outside getting burned.
8. Once the water has completely evaporated, add all the tomato sauce into the pan and cover it again. I used a combo of store bought and home made tomato sauce (Romanian bulion), but you don't have to complicate your life like that :P

9. After about 6-7 minutes, add the thinly sliced fresh basil and also check the interior of the biggest meatball to ensure it is completely cooked.
10. If it is cooked, take the pan off the heat.
11. Mix with the Fusilli pasta.
12. Add some pepper and grated parm cheese on top of each individual plate and bon appetit! :D