Umami Halloumi Salad

   Guys, you REALLY have to try this salad! It's sooooooo delicious that I barely just finished eating it and I knew I needed to share the recipe with you as soon as possible :)

   We found this absolutely amazing, mouth-watering salad in a Greek restaurant (makes sense, doesn't it?) in... Munich! Yep, Munich! Because why would you only try sausages and sauerkraut while in Germany? When I saw it on the menu and I noticed it contained halloumi cheese I knew that was my salad! I can't even find the right words to explain how it tasted... every bite was heavenly! 

   What is this halloumi cheese, you ask? Just the most umami and amazing cheese in the world (and that comes from an avid cheese lover!)! Wikipedia says: "Halloumi /həˈluːmi/ is a Cypriot semi-hard, unripened brined cheese made from a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk, and sometimes also cow's milk. It has a high melting point and so can easily be fried or grilled." I found out about it in Greek Week at Lidl (of course!) and I fell in love with it ever since! I even have a picture of it on the fridge :))) I know, wacko but so not sorry! :D

   Back to present times, I really wanted to reproduce the salad I tried in Munich back at home and today was the day! (I realized Metro has the halloumi cheese full time so I didn't have to wait for another Greek Week at Lidl.) It's so easy to make and sooo tasty! Mine turned out just as amazing as the one I ate at that Greek restaurant in Munich so why not try making it yourself? Ready to explode with pleasure? :D

Ingredients for 3 servings:
- 2 medium tomatoes, roughly sliced
- 2 medium cucumbers, roughly sliced
- 1/4 red pepper, sliced
- 1 small red onion, julienned
- around 10 seedless olives, cut in half
- 250g chicken thighs (or chicken breast)
- 400g halloumi cheese (you can do 300g too)
- salt, pepper, lemon pepper, chili flakes, to taste
- a bit of oil

Optional: garlic bread on the side and balsamic vinegar on top ;)

Steps:

1. Cut all the veggies very roughly (don't worry about an exact dimension, you want to feel that tomato when you taste it with the halloumi cheese). Add them all to a bowl, mix then add a bit of salt, pepper and oil to finish the veggie salad.

2. Cut your chicken into strips, add lemon pepper and grill until fully cooked.

3. Cut the halloumi cheese in half on its length (otherwise it's too thick to grill). Then grill it until it becomes brown on both sides. Take aside and cut into strips.

4. Plate your salad: veggie salad at the bottom, chicken strips and then halloumi cheese on top. Bon appetit!

P.S. Original salad from Munich:

Brazilian Chicken Stir Fry

   We found this recipe on a website that was recommended to us (www.tablespoon.com) for its amazing recipes and we curiously decided to try it out especially because of its wild combinations that we thought would never work in 1000 years :))) Like who in their right mind would mix soy sauce, coconut milk and tomato paste and expect that to taste good?! And then try adding some pineapple and some chicken to the mix! Crazy, right? Crazy delicious, I'll tell you what! You GOTTA try this Brazilian recipe! Oli modified it a bit, so here's what we used in the end:

Ingredients (for about 2 servings):
- 1 tsp cumin and 1 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup coconut milk
- 1 Tbsp tomato paste
- 4 Tbsp sesame oil
- 250g chicken thighs or breast, diced
- 2 medium bell peppers, sliced
- 1 hot pepper, diced, seeds removed
- 1 cup pineapple, diced
- 1 Tbsp fresh ginger
- 2 cloves garlic, grated or minced
- 1 cup black beans
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- about 130g egg noodles

*tsp = teaspoon, Tbsp = tablespoon

Steps:

1. Mix together the cumin, pepper and chili powder. Separately, mix together the soy sauce, coconut milk and tomato paste. Yes, it DOES work!

2. Toss the chicken with a drizzle of soy sauce (kind of like a quick marinade) and then leave it in a bowl.

3. Heat a wok with 2 Tbsp of sesame oil. When it's hot, throw the chicken in it, then remove it when it's cooked. 

4. Add another Tbsp of sesame oil to the wok, then add the bell peppers and the hot pepper. Stir fry for about 3-4 minutes, then add the pineapple, ginger and garlic. Cook until the pineapple starts to caramelize.

5. Sprinkle the spices over the veggies and cook for 1 more minute. Add the soy sauce mix and return the chicken in the wok. Continue cooking until the sauce has reduced and coats the chicken (for about 3 minutes). Add the black beans and remove from heat then add the cilantro.

6. Cook the egg noodles in boiling water. 

7. Serve the stir fry over the egg noodles. Bon appetit!

Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Pasta

   We tried this recipe once before from Tasty (thank God for pages like that, otherwise we'd be out of ideas frequently) and we loved it! It attracted me because it had sun-dried tomatoes in it and I just adore those! :D I'd eat them every day if I could :D But then again, too much is too much...

   The original Tasty recipe had asparagus in it but this time I decided to use zucchini instead as a cheaper option. Aaaand since I wanted to be creative and make it a bit more filling I also added some chicken and some mozarella bocancini. That's the beauty of cooking! You can start from a simple recipe and then tweak it and make it your own :D The tweaked version was sooooo yummy I already can't wait to try it out again! 

Ingredients (for about 3 servings):

- A shallot, diced

- A pesto jar (again, Barilla is strongly recommended)

- 6-7 sun-dried tomatoes, julienned

- A medium zucchini, peeled*

- 200g mozarella bocancini

- 250g chicken thighs, diced

- Grill seasoning to taste

- 100g cooking cream

- About 200g pasta (we used Fettuccine)

Steps:

1. Boil the pasta with a bit of salt.

2. Chop the chicken, then season it with some grill mix.

3. Cut your shallot and sun-dried tomatoes, then peel all the zucchini lenghtwise with a peeler until you obtain a lot of very thin zucchini slices.

4. Cook the shallot and the chicken together in a pan until the chicken is about 80% cooked then add the zucchini slices and keep cooking them until the zucchini reduces and the chicken is cooked through. 

5. Add the sun-dried tomatoes, the pesto and the mozarella and stir for a bit, then add the cooking cream (to make it creamier).

6. Add the cooked pasta and keep stirring to coat the pasta in sauce. Serve immediately with cracked pepper on top. Bon appetit! :)

In case you want to try out the original Tasty recipe, here's a video: 

Fluffy Pancakes with Fresh Fruit

   What can sound better than delicious pancakes for a Sunday breakfast? I found this recipe on Teo's Kitchen and I really wanted to try it out because the pancakes looked super fluffy! And they don't even contain eggs! I replaced the frozen berries with fresh fruit and I added the Saskatoon syrup we brought from Canada for extra zing :D You can use Maple syrup instead. Mmmm, delicious!

Ingredients for 2 servings:

– 250g flour

– a small bag of baking powder

– 1 tsp salt

– 1 tsp sugar

– 350ml milk

– 50g melted butter

– ½ vanilla bean

– your favorite fresh fruit (I used banana, apple, kiwi, orange and strawberry)

- Saskatoon syrup or Maple syrup

Steps:

1. Combine the milk, the melted butter, the sugar and the vanilla bean seeds in a bowl or in a blender. 

2. Add the flour, salt, baking powder and keep mixing until you form a dense batter.

3. Heat up a pancake pan, add a tiny bit of oil so that the batter doesn't stick, then keep adding half a ladle of batter forming round shaped pancakes. Cook the pancakes for about 1 minute on each side until they're nice and golden brown. 

4. Dice the fruit.

5. Stack some pancakes up, then add the syrup and the fruit on top. That's all! Bon appetit! :)

The most delicious Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse ever

   Today Facebook let me know it's been a year since I discovered this absolutely amazing chocolate mousse recipe that I used it SO MANY times in the last 12 months I just had to post on this blog as well! 

   A year ago, after making this recipe for the first time, I posted this on Facebook:
"Today I felt like making a new dessert, but not something with a lot of layers, something airy and somehow light. And I was lucky because I had a mascarpone packet that I needed to use soon so this is how I found the MOST DELICIOUS chocolate mascarpone mousse on Goodfood! So easy, yet so tasty! 

   I decided to go for a base of crumbled graham biscuits and a cocktail of fruit on top! Talking about graham... Graham Elliot was my inspiration in adding the fruit on top :D Masterchef FTW! 

   I can't begin to tell you how good it tastes! I will definitely use this mousse for cupcakes, birthday cakes and any other recipe involving chocolate cream! Mmmmmmm! To die for!"

And use it I did! :D So now you HAVE to try it out as well! ;)

Ingredients for about 4 servings:

- 100 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces, or dark chocolate drops

- 75 g caster sugar

- 2-3 Tbsp brandy

- 2 eggs

- 250g mascarpone

- about 200g of digestive biscuits

- whatever fruit you prefer or have handy (I used kiwi, pear, orange and an exotic fruit can)

Steps: 

1. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water and allow to melt, then remove from the heat. 

2. Add the sugar, brandy and eggs and, using a hand-held electric beater, whisk for 5 minutes or until the outside of the bowl has cooled down to lukewarm. 

3. Whisk in the mascarpone for a few seconds, just until combined. (The mousse will thicken once the mascarpone has been mixed in.) 

4. Put the biscuits in a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs exactly like you would prepare a cheesecake base. If you want some texture with the mousse, you can leave the bites a bit bigger.

5. Dice all your fruit and set it aside.

6. Game time! Prepare the wine glasses, then layer your work: biscuit crumble, chocolate mascarpone mousse and fruit on top! Mmmm, you'll enjoy this so much you'll want to thank me later! :D 

Oliver's Pesto Pasta

   I showed you quite a few recipes until now but I somehow seemed to have forgotten a quintessencial recipe in our household: Oliver's Pesto Pasta! Another recipe that got me hooked from the first bite, one that I would eat every week and that made me love pesto forever (I actually hadn't tried pesto before this dish). So now you know that if you like pesto, you HAVE to try this dish! :D Just sayin'... ;)

Ingredients for 3 servings:
- a jar of Barilla pesto (it HAS to be Barilla, the other brands won't do the recipe justice - It's soooo good I would eat this pesto on its own! Oh wait, I actually did:P Other girls have chocolate, I have pesto ;) )
- a pack of mozarella bocancini (we used around 150g but the more, the cheesier!!!)
- 5 medium mushrooms
- 1/2 chicken breast
- a small white onion
- 250g Fettuccine pasta (or any other pasta you prefer)
- 2 Tbsp oil
- ground pepper to taste

Steps:

1. Boil the pasta in a pot with water and salt.

2. Dice the onion, slice the mushrooms, cut the chicken into small pieces.

3. Put the oil in a pan, then add the onion and cook it for about a minute, until it is starting to caramelize.

4. Add the chicken to the pan, then season it with ground pepper. Give it about 2-3 minutes until it's cooked on one side, then turn it over.

5. Then add the mushrooms. Cook them until they're nicely caramelized.

6. Add the pesto, the mozarella and the pasta. Stir it all together and let it simmer until the cheese is melted. Bon appetit!

Zucchini Lasagna

   If you always loved eating lasagna but you never had the courage to cook it yourself because it sounded way too complicated (like myself) or if you simply want to try out a new lasagna recipe, I'll give you an amazing one I found on TipHero and tweaked a bit. It's as easy as it is delicious! Simple ingredients and no complications at all! Are you ready?

Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 2 zucchinis
- salt, to taste
- 2 Tbsp oil
- 1 medium red onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- around 400g minced meat (we used a mix of pork and beef)
- ground black pepper, to taste
- 1/2 jar Bolognese sauce
- 1/2 pack of mascarpone
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup Parm cheese
- 1 1/2 cups shredded gouda, mozarella or whatever melty cheese you have in the fridge

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C.

2. Using a mandoline slicer or sharp knife, slice the zucchini lengthwise into ¼-inch thick slices.

3. Place the zucchini slices in a bowl, sprinkle them with salt, and toss to coat the slices evenly. Set them aside for 10-15 minutes. (Salting removes a lot of the excess moisture in the zucchini).

4. While the zucchini is being salted, heat a large pan over medium heat. Add the oil and onion and cook, stirring often, until the onion is soft (about 3-5 minutes).

5. Add the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute.

6. Add the minced meat, season it with salt and pepper, and cook, breaking the meat into small pieces as it browns (about 4 to 5 minutes).

7. Add the Bolognese sauce. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10-15 minutes, or until sauce is very thick.

8. In a medium bowl, mix the mascarpone, egg, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and pepper. Stir well.

9. After the zucchini has been sitting for about 10-15 minutes, use paper towels to blot the excess moisture that the zucchini has released.

10. In a 9 x 13-inch casserole dish, spread about ⅓ of the sauce on the bottom and layer about ⅓ of zucchini slices in a criss-cross pattern to cover the sauce.

11. Spread ⅓ of the mascarpone and egg mixture over the zucchini, and then top that with half of the shredded gouda (or mozarella) cheese.

12. Repeat the layering process until all of your ingredients are used up.

13. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the zucchini is cooked through and the cheese is melted and starting to brown.

14. Let the lasagna stand for about 5-10 minutes before serving. Bon appetit!

Here's the original (non-tweaked) recipe, just in case you wanna see the steps: