Grilled Peaches, Halloumi and Mint "Caprese"

   It's summer, it's hot and you don't feel like eating a heavy meal. I totally get you! Oooor, you're like me, and you find a new recipe involving halloumi cheese and you decide you HAVE to try it! :D And you do. That's how you discover this amazing recipe that is also recommended as a side but which you can easily eat on its own on a hot summer day :) 

   It was my first time eating grilled peaches and I have to admit I had a "why didn't I try this in all the 29 years before?" face. Now I know. I will eat grilled peaches again! :D

Ingredients for 3 servings:
- 3 medium peaches
- 250g halloumi cheese
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- chopped mint (about 1 Tbsp)
- sunflower or olive oil as needed

Steps:

1. Cut the halloumi in half on its length. Grill it on both sides. Slice it after it's grilled.

2. Slice the peaches, then drizzle them with oil and sprinkle the brown sugar. 

3. Heat grill pan really well. Grill the peaches, pulp side down, until grill marks appear (about 10 minutes). 

4. Let the peaches cool a bit, arrange on plate with halloumi, and sprinkle with chopped mint. Enjoy!

Teo's Sweet and Spicy Meatballs and Rice

   One of my favorite Romanian home cooks is Teo Rogobete from Teo's Kitchen. She puts a lot of passion in cooking and you can tell. She recently cooked this mouth watering meatball recipe that I really wanted to try first because it looked so good and second because it's so healthy (baked instead of fried)! I really loved the delicious surprise of the sweet and spicy sauce on the meatballs! Try it too and see for yourself :)

Ingredients for 3 servings:
Meatballs:
- 600g of pork minced meat (Teo used beef)
- 1/2 cup of bread crumbs
- a large egg
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp ginger, grated
- 1 tsp Tabasco sauce
- 1 onion, minced
- 2 cloves of garlic, grated

Sides:
- 300g rice
- 250g broccoli (my addition, you can replace it with something else), slightly boiled

Sweet and spicy sauce:
- 200g apricot jam
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp Tabasco sauce

Extra:
- some leaves of parsley or some green onion for decor on top

Steps:

1. Add the minced meat, the bread crumbs, the egg, salt, pepper, ginger, Tabasco sauce, onion and garlic in a bowl and mix well. 

2. Let the composition rest for 10-15 min.

3. Preheat the oven at 200ºC.

4. Form the meatballs and put them on a baking tray, over some baking paper.

5. Put the meatballs in the oven for about 20 min, making sure you turn them around at half time.

6. Cook the rice and the broccoli.

7. Make the sauce by mixing the apricot jam, the soy sauce and the Tabasco sauce. Heat the sauce for a minute and keep stirring.

8. When the meatballs are ready, put them in a bowl, then add the sweet and spicy sauce over them. Let them cool down.

9. Plate your dish: a bed of rice, some saucy meatballs and the broccoli on the side. At the end sprinkle some parsley leaves on top of the meatballs and enjoy! :)

P.S. Add some refreshing craft beer to go with your dish!

For Romanians, here's Teo's recipe video:

Waldorf Salad

   It's SO hot in Cluj these days that you can't eat anything else but salads. Today we made the Waldorf salad from the Looneyspoons book for the first time and we decided to add our twist: fresh telemea from the farmer's market and chicken thighs. Fresh and delicious! You should try it too! ;)

Ingredients for 3 servings:
Dressing:
- aprox 180ml yogurt
- 2 tsp honey mustard (you can make your own by adding the 2 ingredients together)
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1/2 tsp salt
- a pinch of pepper

Salad:
- 250g chicken thighs without bone, cut into strips, salt and pepper and fry
- 200g telemea cut into cubes (Telemea is a Romanian cheese, but if you don't live in Romania, you can replace it with Feta)
- 200g pasta
- 4 small or 2 big red apples, cut into cubes
- half a small celery root, cut into long strips
- 35g toasted chopped walnuts
- a small red onion, minced
- 2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley

Steps:

1. Make the dressing by combining yogurt, honey mustard, lemon zest, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Put in the fridge until ready to use.

2. Make the salad by adding the ingredients in a large bowl, add dressing and mix well. Chill for one hour before serving. 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! :)

Magical 3 ingredient chocolate mousse

   First off, the marshmellows are just for visual effect if you want your recipe to be super duper healthy ;) That being said, I never thought I would say this but IT WORKS! Chickpeas water makes a great mousse! Man, that still sounds super weird. I was possibly one of the most reluctant people ever when I saw THIS recipe since I absolutely love my mascarpone chocolate mousse recipe, but I like challenges, especially healthy ones, so I tried it and I can say it's really delicious! It tastes like a really airy veeery chocolatey mousse! And it's also vegan, gluten free and it only has 3 ingredients, so... here it goes!

Ingredients for 2 full cups/glasses:
- 140g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa)
- 240ml chickpeas water (from 400g can of low-sodium chickpeas OR home cooked chickpeas)
- 20g/1 big Tbsp of sugar (OPTIONAL, it depends on your taste)

Steps: 

1. Break the chocolate into smaller chunks and melt it very slowly over a water bath. It’s important to do it slowly so that chocolate doesn’t overheat. Once the chocolate has melted, take the bowl off the water bath and place it on a kitchen towel to cool down a little.

2. Open your tin of chickpeas and drain the chickpea water into large glass bowl. The bowl and the utensils you’ll use to whip the chickpeas water need to be completely grease-free as even the tiniest grease residue can prevent aquafaba from reaching stiff peaks. One 400 g tin should give you 240 ml of chickpeas water. Reserve the chickpeas for another use, like a salad or burgers.

3. Using an electric egg whisk, whip the chickpea water into stiff peaks – this is super important. The best way to check if you have achieved stiff peaks is to invert the bowl with whipped chickpeas water. If it slides down even a tiny bit, you are not there yet – keep on whipping until it does not move at all. I used an old, hand-held whisk and it took me about 15 minutes to get stiff peaks. The good news is that (as opposed to egg whites) chickpeas water cannot be overwhipped.

4. OPTIONAL STEP: Once you reach stiff peaks, start adding sugar, bit by bit, whipping the whole time. If sugar has caused the stiff peaks to perish, whip the mixture until you get stiff peaks again.

5. Check that the chocolate has cooled down sufficiently – it should not be warm to the touch or else chocolate may seize and you will end up with grainy mousse. Gently fold melted chocolate into whipped chickpeas water using a silicone spatula. Do not worry if your fluffy mixture deflates once the chocolate has been added – that’s perfectly normal. By the time you’ve added all of your melted chocolate, the mousse MAY have more of a pourable consistency. Mix well. 

6. Divide the mixture between the cups/glasses. Gently stir the mixture between putting it into individual glasses as a bit of melted chocolate tends to drop to the bottom sometimes.

7. Put glasses into the fridge for minimum 3 hours for the mousse to set. I tend to chill mine overnight and it’s perfectly set and fluffy each time. Bon appetit!

Mediterranean Cajun Chicken Drumsticks

   I know, spring has passed and now summer is here and it looked like I abandoned you guys. Not true. I just had some pretty intense couple of months and no OMG recipes to share, but fear not, the day has come for yet another OMG recipe!
   My motto with this blog was that I would only share brilliant recipes people MUST try. Not OK, not pretty good, not average but absolutely delicious recipes. You'll probably say you can't always find OMG recipes and you're right. That's why, I prefer quality over quantity. I'd say it's a pretty good trade-off, right?

   Now let's get started! This recipe was inspired by a delicious one made by my wedding godmother consisting in baked chicken drumsticks and cherry tomatoes. I forgot all the rest, but thank God cooking means improvising because creativity is exactly what made this recipe come together into a mouth watering feast! I just finished eating it and I still have its aftertaste in my mouth! Such an amazing, rich sauce, tender meat, plump baked tomatoes, sweet pepper and onion and then... there's the fresh telemea. Oh My God! You really REALLY must try it!

Here are the ingredients for 2 servings:

- 600g of chicken drumsticks (5 pieces)

- a pack of Cajun Marinade from American Week @ LIDL (you can still find it in stores, so rush!) or a simple cajun rub with pepper, garlic powder and some oil

- a red pepper

- 2 medium red onions

- about 8 cherry tomatoes

- a big piece of  fresh "telemea de vaca in saramura" from Delaco (It MUST be this one! It's absolutely addictive!) - foreigner friends, sorry, you don't know what "telemea" is since it's a purely Romanian type of cheese, but you can replace it with Feta cheese with no problem

Reference photos:

 

Even if it says it's enough for 350g of meat, believe me, it will do just right with 600g as well.

        Delicious!

Steps:

1. Cover the chicken drumsticks in decadent marinade and leave them soaking overnight (if you have time), otherwise, just put the marinade on the chicken and let it sit for a few minutes.

2. Put a bit of oil in a cooking tray.

3. Cut the red pepper in long stripes, then Julienne the red onions.

4. Add the pepper, onions and cherry tomatoes in the tray. Just randomly sprinkle them around.

5. Add the marinated chicken on top of the veg. Casually sprinkle a bit more oil on top of everything. 

6. Cover the tray with aluminum foil then put the whole deliciousness in the oven for 45 min at 220ºC. 

7. Cut the fresh telemea while you're smelling the amazing flavour coming from the oven.

8. Plate your dish: chicken, veg, fresh telemea and plenty of that amazing brown sauce! Mmmmm! Bon appetit!