Pasta bolognese

Time for pasta bolognese!

Everybody should know to make a bolognese. It is definitely not difficult to fry some minced beef, mix in tomatoes and spices and serve with cooked pasta and maybe some grated parmesan.

But, I actually find it a bit difficult to get the bolognese to taste of real meat, and not just pasta with sauce and cheese. Luckily I have found out that adding some vegetables like celeriac and carrots, can make the sauce taste richer. I know that vegetables might not belong in this dish if you ask an Italian mama, but she must have a secret recipe, because I cannot get the very meaty taste just by using some good minced beef, and as a bonus to my version, you get some of those nasty vegetables disguised in the sauce. The celeriac has the advantage of mixing very well with the sauce and adding the rich flavor. You cannot taste the celeriac or carrots if you use a food processor for chopping the vegetables to a very fine texture before adding to the beef.

Only concern is, watch out, and do not add to much of this secret ingredient. It can actually be much, as I experienced with it this time. It can be difficult to hold back, since it is very cheap groceries, but please do so.

In this version I also added some bacon, to get a smokey flavor, but I wish I had bought some higher quality bacon than what you get at the supermarket. The budget should be able to handle it, since every other ingredient is not very expensive.

Pasta bolognese

Remember to cook the pasta a little less than what it says on the package. At least taste them while cooking, so you can get them al dente (it should make some resistance, but without getting caught in your teeth).

Also, I actually think that by adding the vegetables in the dish, I do not need the parmesan to give it its final touch - it tastes good by itself. So a win win, more vegetables and less fat. I am actually quite satisfied with the outcome.

Finally, remember to cook enough so you have leftovers for another day. Such an easy dish to prepare when all you have to do it warm up the sauce and cook the pasta. And somehow it tastes better second time around - maybe the sauce cooks to a more concentrated flavor, or maybe it is just the fact that you have to do less the second time, so it is more value for effort.

Meat quiche

Today, I decided to not go grocery shopping, and just make a dish out of the few things left in my fridge. In my drawer, I found a powder pie base - I do not know why I ever bought this, making it yourself is not at all difficult, but it was probably cheap. Well, this was then my base, and in the fridge I had eggs, some bell peppers and a pack of minced beef.

Actually this dish was almost free, since the meat, which I brought home from Netto the other day, I had accidentally stolen. I do not know, how I succeeded on this, but I suspect it to be among my other groceries when packing, although I am pretty sure I did not pay for it. This gives me a bad conscience, but what should I do, I was already home, and of cause it should not go to waste.  - On top of all, it was also organic, which I do not usually buy in Netto. If I want to buy some good organic meat, I would go to the butcher instead.

Well to make an already too long story short, I fried some onions in a pan, added the beef, and mixed in chopped green bell pepper at last. I seasoned the meat with some different spices, cumin, chili powder, ramsons powder, and of cause salt and pepper. It smelled nice, so my expectations was actually okay high.

I added the meat mix on top of the pie base and poured eggs mixed with some milk on top. To finish it off I arranged finely sliced red bell pepper on top. The results looked as below, which I actually find pretty nice.

My problem with this dish is that pretty much every time I make a pie, I do not feel satisfied with the bottom of the pie. I know the dough is cooked through, but it is always a little gooey. I am not sure whether it is actually possible to make it crisp - I have not found the secret yet. Also, even though the meat mix smelled very nice, I would still like the pie to have much more flavor. Maybe the secret to this, is just to double my spices.

Bonus post: The other day, I decided to make my boyfriend Tiramisu - he says I make it way so seldom, so I suspect he very much likes it :)

For this I use the Danish brothers Price's recipe, but I exchange some things. Although Danish eggs have been confirmed Salmonella free, I usually use pasteurized eggs. I used a whole vanilla pod and instead of topping off with cocoa, I like to use grated chocolate. I think cocoa powder is too bitter, so 70% chocolate fits my taste better. Oh yeah, and instead of Amaretto I use Kahlua.

Remember that the Tiramisu needs to settle in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, and ideally a couple of days - believe me.

This recipe has actually gotten several of my friends and family to like Tiramisu, though they all stated up front that they did not like it.

Steak with potato fondant and fennel salad

Friday night dinner. Special offer at the local butcher. Red wine marinated ribeye steaks, which of cause calls for a bottle of red wine from the secret safe - the closet :)

My boyfriend and I enjoy to buy some delicious meat at the butcher or some lovely fish from the local fisher man. Most often this part becomes the center piece of the evenings dish. Therefore we do not usually put much thought into the side dishes. Well this night was a mix. Today we tried cooking potatoes in a way I have never tried before. Not a difficult dish, but fun to try something different.

A potato fondant is simply a baking potato cut into small cubed pieces. First you fry them in lots of olive oil and butter on the pan. Then you cook them in the oven at 200 degrees with for example chicken stock up to just underneath the top of the potatoes and together with some in our case thyme, and of cause seasoning. Fry them until they have a nice color, then cook in the oven until done. In our case this was around 10-12 minutes.

The cubes 

The steaks only got just a little more than 2 minutes on each side on a very hot frying pan and then rested for 5-10 minutes. Add some whole garlic cloves - do not bother peeling, thyme and butter while frying.

Finally we made a very simple but very tasty fennel salad. Slice the fennel very thin. Remember to cut out the middle part. Marinate in equal parts of lemon and olive oil while you cook everything else. Remember to season.

Steaks with potato fondant and fennel salad.

The sauce, I have to admit was a bought sauce from Irma (a danish finer grocery shop). This was actually not the greatest match. The cognac pepper sauce drowned the fine flavors of the meat.

If the post has any spelling mistakes, bear over with me. The red wine was good :)

"Frikadeller" and potato salad

Another danish form of meat balls - "frikadeller". It is made on minced pork, and my favorite kind is the small version. Plenty of lovely crust. I made the meat balls the day before in another dish. I used a whole kilo to make sure there was enough for the day after. I also cooked the potatoes the day before. This made it a very easy dish for making after for instance a workout, where your body only wants to lie on the couch.

The meat balls are seasoned well with salt and pepper. Ingredients also included chopped onion, eggs a little milk and flour. Very easy.

As a side dish I made a lovely potato salad. Instead of buying the greasy kind from the supermarket, try to make this yourself. I mixed small bites of potatoes with radishes, cucumber (without the middle part), green bell peppers and chives. Mix it all with equal parts of sour creme and a nicely smoked cheeses from the island of Fyn - between Sealand and Jutland. Also add some lemon juice to bring out the flavors.

After mixing the potato salad, pour it into a clean bowl and add some of the chives on top. Sometimes a little presentation goes a long way.

Frikadeller and potato salad

I have also added a picture from a while back. We made pancakes for dinner - you are allowed to do that, when you are a grown up :). The last pancake always gets a funny shape. This one I thought looked like a fat rat of some kind, and therefore wanted to share with you.

Fat rat pancake

Veal in puffed rice noodles and purees

This dish had some very good elements and some elements were off. For instance, the dish should have been served on a shale plate - this would have brought out the colors of the purées nicely like in this picture, which actually was my inspiration. http://sjoenne.com/blog/en-twisted-gang-wienerschnitzel-kalvemorbrad-paneret-i-risnudler-aerte-og-gulerodspure-og-mayo-dreng/

I high-jacked the idea of veal tenderloin in rice noodles and the carrot and peas purees, because these things I actually had in the fridge.

The idea of the veal breaded in noodles instead of the normal breadcrumbs was very interesting to me, although I was pretty skeptical that it would actually work.

So the dish was pretty easy. Take a nice piece of meat and cut it into small thick schnitzels, dip in flower, then egg and finally in crushed rice noodles. When using rice noodles, it is important to have enough oil to cook the schnitzels in, so that every little noodle pops up. Unfortunately, we did not have enough oil, so some of the noodles were not cooked through, and made the dish a bit too crispy.

For the puree on peas, I shortly blanched the peas, and blended with some salt, pepper, butter and a little lemon. For the carrot puree I used the same ingredients (switching peas with carrots) but I also added some thyme, which is a good match for the carrots. This puree tasted a little like mashed potatoes, although carrots - probably I used enough butter :P.

Finally we had some grilled cabbage (it has to be the kind on the picture, but I do not know the English word for it) and grilled tomatoes on the side. The grilled cabbage has become a favorite side dish at home. Very easy, just cut it in quarters and drizzle olive oil over, and grill for about ten to fifteen minutes on a grill pan. Tastes surprisingly good.

Again, sorry for the rather blurred picture

Mashed potatoes and "millionbøf"

This dish is in Danish pronounced: "Kartoffelmos med millionbøf". As I do not know what the dish is called in English  I have kept the danish word "millionbøf" - roughly meaning a million beef. The dish is made out of minced beef and cooked to a kind of bolognese, but no so tomato like.

Mashed potatoes is a great way to eat potatoes, and even though not perfectly healthy - the more butter used the better. At a restaurant I actually once had mashed potatoes, where the potatoes were cooked in melted butter. Sounds grose? The taste was great, although you might want to consider to just lye on the couch for an hour after eating. My boyfriend always has the job of doing the actual mixing of the potatoes with butter, salt, pepper, maybe milk or some cooking water. This time was no difference. I mean he does so well, so I will not be responsible for screwing it up.

Ingredients for the mashed potatoes.

For the beef sauce I fried some onion, garlic, chili, tarragon and paprika. Then added minced beef, and fried until brown. At this point the tomatoes, and tomato concentrate was added together with grated carrots, broth, a dash of sesame oil, and a big dash of balsamic vinegar and a glass of red wine. Season to taste and add thickener if needed.

The final result. Omnomnom. Not that healthy, but nice and tasty. And luckily for me - leftovers for tomorrow, when I am home alone.

Spicy chorizo pasta

This post is going to be short. Partly because the dish was not that interesting and partly because my keyboard acts out.

Sometimes you just need an easy dish, and since I have found this lovely chorizo, I thought why not make a spicy chorizo pasta.

Ingredients were: chorizo, tinned tomatoes, bell pepper, chili, garlic, onion and of cause pasta.

I chopped and fried the onions, garlic and chili. Added small chunks of chorizo - it is important to fry the chorizo hard, so it gets kind of crispy, without blackening it of cause. Add peppers and cook for a short while. Finally add the tomatoes and let it simmer until the pasta is cooked. Remember to undercook the pasta a bit, since it continues to cook when added to the sauce.

Ingredients

As a side dish, I followed a recipe for corn on the cob with pecorino and cayennepepper.

When the corn is cooked (approx. 8 min), I rolled it in melted butter and afterwards cayennepepper mixed with grated pecorino. Unfortunately the corn was way hot, and it therefore melted the cheese, which actually was undesired.

Corn on the cob

As you can also see below, the result were not that flattering to look at, and the dish was kind of bland to eat. Next time, I will fry the chorizo harder (it had no crust), add more spices, and let the corn cool a bit before rolling it in cheese.

Final result

So this means, that I will actually try this dish again. An easy, tasty dish is very important to include in your repertoire.

Chicken curry

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Now with an update on the naan bread!

Another recipe was tried the next day, and the bread was baked on a hot baking stone. The results looked like this:

Naan bread with ghee, parsley and garlic

This I was very happy with. Bubbling up in the right places as well as thin and crusty. Yum yum.


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Today I jump into one of my weak spots. The curry. I find it very difficult to get a good curry taste in my curry dishes, whether it's an Indian chicken curry, or the danish style dish "Boller i karry" - Meatballs in curry sauce. I have tried every trick in the book, bought the most expensive curry, used cream to round off the taste, burned the curry powder, but it seems no matter what I do, the dish just tastes spicy but not flavorish. I suspect that what I need to do is to use a smaller amount of good curry powder and then add a flavor enhancer during cooking. I think I will try that next time.

For today's meal, I made a chicken curry with a lot of different spices but no special vegetables or anything. So straight up meat and taste. As a side dish I made jasmine rice, which for the first time in my life, I burned at the bottom - very embarrassing.

As a special side dish, I tried to cook naan bread. My first time ever with this, and unfortunately it was not that successful. Maybe it is just not possible without a tandoori oven. I thought that maybe it would be okay, since my boyfriend and I have invested in a baking stone made of lava, initially bought for pizza making - someday I will post some of my boyfriend's master pieces - pizza we can do :D. Since the naan bread did not turn out perfect, I will try another recipe again tomorrow, and make sure that the baking stone is fully heated - I think this might be the reason together with a bad recipe for the naan disaster of today.

Finally, I would have made some mint yogurt, but my mint was sad and not up for it - I grow it myself. The only thing I have kept alive for several months though. With no mint, and nothing else in the fridge, I tried to combine some different spices with the skyr (youghurt). This turned out good.

I marinated the chicken in some spices and yogurt for 30 minutes

Ghee made by melting butter and removing the "fatty" stuff

Ingredients for the dressing

Ingredients for the chicken curry

The rather unsuccessful naan bread. Although it looks good.

The final result

Short notes on the meal:
The curry was strong, but not very flavorful. This I unfortunately expected. The rice was too sticky - this I will make up for another time, as rice are not difficult to make. The Naan looked nice, but it did not "pop". No air bubbles inside, just heavy bread. The dressing was good, and delivered a nice kick to the meal.

RECIPE
Dressing:
1 dL skyr
1 tbsp of honey
½ a lime
Turmeric
Cayenne pepper
Ginger powder
Cumin
Coriander powder
Cider vinegar

Mix all ingredients together and taste. It can be quite bitter like when tasted alone, but then try to put on some bread or something.

Curry:
1 onion
1 tomato
1 clove of garlic
1 chili
Turmeric
Coriander powder
Cumin
Cinnamon
Ginger powder
Curry powder
2 dL milk
2 tbsp olive oil
Cashew nuts
900 g chicken (inner fillets or breast)
25 g butter
1 apple
Salt
Pepper
1 dL cream

Chop onions, tomatoes, chili and garlic. Grate the apple. Burn a couple of tablespoons of curry in some oil and butter. Add the chili and garlic and cook for a short while. Add the chopped onions and the grated apple (the apples gives some starch to help thicken the sauce). Add the chicken inner fillets to the mix. Add tomatoes. When cooked through, add the seasonings and milk. When the curry has simmered for around 10 minutes, adjust the sauce thickness by some Maizena or milk and flour. Finally add the cream together with cashew nuts. The cream should not could for long. Preferably the cream should not boil.

Cook rice as prescribed on the pack.

I will not list the recipe for the naan bread, since they were not successful. If I am to succeed tomorrow, I will update the post.

Serve the rice with curry, naan bread and dressing.

Rosemary chicken

For this meal, I decided on making a perfect chicken in oven. The meal includes parted chicken with bone, a ginger dressing and a nectarine salad. I have had my issues with the chicken in oven style meals. It is a dead sin if the skin is not crisp, and the meat must not be dry, so I had my doubts when I started out. I have seen a lot of cooking programs on tv, and many times they stuff some flavored butter underneath the skin, and it always turns out great, so this was my plan, though upfront I could not imagine that you could just lift off the skin. This just illustrates how little experimental I have been in a kitchen. It turned out to be very easy.

In the fridge I had some leftover ginger, and some leftover skyr and creme fraiche from the shrimp taco meal, so I came up with the idea of making a ginger dressing - maybe it would work with chicken, maybe it would not.

For a side dish, I wanted to make a salad, but not a regular salad consisting of iceberg, tomato, cucumber and maybe some feta cheese, if I really wanted to show off. Okay, so I had these nectarines and thought why not make a salad with it - this I definitely had  not made before. But then.... I also thought, why not combine it with some grilled squash and goat cheese. Here I have to say, when tasting the salad, I firstly did not like the combination at all, then I was like - hmm, maybe this is okay, it tastes strange, but maybe that is good, and then finally, I was like - no, this is not a perfect combination. Actually I would not recommend it, although the colors are nice :) I would though recommend a salad based on nectarine, but leave out the squash, and tone down the cheese (goat was way to strong in flavor). Maybe a really tasty buffalo mozzarella would work. It is more discrete in flavor, and if you do not like the combination, eat the mozzarella by itself - I love buffalo mozzarella - yummy.

Dressing: Skyr, creme fraiche, lime, ginger, garlic

Butter stuff for the chicken: salted butter, lime zest, rosemary

The chicken before cooking. The butter is spread out between skin and meat

Salad: Nectarine, baby leafs, squash, goat cheese - do not go there, use only the nectarine and salad

The final result

The chicken was cooked for 40 minutes on regular oven (200 degrees C) and 5 minutes on grill. Meanwhile I made the salad. The dressing, I prepared first, so it could get tasty in the fridge for an hour or so. To my great joy, the chicken was perfect. My first bite was very hot and very juicy and luckily the skin was crispy - although there was not enough of it. I love skin, when crispy, otherwise, I take it off.

So I already stated the the combination of salad ingredients did not work well, but a combination that did work well was the ginger dressing with the hot, crispy chicken. This was good, and since I am still home alone, there is enough for lunch tomorrow. A good day for the kitchen, I would say.

RECIPE
Dressing:
A scoop of creme fraiche
A scoop of skyr
1 clove of garlic - pressed
2 cubic cm of ginger - grated
1/2 lime

Grate the ginger and get everything into the dressing base (skyr and creme fraiche). Mix with a clove of garlic and juice from half a lime.

Salad:
2 nectarines
1/2 squash
4 cm goat cheese
A handful baby leaves

Chop nectarines, grill the squash, chop the cheese. Put on a plate. I have experienced, that salad is actually much more pretty when served on a dish rather than in a bowl. It is also more easy to get a little of everything on your plate. But when cooking for many people, a bowl is more appropriate.

Chicken (for two people):
2 chicken upper thighs
3 chicken lower thighs
40g butter
A bunch of rosemary
Lime zest

Mix together butter, chopped rosemary and lime zest from half a lime. Today I learned, that if you have not had the butter out to warm up, you can actually grate it, and then it is easy to mix with other stuff. Squeeze the flavored butter underneath the skin and massage it about. Also put some on the outside of the skin. Cook the chicken for 40 minutes on 200 degrees Celsius, and finish off with 5 minutes on grill, to make the skin crispy - if it is not already so.

I used a thermometer to measure that the chicken was cooked properly. On the packaging, it actually said Danish chicken - Salmonella free (I love when this is the case, it makes me more confident when cooking). I assume, that even though the chicken is salmonella free, it could have other stuff in it, so it still should be cooked through.

Shrimp taco

Now. My first real post. As my boyfriend is away on festival, I saw my chance to make a little mess in the kitchen (not that he would mind at all - on the contrary), but sometimes it is just nice to fumble around alone, when uncertain whether the results will be fulfilling or not.

In the kitchen, all that was left was garlic and a couple of taco shells. Usually we make tacos with minced beef, so this was actually my first ever attempt on a shrimp taco.

I decided to prepare the shrimps with some garlic, chili, lime, cumin and paprika spice. Besides the shrimps, I made a salsa and a dressing with spring onion as the primary taste - I would have used fresh coriander for the dressing, but sometimes the world does not agree on your plan. No fresh, so I used the dried, which is kinda coriander tasty, but very different from the fresh taste.

For the salsa, I chopped tomatoes, chili, garlic, onion, couple of spring onions and bell pepper.

For the dressing, I chopped a lot of spring onions, crushed garlic, lime, and a mix of skyr and creme fraiche

The shrimps, I just mixed with paprika, cumin, chili and garlic. Lime was sprinkled over when cooking.

The final result. A bit blurry, but at this time I was hungry!

Both the salsa and the dressing, I made a couple of hours before cooking the meal, so the flavors could mix well. This also gave room for a nice run :) For the dressing, I used skyr, which is an Icelandig cultured dairy product - very popular in Denmark right now. As it is very low fat, I mixed some creme fraiche in it.

Some of the different spices and seasonings is used in every part of the meal, but in my opinion it actually gives a different taste depending on what it is used for. - Also, it helps not wasting any groceries.

My inspiration for this blog is partly described in "The what and the why", but when coming up with a name for the blog, I actually liked the idea of an imperfect meal. These days, everything has to be perfect, or else it is not worth the while, but this has for me resulted in actually almost never cooking. To try to change this view on cooking, I have challenged myself to just do it - cook with the heart (yada yada yada). Or at least taste your food when cooking, instead of believing the many many bad recipes out there. I know that this will result in some bland food once in a while - hopefully most will be edible though, and if so I must just try to do something different the next time. I therefore intent to be honest in my posts, but again I think it is up to the reader to make a sanity check of the recipe before cooking away.

Okay - so the result.... It was actually good, tasty and easy. And I have easy leftovers for tomorrow, since the amount of salsa and dressing was more than enough.

Regarding the recipes - I will note the measures in standard units, and not crazy stuff, like cups and ounces and so on. Perhaps one day, I will program a converter, which will make it easy for everyone to interpret the recipes.

RECIPE
Salsa:
2 tomatoes - unfortunately, mine was not in top season, so the tomato taste was a bit missing
1/2 chili - taste on it, some are spicy some are not
2 spring onions
1 onion - small
1 clove garlic
1 red bell pepper
Salt
Pepper
A little olive oil
Lime to taste

Chop everything into small pieces and mix together. The lime actually brings out a lot of flavor, even though my tomatoes were not the best. Put in the fridge for an hour or two to let the flavors mix together.

Dressing:
1/2 dL skyr - or greak youghurt or just creme fraiche
1/2 dL creme fraiche - 15% or what you like
A bunddle of spring onions
3 cloves of garlic - pressed
Dried coriander spice - to taste
Salt
Pepper
Lime to taste

Chop the spring onions in small pieces and mix with other ingredients. Leave in fridge to bring out the flavors.

Filling:
100g shrimps - this was okay for two taco shells
1/2 chili
1 clove of garlic - pressed
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Paprika
A little olive oil
Lime

Chop the chili and press the garlic and mix with other ingredients except lime. Heat pan. Meanwhile heat taco shells in oven. When the pan is very hot, fry the shrimps for a couple of minuts - all liquid should be fried away. Finally press half a lime or so over the shrimps and cook until the juice is gone.

Fill your taco shell the way you like it.

What and why.

I made this blog just to have somewhere to put pictures of the food, I occasionally make. I am not very good at cooking, but I really like to cook. I very much enjoy food, and I could need a hobby, hence the blog.

Also hopefully, my creative mind will develop during my blog posts and cooking. As an academic person with a master in science, creativity has never really been a part of my life - all the way through my upbringing, subjects covering mathematics and logics has filled my head mostly. But my logic says, that it must be possible to learn to be creative. Maybe cooking (and putting together different tastes) is possible just by using logics and trial and error.

The food that I will post on this blog will mainly be, what I think is healthy food - not fanatic - just not the easy, greasy kind I tend go for, when cooking for myself.

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Update:
I have decided to rank my dishes on a scale from one star *---- to five stars *****. One meaning - Meh, five meaning - Woah, did I make that.