Archive for October, 2007

Maggan’s special pizza

October 28, 2007 at 5:04 pm · Filed under Italian, baking, cooking, food, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

As of this writing, the first of the special pizzas is in the oven. What makes it special, you may wonder. Well, it has shrimps (bought cooked and frozen with shells which I peeled off myself), fresh parsley, finely chopped garlic, and mozzarella. I’m almost sure that my shrimp and parsley pizza will taste as good as it smells.

Flashback February 14, 2007. H and I were in Rotorua, New Zealand sitting at Hell’s Pizza waiting for our orders. Catchy name for a pizza place, huh. Their pizzas were the best I’d had in my life. Good dough with the right thickness, generous toppings, and reasonable price. Perfect! I ordered one of their specials which had salmon, cream cheese, and leeks.

H and I just finished our first pizzas. As the consumer, H was very satisfied. As the cook (and also the consumer), I was elated. Aw, I had forgotten to drizzle some olive oil on the pizzas before putting them in the oven! I remembered this halfway through my pizza so forgetting to drizzle some olive oil was certainly not a catastrophe.

Whoever created Hell’s Pizza recipes is a savant. If ever you find yourself in New Zealand, I recommend to make Hell’s Pizza part of your kiwi adventure. Maggan’s special pizzas might not be as perfect as Hell’s but they brought forth beautiful memories and good feelings.

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Panic hunger

October 24, 2007 at 4:37 pm · Filed under autumn, cooking, food, vego

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

My basil pesto turned out to be a success. As planned, it was served on top of salmon fillets with spelt for lunch and with wholewheat spaghetti for dinner.

The small (and very cute) mortar and pestle I bought at IKEA was put to good use, finally for the first time. The size is just right for no more than one recipe. A little more and the ingredients will overflow. This just means that I have to do it again. Anyway, I also believe that pesto is best when freshly made.

In contrast to yesterday’s indulgence, today H and I just had boiled eggs for lunch. I was too tired yesterday to prepare for our bento. Unsurprisingly, when we came home from work, I was hungry. Panic hungry! I read that eggs belong to the low- GL food category and are supposed to be filling. I guess they are filling when eaten with something else.

What else is there to do when hungry and in panic but make warm sandwiches– bread, cheese, ham– all of them avoid-foods. Open sandwiches with greve cheese, ham, pineapple rings, and greve cheese (in that order) baked in the oven at 150 degrees Celsius for 7-10 minutes. Simple, quick, and delish!

H and I finished the loaf (18 slices). Embarrassing, I know. But they were good and I haven’t had warm sandwiches in a veeery long time. It’s not bad to eat avoid-foods every once in a while, especially when circumstances call for it.

As if to compensate for the avoid-foods I was enjoying (without my conscience bothering me), I drank hot detoxifying tea made of organic green tea and lemon grass. Detox doesn’t certainly work this way but I wanted to drink something very warm and to feel that warmth run down my throat, esophagus, and feel it landing in my stomach. Ahhh! That hurt but it gave me a rush. Know the feeling? Avoid-foods, pleasure, no conscience, self-flagellation. That’s right folks, I was born into the Catholic religion. 

The lesson learned from today’s panic hunger is to cook fried rice with tofu, carrots, green beans, and soy sauce for tomorrow’s bento.

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My own pesto sauce

October 22, 2007 at 6:32 pm · Filed under Italian, autumn, cooking, food, health, vego

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

For lunch, H and I had the rest of the baked meatballs with peaches and chive (all 24 pieces) and the rest of my vinegar-less ketchup. We both had weird stomachs half an hour afterwards. I then realized that the tomato paste that I had used for the vinegar-less ketchup had vinegar in it. Oops!

Not giving up on my blood-type diet attempt, I’m about to make pesto using walnuts instead of pine-nuts (or cashew nuts used in some commercial pesto brands), and without cheese. It’s from the book Cook Right 4 Your Type by Dr. J. D’Adamo. The recipe says:

Ingredients:

  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/2 cup fresh basil
  • 1/2 cup fresh parsely
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
  • 1/2 cup broken walnuts
  • extra virgin olive oil
  1. In a mortar, place salt and begin adding basil and parsley leaves. Start crushing and pounding them with the pestle.
  2. Add some garlic, continuing to grind by crushing in each new addition.
  3. Add walnuts, more leaves, and then more garlic. Work on these ingredients with the pestle until the mixture is well  but not too smooth. Ideally, the pesto should be coarse.
  4. Add olive oil slowly, stirring until desired consistency is reached.

It already tastes good just by reading the recipe. I visualize my pesto on top of salmon fillets on a bed of salad. Tomorrow’s lunch in the bento. I can hear someone thinking: Does she always think about her lunchbox? Most certainly not! I also think about breakfast, dinner, and fruits.

M and Tor, the nicest chaps in the neighbourhood, deserve some credit. Tor gave me a CD yesterday when H and I came over for some vegetarian lasagna and episodes of Simpsons. This morning, M had the same CD for me. If I was greedy, I would have 2 of the same CD. Imagine that! It so happens that I’m not greedy.

Gotta go and make the pesto.

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Finally, apple pie

October 21, 2007 at 1:54 pm · Filed under autumn, baking, cooking, dessert, food, fruits

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

Bought pot soil, re-potted 2 plants into one big pot, H hanged the kitchen curtains, H vacuumed the floor, we did the laundry, made vegetable broth, cooked a simple dinner of chicken sesame, and finally, as promised a few blogs ago, baked apple pie.

Ingredients:

  • 500 grams apple
  • 1/2 tablespoon potato flour
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 1.5 decilitres oatmeal
  • 1.5 decilitres whole wheat flour
  • .5 decilitre sugar
  • .5 decilitre almond flakes (optional)
  • 125 grams cold butter
  • vanilla ice cream
  1. Pre-heat the oven at 220 degrees Celsius.
  2. Slice the apples thinly (.5 centimetres). Not too thinly unless you want overcooked and soft apples in the pie.
  3. In a bowl or pie dish, blend the apples, potato flour, cinnamon, and sugar.
  4. In a separate bowl, mix the oats, flour, sugar, and almonds.
  5. Cut the cold butter into small pieces. Add them in the flour mixture.
  6. With your fingers (clean, scrubbed, short fingernails), work on the flour and butter until they become a crumbly dough.
  7. Put the crumbly dough on the apple slices. Cover the apples evenly.
  8. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
  9. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. A la mode.

This is so in season but a hit all-year round. If you’re doing this with almond flakes, I suggest you increase the butter and use 150 grams. You also have the option of peeling the apples or including them with pips. If you trust your apples to be organic and free from chemical spays, why waste them?

Rob and Gwen were in Stockholm for 2 days. A whirlwind tour which included Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Beijing. Anyway, if they had more time, a dinner at Brännkryrka 101 (worth many visits and where food is home-cooked, affordable, and servings are generous) would be included in their program.

So, what did you do yesterday?

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Vinegar-less homemade ketchup

October 19, 2007 at 8:54 pm · Filed under cooking, food, health

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

I’m having a good day. Since yesterday my knees have been feeling well oiled. They are still well lubricated today so I’m in top shape. This afternoon at work, I learned that starting next Friday, I won’t have to deal with useless papers and the heavy paperwork anymore. Libresse! Er, I mean…Liberte!

Maggan’s kitchen has acquired a new cookbook called Cook right 4 your type. The book is authored by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo, an American naturopathic doctor and pioneer of the blood-type diet.

Simply put, foods that promote the health of a person with blood type O make a blood type A , B, or AB person sick. The different blood types though share some things in common. One of them is gaining no benefit at all from vinegar of any form–organic, apple cider, expensive balsamic, coconut vinegar etc. Therefore, all blood types should avoid vinegar and all foods that contain it. Like ketchup.

Sounds like the end of the world, doesn’t it? Is it possible to enjoy meatballs, french fries, hamburgers, and fried chicken without ketchup? The good news is that Cook right 4 your type offers an alternative to ketchup called homemade ketchup, what else?

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup water (177 ml)
  • 1/3 cup tomato paste
  • 2 tablespoons juice from fresh lemon (1/2 small lemon or 1/4 big lemon)
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce or tamari sauce

The recipe suggests to mix all ingredients in a bowl. My alternative is to mix it in a glass jar. Put all the ingredients in a glass jar and then shake hard and well so that they blend into a smooth and flavourful sauce. Shake it a la Jaime, baby!

Despite working some overtime and doing the grocery on the way home (without sounding like the little pig who went to the market), I still had some good energy left when H and I came home.

I had been contemplating on testing the vinegar-less ketchup so, for dinner, I made baked meatballs with peaches and chives which I then served with quartered boiled potatoes with caramelized onions. On top of that dish, I spooned some of the homemade ketchup. Flavourful condiment without the sting of the vinegar.

H liked it. I hope his blood type is neither A nor B since tomatoes are poison to them. Intrigued? You may borrow my Cook right 4 your type.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, 8 people died in a bomb explosion in a shopping mall in the city of Makati in Metro Manila. That mall is a popular hangout. This dampened the day a bit.

Sahara Hotnights. My spirit is lifted thanks to this female band who plays and sings well. Their songs are worth listening to. With my back turned against the TV, I could hear a female voice in the background. The band sounded tough. After hearing 2 songs, I had to face the TV and see the faces behind the music. Sahara Hotnights from Norrland. (I see where the name is coming from.) It was the band’s concert in Malmö.

I watched the rest of the concert wondering if H had Sahara’s albums in his vinyl collection. And if he didn’t, I was wondering why not.

You see, many good things happened earlier today. Well lubricated knees, painless shoulders, less paperwork on Fridays, vinegar-less homemade ketchup, baked meatballs with peaches and chives, lemon-licorice ice cream, and Sahara Hotnights.

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