FoodBlogEvent: Green!

Next to the FoodBlogSwap, there is also a FoodBlogEvent amongst bloggers from the Netherlands. Each month it is hosted by a different person who can pick a theme. This month Isle from Uit mijn Keukentje picked the theme Green! I looked in my backlog and I have several recipes that would fit this theme. But I choose to share a pasta recipe for spring.

Ricotta and Pea Pasta (serves 4)
- 450 gr penne pasta
- 2.5 cups frozen peas, defrosted
- 425 gr ricotta
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1/3 cup fresh parsley
- about 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- pinch of pepper
- grated cheese

Boil the pasta. Meanwhile chop garlic with parsley in a food processor. Add 1.5 cups of peas, the ricotta, lemon zest and lemon juice, 4 tbsp olive oil and a dash of pepper. Pulse until you have a chunky puree.

Drain the pasta but keep 1 cup of the water. Return the pasta to the pan and add the pea and ricotta mixture and the remaining peas and stir. Add a bit of pasta water if needed to make a sauce.
Serve with some grated cheese on top.

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Spring Feelings: Pancakes with Spinach and Pesto

Because it is almost Easter, I have another Spring recipe to share. Budget friendly and you can have it for lunch or a light dinner after the filling Easter brunch that most people in the Netherlands enjoy. We made this as a weekend dinner, a couple of weeks ago and I plan to make it more often when the Spring weather returns. The original recipe is from Lekker en Simpel.

Pancakes with Spinach and Pesto (serves 2)
- 150 gr spinach
- 100 gr pancake mix
- 150 ml milk
- 1 tbsp green pesto
- 1-2 eggs
- 65 ml creme fraiche
- 125 gr mushrooms

Mix in a bowl the pancake mix with milk, a pinch of salt and eggs until there are no lumps. Set aside. Clean and slice the mushrooms. Heat some olive oil in a pan and bake the mushrooms for about a minute before adding the spinach. When the spinach has wilted add pesto and creme fraiche to the mix. Stir through and let it simmer.

In another pan heat a bit of butter and bake a pancake from about 1/4 of the batter golden brown. About 2 minutes on each side. Bake 3 more pancakes. Serve them with 1/4 of the mushroom mixture on each pancake.

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Easter Lunch: Avocado and Egg Pitas

We ate this dish when it was Ostara for lunch. It was on a Saturday so it was perfect  to make a more luxury lunch then we normally would. Of course this recipe is also perfect for Easter Sunday. So if you still need to do some last minute shopping tomorrow, pick up the ingredients and serve this easy but tasty dish. The original recipe comes from Jungalow, and she presents it as a breakfast dish, so that is a possibility too.

Avocado and Egg Pitas: (serves 2)
- 4 pitas
- 2 avocados
- 2 eggs
- lemon juice
- olive oil
- cumin
- salt and pepper

Toast the pitas. Boil 2 eggs. Remove the pit from the avocados and mash them up with some lemon juice, cumin and salt and pepper. You can either mix the egg with the avocado spread or serve it on top. Spread the avocado mash on the whole pitas and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.

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Ostara: Spring Blondies

Tomorrow it is officially Ostara. So if you want to do some baking, why not try these blondies? They have a touch of spring because of the pastel colored Smarties I used. So they will look very festive on your Ostara or Easter table. The original recipe uses M&M's but I choose for Smarties because of their color and sadly they don't sell Easter M&M's over here. The recipe comes from Inside Bru Crew Life. Nick and I found them a little too sweet though, so next time we will use less sugar. I already adapted this in the recipe below. We will do some more Ostara cooking on the day itself, so there will be some more recipes next week.

Spring Blondies: (makes 24)
- 0.5 cup butter, softened
- 1.5 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 cups flour
- 1.5 cups Smarties

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees.
Beat the butter with the sugar until it is creamy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat once more. In another bowl, sift the flour, salt and baking powder and stir through. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients with the wet. Stir in 1 cup of the Smarties.

Line an oven dish with a sheet of parchment paper. And spread in the mixture. Sprinkle the rest of the Smarties on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, depending n your oven.

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Ostara: Avocado Mashpot

It is almost Ostara again, and this time I am on time to post some recipes. The beginning of spring can be a bit of a hard time to choose what to have for dinner, because on some days it is too warm for the comfort food we craved in the winter days, but on other days it can be cold and wet again. So a lighter mashpot is the way to go for a spring meal. Nick actually got the idea of making an avocado and potato mash a couple of weeks ago. It tasted so fresh that I decided to save the recipe for Ostara.

Avocado Mashpot (serves 2)
- 350 gr potatoes
- 1 avocado
- 2 eggs
- half a package feta
- some sundried tomatoes
- 0.25 cup of milk
- lemon juice
- 0.5 tbsp butter
- pepper

Peel the potatoes and cut them in small chunks. Boil the potatoes, while you boil 2 eggs in another pan. Meanwhile cut some sundried tomatoes into stripes. Use how many you like. Pit and mash the avocado shortly before the potatoes are done. When the eggs are done, hold them under cold water and peel them. Cut the eggs.
Drain the potatoes. Make a mash with the potatoes, avocado, butter, milk and a squeeze of lemon juice. Add pepper to taste. I left out salt, because the feta will already add enough salt to the dish.
Add in the eggs, sundried tomatoes and crumble in the feta. Stir until everything is divided evenly.

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Ostara: Vegetarian Scotch Eggs

This will be the last Ostara recipe of the bunch. I saw these eggs on Pinterest and they seemed interesting to make. Of course Scotch eggs are normally made with minced meat, but it was easy to find a vegetarian recipe. This tastes a bit like falafel but then with an egg in the middle. It is a bit of a fuzzy recipe, because wrapping the chickpea mixture around the eggs is not as easy as it sounds. But when celebrating, we don't mind taking a bit extra time. This is also a great dish to bring to an Ostara potluck.
The original recipe comes from Daily Fix.

Vegetarian Scotch Eggs (serves 4)
- 6 large eggs
- 25 ml olive oil
- 2 spring onions, finely chopped
- 1 clove of garlic, chopped
- 2-3 courgettes, grated
- 400 gr canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 100 gr flour
- 150 gr white breadcrumbs
- sunflower oil, for deep frying

Boil 4 eggs for 8 minutes. Remove from the pan and put under cold water. Once cooled, peel and pat dry. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and add the spring onions, garlic, courgettes and cook for a few minutes. Put the mixture into a food processor with the chickpeas and garam masala and blend. Wrap the mixture around the cooked eggs. Make sure you put some flour on your hands, but this will be very messy. Beat the remaining eggs. Dip the covered eggs into flour, then into the beaten egg and then into the breadcrumbs. Refrigerate the covered eggs for 10-15 minutes. Deep fry them until golden.
We served them with a potato-avocado salad with cucumber.

I blogged 3 new Ostara recipes this year, which can all be found, under the tag. I am not sure if I can keep this up for Beltane, but we will see ;) Beltane is all about red fruits, honey and edible flowers. I guess there will be some baking ;)

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Ostara: Tagliatelle with Turnip Tops, Ricotta and Lemon

Yesterday we celebrated Ostara, the start of spring. Yes, I was 2 days late celebrating ;) This is not the dish I made yesterday, that one will be posted next Friday. But we ate this last week and it is really fitting for Ostara too, or for any other early spring day. This tagliatelle is great because it is combined with the first greens of spring. The dish is light, yet still comforting, and a budget meal too. The original recipe comes from the I <3 groente book, which I wrote a review about last Friday.

Tagliatelle with Turnip Tops, Ricotta and Lemon (serves 2)
- 250 gr tagliatelle
- 150 gr ricotta
- zest and juice from 1/2 a lemon
- 2 tbsp olive oil extra vergine
- 1 bunch of turnip tops
- 2 tbsp pine nuts, roasted

Boil the pasta. Stir with a fork the ricotta, the lemon zest, olive oil and 1 tsp of the juice in a bowl. Drain the pasta but make sure you catch 1 mug of the water and add this to the ricotta mixture. Place the pasta back in the pan and stir in the ricotta mixture. Then add the turnip tops, and add salt, pepper and more lemon juice to taste. Serve with the pine nuts.

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Ostara: Spinach Pancakes with Lime Butter

It is almost spring and here we always like to celebrate that with the Ostara festivities. I normally cook on the day itself, which I will do so this year, but it seems that in the past weeks we already made 2 recipes that are very fitting for Ostara. So I will post and label them as such. In the book Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi there was this recipe for spinach and spring onion pancakes. While a lot of the recipes in the book are time consuming to prepare, there are several pancake or fritter like recipes in the book. These are right up our alley! Originally these pancakes also contain green peppers, but my stomach doesn't really do well with that so we adjusted the recipe a bit. The lime butter tastes really good with these pancakes so, don't skip it ;)
We had them for dinner and lunch the next day. But it is quite a light meal.

Spinach Pancakes with Lime Butter (serves 2-3)

For the pancakes:
- 250 gr spinach, washed
- 110 gr selfrising flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 egg and 1 egg white
- 50 gr butter, melted
- 0.5 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 150 ml milk
- 5 spring onions, chopped
- olive oil

For the lime butter:
- 100 gr butter on room temperature
- peel of 1 lime, grated
- 1.5 tbsp lime juice
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 0.5 tsp white pepper
- 1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
- 0.5 clove of garlic, chopped

Make the lime butter first. Place butter in a bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until creamy.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir through. Wrap the butter in plastic foil and twist both ends of the foil. Place it the fridge to stiffen.

Slink the spinach in a pan. When slunk place in a colander and press as much moist out as you can when cooled down. Chop the spinach and put aside.

Place for the batter the flour, baking powder, cumin, salt, melted butter, egg and milk in a large bowl. Mix everything till a smooth batter. Add onions and spinach and stir lightly.
In a clean fatfree bowl, beat the egg white stiff, and mix this carefully through the batter.

Heat olive oil in a pan. And place about 2 tbsp of batter in the pan for each pancake. Flatten it a bit. Bake for about 2 minutes on each side until they have a nice golden color. Keep them warm on some paper towels. Serve 3 pancakes for each person, with a bit of lime butter on top that will melt and you can spread out over the pancakes.

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Weekend Cooking: D'Lish Deviled Eggs by Kathy Casey

I actually wanted to write another book review, that I have been planning for a while. But because it is almost Easter, this book fitted the theme perfectly. Also great for Ostara of course!

Title: D'Lish Deviled Eggs
Author: Kathy Casey
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Release date: February, 2013
I got this book: from the publisher for review through NetGalley

Summary:
From Goodreads:
Deviled eggs are not just for summer picnics, now you can enjoy America's beloved appetizer year round with Kathy Casey’s 50 fabulous recipes.Deviled eggs are always a party favorite, and the first thing to fly off the table. D’Lish Deviled Eggs both pays homage to the classic deviled egg and dishes up creative, modern takes on tradition. And this isn’t just a recipe book; its pages are packed full with everything from how to make superb hard-cooked eggs every time, to filling and garnishing picture-perfect stuffed eggs. Chock-full of fab tips, from the history of deviled eggs to collecting vintage plateware, this book will definitely “egg you on” to head to the kitchen and get crackin’! A classy little guide to a classy little dish, D’Lish Deviled Eggs will open up a whole new world of ways to jazz up these one-bite wonders!

Personal opinion:
I just love deviled eggs and finding a whole book on the subject certainly sparked my interest! I never thought there could be so much said on eggs. From how to cook the perfect eggs, to the differences between eggs, it can all be found here. The book also has beautiful pictures with each eggs recipe. The book isn't vegetarian, but certainly there are enough recipes that vegetarians can make. Of course a book about eggs is not suitable for vegans. The recipes are original and I certainly have a few recipes on my to try list from this book. For example the Green Goddess eggs with avocado and the California Roll eggs. The eggs I tried were the Boursin and garlic with herb salad deviled eggs, which I will share below. I thought it was a really fun book, and a nice addition to a cookbook collection.

Purchase links: The Book Depository
Challenges: Foodies Reading Challenge, E-book challenge
Other reviews: Beth Fish Reads, Bermuda Onion's Weblog, Cindy's Love of Books,
If you have reviewed this book and want your link here, please leave a comment with the link, and I will add it :)

Okay, so on to the recipe!

Boursin & Garlic Deviled Eggs with Herb Salad: (makes 24)
- 12 hard boiled eggs
- 1 package boursin herb & garlic cheese
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1/2 tsp fresh garlic
- a pinch of salt
- a selection of fresh herbs. I used chives, basil and parsley. Italian herbs is also an option.

Half the eggs lengthwise and transfer the yolks into a mixing bowl. Set the egg halves on a plate, cover and put in the fridge. I found this really helps with filing them later, such a nifty tip! Mash the yolks with a fork, add cheese, mayonnaise, salt and garlic and stir until smooth. I also added some of the chopped fresh herbs at this point.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag with a plain or large star tip. I used the star. Pipe the egg halves with the mixture and sprinkle some herbs on top.

The post is part of Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Check out the rest of the participants. I am sure a lot of other Easter related things will be shared!

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