Beltane: Strawberry Avocado Pasta salad

So I am finally motivated to write some blog posts again. I just sorted out my menu pictures and I will do a recap of some sort. Next up I plan to post some recipes for salads that we made in the past weeks. Summer has finally arrived so I think this is a good place to start to work on my back log :)
Today I will share a recipe that we made for Beltane, on the first of May. And because it still isn't Litha, I think I am allowed to do this ;) It is probably one of the shortest recipes ever. But it has great flavours.

Strawberry Avocado Pasta Salad: (serves 2)
- 150 gr pasta
- 1 cup strawberries, sliced
- 1 avocado
- 0.25 cup feta, crumbled
- 0.25 cup fresh basil, chopped
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp olive oil

Cook the pasta, drain and let it cool down a bit. Pit the avocado and cut into cubes. Mix everything into a bowl with the pasta. Enjoy :)

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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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On a Budget: Turnip Top Quiche

It is time for another quiche recipe, and it is a budget friendly one. I love to eat turnip tops mash in spring but I am also exploring to use those turnip tops in other ways. This quiche is from the blog Eetlust, and it fits right in our preferences. Easy, tasty, and cheap. To make it easier, I did use pastry dough from the store. I think making a dough from scratch is too much work for a weekday, but feel free to do so. Adding a Dutch rusk on top of the pastry dough, will prevent a soggy bottom that you normally easily get when you use pre made sheets.

Turnip Tops Quiche (serves 4)
- about 6 sheets of puff pastry dough
- 300 gr turnip tops
- 3 spring onions, cut
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 Dutch rusk (biscuit rusk)
- 4 tbsp parmezan cheese, grated
- 200 ml whipping cream
- 3 eggs
- pepper and salt

Cut about 10 cm from the bottom of the turnip tops and wash them. Steam them for about 3 minutes.
Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees. Grease a 22cm spring form. Cover the bottom with the pastry puff, making covering all of it including some standing edges. Make holes in the dough with a fork. Sprinkle Dutch rusk crumbs on top. Spread the grated cheese on top. Mix the garlic with the turnip tops and spring onions and add the vegetable mixture to the spring form. Beat the eggs and cream together and add some salt and pepper. Pour the egg mixture on top of the quiche and place in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.

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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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Foodblogevent: Crustless Yoghurt Spinach Quiche

The foodblogevent is a monthly event that is held on Dutch food blogs. I don't participate every month, because it depends on the theme and the time I have on my hands. This month the theme is cooking with yoghurt, hosted by Oesters en Uien. I happened to have a dish with yoghurt planned already, so this came nicely together. The recipe is from the I <3 groente book by Janneke Vreugdenhill.

It is a crustless quiche so no wheat or anything like that in this recipe. This makes it a lighter quiche indeed. Normally I make 1 quiche for 2 days. But with this quiche that is not satisfactory enough for an evening meal. Of course as lunch it would be. So make it when you like. But this is only a 2 person quiche for a main course.

I also recommend getting a good quality cheese for the quiche. Because the rest of the recipe is low budget, there is room to spend some on a better cheese. We went to the market for our cheese and came back with an older cheese. With young cheese this dish would lack depth in flavour.

Crustless Yoghurt Spinach Quiche (serves 2)
- 500 gr fresh spinach
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 spring onions, chopped
- 2 gloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 tsp cumin
- 300 gr good quality older cheese, grated
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 200 gr Turkish yoghurt
- nutmeg
- pepper

Pre heat the oven on 180 degrees. Add the spinach to the pan and warm it until it slunk. Drain from moist and cut it in the food processor. Drain the spinach again.
Heat olive oil in a pan and bake onions shortly. Add garlic and cumin and bake some more. Mix in the spinach and remove from the heat. Leave it to cool slightly. Mix in eggs, cheese and yoghurt. Taste and add pepper and nutmeg to taste. The original recipe also adds salt, but the cheese should already be salty enough, so I don't like to add extra.

Grease a quiche pan from about 22 cm. Pour the mixture in and bake for 25-30 minutes. Leave the quiche to rest for at least 10 minutes. Or else it will not hold together.

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Imbolc: Colcannon Cakes

We don't celebrate the sabbats as we used to, but often I still like to have a small celebration on or around the time of a sabbat. Usually we do this by cooking a meal that fits the sabbat and sometimes a small extra activity on the day. Yesterday it was Imbolc, but instead of making pancakes like we often do, I choose something different this year. I went for a traditional Irish recipe called colcannon. Basically an Irish mashpot, that has butter and milk, two ingredients associated with Imbolc. In the old days, butter and buttermilk were handed out to the poor on Imbolc in Ireland. These days, this recipe is mainly eaten with St. Patricks day. But I thought it would be fun to make this, to get an old piece of history back. The funny thing is, that this isn't all that different from our Dutch mashpot. All though I never made cakes from that before.

The cakes are crispy on the outside, but soft on the inside, so not really like burgers, but more like latkes. You see there are so many different names and histories for roughly the same dishes. It is fun to do some exploring :)

Because the original recipe is already in English, there is no need to translate it and we stayed very close to the original, so just visit Simply Recipes, to see how to make these cakes :) We made it with spinach this time. It is a great recipe to use your leftover mashpot :)
If you do feel like pancakes around Imbolc, please check out the blinis we made last year :)

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#81 - Onigiri (and Cheese) Bento

Today I made filled onigiri together with Zeronic. Since Zeronic and I have our course again tomorrow, a no fuss bento is the easiest thing to do :)

I am aware that this bento isn't totally balanced out and that it misses a lot on the veggies department. I am not going to eat all the onigiri myself though, since the bento is for the both of us. Besides it is basically a partial lunch to last till we get home. In the bento are filled onigiri (with cream cheese & avocado) with nori tulips, laughing cow cheese wedges, a lonely radish, cherry tomatoes and cheese cubes. I should have named this a triple cheese bento ;) I will do better on my next bento, I promise ;)

The recipe for the Avocado Cream Cheese onigiri: (makes 12)
- 3 cups of short grain rice
- 1 avocado
- Lemon juice
- 1tbsp light cream cheese
- some nori for decoration (optional)

Prepare the rice in a rice cooker. When cooked leave the rice to cool a bit in a bowl topped with a clean tea towel for about 15 minutes until you can handle the rice. Meanwhile peel the avocado and remove the seed. Mash the avocado and mix with some cream cheese and lemon juice.
I used an onigiri mold to make the onigiri. Make sure to hold the mold in warm water or else the rice will stick to the mold. I filled half of the mold with rice and added a small spoon of filling, then topped with more rice and pressed the mold together.I decorated the onigiri with some nori tulips made with a nori punch. It is as easy as that :) While it is fun to shape onigiri by hand, when working with a filling I find this more practical and less messy. Have fun :)

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#74 - Hearts and flowers bento

This might be the last bento for a while. When my BF came home yesterday, he said he lost his job. But I already made his bento, so wanted to post this anyway. I might be stubborn and just make bento at home. But I am not sure yet what I will do. Anyway, back to the original post.

Since it is almost Valentines day and I didn't make any Valentines bento yet, I tried to make one. I didn't have a plan, so I had to make due with what I got. It turned out as a crossover Valentines X Spring bento. But that's okay.

In the bento are four heart shaped sandwiches with strawberry jam and mascarpone cheese, with bunny picks and some frozen cherries in a heart cup. There are Sakura cucumbers (because my heart cutter was too large for the cucumber), risotto balls and heart shaped sausages. They are stuck together with a toothpick on the inside, since I don't have any small heart picks, only long picks.

Please visit the weekend cooking post to see what more has been cooked up this weekend!

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Bento #36 - Spring onigiri bento

I made some spring themed onigiri a few days ago. I love to experiment with onigiri filling. The result was a nice spring green filling :)

Spring onigiri:
- 3 cups sushi rice
- about 400 gram peas
- some cooking cream
- some butter
- some mint

Cook the rice in the rice cooker. Meanwhile cook the still frozen peas for 3 minutes and drain them. Then mash them up and add the butter, mint and cream. You will get an nice and creamy substance which you can use to fill your onigiri. I loved the taste, the mint makes it really fresh. Next time I might add some lemon juice for the extra bite. It kinda missed something, but I am trying it again to perfect it.

I heard that there arent that much vegetarian onigiri fillings out there. That is why I am experimenting myself, but I would love to hear your ideas in a comment :)

Here they are in a bento together with lettuce, laughing cow cheese, falafel, apple and edamame. I have finally learned how to shape onigiri by hand but I have no clue how people keep the filling all neat in the middle ;)

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Bento #27 - Spring flowers bento

I am very pleased with today's bento ^_^ I was actually looking for a nice bunny pattern but came across these spring flowers instead, so I decided to use those :)

The bento contains a creamy risotto with mushrooms, peas and zucchini. On top of that I arranged the flowers which are made from beans, cheese and a baby corn center. A close up below :)

I cut the flower shapes out of paper and lay that on top of the cheese, cutting it out with a toothpick. Since I am a really slow worker this bento took me about 45 minutes to make.

In the other tier we have the rest of the baby corn & cucumber hidden underneath sakura apples and some Polish dumplings that hold potato and cottage cheese.

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Bento #26 - Leftovers bento with a touch of bunny

Todays bento isn't that spectacular since I only have some leftovers and I have to make due until we go to the market again on Saturday.

The bento contains heart shaped onigiri, a rice dish with cashews, sugarsnaps and mushrooms. Further some edamame, an apple, cucumber and a bunny shaped egg. You can't see it all that will on the pictures, but a little bit better on the closeup below.

Today I have to see if I can make a dinner bento for the boyfriends late shift from leftovers since market day is still one day away. Oh well, I manage.

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Bento #25 - Bunny sandwich bento

Inspired by the BOMB challenge at Hapa Bento I made this bunny themed bento:

It is a rather light bento for the boyfriends early shift. It contains some chili sin carne with potatoes, clementine, cucumber and of course the bunny sandwiches. The sandwiches are ham and cheese on white and pumpernickel bread. I think it turned out cute :)

I am planning to do more bunny bento's but need to plan stuff to see how I will do it. I am not that good at charabens, so it will probably be simple ones like this.

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