Cauliflower with Jerusalem Artichoke Puree and Pickled Okra | You've Got Meal!

Vegetarians out there, rejoice! You might make a meat free man out of me yet, but you still have a long way to go regarding dairy. This vegetarian combo was both light and fulfilling, which I can’t say about a lot of meatless meals I had. You can make this recipe vegan all the way, but removing butter from the puree wasn’t really an option for me.

You’re going to need: 

• 1 small cauliflower, broken into small florets, 
• cumin seeds, 
• chick peas, 
• parsley, 
• olive oil, 
• equal quantities of Jerusalem artichoke and potatoes (about 350 grams each), 
• butter, 
• salt, pepper
• (optional) goat cheese.

1. Mix the cauliflower florets with the cumin seeds, salt, pepper and olive oil and cook in the medium hot oven for 20 minutes. 
2. Add in a handful of chickpeas from a can and cook for another 5 minutes, just enough to heat through – careful here, the more you let the beans in, the drier they will get. 
3. Put the cauliflower and chickpeas on a plate and sprinkle goat cheese and chopped parsley on top.

1. For the puree, clean/peel the Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes and boil them in some salted water. 
2. When boiled through, remove the water, add some more salt, a dash of pepper and about 50-75 grams of butter. 
3. Use a fork or a masher to make your mash – or a food processor.  

What can I say about the pickled okra, except the fact is awesome and it goes really well with the vegetarian feel of the whole dish. What’s not to love: okra pickled in apple vinegar with sugar, celery, bay leaves and lots of chili and just a hint of garlic.

Enjoy,

Healthy Beet Juice | You've Got Meal!

I am not a juicing addict, but I have to say I do appreciate from time to time the benefits of a whole salad in a glass. When I drink them, I like my juices simple. I like to add apples almost every time, I use carrots for added sweetness and a quarter of a lemon every time to neutralize other tangy tastes. Actually, I have learned that I am pretty tolerant to any juice, celery being my least favorite, but if I know it is good to me, I am gonna drink it.

For one super simple version of your morning juice you will need (besides a juicer):

• 1 medium beet
• 2 medium apples
• 2-3 carrots
• 1/4 lemon

I know not everybody loves beets, but I think that it is one of those foods you need to discover and acquire tastes for in order to fully appreciate it. And you better appreciated it, because when it comes to health benefits nothing beats the beets. It is a fuel for your body without any saturated fats, it can actually fix your sugar cravings without harming you, it is rich in iron, magnesium, calcium, and not to mention folic acid.

So, go ahead and just juice all of that one at a time. Now you have a nice, pink, energizing drink to start your day properly. I promise it is not that bad, you would actually enjoy the taste after the second one.

Enjoy,

Roasted Red Peppers Cream Soup

Sadly, it is that time of the year... we start to think about comfort food, warming stews, creamy soups and slow roasting. Me, personally, I will cling on to summer as much as I can, I'm just not a winter girl.

This recipe is perfect for every season, it is creamy and warming served hot in the colder days, but also quite light and silky served at room temperature in the summer.

You only need a few ingredients, you can go all vegetarian if you want, or you can add some cream  for more consistency.
5-6 roasted red peppers
2 small onions
2 bay leaves
3 springs of thyme
2 tbs olive oil
1 l vegetable or chicken stock
5 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
optional- cream for garnishing
optional- hot sauce or chilli flakes

Start by roasting the peppers. if you choose to roast them in the oven, also add the unpeeled garlic cloves in the tray. 15 minutes should be enough for the peppers and the garlic to be roasted. You can also roast the peppers on a grill or on a special oven top tray.

After roasting, peel the peppers and cut each one in half, removing the stem and the seeds. Also, squeeze the garlic out of the cloves and place it separately.

Heat up the oil in a large sauce pan and add the onion, the bay leaves and the thyme leaves from 2 springs. Cook this for 5-10 minutes, until the onion softens, add the stock, about 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/2 pepper, the garlic and the peppers. Cover, reduce heat and let it simmer for another 20 minutes.

Check for salt, turn off the heat, remove the bay leaves and with a hand blender or a food proccesor blend until smooth and creamy.

Serve in bowls and garnish with some cream (optional) and the remaining thyme spring. It is a wonderful dish and the smell of roasted peppers is irresistable to me, so it gets extra points for that. :) It is also so simple to make, you barely need any cooking skills and it is healthy. You can serve it with croutons, or if you want to fancy it up and impress someone you can also put together some parmesan crostini or garlic bread for added flavor.

Enjoy,

Lebanese- Inspired Salad

You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. If you think about the crunch in the bread and the tangy dressing you can realise that it was inspired but the very famous Levant salad- fattoush.

So, grab yourself a romaine lettuce head coarsely cut, some tomatoes - diced, a skinless cucumber -diced, a couple of radishes – thinly sliced (I didn’t have those to use, but they work great). Mix the veggies together. 

Now for the crunch part: take some pita breads and carefully insert a knife in the middle in order to separate the two sides so you can cut the pita in half (basically, this bread is a like a giant, very thin, empty on the inside doughnut, that you want cut in half in order to obtain 2 slick sheets of bread). Use a brush or your fingers (whichever tastes better J) to very lightly coat the bread with some olive oil, then pop it in the pre-heated oven, high heat, for a minute, or until it reaches a dark brown color, similar to caramelized sugar. Remove the bread from the  oven and cut/brake it in to pieces for the salad. 

For the sour part, I mixed in some olive oil, about 2 tbs, the juice of half a lemon, 1 tbs of honey, a crushed garlic clove, some salt and pepper together (use a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic and mix the sauce in there), the result will be a tangy sauce that will counterbalance perfectly the rich hummus. For the traditional taste of fattoush, replace the lemon, or part of it with pomegranate molasses or juice. A different take would also be to add in even a couple of pomegranate seeds to the salad, that, besides giving great flavor to the sauce, also brings in for you some very nice, vibrant color.

And one last thing, the pita bread chips and some light aioli sauce= match made in heaven. 

Enjoy, 

Hummus

Ah, hummus, one of those foods that I just love to have around. It’s so versatile and keeps for long enough to be savored along side meats, vegetables or just plain and simple with some olive oil and pita bread. And seeing as I always keep in our fridge some tahini paste, that proved to be rather handy when we decided to have a nice hummus meal. This recipe is so easy that, literally, anyone can do it. 

Honestly, I think that hummus is one of those basic world-wide famous recipes that can be cooked, at different levels, of course, by both experienced or novice foodies (avoided to say chefs/cooks here because they can make hummus in their sleep). The main things that you need here are a food processor and tahini paste, which is basically a thick sesame paste that gives the flavor to the mashed chickpeas that make the body of the hummus: my idea is the more the better, and I love that slightly nutty, maybe a bit heavy taste to a tahini rich hummus. 

Of course, you need to balance that, and you use 2 things: garlic and lemon juice. For the chickpeas, you can either go with the canned, pre-boiled ones, in which case you can pop them straight into the blender/food processor, or you can boil you own. In this case, I suggest leaving the beans to soak in cold water over night, it really helps the boiling. You’ll know the chickpeas are done when you take one out and you can easily mash it with your fingers (I have to say here, I honestly don’t think chickpeas can be over boiled or that would be bad for hummus). So, chickpeas in, add the tahini paste (for 500 grams of boiled beans I put in 6 big tbs. of paste), the juice of 1 and a half lemon, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 4 tbs. of olive oil, about 2-3 tbs. of salt and water (you can use some of the water you cooked the chickpeas in).

Blitz everything together and taste frequently for taste and check for thickness, adding more water if necessary (you want it to have a thick oatmeal consistency). The way I like to eat this is with a lot of sumac, which also has a light sour note and gives a beautiful color and with some good quality olive oil, and pita bread. Feel free to add some extra ingredients to the mix or on top, after (mint, paprika, parsley, some fat yoghurt, etc., go crazy and try different combinations).

Also for this meal, we decided to make some salad, also inspired by another Levant classic, fattoush. You’ll love this dish it has intense taste, a good level of sourness and some nice crunch, and it all mixes incredibly with the hummus. Details in the next post.

Enjoy,

Fennel and Zucchini Pasta | You've Got Meal!

Lately, I’ve been browsing different foodies on Instagram, trying to see what is exactly trending in other people’s food posts. The thing is, except the consecrated restaurants or the users who have the possibility to access a large variety of (exotic) food, the biggest thing seems to be #vegan or #vegetarian.

 Honestly, just take a picture of a nice apple and strap some of those tags on it and the likes will start popping. I definitely support veggie lovers worldwide, but this is a bit ridiculous. So, instead of just taking pictures of chopped fruits in a bowl and call that dinner, I decided to make something of a vegetarian pasta recipe, using two of my best friends: fennel and zucchini.