Zucchini Bread | You've Got Meal!

The time of vegetable abundance is here. I don't know about you, but in this area the zucchinis are having a great year. After using them in lots of savoury main courses and pasta dishes, a great idea is to incorporate them in desserts as well. 

A classic zucchini bread, enriched with walnuts and cinnamon, this recipe turned out to be a great, extremely moist and flavorful dessert. You will get 2 bread pans or 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

• 375 g AP flour/ 3 Cups (You can replace half of the AP flour with whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 3 free range eggs
• 200 ml canola oil/ 1 cup
• 450 g sugar/ 2 1/4 cup
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• about 2 medium zucchinis/ 2 cups
• 100 g walnuts, roughly chopped/ 1 cup

Method:

1. Grease and flour your pans and preheat oven to 170 C (300)
2. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking powder and soda and salt and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, add the oil, sugar and vanilla,.
4. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the egg mixture.
5. At this point you might find the mixture really thick, but don't worry, once you add the zucchini it will give it enough moisture.
6. Stir in the grated zucchinis and the chopped nuts.
7. Pour the mixture in the pans and bake for 40-60 minutes.

Extra hint: I added some walnuts for decor on top of one of the breads, but given the long baking time they were burnt, so if you want them, just add them at halfway through.

Enjoy,

Homemade Pizza- 3 Amazing Versions + Pizza Dough Recipe | You've Got Meal!

I honestly think that fast food has gained a far too bad reputation than it deserves. Pizza, hamburgers, kebabs, fries, all these food industry bad boys can be redeemed with just a little ingenuity and effort into some great tasting healthy meals. From all the choices, pizza is my favorite for cooking at home. It’s simple, delicious, let’s you combine a lot of incredible flavors and, if you make your own dough, it gives you that rewarding feeling that you get when baking.

In this case, I used the recipe for the dough from the Jamie Oliver site, except I halved the quantities he suggested, meaning I used:

• 500 grams of 000 flour, 
• 7 grams of dried yeast (that’s basically a small dose that you can buy individually), 
• 1 tbs. sugar, 
• 1 tsp. fine salt, 
• 2 tbs. olive oil, 
• 325 ml of warm water. 

1. Sieve the flour in a large, deep pan (I tried doing this on a work surface but I ended up making a giant mess in the kitchen), add the salt. 
2. In a separate bowl, mix the yeast with the sugar, olive oil and the warm water. 
3. After leaving the wet mixture sit for a couple of minutes, pour it in a well in the middle of the flour and start bringing in the sides into the middle, gradually. 
4. Use your hands to knead the dough until you get a nice, smooth and elastic result. 
5. Next, put the dough in a well floured bowl, cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest in a warm room without a draft source for an hour – it should double in size. 
6. The resulting dough was enough for 3 pizzas with a diameter of 30 cm with a thin base.

The 1^st one was with: pancetta, salami, zucchini, broccoli, as seen above. The pancetta was amazing especially when we curled it on the dough and it became just a bit crispy. The broccoli alongside the zucchini made this pizza so special that it was Mrs. G's favourite. Plus, it is healthier than most. I have to mention the broccoli stays just a bit crunchy and that is perfect and you have to use fresh broccoli, as the frozen one might leave some water and make the pizza more runny.  

Mean while, prepare your ingredients for the pizzas. For all 3 pizzas we used some fresh Mozzarella that we crumbled on top. Also, I started by massaging the rolled pizza dough with a very small amount of olive oil (just enough to give it some shine) and relatively thick tomato paste (also used some of the home made paste that we made for this recipe). The cooking time in a hot oven (200 Celsius) was around 10-11 minutes. As another advice from our pizza adventure be careful with the Gorgonzola – don’t use too much and place it near the center of the dough as it tends to melt a lot and get runny. The same rule applies only partially for the fresh mozzarella as it tends to hold its own better, but, again, don’t overdo it, especially near the edges. 

The 2^nd one: salami, Gorgonzola, zucchini, mushrooms, onion, as seen above. This one had a classic taste, a nice tangy hint from the Gorgonzola and you can't possible not love mushroom and onion together on a pizza.  

The 3^rd one: pancetta, broccoli, zucchini, olives, onions and artichoke hearts, as seen above. Basically the one where I went all out, a true veggie delight on a pancetta bed and topped with cheesy, Mozzarella goodness. 

Super easy, super fast, super fun and super delicious food. And the next time you start taking a look at those menus from your neighborhood pizza place keep in mind that you can take them out of business any time with this kind of tiny effort. Ok, might sound worse than it actually is, a slight exaggeration there, but you get the idea.

Enjoy,

Halloumi, Tomatoes and Zucchini Skewers- Easy Appetizer | You've Got Meal!

Maybe we should have started our posts in 2014 with this one. We had this appetizer for our New Year’s dinner and it was great. It can hold its own at parties, breakfasts or brunches and it can bring some Mediterranean kick to your menu. 

Like any appetizer should be, this dish is dead easy. You’re going to need:

•  some diced Halloumi cheese, 
• cherry tomatoes, 
• diced zucchini, 
• thin bacon strips, 
• olive oil, salt, pepper, basil, mustard, lemon juice.

1. If using wooden skewers, place them in water for half an hour before cooking so they don’t burn. 
2. The only preparation before cooking is to cover each zucchini piece in a thin strip of bacon. 
3. Skew the veggies and cheese in any order you want. 
4. Lightly drizzle the skewers with a dressing made of 1 tsp. of hot mustard, some olive oil, lemon juice from half a lemon, pepper. 
5. You can make this on an ultra hot grill or in the oven – we opted for the second way, mainly because we didn’t feel like smoking our house. Be warned that in the oven the veggies- especially the tomatoes will leave some juice that could use removing – keep an eye for that. It takes around 15-20 minutes, 170 Celsius, or until the bacon in done.
6. Serve with some more of that mustard dressing on top and (optional) some freshly chopped basil.

Enjoy,

M&M Cookies | You've Got Meal!

Everybody loves cookies. They are a great dessert, guilty and yummy snacks, great companions for tea or coffee and nice edible gifts. The good thing is that they are easy to make, don't require that much time and (almost) everytime look amazing.

You could say that M&M cookies are a fun way to make chocolate chip cookies. And it is so much fun because of the colors, the simplicity and the continuous snacking on M&Ms while baking.

Once you've tried them, you will look for excuses and reasons to bake a batch of these. What better occasion than Christmas Eve? I bet even Santa will love these with milk in exchange of gifts and even the kids can help you out, just be careful they don't eat all the M&Ms before.

Speaking of Santa, do you remember that M&Ms Christmas commercial when the M&Ms met Santa and Santa fainted? That is a classic, so funny, and it is amazing how they still air it and people still love it!

Getting on with the recipe, the ingredients you will need are:

• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups M&Ms

Make sure you leave enough space between them as they have to tendency to "hug", as shown above

1. With a hand mixer cream the butter (it should be at room temperature), add the sugars and cream some more.
2. Add the aggs and the vanilla extract and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients: cornstarch, salt, baking powder and flour.
4. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, scrape the sides if neccesary.
5. With a spatula, slowly mix in the stars of the show, the M&Ms.

That is basically it, your batter is done.
Of course, you will need to bake the cookies.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper and either with a spoon or (even better) with an ice cream scoop form balls and bake them for 10 minutes, in a preheated oven, at medium-high temperature until they turn golden.
Be carefull especially with the late batches, not to burn them, because the tray is hot, the oven is super heated so they might not need 10 minutes.

Let them cool on a wire rack and store them in an airtight container or a pretty Christmas cookie box. I do like to try some warm ones because the candies are so "melty", but I like them best the next day with a huuuuuuge cup of cold milk. 'Tis the season for hot drinks too, so be free to dip them in some hot chocolate or enjoy them with tea.


Enjoy,

Christmas Cake Recipe: Buttery and Sticky Orange Cake | You've Got Meal!

Nice and simple recipe for buttery and moist cake with oranges and poppy seeds. Perfect Christmas or holiday cake with minimum effort.

This cake recipe is inspired by the classic Lemon Drizzle Cake. Oranges are great this time of the year and I wanted to take as much advantage as I could of their full flavor. It is as buttery as lemon drizzle cake, of course it uses oranges instead of lemons and, to take it to the next level, you add a delicious sticky orange syrup on top and some drunken orange slices.

For the cake/ sponge:

• 200 g butter
• 200 g powder sugar
• 3 eggs
• 300 g flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 50 g poppy seeds
• 200 ml milk
• 150 ml orange juice

Method:

1. In a bowl, beat the butter (at room temperature) with the powder sugar. I did it with a hand mixer.
2. Add the eggs and mix some more.
3. In a different bowl mix the dry ingredients: flour + baking powder + poppy seeds
4. Incorporate the flour mixture into the eggs and butter mixture.
5. Add the milk and the juice to the bowl and mix.
6. Line a round cake tin with detachable bottom with baking sheet (both the bottom and the sides).
7. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in a preheated oven, medium heat, for 30 minutes.

Syrup:

• 300 ml orange juice
• 200 g granulated sugar
• the zest from 1 orange
• 1 cinnamon stick

Method:

1. Put all the ingredients in a sauce pan.
2. Bring it to a simmer.
3. Let it simmer for at least 10 minutes, until it gets thicker. Beware that the syrup gets thicker when it gets cold.

For the oranges on top:

1. Heat up some rum (around 100 ml) in a sauce pan. No need for it to boil, just make it really hot.
2. Cut 2 oranges in slices. Try to remove as much white skin as you can while doing it.
3. Put the orange slices in the hot rum and let them soak and absorb the alcohol for 50-60 minutes.

To put the cake together:

1. While both the cake and syrup are warm, make tiny holes in the cake with a fork on all the surface and pour the syrup on top. 
2. The syrup will be absorbed and the cake will be soooo moist.
3. You can reserve some syrup for extra flavor for each slice. The syrup is also amazing cold, so don't worry.
4. When the cake is slightly colder and you have removed it from the tin, take the orange slices out of the rum and place them on top of the cake as desired.
5. Optional, sprinkle some powder sugar on top.

I hope you will find the result as rewarding as I did. I took some slices to work the next day and everybody loved it, they were surprised how much beautiful orange taste it had. I also want to mention that the cake is at its best when it is served after it had been refrigerated for 2-3 hours.

Happy December,

Express Post: Garlic and Thyme Bread

Ok, some maybe some of you read one of our most recent posts and saw a crispy looking bread behind that mouthwatering fish stew. 

So, as to have the complete picture, we decided to bring the bread also in the spotlight, it most certainly deserves it. We saw this being made by Jaime Oliver and, despite not being more than some glorified bread, it really went well with the stew.

So just grab a ciabatta or another type of medium-density bread and make cuts along the length and width of the loaf, so that you create some sort of cubes. Be careful not to cut all the way through. Stuff sliced or crushed garlic and fresh thyme leaves (even better, flowers) in the created spaces.

Sprinkle a generous amount of olive oil on top and pop it in the preheated oven (“full whack” as Jamie would say) for around 10 minutes. We went for a crispy outcome, you can always reduce your cooking time. So there you have it, garlic and thyme bread, easy mode, super tasty and with many more possibilities of adding flavors like rosemary, sundried tomatoes, zucchini or just herbed oil.

Enjoy,
Mr. G.