Whole Wheat Bread ready in Five Minutes a Day

Bread. Some would say it's not that healthy and it makes you fat, others (including me) think a good, balanced diet is all you need to feel and look good, and others just don't care. Lately, I've learned that it's very important to know what your food contains and, preferably, to make it yourself and to buy only raw ingredients.

 

I'm taking it to the next healthy level, making bread on my own, I swear to God I had no help whatsoever. I think it's very important, before you make something new, to read and learn something about it: traditions, chemistry and methods. I found all I needed in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day bread cookbook. Jeff Hertzberg (MD) and Zoë François (pastry chef) had answers to all my questions. Before even starting my dough, I had a very good bread-lesson that made me understand certain aspects of this beautiful and healthy food. For example, bread is healthy because it contains fiber (from bran) and vitamins, antioxidants and vegetable-based fat (from the germ). But once upon a time, someone decided that whole grain flour looks hideous and that white flour and white bread would look better. Thus, they removed the bran, making white flour and depriving themselves from the vitamins and protein it had. And this is how we got white flour.

Now, for a balanced diet, we need to eat little of all 5 food groups that we all learned about in school: grains, vegetables and fruits, meat and protein, dairy and fats, oils and sweets. I'm not being a 7-year-old, it's just true! So, we need to eat grains (bread, pasta, rice) on a regular basis. But the bread and pasta we buy is not healthy at all, it has all kinds of additives and thickening agents that destroy all their benefits and make them bad for your health. This is why I don't eat bread, because it's bad for me. But if I make it and I know what it has in it and it's healthy, then why not?

Here's how you do it, it's extremely easy. For a 600 gr bread, you need:
3 and a half cups of whole wheat flour
1 package dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt (I use a salt substitute)
1 and a half cup warm water

1. Mix the flour with the yeast. Add the salt and mix together.
2. Add the water and mix together with a spoon or with your hands, but WITHOUT kneading.
3. Cover with plastic wrap, but not airtight, let it breathe. Leave it at room temperature for 2 hours.
4. Refrigerate over night.

The next day,
1. Dust the dough with some flour and form a ball or an oval shaped dough.
2. Leave the dough to rest for another 90 minutes, on a baking sheet sprayed with some oil and covered with some plastic wrap, but again not airtight.
3. THIRTY minutes before baking, preheat your oven at 230 C or 450 F.
4. Cut the bread about 1 cm deep with a serrated knife, like in the photos.
5. Paint the top of the bread with a little water, then add your mix of seeds.

Here I used 1 tablespoon of pumpkin, poppy and flax seeds. Not only it looks amazing, but it also tastes like Heaven, it's great for sandwiches, the crust is crispy and the core fluffy, and it's healthy too! I'm very happy with it and I can't wait to make another one, another recipe, maybe a baguette or some hamburger buns! Mmm delicious! Probably in a few days.

 I hope you enjoy this bread and consider (if you're not yet) eating and living a healthy life.

Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Scones

As I was saying last week, we're moving to France this September. Major preparations have not started yet, but they're not that far away. Meanwhile, I'm learning to cook, but it's not all about food and staying in the kitchen. It starts with the grocery list.

Last time I made cupcakes, I made a short shopping list, adding all the ingredients so I knew exactly how much of each one to buy. For example, I bought 4 packages of butter, which I used to perfection. That's when it struck me: making a weekly menu ahead and buying just the things we need. This way, we'll have a strict menu that we have to follow, I cook everyday and learn new recipes (keeping only the ones we all like), we don't binge cause we have fresh, great food and we spend less money because we buy exactly what we need. We made a grocery list the day before, but of course, while shopping mom was like "oh do we need onions? I think we need onions!" and I was going out of my mind, but that's never going to change.

Anyway... I decided only to make healthy food, so yesterday we had omelette and fruit for breakfast, some awesome and very hot eggplant rolls stuffed with vegetables for lunch and the most awesome BLT salad for dinner, which my mom loved (finally!). The thing with mom is, she's never satisfied with anything I do. I don't have mommy-issues, it's just very annoying to hear someone complaining about your food every-f***ing-time like "it's not cooked well enough, not sweet enough, too sweet, too salty, too hot" - it's making me mad. So it was a big step for her to eat like 3 servings of my BLT salad and not complain. It wasn't too hot, not too salty, just plain awesome. I forgot to take pictures of both, but the bottom line is: you can put any vegetable/sauce you want in the eggplant stuffing and, for the salad, replace mayo with mustard and yogurt and add some pasta in it, it's great! Oh and cook the bacon in the stove so it's healthier!

Next up are our beautiful and tasty scones. Dad wanted something healthy for breakfast at work and I suggested these scones which he adored. Mom wanted to make them, but I helped too, giving her some advice. She still has some weird ideas about not eating stuff when they're hot (that's when they're at their best for $%^&'s sake) or kneading the hell out of a dough when it's just not necessary or can even harm it. The scones are made with whole grain flour, 85% dark chocolate and brown sugar and I think you already noticed how awesome they are!

Next up is my first (of course, awesome) bread!

Tomato Soup with Garlic Mozzarella Ciabatta

Since we're leaving in September, I figured I couldn't feed TENEMBI muffins, cakes and tarts for years, so I am now learning to cook. I never did before because I didn't like it that much and because I thought that sweets where the only edible thing I could do perfectly.

A few months ago, I developed my own pasta recipe, actually salsa recipe which I adore and would eat each and every single day. That was the one single thing I could cook well and without any help. Two weeks ago, when my mom went on a business trip for the weekend, I had to cook for me and my dad. Dad loved everything I'd made and that's when it hit me: I am almighty, I can cook anything!

Yeah, well this week that kind of changed. I made some cupcakes for a present and I hated them, they were too dry, too sweet and the frosting was horrible. Everyone else loved them but I didn't. So I thought: try again, fail better. Well guess what, I didn't fail! I made the most incredible looking and tasting soup! Even though it can't be compared to muffins, it's still something. This is my first soup EVER and it was a total win! And I think I'm on the highway to cooking success.

I'm looking for easy to make and to learn, tasteful and also special, different recipes for whatever I'm cooking. I won't be making a vegetable soup or chicken barbeque very soon, so expect some exotic foods. This one was very easy to make, I admit I used canned tomatoes because I was too lazy to boil real, healthy ones, but it's OK the first time...

Here's what you need for about 4 servings:
1200 gr canned tomatoes
3 tablespoons sugar
300 ml vegetable stock (I used Maggi vegetable stock powder + warm water)
6 tablespoons Mascarpone cheese

Crutons:
1 medium ciabatta bread
2 cloves garlic, cut in half
some grated mozzarella cheese

1. Put the canned tomatoes, sugar and vegetable stock in a medium pot and boil for 5-10 minutes.
2. Using a food processor, blend your soup together with the mascarpone cheese and then return it to the pot.

Minutes before serving, start making the crutons.

1. Cut the ciabatta bread into long strips and place them on the grill of your oven, over about 180 C/450 F, until a bit toasted.
2. Remove from the oven, and don't turn the heat down. Scrub the garlic on the toasted ciabatta, then place the bread in a small pan. Cover all the crutons with the grated mozzarella and place the pan back in the oven until melted.

Serve the soup with some basil and mint for decor, although I found the blend fresh and soothing at the same time. Serve them all warm, together with a glass of gin tonic.

Mmm, that bland aroma of garlic, mint and sweet tomato, topped with the tonic... Try it!

Bon appétit!

Tzatziki and Herbed Chicken

Oh this was a nice one! Although today was cold and super rainy, I thought of making a summery dinner for my parents. Something fresh and easy to make cause I'm not that good at cooking. I found a very easy tzatziki recipe, although kind of boring because I had to wait 30 minutes for all the excess water in the cucumbers to drain. Then, I looked for a herb mix to season my chicken and found a delicious one. Here's how it looked like:

And here's how to do it. First of all, you will need some chicken breasts, depending on how many people you have over. I used 4, each one of us had one and I saved the last one for my awesome fiancé at TENEMBI, but my mom ate it this morning. For the tzatziki, you will need a big cucumber. Oh, let's make a list of what I used!

Tzatziki
1 big cucumber
2 cups yogurt
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons mint (fresh or dry, I used dry because I only had like 3 leaves of fresh mint)
1 teaspoon salt (+ more for seasoning)

This recipe is very very easy. So here goes.
1. You need wash, peel and cut your cucumber in half. Now you need to remove all seeds.
2. Cut your cucumber into small cubes and place them in a bowl with the salt. You will leave them there for half an hour, for all the water inside them to drain. Make sure you flip them once in a while so they all have some salt on them.
3. Drain them, then put them in a cheesecloth and drain them again.
4. Mix the cucumbers with the rest of the ingredients and chill before serving. You can serve it the way it is, but it will taste better chilled.

Herbed Chicken Breasts
4 chicken breasts
2 teaspoons basil, rosemary, sage, oregano, coriander and thyme
4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1. Put all the spices and garlic in a bowl and mix them well.
2. Season the chicken, on both sides, with the mix.
3. You can either fry it in olive oil (like I did), or put it in the oven (like I will do next time), or on the grill, however you like it. You will, most certainly, enjoy the smell of those herbs burning and their aroma.

Bon appétit!

Spicy Cucumber Rolls with Feta Cheese

Summer's here alright! Even though the weather here hasn't been that warm, I can't stop looking for summery recipes and beverages. This weekend I plan on making strawberry vodka and lots of lemonade! I hate summer because it's so hot, but I adore summer recipes! Salads and fresh tarts, ice teas and coffees, mmm can't wait! This summer will be even better because I'll graduate and I'll start packing for our big move to France!

Meanwhile... Today I made some cucumber rolls with feta cheese, oregano, chilli powder and some green olives. They were so good! Of course mom didn't like them cause they were too spicy... Anyway, I'm sorry for the quality of the photo but I was in a hurry and, plus, they were all gone in a matter of minutes.

Very easy to make, tasty and refreshing!

Weekend Cooking: Roast Beef with Hasselback Potatoes, Stuffed Paccheri, Apple Pie and Strawberry Meringue Pie

This weekend mom had to go to Sibiu for a few days. Me and dad had planned to make stuffed paccheri and roast beef. We did them both plus this oh-my-god strawberry meringue pie and an apple pie. And when I say we I mean I. They were all delicious, but only the strawberry pie and the roast beef looked good haha. I WILL make the paccheri and the apple pie again and they WILL look good, next week maybe. We also made hasselback potatoes which were awesome! Check them all out!

 FRIDAY we shopped. We bought cow-hide, carrots, potatoes and celery for the roast beef; turkey mincemeat and Parmesan for the paccheri; biscuits and strawberries for the tart; a puff pastry and some apples for the apple pie. I started with the paccheri. I fried the onions and the carrots together, then added the meat. When it started to look ready, I added a glass of white wine and half a cup of tomato sauce and then covered it and left it to boil over low heat. The paccheri were left to boil for 5 minutes so they were ready to be filled with the meat sauce. Oh, and the bechamel sauce! For it, I melted some butter and then added flour, milk and Parmesan. Then I folded it over the meat sauce. It was so good! After everything was ready, I arranged the paccheri vertically into a big pot and filled them with the bechamel meat sauce and sprinkled some more Parmesan over it. Into the oven and it was perfect! They don't look that well, but next time they will!

I also tried my apple pie on Friday, which was a semi-fail because I didn't rolled the dough in the baking pan, but on a wooden work table and it got stuck onto it. Also, the filling was hot and made everything even harder. But it was delicious! I coated some apples with sugar, cinnamon and a bit of lemon juice and baked them for a bit, then poured it on the pastry and back to the oven. Ready in half an hour and delicious, but hideous. Anyway...


On SATURDAY we both had some important stuff to do so we planned on cooking the beef on Sunday. Which we did. SUNDAY morning. Me, dad and M agreed on a recipe for the roast beef and I thought of surprising them with something sweet. The beef was very easy to make, I just made a cozy bed for the meat from all these.

 This is what it looked like afterwards.

 I'm not a big fan of meat and I didn't really liked this dish either, because it was kind of stringy, but it had an amazing flavor! And those vegetables were delicious!! I also made some hasselback potatoes, with lots of garlic, chilli, oregano and some olive oil.

And finally, my masterpiece so far, the strawberry meringue pie. It was so easy to make, I would have finished it in 20 minutes if it wasn't for all these stuff in the oven. I crushed some biscuits and mixed them with butter and baked the crust. Then I cut the strawberries and made the meringue. After decorating the pie I baked it for about 5 minutes to make that golden meringue I love! Here's a mug shot of the late strawberry pie (now it's all gone).

Looks nice, huh?

Pâté de Pâques. French.

Mai jos găsiți și textul în limba română!    

Since we're moving to France later this year, I tried to make a French recipe for Easter. It's kind of the Romanian drob, but without the lamb meat. I can't eat lamb, so Easter for me is kind of a diet. I only eat eggs and Easter bread. This recipe is made throughout France, with little or no modifications.

It's stupid-easy! Here's what you'll need:
3 hard-boiled eggs
1 puff pastry (250 grams)
500gr sausage meat
200gr ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic (we loooove garlic so I put 4 actually)
a fistful of chopped parsley
salt, pepper
1 egg yolk

1. Preheat oven at 230 C/450 F.
2. Mix meat, onion, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper together.
3. Grease a baking pan with oil or butter and cover it with baking sheet.
4. Spread puff pastry and add half of the meat mix on it, like a sausage.
5. Add the eggs on top of the meat and cover them with the other half of meat mix. I forgot to take pictures here so you can check it out here and here.
6.  Close the puff pastry and brush it with egg yolk.

7. Bake, don't burn for 35 minutes at 200 C/400 F.
8. Turn the heat off and leave it to rest for half and hour in the oven.

It's delicious! Bon appétit!
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Plăcintă de Paşti. Franţuzească.

Daca tot ne mutam anul asta in Franta, am incercat sa fac o reteta frantuzeasca pentru Pasti. Seamana cu drobul romanesc, dar fara carnea de miel. Nu pot sa mananc miel, asa ca Pastile pentru mine sunt ca o dieta.  Mananc doar oua si pasca. Reteta asta e facuta in toata Franta, cu modificari mici sau deloc.

E ca la prosti. Iata de ce ai nevoie:
3 oua fierte tari
1 aluat de placinta (250 gr)
500gr carne tocata de carnati
200gr carne tocata de vita
1 ceapa, tocata
2 catei de usturoi (noi adoraaam usturoiul asa ca am pus 4)
un pumn de patrunjel tocat
sare, piper
1 galbenus de ou

1. Preincalzeste cuptorul la 230 C/450 F.
2. Amesteca ceapa, carnea, usturoiul, patrunjelul, sarea si piperul.
3. Unge cu ulei sau unt o tava de copt si acoper-o cu foaie de copt.
4. Intinde aluatul in tava si adauga jumatate din mixul de carne, modelandu-l ca pe un carnat.
5. Adauga ouale fierte deasupra si acopera-le cu cealalta jumatate de carne. Am uitat sa fac poze aici, asa ca puteti sa vedeti cum trebuie facut aici si aici.
6. Inchide aluatul peste carne si unge-l cu galbenus de ou.
7. Coace, nu arde, timp de  35 de minute la 200 C/400 F.
8. Inchide caldura si mai lasa-l sa se odihneasca jumatate de ora in cuptor.

A fost delicios! Bon appétit!