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Trick or treat? Duh!

It's Halloween, which means time for a good and simple, spine-chilling pumpkin soup. Whether you add spooky amounts of chilli or keep it mild and child-friendly (or pretend to do the latter while actually...) is up to you, of course.
I, for one, think a devious bit of extra chilli can never do any harm...

1 pumpkin (neither freakishly large nor freakishly tiny)
3 carrots (no creepy sizes here, either)
1 sweet potato (make that a real killer!)
2 onions

Cut into pieces, place in saucepan and cover level with water. Bring to boil, let simmer until cooked. Blend till smooth.

Add:
About half a can of coconut milk
Chilli powder (be as daring and blood-curdling as you wish)
Salt

On Halloween, serve in skulls, if at hand.

PS: Rinse and dry, then roast the pumpkin seeds in a bit of olive oil. Season heartily with whatever spices and herbs you find in your cupboard. They make for a yummy snack and I (want to) believe it's actually (sort of) healthy. Plus you've really, wonderfully, made use of all the goodness of the pumpkin.

Marie's Kundalini gateau fondant au chocolat

I spent my summer in wonderful, warm, welcoming France. I loved every ray of sun, gust of wind, every single tree and stone there and somehow I had the feeling that they loved me back.
And I got to meet the most amazing people. Really, summers don't come much better than this one.

Marie, certainly one of the more fabulous people one gets to meet in one's life, has introduced me to the French art of baking really sticky, really good chocolate cakes. The secret to sticky chocolatiness is, not so surprisingly, chocolate. Loads of it.

So, without much further ado, here's Marie's Kundalini gateau fondant au chocolat:

- 4 eggs
- 250 grams of dark dark chocolate (the darker the better, because we can then believe it's actually health-food) - melted
- 250 grams of soft, salted (!) butter
- about 150 grams of flour
- 200 grams of raw sugar

That's it. No baking powder, no fuss, no nothing.

Beat the egg whites separately and leave in fridge for later. Then mix all other ingredients, starting with egg yolks and sugar, adding the butter and melted chocolate and at the very end, the flour. Softly whisk in the egg whites and fill into a greased baking dish (roughly 30x30cm or whatever else you have, you'll have to adjust the baking time accordingly - the thinner the cake the shorter the time, obviously). Place cake in the pre-heated oven (150-180 degrees) and leave for about 15-20 minutes, as always, this very much depends on your oven. There should still be chocolatey crumbs on a wooden skewer when you prick it in the middle.
Once the cake has cooled, cut it in relatively small pieces (it's quite rich) and enjoy the spectacularly gooey texture and mighty flavour. Maybe with a scoop of red-berry icecream, maybe without. But certainly always with some friends or other people who can appreciate a good piece of cake.


PS: if you're looking for a fantastic, free-your-mind, feed-your-soul place to spend a yoga vacation, let me tell you, this is it: http://www.franceyogaretreats.com/en/centre.php

i scream, you scream, we all scream

i have a feeling we're now finally ready for the ultimate goodness: homemade icecream. this recipe is so authentic i'm almost tempted to say it's the mother of all icecream recipes. after all, it comes from a real italian grandmother.
and it's delicious and dead simple. sometimes life is just beautiful.

here it comes:

300g strawberries
200g meringues
250ml cream

blend strawberries, powder meringues, whip cream. then mix it all together, put bowl in freezer, done.

you might have realized, that's the quick'n'dirty way. (but really, when it comes to icecream, who has time for more than that?)
obviously, you could also take the icecream out of the freezer ever so often, mix it up again to break the ice crystals that have formed, thereby creating a somewhat smoother texture of the whole. or, you could get (or have) an icecream machine that does the very same thing for you.
if you're asking me, the flavour's the same, so why bother?

i've experimented a bit with substituting some of the cream with greek yoghurt (the 10% variety) and using raspberries instead of strawberries and sugar instead meringues, oh well, yes, i've changed every single ingredient, and it was still delicious. however, the less fat you use, the harder the stuff will get, and the more difficult it will be to get it out of the tub.

when a scoop or two of this icecream meet a glass of milk in the blender, they magically turn themselves into an amazing milk shake.

yum! yum! yum!

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."

George Bernard Shaw

sicak houmus

OK, here finally comes the dip for the bread I told you about a few weeks ago.

it's called sicak houmus and very simple to make.

2 cans of chickpeas, well-drained (or take dried chickpeas and go through the whole soaking, cooking and draining process. i'm just way too lazy for that.)
150ml olive oil
juice of 2 lemons
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons cumin
2 tablespoons tahini
400g thick yoghurt
salt and pepper

for the topping:
2 tablespoons pine nuts
40g butter
1 teaspoon chili flakes


drain the chickpeas very well (with pulses from a can, the secret to avoiding unwanted air in and out of your body lies in rinsing-rinsing-rinsing), then throw them in a food processor together with the other ingredients, whiz everything into a mush - season well and put into an oven-proof dish.

roast the pine nuts until they're brown. add the butter and melt, then stir in the red pepper. spoon this on top of the houmus, then bake it in the oven for 25 minutes.
soooo delicious!

Eimear's flat bread

this is my flatmate's favourite bread, taken from her river cottage bread book. simple, yet incredibly delicious and quite impressive when put on the table, letting out puffs of hot air when you poke its belly.

500g plain white flour

500g strong white bread flour

10g dry yeast

20g salt

325ml warm water

325ml yoghurt (also warm)

2 tbsp olive oil

combine ingredients to a smooth dough, knead and knead and knead some more. leave to rise (covered so it doesn't get too dry), knead again, let rise again and repeat as often as you like (the dough will only get more and more beautiful while you get more and more hungry).

use a piece the size of a plum to roll out into a disc (about 3mm thick), let it rest a few minutes while you heat up a pan on highest heat and switch on the grill (also maximum heat). When the pan is hot, put the bread in it. Soon the bread will start to rise and turn brown underneath. put the pan under the grill (careful if you're using one with a plastic handle...) and watch it proudly swell its chest. take out when it looks too yummy for words.

repeat with next piece, and the next, and the next...

you can also spice up the bread with funky fillings like feta cheese with heaps of parsley and fresh mint leaves or whatever else you come up with.

now you just need to dip into something adorable (coming soon)

pane vino e zucchero

Not sure whether you have noticed already, but i like things pure.

Let's face it, lots of food is better with just a bit of salt and fresh pepper rather than overpowering sauces or even, god forbid, something coming out of a maggi satchet...

I was in Florence recently with my friend Isabelle, and Isa's coffeine addiction led us to call upon a place called "camera con vista" (named after E.M. Forster's Room with a view which is to a large part set in Florence). While we were happily sipping our coffees, enjoying the magnificent view on the ponte vecchio, a dish called "pane, vino e zucchero" caught my eyes on the menu. I asked the waiter what this was and he looked at me as if i had just asked him whether Michelangelo was Italian - "pane, vino e zucchero" was his somewhat laconic reply. Intrigued, I ordered a portion. and discovered the most simple, pure and yummy dessert i had all week. it is literally just bread, wine and sugar, but while your over-consumption of this dish might pay for your dentist's second Bentley, there are two truly striking features to this symphony in pink: first of all, the flavour of good red wine and fresh bread plus the addition of loads of sugar turns this into a wonderfully fresh yet sweet dessert that tingles your tastebuds. And secondly, it gets one tipsy... :)

to fight the gloomy weather - balmy blithely banana bread

And, as I'm just about to prepare one, here's the recipe for my favourite banana bread (a sort of 'cooperation' by Nigella and me, if you wish) - guaranteed to make you happy (and some others too, if you're prepared to share it)

I'm not sure whether this is popular knowledge, but should you ever have too many bananas and feel unable to eat them all before they turn brown and yucky, you can stick them into the freezer and use them for banana bread (they'll be very very squishy when thawed, but have just the right sweetness and aroma) – very convenient!

Oh and never ever make the mistake of using old nuts - the mouldy flavour spoils the entire cake.

Anyhow, try this, even confirmed banana bread scoffers have been known to take a second piece...

INGREDIENTS

175g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

125g butter, melted

150g sugar

2 large eggs

about 5 or 6 small, very ripe bananas, mashed

60-80g chopped nuts, almonds, whatever you find (but not peanuts! bah!)

23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 170ºCand get started. Put flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a bowl and combine well.

In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas.

Stir in the nuts.

Add the flour mixture, bit by bit, stirring well.

Scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1–1 1/4 hours. When it’s ready, an inserted skewer should come out cleanish.

Leave in the tin on a rack to cool, and make sure you eat a slice before someone else finds it...

Dear friend, foe or random reader,

Thanks. I have been dreaming about blogging for quite a while now and it's thanks to some very special people's gentle pushes that I'm actually doing it. The fact that you're reading this proves it hasn't been entirely useless. Please feel free to let me know what you think and to ask questions, comment, etc.

Enough polite banter, let's get started.

Considering this blog is supposed a travel blog as well as a food blog, I guess it's only fair to start it up in the air, on the flight to New York – and then to Bogota. I will do us all the pleasure of not commenting on the meals on Delta flights, but will directly move on to Colombian cuisine, which isoften almost ridiculously simple, yet surprisingly yummy at times. I recently invited a bunch of friends over to a “back from the jungle” lunch, dishing up the few vegetarian recipes I learned while travelling in Colombia. My friends were somewhat puzzled, I think, when I started the meal by proclaiming that this was indeed the way these dishes were supposed to taste, which might come over as a bit bland and almost boring. Colombian spice shelves tend to be as empty as a church on a weekday (which, as a matter of fact, is a simile not applicable to Colombia) – salt, pepper and Coriander is what gives food its flavour here. But this simplicity can be a good thing, as it gives the ingredients a chance to stand out on their own. Certainly amazing is the Changua, the traditional Colombian hangover cure, a soup made of only milk, water, old bread, salt, spring onion and eggs. A great dish to start this blog: simple yet delicious, uncommon yet with truly everyday ingredients.

Here's the recipe (Thanks, Mario!!) - this is for 4 hung-over people

600ml milk

300ml water

1 spring onion, chopped very finely

3-4 pieces of rusk or old bread

salt to taste

4 eggs

+ cheese (grated)

+ coriander (brrrrrr) or parsley (yum!)

Heat up milk and water in a large pot, add spring onion and salt. Break rusk in pieces, add to the soup. Bring to a boil, then carefully add eggs on at a time (they should be poached in the soup, therefore try to not break the yolk when opening them). Let boil for a minute or two, then slowly stir and serve (one egg per person). Add cheese and/or herb(s).

Enjoy!

Coming up next: my favourite banana bread (this is for you, Kasia!)