Small tomato-mozzarella pies

Extra simple and lovely as a starter or as a main dish.
The preparation of the tomato sauce takes a little time but if you invite people over, you can anticipate things and prepare it the day before.



* No. of Persons: 6
* Cooking time: 20min
* Preheat oven to th. 7 / 210°

Ingredients:
500 g puff pastry (pâte feuilletée)
18 medium tomatoes
2 buffalo mozzarella (2x 125 g)
2 garlic cloves
basil and marjoram
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder


Set aside 12 loooovely basil leaves ;) and chop the others.
Peel, remove seed and chop 12 tomatoes. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and cook it all for 5 minutes. Add chopped garlic, chilli, marjoram and reduce for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper, add the basil.
Roll out the pastry to a thickness of 2 mm and cut out 12 circles of 12 cm diameter.
Cut 6 remaining tomatoes into thin slices.
Place the pastry discs on a baking sheet greased with 1 tbsp of olive oil.
Cover each disk with 1 tablespoon of tomatoes preparation and add few slices of fresh tomato. Bake 15 minutes.
Cut the mozzarella into 12 slices. Place a slice of mozzarella on each little pie. Bake in the oven for another 5 minutes. Decorate with basil. And some olives if you wish ;) On the photo black spicy Greek olives... yummy!

Bon appétit :)

Chicken with herbs and coriander sauce

I made this recipe already few times and each time it's a pure delight :)


* No. of Persons: 4-6
* Cooking time: 30min
* Preheat oven to th. 6 / 180°

Ingredients:
6 chicken breasts
1 small spoon of curcuma (turmeric)
1 small spoon of paprika
1 dose of saffron powder
1 cilantro bunch
20 mint leaves
1 garlic clove
1 ginger knob
1 red onion
1 lime
1 small fresh chilli pepper
20 cl of coconut milk (or cream if you don't like coconut milk)
salt, pepper
olive oil

In a bowl, mix the crushed garlic, chopped onion, grated ginger, chilli, seeded and crushed spices, salt, pepper, lemon juice, mint and half the chopped coriander.
Then, add a little bit of olive oil until the mixture has the consistency of paste.
Wrap the chicken breasts with the "dough", place them in a baking dish and add a glass of water.
Cook for 30 minutes in the preheated oven on th. 6 / 180°.
10 minutes before the end of cooking pour the coconut milk and add the rest of cilantro as well as saffron.
Serve immediately.


Bon appétit :)

Zucchini with vegetables

* No. of Persons: 2
* Cooking time: 25min
* Preheat oven to th. 6 / 180°

Ingredients:
2 zucchinis
1/2 of a green or yellow pepper
1/2 of a red pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil
100 g of grated cheese

Wash zucchinis, cut off ends. Cut it in half (lengthwise). Remove the pulp with a spoon.
Dip the zucchini "cups" in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes. Then remove them gently, dry and put in a heat resistant dish.

Cut the inside of zucchini into dice. Do the same with pepper.
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Fry diced zucchini and pepper for 5 min.
Remove from fire. Add half of the grated cheese. Mix well, add salt, pepper, and other spices if you want.
Arrange the zucchini cups in a baking dish and fill with the preparation. Cover each with the remaining grated cheese and bake 25 minutes.

The cool thing about this recipe is that you can use anything really. You could as well add some pre-cooked meet (chicken, minced meet etc).
The original recipe included carrot and quinoa but as I didn't had any of these, I used pepper and I found it really good. So... It's up to you and your creativity ;)

Bon appétit :)

Mr... or Mrs Smith? Mr Smith!

No idea why this dessert is called Mr Smith but I prefer Mr over Mrs Smith so it's perfect ;)



* Preparation time: 15min
* Cooking time: 10min

Ingredients:
1 Golden apple
1 Granny Smith apple
10 plums
1 glass of red Porto
shortbread
butter
sugar

Cut a Golden apple into small pieces, add a few pieces of butter, a pinch of sugar, then roast 10 minutes in the oven (200°C). Once it has cooled, mix with a Granny Smith apple cut into pieces.

Cut plums into pieces, add a small glass of red Porto and cook over low heat until all liquid evaporates.

Next step... playing with shortbread and your imagination to find the best composition. ;)

Below two more presentation ideas... For these one I used mixer to get a smooth texture for plums.




Bon appétit :)

Lamb confit with beans

It's an easy one to make... but you need to be patient... It's not a "I'm hungry right here and right now" kind of recipe ;))



* Preparation time: 20min
* Cooking time: 255min (you have been warned....)


Ingredients:
1 de-boned and de-fatted lamb shoulder (that's from original recipe; I used filet mignon part)
800 g of Romano beans (in France called "coco beans")
600 g of tomato pulp
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt, pepper


Peel the garlic and onion, chop it. Cut lamb into 6cm cubes.
Cut the ends of the beans. Boil water in a large pan and immerse beans. Boil them for 1 minute, then drain and rinse, drain again.
Heat oil in a large cast iron pot. Briefly fry garlic and onion. Add meat cubes and stir until they obtain nice golden color. Pour the tomato pulp. Add salt and pepper. Some paprika/chilli if you like it more spicy (like me ;> ).
Once the tomatoes start simmering, add beans, stir and cover. Simmer for 4 hours (or shorter.. my cooking time for filet mignon was 2,5h) on a very small fire, until the meat and beans are well cooked and tender (almost "mealting" in your mouth ;>). Enjoy hot.

Taking into account that a Lebanese friend of mine, after tasting this dish, said it reminds him his childhood and his grandma's cooking, I think I can consider it a success ;))

Bon appétit :)

Coriander lamb

5 min recipe..



Ingredients:
lamb (filet mignon)
coriander
garlic/herbs butter
salt, pepper

Cut the lamb into smaller pieces, add some salt and pepper, fry on a hot plate with garlic/herbs butter and chopped corainder.

Here served with a piece of raisins bread, some garlic/herbs butter and decorated with fresh coriander.

Bon appétit :)

Feta tomatoes

It's more of a presentation or "how to do sth out of nothing" idea than a recipe. ;)


Ingredients:
tomato
feta cheese
basil (preferably fresh leaves but I used frozen one)
reduced balsamic vinegar

Empty the tomato with a spoon, fill with feta cubes.
The interior of the tomato was mixed (here with just a drop of olive oil) to obtain smooth texture.

The rest depends on your imagination.

Bon appétit :)

Curry and honey baked eggplant

For 4 people as a dish (2 eggplants should be enough for 2 people if served as a starter).

Ingredients:
3 or 4 eggplants
2 garlic cloves
4 tablespoons of honey
juice of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon of curry
salt, pepper


Turn the oven to 180°C (th. 6). Peel the garlic cloves and chop them.
Cut the eggplant into quarters, lengthwise, and place in a baking dish. Add some salt and pepper, coat with honey, lemon juice and olive oil. Sprinkle with curry and garlic.

Put eggplants in the oven and after 10 minutes of cooking, lower the temperature to 150°C. Sprinkle with the juices created during cooking to prevent drying. Cook until eggplant is melting, between 1h and 1h30.

Bon appétit :)

Crumble? No.. Crumbles!

Nothing easier than a crumble...

Ingredients:
100gr of soft butter
100gr of flour
100gr of sugar

Or simply saying - equal parts of sugar, butter and flour.
For variation you can use either normal or demi-salt butter, white or brown sugar.

Mix all ingredients with your hand until you get a smooth preparation.
And you are done!! Seriously ;))

Now all you need to do is... get creative!

Below 3 ideas I had (which were strongly influenced by what I had...).
For each I used a slightly buttered form (that can be used in an oven).


1) Pear, almonds and chocolate chips

Peel a pear, cut in pieces, add some sliced almonds and chocolate in very small pieces.


Put in the oven heated to 210C and after 30min it's ready to be served:




2) Cherry crumble

I had some frozen cherries that I de-frozen in a microwave within 9min.
I added a little bit of sugar (a tea spoon).


And 30min later (at 210C)...



3) Raspberry crumble

Same as for cherries...


Here around 40min were necessary...


btw - I do not why but the crumble will be more crunchy if you put the crumble preparation (flour+sugar+butter) to the fridge for few hours before putting it on fruits and baking.

Bon appétit :)

Guacamole? Only with tacos? Not necessarly.

Usually guacamole is served with tacos or chips. But why not serve it as a part of a meal?
Below you will find a recipe for the guacamole - up to you how to serve it ;)
I had it today in tomatoes (emptied of course ;> ), some rice and grilled chicken.


Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados
1/2 red onion, minced (can be white if you don't have red onion)
1-2 serrano chiles, stems and seeds removed, minced (or 1/2 of fresh paprika)
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh lime or lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
A dash of freshly grated black pepper

Cut avocados in half, remove seed and with a spoon remove the interior of avocados. Put it in a bowl. Chop rest of ingredients and add to avocado and mix everything. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. It's ready to be served! With tacos or not ;))

NB: Depending on the texture you want to obtain, you can either chop the avocado with a fork to get bigger pieces or put everything (or avocado only) in a mixer to make it smooth.
I prefer it not mixed so when you eat it you get a little piece of avocado, a crunchy piece of paprika... But that's my choice ;))

Bon appetit!

Fondant au chocolat (or Chocolate Fudge?)

On the photo: Fondant au chocolat served with creamy ginger sauce, decorated with green lemon peel


FONDANT AU CHOCOLAT

Ingredients (for 10-16 fondant - depending on the size of your muffin cups):
250 gr of dark chocolate (70% of cacao)
175 gr of butter
125 gr of icing sugar
75 gr of flour
5 eggs

Time:
Preparation: 10min
Cooking: 7-8min at 200C

Recipe:
Turn on the oven at 200C.

Prepare the muffin cups - spread a little bit of butter on the inside of the cups. Not much. And a little bit of flour in case you estimate you might have problems to get the fondant out.
I used only a bit of butter on my silicon cups and it was enough.

Put flour, icing sugar and eggs in a bowl. Stir it and then use a mixer or a blender to get a smooth mixture.

Chop the chocolate, cut the butter into smaller pieces and put both in a pan. On medium fire, make it melt. Stir until you get a smooth liquid chocolate.

Slowly add the chocolate to the mixture in the bowl. Stir until you get a unified substance.

With a help of a spoon, fill the cups.

Put the cups in the pre-heated oven and cook the fondant for 7-8min.

The fondant on the left is perfect. The one on the right was way overcooked.



SERVING IDEA: CREAMY GINGER SAUCE

Ingredients:
100 ml of liquid cream
100 ml of coconut milk
10 gr of ginger
orange peel from 1/2 of orange
2 spoons of sugar

Recipe:
Poor the cream and the coconut milk in a pan. Heat it until it boils.

Add ginger, orange peel and sugar. Heat it for few more minutes.

Take it out of the heat so it cools down. Filter and.. it's ready to be served.

Bon appetit :)

Chocolate spoons

It's a reeeaaaallly simple one :) and so delicious!

Here goes the original recipe:

For 8 people
Preparation: 15 min
Difficulty: Easy (of course!)

Ingredients:
100g of dark chocolate
10cl of light liquid cream


Recipe:
Heat the cream in a saucepan until it simmers.
Meanwhile, chop the chocolate with a knife.
Pour the hot cream over the chocolate so it melts and stir it so it gets all smooth (if necessary, reheat a few seconds in the microwave for easy filling of spoons).
Fill the spoons with chocolate and chill at least 1 hour.
Serve with hot coffee.

My observations: the recipe was supposed to be for 8 spoons, meaning 8 people. I got 14 spoons out of this recipe and it was just OK for 4 people :)
Oh, the spoons - I used plastic spoons adapted for appetizers etc. That was perfect. As well, think of preparing the coffee in a glass/mug in which you could easily put the spoon it. The hot coffee makes the chocolate to soften and nicer for tasting :)

Welcome to The Art of Simple Cooking!

The idea of creating this blog appeared today. I was hosting two friends in my place and we had a cooking 'atelier' during which we decided to test some new recipes. And I thought it would be nice to share the experience.. good ones and.. bad ones maybe as well ;) We had both types today...
All entries will be illustrated by photos taken by me - no 'copy-paste' from any website!

Anyway - the objective of this blog is to give you some ideas to do some home cooking within reasonable time and will taste gooood (even delicious!).

Hope you will enjoy it! All comments, improvement ideas & questions are welcome!