Green Gazpacho

I have been absent for quite a while, and I missed you. I missed being here, talking about food. And I missed cooking, too.
You might remember me talking about going to France for a while. And even now, what feels like a year after, I still owe you photos and tales from the land of fabulous food. I'd love to share, and plan to get back to it.

I have been away some more, though, keeping myself away from the computer for another week. I spent one week cooking for 22 kids at a camp, together with my boyfriend. It has been a exhausting but rewarding week.
And the days in between, those I did not spend working, were spent at my boyfriend's family's chalet, where the days are long and lazy, and the computers turned off, for the most part.

I am happy to be back, for now. And I'd love to share this recipe for a green gazpacho with you. I saw this recipe in Ottolenghi's cookbook Plenty just yesterday, and loved the concept of a green gazpacho. And I really liked how these different ingredients worked together to create a soup that tastes like gazpacho, but is still different. I wasn't too sure about the celery in the beginning, but it really blended in nicely. I changed quite a few things, though, some out of laziness, because a gazpacho recipe really should be easy to throw together. Most notably, I refuse to add more than one clove of garlic to a gazpacho, contrary to what you might believe me to do, considering the name of this blog. But adding four cloves of garlic, uncooked, and puree them into this delicate soup, it just destroys the flavor. If you do like your gazpacho to be garlicky, though, add more garlic to your liking. One more thing, last February in Spain, we were served gazpacho as a drink, to accompany the meal we ate. I love this concept, and if you want to try it, you should be adding more water than I suggest in this recipe, to make the gazpacho drinkable.

Zucchini Risotto

 

Every spring I wish I had the opportunity to tend to a garden. I look at seed catalogues, online and offline, together with my mother. I might even order something even though I do.not.have.space. Craaazy, I tell you. Then I visit my parents, frequently, just to get my hands dirty. I talk to the tomato seedlings, to get them to grow nice and quickly. I try to sneek in one or two plants I personally would like to grow, this year's butternut squash is performing nicely, there are already dozens of little squashs visible and growing. 

One advantage of not having a garden myself is a) I don't have to be home and water almost daily, and b) I am not flooded by zucchini. 

I do love zucchini, though, and I have been preparing quite a few things using a zucchini or two. This risotto is a double zucchini risotto (double chocolate sounds better, but we'll leave it at zucchini this time). One zucchini is grated into the risotto, to make for a bit a lighter risotto. The other zucchini is diced, panfried and scattered over the creamy risotto.

Tofu Cutlets or Nuggets

Inbetween working and working, I wanted to just come here and tell you about these tofu cutlets. Because you have to know. They are nothing new, I did not reinvent the wheel, or tofu cutlets, but I just tried them to today, and my world view shifted. And yours will too, if you try these, especially if you dont like tofu, usually. You see, these are nothing like tofu, or at least nothing like the tofu I usually prepare. Which I like, honestly. but many people maybe don't. No matter how much you try to infuse the tofu with flavor, it stays a bit flavorless in the center. This approach changes everything.

There are quite a few steps to it, but you'll end up with tofu cutlets with a juice center, flavored by the broth you cooked them in, but oh so crunchy outside. But maybe you should go and try them yourself.
And maybe next them I'll cut them smaller and use them to make a great tofu sweet and sour.

Soba with Mushrooms and Spinach

As a child, my diet consisted mostly of Swiss and Italian dishes. Pasta, potatoes, gratin and such. We were fed the occasional Thai curry or sweet and sour pork, but not much else from the exotic department. And it is only in these two cuisines, those I know best, that I stay true to the original recipes and ingredient combinations.
I am not that familiar with Japanese food, my experience of it is limited to 2 or 3 restaurant visits in Switzerland or Germany. I also make sushi from time to time, but I would not consider myself a sushi expert. So when I tell you this dish is Japanese, I am probably wrong.
I cook soba and other Asian noodles like I cook Italian pasta, in salted water, on a rolling boil. I learnt to rinse them in cold water after cooking, but I usually reheat them with the sauce I want to serve them with. And it turns out fine, even great with this dish.

Buckwheat and mushrooms are to be considered close friends in the kitchen, at least in mine. Whenever I cook with buckwheat, I want to add mushrooms, these two earthy flavours complement each other so well. This dish was inspired by a recipe by Heidi Swanson, her Black Sesame Otsu, a recipe from her second book that you can also find on her blog. I made it as she wrote it, too, and I love it, but I also like to change things up. And I have to say, the mushrooms do more for the dish than the tofu in the original recipe. I actually quite like tofu, but it is does not add much flavor to a dish.

Coffee Energy Bars

Last saturday I got up relatively early to go to the farmers market. The farmers market here in Berne is quite big and is open year round, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. With my move I now am a lot closer to it, and I have already  been a few times over the last few weeks.
I recently discovered a bakery stand there, selling french croissants. I have the fondest memories of french croissants, the ones I ate for breakfast every.single.day last two summers that we spent in Northern France. Swiss croissants are buttery and flakey, too, but french croissants are on a whole other level, you can barely eat them without being covered in buttery delicate flakes. I eat them plain, savoring every bite. The croissants I bought today were good, but not as good as the french croissants.

I also brought home a bag of mixed salad greens. These greens are sold seperately, all at the same price so you can go an choose the ones you like best. I always bring back a bag full to eat on the very day I bought them.
Being so close to the producer of the vegetables I buy feels good to me, the connection to the food is that much closer. And I can pick whatever produce looks best that day, choosing cherries over apricots because they look fresher. Picking up a few carrots, all differently coloured, just because they are so beautiful.
I am going to be away for a few days, for a rather spontaneous trip to France (hello flakey croissants) with my boyfriend and our bikes. And while I am looking forward to the croissants, I know that I'll have one problem that I always seem to have. Hunger attacks.

You should see me, pedaling my way through France, or hiking up a mountain, and I am fine, thinking I could go on forever, when suddenly a switch flips and I am starving. I have to eat right then and there, or else I become really mad at anyone near me. Coffee Energy Bars to the rescue. To save myself from a few hunger attacks, and my boyfriend from the resulting mood swings, I made these energy bars this weekend, to carry with me and snack on on our trip. They were really easy to make, and are easy customizable. I added coffee, because I thought that a little shot of caffeine is probably not a bad thing, and many other good things that hopefully keep my hunger at bay and give me a little push to keep pedaling.

Warm Farro Salad with Eggplant, Zucchini and Tofu

I have the interesting habit of carrying cookbooks with me and reading them like "real" books. And I dont me memoir style cookbooks with one or two recipes thrown in between lots of writing. I love to read recipes, and their discriptions. To look at the pictures, too, but I found myself doing this even with books that have little photographs inside.

Today I had Isa Chandra Moskowitz' Appetite for Reduction with me, and on my one hour commute to work and back I read the whole book from front to back. Reading cookbooks always leaves me hungry, and inspired, too.
While today's recipe was inspired by Appetite for Reduction, there is no particular recipe that I adapted from it. Rather I was inspired to use less oil in my cooking than I usually do, and I was surprised that it actually really worked well.
Cooking eggplant usually involves lots of oil, it can soak it all up with no problem. And preparing tofu usually involved more oil than I wanted to admit, too. Not anymore, I was really happy how this all turned out and how the resulting salad was that much lighter and fresher than it would have been otherwise.

The leftovers are going to come to work with me tomorrow, just take it out of the fridge at least an hour before you plan on eating it, grain salads are much better at room temperature than cold, IMHO.

Mediterranean Quinoa Patties

On a good day, I am bursting with new ideas. Creative. Eager to start. On a bad day, I am frazzled, unfocused, restless. I never finish anything.
On a good day, I am relaxed, content where I am, with realistic expectations. On a bad day, I am lazy, unambitious, with low expectations to life. I settle for less.
On a good day, I like to help. I respect other people's feelings. On a bad day, I am a people pleaser, not respecting my own feelings.

My strengths are my weaknesses, a truth that is revealed to me on a daily basis. As the perception of my self shifts from "I have this great idea, I'm off" to "Lena, just try to stick with something for once" within the course of one day, or even a few hours, I cant help but notice that these two traits go hand in hand, that they are, in fact the same.
In good moments I can see those traits for what they are, my strengths, they make me me.
It is in the other moments, the less than fantastic moments, that I see them as my weaknesses.
I have been trying to see them as a whole lately, for what they are, good and bad, weak and strong combined into my being.

For these quinoa patties I only combined good things, though. If you think of olives and smokey cheese and dried tomatoes as good things, that is. I like to make lighter and easier lunches these days, and these quinoa patties fit the bill perfectly. Combined with a salad of asian greens, as we did, or possibly a ratatouille of sorts they satisfied my cravings for crunchy and salty but still healthy.

Vegetarian Paella

Lately I felt that I don't share enough of me here on my blog. I am rather shy and a people pleaser in real life, and I guess that is the way I wrote here, too. I am always reluctant to be open and to share my feelings and let people into my life because it makes me vulnerable.
This is life, I know it. Being vulnerable is a good thing. Only when we are open to hurt can we really feel joy, experience deep connections with the important people in our life, and express ourselves freely.
Today I want to share 10 things about me that you (probably) did not know about me.

1. I have said it above: I am a people pleaser, and I don't really like that about myself. Writing it out makes me cringe, I don't want this to be my truth. But I am, and I guess to some degree I'll always be, but I want to not care so much about what other people think of me.

2. I started this blog almost 1 1/2 years ago, but for the first year I only told my boyfriend about it. I told my parents this winter/spring, and shared it on facebook. But the girl I lived with, and shared a kitchen with, never got to know about it. I just did not tell her. I guess that relates to Nr. 1 above.

3. In my free time I enjoy learning about neuropsychology. This stuff is so fascinating, I get books from our university library and read them in the train, I listen to Berkeley podcasts while I work. I read a lot when I was a kid, but at the moment I prefer reading science books to novels.

4.  I lived abroad, in Barcelona, for 5 months when I was 16 years old. Then after school I lived in Galway, Ireland for 3 months, improving my English and just generally having fun. But never in my life have I left Europe. I love to travel, but somehow I always end up in Europe. This summer we are going to Turkey, which is technically between Europe and Asia, so this is going to change soon.

5. Sometimes I am too lazy to shave my legs. I just am. Until I want to go swimming or wear a dress.

6. During school, we were supposed to run lapses every year. I actually don't know how many because I managed to skip every single year. I was the master of skipping sport exams.

7. During all my teenage years I only wore long shorts. And not bikini or bathing suit. I just did not go swimming. I was hot all summer long. But I did not care as long as I could cover up my body.

8. I cut my hair myself. I have curly hair, and I always had troubles getting the cut I wanted. Why do hairdressers always think they need to give me 6oies hair?

9. When I listen to music I mostly just listen to one song on repeat, or the whole album on repeat. It drives my boyfriend half-crazy I think. But I usually just want to listen to something in particular, and if it suits my mood, over and over again.

10.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be a boy. Girls were so complicated, with all that discussion about who can be who's friend - I never understood it. I was always a boyish girl, and still today I am not really a girly woman.

And now I want to share a recipe for paella with you. I mentioned above that I lived in Barcelona, Spain for half a year. But while I lived there I did not once have paella. My guest mother did not know how to cook, the only thing she did was fry up some meat and open a bag of pre-washed salad. We cooked paella at school with our Spanish teacher, though, and later when I returned to Spain I did go out to eat paella.

Rye Tea Sandwiches with Avocado-Wasabi Salsa and Cucumber

(I wrote this a few days ago, but did not have time to make these sandwiches before today, as I imagined last week.)
When this post is published I will already have settled into my new home, not that far away from my old, but nevertheless in a very different life. Moving in with my boyfriend has been a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. While I am really happy about getting to know him better, about being closer, about taking this leap, I know it is also going to be a challenge, and for the past few weeks we both were a bit scared, too. Scared because we don't know how this is going to turn out, if our ways of seing the world really are going to fit together.

It is difficult to acknowledge these feelings when it all is supposed to be unicorns and rainbows. But I guess that is just normal for any big change in life, they are happy events, but also scary. I know that if I'm ever going to have kids, I will feel the same. Big move. Marriage.
In the next few weeks we are going to ease into this thing, into living together. And I am looking forward to it. These are good changes, and I think I'll especially enjoy not having to carry around fresh/worn underwear all the time, while moving between his home and mine.
This weeks pick for the Food Matters Project was for Updated Tea Sandwiches, and I think this recipe comes at the perfect time, being so simple. After days of packing and now unpacking, and eating out, I wanted to ease back into the kitchen and start cooking in this new environment.

Quinoa Salad with Chimichurri Dressing

As I type this, I am sitting in my bedroom, surrounded by boxes and bags full of my stuff. I packed away most of my cookbooks, except the Food Matters Cookbook, that I still needed for today. There are still so many things to do before I move next Saturday, a bed to paint, boxes to fill, so much to clean.
Packing and moving all your stuff is revealing, only now do I realize all the things I bought in the 2 1/2 years I lived in this apartment. Books, kitchen appliances, and so much food, too. I am slowly going through all the things I bought (because I really needed them), and deciding whether I truly like all the things I have at home.
I found that I can do without Amaranth (I really didnt like it) but love quinoa. Kamut is fine, but farro is a lot better. I love chickpeas and split peas but I am not that crazy about other beans.
This is good to know, and as my last recipe, cooked in this small, less than perfect kitchen, I want to share a quinoa salad that I made.
It was inspired by this weeks pick for the Food Matters Project, Mixed Grill with Chimichurri. I decided to try out a new way of posting the recipes I post here, based more on the way I cook, only giving exact measurements when they are necessary. Please let my know your opinion on that in the comments.

Braised Chickpea Fritters and Vegetables - The Food Matters Project

 This week it is my turn to host the Food Matters Project. It took me quite a while to choose a recipe for everyone to cook. It was the mix of legumes, vegetables and ethiopian spices that made me decide on this recipe for chickpea fritters and vegetables.

When I reread the recipe this week, it seemed a bit strange to me not to cook the chickpeas. I have done that before with lentils, and found that some did become soft but others not, so I decided to not follow the directions Bittman gives and cooked the beans until they were soft.

For the rest I tried to follow the recipe as closely as possible, but decided to bake the fritters in the oven instead of deep frying. Baking them worked well, but they ended up being a bit crumbly. It wasnt a problem in this recipe, but if you wanted to use them in a pita bread, this might not be the recipe to use. And I also used a mix of chickpeas and white beans, because I did not have enough chickpeas in the house (and want to buy more only after moving).
I really like how this recipe turned out, and I'd say without the deep-frying, it is not as labour-intesive as Bittman mentions in the recipe notes. And I hope you liked it, too. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else came up with. 

Lentil and Greens Taco with Avocado Cucumber Salsa

When I was a kid I loved to read. I'd lie in my bed all morning and read. I really loved to read, it gave me an opportunity to live in another world. What I remember particularly well is the time when I read Harry Potter. At that time the books were still rather unknown (at least in Switzerland), and I'd have to wait at least another year until the next book came out. I think I devoured the first book when I was 10 years old, and on my 11th birthday I really wished to get a letter from Hogwarts. I mean, I knew that it was just a story, but I still was a bit disappointed when it did not arrive. You see, on one hand I really wanted to leave my class at school, I had no friends there, but also I wanted to be told I was special.
This need to feel special, it never served me well. I started many things, playing the violin, singing, volleyball, dancing, etc, just to find that thing I'm talented at. I thought I'd just find something I'd be good at naturally. I thought I would not have to work for it.
Still today, I really struggle to continue doing something I'm not good at from the start. And I came to realize that if I ever have kids, I'll never talk about talent in front of them. Talent alone doesn't get you anywhere. It's the work you put into it that counts.
One thing that I am trying to improve is my photography. I recently bought myself a Holga, a cheap toy camera, that makes me think long about the shot I want to make (Getting the film developed is quite expensive here).  But I need to dig deeper, practise more. If you have any tips or ressources I would love the hear them. But I also just need to get out and shoot. Just do it should be my new mantra. Just do it. (if you have any assignments for me, please give them to me)

Marx and Engels in Berlin

For this weeks Food Matters project installment, I made something simple. Since I did not change much, I'll just link to the recipe at the end of the post. I followed the basic recipe, but substituted lentil du puy for the black beans and used salad greens instead of kale because that is what I had on hand. I served it in taco shells with a simple avocado cucumber salsa, made with a little onion, avocado, about the same amount cucumber, a few sliced radishes, salt and lemon juice. The original recipe can be found over at good things grow: Beans 'n Greens Burritos. Check out what the other participants came up with this week over here.

Apple Rhubarb Chutney with Halloumi

Today's adaptation for the Food Matters Project came to me after I was pondering what to use instead of the fish for quite some time, before I decided to go the Indian route. And then paneer was the first thing that came to my mind. I had to make do with halloumi, a cheese similar to paneer but quite a bit saltier. If you can get your hands on paneer or have time to make your own, please use it here.
The chutney I made to accompany the slices of pan-fried halloumi surprised me with quite a few layers of flavour and texture. The raw rhubarb stays crunchy and constrast nicely with the soft, cooked apple. The little sugar I added just cut down the sourness of the rhubarb without making the chutney to sweet. While I looked for inspiration for a chutney recipe I found this quote in Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons: To me, the beauty of chutney is that something delicious is created from something old and unwanted.
And in this spirit I decided to use apple in my adaptation, because making something delicious from something old is a great feeling.

Warm Moroccan Spiced Broccoli Orzo Salad

I did not actually plan on posting today's lunch until I tried my first bite. I am at home, writing an outline for my bachelor thesis, sanding the sides of my bed to later paint them and preparing for tomorrows classes. I only planned on making a quick lunch, using what I have.
A look in the fridge told me that I really needed to use this broccoli that I got in my csa last week (or was it the week before that? I really don't know). A quick search on 101cookbooks provided me with an idea for the broccoli: Broccoli Orzo salad. I mostly follow the recipe when it came to the main ingredients but decided to add some Moroccan spices. Or what I think are Moroccan spices, I really am not an expert on Moroccan cooking. Harissa, a little cinnamon and some preserved lemon and I am in heaven.
I have to keep this short, should be back to work by now.

Ethiopian Spiced Salsa

All through making these (which is not too long, but still) I told myself: "Lena, what ARE you doing here??" But I just got an Ethiopian cookbook (it is the zine by Kittee Burns: Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food, and it is just great) and really all I can think of is berbere and lentils and injera. And while I dont have the time right now to cook up an Ethiopian feast, I still want to incorporate these spices into my cooking.

This is how I ended up adding berbere to this salsa as I went and then ate it with slices of avocado spread on sourdough bread. And it was really a great lunch, spicy but not really hot with lots of flavor. I usually don't make salsa, but it was great giving it a try for this weeks Food Matters project recipe. And I might just come back to using this concept whenever I have different vegetables around and need a quick but nurishing lunch.

Lemony Asparagus and Spinach Crepes

This is a quick post for a rather quick meal. I found myself in a bit of a hurry the last week or two. Or rather, I put myself int a bit of stress by not doing much during the first part of semester. Duh! I really should know by now, this is not my first semester. But every time I do the same, relaxing and enjoying my free time in the first part and then stressing about getting everything done on time.
 Thats when I crave simple food, simple but still delicious. Because I really need to step away from cooking all day in this time of the semester. Simple might mean different things to you, but making these crepes and filling them with simple ingredients was just the thing I needed. This is not the quickest meal around, but they were easy enough to make and reconnected me with something real.

Potato, Chickpea and Asparagus Salad

I never considered myself to be a creative person. Creative were the others. The painters, the musicians, the crafters. The people who knew what they were doing. Who can take a pencil into their hands and just start drawing and produce a wonderful drawing. The people who constantly took beautiful pictures with their cameras. I always looked at their work and said to myself: Oh well, your just not the creative type. They just have talent.

Only recently I realized that creativity is not the same as talent (and talent is a concept I try to distance myself from) and expertise. Being creative is the process, not the outcome. No matter how the end result turns out, the mere act of creating something makes us creative people. And John Cleese shares this view, that creativity is not an ability but a process. If you happen to have time, please watch this video. It is really worth your time.

And it really is good to know that we all are creative beings.

It is in cooking that I often feel my creativity the most. I usually sit and read and write and type the whole day or spend it with friends or maybe on the bike, but don't spend it creating stuff. Creating something in the kitchen is when I feel really connected, to the food I make but also to life in general. Cooking is really grounding to me.

For this weeks recipe in the Food Matters Project, I really planned on making a soup, maybe adding a bit more garlic, pureeing the bean part and leaving the asparagus whole. But then summer came, it is really pleasant outside, I wear a dress, drink beer and just can't imagine eating hot soup right now. And turning it into a cold soup did not sound too great. So here I am today, with a version of the dish that is more suited to the temperatures right now.

Pad Thai Salad

We all have those stories that our parents like to tell about us. You have to know those, they are told to people entering the family, like boyfriends, the new husband of the aunt, or maybe a new friend, too. One thing about me that my mother loves to share is my early love for travelling.
Apparently, when I was 2 (or 3, I have heard it many times but still don't remember), I went to my grandmother on "holidays", and unlike other children who get homesick and want to see their mothers, I loved being there, and when it was time to go home, I am said to have called my parents (with help, obviously) and asked whether I could stay longer.

What can I say, it is still the same today. I am always planning the next trip, and more than that, probably also smaller trips in between and the next bigger trip is being discussed. Despite all this, I have never travelled outside of Europe so far. There were many plans to do so, but somehow France, Ireland or Spain made it to the top of the list. Maybe next year I'll make it to another continent for the first time.

I have found that this also influences my cooking, or rather my confidence in labeling a certain dish "Indian" or "Vietnamese". The Indian food I had in my life was cooked in European kitchens, and was adapted to European tastes. And then come the cuisines that are not so common in Europe as in the US. I have been very careful to not cook something and then label it "Mexican", because really, the only Mexican food you can buy here are these taco kits. Nevertheless, I still feel myself in need of labelling things - Arugula, Carrot, Asparagus, Peanut Salad with Lime, Soy Sauce and Cilantro dressing just does not sound too great. So let's call this a Pad Thai Salad, even though I know this is not the real thing.

Garlic and Herb Pull Apart Bread

I noticed a while ago that even though I called this blog Mrs. Garlic Head, I don't really have any recipes on here that reflect my love for garlic. What a shame! I have been toying with the idea of making a garlic pull apart bread after I saw the cinnamon pull apart bread on Joy the Baker. The idea is genius, and so much fun. This weeks recipe for the food matters project gave me just the motivation to give it a go that I needed.

And it turned out really well. It was fun to make and fun to eat, the only thing I would change next time was to make it for company, not just myself. And I think I want to share some garlicky recipes with you, in the near future. I really need to live up to my name.

Tartines with Asparagus, Fennel Confit and Sheep Milk Yogurt

You may have seen from my last post, that I was away for a few days.(I only just saw that I did not actually post the post I am talking about here, it is up now: 5 things i love right now) My boyfriend and I spent the last 5 days in Berlin, eating our way through all the amazing restaurants they have there. I think I'll share some photos and stories later on, but I just got home, wanted to make this weeks recipe for the food matters project and share this here with you. I am back, and happy to be cooking again. After 5 days of eating out I really started to get a bit detached from myself.

 
These tartines were inspired by Heidi from 101cookbooks. I love pizza and it is probably the only recipe that I make quite often, but right now I really did not fancy making pizza.
So when I saw Heidi's recipe for her asparagus tartines, I knew I wanted to make something similar as soon as I get home. This is what I came up with