summer home

currently lounging away in my summer home and thought i'd share a couple of impressions with you. ready for you tomorrow: raw cucumber noodles. healthy and yum. happy summer (although the weather suggests otherwise, ahem). 

brownie cookies

once in a while, a good home made cookie beats store-bought ones. although, i admit there are some unconditional favorites to stock up with from the supermarket. top of the cookie list: oreos. or the traditional shortbread. oh, and bärentatzen.

now, bärentatzen you probably do not know. they are only available at our local retailer migros here in switzerland. but they basically shaped my childhood. i think my mom probably believed that bärentatzen aren't evil, at all, despite our general reluctance towards all things processed. we believed that they're somehow above all other sweets. so those cookies were basically the only storebought or processed food i can remember in our home that was not only tolerated but loved. a staple, almost. 

a while back, i was hit by a strong craving for those bärentatzen. unfortunatley, no migros around (and open). instead, i found a recipe for brownie biscuits in the lily vanilli 'sweet tooth' baking book. they looked similar enough to please my appetite. 

brownie cookies

recipe adapted from lily vanilli's sweet tooth

rezept in deutsch auf si style

ingredients:

160g plain flour, sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of sea salt

30 g unsalted butter, room temperature, cubed

300 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

4 eggs

175 g sugar

20 g vanilla sugar

one baking tray, lined with parchment

directions:

in a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. melt the butter and chocolate together in a pan on very low heat. remove from the heat as soon as everything is melted and stir to bring it together. set aside and allow to cool a little. beat the eggs and the sugars together for two to three minutes, until pale and slightly thickened. fold in the chocolate mix, then stir in the flour mix. refrigerate for about one hour.

preheat the oven to 180° c. remove cookie dough from the fridge. scoop up dessert spoon-sized (or, in my case, ice cream spoon sized) chunks of dough, round them with your hands and press them onto the prepared baking tray, leaving a 5cm gap between them. you will most likely need to bake them in three batches. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes until they come off the tray easily. leave them on the tray for five minutes, then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

summer panzanella - italian bread salad with tomato & stone fruit

i'm just back from a really pretty (civil) wedding (church taking place tomorrow, yay). summers are for getting married. the winters after will be tough and wedding deprived, haha.

speaking of summer, though. this summery panzanella brings the (inexistant) summer holidays straight to your home. all you have to do is… well, read below, will you?

and another tiny piece of news: i landed this really cool job at my favorite swiss lifestyle magazine - si style. i'm writing a bi-weekly column for them, with recipes in german. fridays will be vegi fridays, tuesdays devoted to dessert. because we're sweet, hehe. so, this is to my german readers: 

an alle meine deutschsprachigen leser!

endlich gibt es fork and flower auch in deutsch! 

und zwar 2x wöchentlich auf si style. 

summer panzanella - italian bread salad with tomato & stone fruit

serves 4

(deutsche versionen hier)

ingredients:

1 crusty bread, in bite sized pieces

2 large cuore di bue tomatoes, red and yellow, in pieces

1 handful colorful cherry tomatoes, halved

1 ripe nectarine, halved, pitted, sliced

1 ripe peach, halved, pitted, sliced

4 sweet apricots, pitted, in fourth

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

8 basil leaes, julienned

8 mint leaves, julienned

1 organic lemon, zest and juice

6 tbsp. olive oil

2 tbsp. butter

maldon sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

directions:

the important thing about panzanella is that they have to be fried to be crispy, but then, they have to soak up the dressing and the juices of the tomatoes etc, in order to get mushy again. in one word: divine! 

firstly, prepare the bread pieces. heat the butter and half of the olive oil in a large frying pan. fry the bread on medium heat until crispy and brown. remove from the pan and place on a platter. in the still hot pan, fry the garlic for a minute. add to the bread. add all the tomatoes and stone fruit to the bread pieces. make a dressing with the remaining olive oil, lemon zest and juice, salt and pepper. combine everything with the vegs, fruit and bread. garnish with the mint and basil. serve. buon appetito!

stuffed artichokes on peas with dill

recently, friends of mine held a family birthday bash at my place. since my friends were about to get married in the south of france, i thought why not make it a french - or provence, rather, more specifically - inspired night? so this is supper no. 10:

supper no. 10

été provençal

rhubarb coolers

***

fougasse with za'atar & rosemary

home made black olives tapenade spread

***

stuffed artichokes on peas with dill

***

filet de boeuf on garlic mash

with coco beans, caramelized shallots & crispy garlic

***

french bleus & other fromages

baguette

***

tarte tropézienne

home made éclairs with nutella crème patissière

as revealed before*, i've lost a number of pictures. don't make me cry again! let's move on to other things, instead. not that many pictures left from the night, but in my memory, it's still one of the best nights in my home (even though i was the host, and not partaking). 

the recipe for the stuffed artichokes - that's, without a doubt, one of my favorite new recipes - can be found on the guardian. as always, it's a yotam ottolenghi's recipe. so there isn't much (if anything, at all, really) to tweak. it's copy / paste time, baby!

stuffed artichokes on peas with dill

recipe from yotam ottolenghi for the guardian

ingredients:

note: you can also make these with frozen artichoke bottoms, which you can get in some middle eastern grocers. serves four.

400 g (net weight) trimmed leeks, cut into 0.5cm slices

250 g minced beef

1 free-range egg

1 tsp ground allspice (pimento)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp dried mint

12 medium artichokes (or frozen artichoke bottoms)

80 ml olive oil

4 tbsp plain flour

500 ml vegetable or chicken stock 

90 ml lemon juice, plus extra, if using fresh artichokes

200 g frozen peas

10 g dill, roughly chopped

Salt and black pepper

directions:

Blanch the leeks for five minutes, drain, refresh and squeeze out the water. Roughly chop the leeks and place in a bowl along with the meat, egg, spices, mint, a teaspoon of salt and plenty of pepper. Stir well.

If using fresh artichokes, have to hand a bowl with water and lemon juice. Remove the stems from the artichokes and cut across the flower so you're left with only the bottom quarter. Using a small sharp knife or vegetable peeler, remove the outer layers of the artichoke until the base, or bottom, is exposed. Scrape out the hairy "choke" and put the base in the acidulated water.

Heat two tablespoons of oil in a saucepan large enough to hold all the artichokes lying flat. Fill each artichoke base with a tablespoon or two of the beef mixture, pressing it in. Gently toss the stuffed artichokes in flour and fry for 90 seconds a side (you may prefer to do this in batches). Wipe the pan clean and return all the artichokes to the pan, sitting them flat and snugly side by side. Mix the stock, lemon juice and remaining oil, season generously, and ladle over the artichokes until they are almost, but not completely, submerged; you may not need all the liquid. Place baking parchment over the top, cover with a lid and simmer on low heat for one hour. When ready, just about four tablespoons of liquid should remain - if not, remove the lid and paper, and reduce the sauce. Set aside until the artichokes are just warm or at room temperature.

When ready to serve, blanch the peas for two minutes, drain and add to the pan, along with the dill. Season to taste and stir gently to mix.

* you know how there was the broken plates day? big drama. nervous break-down inclusive. now, that's almost (…) similar, the lost pictures days. it goes down in history as a black day, anyway.