Buckwheat risotto with mushrooms

Another one of my (and Sophie's) staples. Best made in autumn when there's a wide range of different mushrooms available but it works just as well in spring when one is limited to brown caps and oyster mushrooms.

It isn't really a risotto as neither rice nor endless stirring and slow bit-by-bit adding of stock and wine are involved. However, the taste and consistency are very reminiscent of risotto so it seems a good name. But, as Sophie says, if you really disagree, you can always give it a new title.

No matter what you call it, it IS fantastic. Mushy, but still a bit chewy, the buckwheat and the mushrooms make for a hearty and healthy base while the white a little note of sophistication from the white wine. Perfect combination of elegance, gourmet, and nursery food. Yum. I could eat this by the bucket. 

Jasmine rhubarb compote

God, I've been so productive these last few days. For the past three weeks I didn't feel anything like spending much time in the kitchen (yeah, it happens...) and then suddenly I'm cooking and baking recipe after recipe after recipe. Weird.

Maybe it's also a bit of a distraction thing. A project I'm involved in at work is one and a half week from its deadline which leaves me with a constantly high stress level even when I'm not actually working. So much left to be done, so many things to be checked and checked and checked again, people to be called, lists to be written, mails to be sent. And somehow I always feel responsible for everything even though I am not. I know I do my best work when I get into this constantly high stress level mood, on the other hand it's exhausting and not really good for me.

 

Cooking and knitting and watching films (Disney's Tangled is my new obsession) helps me unwind at least a little bit. Eating's good, too. And nothing better than a nice tartly sweet rhubarb compote. 

Although I love rhubarb compote the simple way my grandma used to make it (just sugar, rhubarb and water), I decided to mix things up a little bit. Substitute Jasmine green tea for the water and add some nice spices. Oh, the difference that makes!

Roasted tomato soup

Phew. It's been quite some time since my last post. Sorry. Work, Easter and the beginning of summer term have been keeping me quite busy.

But now for the new stuff. Actually, it isn't new stuff but very old: Roasted tomato soup. One of my staple recipes. 

 (No, that's not soup. I know.)

Vanilla Chocolate Chip Biscotti

No, I haven't started making loads of sweet, sugary, chocolate-y stuff again. I promise. I'm still eating very healthy and am still running every second day. Yay me!

This is a recipe I made some 4 or 6 weeks ago, I just haven't gotten round to writing anything about it before now...

Monsters

So. Daylight Saving Time. It's been two days and, surprisingly, it doesn't feel that bad this year. I don't have any problems getting up at my normal time (i.e. an hour earlier) and am extremly pleased to have one more hour of daylight in the evening.

I am, however, feeling a little drowsy, but that's propably just due to the spring fever I suffer from every year.

Chocolate Spice Cake

Remember when I talked about the start of spring and healthy food, and the end of heavy buttery, sugary stuff a few weeks ago? 

I've been eating quite healthy for the last few weeks. Salad, rice, veggies, olive oil instead of butter. But somewhere in the middle of it, I had a relapse. Major relapse. And it came in the shape of a moist chocolate spice cake. Moist + chocolate + spices + cake. Honestly, who'd be able to resist? Not me, obviously.

 

Sweet potato fries/chips and a curry dip

 I have a very soft spot for chips (or fries or french fries or whatever you may want to call them), and I could happily eat them on a regular basis if only they weren't so unhealthy and fattening...
The solution: homemade, oven-baked sweet potato chips! Looks like fast food, tastes like fast food but is neither fast nor unhealthy. Isn't that something!

 

Everyone's Irish On March 17th

Beannachtaí Na Féile Pádraig or Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

For those of you who've been living completely behind the times for the last centuries and don't know what March 17th is all about: We are celebrating St. Patrick's Day. The day of the Irish patron saint St. Patrick who brought christianity to Ireland a bit more than one and a half millennium ago. It is said that he banished all the snakes from Ireland (thanks, Paddy, I appreciate that!) and explained the concept of the Holy trinity to the Irish by means of a shamrock which has developed into an ubiquitous feature of St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

Rice salad with prawns, avocado and cucumber

Every once in while, after a long day out, I come home hungry and there's only time and energy for something easy, something simple, something sleazy, something inching past the edge of the reserve. Now through lines of the cheap venetian blinds... I might have digressed into an OK Go song. Back to the food. I didn't mean something sleazy, of course. And nothing to do with venetian blinds, either. But something easy and simple that doesn't take hours to prepare. For example this nice, spring-summery rice salad.

March photo-a-day 14: Fruit

Candied papaya. Yum!