Food – Choice of Magic

Portuguese Vegetarian Seafood Dinner Food

Clams à Bulhão Pato

April 19, 2021

Continuing #seafoodapril with another super simple and extremely yummy recipe – clams à bulhão pato. Named after bon vivant poet Raimundo António de Bulhão Pato, this way of cooking clams is extremely easy and no matter how complicated cooking clams might sound, you simply cannot mess it up. Important things to keep in mind for this recipe: use good quality butter and white wine, and if possible fresh coriander and lemon. Without further ado, here comes a most anticipated #homemadeMonday recipe.

Portuguese Vegetarian Seafood Dinner Food

Our Special Mussel Recipe

April 12, 2021

I´ve been thinking long and hard about what to call this recipe. You see, originally we started cooking mussels a la Vila Franca do Campo – aka the Açorean way. But as time went by, we kept tweaking the recipe and the current state of it is a bit far from its origins in method, albeit just as, or dare I say even more? – delicious. So I´m gonna call it “our special mussel recipe”, and proceed to sharing our secrets for this #homemadeMonday on what has become after your votes – #seafoodapril.

Portuguese Vegetarian Seafood Food Lunch

A Typical Portuguese Octopus Salad

April 5, 2021

Every time we buy an octopus to cook, it feels like we´re going to feast on it for a full week. And while I had no problem with eating french fries every day for a month when I was little, nowadays I get a bit bored of repeating a meal too many days in a row. So I kept some tentacles from last week´s octopus and instead of reheating them, I repurposed them for a typical Portuguese octopus salad. The octopus salad is possibly one of my favourite ways of eating octopus as it is fresh and a perfect blend of flavours drowned in olive oil. I used octopus that we had boiled and even cooked in the oven previously, so please keep that in mind if you trey to reproduce this week´s #homemadeMonday. Also, considering this is an appetiser, the picture here has about two portions of the salad in it so keep that in mind when planning.

International Vegan Food Lunch

Baked Romanesco Broccoli

March 29, 2021

Romanesco broccoli – a veggie so perfect, it will make you believe in divinity. Alright, that might be an overstatement, but seriously – have you ever seen a more perfect vegetable than this one? You can read more about this miracle broccoli here , but here are some main things you should know, before I tell you how I cooked it for this #homemadeMonday.

Middle Eastern Vegetarian Food

Easy No-Cook Tabouleh with Chickpeas, Feta and Mint

March 22, 2021

I remember the first bite André took out of the first couscous salad I ever made. I looked at him longing, and asked nervously: “So, do you like it? Shall I do it again?”. André took another bite and timidly said “Yeah… I mean you can keep doing these healthy dishes and I´ll do the ones we actually love, like fajitas and stuff”. I´m laughing now, but I was pretty upset then. And yet, I repeated the couscous and it rapidly became André´s favourite dish of mine. Growing confident, one day I thought I´d use the bulgur wheat tabouleh we´ve had in our drawer for a year and make a dish out of it. I looked for some inspiration online, and decided upon a tabouleh with chickpeas, cucumber, feta cheese and mint. I altered the recipe, as I usually do, and what came out was a delicious mediterranean-like salad that André actually liked, had it not been for the za´atar, a spice he doesn´t fancy as it turns out. So for this #homemadeMonday, I present to you a great recipe for when you want a light dish to detox after the winter holidays, or one to take to the beach with you on hot summer days.

French Dinner Food

Florent´s Delicious Tartiflette

March 15, 2021

My friend Florent is possible the biggest cheese lover you´ll ever meet. And yes, you guessed it, he is French. In the years we´ve been friends he´s taught me plenty about all kinds of French cheeses and how to best pair them with all sorts of French wine. But by far his best culinary contribution to my world was the day he made a tartiflette for the #guestchefseries. This #homemadeMonday you´ll finally get access to this most infamous dish. The tartiflette dish is from the Savoy area of the French alps and dates all the way back to the beginning of the 1700s, when it was first mentioned in a cook book. The centre element of the dish is the potato, along with the reblochon cheese. But while delicious, it´s a rather heavy dish. Which is why it´s so popular in ski resorts, where it warms people´s hearts and bellies. So if you want to go for it, make sure you have a day of laying down ahead of you, and a good white wine to pair it with.

Asian Fish Dinner Food

Baked Salmon Coated in Honey-Miso Sauce

March 8, 2021

A fancy sounding title for a recipe that is actually super easy to make and extremely fast to eat. And while miso is not available at every supermarket, once you do find a box, you´ll want to use it over and over again. This #homemadeMonday I will walk you through an ingenious way of preparing salmon, tuna or pretty much any fish really. We´ll coat it in a honey, miso, lemon and olive oil sauce and bake it in the oven along with some potato wedges. And it will take us less than 30 minutes. My secret: frozen potato wedges from a bag. Let´s go.

Middle Eastern Vegetarian Breakfast Food

My Own Green Shakshuka

March 1, 2021

For the first few years of having had shakshukas, I had not the slightest intention in changing anything about this most perfect dish. That is, until I once found myself with some leek in the fridge and had no clue what to do with it. A spark of inspiration made me wonder if I couldn´t turn it into – why not? – “a shakshuka”. A green one, to be precise. So I threw in some baby spinach, a bit too much smoked paprika and came up with my first semi-green shakshuka (the smoked paprika made it kind of brownish instead). I tested and tried the recipe a couple of times, so that I could bring it to you this #homemadeMonday in all its green glory.

American Vegetarian Dessert Food

Hollie´s Perfect Banana Bread

February 22, 2021

I know what you must be thinking – not another banana bread, hasn´t this pandemic had enough of them? I realise I´m a bit late to the game and you might not want to read yet another banana bread recipe, but I absolutely swear by my friend Hollie´s being the best one you´ll every try. Even Nonna, my adoptive grandma, who does not like bananas at all, absolutely loved it. It has just the right intensity of banana flavour and the perfect degree of softness and moisture. So let this #guestchefseries guide you through the perfect banana bread recipe.

Italian Food Lunch

Black Spaghetti with Shrimp, Garlic and Butter

February 15, 2021

Living in Portugal with easy access to great seafood really makes me realise I have no excuse for not adding more seafood recipes on here. The truth is, I let the Portuguese boyfriend do most of the seafood (and red meat, and fish) cooking and so I don´t always put those recipes on here. So this time I decide to at least photograph and film him as he made a delicious seafood pasta recipe for this week´s #homemadeMonday.

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