Food – Choice of Magic

Spicy Asian Egg Noodle Soup

May 17, 2021

If you´ve been paying attention on my Instagram this weekend, you surely saw the world´s most beautiful mushrooms – pleurotus djamor. I found them at the farmer´s market on Saturday and was drawn to them like to a beautiful pair of shoes or book. The farmer selling them admitted they didn´t taste any differently than regular pleurotus mushrooms and I suspect they were more expensive (I chose not to check haha), but they looked so beautiful on my plate I regret nothing. I pondered a lot what to do with them and ended up giving an Asia egg noodle soup a try. It ended up pretty yummy, and this #homemadeMonday you´ll be getting the recipe of how I´d do it even yummier. So keep reading.

International Breakfast Brunch Food

Pesto, Prosciutto, Egg and Mango Chutney Breakfast Toast

May 10, 2021

I feel like it´s been a while since I posted a breakfast or brunch recipe and even though this one is 90% shamelessly copied from @povesti.aromate (find theirs here), I made some changes (taking out the brie, bringing in some cherry tomatoes and topping it off with a spicy mango chutney). So I thought to leave you this #homemadeMonday recipe here to inspire some awesome breakfasts and brunches this week.

Italian Vegetarian Vegan Food

Penne Alla Traviata (They´re Actually Our Version of Arrabbiata)

May 3, 2021

You know those recipes you return to over and over again? This is one of those. I initially started making penne all´arrabbiata after Jamie Oliver´s recipe, but as per usual we started adapting it to our liking. An Italian might even be outraged to hear we added corn to it! But after regularly making this again and again, on a weekly basis, and it becoming André´s favourite dish, I thought it was time to share it on a #homemadeMonday. Hubby insisted I call it penne alla traviata, instead of all´arrabbiata, as the original Roman dish goes. So here you go. You ca thank me later.

Portuguese Seafood Dinner Food

Grandma´s Açorda de Camarão (Shrimp Açorda)

April 26, 2021

For the final #homemadeMonday of #seafoodApril – I present to you hubby´s grandma´s açorda de camarão – a typical Portuguese dish based on soaked bread with garlic, olive oil and much more. We reproduced André´s grandma´s way of making it and it did not only come out delicious, but also extremely pretty in aspect, as you can hopefully tell from the pictures. So without further ado, here´s a different type of #guestchefseries – one in which grandma, the guest chef, safely offered her guidance through the phone instead of in person. We´re eagerly waiting to eat grandma´s açorda with her, over a nice glass of wine and old family pics. But in the meantime, I´m sharing this with all of you.

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.

Older Posts