Dinner – Choice of Magic

Baked Basmati Rice Puttanesca

May 29, 2023

I have mixed feelings about adapting the classical puttanesca dish to this baked basmati rice version, but truth be told it is so delicious that I think you’ll forgive me. I initially found a baked orzo puttanesca in Ottolenghi´s book Shelf, but I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could make a version of it with basmati rice instead. I left out the traditional anchovies, and changed the proportion of the ingredients around a bit, but the technique is still the same as Ottolenghi´s so feel free to check his original recipe out too. For mine, keep reading.

Christmas Portuguese Dinner Food

Portuguese Duck Rice (Arroz de Pato)

December 20, 2021

This Christmas season I wanted to bring a different Christmas dinner recipe for this international community, so I went for the Portuguese duck rice – a yummy dish of crispy rice and tender duck. Hubby and I did it for the very first time, and although it took us hours, I am quite proud of the outcome. These proportions are for a big meal of ten, but worry not if you´re a smaller group, it freezes quite well, so you can do that and enjoy it for the next couple of months. And I personally recommend you do just that, rather than cutting the ingredients, as this recipe takes about three hours to cook and if you´re gonna spend that much time on it, you might as well have duck rice for the full next year to show for it. 🙂

International Vegan Dinner Food

Baked Tomato and Bean Soup

November 30, 2021

This #homemadeMonday is for both the ones of you that don´t like tomato soup (and need a twist to the tangy tomato taste), and for the ones of you who love tomato soup (and want to try it in a different shape and form). I, for one, love the taste of tomatoes, but as I was trying to rescue some that were going bad in my fridge, I just felt that they alone would not make for a great soup. So I researched the topic a bit on Pinterest and got this idea to add white beans to the tomatoes. Long story short, I loved the result, I feel the beans were just what was missing to make the whole thing creamier and add a bit of starchy, buttery taste. And am here to share the whole thing with you.

Vegetarian Italian Dinner Food Lunch

Spaghetti with Pumpkin and Halloumi

November 10, 2021

Unlike pretty much every respectable food blogger out there, I have posted absolutely no recipe with pumpkins this entire fall. And to be completely honest, it´s because I´ve never been a big fan of eating pumpkin. I like carving it, decorating my house with it, but eating it – not so much. Well except in this new recipe I came up with recently. This one is a bomb. It´s essentially a threesome love affair between pumpkin, halloumi and sun-dried tomatoes, with a guest appearance of crushed walnuts, and of course spaghetti. Keep reading for the full thing.

Italian Fish Dinner Food Lunch

Green Avocado Risotto with Sweet Chilli Salmon

November 4, 2021

Behold the first ever risotto recipe I ever tried (cooking). Yes, you read that right – my first ever risotto was an exotic green avocado risotto. I cannot for the life of me remember where I inspired myself from for this recipe, but I swear by it, have passed it on to various people and return to it again and again. Or at least whenever I have avocados in the house. There´s nothing fancy about the salmon other than a sweet chilli marinade, and the risotto is pretty standard except for the avo touch, so please don´t be discouraged by how exotic this sounds and just give it a try. Here´s the recipe.

Vegetarian International Dinner Food Lunch

Lentil and Avocado Salad

October 25, 2021

After about a year of waiting in my pantry, the can of lentils I had stored away finally met its purpose in a delicious lentil, avocado and cress salad. It´s essentially this green salad but since I don´t like arugula, it´s with cress. On top of that I replaced the sunflower seeds with sesame seeds and topped it off with some vinaigrette sauce which I felt went wonderfully with it. Whether you prefer the above version or mine, I do hope you try one of them, they´re truly scrumptious.

Italian Dinner Food

Creamy Curry Risotto with Chicken and Apples

September 27, 2021

In our house I am a self proclaimed master of weird, yet always yummy risottos. The first one I´ve ever done was a green risotto with mashed avocado and smoked salmon and it absolutely killed. Next I ventured into more simple mushrooms risottos, then went exotic for a colourful risotto with octopus, and as the cold season came my mother in law taught me how to do a pumpkin risotto, and one of my favourite Italian restaurants near my house inspired me to make a drunken pear risotto, which is a fantastic Christmas meal idea! As for this #homemadeMonday, I thought of showing you all how to make a curry risotto with chicken breast, apples and walnuts. It´ll warm your rainy autumn days right up, trust me.

International Vegetarian Dinner Food

Zucchini and Pea Soup with a Touch of Pesto

September 20, 2021

Inspired by Ottolenghi´s courgette, pea and basil soup, this #homemadeMonday recipe is a soup just perfect for the incoming autumn (yes, I refer to it as incoming as I still spend my weekends at the beach for the time being and am in denial). While Ottolenghi´s recipe contains double the basil of mine, I added a few teaspoons of pesto to enhance the taste, a green onion to give it a punch and I topped it up with some truffle oil. Oh, and I changed the proportions quite a bit. Keep reading for my interpretation of what is possibly one of my favourite green soups of all time (in case you, reader are Portuguese – don´t worry, caldo verde is up in the top too).

Italian Vegetarian Dinner Food

Pizza with Chevre, Arugula and Peanuts

September 13, 2021

Before you tell me peanuts on a pizza sound weird, let me just stop you there. This pizza flavour is seriously one of the best ones I´ve ever tried. Nothing new about combining chevre with honey and even arugula. The innovation here comes from replacing the traditional tomato sauce on the base of the pizza with (wait for iiiiiiit) fajita sauce. Genius or idiotic, I don´t know. But I swear by it. And then the crushed peanuts on top – omg. Don´t even ask me how we came up with this combo, part of it was a fortunate accident, part just sheer madness. But it works. And you need to try it. So here goes.

International Dinner Food

Sirloin Steak with Roquefort Sauce

August 23, 2021

You´re probably looking at this picture upon reading the title of the recipe and scratching your head. You are correct, the picture does not depict a sirloin steak, instead a fine chicken breast steak, on a bed of potato purée and coated in Roquefort sauce. For this recipe we´ve been experimenting with sirloin steaks AND chicken breast and while the sirloin version is definitely the yummier one (or so says hubby), I only managed to snap a picture of the chicken one. And even that picture kind of looks like a failed Michelangelo. The recipe, however, does not fail in the least. It´s bulletproof. The purée is the creamiest you´ll ever eat, and the sauce, albeit super flavourful might just convince you Roquefort is a pretty awesome cheese after all. Curious? Keep reading.

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