food blogger - Choice of Magic

Easy and Crispy Peach Crostata

August 26, 2024

Summer´s almost over and so I thought it’s about time I share this super easy peach crostata recipe on here. It’s been my go to summer dessert every time we were invited to a dinner party or I felt like just making us something sweet at home. It’s also particularly easy to make especially if you like me buy your dough from the supermarket, and I promise you everyone will love it. And while the MO reminds me a bit of this super easy elderberry pie recipe I posted a few years back, this one is even easier to make! So here we go!

International Dinner Food Lunch

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Cannellini Beans

January 29, 2024

This creamy cauliflower and Cannellini (white) beans soup has bran on repeat in our home this winter, and I swear that it’s not just because of how easy it is to make (yes, I used canned beans, guilty as charged). I think I love it so much because beyond the delicious taste, it is also super nutritious – high in fibre and a great protein source due to the beans and high in vitamins C and K due to the cauliflower. This soup is basically the perfect comfort food for a cold winter day, or for a sunny day when you need to prepare something super quickly. I’ve iterated upon recipes I came across online until reaching this one, so without further ado – here goes.

Italian Dinner Food Uncategorized

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.

Vegetarian Seafood Portuguese 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.

Vegetarian Indian Dinner Food

Improvised Curry with Leftovers

February 8, 2021

I suspect curry is one of my top 10 favourite dishes. And while I´ve never actually followed an official recipe, I believe I make a pretty mean one. You´ll quite possibly identify some missing or extra ingredients, but I personally love the taste and find my way to be the easiest way to make a delicious curry with pretty much anything you have at hand. This time, I had some cauliflower, shiitake mushrooms and a zucchini. Add to that a can of chickpeas that I always have in the house, some dehydrated figs and cashews and you´ve got yourself a kick-ass curry. But really, the point is you can put anything you like in there – sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach, let your imagination run wild. So keep reading through this #homemadeMonday and let it inspire you to improvise your own curry.

International Vegan Dinner Food

Spicy Carrot Almond Soup

January 18, 2021

Coming from a country with winters as cold as Romania, I find soups an incremental part of one´s nutrition. In fact, we would rarely not have a soup before the main dish in my house. That changed slightly as I moved away, but I still find soups super comforting. Nowadays, in Portugal we´ve been eating a lot of carrots in our house – I have a hunch it´s because carrots are Yoshi´s favourite healthy snacks. Add almonds and maybe some chilli peppers to the equation and you have yourself a perfect creamy carrot soup for these cold winter days. So here goes this #homemadeMonday – a simple spicy carrot almond soup for cold winter days.

International Christmas Dessert Food

André´s Festive Carrot Cake

December 28, 2020

This #homemadeMonday should come just in time for you to get inspired for a NYE dessert. I´ve been holding off on publishing André´s carrot cake recipe for over a year – a year of iterations and testing, and gaining weight slice by slice. But it´s now finally here, for this #guestchefseries and it will blow your socks off. To quote Nonna “I absolutely adored it, it is perhaps the best cake I have ever eaten”. So put on your aprons, and let´s cook the best cake ever to end what was to many, the crappiest year ever.

International Dessert Food

Oreo, Chocolate Ganache and Raspberry Tart

November 30, 2020

For someone that doesn´t bake, or prepare many sweets herself, it might seem like I chose a quite complicate one this time. The word ganache alone makes it sound like I´m aspiring to be the next Julia Child. But fear not, this recipe is fairly easy to nail, even for the most inexperienced bakers out there (possibly because it does not involve baking). I first learned about it from my friend Violeta (yes, the same Violeta with the udon noodle soup) and I thought that with the holidays coming up, you might love it as much as I did. So, prepare for the most decadent #homemadeMonday yet, an Oreo base, chocolate ganache and raspberry tart. With a delicious Lindt chocolate addendum.

Italian Food Lunch

Penne with Ricotta, Spinach and Cherry Tomatoes

November 23, 2020

This #homemadeMonday brings you a rather unusual pasta dish for me, in the sense that I am not a big fan of two out of its main three ingredients, but if you mix them all together I love it. The two culprits are spinach and ricotta. I personally find ricotta an embarrassment to all other cheeses and the only green I hate more than spinach must be arugula. And yet… mixing them together, along with some cherry tomatoes, roasted pine nuts and truffle oil, and adding them to the right pasta sort, it just works! It´s perhaps one of the simplest recipes I´ve shared here, but has an outstanding outcome.

Asian Dinner Food

Violeta´s Coconut and Curry Udon Noodle Soup

November 16, 2020

This month´s #guestchefseries is brought by you by my wonderful and immensely talented DJ friend, Violeta. Vio is visiting from Berlin for a couple of days and next to bringing me my favourite German tea, she brought with her lots of good music and delicious recipe ideas. This #homemadeMonday I´ll tell you all about her coconut and curry udon soup. I feel it´s a great addition to the blog as my soups are usually quite basic and this one feels super exotic! And while I basically just watched her cook, while I was sipping on my wine, I can´t wait to try to make it myself and fill our house with the smell of coconut milk and curry!

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