Asparagus Soup & Avocado with Pistachio Oil #FrenchFridayswithDorie

Friday, May 31, 2013


Green is the colour for this week's French Friday with Dorie post, my first since January!

Avocados with Pistachio oil was this week's "assigned" recipe but it is hardly a recipe as Dorie says in her book. Nevertheless the advice passed on to her by Mme Leblanc, and now given, generously, to us, to eat a fresh avocado drizzled with pistachio oil, is priceless. Ripe avocado are virtually tasteless. Their stiff unripe bitterness is lost and in its place you get a smooth buttery texture with no particular taste except maybe for a hint of grassy greenness. That is why avocado has been the perfect substitute for dairy fat and it is now widely used by those who follow the Paleo Diet or are lactose intolerant. Its green neutrality is the perfect canvas upon which you can create an extraordinary flavour experience. I know because I have used it several times to make recipes like this and this one....

....and this is as much as I can say about today's "recipe" because I was not able to find pistachio oil to drizzle all over my not-so-ripe avocado!! I found almond oil, walnut oil even hazelnut oil in a new boutique grocery store that opened in Zagreb while I was away (it is called The Pantry Deli Zagreb and it has all sorts of fancy goodies from France, Spain and the UK and I just know that I will be spending a lot of ... money  hm, hm, time there) but it didn't feel right to go astray on this one. It is not a recipe where you can replace a scallion with an onion and expect no change in the overall taste. It is a suggestion, something you have to experience as given in order to be able to access it, no substitutions are allowed. So I gave up and moved on. I later found out that you can make pistachio oil at home and I will give it a try, believe me, not only because my palette is quite intrigued to experience this perfect combination but also because by that time the avocado I bought yesterday will be perfectly ripe - I swear to God it takes about 2 weeks to get these things ripe enough to be able to use them!!! You can check out what my dear friends and fellow Doristas had to say about their Pistachio Oil - Avocado pairing experience here.


Now on to a recipe which I have actually tried. The Green Asparagus Soup. Would it sound silly if I say that this was the best Spring comfort food ever? I mean do we even need comfort food in spring? Everything is blooming and coming back to life, the juices are flowing again and the bees are buzzing romantically and the sun is shinning.  Only it is not! Since I came back from Athens, I've seen the sun once or twice . Yesterday was a lovely day, bright and filled with the sweet aromas of freshly picked strawberries (-strawberry jam with a twist is coming your way pretty soon - ). But today, oh today I woke to the sound of rain lashing at our window blinds and a grey miserable morning.

Not surprisingly I was in a very fowl mood when I started cooking this soup and for a moment there, it was going to end up like this epic disaster, but you know what? It didn't! Thank you Dorie for the clear and brain-fog proof instructions: blanch, cool, mix in some leeks and onion, boil, blend, easy peasy!


The result was delicious and it comforted me all right...First it brought a stop to the protest an unrelenting heartburn was staging in my stomach for the past couple of days. And then it comforted my soul. It reminded me that asparagus are Spring after all. As I was ladling it into the bowls and got ready to photograph them, I felt it! This dish screams Spring; hell it smells like Spring and its almost fluorescent greenness made up for the lack of natural sun light for my photo shoot!!

French Fridays with Dorie (FFwD) is an online cooking group where we cook recipes from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook "Around my French Table". We do not publish the recipes on our blogs. You can buy your copy of the book from The Book Depository for free worldwide delivery. For more information about our group and on how to join us click here

Chocolate Covered Almond & Coconut Cookies

Monday, May 27, 2013


You would think that my first post after such a long absence would be a tiny bit grander than chocolate cookies but let me tell you being away from my kitchen for as long as I have, has taken a toll on me as well as... my kitchen! 

Since I left for Athens, back in November, George has been using our kitchen to cook his meals. He is hardly a Master Chef but he can cook more or less your basic pasta, rice and meat dishes. In hindsight this was both a blessing and a curse... for me, that is, because for him it is definitely a blessing. I mean how many married men with full time jobs do you know who are comfortable enough in the kitchen to  be able to ask you over Skype "where do you keep the crock-pot because I'm in a mood for a pot roast this weekend" and don't end up in the ER with 3rd degree burns or food poisoning!!! So yes, I was able to leave him - almost guilt free - to his own devises, but now that I am back I have to work really hard to "reclaim" my kitchen from Chef George's "Reign of Change" !!

Everything and I mean everything has been completely rearranged, moved around and messed up. Ooops, sorry, I wanted to write mixed up but I cannot hide the truth! It has taken me 3 full days to clean and put everything back in order! But I am not complaining. Far from it! I am grateful that he has managed so well on his own for such a long time.  
My eagerness to get back to baking and blogging was such that the moment my kitchen started to resemble its old self I  wanted to bake something to celebrate my return home! I wanted something simple and these easy to make/ easier to eat chocolate bites fit the bill perfectly! They are gluten and dairy free but they hide it so well they got everyone who tried them fooled. I was really pleased with them and I think they are the perfect recipe for my humble comeback!
~~~~~~~~~
Chocolate Covered Almond & Coconut Cookies
Adapted from "Paleo Indulgencies" by Tammy Credicot
Servings: 50 cookies
Ingredients
150 gr almond flour
50 gr coconut flour
2 tablespoons arrowroot flour
25 gr cocoa powder
120 ml maple syrup
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
60 ml coconut oil
200 gr dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Combine almond, coconut and arrowroot flours with the cocoa powder in a large bowl. Add the maple syrup, the egg and the vanilla extract and blend well. You can use a hand mixer to do this. Pour the coconut oil slowly in and bit until everything is combined.

Place the mixture into a large piece of plastic wrap and shape it like a log with a 5cm diameter. Wrap it very tightly and put it in the freezer for about 2 - 3 hours.

Before you remove the log from the freezer make sure that you have preheated your oven to 180C/350F degrees.

Now you have to slice the log to about 0.5cm thick slices. This is not very hard as long as the log is frozen so it has to be done quite fast. If you feel that the log is getting warm put back in the freezer for 20 minutes. Place the slices on baking sheets that you have lined with parchment paper and bake them for 12 - 14 minutes until the centres are firm and the edges start to brown a bit. When they are baked remove them from the baking sheets and let them cool completely on wire racks.

Melt the chocolate either in the microwave oven or by placing the pieces in a heatproof bowl that is sitting on top of pot of simmering water. Make sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl that contains the chocolate. Chocolate is very sensitive and the heat might burn it!. Stir smoothly until the chocolate melts completely then stir in the vanilla extract.

Remove the bowl from the heat  and then dip the cool cookies into the melted chocolate. You can use two forks to do this and you can scrap off any excess along the edge of the bowl. Lay the chocolate coated cookies on the parchment lined baking sheets and put them in the fridge until the chocolate sets. This can take from 30 minutes to 1 hour or more. When the chocolate is hard enough you can take them out of the fridge and enjoy them!

I am sharing this recipe with the following Link Parties check them out!!!




Silent Sunday # 2

Sunday, May 26, 2013


Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

Sunday, May 19, 2013



Silent Sunday

Two Weeks...

Saturday, May 11, 2013

The oldest vine in the world in Maribor, Slovenia
This is not a proper blog post...

There is no tasty recipe to describe...

There are no travelling experiences to share...

There is no book review nor an ashtray to tell its story...

Just an unstoppable need to write a  few crude lines...

I have been away for far too long a time...

But in two weeks I will be finishing what I started back in November.

Two more weeks and then I will be back to my life, my home, my husband, my kitchen

and that part of myself, my Box of Stolen Socks, which I have so unfairly allowed to wither all these months.

Just two weeks. And then hopefully I could find some balance again.