Istria in March....

Monday, March 31, 2014


....still remains very close to my heart. 

It was a quick visit - one and a half day - and from what it looks it is going to be the last. Time is running out and there are still many more places I need to visit before we head back to Athens in August. 

This time is was all about my favourite places. Porec and Limski Kanal, Motovun and Rovinj. And about the food. Even though it was very early in the tourist season and most restaurants hadn't opened we were thoroughly satiated with very generous portions of meat, truffles and handmade pasta at the restaurants we did find open. I will never forget the steak tartar we ate at Konoba Daniela near Veleniki. It was made right in front of us by a very experienced waiter (and very tall, now that I mention it, all the waiters were freakishly tall at that restaurant!) who mixed ten different spices and herbs with fresh raw minced beef to produce the most amazing, velvety and so intensely flavoured paste. We spread it on toasted bread and for a minute I thought that this is how food haven must feel like.  It was so good I didn't even think to take a picture before we devoured it all. 

The weather was very good to us and we enjoyed every minute of the lovely sunny days. 

We stayed in Funtana, a small village a few kilometres south of Porec, at a small B&B. I love spending time in small family-owned places like these. We were warmly welcomed with a glass of homemade medica - pronounced me-di-tsa - which is a sweet honey liqueur and had a simple but very filling Sunday morning breakfast.

As you will see from my photographs below, my obsession with Istrian doors, windows and cats is still going strong and I was very happy to use my new 45mm lens on something other than food. 

A lone window pane at an old house in Motovun

George and our friend George - walking on the cobblestoned alleys of Motovun. There is no typo in the previous sentence. Our friend's name is George!

This is why I love cats...they always find the best place to take a nap!

Old door in Motovun


  
The view from above in Motovun

Spring is starting to bloom

The intense blue of this door, enough to brake the monotony of the greying old stones, drew my eyes like a fly is drawn to a burning light. 

The beautiful light of the golden hours
The lower hills around Motovun are starting to come alive and the green is overtaking the brown. It is lonely at the top.
Motovun is not by the sea. It's way inland, a village with stone backsteets and old houses, perched on the top of a hill rising from the flat of the planes. It is a magical place but also a very solitary place. A place where you can sit for hours, contemplate life while  looking at the valley beneath you. Maybe even write a book about it. 

Rovinj on the other hand, is alive and full of people and colours and art. I haven't seen so many galleries and artists gathered in one place in the whole of Croatia as I have seen in Rovinj. In every little backstreet (and there are so many), in every small courtyard there are shops selling paintings and clothes, jewellery and pottery all made by local artists. I remember the first time I was there in June 2012, I was entranced by the animated atmosphere of the days and the vibrancy of the nights. It is a beautiful place. A place where I would love to live for the rest of my life.

The colourful streets of Rovinj. Work is slow as the tourist season has not yet opened



Different shades of blue.


On top of the hill the Church of St. Ephemia with the iconic campanile





There are those kinds of places that really speak to you in a language that only makes sense to you and nobody else. Places that pull me towards them and while I am away continue to feed me with an endless stream of pictures, memories and wishes to come back and experience them again. Rovinj and Motovun are like these places to me. I will always keep them close to my heart. 

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sunday, March 23, 2014


We've had lovely weather here in Zagreb for the past couple weeks. Sunny, warm days with a fresh spring breeze blowing gently and filling the air with white and pink petals from the flowering fruit trees and magnolias. It is beautiful.

It is going to be our 6th (!!) and final Spring here. Next year I will be writing to you from Athens where Spring is equally mesmerising. I can't wait to smell the seducing scent of the flowering lemon and pergamot trees that line the streets of the city and go for long lunches and even longer  coffee  tea and chatting sessions with my friends by the sea.

Unfortunately, I am not a huge fan of coffee. I love its smell, in fact I grew up next to a coffee grinder's and I can spend hours sniffing over cups of fresh brewed coffee, debating and analysing the intensity of the roast. But the moment the brown potion hits my stomach I get dizzy, cold sweat overcomes me and I just want to curl up in a hole and never ever drink coffee again. The only thing that can bring my old stomach some peace is a cup of milk and maybe, no definitely, cookies.

That's exactly what I was thinking before I set up to photograph these Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, recipe No.5 in Roben Ryberg's "Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book", a book full of great gluten free cookies which I've been baking and photographing since the beginning of the year. 


I baked these a few weeks ago. I am a big-time chocoholic and any cookie with chocolate is arbitrarily given priority and has to be tried first.

I remember that day. It was a Saturday morning, grey and rainy. George was in, working on some Embassy stuff but I enlisted him to help me photograph the cookies. I promised him that he could eat as many as he wanted if he was willing to stand and hold the piece of Styrofoam I use as a reflector.

It feels so strange writing about Styrofoams and reflectors! When I started this blog, I knew nothing about photographing food, what a reflector was and why you need one. Now, two years later and after many, many, many hours of reading books - Helene Dujardin's "Plate to Pixel" has been my undisputed food photography and styling bible - and countless online articles and blog posts, I can say that I have only scratched the surface. There are still so many techniques to learn and implement...


But I am digressing.

Let's talk about the cookies. Lovely chocolate chip cookies made with, as most of the recipes in "The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book", brown rice flour. If you have never baked with brown rice flour you should! It is made from whole grain brown rice, is rich in protein and vitamin B and has a mild nutty flavour.

Even though Roben advices to avoid any substitution of ingredients, I could not help myself and I used coconut oil instead of plain vegetable oil (I am now working on making the recipes sugar/fructose free, so stay tuned!). I think the coconut oil works great with this recipe, and brown rice flour in general. It adds sweetness and an elegant coconut flavour to the cookies.


~~~~~~~~~~
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from "The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book" by Roben Ryberg
Makes about 25 cookies

Ingredients
1/3 cup (65gr) coconut oil
1/2 cup (100gr) brown sugar
1 cup (125gr) brown rice flour
1/3 cup (40gr) cornstarch
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon Xanthan gum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (160gr) semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.

Lightly grease a cookie tray.

Combine the coconut oil and the sugar in a medium bowl and beat well. Add the brown rice flour and the cornstarch and beat very well for at least 5 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients and beat again. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again. Gently, stir in the chocolate chips. The dough will be soft.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough (it is quite sticky don't worry) onto your prepared tray. Wet your fingertips and press the cookies to 0.5cm/0.25inch thickness. I found that the thinner I made the cookies the crispier they became.


Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Let them cool on a wire rack before serving them.
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To see all the recipes from the "The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book" I've baked so far, click here!

Sausage - Stuffed Chicken #FrechFridayswithDorie

Monday, March 17, 2014










































Is there anything better than a juicy, tasty, roasted chicken for Sunday lunch? 

Yes! There is!

A juicy, tasty, STUFFED chicken! And some potatoes au gratin for a side!










































This my friends is not any old stuffed chicken. I made it using Dorie Greenspan's Sausage-Stuffed Cornish Hens, our French Fridays with Dorie recipe for this week. Unfortunately, I could not find Cornish Hens so I stuffed a chicken with the most amazing white sausage and herb stuffing. 

But let's talk about the bird first. I had never heard of Cornish Hens before reading this recipe. And then after I read it, I thought that they must be some ultra small and fancy game birds, like quail or pheasant, that roam the English countryside. In any case something that I would never be able to find in the humble Zagreb butcher shops. As it turns out Cornish Hens are not that fancy, wild nor elusive, and are not from Cornwall - at least not entirely!  They are just a breed of chicken. A cross between the Cornish and the Rock Hens. 

Nothing fancy here but they are, indeed, smaller, have more white meat and cook faster than your everyday chicken. 

And as I had expected I was not able to find them or anything like them in the market here. But I did not despair. I chose a nice free-range chicken from my chicken lady at the market, stuffed it and put it in the oven. 
































I tweaked Dorie's recipe quite a bit, again, to serve our dietary preferences - see gluten and lactose free. So no butter and instead of normal bread I used a few leftover pieces from the Gluten Free Spring Herb Buns I made earlier this week. And that's when I got the idea to add a lot more fresh herbs and spring onions to the stuffing. 

Herbs in the bread and herbs in the stuffing. Genius! 

The stuffing came out just amazing. Moist, rich in flavour and so very fragrant! From now on this is going to be my go-to recipe for every time I need to stuff a chicken!










































As for the Potato Gratin, it is yet another favourite from Jamie Oliver's 15 Minute Meals. Seriously tasty and so easy and quick to make! 

Have I told you how much I love this cook book? I have? Well I am going to say again... 

I just love it and I have already made all the recipes in it. Most of them are gluten free, so no extra effort is needed from my part to adapt them and are so quick to prepare. But the most important trait of these recipes and Jamie Oliver's cooking at the moment, is that they are so extremely flavourful without the need to add a lot of fat or processed food ingredients. Just use lots of fresh herbs and spices and the result will be extraordinarily powerful. 

Like these potato gratin. Made in under 15 minutes and flavoured with fresh sage, chives an onions. 
































To see how my fellow Doristas liked this recipe, or to join our little online cooking group, please click here.

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Sausage Stuffed Whole Roasted Chicken
Serves 6

Ingredients

1 whole chicken
1 onion, chopped
400gr white sausages, casings removed and chopped finely in a food processor
1/2 stale gluten free fresh herb bun or any 2 slices of other gluten free bread
1 large egg
1 cup mixed fresh herbs (dill, mint, spring onions, parsley, basil), chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine like a Viogner
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400F/200C degrees.

Heat 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a big oven going skillet or pan over medium heat. Sauté the onion for about 2 minutes. Add the sausage and cook for 5 minutes, breaking up any lumbs that might form. Remove from the heat and let it cool.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg and herbs. Season and add the bread. Mix everything very well and add the sausage from the skillet.

Wash and pat the chicken dry with some paper towels. Salt and pepper the insides of the chicken and spoon in the stuffing. Don't over-stuff the chicken. If you have any left over stuffing, sauté in a pan over medium heat for 5 - 10 minutes until the sausage is fully cooked.

Rub the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle some salt and pepper. Put in the ovenproof skillet, add a cup of water, cover with foil and put it the oven.

Roast the chicken for at least 50 minutes, checking it regularly and basting it with its juices. The chicken is ready when the juices run clear if you prick the thigh at the thicket part.

When the chicken is ready, move it to a serving dish. Put the skillet over high heat and when the juices start to bubble pour in the wine. Let is boil away until the liquid is reduced by half. Pull the pan from the heat and strain the juices. Serve the chicken with the sauce.

Potato Gratin
Recipe from "Jamie's 15-Minute Meals" by Jamie Oliver
Serves 4

Ingredients

800gr (1.7 pounds) potatoes, peeled
3 onions, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 chicken stock cube
1/2 a bunch of fresh sage
1 tablespoon chopped chives
100ml soja cream
30gr Grana Padano cheese, grated

Instructions
Slice the potatoes in the food processor, using the fine slicer tool, or with a mandolin. Put them in a medium pan with boiling water and cover them with the lid. Boil for about 10 minutes, until they cook but still hold their shape.

Slice the onion in the food processor, using the fine slicer tool. Put the in a pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, crumble in the stock and season with salt and pepper. Tear in the sage leaves and sauté until they become translucent, adding some water if needed.

When the onions are ready, tip them into a large roasting pan. Drain the potatoes well and arrange them in a flat layer over the onions. Check and adjust the seasoning. Pour in the soja cream and sprinkle the cheese over.

Put the tray under a hot grill for a few minutes until the top starts to brown.

Gluten Free Spring Herb Buns

Tuesday, March 11, 2014




It is official. We will be moving back to Athens in a few months. 

The decision was announced to us yesterday and even though we were by all means expecting it, it still made my heart and stomach stir. 

I should have gotten used to it by now. The packing, the moving, the leaving. It is, after all, exactly what I signed up for and was very much looking forward. A life of constant change and variety; travelling; never experiencing a dull moment....The life of a diplomat's wife... I sound somewhat melodramatic and I am sure this could make a great title for a novel, but my life is nothing like this. Except only in my very active imagination. Sure we get to live in various countries, and over the years we have had many interesting experiences and met so many amazing people. There is always, though, a price to pay in the end. Leaving everything and everyone behind and heading on to the new post. It was not a major problem for me a few years ago but disturbingly enough the moments I crave stability and even some boredom are starting to increase. Maybe that is why, when a friend asked me how I felt about leaving Zagreb it took me several minutes to get my answer straight. 

Because, if nothing else, Zagreb is a very solid city to live. It is small and - truth be told - a little provincial compared to other EU capitals. The winter especially can be quite a challenge as everyone seems to disappear from the streets after the sun goes down. Still, it is safe and very green and is inviting - temping you really - to grow roots and settle down. And I have to admit I might have been tempted  to do just that, and for a moment, this utterly unfeasible thought took form and lived briefly in my mind. 

But now I am back to reality.... Packing.... Leaving... 

Not just yet though. We still have a few months here and Spring is coming soon - more sun, more people, hopefully, more good memories to take back to Athens with me.


I am going to leave you for today with a recipe for light Spring Herb Buns. 

If you know me, or follow the blog, you know that I am not a huge fan of bread. I only eat bread if there is a sizeable layer of cheese, ham and mayonnaise sandwiched between two tiny slices of white bread. 


Nevertheless, George loves bread and this is a recipe I made for him late last Spring inspired by all the fresh herbs I found in the market. It is early to say that Spring has arrived and I am sure that some of you still have snow in your back yards, but the sun has been shining all weekend here and my daffodils bloomed this morning, so I cannot keep myself from thinking that the Winter greyness is going to end soon. 


As with most of the baking recipes you will find of this blog, these Spring Herb Buns are gluten free. They are packed with fresh herbs: parsley, dill, mint, oregano and spring onions. When I took them out of the oven I was so tempted to break one in half, smear it with cream cheese and just devour it there and then! And you know what? I did just that! Sometimes even I can forget that I don't like bread, especially when it is so crispy and smells like a fresh herb garden!

~~~~~~~~~
Gluten Free Spring Herb Buns
Makes two loaves or 10 buns

Ingredients
1 kg (2 pounds) gluten free flour 
7gr dry yeast 
2 teaspoons salt
300ml (1 cup) buttermilk, warm (optional - you can use warm water instead)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 1/2 cup chopped parsley, dill, mint, spring onions
1 teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of your mixer put the flour, yeast and salt and stir them until they combine. 

Pour in the warmed buttermilk (or warm water). 

Knead softly until everything is combined and a smooth and soft dough forms. You can use you the dough hook of your mixer to mix the dough but be careful not to overdo it. The dough has to be soft. If you decide to do it by hand you can dip your hands in water while kneading so that it remains soft. 

When the dough is formed add the olive oil, chopped herb, sesame seeds and oregano. Knead until all is uniformly combined. 

Cover with a towel to rest for 15 minutes. 

Oil a baking sheet (or 2 bread pans) and divide the dough in 10 buns. Put them on the baking sheet and with a warm damp towel. Keep them somewhere warm for 45 minutes. I leave them in my kitchen because it the warmest room of the house. They will double in size. 

Bake them for about 50 minutes. If you want you can put a small ovenproof dish filled with water in your oven before you put the bread inside. The vapours of the boiling water will make the your bread crispier. 

Let them cool on racks.


Gluten Free Chocolate Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

Monday, March 3, 2014



If you've been following along, you know that I'm in the middle of a series of posts, baking and photographing my way through all 125 gluten free cookie recipes from Robyn Ryberg's "The Ultimate Gluten Free Cookie Book". You can find the recipes for all the cookies I've baked so far here.

Now! 

Do you want some cookies? 

Wait, wait. Let me rephrase that! 

Do you want a bite of the most amazing, chewy, dark and white chocolate cookies that are also gluten free?

I am sure you want...and not just one. You will want - need -  to eat at least three of them until you even consider stopping. Because they are really, really good! I was surprised by how these cookies turned out! After four very good cookie recipes I've tried from Robyn Ryberg's The Ultimate Gluten Free Cookie Book this one was a revelation!

The cookies came out perfect! Chewy on the inside, crispy on the outside, rich and so full of chocolate flavour! I loved them! My dear friend Maja who tried them also loved them, hell everyone loved them and now it is your turn to love them! 

~~~~~~~~~
Chocolate Cookies with White Chocolate Chips
Adapted from The Ultimate Gluten Free Cookie Book by Robyn Ryberg
Makes about 30 cookies

Ingredients
1/3 cup (65gr) coconut oil
1/2 cup (100gr) sugar
1 cup (125gr) brown rice flour
1/4 cup (20gr) cocoa powder
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup (130gr) white chocolate chips

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. 
Lightly grease a cookie tray.
Combine the oil and sugar in a medium bowl and beat well. Add the flour and beat very well for at least 5 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients and beat again. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again. The dough will be soft.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough (it is quite sticky don't worry) onto your prepared tray. Wet your fingertips and press the cookies to 0.5cm/0.25inch thickness.

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Let them cool on a wire rack before serving them.