Everything is good in moderation...

That is a saying we use a lot here in Iceland. The other day I was browsing through old books about food and health, it was rather old book. There was a definition of moderate drinking (alcohol wise).

The definition is:

Moderate drinking is one glass a day. Never more than seven glasses a week. Though never more than three on one day.

So, there you have it. I started wondering if this could work for other (bad) habits like smoking, drinking coffee or sodas, for people who wants to cut down but not quit.

And then it´s a question about the fast food. One Mcdonalds a day. Never more than seven Mcdonalds a week. Though never more than three Mcdonalds each day...

I made a really good and healthy fruit ball. It´s meant to be eaten with a nice cheese, like Camembert, goat cheese or even Manchego for example.

Date and apricot ball

• 200 g almonds
• 200 g hazelnuts
• 250 g dates
• 3-5 tbsp orange juice
• 5 tbsp cognac or water to blend with the almonds to make a paste

Put the almonds and the cognac (or water) in a food processor and mix until it becomes a marzipan paste. Take it away and put in dates and apricots in the food processor, little by little with the orange juice, almond paste and hazelnuts. Mix well.

Make half a ball from the fruit ´n nut paste.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 150 °c or 300°f.

Cooking all recipes from one book, here we go...

Well, now I´ve got my glass of red, and can start writing, join me fro a glass if you like while reading this... unless you are at work...

It´s been a trend lately to pick one cook book and cook all the recipes in that book, like you see in the movie Julie and Julia.

I have seen few blogs about this and one of the most ambitious ones might be the one cooking from a book called Alinea.

I bought this book a while ago and I love it, lots of fun ideas but sometimes a little complicated.

I have been wondering about doing this for some time and I am finally gonna go with it. Because lately I haven´t been very inspired and always kind of cooking the same with the same ingredients.

So, the question was, what book to cook from. The ones I have are mostly like all Indian, all pasta, all tapas, all fish... but I wanted a book with good varaity.

One of them is The naked chef, an old one from Jamie Oliver. I browse through it a lot but I never cook from it. I find it an interesting book to cook from. There are lots of nice recipes, ingredients I almost never use but some ingredients I wont be able to get here in Iceland, like live lobster. I will improvise when needed.

So the decision has been made, I will be cooking from The naked chef. It has got good varaity of dishes, fish, meet, vegetable, pasta, soups...

I will follow the recipes as good as I can, that way I will learn new things and combinations of food.

The first recipe I am making is scallops. And this is how it went...

First of all, I am not good at doing the recipes exactly the way it is, I wanted to make changes, but this time it was not an option, I would do it the way the chef made it.

And you know what, it was delicious, a fiesta in my mouth, great combination of ingredients.

This is how I did it, I did change some of the amount of the ingredients.

Scallops with green lentils and sage. (For 2)

• 6 slices bacon
• 6 scallops
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 8 leaves of fresh sage
• Salt and pepper
• Juice from half a lemon
• 4 tbsp green lentils boiled with rosmarin and garlic *
• 2 handfuls of some nice green salad leaves
• Salad oil ( see below)
  
  

*You could also boil the lentils just in water since this is dish with lots of tasts. I did that because I saw too late that this was lentils from another recipe in the book).

Fry the bacon on a pan, and when that is almost done throw in the sage leaves and fry for about 2 minutes. Put this on a kitchen towel to get rid of extra fat. The sage gets really crispy and nice.

Fry the scallops on the same pan as the bacon, make sure it´s really hot. Put a little bit of olive oil on the pan before the scallops. Squeeze a little bit of lemon juice over the scallops while frying them. They only need couple of minutes on each side.

Now, worm up the lentils on that very same pan after you remove the scallops.

Toss some dressing over the salad, put it on a plate. Put the scallops, bacon and the sage on top of the salad and the lentils. Serve right away.

Salad dressing

• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together

I made a very easy bread with this.

Mix yeast, sugar and luke warm water in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Add flour and some mix of seeds (sesame seeds, sunflower...what ever you got and like) Stir it all together with a fork. Let rise for half an hour. Stir it a bit with a fork, add some flour to make it non sticky. Form it as a baguette and brush it with egg whites and even some seeds. Bake for 20 minutes at 220°c.

Bread, ingredients

• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 glass luke warm water
• 2 glasses flour ( the glass is about 1 cup)
  
  

And, how was it? First recipe of many...it was very very very good. You can serve this as a main course or an appetizer.

I served a bottle of George Dubæuf, Beaujolais with this dish.

And what did I learn?

Scallops, sage and bacon goes so well together. I have to use sage more in my cooking. Lemon, also something I have to use more.

My boyfriend said, wow this is soooo goood! I will totally make this again for dinner guests.

The super duper awesome sandwich

This sandwich is so so so good. The combo is perfect. I am a ground beef fan, and don´t get me started on ground beef with melted cheese, match made in heaven!

The best bread to use with this one is focaccia or some sort of a soft bread. I made my own kind of a ciabatta made of a pizza dough. That worked well.

Get a good bread or make your own focaccia or ciabatta. Cut it in half.

Lay it on the table with the cut down.

Spoon few tbsp of mustard sauce on the bread. Top it with fried ground beef and few slices of cheese.

Make a sandwich

If you like jalapeno, slice a fresh one (or use canned) and put on top of the ground beef.

Put the sandwich in a panini grill and grill until the cheese has melted. (If you don´t have a panini grill but the sandwich in the oven.)

Serve with a glass of cold beer or some nice red wine.

Here is a link to video on how to make Ciabatta.

You can also make a pizza dough and form it as a ciabatta and bake in a 200°c hot oven for about 15 - 20 minutes. I love putting poppy seeds and sesame seeds on top of the ciabatta before baking it.

For the mustard sauce

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2-3 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp sweet mustard
• 2-3 tbsp agave or maple syrup
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• Salt and pepper

Taste it often and add more of what ever your taste bud find missing, more syrup if you like it sweeter, more of Dijon if you like that...

For the ground beef

• 300 g ground beef
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut in small pieces
• Garlic clove, pressed
• 1/2 onion, cut small
• Dried oregano, 2-3 tsp
• Salt and pepper

Fry everything on a pan.

...don´t forget the cheese :)

Pizza with colorful tomatoes

If you get the chance of buying red, yellow and green tomatoes then you can make a beautiful looking tomato pizza. And what goes well with tomatoes? Mozzarella cheese and some fresh basil. And a little bit of finely sliced garlic is so good.

Pizza dough

• 1 tbsp yeast
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 500 g flour
• 300 ml Luke warm water
• Pinch of salt

Let the yeast foam in a 100 ml of warm water with the sugar. It takes about 5 minutes. I do this in the kitchen aid bowl.

Add the rest of the water, salt and flour to the yeast mix.

Let your machine work on it for a bit, or knead with hands, I find the less I knead with hands the softer the dough becomes.

Seal the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise until it doubles. (I used a double recipe so got LOTS of dough, but good thing about pizza dough is you can keep it in the fridge for few days and it just gets better and next time I will give you some ideas of what you could do with a pizza dough).

Add a little more flour to knead it down and then flatten out to make pizza.

Top it with some crushed canned tomatoes or a nice pizza sauce, the tomatoes, sliced garlic and cheese. Bake to perfection.

When ready garnish with fresh basil and even some arugula salad, that is soooo good.

Avocado fries

These are yummy and a fun appetizer at a dinner party or a part of a buffet.



Avocado fries for 2-3

• 2 Avocados
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1 egg, beaten
• Salt
• Lemon pepper
• Any spice you like...
• Canola oil to deep fry

Cut the avocados in bits similar to French fries.

Dip them in beaten egg, then the bread crumbs. Deep fry for 20-40 seconds, or until it gets a nice brownish color

Healthy date confectionery

I was a super housewife tonight. I cooked dinner and made two types of those sweet little "date balls" One healthy type and other with a bit of marzipan. I use the word confectionery, it sounds mores sophisticated than date balls...

Date confectionery

• 1/2 cup dates
• 1/2 cup dried shredded coconut meat (that you buy in a supermarket)
• 1/2 cup hazel nuts
• 1/4 cup oat meal
• 2 tsp good cocoa
• 2 tsp syrup
• 3 tbsp water if you need it more wet

--

Date confectionery with marzipan

• Half of the recipe above
• 100 - 200 g marzipan, or as much as you like

Mix the ingredients in a food processor until it becomes a sticky kind of a dough.

I made balls from the dough and rolled some of it with cocoa powder and some with the dried coconut meat.

You can improvise a lot here, the measurement doesn´t have to be accurate and it´s good to add all kinds of dried fruits, seeds and nuts.

Super thin oatmeal crackers

I love oatmeal, you can use it in so many different ways. It is very popular here in Iceland to eat a bowl of cooked oatmeal with milk for breakfast. You heat in a pot oatmeal, milk and salt. When you don´t finish the oatmeal bowl you can use it to make those little thicker pancakes we call lummur by adding it to a pancake mix.

Or if you have leftovers of the oatmeal you can make those really tasty oatmeal crackers.

You can use barley flakes as well as oats.

crackers

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup water
• 2 tsp salt

Put everything in a pot, bring to boil, simmer for 3-5 minutes. Put a baking sheet on an oven plate. Spread the oatmeal on the baking sheet, as thin as you can.

• 2-3 tbsp some nice dukkah or good spices or nuts
• 1-2 tbsp Maldon salt

I put some pistachio dukkah and salt evenly over the oatmeal spread.

Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes at 220°c.

Scrape it carefully off the baking sheet and if it´s not crunchy enough turn it around and bake on the other side for 10 minutes or so.

Cool down and break it down into few parts.

Great healthy snack, just improvise with spices, oatmeal is so neutral tasting it will work with many kinds of spices.