Freshly Made

So, I'm one of those people, who put a huge bag of carrots into the basket in the supermarket, because they are superhealthy and quite cheap. And it just seems, like even the act of buying them makes me a little bit more healthy. Most of the time, I end up throwing half of them away, because I never manage to eat them all. It simple: I find carrots boring. Now, I've decided it's time to make an effort and find out if they can be delicious, too. I need interesting carrot recipes. So please, if you know an incredible way to use carrots, please post me a link or recipe.

Of course, I have to give it a try myself first, before asking other people to do my dirty work, so this is what I managed to whip up for lunch. It was quite tasty, actually.

Carrot and Peach Salad:

Peel some carrots and peaches and slice them thinly.

Make a dressing with honey, lemon juice, fresh ginger, soy sauce and pepper. Mix the ingredients thoroughly and pour over salad. Top of with some sunflower and pumpkin seeds, or whatever other sorts of seeds or nuts you like. Enjoy :)

After my recent flirtation with ice cream, I decided it was time to add a little fibre to my diet...

Danish rye bread (rugbrød) is a sort of bread which people from other cultures tend to dislike. It is made with sour dough, rye flour and sometimes whole rye grains. Additionally, you'll also find variants with different sorts of seeds in it, such as sunflower or flax seeds. This results in a hard kind of bread, which I guess is very much an aquired taste, resembling the German pumpernickel. Most Danes love it and miss it when away from home.

Apparently, the introduction of rye bread into the Danish diet, was the result of a deterioration in the climate during the Iron Age - wheat became too difficult to grow and rye proved to be a much more resilient crop.

Anyway, history lesson aside, I baked myself a rugbrød yesterday. Unfortunately, I can't claim that I made it from scratch... I used a bread mix. It was still good though. I'm ususally not a fan of bread mixes, but making a traditional rye bread from scratch involves making a sour dough a few days in advance, and I'm quite simply not that much of a planner. 

The best way to enjoy a freshly baked piece of rugbrød, is with a lump of butter and some cheese! 

I guess I'm not really into the habit of blogging yet, hence the silence for the last week or so. On top of that, I've had the worst cold ever - that'll teach me not to venture out on the beach before summer has actually arrived! But meanwhile, I've been very busy with my ice cream maker! There have been a few mishaps and a few mediocre results, but let's concentrate on the happy outcomes.

Saturday, I went strawberry-picking. That's right, I actually went out to a strawberry field and filled a couple of container with delicious, plump, red berries. Yum. After that, naturally I had to make a strawberry ice cream. I found a recipe for Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt on Simply Recipes, which turned out fantastic! I also added the vodka as suggested. The result was a very fresh and tasty strawberry ice cream, but it did become very hard when frozen overnight (that's right, I didn't eat it all in one go).

I also tried making the vegan Chocolate-Coconut Ice Cream from City Mama which was sort of a mixed experience. The result was a deeply intense taste of cocoa with a hint of coconut. Very good. The consistency, on the other hand, varied between very creamy, mousse-like to rock hard after a night in the freezer. Very rock hard. And it just didn't thaw...

Lastly, I did a bit of investigating into the world of Italian ice cream, where I discovered that gelato from the south of Italy (Sicily) is traditionally made with cornstarch instead of eggs, and milk instead of cream. Which I had to try, of course. This recipe in the NY Times was very good. I even made it with skim milk, and it still turned out very creamy and flavourful.

And so ends my adventures with my ice cream maker for now.

To be continued... 

This time I decided to try my luck with a sorbet and since I had a few kiwis lying around - and nobody else seemed to wanna eat 'em - they were sacrificed at the altar of my ice cream maker! Again, this is a very simple recipe, but it ended up good (and healthy, too):

4 kiwi fruits (amounts to 1 cups when blended)
1 cup of cold water
artificial sweetener (I used ½ teaspoon)
a twist of lemon

Blend everything until smooth and freeze according to the instructions. Mine came out somewhat slushy, so I had to put it in the freezer for a couple of hours afterwards. It tasted great though - sweet and very fresh at the same time. 

A few days ago, I bought an ice cream maker, and since then I've scoured the web for ice cream recipes. There are so many out there! Now, I'm not a big fan of raw eggs, even pasteurised ones - the mere idea of raw eggs is sort of a big turnoff for me - so a lot of the traditional recipes don't really work for me. Also, being a healthconscious woman, eating a lot of cream seems like a bad idea ( don't get me wrong, I love fatty foods, I just try to avoid them anyway). This left me with sorbets, sherbets, yoghurt ice creams and the like. Which is, quite frankly, not bad at all!

After having skimmed quite a few recipes, I've come to the conclusion that I might as well just toss something together, freeze it, and see if it's edible... If the ingredients are fresh, and the fruit ripe, anything goes!

First off, a mango-yoghurt ice cream:

300 g of fresh mango pulp
300 g of yoghurt (I used yoghurt with 3,5% fat in it)
½ teaspoon of artificial sweetener (I know, artificial sweetener is a big no-no, but summer is just around the corner, and I'm doing what I can to cut calories...)

Blend the ingredients to a smooth mass and freeze it according to the instructions on your ice cream maker (if you don't have an ice cream maker, put it in a bowl in the freezer and remember to stir in it every 30 minutes).

This results in an ice cream with approx. 65 Calories per 100 g (to the best of my calculating skills). Now, I know this ain't no rocket science, but it just goes to show even the simplest of recipes can taste like heaven!

I love the Indian chapati breads, and I also love spelt bread, so I thought I'd try and mix the two. The result was quite nice, and excellent for wrapping around those delicious falafels!

Spelt chapati recipe (8)

1 cup of ordinary flour
1 cup of spelt flour
1½ teaspoon baking powder (not usually used in chapatis, so you can leave it out if you want)
1 teaspoon of salt
3/4 cup of lukewarm water
1½ tablespoons of oil

Mix the ingredients together and knead the dough until it is nice and springy. Let the dough rest for at least ½ an hour. Cut it out into 8 pieces, and roll each chapati out thinly (approx. 8 inches in diameter). Bake the breads one minute on each side on a very hot, dry pan, or until it puffs up. 

Falafels are one of my favourite eats - especially if they are home-made!

Here's my favourite recipe (makes about 50):

500g dried chickpeas
A large bundt of parsley
5-6 cloves of garlic 1/2 an onion
100g tahin
1 teaspoon of coriander
1 teaspoon of cumin
The juice and finely shredded peel of a lemon
1 tablespoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
Oil for frying

Soak the chickpeas overnight, or for at least six hours. 

Mix all of the ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth. Shape the falafels with the palm of your hand and a spoon. Fry them until they are light brown and crispy.