Monday, November 07, 2005

Infusion du jour


When the days get darker (alias now), I crave for more hot drinks, especially in the evening. I drink lots of tea, but in the evenings I want something without caffeine, so I usually go for various herbal infusions. I know these are not proper 'teas', but that's how they were called at our house, and I find it difficult to call them otherwise. My favourites are peppermint tea (from my mum’s garden), camomile tea and linden tea – all at various times. I can happily have peppermint infusion for breakfast, which seems a bit odd to some of my friends. Camomile obviously helps me to unwind and calm down, and mixed with honey this is the ‘first aid’ remedy against colds. Linden always reminds me of the huge linden tree at my grandparents house and collecting its crop with my cousins...

And my current favourite concoction is quite unusual but extremely pleasant. I mix couple of pieces of dried raspberry twigs and leaves, some sage and some lemon balm.

Again, as they are from my mum’s garden, it reminds me of home. And it is a perfect cure for any homesickness, should it occur. Believe me, give it a go!

Friday, November 04, 2005

Peanut Butter Cookies


I had never cooked peanut butter cookies before. Nor anything else using peanut butter as one of the ingredients. I can’t even remember eating peanut butter before, though I’m sure I must have encountered it at some point. But on Wednesday night I made a batch of peanut butter cookies – the super-easy kind of cookies at that. I came across the recipe a while ago on a website Bears In The Kitchen, and had copied it to my Estonian site. I’m glad I did, as this could be one of the easiest cookies to make in the world. Even easier than making mayonnaise cookies - and that's something.

Peanut Butter Cookies(Maapähklivõiküpsised)

One cup of sugar
One cup of crunchy peanut butter (preferably one with at least ca 95% peanuts, a pinch of salt and some oil, but nothing else)
One egg

Mix all ingredients. Take large teaspoonfuls of batter and put on a baking tray. Bake at 200˚C for about 12-15 minutes, until your cookies are aromatic and golden brown.
Leave to harden on the tray for 5 minutes, then move carefully onto a rest to cool.



Voila. That’s all there is to eat. Enjoy. If you prefer hazelnuts, then try hazelnut butter cookies.

Although I’m not particularly keen on peanut butter, these cookies were delicious - I liked the slight saltiness of these. And for the negligent effort that went into making these, I think I’m gonna keep that ‘recipe’ at hand for unexpected cookie eating and/or baking cravings...

UPDATE: One of my Estonian readers, Thredalia over at Pisike ja Pisut Segi tried these as well. She even made her own peanut butter!!!

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

A Greek picnic with the F-word



Johanna wrote about what was going on at the back stage of the newest Gordon Ramsay show, F-word. Intrigued by Johanna’s entry, I sat myself in front of Channel 4 last Thursday night, accompanied by my friends Maarika and Age. As I’m on the mission of internationalising the palates of my Estonian friends (the Chinese meal, Indian feast etc), then this time I prepared a simple and easy Greek meze platter, served on a tablecloth on the living room floor – almost like a real picnic:)

On the meze platter were yet another load of Greek meatballs, this time with feta cheese and black olives, boiled Charlotte potatoes with herbs, olive oil and lemon, feta-spinach mini omelettes and mini plum tomatoes.

I was especially pleased with the mini omelettes. The recipe is from the Finnish foodmag Ruokamaailma (4/2004) and is very simple. Even simpler than the tomato, rocket, feta frittata I made a forthnight ago. Here’s a slightly modified version of mine:

Feta and spinach mini omelettes
(Spinati-fetaomletid)

5 large eggs
0.75 dl milk
0.5 tsp salt
a pinch or two of freshly grated nutmeg
1 dl (defrosted) chopped spinach
100 grams of chopped feta cheese

Break the eggs in a bowl with a fork or mini whisk, add milk, seasonings and spinach. Ladle the runny mixture into buttered muffin tins (I used a regular 12-hole muffin tray). Sprinkle feta cheese on top.



Bake at 200˚C for 20 minutes, until egg mixture has set. I was a bit suspicious, if they'd set easily, as the mixture was very runny (see above). But they turned out just beautiful!



Mini omelettes raise in the oven nicely, but will collapse a little when taken out of the oven.



Serve with a green salad. Or as part of a Greek meze. A definite keeper. If you like the classic Greek combination of feta and spinach, you’ll love this.

As for the programme, I didn’t enjoy that. I understand that Gordon is a talented chef and that many of you like his (dessert) recipes. And whereas I did really enjoy his programme Kitchen Nightmares, other programmes have left me cold. Talented or not, I’m too distracted by the arrogance and rudeness that dominate his programmes and end up overlooking his recipes and impressive cooking skills.. So no, I will not be having TV dinners in front of telly on Thursday nights...

UPDATE: here is another picture of these tiny omelets (click to enlarge)