Taste & Create

I’ve discovered this delicious salad recipe thanks to Nicole from For the Love of Food blog. Nicole has been hosting a food blog event Taste and Create, in which participants are paired together to try out a recipe from each other's blogs. Nicole has paired me with Johnny from Le Petit Kitchen blog. The blog was created only a month ago, so there weren't many recipes to choose. What’s made the choice even harder is that in most of the recipes there are no exact quantities of ingredients given. I’ve opted for salad as this is the kind of recipe in which you don’t really need exact quantities. Besides, making more salads was one of my New Year’s resolutions this year. Since I haven’t posted even one salad recipe on my blog yet, I thought this food blog event is just a perfect opportunity to start making some. The salad came out really delicious, light and very refreshing. I was actually surprised how well all the different flavors blended together. I’ll definitely make it again :)

Notes to the recipe: The original recipe (which can be found here) asked for blood oranges, but I used mandarin oranges instead; I also omitted the dill and used less lemon juice for the vinaigrette.

Californian Salad with Fruit and Goat Cheese

lettuce
pear
mandarin orange
goat cheese
pistachios, roughly chopped

balsamic vinegar

FOR THE VINAIGRETTE*
lemon juice
olive oil
dill (optional)

1. Heat the balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan over low heat until thick . Remove from the heat and let cool.
2. Tear the lettuce into small pieces. Cut the pears and oranges, crumble the goat cheese.
3. To make the vinaigrette mix olive oil with lemon juice and dill.
4. Place the pears, oranges, crumbled goat cheese, and lettuce in a big bowl and toss gently.
5. Transfer the salad to plates, drizzle with some of the vinaigrette and balsamic vinegar.
6. Garnish with pistachios. Serve.

* I made vinaigreette using 1 part of oil to 4 parts of lemon.

Przepis po polsku:
Sałatka kalifornijska z owocami i kozim serem

Pears in Coffee Caramel Sauce

I made this delicious dessert for Dni Kawy (Coffee Days), a Polish food blog event hosted by Mysza from Kulinarne Wyzwania Myszy blog. The event took place from 21st till 23rd December, but with all the Christmas preparation I didn't manage to blog about it at the right time:(

The recipe I used comes from one of the back issues of Polish magazine Oliwia and it's really quick to make. I had never thought about pairing pears and coffee before, so the recipe seemed really interesting to me. The dessert came out really tasty, even though the coffee flavor was very subtle. For stronger coffee taste you can brew your espresso triple strength or more. And if you’re not coffee fan at all, you can make this dessert without coffee at all. The result will be still delicious.




Pears in Coffee Caramel Sauce
(adapted from Polish edition of Olive magazine)

serves 4

8 pears, peeled (I used 4 huge pears)
200 g sugar
100 ml espresso coffee, ground brewed double strength
100 ml heavy cream
water

1. Put ½ liter water into a pan, bring to boil. Add 50 g of sugar and the pears. Make sure the pears are covered to the top with the water. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer for about 10-15 min. Then, transfer the pears to bowls.
2. Put the remaining sugar and 70 ml of cold water in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Continue to cook without stirring until it turns light brown, do not allow to burn.
3. Pour the coffee into the cream and stir until well blended.
4. Remove the pan from the heat. Carefully, and quickly, stir the mixture of coffee and cream into the sugar.
5. Return the pan to medium heat and continue to stir the mixture until thoroughly mixed. Turn up the heat and boil until the mixture thickens. Leave to cool.
6. Pour caramel sauce over each pear and serve.

Przepis po polsku:
Gruszki w kawowym karmelu

Autumn Muffins

I’ve decided to call this recipe Autumn Muffins for two reasons. First, the combination of pears, nuts, and spices makes them very fragrant and indeed perfect for autumn (especially if you I serve them warm with a drizzle of maple syrup on a cold day). Second, I couldn’t really use the original name of Pear and Pecan Muffins as I didn’t add any Pecans to them. Pecans are usually expensive and hard to find here and since I’ve had lots of walnuts at home, I thought they would make a nice substitute. And, honestly, I don’t like Pecans much anyway.

The original recipe for these tasty muffins comes from a book titled Muffins, which is one of the cookbooks from Le cordon Bleu series published by Könemann. I have already tried several recipes from it, and they all turned out great, so I really recommend it.

A few notes to the recipe:
1. I used freshly grated nutmeg instead of powdered one - it made the muffins even more fragrant and thus more delicious!!!
2. I didn’t have vanilla extract (I think it’s impossible to obtain in Poland), so I added a packet of vanilla sugar to the dry ingredients.

And, one more thing, it’s important you roast the nuts before adding them to the batter. They'll become very very crunchy and will contrast well to the soft, delicate, and moist pears later.

Autumn Muffins
(adapted from Le Cordon Bleu: Muffins)

450 g all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
115 g brown sugar
1 packet vanilla sugar (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
400 g pears, peeled and chopped
100 g walnuts (or pecans), roasted and chopped*
2 eggs
375 ml milk
125 g butter, melted

Preheat oven to 210°C (410F)

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg; Add brown sugar, vanilla sugar (if you use vanilla extract add it later to the liquid ingredients), pears and nuts.

Whisk the milk and eggs together. Add them to the dry ingredients. Add the butter and stir until just combined. Do not over mix the batter;

Fill prepared muffin pan ¾ full. Bake 30 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Leave the muffins in cups for 5 minutes. Then let them cool on a wire rack.

* roast the nuts for 5-7 minutes in the oven preheated to 180°C(350F)

Przepis po polsku:
Jesienne mufinki