Happy Potatoes Tortoise

I ate this flan a long time ago, I was having dinner at my little cousin's Marta, her mom Bianca was cooking. I loved it!! They used to call it "tortoise flan"....very funny!
I do not know why I haven't been cooking it so far. But I did last week, and here is the recipe.
If you prepare it in a big ceramic baking dish like I did, it won't be easy to serve. An option could be to prepare it in smaller cocotte, very french style!

Ingredients

1kg potatoes

30ml milk

salt

butter

150g ham

200-300g cheese (I used italian fontina, but you can use any kind of cheese)

1 egg

shredded parmesan

Preparation
Prepare the mashed potatoes with milk, salt and butter. Mix them well and put 2/2 of it in a ceramic baking dish, leaving the edges higher to contain the filling you will add later.

Cut ham and cheese in little pieces and put them in the center of the meshed potatoes.

Add the remaining meshed potatoes on top and close the flan.

Mix the egg with shredded parmesan and distribute on top of the flan.
Bake at 180 C degrees until the parmesan is melted.

Misses Valentines

Some loves San Valentine's day, others don't and prefer not to celebrate it. I think everyone should do what he feels like doing, without having to think about what is popular and what is not.
I do like San Valentine's day and because I do I prepared something special to celebrate it with my husband.

Happy Valentine's day!!

Ingredients for the crust
300g flour
130g melted butter
90g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon backing soda

for the filling
Custard Cream
Jam
Nutella

Preparation
Put all the ingredients for the crust in the mixer/kitchen robot and knead for 1 minute.
Make a ball with the doug, cover it and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour.

Using a rolling pin roll the dough until it is 2-3 mm thick. Use the four to avoid the doug get stuck on the pin or on the table.
With a round cookie mold, cut out the doug and place it in paper muffin cups you will have placed in the muffin pan.

Fill with the custard cream or jam or Nutella!

Bake at 175 C degrees for 25-30 minutes if you filled with cream or jam, 15 minutes if you filled with Nutella. Each oven is different so you better check the crust: when it gets golden on the edges Misses Valentines are ready!

I suggest not to mix different filling in the same pan: depending on the filling the baking time might be different.

If you fill with cream you can decorate the cake with a candied cherry: add the cherry on top after having baked the cakes.

Another idea could be to add some chopped pistachio on top before backing them.

Any of these alternatives have been a success, my guest have appreciated all of them. Enjoy!

Bagels time!

I have been travelling several times to US for work and I used to have breakfast at Einstein Bros Bagels: they had good bagels and good cappuccino.

Few years are gone now since last time I was there and I wonder why I have been waiting so long before trying to reproduce those bagels at home...
So here is my first try which turned out to be a successful dinner with my friends!

Ingredients

500g of flour (better use the one to make bread, it Italy it is called Manitoba)
1 packet of dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1.5 teaspoons of salt
300/320ml water
a drizzle of olive oil
1 egg

Preparation

Place water, flour, sugar, salt and yeast in the bread machine or whatever kitchen robot you have and knead for 10-15 minutes. The amount of water depends on the type of flour you use, some flour absorb more water than others. The dough should be smooth and it should stick a little to your fingers (but not too much): you should be able to pull it from the bread machine and form a ball without having it all stuck on your hands.
Put the ball on a pan and grease it with olive oil. Cover it and let rise on for about an hour.
At this point, unflate the ball by pressing with the palms of your hands. Cover again and let rise for 10-15 minutes.
Cut the dough with a pizza wheel into 8 wedges.

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Form a ball with each clove, make a hole in the center and place them in a baking pan. Cover again and let them rise for another 10-15 minutes.

Boil some water and cook each bagel by letting them float 1 minute each side.

Drain the bagels on a cloth, place them on a baking pan and brush them with the beaten egg.

Bake at 220 Celsius degrees for 20 minutes.

Great for a casual dinner with friends: tonight we stuffed them with various combinations of ham, salami, cheese, salmon, mayonnaise, mustard... warmed them in the toaster and enjoyed them with a beer!

 

Pumpkin soup with Spelt&Spices

Ingredients:
- Pumpkin, as much as you like :)
- 2 carrots
- 2 big red onion (if you find them buy the italian onions named "cipolle di Tropea", they are sweeter)
- Spelt
- Cus cus spices
- Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Remove the pumpkin from the freezer, which would already be prepared in pieces (in case your freezer does not include a pumpkin, well you will have to wait for the right season, buy one, peal it and cut it into pieces :) today I am quite witty) and put it in a pressure cooker. Add the onions, the carrots (pealed and cut into pieces), some salt and cover with water.
Blend all the ingredients until they are all well chopped, add four handfuls of spelt and close the pot. Let is whistle for about 20 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave the pot closed until it completely stops whistling.
Carefully open the pot, add the cus cus spices, salt and pepper as you like, stir well and serve hot with wholemeal bread and some small cubes of cheese.

Thai Prawns with scented rice

Ingredients for 4 greedy:

- 750g of prawn tails
- Two large onions
- A dozen cherry tomatoes
- Two cans of coconut milk
- Salt, sugar, curry, ginger and chili
- 400g of basmati rice, a tablespoon of ginger

Preparation:

Chop the onion and fry with some olive oil, a teaspoon of salt and one of sugar. When golden brown add two teaspoons of mild curry, two of ginger and a sprinkling of chili. Then add the cherry tomatoes cut in small pieces (better to remove the seeds). Stir for a few minutes and then add the two cans of coconut milk. Add salt and spices to taste and stir for another few minutes.
Then add the prawns shelled and clean and cook for 5 minutes.
Boil the rice (about 400g for 4 greedy) in salted water, adding a tablespoon of ginger while boiling.
Serve prawns with rice, sprinkling rice with shrimp sauce.

Pizza Sardenaria as Dani likes

Ingredients:
Dough:
250g flour
150ml water
half cup of milk
baker's yeast
two spoons of olive oil
one spoon of salt and half spoon of sugar
Sauce:
400ml tomato sauce
3 shallots (1 big onion would work as well)
two anchovies
half cup of capers
half cup of black olives
oregan
salt

Preparation:

Mix the dough ingredients with a bread machine or a kitchen robot: the dough shall be very soft, it shall stick to your fingers in order to remain soft once baked. So in case the dough is dry, you can add some milk (a little at a time otherwise you will then have to add flour and then milk again and you end up with dough enough for two pizzas :) ).
Spread some oil in an over pan and roll out the dough in it. Let it rise for 1 hour, better 2 hours.

Chop the shallots an fry it with some olive oil. Add the tomato sauce and stir for few minutes.
(Caution: Do NOT add salt yet! Anchovies are very tasty so you may risk to get it too salty).
Mince capers and olives (not all of them, keep a few as a top decoration) and add them to the sauce. Add the anchovies and stir till they are melted.
Add salt and oregan and stil for few minutes.

When the dough is leavened, spread the sauce on top, decorate with some olives and bake in the oven at 360F for 40 minutes.

Spectacular Burrito

Ingredients of the stuffing:
- 500g of chicken breast
- two onions
- one bell pepper
- 250g of tacos sauce
- 200g of rice
of the refried beans:
- one can of beans
of guacamole:
- two avocados
- one lemon
- one onion
- 3-4 cherry tomatos
in addition:
- Sour Cream
- Flour tortillas

Stuffing:
Mince the onion and the bell pepper and fry them in a pan with couple of spoons of olive oil.
Cut the chicken breast in small pieces and add it to the pan with salt and pepper.
Cover the pan and keep cooking until the chicken is done. Add then the taco sauce and two glasses of water, when it boils add the rice and stir well.
Lower the fire, cover the pan and keep cooking until the rice is ready (stir regularly and add more water in case the rice is not ready but all the water is gone).

Refried beans:
Fry the beans for few minutes with couple of spoons of olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix them well until you obtain a cream.

Guacamole:
Peel the avocados and cut them in pieces. Mince the onion and add it to the avocado with the juice of a lemon and salt. Mix well until you obtain a cream.
Cut the cherry tomatos is small pieces and add them to the avocado cream.

How to build a burrito:
Put one tortilla in a dish, put some stuffing in the center (not too much otherwise you cannot manage to close it then), add on top of the stuffing one spoon of refried beans, one of sour cream and one of guacamole. Now close the Burrito by folding the sides towards the center and roll it.
If the stuffing is hot enough, you can eat it right away, otherwise heat it in the microwave for a minute or so.

Note: I understand it would be great to have pictures of how to fold it, so I guess it is time to prepare it again!