Poke bowl

When I moved to the Netherlands 2 years ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dutch people eat A LOT of raw fish. All around you could find various sushi restaurants, dozens of options of eating out or ordering, and what I think surprised me the most was the fact that you could buy relatively cheap and good quality sushi from the supermarket.

After a while the trend emerged to the so called "Poke Bowl" which I have first heard of when I saw a restaurant delivering it. What is a Poke Bowl? Basically, "Poke" represents a traditional Hawaiian dish which consists of raw fish cubes mixed with oils and spices and served as an appetizer or main course. This dish later evolved into modern version, known as "Poke Bowl", which is a mix of raw fish, rice and vegetables. It makes you think of it as a deconstructed sushi roll. Take the fish, rice, seaweed and whatever else you add to your sushi roll and put it in a bowl with some dressing, like you would do to a regular salad, and taa-daa, here you have it.

What I personally love about this dish is the freshness of the ingredients and that I feeds you without being too heavy. Below I propose my favorite healthy, classic version which takes no more than 15 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients (for 2 portions):

• 200 g smoked salmon;
• 1 medium carrot;
• 100 g seaweed salad;
• 1 ripe avocado;
• 1 spring onion;
• 1/2 English cucumber;
• 200 g steamed rice;
• 150 g soy beans; 
• soy sauce;

TIP for those of you living in the Netherlands!

You can easily find all these ingredients at Albert Heijn, that's where I bought mine from. They always have fresh soy beans, smoked salmon cubes which go right into your dish and one tasty seaweed salad. Moreover, for this recipe I used Basmati Rice form Tilda, which already comes steamed, you don't have to cook it anymore. Getting all your all ingredients from one place and ready to be served it's really convenient and it saves you a lot of time.

 I started by preparing the vegetables. I finely chopped the spring onion, removed the cucumber's seeds and sliced it in small cubes, sliced the avocado and peeled thin strips of carrot. *If you are not getting your rice already steamed, prepare it according to the packaging instructions. Then I added all of them in bowl together with the rest of the ingredients, sprinkled some soy sauce and that's it. Super fresh, healthy, quick and delicious meal.

 

 Enjoy!

Goat Cheese and Mushroom Pasta

It's pasta time (again)! Recently I came across a Facebook video of a goat cheese pasta sauce recipe, which basically involved mixing warm pasta water with cheese, and that gave me an idea for a very quick and affordable dish. However, I did not want just plain pasta and sauce, maybe some extra seasoning, so I threw some more ingredients in there which I had around and also felt they would make sense. The result surprised me and made me ask myself why I did not think of that earlier, especially since I am a huge goat cheese lover. ( I have it in my fridge almost 90% of the time). Anyhow, now I can add on my list a new tasty recipe that only takes 15 minutes, so better late than never, right?

Ingredients (for one portion):

• aprox. 65 g dried pasta
• one hand of sliced mushrooms ( I used a mix)
• 2 slices of ham
• 60 g creamy goat cheese
• pasta water
• one garlic clove
• parsley
• salt and pepper 
• Parmesan (optional)  

I started with pasta the water. I usually boil it in a water cooker and then put it on the stove, because then it takes less than 5 minutes to reach the optimal boiling point, so everything moves way faster. Don't forget to properly salt your water.

In the meantime I sliced the mushrooms, the ham and chopped the garlic and I roasted them in one teaspoon of olive oil. When my water was boiling I added the pasta and I cooked it until al dente, according to the packaging instructions. 

After the pasta was cooked I added it over my roasted ingredients, turned off the heat, and then added the goat cheese and a little bit of pasta water, while giving it a proper stir. I kept stirring (and gradually adding water if it was necessary) until de cheese melted and a beautiful soft and creamy sauce formed. I ended by adding fresh parsley, seasoning with salt and pepper, and sprinkling some Parmesan.

                                                  Enjoy! 

Leftover chicken salad with pickles and tabasco mayo dressing

 

 So, what is the part with leftovers, you may ask. Well, as a student you don't really afford to throw food away, especially when is still perfect for consuming. And to be honest, you shouldn't do that anyway, even if you are a student or not. Therefore, with this recipe not only I am trying to support consumption of leftovers in order to avoid wasting food, but I am also showing that you can use them to create a super delicious dish. This idea made me think of Antoine Lavoisier's quote "nothing is lost, everything changes". 

One day me and my flatmates cooked some really tasty chicken wings glazed with some sweet chili sauce but we didn't really end up eating all of them. So the next day I was wondering what to do with what is left, considering that I wasn't really up for eating cold/reheated plain chicken, so I threw it into a bowl with veggies and a good dressing and turned it into a proper healthy and tasty meal.

Side note: The quantities for the ingredients bellow are predictive for one portion but you don't usually make a salad after a rigorous recipe, so just use your imagination and your taste to adjust the quantities and to make the dressing as sour and spicy as you want. ;)

Ingredients:

•  half a lettuce
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 2 pickles 
• leftover chicken
• 40-50 g croutons
• 2-3 Tsp mayonnaise
• Tabasco
• lemon juice
• salt
• pepper 

What I did for this salad is that I kept my chicken cold, I sliced my fresh tomatoes and my pickles, chopped the lettuce and added croutons that I got from the supermarket (from the same reason mentioned in my first "15 minutes project" recipe). I also added some cubes of Mozzarella cheese in this particular salad because I wanted to use all ingredients I had in the fridge at that time. (I guess that's a student habit haha)

For the dressing I mixed mayonnaise with a lot of lemon juice (because I find supermarket mayonnaise to greasy and heavy so I am making it as sour as possible), then sprinkled a little Tabasco, spicy enough to pinch my tongue. Mixed everything together, added some salt and pepper, and voila, yesterday's chicken in today's salad.

Enjoy!

 

Beef salad with garlic, sweet chili and lime dressing

    It's time for the first salad from this project. I inspired myself from a Gordon Ramsay's recipe I once found online and it seemed really interesting, but as I did not have all the fancy ingredients around I gave it a try in my own way, and it turned out to be delicious. To make all the cooking process fast, in general, I buy already made croutons (which is a lazy move from me since I could do myself some really good ones), but it  helps me save some time. I also keep most of the time a stack of meet in the freezer, nicely portioned, and in the morning when I go to school I take one portion out and let it defrost, so when I come back in the evening is waiting for me, ready to be cooked. The rest is just cutting some veggies and mixing the dressing, nothing too complicated or that requires too much time. So let's get started!

Ingredients (for 1 portion):

• 40-50 g croutons ( approx 1 hand )
• 1 hand of cherry tomatoes
• 1 medium cucumber 
• half of an iceberg salad
• 200-250 g beef
• juice from a lime
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2-3 Tbsp sweet chili sauce
• olive oil
• butter
• salt
• pepper

    First I started with the beef, and to make thing even quicker that they already were, I got some

already sliced beef, like it can be seen in the picture (because that is a thing in the Netherlands, you can find everything already sliced, from fruits and vegetables to meat, but that's a story for another time). I cooked the beef in a little bit of butter, with some salt and pepper, until it was done, but not dry, and I set it aside.

    Then I sliced my cherry tomatoes, I peeled thin cucumber strips  and finely chopped the Iceberg salad. I added everything to a huge bowl, added the beef, which cooled down a little bit in the meantime, and the croutons and preceded with the dressing. 

    For this I mashed the garlic cloves, added the lime juice and the sweet chili, and in order to find a balance between tastes and to soften the dressing a little bit I also added about 1 and 1/2 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

   What is left is to pour the dressing over the other ingredients in the bowl, give it a good shake, so everything nicely mixes and the crunchy croutons soften up a little bit, add salt and pepper as you wish, and voila, you dinner is ready!

Enjoy!

15 minutes project

    Approximately one year ago my life changed completely, as I moved to another country, 2000 km away from home, to go to university. Translated, all my habits, all the things I was familiar with and everything that I used to grow up with literally went away over night. I found myself forced to suddenly be an adult, and, in the confusion and stress that occurred in the beginning ( and in the months after, if I am to be honest) I was going a little crazy as there were too many things to do and too little time, basically my time management and approach to every-day activities was screaming for help. Some of the things that considerably changed were, of course, cooking and eating.

    Back home I had time to lock myself in the kitchen for hours, to experiment fancy dishes, to cook for my family, to clean everything after that and to still have plenty of time and energy. After I moved to The Netherlands, this situation changed to 180 degrees. There were, of course,  occasions where I was gathering with my friends and we were cooking together, or I was cooking for them, but there were also plenty of days, especially around midterms and finals, when I was coming from the University at 9 or 10 in the night, desperately hungry, with no energy or willingness to cook anything.  The good news were that I could order any time, or eat frozen food for the supermarket. The bad news were than after couple of weeks you just get sick of eating fast food, you realize how much money you spend on that and it all stops for good when you notice you re not fitting in your favorite jeans anymore. ( happened more than once :( )

    Considering all the above, I came up with the idea of a healthy, quick and tasty solution, so here I am introducing my "15 minutes project". I am going to share my cooking experience by posting a series of salads (and not only) which take no more than 15 minutes, have some super tasty ingredients and dressings and which are also versatile enough, not only in terms of taste, but also in terms of ingredients. There's veggies, meat, some carbs, all meant not only to look good in the plate, but also to properly fill you up.

* I would like to show me greatest appreciation to my best friend and flatmate, Angela Negru, who provided this beautiful bowl that made all of these photos possible. Also, she is the one that is always by my side in the kitchen, we often cook together, share ideas and taste each other's dishes. So Angie, thanks for being a part of this project and part of my inspiration.