Basic Bolognese

I love a good bolognese made from scratch and this bolognese was one of the fastest (if you don't count pouring Dolmio bolognese over ground beef and serving that) and easiest to make. This is a basic recipe intended for further use so it only had to contain the most basic vegetables and spices so they won't overwhelm whatever it is supposed to be a part of later on. I thought it tasted quit well but as Carina said, there is absolutely nothing funky about it. Take a look at Carina's experiences with this dish - HERE

Anyway here's the recipe for a large portion, which you can split up into smaller portions and freeze for an easy dinner on a busy day.

2 onions
4 carrots
4 sticks of celery
2 cloves of garlic
500 grams of ground beef
2 tablespoons of extra virgin oil
1 tablespoon of tomato purée
4 bay leaves
10 sprigs of thyme
2 cans of skinned tomatoes (I used organic ones)
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt and freshly ground pepper

Cut the onions, carrots and celery into fine squares. Peel the garlic cloves and chop it finely, then fry it in the pot with olive oil. Add the meat and brown it. Add the chopped vegetables along with tomato purée, bay leaves, and thyme and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the skinned tomatoes and the sugar and let it simmer for another 20 minutes. Season it with salt and pepper.

Bon appetit...

 

Tortilla on toast with garlic mayo and rocket

And so I've gotten far behind on posting the recipes once again... sorry... I'll try to make it up to you at one point or another but for now this is the 13th dish in our food project and a pretty good one at that. So if you have some leftover tortilla from the Spanish Tortilla dish, this is a great way to create a new dish.

Carina tried out the real recipe with the grilled toast, I just tried it with Danish rye bread instead and brought it in my lunch box on monday. It tasted really good! Because I was in a hurry during my lunch break I totally forgot to take pictures so you'll have to do with Carina's picture and to read her experiences with this dish go to her blog - HERE

For four people you'll need:

4 pieces of toast
1 dl mayonnaise (or drained yoghurt) I used miracle whip light
½ clove garlic (I used garlic powder instead)
4 pieces of tortilla leftover
50 grams rocket (I forgot the salad but it tasted fine without it)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 

Salt
Freshly ground pepper

Grill the bread in the oven or toast it on the toaster. Stir the mayo together with garlic and season with salt. Spread out the garlic mayo on the bread and put a piece of cold or hot tortilla on top of it. Arrange with rocket dressed in olive oil, salt and pepper.

Bon appetit...

Spanish Tortilla with sweet potatoes and tiger prawns

I chose to make this our 12th dish today because I put the tiger prawns in the tortilla and because we decided to try out a follow up recipe with the leftovers for lunch. I then had to make this where I had two consecutive days avaliable to make such food so the prawns wouldn't go bad...

This dish was perfect for this evening - it has been a HOT day in Aalborg and we really weren't that hungry so this easy dish was just what we needed. It took me no time to make and it tasted really good! My husband liked it as well but we agreed on it needing a bit more seasoning as it was a bit bland. You could also easily substitute the prawns with chicken or Italian ham. That would also go very well with the sweetness of the potatoes. I just LOVE sweet potatoes... if they weren't so expensive I would buy them more often. They go really well with grilled food and are quit quick to get tender compared with other types of potatoes.

So if you need a quick and easy dinner for tomorrow evening or for lunch, this is what you could whip up and serve for your family or friends. They'll love it too...

For four people you'll need:

2 kg onion

600 grams sweet potatoes

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

6 organic eggs

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

16 tiger prawns without shell


Accompaniment: 300 grams cherry tomatoes, 4 spring onions, 1 dl. teriyaki dressing*


Peel the potatoes and onions and cut them into coarse cubes of 2 by 2 cm. Fry the onion and potato cubes in a skillet with olive oil for about 7-8 minutes without it taking too much colour.


Whisk the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Add the prawns to the eggs and pour the mixture into the skillet with the potatoes and onion.


Stir a bit with a spatula until the eggs start to stiffen. Let the tortilla cook slowly on the stove until it's done or let it cook the last 10 minutes in the oven at 200 C (about 400F)


Cut the cherry tomatoes in halves and finely slice the spring onions. Mix it with the teriyaki dressing. Serve the tortilla in the skillet sprinkled with roughly chopped parsley and the tomato salad. I made the salad a bit different - I didn't make the dressing, so i just quartered the tomatoes, finely chopped the spring onions and mixed it together in a bowl. When the tortilla was dine I sprinkled the salad on top and decorated with parsley before serving.

Bon appetit...

*Teriyaki dressing:

5 dl soy sauce

3 dl mirin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirin)

2 dl Sake

3 tablespoons sugar

2 organic limes


Stir the soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar together in a bowl. Grate the lime zest and squeeze out the juice. Stir both the zest and juice in with the rest of the ingredients and you have a teriyaki dressing.

Mustard chops with onion and squash in cream

This recipe is categorized as a "eat and bug off" recipe for a large number of people. It's easy to do and doesn't take loads of time, so if you get unexpected company for dinner you can just whip up this dish and I promise it'll be a huge hit. I advise caution with the choice of mustard if you don't eat it very often or if you don't have a craving for spicy food with twang, then choose a sweeter mustard.

I loved this dish - it's easy, quick and it tastes really good! My husband liked it too apart from the squash that he left on his plate - too mushy for him... Carina made this dish last week (when I had pizza in stead) so she has already translated and posted the recipe, so I'll just repost what she wrote and you can see how her dish came out HERE 

For 12 people you'll need:

2 kg pork neck chops without bone, or pork chops (I used neck pork chops)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 kg onion
2 kg squash
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
salt
freshly ground pepper
2 dl Dijon mustard (I used a sweeter mustard - recept mustard from Søstrene Grene in Aalborg)
1-2 bundles of dill
1 litre of double cream
4 dl chicken stock

Accompaniment : salad, bread or rice

Preheat the oven to 180C. Season the pork chops with salt and pepper and fry them in olive oil on both sides in a frying pan. Take them off the frying pan and cover them with tin foil.

Finely chop the onion and cut the squash into slices. Fry the onion and squash together in olive oil in same frying pan for approximate 3 minutes. Stir in 2 tablespoons of mustard, double cream, stock and bring to the boil. Season it with salt and pepper.

Pour it into a big oven-proof dish or two, so there is enough room for all pork chops. Butter each pork chop with 1 teaspoon of mustard and put the pork chops above the vegetables. Chop the dill roughly and spread it out on the meat. Warm the pork chops in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.

Serve the pork chops in the oven-proof dish with salad, bread or rice.

Bon appetit...

Potato dish with crispy crumble and mushrooms

Well I'm doing things a bit backwards at the moment as this actually is the 11th dish we have done in our little project. I still have to make the 10th dish because my husband insisted on having pizza for dinner the evening we had planned to make a project dish - so I caved and let him have his way and I brought leftover pizza in my lunch box the following day. This means I have to do four project dishes this week instead of three and this is the first of the week.

The translation credit goes to Carina, she was yet again the faster one to get the recipe translated and you can see her experiences with this dish on her blog - HERE

Both my husband and I liked this dish but thought it was a bit too dry with no sauce or liquid cream between the layers of potatoes. However it tasted quite good and I'm sure it would taste even better witch bits of bacon or ham chucked in with the potatoes. It's also a good dish for evenings without meat - just put in a bit more cream and you'll be flying!

For four people you'll need:

Filling:
2 onion
700 grams potatoes
2½dl double cream (9%)
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
salt and pepper

Crumble:

2½ dl wholemeal flour
50 grams butter
1 tablespoon rosemary or thyme, if you have it in the garden -(I used lemon thyme and it went very well with the other ingredients)
1 teaspoon of salt
 300 grams mixed mushrooms (I used brown mushrooms as they have the most flavour and the mixed mushrooms were a bit more expensive)
1 tablespoon of oil
salt and pepper

Fresh rosemary

Cut the onions into rings and the potatoes in thinly slices (2mm) (If you don't like onion rings you can just finely chop the onion and mix it with the potatoes. That's what I did and it came out good). Spread out onion and potatoes in an oven-proof dish. Whisk cream, parsley, salt and pepper together and pour it over the onions and potatoes. Turn on the oven and set it to 200C, put in the dish in the cold oven.

Crumble the flour, butter (cut in small pieces), rosemary and salt together at the tip of your fingertips. Take out the oven-proof dish after 30 minutes, sprinkle the “crumble-dough” over and put back in the oven. Leave it to bake for another 15 minutes or till the surface is crispy.

Roast the mushrooms in oil on a frying pan and season it with salt and pepper. Put the (finely chopped or sliced) mushrooms over the dish at the end possibly with some not too roughly chopped rosemary leaves right before serving.

Bon appetit...