triple lemon chicken

some time ago i was spring cleaning the herb patch, and got rid of the two thymes that had gone a bit wild. the other was lemon thyme and while handling the plant i got this amazing lemon fragrance and got thinking that it would be a shame to toss all of it...so i saved some and figured out a way to use it.

took out some whole grain spelt pasta.

grated the zest of one organic lemon.

minced some thyme and mixed it with lemon zest.

squeezed the juice of the lemon on a few calamata olives.

placed some thyme springs even in the pasta water.

browned the chicken cutlets on high heat with some thyme sprigs.

poured in the olives and lemon juice, then added some cream and brought everything to a boil. the cutlets were quite thin so they were cooked pretty fast. you could do this with any part of chicken, and adjust the heat and cooking time accordingly.

before serving i took the cutlets out and poured the drained pasta into the sauce. served with iceberg-cuke-tomato salad with lemon vinaigrette. triple lemon? 1:lemon thyme, 2:lemon zest, 3: lemon juice. not a friend of olives, just leave them out. this is super easy and you have dinner in 15 mins.

foraging in the back yard, penne with mushrooms

with all the rain there has been a lot of mushrooms in the back yard at the shack. the other day certain someone got almost hyped about these...







...namely boletus betulicola of the boletus genus. there are over a dozen boletus species growing in finland, this particular species is growing near birch trees (there would be a different boletus growing near pines, oaks, aspen, all of the mentioned are edible).







certain someone picked them up and was delighted to find out that worms had not infested them...







...he cleaned them, that particular part of the cap needs to be cut off.







i then took everything inside...







...chopped them (this was before the surgery)...







...sauteed them first on their own for a few minutes, then added one minced onion...







...cream...







...some herbs (sage, lemon thyme and flat-leaf parsley), some salt (mushrooms do need some salt) and black pepper, and let simmer for 10 mins...







...while i cooked some whole wheat penne.







this would have called for potatoes, but i had none in the fridge. i must admit i was a bit sceptical as to the taste, but these were delicious and i will now look for them in the back yard.







there were also plenty of bearded milk caps / lactarius torminosus in the yard. i left them be as they required a little more than just chopping and sauteeing before you can eat them. and the more i search this mushroom...it could also be a saffrom milk cap...they are both ebidle so no worries...







i bet this funky looking mushroom isn't edible...puffballs, i think they are.

chanterelle pasta

a long overdue post...the wireless internet connection at the shack got whacked by a thunder storm and until the repair guy came, no one knew how bad it actually was. a lightning had done serious damage in a socket, serious like in burned...luckily the house wasn't burned down. certain someone wasn't a happy camper when the net was down...

anyways. right now, i'm at the cottage. it's getting close to autumn, yeah, yeah, someplaces it's summer until sept 23, but in our neck of the woods summer is on the loosing side. i like autumn so i'm good. at the cottage i usually take a walk with mom, at this time of year mom spends hours on end foraging in the woods...you know, blueberries (the wild kind), raspberries (again, the wild kind) and chanterelles, and whatelse.

if you don't pay attention you'll miss the fungus, 'cause you'll think it's just some fallen birch leaves, 'cause they hide pretty well.






i don't mind telling that i walked pass this one, mom didn't.







pretty nice...







got all this and we weren't even looking that hard. little cleaning is needed before these make it into the pan.







this batch is from last week, rinsed well before putting on the pan with one minced onion and some butter (it's ok to use oil, too)







cooked some whole wheat linguine, any long thin pasta will do.







cooked the chanterelles and onion on medium heat until the juices started to evaporate...







...then added the cooked pasta, crushed black pepper and salt, and some cream that i had laying around (cream is totally optional, but so good...) delish lunch in the time it takes to boil your pasta...

PW's pasta salad, sort of

not too long ago, i had seen PW make a pasta salad with tomatoes and gouda. lazy that i was, i didn't even look at the recipe, just boiled some pasta and went from there...final product here, with teriyaki salmon.







i used spelt pasta, these are good, they're whole grain and organic.







got some mini tomatoes and gouda...







got some parsley and basil, added some olive oil and white wine vinegar, black pepper, mixed and there was it. the taste was right, but something was missing...and maybe too much gouda...

i should have at least checked the recipe before starting, the original sald was called spicy pasta salad with smoked gouda and basil. i now see the "spicy" part would have made all the difference...there was some left over from yesterday's lunch, will add some chili powder and maybe cukes, and maybe some more pasta...and will try this salad again with proper ingredients!

veggie (mostly) pasta bake

it seems that all the magazines i subscribe have been showing recipes for bakes of one sort or another...delicious had baked winter pies and bon appetit had too many to choose from.

i did what i usually do, took out what i had in the fridge and pantry and baked this...







i did have 400gr beef mince but the idea was to use triple that amount veggies and on hindsight, i should have skipped the meat altogether. not because i have anything agaist meat, as such, but with the amount veggies and other stuff there really wasn't any need for the meat.

here sliced celery, grated carrots, minced leek, total amount approx 3 cups







in another bowl i had zucchini (grated), mini tomatoes (halved) and red bell pepper (cubed)







started the cooking by browning the meat in my trusty non-stick soup pot, then added the carrot, leek and celery mix and a can of crushed tomatoes. let that simmer for 15 mins for the veggies to soften a bit.

i tought this would have made a nice pasta sauce as was, but i was determined to make this a bake...so maybe next time.







after 15 mins i turned the heat off and added the tomato, pepper and zucchini mix. the reason for adding them at this point was not to cook them into a mush. they were going into the oven so they'd get semi-cooked anyway.

i used torino whole wheat/wheat germ pasta, no more white pasta in my pantry.

mixed the cooked pasta with other ingredients...







...poured one fourth onto an oven dish and added some grated 17% emmental (that needed to be used, totally optional)...







...then added some more pasta mix on top. was making this in two dishes, one for certain someone and one for me to take to work later on in the week.







grated cheese on top would have been more than fine but i had some cream and creme fraiche that needed to be used as well, so i decided to make a mix of those, bread crumbs and grated cheese.







the bread crumbs quickly sucked up all the moisture in the mix but managed to spread the mixture on top of the dishes.







after 30 mins in 225 oven...the smell was so good!







again, no salt as there certainly was some in the cheese. this batch would have served, hmm, at least 8. i got 4 lunches out of mine, and a few nibbles...







ps. not too long ago i came to know of mark bittman, who used to write as the minimalist for new york times. he has great ideas about food, what we should, or more importantly shouldn't eat.

i like to think i was going to the same direction on my own, but his articles have certainly made me feel more determined to further my quest as a flexitarian, but at the same time being strongly against putting people into boxes and telling others how they should feed themselves (although the guys at work might disagree on that...)

i'm certainly not "a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat" but rather someone who likes eating good food, tries to make the mentioned food healthy, tries to make it from scratch with sustainable, seasonable ingredients, and who will occasionally cook with meat, cream and butter and what not to indulge in gastronomical delights.

recently i decided that i will only buy stuff that has maximum two E-coded ingredients in them. that has proved surprisingly difficult, there just is too many Es around and the more the food is prosessed, the more E-thingies in it. i might have to go to max three and even that narrows the selection quite a bit!

baked chicken in tomato sauce

found that tin of olives in the pantry, it had been there for a very long time. decided that its time had come, i initially bought those olives to make maroccan-type dish but never got to it. i haven't really been to the stores after i got home, the other ingredients were scraped from the fridge and pantry.

here's what went in:

2 cans (400/240gr) of crushed tomatoes
2 medium onions, minced
4 carrots, cubed
3 stalks of celery, cubed
20-30 olives, stuffed with lemons
1 huge clove of garlic, grated
4 chicken brests, skin on (optional)







mircoplane should start paying me for promoting their stuff...







i was hesitant to taste these as they were, but i quite liked them...so much so, that i had to put some aside to make sure there were some left for the dish







i browned the chicken breasts on skin side, then placed in oven dish skin side up. you could used any part of chicken here, with or without the skin. i wanted to use the skin to get some of its flavour. or, you could go all veggie and use eggplant (cubed), zucchini, potatoes, etc







then removed some of the fat left from the chicken and sauteed the onion, carrot & celery mix for a few minutes to get their flavors going, then added the crushed tomatoes to heat them up a bit...







...before pouring the mixture into the oven dish and onto the chicken







i had preheated the oven to 200C, i put the lid on this and placed it in the oven







you could cook this on stove as well, i took the dog for a walk and wanted to have my luch ready after i got back...the dish ended up being in the oven about an hour and a half, but i guess an hour would be enough. the chicken was still juicy after the longer cooking time as it had been submerged in the tomatoes







you didn't think i forgot the olives? nope, olives sometimes start tasting funny after cooking too long, so i wanted to add them to the dish once it had done cooking. i did pour in approx 2 tbsp of the brine of the olives, but in case you didn't notice, there is no salt anywhere before this, no pepper nor chili nor nothing. i did add 1 tbsp of sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes







cooked some whole wheat pasta to go with it...for the leftovers, i removed the skins, shredded the chicken into smaller pieces, mixed the chicken and cooked pasta into the dish. certain someone had one portion for dinner, took one to work for lunch and there is still some for my lunch today