Junglefrog Cooking » recipe

Orange fennel salad by Sonia, the healthy foodie

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:00:22 +0000

Sometimes you come across a blog that instantly captures your attention and Sonia’s blog The Healthy Foodie is just one such blog. I love her recipes and her witty way of writing around those recipes and I think her photos are amazing too as you will see below! You’ll have to come and take a look for yourself as it’s one of the blogs I always go to first whenever I have time to browse through my backlog of things to read online! I was thrilled when she agreed to write a little something for ~~Beetroot and Halloumi~~ Junglefrog Cooking and below you can read all about it! And can I just say that I’m very flattered about all the words she wrote about me! Blushing behind the computer now!

Giving it over to Sonia now!

When I heard that Simone, who happens to be one of my most favorite bloggers and photographer extraordinaire, not only had decided to take a little walk down the healthy path, but had also decided to start blogging about her experience, I was ecstatic.

After spending all this time drooling over pretty much every single picture that she’s ever posted, I was finally gonna get to actually give her recipes a try! Big yay!

Now can you imagine my excitement when she asked me if I would consider writing a little piece to be featured on this new baby of hers? I just couldn’t believe it! Me? Making an appearance on one of Simone’s sites? No way!

I have to admit that I am extremely humbled to have my photography being featured in such close proximity to hers. You see, Simone would be one of the foodographers that I look up to the most: her pictures are always so amazing, so mouth watering, so perfect in every possible way. For me to be posting my work here, where her work resides, is an unbelievably humbling experience.

I thank you very much, Simone, for letting me expose my “beginner level art” in your top notch professional gallery.

Whoa, but wait a minute. How very rude of me. Here I am, jabbering away, while most of you don’t have the slightest idea who I am…

Well, my name is Sonia, I’m a 38 year old French Canadian from Québec (Canada), single mother of 2 fully grown kids, who’s recently turned her life around and decided to embrace embrace a healthier approach to living.

Now, if someone had told me, not even 5 years ago, that I would be sitting here today writing these very words, I’d have probably called them crazy.

The thing is, back then, my life was nothing like what it is today.

You see, I used to smoke… A LOT!
And drink… way too much!
Food? OH YEAH! I did lots of that too, of course. And my choices in that field were not always the greatest, really…
As for exercise… Well, that word was not even part of my dictionary!

I eventually had enough of all this and decided that things had to change.

Of course, I quit smoking, quit drinking and eventually, over time, started eating better and exercising. I became totally enthralled by this healthier lifestyle, and to help me stay on track while perhaps inspiring others to follow in my tracks, I eventually created a blog: The Healthy Foodie.

There, I share on a regular basis, thoughts and recipes that I find sit well with my perception of what healthy living can be.

For health, I think, is a very personal concept, really.

In fact, I believe that there are probably as many descriptions of the word as there are people using it. What I consider healthy might be totally unhealthy, to you, and what is healthy to you might be total junk to your neighbour…

Where do I stand?

I personally tend to adhere more to the principles of “clean eating”. This, to me, is a form of health that is totally unrestrictive and super fun and easy to follow.

Quite simply, it implies eating food that is as close as possible to what nature intended. Choose whole, natural foods and try to avoid everything that’s highly processed or refined.

Just remember… Food does not grow in a box! Reach for fresh produce, lean cuts of meat and whole, unrefined grains.

Also, try and include a form of lean protein, complex carbs and healthy fat in every one of your meals. Oh, and be careful not to drink your calories! Opt for water or herbal tea instead of sugar laden fruit juices or sodas!

Last but not least, being healthy implies that you stay active! Keeping your body moving is the best way to rev up your metabolism and get those calories working for you, instead of against you!

I guess, in the end, healthy is what you make it.

And to me, salads such as this one just SCREAM healthy.

Orange fennel salad

Recipe type: salad

Author: Sonia, the healthy foodie

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 fennel bulb (shaved paper thin)
A few sprig fennel leaves
2 navel oranges (supremed)
1 bosc pear (sliced)
45g walnuts (chopped)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

Cut the oranges into supremes, working over a bowl, in order not lose any of the juice. When you’ve got all your supremes done, make sure to squeeze all the juice out of the “membrane” that is left behind.
In a medium to large mixing bowl, add all your ingredients, including orange juice.
Give everything a quick toss and transfer to divide between 2 serving dishes.
Garnish with fennel leaves, if desired.

Want more healthy recipe ideas? Head on over to The Healthy Foodie

And here is a sample of a few recipes you can expect to find…

Salmon terrine – a real Masterchef pressure test!

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:00:16 +0000

Salmon terrine with anchovies butter

We have funny friends, did you know that? Friends who come up with these crazy ideas…. And it seems that our new kitchen is sort of bringing it out in all of them. It could have something to do with the fact that everyone all of a sudden wants us to cook dinner, and hey, it’s even more fun if there is a challenge attached to it. So P. and M., friends we have known for a little over 20 years had decided that Tom and I should do a pressure test.

Checking the recipe again!

If you’ve watched masterchef Australia (2nd season) this recipe might be familiair to you. it’s the salmon terrine that was used in one of the pressure tests. For those not in the know, a pressure test, is where the cooks that were the least successful in that round need to recreate an existing dish within a certain timeframe. usually the dishes are not simple, but require some sort of skill one way or the other. Obviously, we are no masterchef’s, so we bend the rules a little bit to suit our needs. The rule was that the recipes as well as the ingredients would be given to us by friday. So we had the saturday to get extra stuff if needed. I had to work on saturday, so the cooking was on sunday.

Turning the terrine out; le moment supreme

We had three recipes to make; one the salmon terrine with hazelnut salad, two; the drunken chicken recipe from Alvin, three; the roasted pear cake from Neil Perry. The terrine was really not difficult to be honest, it just requires a certain amount of time to cool and set. But once that is done, it is really very straightforward. We were disappointed in the drunken chicken recipe as that was just not to our taste. The dessert however was totally delicious so two out of tree ain’t bad!

Plating up

In the recipe I list the avocado mousse which you do not see on the plate. I did make it, but then I forgot to plate it up… Duh.. The terrine was a big success. Lovely taste of the anchovies butter combined with the salmon. As you can see by looking at the photos I forgot to make the butter layers really thin in the beginning so those are a bit too thick. Paired with some crusty bread this is a real winner and one that will go on our list of party recipes!

I don’t have a good photo of the roasted pear cake but I will def be making that one again so that will come up later!

Smoked salmon terrine

Print recipe

Prep time	1 hour, 20 minutes
Meal type	Appetizer
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Website	Masterchef Australia

Ingredients

700g sliced (smoked salmon)
400g unsalted butter (at roomtemperature)
1 lemon (rind finely grated)
200g white anchovies (drained and pat dried with paper towel)
2 slices (pane di casa bread)

Hazelnut salad

60 ml olive oil
1/4 cup hazelnuts
30ml hazelnut oil
1 teaspoon chestnut honey
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
15ml sherry vinegar
1/4 cup baby endive hearts (We used little gem)
2 tablespoons chervil leaves (picked)
2 tablespoons baby basil (snipped)
2 tablespoons baby parsley (snipped)
1 tablespoon red kale (snipped)

Avocado cream

1 avocado
15ml lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

. Preheat oven to 180˚C. Trim brown fat from each slice of smoked salmon. Square off long edge of each piece.

2. Process butter in food processor until pale and thick, add rind, anchovies, season to taste and process to combine.

3. Grease the inside of a 1 litre capacity terrine mould with oil, line with plastic wrap, with at least 6cm overhang on all sides. Cut a piece of foam to fit inside the terrine mould. Cover it with aluminum foil and set aside.

4. Cover the base of the terrine with one layer of smoked salmon. Using a crank spatula and a straight edged wooden spoon spread a thin even layer of butter. Continue the layers, alternating salmon and butter mixture until you have reached just over half way of the mould. Cover the terrine with plastic wrap and gently press down, place the foil-covered foam into the terrine and weight down with a few food cans. Freeze for 30 minutes, transfer to the fridge for a further 30 minutes.

5. To make the avocado cream, blend together avocado, lemon juice and oil using a stick blender, until smooth.

6. To make the hazelnut salad, Place hazelnuts on an oven tray and roast until browned. Transfer to a clean towel and rub to remove skins. Heat 15ml olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add hazelnuts, cook until golden. Place remaining olive oil, hazelnut oil, honey, mustard and vinegar in a bowl, whisk to combine. Add the hazelnuts to the vinaigrette mixture. Toss salad leaves through the dressing to lightly coat.

7. Heat grill pan over high heat, drizzle bread with olive oil and cook on each side until golden.

8. To serve, invert terrine mould onto a chopping board and slice. Serve with a spoon of avocado mousse, hazelnut salad and grilled bread.

Lemongrass beef skewers – book review Vietnamese street food

Simone (junglefrog) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:00:57 +0000

Seriously good sandwich!

The book I have been reading for the past couple of weeks is all about Vietnamese Street Food. What I love about the book is the fact that it has all those wonderful stories of streetvendors who build a name for themselves in this rather competitive ‘street food’ business. If you’ve never been to Vietnam or Asia for that matter, you might not realize that streetfood is part of culture there. In fact I think we’ve had most of the really memorable meals at a local tiny stall. It’s usually the ones with plastic chairs and horrible fluorescent lighting that give you the best food.

This is not the first book I have that is all about street food. It almost seems to be a trend and a lot of the times it is disappointing and the recipes bland and certainly nothing like the vibrant colors and flavors of real Asian cuisine.

This book however is totally different. Some of the recipes come from the street vendors themselves and you can tell, by reading the recipe, that it is authentic. I decided to make as a first dish from the book something simple and quick. We didn’t have a lot of time tonight but I wanted something tasty nonetheless. I chose a sandwich.

And can I just say….WOW. It’s absolutely delicious and I was sorry I only made 2 of them as we could easily have eaten two each. I had a bit of trouble making the marinade paste as my pestle and mortar is really too small, so I ended up doing it in the stick blender but it was so worth it.

This dish will definitely be on our favorite list from now on and I cannot wait to try out some of the other dishes. High on my ‘to make’ list are some of the spring rolls included. Love spring rolls!

But the book has over sixty authentic Vietnamese street food recipes, ranging from pho to prawn rice paper rolls and rice balls. For me part of the appeal of this book are the stories. Making the book not only a cookbook but also a great guide to some of the wonders of Vietnam.

Vietnamese Street Food by Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl is published by Hardie Grant Books

Hardie Grant on Twitter

Hardie Grant on Facebook

And apologies for the quick snaps of the sandwich but we were quite hungry and the smells made me rush!

Lemongrass beef skewers in baguettes

Print recipe

Serves	6
Prep time	1 hour, 20 minutes
Cook time	6 minutes
Total time	1 hour, 26 minutes
Meal type	Bread, Lunch
Misc	Healthy
Region	Vietnamese
From book	Vietnamese Street Food

Ingredients

300g rump steak
2 red asian shallots (roughly chopped)
3 lemongrass stems (white part only, roughly chopped)
1 red chili (seeded and roughly chopped)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds (toasted)
2 teaspoons fish sauce
3 baguette ((or 6 small ones))
crispy lettuce (leaves separated)
2 cucumbers (peeled and sliced)
1 handful coriander sprigs
1 red chili (extra, sliced)

Directions


Thinly slice the steak and put in a bowl. Place shallots, garlic, lemongrass and chili in a large mortar and use the pestle to grind the mixture into a fine paste. Add the sesame seeds and crush with the pestle. Spoon the paste and the fish sauce over the meat, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Soak 12 bamboo skewers in water for 1 hour to prevent them from burning during cooking. Thread the meat onto the skewers and cook on a hot chargrill or barbecue grill for 2-3 minutes on each side. Meanwhile split the baguette in half lenghtways. Place the lettuce, cucumber, coriander sprigs and extra chili inside the baguettes. Place two fo the cooked skewers inside each baguette. Hold onto the baguette and gently pull out the skewers

Note

Marinating the beef in the mixture give it a lot of flavor and spice. Make sure you marinate it for at least an hour.

Rhubarb souffle for April in Paris

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:42:33 +0000

Monthly mingle; April in Paris

Alors, j’taime Paris… My love affair with France dates back from when I was a little kid. My parents always went to France on holidays. When we were big enough to ‘survive’ the long trip from our home to Bretagne, we went there every year. I must have been 13 or 14 when I entered for the very first time. We went to places like St. Malo or Boules (it was called differently but can’t think of the actual name now!) as long as it was close to anything resembling water. My nickname in those days was ‘waterrat’; if there was water around, you would find me in it. So any camping we would go to would have to be by the seaside or a large lake (we went to the Dordogne a couple of times too)

In fact, I received my very first kiss in France. I was 15 years old, very tall and very slim (tall I still am, but not sure where the slimness went..lol) and very blond. We went on holiday that year with friends from my parents who had two kids (they had more kids, but only two came on that particular holiday) and both of them were boys. The youngest of the two was my little sisters age but the oldest of the two, R. was a little older then me and quite handsome too.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

I was already feeling those famous butterflies in my stomach every time he walked close to me. At some point we were visiting rather boring caves somewhere close to Paris and R. and I stayed a little bit behind. He suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “Have you ever kissed?” He asked me. I squeaked something that must have sounded like ‘no’. ‘Would you like me to show you how to kiss?’ He proceeded asking, at which I squeaked ‘yes’ and that’s how it happened. I received my very first French kiss in France. How fitting! I can’t say I totally enjoyed the experience but we got to practice that entire holiday so we did get quite good at it.

Of course we never wanted our parents to find out what was going on, so we had a lot of fun hiding our ‘activities’ from our folks. I’m pretty sure that they knew what we were doing behind the tents but at the time we were totally convinced we were being secretive and no one knew we ‘were in love’. It was fun while it lasted and it was really only a holiday fling, but fun non the less.

The theme of this months Monthly Mingle brought back all those memories from years past. Made me think about how I love Paris and France in general. Yes, the french can be obnoxious and arrogant at times, but quite honestly I’ve never had a lot of trouble with that. O I now remember a funny story about my Parisian boyfriend too! I’ll save that for another day!

This months mingle is hosted by my dear friend and fabulous writer Jamie from Lifes a Feast. She is an American but has been living in France for a rather long time, so this theme could have come from no other then her! Check out her post about the Mingle and her own entry here, which looks pretty amazing too. The Monthly Mingle is an invention from my other friend Meeta from What’s for Lunch Honey, where a new theme is picked every month. it’s been too long since I last participated as I love the mingle, but couldn’t skip this one, now could I?

Couldn't resist playing with the lensbaby ofcourse

To fit the theme I chose rhubarb and blackberry souffles with a crumble on top. I originally saw this recipe made during an episode of Masterchef Australia and was planning to make it. So when I saw this months theme I just knew it had to be these babies. What can I say? Totally delicious, fluffy and worth making! I was a little afraid the mixture might be too liquid but it worked brilliantly. I didn’t have icecream and whipping cream but that would be fantastic with this dessert.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

Print recipe

Serves	6
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Hot
Region	French
Website	Masterchef Australia

Ingredients

500g rhubarb (cut into 2 cm pieces)
140g sugar
150g black berries
4 egg whites
75g sugar

Crumble

75g flour
50g butter
50g brown sugar
pinch salt
50g rolled oats
50g hazelnuts (roughly chopped)

Directions


Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put the rhubarb with the 140 gr of sugar in a pan, add a splash of water, cover the pan and let it simmer on low heat for a while.
Crumble

Make a crumble by adding the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it with your fingers till it resembles a rough crumble. Put the crumble on a baking tray, spread it out and bake for about 5 minutes until light golden brown.

Butter your ramekins twice. Butter once and then put in the fridge for 5 minutes, butter again and put a tsp of sugar in the ramekin. Turn it around so the sugar coats all the sides of the ramekin well and tap out the excess sugar. Put aside until ready to use.

Once the rhubarb is cooked but still has some chunky bits in it, add the blackberries. You can use frozen blackberries if you cannot find fresh. Add a bit of lemon zest in the pan as well. Put some cornflour in a small bowl, add water and whisk until smooth. Add this bit by bit to your fruit mixture until it is thick enough. It should become a thick puree. Leave to boil for another 1,5 minute to cook the cornflour. Then put your fruit puree into another bowl and stir to cool it down for at least five minutes.

Take 4 eggwhites and add about 1 tbsp of sugar to it and start whisking until it becomes soft and glossy. Add 75 gr of sugar and whisk until it forms soft peaks. Don't overwhisk it.

Put 1/3 of your fruitpuree in a bowl and add about the same amount of eggwhites to it and carefully fold until combined. Repeat this until it's all incorporated. Take your ramekins and with spoon pointing downwards fill all your ramekins up till the rim. Smooth the top with a knife and run a finger along the side of the ramekin to make sure nothing sticks at the sides as that will prevent your souffle from rising.

Put the ramekins in the oven for 6-7 minutes, take them out (they should have risen about 1-2 cm at that stage) and add some crumble on top. Not too much as that will weigh it down but just eough to give it a bit extra. Bake for another 3 minutes and you're done.

Carrot cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:52:51 +0000

Lovely and moist carrot cake

I’ll let you in on a little secret; up till not so very long ago I always thought that carrot cake wasn’t real. That it didn’t really exist other then in a stupid joke that I heard when I was a kid. The joke was about a bunny going to a bakery asking for a carrot cake, which they didn’t have. He came back every day asking for that same cake, until the baker felt sorry for the bunny and made him one. So the next time the bunny came and asked for the carrot cake he proudly said that yes he had made it especially. At which the bunny looked at him and said; ‘Do you hate it as much as I do?”

Admittedly a very very bad joke really but it sort of stuck with me. And the fact that it was a cake with vegetables in it, had me convinced that it was an actual joke and not real.

I’ve never told anyone about this until now. Of course I’ve known for a couple of years now that carrot cake is in fact a very real thing. My mistake is probably also due to the fact that I don’t think it is very popular here in the Netherlands or maybe I just haven’t seen any. Fact is that up until yesterday I had never tasted one! It was just one of those things that didn’t occur to me to make. But when I wanted to try out our new oven yesterday and I ‘bumped’ into this recipe on the Good Food website which was a makeover to make it more healthy I figured it was a sign.

So the very first thing out of our brand new oven is this carrot cake. And I can tell you now that I will definitely be making it a few more times! This is good, seriously good. I haven’t checked against a regular carrot cake recipe why this one is considered to be more healthy apart from the fact that it uses wholemeal flour instead of plain flour and the frosting is made of cream cheese combined with quark which gives it a lovely acidity.

And am I glad to be back cooking and baking! I seriously missed it!

Carrot cake

Print recipe

Serves	16
Prep time	30 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 30 minutes
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Website	BBC Good food

217 kcalories, protein 4g, carbohydrate 31g, fat 9 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 2g, sugar 21g, salt 0.52 g

Ingredients

1 medium orange
140g raisins
125ml rapeseed oil (I used sunflower oil as I couldn't find rapeseed)
115g wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder (plus a pinch)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
140g dark moscovado sugar
280g carrots (finely grated)
2 eggs
115g self raising flour

Frosting

100g light soft cheese (I used philadelphia light)
100g quark
3 tablespoons icing sugar (sifted)
1/2 teaspoon orange zest (grated)
1,5 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions


Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. For the cake, finely grate the zest from the orange and squeeze 3 tbsp of juice. Pour the juice over the raisins in a bowl, stir in zest, then leave to soak while you make the cake. Lightly oil and line the base of a deep 20cm square cake tin. Mix the flours with 1 tsp baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.

Separate one of the eggs. Put the white in a small bowl and the yolk in a large one. Break the remaining whole egg in with the yolk, then tip in the sugar. Whisk together for 1-2 mins until thick and foamy. Slowly pour in the oil and continue to whisk on a low speed until well mixed. Tip in the flour mix, half at a time, and gently stir it into the egg mixture with a rubber spatula or big spoon. The mix will be quite stiff. Put the extra pinch of baking powder in with the egg white and whisk to soft peaks.

Fold the carrot, raisins (and any liquid) into the flour mixture. Gently fold in the whisked egg white, then pour into the tin. Jiggle the tin to level the mixture. Bake for 1 hr until risen and firm or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin 5 mins, turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper, then leave until cold.
Frosting

To make the frosting, stir the soft cheese, Quark, icing sugar and orange zest together - don't overbeat. Stir in the lemon juice. Swirl the frosting over the cake and cut into 16 square. This cake is even better if left well wrapped for a day or two before icing and eating. Will keep up to 5 days uniced in an airtight tin, or in the fridge if iced.

Junglefrog Cooking » recipe

Orange fennel salad by Sonia, the healthy foodie

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