Junglefrog Cooking » walnuts

Quinoa, feta and walnut salad

Simone (junglefrog) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:42:46 +0000

Delicious and healthy salad with quinoa, feta and apple

It’s no big secret that I love quinoa as it has been featured here a couple of times, as you can see with this delicious quinoa salad with courgette, the quinoa salad with pomegranate and most recently the pumpkin stew. I was reading a couple of blogs on my Iphone this morning (don’t you just love the possibilities of wireless internet??) when I came upon this delicious recipe from Reeni of the blog Cinnamon spice and everything nice. She had this quinoa salad on and I immediately knew what I wanted to make for lunch. I had everything in house so it was perfect.

I knew I would be baking the entire day for a customer who wants to have all the recipes on their site re-shot, so I figured I could do with something NOT sweet for lunch. I’ve been pretty good too, despite being covered in flour and buttercream most of the day. I have not eaten anything of the sweet goodies!! Proud of myself…. I’ve lost 9 pounds so far and want to keep the momentum going. It’s not that I don’t allow myself anything “bad” but all in moderation. And if I have to choose between – for instance – a good piece of cheese or a cupcake, I would go for the cheese anytime, so I’ll stay of the sweets for a while.

And I gotta say that after having this delicious salad I did not feel the need to snack on anything so that was all good. This salad is definitely going to be on my list of favorites. I changed the dressing and the qty’s a bit from the original but I’m sure it was just as lovely!

And I can say that in terms of the Living Leaner project, this did not cost me anything, but that is not entirely fair of course as I have bought these ingredients at some point in the past. I’m pretty sure that it would fit nicely below the 10 euro budget as the most expensive ingredient in here is the feta of which I used about 1/4 of the package, so still some left for more yummy salads this week! The rocket cress we grew ourself on our window sill. Love rocketcress! So tasty and so easy to grow too (and trust me when I say I do not have green fingers at all.!)

Quinoa, apple and feta salad

Print recipe

Serves:	1
Prep time:	15 minutes
Cook time:	15 minutes
Total time:	30 minutes
Dietary:	Vegetarian
Meal type:	Lunch, Salad
Region:	Worldwide
Website:	Cinnamon spice and everything nice

Ingredients

75g quino (cooked and cooled off)
50g feta
a fewwalnuts (roasted and chopped)
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
1 head apple (I used half an apple here)

Optional

1 tablespoon rocket cress

Dressing

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon coarse grain mustard
salt
pepper
1 teaspoon honey

Directions


In a small skillet over medium heat toast walnuts about 5 minutes stirring often. Remove and allow to cool. Chop the walnuts into smaller pieces. Chop the cranberries also into smaller pieces. Crumble the feta cheese and peel, core and cut the apple into bitesize chunks. In a large bowl combine quinoa, apples, cranberries, feta cheese, and the walnuts.

Make a dressing of the oliveoil, limejuice, pepper, salt, honey and mustard and taste to adjust seasoning to your liking. Pour the dressing over the bowl of quinoa and enjoy!

Note

This is an incredibly tasty and really healthy lunch salad that is quick to put together. You can also use another grain such as couscous or pearl barley for this.

Goatcheese salad with walnuts and pear

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:00:19 +0000

Goatcheese salad with pear and roasted walnuts

I sit on my chair. Well ok, more truthfully, I lie on the couch. There is still a faint smell of chocolate lingering in the air that makes me slightly nauseous. Too much chocolate in too little time cannot be good for a person. It’s been baking galore here; if not for our selves or for our friends I have been baking cupcakes for a client or shooting other cakes and cookies for another client. And no, not Christmas anymore. We have moved on to spring pictures already. It’s almost as bad as shooting for fashion although for that we are now in fall 2012 season. I can hardly remember what season we really have on hand!

In the midst of all that Christmas chaos I sometimes just need to get away from all the overly sweet or overly festive dishes that tend to dominate the december month. I feel more like eating fruit all day or enjoying a really tasty and simple salad. Because let’s face it; do you really need yet another recipe for a simple goatcheese salad? I always think that everyone already knows how to make a quick (but delicious) salad like this, but in case you do not know; Below is the recipe written out for you.

Goatcheese salad with pear and walnuts

Print recipe

Serves:	4
Prep time:	20 minutes
Cook time:	15 minutes
Total time:	35 minutes
Meal type:	Lunch, Salad
Region:	Worldwide
From book:	Delicious kookboek by Valli Little

Ingredients

150g goatcheese
60ml walnut oil (plus extra for greasing the cheese)
6 slices bread (walnut bread is really good here, but you can use any stale or fresh bread you have left over)
80ml olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 handfuls salad leaves (radicchio is really nice here but use whatever salad leaves you like best. I've used rocket here and lamb's lettuce as that was available)
150 g watercress
1 pear (make sure it is a ripe pear)
60g walnuts (chopped and roasted)

Directions


Coat the goatcheese all around in walnutoil and cut the cheese in 4 rounds and put in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Cut the crust from your bread and cut the bread in 2 cm cubes. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the croutons keeping an eye on them for about 1 to 2 minutes until they are crispy and golden. Remove from the pan and leave to drain on kitchen towel.

Mix the walnut oil, honey and lemonjuice in a little bowl and add salt and pepper to taste.

Divide your salad leaves across 4 plates. Cut the pear in slices and coat in lemonjuice to prevent discoloration, put the pear on top of the salad leaves and add the croutons and the chopped walnuts

Heat the grill at the highest setting and line a baking tray with baking paper. Put the cheese slices on the baking tray, sprinkle with walnut oil and put the cheese under the grill for 1-2 minutes or until the top becomes golden brown and the cheese starts to melt. Put a piece of goatcheese on each salad plate and sprinkle the dressing over and serve immediately.

Note

Everyone has a version of this classic salad, and there are probably as many variations out there as people but still... this one's good too!

It’s nothing new, but it is incredibly delicious and using homemade croutons does make it better. Making your croutons from walnut bread or a really good sourdough bread will make this simple salad even a little bit more special. You can use whatever saladleaves you have on hand right now. Radicchio would have been nice but couldn’t be found, so we used a combination of rocket, watercress and lamb’s lettuce that we could find. After having lunch with such a delicious salad, I feel lighter, healthier and ready to tackle the next Christmas task at hand; figuring out on how earth to prepare an entire turkey!

Trapani rigatoni and limoncello trifle

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:00:34 +0000

Trapani rigatoni

It was time… It had been too long ago that Charlotte and myself (and Winfried) cooked up something fun together.. Well actually that is not even entirely true as Charlotte is also part of our cooking club so it’s not really that long, but cooking with more then two/three in this case does not count.. And quite frankly it is more or less and excuse to get together and have fun. And what better way to do that then in the kitchen. It was also on the first day of spring so a gorgeous gorgeous sunny day (I love spring don’t you? Flowerbuds and blossom are still a bit hesitant, but promise is in the air for sure!) After my failure with the buns earlier I figured I needed to make a bread that I knew how to do and it was easy to pick my pumkin-walnut focaccia that we so loved the last time I made it.

Preparing the pumpkin, stretching the dough (still a bit too sticky!) and before it goes in the oven!

It’s almost become kind of thing for us to make a Jamie Oliver recipe everytime we cook together. Possibly because the only decent cookbook that Charlotte owns is a Jamie cookbook (o, hahaha… sorry Charlotte, couldn’t resist..) so the rest is history… I had gotten Jamie’s 30 minute meals for christmas and while I love browsing through it I hadn’t actually made any recipes out of it yet. So we very quickly agreed on what we were gonna make. That same morning while reading through my stack of cookbooks in bed (do you do that too? Read cookbooks in bed??) I had already seen the dessert I fancied, which was a trifle of sorts with limoncello. We still had limoncello in the freezer from our trip to Italy so I figured it would be perfect for this! It didn’t take long for Charlotte to be convinced (2 seconds maybe?) as one look at the recipe and she was convinced too. It is that good!

I’ve always been a little hesitant to really believe the 30 minute menus. I mean, sure I can do a dish in 30 minutes as I love doing quick dishes during the weekdays, but a whole 3-course menu in 30 minutes seemed a bit too much too handle. But since we made two of the recipes of this particular 30 minute meal (we skipped the salad) I am inclined to think that it can actually be done. The pasta is incredibly tasty and the only thing is that you do need a kitchenmachine or blender to make this, otherwise it’s possibly much longer. But we all loved the pasta, which is virtually vegetarian apart from the anchovy that goes in the sauce. Tom – always a meat eater – did not even complain that he didn’t get any meat. (he did complain that we did not make a more fancier menu after having been in the kitchen the entire afternoon, but he doesn’t get the ‘girls-need-to-be-able-to-talk-too’ thing…

I will give you both the recipe for the limoncello trifle and the pasta and I would really encourage you to make both! (plus the focaccia too….!! Sooo good!)

Trapani rigatoni

Recipe type: Main

Author: Jamie Oliver

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

500 gr dried rigatoni
40 gr parmesan cheese
100 gr whole blanched almonds
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 fresh red chili peppers (our supermarket was out of the chili’s so I used chilipepper puree which you can buy in a bottle here. That worked fine!)
2 large bunches of basil
4 anchovy fillets in oil
450 gr cherry tomatoes, preferably red and yellow ones if you can find them

Instructions

Put the cheese (in chunks) with the almonds, the garlic and the chili pepper (if you use whole chili’s then remove the stalks. If you prefer extra hot, keep the seeds in, otherwise remove before adding to the magimix) in the magimix and chop finely. With motor running add 1,5 bunch of basil, the anchovy and about 2/3 of the cherry tomatoes. Mix everything until it resembles a puree and add two good lugs of olive oil. Taste the mixture and add seasoning if needed. Set aside for later use.
Cut the remaining tomatoes in half or quarters and put aside. In the meantime you could have cooked your rigatoni so check if they are done. Leave them to drain and keep a little bit of the cooking fluid separately. Put the pasta back in the hot pan and mix with the puree and stir it all together well. Add a little cooking fluids if it is a bit too dry or dense.
For serving put it in a large dish, shake it again and add the remaining cherry tomatoes and basil leaves to it.

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Seriously good pasta!

LIMONCELLO TRIFLE

3 oranges
3/4 dl limoncello
100 gr ladyfingers
250 gr mascarpone
2 tbsp of icing sugar plus a little extra for dusting
1 dl milk
1 lemon
1 tsp of vanillapaste or extract (which I didn’t have so I used vanillapods instead)
150 gr of raspberries or other seasonal fruit
100 gr dark chocolate (70% cacao content) for grating on top

Juice the oranges in a bowl you can use for the finished dish. Mix it with the limoncello and taste to check if the alcohol vs the sweetness of the fruit has the right balance. You don’t want the alcohol to be too overpowering. Add a layer of ladyfingers at the bottom of the bowl.

In a separate bowl mix the mascarpone with the icing sugar and the milk. Add the zest of 1 lemon, the juice of 1/2 the lemon and the vanilla. Stir until everything is well combined. Spread the mixture over the layer ladyfingers, add the raspberries and finish it of with a layer of the grated chocolate. Put the trifle in the fridge until you need it.

Note: I did find that the end result was a bit wet. It doesn’t look very pretty but it has no effect on the taste. So if that happens, don’t worry about it…

Yeasted Meringue coffee cake; Daring Bakers march 2011

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 06:00:17 +0000

Yeah!! I did it! I finshed a Daring Baker challenge ahead of time!It’s been far too long since I last finished a Daring Baker challenge and when I found out that my dear friend from Life’s a Feast, Jamie was co-hosting this event together with Ria from Ria’s Collection, I just knew I had to get of my lazy behind and start baking! And since I know myself I figured it wouldn’t hurt to finish it early so with still two weeks left before the reveal date I think that is a first for me..

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

As soon as I read that this recipe originates from an old handwritten recipe in the collection of Jamie’s dad I was intrigued. It’s a shame I never had any parents or grandparents that were particularly font of cooking as I would have loved to find old recipes like that. I had definitely never made a yeasted cake before and so this weekend, when I had spare time on my hands, it was time to tackle this recipe.

The recipe itself was pretty straightforward; I didn’t run into any issues, apart from the fact that I forgot the cinnamonsugar in the first cake… I was so occupied with making sure I would be able to roll it correctly that I forgot the sugar. I didn’t miss it though, so all good. I made the first cake pretty much exactly the same as per Jamie’s recipe. The second one was similar but I added banana in there. Which I actually thought was a great addition as it made it slightly more moist and well, who doesn’t like banana? (Tom doesn’t, so I am sure he is not happy that I ruined the second cake for him!)

Showing the insides

While assembling the cake I was a little afraid that the fact that it overflowed a little bit around the seams would potentially cause problems but it didn’t so the end result was all beautiful and delicious as it was supposed to be. I totally loved the cake and I am sure it will go down really well with Tom’s friends who are coming over tonight. Nothing beats 4 hungry guys when it comes to finishing any sweets you made…

Fresh out of the oven and cooling

Yeasted Meringue coffee cake; Daring Bakers march 2011

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 6

FILLED MERINGUE COFFEE CAKE Makes 2 round coffee cakes, each approximately 10 inches in diameter The recipe can easily be halved to make one round coffee cake

Ingredients

For the yeast coffee cake dough:
4 cups (600 g / 1.5 lbs.) flour
cup (55 g / 2 oz.) sugar
teaspoon (5 g / ¼ oz.) salt
1 package (2 ¼ teaspoons / 7 g / less than an ounce) active dried yeast
cup (180 ml / 6 fl. oz.) whole milk
cup (60 ml / 2 fl. oz. water (doesn’t matter what temperature)
cup (135 g / 4.75 oz.) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 large eggs at room temperature
For the meringue:
3 large egg whites at room temperature
teaspoon salt
teaspoon vanilla
cup (110 g / 4 oz.) sugar
For the filling:
1 cup (110 g / 4 oz.) chopped pecans or walnuts
2 Tablespoons (30 g / 1 oz.) granulated sugar
teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (170 g / 6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips or coarsely chopped chocolate
Egg wash: 1 beaten egg
Cocoa powder (optional) and confectioner’s sugar (powdered/icing sugar) for dusting cakes

Instructions

Prepare the dough:

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 ½ cups (230 g) of the flour, the sugar, salt and yeast.
In a saucepan, combine the milk, water and butter and heat over medium heat until warm and the butter is just melted. Ria’s version: add the 10 saffron threads to the warmed liquid and allow to steep off of the heat for 10 minutes. This will give the mixture a distinct aroma and flavor and a yellowish-orange hue.
With an electric mixer on low speed, gradually add the warm liquid to the flour/yeast mixture, beating until well blended. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes. Add the eggs and 1 cup (150 g) flour and beat for 2 more minutes.
Using a wooden spoon, stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a dough that holds together. Turn out onto a floured surface (use any of the 1 ½ cups of flour remaining) and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth, sexy and elastic, keeping the work surface floured and adding extra flour as needed.
Place the dough in a lightly greased (I use vegetable oil) bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise until double in bulk, 45 – 60 minutes. The rising time will depend on the type of yeast you use.

Prepare your filling:

In a small bowl, combine the cinnamon and sugar for the filling if using. You can add the chopped nuts to this if you like, but I find it easier to sprinkle on both the nuts and the chocolate separately.
Once the dough has doubled, make the meringue:
In a clean mixing bowl – ideally a plastic or metal bowl so the egg whites adhere to the side (they slip on glass) and you don’t end up with liquid remaining in the bottom – beat the egg whites with the salt, first on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high and continue beating until foamy and opaque. Add the vanilla then start adding the ½ cup sugar, a tablespoon at a time as you beat, until very stiff, glossy peaks form.

Assemble the Coffee Cakes:

Line 2 baking/cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Punch down the dough and divide in half. On a lightly floured surface, working one piece of the dough at a time (keep the other half of the dough wrapped in plastic), roll out the dough into a 20 x 10-inch (about 51 x 25 ½ cm) rectangle. Spread half of the meringue evenly over the rectangle up to about 1/2-inch (3/4 cm) from the edges. Sprinkle half of your filling of choice evenly over the meringue (ex: half of the cinnamon-sugar followed by half the chopped nuts and half of the chocolate chips/chopped chocolate).
Now, roll up the dough jellyroll style, from the long side. Pinch the seam closed to seal. Very carefully transfer the filled log to one of the lined cookie sheets, seam side down. Bring the ends of the log around and seal the ends together, forming a ring, tucking one end into the other and pinching to seal
Using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife (although scissors are easier), make cuts along the outside edge at 1-inch (2 ½ cm) intervals. Make them as shallow or as deep as desired but don’t be afraid to cut deep into the ring.
Repeat with the remaining dough, meringue and fillings.
Cover the 2 coffee cakes with plastic wrap and allow them to rise again for 45 to 60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
Brush the tops of the coffee cakes with the egg wash. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until risen and golden brown. The dough should sound hollow when tapped.
Remove from the oven and slide the parchment paper off the cookie sheets onto the table. Very gently loosen the coffee cakes from the paper with a large spatula and carefully slide the cakes off onto cooling racks. Allow to cool.
Just before serving, dust the tops of the coffee cakes with confectioner’s sugar as well as cocoa powder if using chocolate in the filling. These are best eaten fresh, the same day or the next day.

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Apple walnut clafoutis

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:25 +0000

Apple walnut clafoutis

Before I started blogging I had never heard of clafoutis, let alone tasted one. But I kept seeing gorgeous examples of this incredibly versatile and yet so easy dish around the internet quite often until I decided it was time to try it for myself. The first clafoutis I mad was of the traditional kind. I have read that “historically” clafoutis are made with cherries, so that is what I did for making my first clafoutis. And it was delicious but I thought at the time that it could be better. I think in all likelyhood that it

Clafoutis

was the cherries that were to blame here as they were not as sweet as I like my cherries to be.

So when I read about the Monthly Mingle subject for this month being “Brunch” I figured I would make another clafoutis. What better dish to serve at a brunch then a lovely clafoutis which can be eaten warm or cold? Perfect!

Given that it is apple season I wanted to make an apple version and thought that walnuts would go well as well as cinnamon. Basically apple pie flavors but without the apple pie… And delicious it was! I mean; the cherry clafoutis was nice, but this one was ten times better in terms of taste!! Now I truly love apple and cinnamon together. The smell alone of cinnamon makes me truly happy. It brings back childhood memories of mum baking apple pie (the only thing she ever baked apart from cake I think..lol ) and autumn in general. We always went to an orchard that I believe was owned by the company my dad worked for and each autumn we would receive loads of apples, so naturally they had to be put into something or eaten as is. So apple pie it was…

Ingredients:

About 3 or 4 apples
2 large eggs + 1 yolk
1/2 cup blond cane sugar (100 gr)
1 oz cornstarch (16 gr)
1 oz all purpose flour (16 gr)
7/8 cup whole milk, cold (200 ml)
1 vanilla, seeds removed
1/2 cup heavy cream (120 ml)
walnuts, chopped
ground cinnamon

Steps:

Preheat your oven at 180 C.
Peel the apples and cut into cubes or slices whatever you feel is best for the oven dish you are using
Beat the eggs and yolk with the sugar.
Add the vanilla seeds and mix.
Dilute the cornstarch in the cold milk.
Add the flour and cornstarch to the previous preparation, with the cream. Mix well until homogeneous. Add ground cinnamon to your liking.
Grease small ramekins (or a larger dish) and sprinkle with sugar. Remove the excess.
Divide the apple and walnuts between them and pour the cream over.
Sprinkle with ground cinnamon and place in the oven for 40 to 45 min, until golden. Remove. Eat lukewarm or cold.
When ready to serve, you can sprinkle chopped walnuts on top.

I think this particular dish is best served while still warm. It’s good when cold, but it is even better when still warm. I sprinkled it with icing sugar for the photo but that is not really necessary as it is sweet enough as it is!

So I am officially sending this to the Monthly Mingle !

Enjoy!

Junglefrog Cooking » walnuts

Quinoa, feta and walnut salad

Quinoa, apple and feta salad

Ingredients

Optional

Dressing

Directions

Note

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Goatcheese salad with walnuts and pear

Goatcheese salad with pear and walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Trapani rigatoni and limoncello trifle

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Yeasted Meringue coffee cake; Daring Bakers march 2011

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Apple walnut clafoutis

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