Pumpkin jam!

Ok, it's winter! It's snowing and very cold. This means it's time to get cosy in your home and make some delicious foods to warm your body. This is a pumpkin jam recipe to go with your warm bread or scones.

Ingredients:
1kg of yellow pumpkin
700g of brown sugar
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
the rasp of one lemon
pinch of ginger powder or 1cm of fresh ginger rasped

Put all ingredients in a pan and mix together and leave for at least 10 just so that all the flavours get friendly with each other ;-). Then put it in the fire and let it cook slowly for 1-/+ hour while stirring once in a while. You know it's ready when it's thick and you can leave a tunnel with your spoon.

Bon apetit!

Chocolate walnut candy! (picture will follow)

I love candy's but I love to make them even more! So let the sugar come!

350g chocolate as black as you can find preferable 92% cacao broken in little pieces
390g condensed milk
30g butter
150g walnuts broken into little pieces

a pinch of salt


Put the chocolate , condensed milk, butter and the pinch of salt in a pan and take it to the fire. Let it all melt slowly while stirring. When melted add the nuts mix it again a bit and take the pan out of the fire. Put the mixture in a square deep dish of about 25cm side to side covered in vegetable paper and let it get cold and afterwards put it in the fridge for some hours. With a knife cut it in squares and wrap them individually in plastic foil .


Yummy yummy!

Peanut butter! (picture will follow)

Yes you can make your own peanut butter! I'm all for making your own jams, peanut butter, hummus and so on. I love the fact that I can make them for my family, they love it and I know what's inside. It's more simple than you may think!

Ingredients: (for about 300g of peanut butter)

250g of peanuts virgin ones (that you can roast on your own) or unsalted already roasted peanuts
1/2 spoon peanut oil
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder
1/2 teaspoon of brown sugar

Mash everything to your taste (some people like it very well mashed others like it with little pieces inside! Then add the mixture in sterilized pots (boil them or wash them very well and dry them very well as well). Keep it in the fridge for about 3 weeks!

Enjoy your home made peanut butter!

Carla's pasta!

Ingredients:

600g black cuttle-fish pasta (you can buy the pasta or make regular pasta yourself and then deep it into the ink of the cuttle-fish and leave for one hour in the ink and then put it to dry. Will post a regular egg pasta recipe soon)

600g of mixed sea food

1 chopped onion

a few small Roma tomatoes chopped

2 garlic cloves

1/2 Spanish pepper

pinch of sea salt

olive oil

bit of rasped ginger

200g fresh chopped basil

Cook the pasta in water as prescribed in your pasta recipe or as it says in the package! When cooked pass in cold water and leave aside. Put the garlic, tomatoes, onion, pepper and ginger in a fry pan with a bit of olive oil and fry until the mixture is a bit brown. Then add the seafood and turn it time to time for 5 minutes. When the fish is ready put the pasta in a bowl sprinkle some salt above the pasta, a bit of olive oil and then the mixture with the fish on top! You can add some Parmesan or Gruyere cheese on top but the pasta is so tasteful it self it doesn't need cheese.

Bon appetit!

Courgette jam!

I love to make jams because your house just smells great afterwards and you can enjoy it for a long time! And it's a perfect gift if you are invited to dinner or lunch. This one I made for my friend Tina. You get for big jars out of this recipe.

Ingredients:

1kg courgette (cleaned and fine rasped)
750g brown sugar
1 rasp of a whole lemon
2 cinnamon sticks
1 spoon of cardamon powder

Put all ingredients into a large pan and mix everything together and leave for an hour! Then take it to the fire and let it cook for 1.5 to 2 hours. First at a big flame and later at the smallest. When it's sticky and you can make a "road" with a spoon on the pan it's ready! Divide the jam into sterilized jam pots, fill the pots close them and turn them outside up to great a vacuum and leave like that until the first time you use it.

Enjoy!

Lemon cookies without eggs!

Ingredients:


300g flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
70g butter
150g sugar
2 spoons of milk
1 spoon of lemon juice



Mix all ingredients in a bowl! Role on a table and make with forms (I used a star and an airplane for these ones ) or your hands the cookies. Put in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes -/+ at 170 degrees. And they must be soft before you take them out of the oven because they get dry outside the oven. Decorate to your taste or not they don't need decoration.


Enjoy!

Rice pudding the Portugese way!

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks
1l milk or soy milk
150g brown sugar
100g round grain rice or dessert rice
15g butter
2 cinnamon sticks
1 whole lemon pod
pinch of salt

Take a big pan and add the milk, cinnamon, lemon, butter and salt and boil until it reaches the boiling point and take out of the fire add the rice and leave to rest for one hour. Then put the pan in the fire again and take to boiling point and then leave to cook the rice softly until the rice is soft. When the rice is ready take the pan from the fire and add the egg yolks mix it well with the milk mixture. Take the cinnamon sticks and lemon out of the pan and put the mixture into a deep serving bowl. Spread cinnamon on top of the mixture. Let it rest for one hour and then keep it in the fridge until it's cold and it's ready to serve!

Bom apetite!