Zoe's Blue cheese, honey and walnut salad

I love blue cheese.  I'm actually surprised that I only have one other recipe that involves blue cheese on this blog so far, and I assure you that I will make every effort to include more!

I have memories of tasting it for the first time many many moons ago, at a large family gathering (possibly Christmas or one of my many cousins' birthdays), the cheese platter would be presented and there would be all manners of cheesy goodness.  I remember one of my uncles explaining to me that the blue green veins were mould, and that the white velvety covering on a piece of brie was also mould.  It grossed me out, but also totally fascinated me that we would deliberately eat it!  So naturally, I tasted it, and that is where the love affair started!

My love for the blue veined cheeses grew when i discovered certain combinations of flavours.  My first love was blue cheese and cured meat - Salami and Parma ham in particular.  Then came blue cheese with walnuts! then came blue cheese with pears! and then finally, and i must say it was one of those epiphany moments, came the discovery (thanks to Warren, chef at Barracuda restaurant) of the foodgasm that is blue cheese and honey.

Blue cheese is one of those cheeses that I cannot NOT like.  I can not be in the mood for it, but I have loved every single type of blue cheese that has entered my mouth, whether it be pasteurised, cave ripened, sheeps, goats, cow's, speciality, cheapo grocery bought cheese.  I have almost as much love for cheap Danish blue than I have for an unpasteurised speciality Roquefort or a pot ripened Stilton soaked in port.  YUM!

I guess I've been somewhat of a foodie since I was weaned, and one of the main reasons was CHEESE!  I love cheese so much!  My (food) highlight of every family gathering is the cheese platter after dinner, sitting there sipping wine, nibbling on cheese and having the inevitable lively discussion, whether it be politics, religion, or some topic that will raise a few voices and possibly end in someone sulking :P (i adore the fact that we can do this and still have so much love for each other).

ANWAY, I am lucky to have found fellow foodie friends, amongst them my lovely half-Maltese, half-French friend Zoe :)  We bonded over how much we have in common all those years ago, and cemented it with cheese.  We are both obsessed with cheese!  It's so tasty! so delicious, and we have spent many a nights just having one more piece of cheese to finish the wine, or one more glass of wine to finish the cheese, repeat ad nauseum and/or drunken food coma :)

This salad is her creation!  Blue cheese, walnuts, prosciutto crudo, pears, dressed with  honey, served with masses of fresh baby salad leaves... perfection!  All these ingredients go so well with each other, it's only natural that we would bring them all together into one of my favourite salads on this planet!

Sorry about the bad quality camera pic! 

Wild Asparagus and Greens Pasta (Wild, Natural foods take 2)

Springtime is a great time for foraging in Malta.  There are plenty of delicious and healthy options to find just on your weekend walk in the countryside (and sometimes, even just walking around residential areas!)

Happy Spaghetti sauce :)

Spaghetti with Artichokes and Tuna (Carciofi e Tonno)

You can choose to make this sauce with the flesh from leftover stuffed artichokes, or plain boiled artichokes, or artichoke flesh collected when in season and frozen; For more information about this, please see the previous post (or click here!)

Depending on whether you use plain or not will make a difference to the sauce.  I always add a bit of extra garlic, fresh garlic stems when in season.

This really is a sauce that you can adapt to whatever you fancy, but I'll give you the recipe of what I did this time, with some additional notes as I go along.  :)

I used leftover stuffed globe artichokes, which were simmered with plenty of fresh flat leaf parsley and fresh garlic (click this for a link to what i mean by fresh garlic).  If i had used plain simmered artichokes, I would have added a bunch more parsley and garlic.

Have your Artichokes and eat them :)

Artichokes - I love them SO much!  I love the idea of eating a flower bud, I love the idea of something so fleeting and seasonal!  The only problem I see with seasonal food is that I always want to enjoy it when it's out of season, without the added burden on our planet of unsustainable farming methods.

In Malta, I love how in just a few weeks, I'll be seeing a small field of these lovely plants, being allowed to mature fully so that the farmers can collect the seeds for the next year.  An artichoke in full bloom such a beautiful sight!!  The size of your head, a MASSIVE purple pall, just like your regular thistles, only much larger! :)  I drive past it every year, and it always seems to be at sunset, when the purple flowers look so pretty in the fading light :) 

When you think about it, the fact that Artichokes are a type of thistle really shows!

Qaqocc Mimli (Stuffed steamed Globe Artichokes)

The start of the Artichoke season to me means a few things (apart form deliciousness!)

Ready stuffed and packed tightly into the pan for cooking

1) The start of the really cold part of winter
2) Those brilliantly sunny but crisp cold days of January (hiking!)
3) The urge to squirrel away these delicacies to bring them out at the height of summer.
4) The excitement I feel when the farmers leave a field of them to flower so that they can use the seeds for next year.  Anyone lucky enough to have seen these fields, they are simply spectacular. The flower grows to be the side of your head, and when they are in bloom, you really see the fact that they are, in fact, a thistle!

What we call the "choke" in an artichoke is in fact the hairy mass of immature petals that would otherwise bloom to become that purple mass in a mature flower.  In culinary terms, the globe artichoke is the bud, which is edible just as it's been formed, and before it starts opening up to bloom.

Here in Malta, they are a seasonal delicacy, even though you can prepare them (and I will let you know how in a later post!) to freeze and store for later on in the year.  Currently, the price is still "high" as it's right at the start of the season, but in a few weeks, we'll be buying a box load for summer use :)

The preparation of artichokes starts from the selection;
They need to be as tightly closed as possible (especially the inner leaves). 
Firm to the touch and feel heavy. 
They need to be as round as possible, not tapering to a point at the top. 
Ideally, choose them from a Green grocer who keeps them on the full stalk, and only ask him to trim it down to 10cm if you are using them on the day. 
If you plan to use them the day after, keep them on the stalk as long as possible, and you can even do as I do and chuck em in a vase as a decoration until you need to use them (keep them only a couple of days though)

This recipe is based on the typical Maltese way of stuffing artichokes.  There are many variations, and this is most certainly not completely traditional.  I made do with the breadcrumbs, mostly because i didn't have any bread in the house, however they do keep the stuffing lovely and absorb much of the delicious, delicious liquid.  if you choose to add them, just crumble up some day old Maltese bread (or a good firm sour dough if unavailable), and soak with a splash of vinegar (the vinegar i added to the recipe anyway and mixed with the other ingredients.  Then add the rest of the stuffing ingredients to that. 

The method below is actually completely vegan (as long as you don't serve it with tuna hahah)  Bonus!

Many other Maltese recipes call for Tuna.  I like to serve my tuna on the side.  But really, the tuna is lovely when added to the filling too.  next time i'm making these, i'll chop a few anchovies into the stuffing.  I think it will be delicious!

Garlic mushrooms

This is a very simple dish.  This is the side that matches so many things, as well as being a meal on its own when served on some lovely buttered sourdough toast.  I use these mushrooms with breakfast, as a filling for omelettes, I serve them as a side to meat/veg dishes, use it as a base to make a mushroom pasta sauce.  It's my "standard" mushroom dish, and I'm surprised I haven't posted it before!  I cook all mushrooms like this at some point.
You can make it with any mushrooms, but normally I just use regular white mushrooms (either in button or cap form).  Today, I made them with chestnut mushrooms, which are meatier and stronger than regular cap mushrooms.  Regardless of the type of mushroom, choose the heaviest, firmest ones you can find.  If they feel light as air and spongy, they aren't fresh.

I usually just wipe mushrooms with a kitchen towel to remove any dirt.  I don't wash unless i'm preparing for a pregnant lady like my lovely sis.

Garlic sautéed mushrooms

Mushrooms (around 400 grams) sliced into .5cm slices
butter
olive oil
A few cloves of garlic
freshly ground pepper
salt

Prepare all the ingredients before starting to cook :) Super Mario mushroom joins his friends :P

Heat  some butter and olive oil in a frypan or wok until the butter is melted and has started bubbling.  Grind plenty of pepper into the oil.

Add mushrooms and toss them in the butter.  Keep stir-frying on a pretty high heat.  Continue until the mushrooms are all squeaking and sizzling, add the garlic, and keep stir-frying until there's a little bit of water coming out of the mushrooms.  Add some salt to pan, this will draw out the moisture.

If you are making pasta, this is the time to add the cream or wine or whatever you want to add to it to make it all lovely and saucy (see a recipe for gnocchi with mushrooms cooked in this way here)

To have them as a side dish, just keep stir-frying until the water has mostly evaporated, taste and season if necessary, and serve piping hot :)

aaand they're done!

Also lovely with a squeeze of lemon, and/or chopped herbs, or add a tiny amount of white wine (make sure it evaporates mostly!) when you add the salt for a lovely tang :)

Enjoy!

Roast butternut and potatoes

This is a perfect side dish for roast meats.  also a perfect weekday dinner if you just add some other veggies into the mix :)

I've discovered that the smaller the butter nut, the better it is for roasting.  It keeps its shape, and is lovely and soft, sweet and nutty on the inside.  The larger it is, the stringier it gets (so I would keep the larger ones for soups).  Also, I always like to make a little extra, to use in salads or just to nibble on the next day, or if there's lots, it's great to make roast pumpkin soup!.  so delicious!

Aubergine/Eggplant Parmigiana

This is one of the dishes that has a confusing origin, people (including myself) thought that the name suggested that it's from Parma, but in fact wiki suggests it's Sicily and Campania that lay claims to it, which makes sense considering the ingredients! :)

layering the ingredients

I have no idea if my version is traditional, in fact I'm sure it's not, but the point is that it tastes good no?  And is made with healthy, fresh ingredients?  AND as a special bonus - this dish is VERY low carb! :D  here we go! :)

Parma ham, Avocado, Gorgonzola salad

As you may or may not know, i'm currently on a low carb diet.
One of the things that i'm enjoying doing is making giant salads and eating them all up!  I am not on a low fat diet, just low carbs, so olive oil, cheeses, hams, avocados, and so many things that are very restricted when on a low calorie diet are back on the menu!  It's the carbohydrates that i'm trying to avoid, whether they be in simple sugar form (sweets, fruits, all those crazy corn derivatives), or complex carbohydrates (starch - some beans, potatoes, wheat, corn)

This one was thrown together in a jiffy.. and my tastebuds were very very happy! :D

Salsa Cruda - a.k.a bloody simple pasta sauce!

Salsa Cruda literally means "raw sauce", as this sauce requires no cooking at all.  There are so many variations of this, but essentially there are a few things in common with all of them: fresh tomatoes, olive oil, a summery herb, all at room temperature.  The pasta is added steaming hot, making a lovely contrast with the cool sauce. Drizzle with some extra Extra Virgin Olive oil just before serving :)

Everything about this sauce screams summer - invokes the feelings of al fresco dining, relaxation, possibly with a frosty glass of white wine :)

The most important thing in this sauce is that you buy the right quality ingredients.   I adore tomatoes for example, but I will not buy them unless they are EXACTLY the quality I want.  Same goes with everything else in this sauce.  Except the basil, because that's growing in pots all over our coutyard in an attempt to finally have enough basil to see us through summer (I swear we're all basil addicts here, I even use it on toast with a tiny drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of seasoning in the morning, it's not my fault, I walk past 2 basil plants on the way to the kitchen, I can't help but pick a leaf or 2!) 

simple, quick, easy, fresh.  :D

Cheesy vegetable Lasagne

We stuff ourselves silly on Xmas day.  It's ridiculous.  And now that the "kids" have become foodies, we have added, not reduced the amount of courses served at this mammoth, 8 hour lunch.  Every time one of the "traditional" family dishes is threatened, half the family go up-in-arms about it, so it's a bit of a risk to change the staples.  In our family these staples are meat lasagne, and a dessert we call "coffee mousse", which I'm yet to attempt.

I did the daring and changed the meat lasagne into a vegetarian version, in an attempt to at least make one of the courses somewhat easier to digest with all the other foods there.  As not to scare the carnivores, we named it "cheesy vegetable lasagne", with an emphasis on the cheese.  And it seemed to work! 

Cheesy vegetable lasagne

Roast Potatoes - Hasselback stylez

Cooking potatoes in this way is a real win/win situation.  They take less time to cook than just placing a whole potato in the oven, and they also look really, really pretty!  Plus you get a little bit of the soft delicious inside, and a crunchy layer on every bite!

They are great served with something saucy, or really, whenever you feel like a roasted potato without waiting for ages!  Hasselbacks are not a hassle at all hehee :) 

There are heaps of variations, you can put various herbs, or even a little bit of grated parmesan to add extra crunch, or simply seasalt and ground pepper... it's great!

Hasslback potatoes with coq au vin

Regarding the type of potatoes, I like to use a waxy one, as they will keep their shape, yet remain lovely and creamy on the inside.  I find that using Charlotte,king edward or nicola is great, but in Malta, they don't come by "name" so just get the ones with the pink eyes, or the ones that are longish (rather than round) and yellow, not white on the inside. 

Ingredients for 4 people

• 8-12 medium sized roasting potatoes
• Chunky and fine sea salt
• Fresh black pepper
• Rosemary, thyme, or herbes de Provence
• Olive oil
• Cold butter (optional)
• A head of garlic, separated into cloves but left unpeeled and whole

Preheat oven to 200 celcius (i think that's about 450 fahrenheit)

Wash and scrub potatoes, removing all the little eyes and bad bits.

Grab a potato, place it on the flattish side down (there is always a flatter side on a potato).  Start slicing with a VERY sharp and thin knife to about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way down. Make about 15 of these slices into the potato.  Be really careful not to go all the way down, but don't freak out if it happens once or twice.  We're not perfect!  Repeat with all the potatoes.  

Put in a mixing bowl, and pour some olive oil over the potatoes, and toss until they are all covered.  Don't be scared to use your hands at this point.  Just make sure that you have all the other ingredients at hand first, otherwise there will be oily cupboards and jars to deal with!

Place the potatoes on a shallow baking tray (i use baking paper also).

One by one, gently and ever so slightly pry the slices open and try and sprinkle some chunky salt in there. This will keep the slices ever so slightly open also, and will help the herbs, pepper etc get into each slice.

Sprinkle with pepper, herbs, some more fine salt (it's very hard to put too much salt on a potato!), and if you want, place a teenzy slice of butter in one of the middle slices.

In the oven...

Put in oven, and leave for about 30-45 minutes, uncovered until they are cooked through and all browned and crispy on the top. 

Leave for about 5-10 min before tucking in, because they will be REALLY hot! :D  luckily you can "open them up" a little with your fork to let them cool faster :D  

They go very well with coq au vin gravy over them too :)

Coq au Vin

Ah.... this is one of my favourite dishes, to make, to serve and to eat.  Like the Maltese fenkata, this is a dish best served with loved ones!! :) I've adapted it to use things I can find in a regular butcher/supermarket/greengrocer.
It really makes a difference to cook this the night before, so try to do that if possible as the flavour really develops.  Plus it's way easier if you're entertaining anyway!  If not, try and make it as early on in the day as possible, and leave to sit for a couple of hours before reheating and serving!
Really good served with some kind of roast potatoes (i made hasselbacks, recipe to follow) and/or some fresh beautiful loaf of bread (luckily there's no short supply of that in Malta!)

Delicious and nutritious comfort food :)

Salad with beetroot and walnuts

This salad is a variation on Zoe's amazing goat's cheese and roast fennel salad.. I didn't have fennel, and instead of fresh goat's cheese I used Dodoni feta.

I love the mixture of nuts, beetroot and cheese, so this is just another addition to the "let's use beetroot in as many ways as possible while they're in season" list :D

Once it gets colder, a simple green salad just doesn't quite cut it, and i like my salads to have substance :)  this is a great example of this!  The flavours of Autumn in the mediterranean simply jump out of this salad :)

This salad doesn't have a dressing in the conventional way of thinking of a dressing.  You dress the beets and along with some of the juices that are released from the slightly charred yet juicy onions, you actually don't need a vinaigrette! 

raw walnuts, roasted beets, fresh tender leaves and tangy goat's cheese.  nom!

baked potato gnocchi with mixed mushrooms

Jamie and I went to Amsterdam a few weeks ago, and rented a little apartment to stay in.  Great idea, as we could use ingredients we don't find so often in cooking :D

Headed off to the stoopermarket and found a variety of mushrooms, so thought we'd make something with them.  I really felt like potato something, and gnocchi sprung to mind <3

And so was the birth of the baked gnocchi mushroom dish :)

The finished product. melty, golden mushroomy potato goodness.

Lala's lasagne

This recipe is pretty much my mum's recipe.. although we always manage to make it taste completely different.  To be honest mine tastes different every time. but i must say, I do like my own (and my family's) lasagne.  There are a few other people's lasagne dishes I've enjoyed, I can literally count them on 1 hand (my Uncle Kiki's, and my Aunt Isabel's, and my best friend's mum Pat).  I'm sure there are plenty of delicious lasagnas out there but i haven't had the pleasure, and frankly, I don't even really want to try cos there's not much I abhor tasting more than a bad lasagne. 

anyway here goes:

Spinach and Ricotta Canneloni

Canneloni is a baked pasta dish that i love doing, now that i've found how easy it is piping the filling into the pasta tubes, rather than trying to spoon it in :P  Love my practical mate and old housemate Becky, who walked past the kitchen once when I was making them and just said "why don't you use a bag to pipe it in?".... :D

Mushroom risotto

I've totally got the risotto bug again... happens as soon as I make one, then i make one at least once a week, then summer rolls around, and i stop making it again...until the weather cools down slightly, then it's back to risotto time :D 

Aljotta (Maltese fish soup) made with lampuki aka mahimahi

This is a broth based soup, and has 2 distinct parts to making it.  The first is the stock, which is a very simple fish stock.  The second is where this actually gets its name from, which is the soup base consisting of lots of garlic (aglio!) onions, tomatoes and very importantly, marjoram.

Don't be fooled, all that delicious rice and bits of fish are in the bottom.  this is a delicious soup!! :)

Lampuki with Salsa Pikkanti

The title translates to "Dolphinfish with a piquant sauce" - this is one of my favourite Lampuki/mahi mahi dishes :)


It's a dish traditionally served cold, as far as i know.  I've always eaten it cold anyway, it's a great way to use up leftover lampuki (or as mum/nanna used to do, deliberately buy extra so we could have this the next day).