Spicy cabbage & meat stew

I know I've been a lousy blogger lately. Or not even lousy, more like a non-blogger. I haven't stopped cooking, quite the opposite in fact. I've made lots of nice things lately and now I'm going to share one of them with you. Before anyone gets excited about something super fancy and new, basically something worth breaking a 6-month blogging silence, I'm going to announce that it's Cabbage Stew I made last night!

Yes, cabbage stew. Such great food that I had sort of forgotten about for a long time. You basically boil some white cabbage, fry some minced meat and onion, add some carrots and whatever other veggies you please and then, here's the important bit, you spice it up to make it nice. So good. And with this recipe you get lots. Like, at least two full meals for two people. And maybe more if your appetite is smaller than mine (which is likely the case).


Spicy cabbage & meat stew
6-8 portions

cooking oil spray or olive oil or butter
1 whole white cabbage, chopped
1 onion, chopped
500g lean mince meat
3 large carrots, chopped
1/2 zucchini (optional, obviously)
200g green beans, cut into about 2 cm pieces
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp hot paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chilli flakes
black pepper
(salt)
about 1 litre of meat stock (or same amount of water + 1 stock cube)

Spray a large casserole dish with cooking oil spray (or use olive oil or butter). Sautee the onion for a couple of minutes. Add the mince and brown. Add the cabbage, carrots and other veggies and mix well. Add the spices, tomato paste and meat stock and bring to boil. Let it simmer under a lid for about 45 minutes or until all veggies are soft and the water had reduced. Add more water if needed. Taste to make sure it's spicy enough and if not, add some more chilli :)

I threw in some quinoa as well but it was so little that in the end you couldn't really tell it was there, hence it's not in the recipe. To get even more volume, you could add some red lentils or rice in there if you need/want some extra carbs. Also, if you prefer a soup over a stew, feel free to add more water.

Soup from Tom Yam paste

I have been a bad, bad blogger lately. For a while I completely lost my cooking inspiration, then for another while nothing really worked out the way I wanted and most recently I have just been plain lazy. My apologies. However, I refuse to take any stress from this nice hobby in the future either. So if there is going to be another 2 month break before the next post, then so be it. Tough life.

I don't dare to call this Tom Yam soup because I honestly have no idea how authentic or not authentic this is. I took the recipe straight from the side of the paste jar and then omitted half the ingredients because I didn't have them but wanted to try this anyway. And I think the end result was great! I don't think I've ever tried the real Tom Yam soup (yes, seriously) but if it's anywhere close to what I came up with, it might just be my new favorite.

Tom Yam soup of sorts

4 portions

1 litre of chicken stock (I used two cubes)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp Tom Yam paste
3 chicken skinless chicken breasts, cubed
100g frozen prawns
2 tomatoes
splash of fish sauce
1 tsp dried kaffir lime leaves
small jar of coconut milk (160ml)

fresh flat leaf parsley

Boil the chicken stock and throw the garlic and onion in there. Keep boiling for about 5 minutes and then add the Tom Yam paste, chicken, tomatoes, fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves. Boil until the chicken is cooked and then add the frozen prawns. When the prawns are warmed, add the coconut milk. Heat up and it's done! Serve with some fresh flat leaf parsley or coriander.

Hearty lentil stew

A real winter has arrived in Dublin. Probably just to visit, but still. Since yesterday morning it's been all white and cold, so cold that the snow that arrived almost 48 hours ago is still on the ground. And for the ones that don't know, that is very unusual here. We rarely get any snow at all and if we do, it usually just goes away as quickly as it came.

The cold weather calls for warm food and what better thing to make on Sunday evening than a nice lentil stew. I didn't follow any particular recipe for this, I just opened the fridge and took out and used almost anything that was there. Also I didn't measure anything so the amounts in the recipe are just my estimations. That shouldn't matter though as this dish is pretty forgiving and there is plenty of room for improvisation. And I have to say, it turned out excellent! I seem to have a thing for chorizo lately... I do realize it's not the best thing for my heart and arteries (or waist) but if you only use a small bit and don't eat it like everyday, it's ok isn't it? If you don't think so, or want to make this into a vegetarian recipe, just omit the chorizo. Simple as that.

Hearty lentil stew

2-3 portions

2-3cm piece of chorizo

1 leek

1 carrot

1 parsnip

handful of cherry tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

2 dl green lentils

1 good quality vegetable stock cube

hot water

1 tbsp ketchup

1 tsp thyme

pinch of dried chilli flakes

2 handfuls of fresh spinach

Rinse the lentils. Peel and chop the parsnip, carrot and garlic cloves. Wash the leek and chop it as well. Halve the cherry tomatoes. Chop the chorizo into small pieces and heat a large saucepan. Sweat the chorizo in the pan until its juices start to come out. There is no need to add any oil, the chorizo has plenty of fat in it. Once you have some juices from the chorizo in the pan, add the leek and sautee for a while. Then add carrot, parsnip, cherry tomatoes and garlic, mix well and keep frying for a while. Add lentils, spices, vegetable stock cube and enough water to cover everything and then about an inch more. Boil for about 10 minutes without a lid. Then put a lid on, reduce the heat and let simmer for another 30 minutes or so. Add some water every now and then if the stew gets too dry. In the end add the spinach, mix well and keep on the heat for a few more minutes. Enjoy!

Protein shake deluxe

This week I baked some Chocolate Banana cake (was a success, by the way) for work and in the process, obviously, bought some bananas as well. It's not something I typically stock at home and in fact, I don't even remember when was the last time I ate a banana. But while I was buying them anyway I figured that why not buy a few extra and freeze them for milkshakes. And so I did.

And oh my god what a difference it makes! I typically make my weekend post-workout shakes with some vanilla protein powder, frozen berries and soya milk and/or water and they are all good and nice. But this was something else - so smooth and creamy that I could have sworn there was some ice-cream in this shake.

(As you can see, I couldn't wait for taking the picture before taking the first sip...)

A better protein shake

1 big portion

1 scoop vanilla protein powder

a few frozen strawberries

half frozen banana

1 dl soya milk

1 dl water

(1 tsp Splenda)

Throw all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Now I'm not sure how well regular blenders handle the frozen strawberries and banana but Vitamix definitely doesn't have any problem with them :)

Enhance your veggie soup

Sometimes it's nice to spice up the regular vegetable soup and to add a bit of protein on the top. What I came up with today might not be the healthiest of all toppings but it's definitely not the worst either. After all, you only take a bit of chorizo for flavor and the rest is just tofu and seeds, all good stuff. And it does wonders for the everyday soup! I do realize it's probably quite unusual to mix chorizo and tofu given that tofu is mostly eaten by vegetarians but I just happen to like it and I know I'm not the only one so why not give it a go?

So what you need is a small chunk of chorizo (about an inch or so), 200g of tofu, a handful of pumpkin seeds and thyme, salt and pepper. Cut the chorizo finely, heat a frying pan very hot and throw the chorizo in there. Keep frying until the chorizo starts to give up it's juices. Then cut the tofu into cubes and throw them into the pan with the chorizo juices. Season with some thyme, salt and pepper. Throw in some pumpkin seeds as well and keep frying until the tofu and chorizo are nice and crisp. Use as a topping for a vegetable soup.

A Finnish Christmas dinner of sorts

I love Christmas and that's no secret to anyone who knows me. I start looking forward to it as soon as the weather gets colder after the summer and think that it's perfectly reasonable to have all the Christmas stuff in the shops already in October. Gives me more time to enjoy this fantastic time of the year. Still I usually save the actual Christmas foods until December and usually even until the 24th. This year, however, Meri from Monkeyfood kindly reminded me that you can enjoy all the traditional foods whenever you like. And also that they don't have to be full of sugar and fat as many of the traditional recipes tend to be. (As for the picture, no there isn't snow in Dublin yet but there was some last year and I wanted to put it in there just to create a bit of Christmas mood :)

There are a few Christmas specialities in Finland that I don't think are eaten anywhere else (correct me if I'm wrong though) and here I will introduce two of them; lanttulaatikko (turnip casserole of sorts) and porkkanalaatikko (carrot casserole). A word of warning to begin with; this is not the prettiest of foods as you can see from the pictures. Also, these recipes are not how my grandmother would make them but they are still tasty, and much better for you. I'll save the traditional versions (cooked with some sugar/syrup, cream, much more butter and some rice in the carrot variety) until the Christmas eve :) I modified the recipes from those in the Monkeyfood -blog. Both of these go well with some turkey or ham or whatever you want really. I bought a roasting breast of turkey from M&S which was handy to cook in the oven at the same time with the casseroles.

Lanttulaatikko / turnip casserole (on the right)

2 turnips

salt

nutmeg

1 dl coconut milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp butter

Peel and chop the turnips and boil until they are soft (about 30-40 minutes). Pour the extra water into a bowl, you'll need it later. Puree the turnips with a hand mixer until soft. Mix in the coconut milk, the eggs and some of the boiling water so that you get a nice and loose puree. Season with salt and nutmeg. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray (or lightly butter it) and pour the turnip mixture into it. Place small knobs of butter on top and bake in the oven in 200C for about an hour.

Porkkanalaatikko / carrot casserole (on the left)

700 g carrots

1 egg

1 dl milk (or coconut milk)

nutmeg

salt

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp ground almond (optional)

Peel and chop the carrots and boil them until soft (30-40 minutes). Pour the extra water from the saucepan into a bowl or a cup and puree the carrots with a hand mixer. Add some of the boiling water, milk, spices and the egg and mix well. The mixture should be pretty loose but not runny. Pour into an oil-sprayed or buttered casserole dish (I had to use a loaf tin since the only casserole dish was occupied by the turnip version). Place a few butter knobs on the top and sprinkle the ground almond on the top as well. Bake in the oven in 200C for about an hour.

Chicken stir-fry

I love stir-fries almost as much as soups (keeping with the theme of the few previous posts). You just throw the stuff into the wok, stir and fry and there you have it; a delish, quick and healthy meal in minutes! Today I felt like some chicken stir-fry was in order and here's how I did it. Instead of just imitating my veggie choices, you can use any veggies really, as long as there is plenty of them. About a liter of sliced veggies should do it for two people. Also the noodles can be left out and I typically would, but this time I felt like I needed a bit of carbs after my workout.

Chicken stir-fry
2-3 portions

olive oil cooking spray or oil for frying
350g chicken fillet, diced
1 onion, sliced
2 small carrots, sliced
half zucchini, sliced
1 bag of M&S stir-fry veggies
5 garlic cloves, chopped
few roasted cashew nuts or peanuts
1 nestle (63g) of noodles

1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes (not the powder)
3 tbsp soya sauce
1-2 tbsp honey or agave syrup
3 tbsp oyster sauce

Start by cutting all the veggies and put them aside. Boil the noodles following the instructions in the package. Mix the ingredients the sauce well together in a cup. Fry the chicken on a hot wok pan until it's fully cooked. Add the veggies including garlic and keep stir-frying for a few more minutes. Finally add the cashews and noodles as well and pour the sauce over everything. Mix well and serve immediately.