Easy, healthy fast food

There is one perk to working in a corporate environment – one has access to canteens. Now many will moan and whine about the awful goop that they had to ingest at their lunch break, but at least, it comes at a fair price, AND, they didn’t have to make it themselves.

Ever since I started working from home, I’ve had to take care of my own lunches. I have to buy the food, prepare, cook, and clean up after myself everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t know how stay-at-home parents do it. I am starting to go a little crazy with all the preparation. And last week, I almost staged a strike. Though I was hungry, I could not, for the life of me, gather the energy to actually make anything. Knowing that if I prepared something, anything, really, I would have to clean it up. It was a strange kind of a hunger strike.

So in my desperation, I started creating. What can I make that’s easy and still nutritious? Dishes that didn’t require too much chopping or attention to make. Below some of the results….

Sausage, peas and potatoes
This one was the easiest one to make. Ready-made potato pockets from Demeter (pop in the oven for 20 minutes and voila), sausage sauteed with onions, and peas with butter. Pretty calorific but quick and easy with some nutritional value.

Soup with spinach
This one is quick if you have frozen stock ready. Sautee onions and garlic in a pot, put the frozen stock in, add some dried and/or fresh herbs (in this case rosemary, oregano and marjoram) and cover. If you don’t have frozen stock, use dried ready-made stock and add water. While the stock is heating up, chop up some carrots and wash some spinach, take some frozen peas, and once the stock starts to boil, add the carrots, then the peas, then at last the spinach. Serve with potatoes, rice, gluten-free bread or anything else you have on hand.

Pasta with thai curry
One of the easiest things in the world to cook is thai curry. You just need ready-made curry paste which is available in all Asian stores. Sautee some garlic and shallots in oil, add the curry paste and the thick part of coconut milk, let that mix well with the oil and the paste, add your meat and/or vegetables, coat, and then pour in the rest of the coconut milk. For flavor you can add a teaspoon of indian curry, some chicken stock, and kaffir lime leaves. Season with fish sauce, sugar, and lime or lemon juice.

What’s also great with curry is, you often make more than you can eat, and you end up with leftovers. This dish below was made with a leftover Thai curry with chicken, pineapple, bell pepper and peanuts, made with the recipe above. Eating it with pasta is quicker and I think tastier than with rice. Just cook the pasta and pour the leftover curry on top (you don’t even have to heat that up, the heat from the pasta is enough to warm it.)

So I hope this will help you in coming up with quick and easy dishes. And if you have any ideas, please do share! Would love to hear from you.

Nutty chocolate chip cookies

I discovered a new story-telling platform the other day: Steller. I really really like it. It’s very simple, with an elegant vertical layout which suits my sensibilities.

This weekend, I baked some chocolate chip cookies, and I wanted to see how well Steller can show how it was done. So after a bit of experimenting, this is the result: Glutenfree in Munich’s Nutty Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The ingredients to the recipe are listed below. The instructions are on the page/app.

INGREDIENTS

200 g butter
2 eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 whole vanilla pod
2 cups gluten free flour mix
1 tbsp potato flour
1 tbsp rice flour
1 1/2 tsp xantham gum
4 tbsp ground almond
1 1/4 cups brown or palm sugar
2 tsps water or rice milk
1 1/2 cups nuts, roasted (walnuts and/or pecans)
1 cup chocolate chip
*150 g dark chocolate

As much as possible, I use organic ingredients.
*optional

Heavenly chocolate cake

I’ve been making different varieties of the same (almost) flourless chocolate cake for years, ever since I got the recipe from an old friend, Thomas.

Many have asked me for the recipe, so I thought I would just put it online so I can refer to it in the future.

It’s a very rich cake, and it’s perfect for the coming winter months. Hope you enjoy.

(Almost) flourless chocolate cake

300 g good quality dark (70%) chocolate
200 g butter or margarine
200 caster (baker’s) sugar
6 eggs, separated
1 vanilla pod. Scrape the beans, and finely chop or grind the pod (do not throw away)
4 tablespoons of flour (gf mix, ground almond, coconut flour – pick your favorite)
a pinch of salt

Extras: nuts such as walnuts, pecans, pistachios
For a christmas-y taste, add 1/2 teaspoon of gingerbread spice mix.
You can also put in a bit of espresso to make it mocca-y.

Instructions:

• melt chocolate and butter, allow to cool
• butter a spring form / and heat up the oven to 180°C to 200°C – depending on your oven. start with 180°C
• whip the egg whites until stiff (for extra stiffness / fluffyness, add a bit of salt and some of the sugar)
• blend the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar until creamy. add the flour and vanilla (and any extra spices) to the mix and blend.
• pour in the chocolate-butter mix, fold with a spatula until smooth
• if you want to add nuts to the mixture, now is the time
• lastly, fold in the egg whites carefully until the mixture is even
• pour into the form. bake in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, until the top cracks
• remove from oven, allow to cool. turn upside down and serve / decorate

A perfect accompaniment is a slightly sour fruit compote, such as raspberry. Simply heat up frozen raspberries with a bit of sugar (not too much) and serve with the cake while warm.

When serving, I tend to cut small slices to start with, as the cake is quite rich. Those who can’t stop will have another piece anyways. 🙂

Below a picture. This one had espresso in it, hence the chocolate-covered espresso beans on top:

Bon appétit!

Berry good

Today, we had the best dinner ever. And it was so simple. Salad, chicken and bread.

The salad was inspired by the berries they were selling at the stand in front of the cafeteria at work. They were too good to pass up. I schlepped them through all of munich, from work, to the doctor’s on the other side of the city, then home. Along with my laptop. Such special berries they were.

So here they are:

Somewhere in the WWW, I read or heard that half of your daily intake should be fruits and vegetables. In the summer, with fruits like that, it’s so much easier.

And this is what they look like as part of the salad:

I’m only sad that we didn’t take photos of the chicken. Was very simple, two organic chicken legs, moroccan spices, salt, pepper, a bit of olive oil, and fry. One thigh for each, with the salad, and bread. Gluten-free for me, of course, and a freshly-baked pretzel for my muggle. Love, indeed.