Sweet and Sour Zucchini

The book I always rely on when I want a recipe from the Italian kitchen is The Silver Spoon (De Zilveren Lepel in Dutch) my favorite Italian book! I received the book about one year ago, and have made a lot of recipes. All turned out great, and that's a big hurray, because that doesn't happen often (too bad).
This book reveils to you all the secrets of the Italian kitchen, and it's great for beginners but also for more experienced home cooks.The book contains more than 2000 recipes, so I'll be busy for a while!!

Last week I had an overload on zucchini's, yellow and green, and wanted to make a new dish. Sweet and Sour Zucchini, does that sounds good to you?? Well it certainly did to me!

Grab your knife and chopping board, and chop with me through this easy recipe:

The Ingredients:
0,5 cup raisins
5 anchovies fillets (from a jar)
1/4 cup pine nuts, roasted
olive oil
3 zucchini, chopped
1 clove of garlic,
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
salt

In a bowl with hot water, soak the raisins. Chop the anchovies in little pieces.

Heat the oil in  a large pan and add the zucchini. On medium heat, and don't forget to stir. After 10 minutes, add the garlic (use a garlic press). Stir and add the raisins (not the water!), the pine nuts, vinegar and sugar and some salt.

Give it a good stir and bring it to a boil, let it simmer for a few minutes and then add the anchovies. Let this simmer for 10 minutes. Taste if you need to add more sugar or vinegar. It should have a, of course, sweet and sour well balanced taste.
And that's it!

I served it with chicken breasts (grilled, cast iron), spaghetti with olive oil and parmesan cheese, and a simple green salad with tomatoes.

And then, the wine. Difficult because of all the different tastes. You could serve a white wine but I was in the mood for red and choose a Zinfandel from the US. Okay I know, it should have been an Italian red one maybe, but the Zinfandel was a great match too!!

Enjoy!

Chicken with Lemon and Garlic

This recipe has only 6 ingredients, and I know you're thinking this can't be good. May I say that you're wrong, so wrong....? Ok, there, I said it!
Because this, my dear friends, is a great summer dish so you better hurry before the wind and rain comes around the corner. I'm sorry to post this just now as August is halfway gone, but I only discovered it myself yesterday!

Don't let the amount of garlic scare you, I'm not forcing you to eat them, but oh you're missing something if you don't.... Just pick a good day for this dish....the next day no vampire will come near so that's one benefit!

And a short remark about the lemons: buy organic ones! Since you're using the whole lemons: organic ones don't have a waxed coating.

The ingredients:
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces (ask your butcher or do it yourself, depending on which mood you're in)
1 bulb of garlic, leave the cloves unpeeled
2 lemons, cut into 8 pieces each
a handful of fresh thyme
3 tablespoons olive oil
half a cup white wine
black pepper

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Put the chicken pieces in a roasting pan or other shallow oven dish, add the garlic, lemon, thyme and olive oil. Use your hands to mix it all and coat the chicken with the oil. Make sure you place the chicken after this with their skins down. Sprinkle the wine over the chicken and add some freshly ground black pepper and cover it tight with aluminium foil.

This goes in the oven for about 90 minutes. I had a small chicken, for a big one you'll need 2 hours. After that amount of time it looks like this:

While you remove the foil, rise the temperature of the oven to 400F. Put the chicken back in the oven for 30-45 minutes, until the chicken has a nice color and the lemons are caramelized...oooh yummy...

I served this with a vegetable stew called "caponata" (recipe will follow soon) and bread. But baked potatoes with rosemary and sea salt and a green salad will also make you happy.

This is really so easy and amazingly delightful!!

Now, which wine should you serve with this? A Chardonnay from Chile I had. And don't let the amount of lemons makes you think this dish will taste sour, because it doesn't. It's very sweet because of the slow cooking! Therefore the Chardonnay!

Enjoy!!

Potato Salad

Everybody needs at least one good recipe for potato salad, you can't survive the summer without! Lucky me, I've got three great recipes, an "unhealthy-but-sooo-good" one, a "healthy-but-also-almost-the-best" one, and the recipe I'm giving you today (the "definitely-not-the-average-salad"). And easy does it, cook, chop and mix!
Make this a couple of hours before dinner, keep it in the fridge and I promise you this recipe is gonna be a keeper for the rest of this summer!

Usually I don't measure the ingredients, and it's not that important in this salad. A little more or less, it still will taste yummylicious, so that's good news for the uncertain cooks among us!

The only thing that is important, is your choice of potatoes. Choose potatoes that will stay firm after cooking. Boil them, with the skin on, for 25 minutes and let them cool. It's easier to peel them when they have cooled off. A trick I use is an old, clean, towel. Rub the potato and the skin will go off easy and the potatoe won't break or fall apart. Cut them into not too small cubes.
In the meantime, boil 2 eggs for 10 minutes and let them cool.

In a bowl mix half a cup of sour cream with 4 tablespoons of the best olive oil you can get, one garlic (use a garlic press), some pepper and salt and give it a few stirs, just enough to get a smooth dressing.

Then it's time to chop chop!

What do you need:

green olives, capers, shallot, another clove of garlic, fire roasted red bell pepper, parsley and the boiled eggs.

Mix all the ingredients, put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours and here is the result:

When it's dinner time, put some meat on the grill like skewered beef (recipe will follow this week so stay tuned!), steak or whatever you're in the mood for and dinner is ready!

Enjoy!

Greek Potatoes, from Cyndi Allison

If you are looking for a new recipe for potatoes (grill or oven) you really have to try this recipe. I´ve made it yesterday, and if I had the chance today, I would make it again!
A friend of mine, Cyndi Allison, had posted this recipe on her fantastic blog and I knew my barbecue would be happy with those mediterranean delicacies (and yes, me too!).

Instead of the Garlic Gold Olive Oil (it´s not available here) Cyndi described, I used olive oil and fresh garlic. Almost a whole bulb. And no, that´s not a typo.
Seasoned it with black pepper, dried parsley and some Lawry´s Seasoned Salt, added water and lemon juice.

As soon as the aluminium pan was on the grill and I had closed the lid, the party began! For one hour I enjoyed a very promising smell coming out of the vents!

As you can see, I also made planked salmon, some zucchini, and served it with a green salad.

Note: next time Í need to adjust the amount of water. I used half a cup but that was a bit too much for the amount of potatoes I had. Therefore they didn´t get a nice brown color, but the taste was fabulous!!

To make this dinner complete, there was a bottle of Chardonnay. This one was from South Africa. It was good, but a Chardonnay from Chile would have been perfect.

Thank you Cyndi!!

Garlic Butter

Have you ever had fresh garlic, straight out of the garden? It´s delicious and it´s beautiful:

It´s really garlic, although you might think it isn´t! Wish I could add smell to this blog, then you´ll be convinced...!! It has a very strong flavour!

Because today is a lazy lovely warm sunday, I´ll give you a good and short recipe: garlic butter!

You need:

2 cups of the best butter you can find, at room temperature

1 bulb fresh garlic (ugh...yeah one bulb..)

pinch of sea salt

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon dried parsley

Use a garlic press for the bulb and mix all the ingredients together. Put it in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Lovely on bread, shrimps and steak!

Enjoy your day!!