Tomato soup with grilled peppers and cannellini beans

Yesterday, my dad came round for a barbecue. He brought me a freshly baked loaf of bread.  My dad has baked this particular bread throughout my entire childhood, and both my sisters and I love it. Determined to eat it all before it went dry, I decided I should use some of it with my dinner, and nothing goes better with bread than soup, right? Also, I was feeling a need to be a little bit healthy, and this soup, my friends, is healthy.

Tomato soup with grilled peppers and cannellini beans:

5 large, ripe tomatoes
3 red peppers
6 large cloves of garlic
1 litre of tomato juice
Small handful of fresh basil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
1 tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed.

Optional:
Cottage cheese, creme fraiche or similar.
Bread

Cut the stems off the tomatoes and peppers. Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds. Place the tomatoes stem-side down and the peppers skin-side up on a baking tray lined with baking paper, and place the garlic gloves, skins left on, on the baking tray as well. Put the tray into a hot oven at 200 degrees C. Once the tomato skins have loosened and the garlic cloves are soft, remove tomatoes and garlic cloves from the oven. This should take about 10 minutes. Leave the red peppers in the oven for another 5 or 10 minutes, until charred. Once charred, remove the peppers from the oven and place them in a sealed plastic container. Meanwhile, remove the skins from the tomatoes and squeeze the soft garlic cloves out of their skins. Roughly chop the tomatoes and garlic cloves, and add them to a large saucepan. Add the tomato juice and bring to a boil. While the tomato juice is coming to a boil, peel the skin off the peppers. Roughly chop just one of them and add this to the saucepan. Let the tomato juice simmer for about 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and liquidize the soup using a hand-blender, and return to the heat. Roughly chop the remaining grilled peppers, and add these, cannellini beans and roughly chopped basil to the soup. Season with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Serve with a slice of nice, wholemeal bread and a spoonful of cottage cheese or creme fraiche.

Home made pizza

In my family, we've been baking home made pizzas for years, and it's safe to say we're getting better at it. When I was younger, we would basically just use a simple bread dough for the crust, top it with tomato, cheap grated cheese and tons of toppings, and stick it in the oven at 200 degrees for 20-ish minutes. The result would be edible by all means, but more like a focaccia than a pizza. The crust would be a good two centimetres thick, soggy under all the sauce and toppings and soft on the bottom. As I got older and became more interested in cooking, I started searching for the perfect pizza recipe. One morning, I saw a Danish chef cooking his perfect pizza on a Danish morning chat show - I tried his recipe, and I've never looked back. I now know that high heat is essential for a crisp crust, and I never put my pizza in the oven until it has reached its maximum temperature, which is 275 degrees for my oven. The semolina flour helps to get the crust nice and crisp, too.

For the topping, I now always use fresh buffalo mozzarella. I always used to think it was ridiculous to pay four times more for buffalo mozzarella compared to the cheap cow's milk versions. The only reason I though so was that I had never tasted buffalo mozzarella! There is such a huge difference - buffalo mozzarella actually tastes of something, and I think it's well worth the extra money. Other than that I just try to keep the toppings simple, after all, I'm not trying to make a bloody Dominos Extravaganza.

Pizza:

Makes two large pizzas, serves 2-3.

250 ml cold water
10 grams fresh yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp salt
125 grams coarse semolina flour
300 grams tipo 00 flour

2 balls of buffalo mozzarella
Tomato passata (or any tomato sauce which isn't too watery)
Toppings of your choice

Dissolve the yeast in the water, and add sugar, oil and salt. Add the semolina flour and then gradually add the tipo 00 flour, until the dough just stops sticking to your hands and the work surface. You want to keep it as moist as possible to get a nice, crisp crust. Knead the dough well, for 5-10 minutes preferably, then leave to rise for at least one hour, or as long as possible, preferably over night. If you leave the dough over night, let it rise in the fridge.

Get your oven as hot as possible. Mine goes to 275 degrees C. I set my oven to fan and bottom heat, to get the crust crispy without burning the toppings. Leave the baking tray on which you plan to cook the pizza inside the oven while it's heating up, to pre-heat the baking tray as well.

Remove the dough from the bowl and punch it down. Divide it into two pieces, and make one pizza at a time. Dust your work surface with semolina flour - this helps to make the crust crispy. Roll out one portion of dough as thinly as you can. It should be about 5 millimetres thick. Move the rolled out dough onto a cold baking tray lined with baking paper. Spread 3-4 tbsp of tomato passata onto your pizza dough and evenly divide one ball of mozzarella over the top of it. I never slice the cheese but just tear it into pieces. Arrange your toppings over the cheese - I went for fresh tomatoes and black and green olives.

Remove the hot baking tray from the oven and carefully move the uncooked pizza onto it. I normally hold the cold baking tray right next to the hot baking tray and drag the pizza onto it, holding onto the baking paper. If you have a helper at hand though, it is easier to grab all four corners of the baking paper and lift it onto the hot baking tray. Put it back in the hot oven and bake for 5-10 minutes, depending on your oven, until the crust is crisp and golden, and the cheese has melted. Keep and eye on it. Once cooked, sprinkle fresh basil over the pizza.

Banana cake with chocolate chips

I had been dying to bake this cake for ages, but my boyfriends doesn't like it (at least he claims he doesn't), which makes baking it a very dangerous thing for me to do. The reason it's dangerous is that if this cake is in my kitchen, I WILL eat it, and within long I will have devoured an entire cake. I could freeze it, but what can be frozen can be defrosted, within minutes with the help of a microwave oven, so that won't help. It will call my name from the freezer, and I will do its bidding. 

I considered inviting some friends over, but that's pretty much impossible for me these days, since my exams are claiming my every waking minute. That's why the other day, when a couple of my colleagues at work were jokingly trying to get each other to bring cake, I screamed with excitement, "I will!". Not sharing my love of spending time in the kitchen, they asked me if I was serious, but soon understood that I was. Very serious. As one of them left work a few hours later, she casually suggested that I bake banana cake and was once again baffled by my excitement when I screamed, "thats EXACTLY what I had in mind!"

When this was first served to me by my very best sugar-loving buddy, I immediately asked for the recipe. Every time I have served it to friends since, someone has asked for the recipe. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

FYI: In spite of the addition of fruit, this cake is packed full of calories. Ye be warned!

This portion was big enough to feed my entire office. It can easily be halved, in which case I normally bake it in a 31x11 centimetre bread tin. This one I baked in a 35x25 centimetre baking tray. 

Banana cake with chocolate chips:

280 grams salted butter (Soft)

360 grams sugar

6 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

The seeds from half a vanilla pod

360 grams of plain flour

5 ripe bananas (the riper the better)

100 grams dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

In a bowl, mix together butter and sugar, and whisk until white and fluffy. Add the eggs and stir well. Add baking powder, bicarbonate, cinnamon, vanilla seeds and flour, and mix thoroughly. In another bowl, mash up the bananas and add them to the dough, followed by the roughly chopped chocolate. Pour the dough into a tin lined with baking paper, and bake in a preheated oven for 35-40 minutes (Maybe more, maybe less, depending on your oven).

Leave to cool, if you can wait that long!

Focaccia with sesame and nigella seeds

This bread is perfect as a side for dinner, on a buffet or just as a snack. If I bake it with dinner, it will most likely be gone by lunch time on the following day. I love the taste of the nigella and sesame seeds, and they look amazing with their contrasting colours. Delicious on its own or with a couple of hunks of nice cheese - add a few olives and a glass of red wine, and you've practically got yourself an Italian feast!

Focaccia with sesame and nigella seeds:

25 grams fresh yeast

300 ml lukewarm water

1 tbsp honey

1/2 tbsp salt

250 grams tipo 00 flour (fine durum flour works well too)

200 grams plain flour

Topping:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp nigella seeds

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1 tbsp coarse salt

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add honey, salt and flour and knead well. Add more flour if the dough is sticking to your fingers, but be carefully not to add too much. Only add enough to make the dough manageable. Preferably, you should knead the dough for five to ten minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic, but if you're very hungry, less will make a perfectly edible bread :) Place the dough in a big bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for about an hour, until it doubles in volume.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.

Remove the dough from the bowl, punch it down, and roll it out flat, about 1 centimetre thick. Place dough on a lined baking tray, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds, nigella seeds and salt. Poke little dents in the dough, using your fingers or the end of a wooden spoon. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until crispy and golden.

Grilled halloumi with potato salad

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I was barbecuing on a beautiful beach with a fair maiden. Many people had gathered around the barbecue, and there, in the midst of all the beef burgers and sausages, we saw something which neither of us had ever seen before. Our jaws dropped to the floor - what was this magic we saw before our eyes? Could there really be such a thing as a cheese which could lie on a barbecue without melting? Stunned, we sought out the woman who had brought this magical cheese, and that's how we came to know of the wonder that is halloumi.

Since that faithful barbecue, halloumi has become a staple ingredient in my kitchen, often taking the place of the meat I no longer eat. Tonight we had it with another household favourite, potato salad.

Hooray for halloumi, the magical cheese!

Potato salad:

New potatoes (I suppose I used around 500 grams)
4 tbsp fromage frais
1 tsp mayonnaise
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 bunch of dill
A squeeze of lemon
Salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes until tender and allow to cool down. Mix fromage frais, mayonnaise, mustard and finely chopped dill in a bowl and season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Cut the potatoes into thick slices and add to the fromage frais dressing.

Halloumi:

Cut a block of halloumi into slices of about 1 centimetre. Fry on a hot griddle pan for a minute or two on each side. Serve asap - the halloumi goes a bit rubbery when it cools down. I served the halloumi and potato salad with grilled asparagus and a freshly baked focaccia.

Kanelsnegle (Danish cinnamon buns)

Variations of sweet buns with a sticky cinnamon filling exist all over the world. In Denmark we call them cinnamon snails, and I have never known a single person who doesn't like them! Me and my best sugar-loving buddy agree that the only right topping is white frosting. Chocolate frosting on cinnamon snails is just insane!

My before mentioned sugar-loving buddy and I shared these in a nearby park, lounging in the grass under a shining sun, doing absolutely nothing. Life is good.

Kanelsnegle (Danish cinnamon buns):

100 grams butter
250 ml milk
25 grams fresh yeast
2 eggs
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
600 grams flour

Filling:

150 grams soft butter (yes, by now you've used an entire 250 gram tub. Mmmm)
100 ml sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

For the dough, melt the 100 grams of butter in a saucepan and add the milk. When the mixture is lukewarm, pour into a bowl, crumble in the yeast and stir until the yeast is dissolved.  Stir in the 2 eggs, the sugar and the salt. Add the flour and knead well. If it's too sticky, add more flour. Be careful not to add too much though - stop just as it stops sticking to your fingers. Leave in a warm place to rise for about an hour.

In the meantime, use a fork to mix the soft butter, the sugar and the cinnamon in a bowl.

When the dough has grown to approximately double size, punch it down and roll it out to form a big rectangle, maximum one centimetre thick. Using a knife or a spatula, spread the filling evenly over the dough. Roll the dough up like a Swiss roll, long ways, so the rolled up dough is the length of the long edge. Cut the roll into one centimetre pieces, fold the lose end under the bun and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Leave them to rise for another 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 200 degrees C. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. If you want, wait til they've cooled down and drizzle with frosting made from icing sugar and water.

Green bean, potato and tomato salad with a poached egg

If you ever have potatoes and green beans left over from dinner, save them and make this lovely salad for lunch the next day.

 Green bean, potato and tomato salad:

Mixed baby salad leaves
Green beans, cut into bite-sized pieces and boiled for 3.4 minutes
Plum cherry tomatoes, quartered
Potatoes, boiled, peeled and sliced.
Capers
1 egg

Vinaigrette:

Olive oil
Lemon juice
Dijon Mustard
Salt and pepper

Combine salad leaves, green beans and tomatoes in a bowl. Mix a vinaigrette by combining the mustard and lemon, and then slowly adding the oil while stirring constantly. Season the vinaigrette with salt and pepper. Pour the vinaigrette over the vegetables and toss to coat. Arranges the vegetables on a plate, and scatter slices of potato and capers over the top.

To poach the egg, bring water to a boil in a small saucepan. Once it's boiling, reduce the heat so the water is just simmering. Add a few spoonfuls of vinegar to the water. Crack the egg into a small cup, bring the cup close to the surface of the water and gently drop the egg into the simmering water. With a spoon, gently push the egg whites closer to the yoke, to help hold it all together. Let the egg simmer for about 4 minutes. Serve the egg on top of the salad.