No time to slow down!

Well the fall rush to do everything at once has started. Here in Budapest the days are still warm, thankfully the evenings cool down so we can breathe. Yesterday was another day that ran out of time for me . Suddenly it was time for dinner and I had not a clue what to do .
Then I remembered an old favorite of mine that is fast and very easy.

Ingredients:
1 carrot
250 grams of mushrooms any kind
150 grams if snow peas
1 small onion
1 chicken breast sliced into thin strips
smoked thick bacon cut into small pieces ( approx. 1/2 cup) 
soya sauce, salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar

Fry the bacon until it is almost crisp and then add the onion for vegetarians just use oil.

fry that until the onion gets glassy
Add the carrots and fry that until they start to soften
add the snow peas and fry another 5 minutes

then add the mushrooms

The mushrooms will give off water and combining everything gives it a great taste
When the mushrooms are soft I add the soya sauce to taste (2 tbls) and a little Balsamic vinegar ( 1 tbls)
While all this is being done I am making the rice .

I make my rice like pasta, just boil a large amount of water and add the amount of rice you need, boil this until the rice is done around 15 minutes. no need for a lid
Now this quick delicious meal is done
On a plate is looks great with all the colors, the aroma is wonderful  as it is being made and this meal is a no brainer. You can not make a mistake. You can also add different  vegetables but I have found that some times adding more vegetables you loose the taste and you have to add a lot of soya sauce to compensate.

This weekend will again be time for baking , I found a pumpkin! I am not sure what I will make yet , it depends on the time I have but I can hardly wait. To me fall starts when I have something sweet made from pumpkin .
I have never seen a child trick or treating here ,  they celebrate oct 30th a different way.  We used to live near a cemetery and we went along with hundreds of others to light candles there. It was really beautiful . People came and put flowers and lite candles on their family grave stones and walked around and looked at all the other displays . If you are here and near a graveyard it is worth while going out and checking the graves that are filled with flowers and candles .The best is to go just before it gets dark as then as the light fades the candles really shine. But even with the candles it gets very dark in there so bring a flashlight!

Poor mans caviar an amazing vegetarian dish

A couple of years ago we were invited to the home of a gourmet chef who hosts weekend parties. There were about 10 of us. It was a long way from Budapest and the gps was not working too well so we drove around for awhile in the gorgeous countryside.
This is what I like about the fall on the weekends there is not a rush to get outside and tan and make sure you get the last ray of sunshine and only then come in . In the fall it is a more peaceful time. You can get out enjoy the fresh air no need to hurry.
While I was thinking about that weekend I remembered a recipe that just floored me.  We were served caviar on small pancakes , not blinis just regular tiny  pancakes.  I am not really a fan of caviar so I initially did not take one . But everyone was raving about this creation so I decided I had better try one also. Well this looked like caviar but the taste was so different. We were all trying to figure out what it was while eating a ton of these appetizers. I don't think anyone wanted to anything other than these, which of course was not good  as the dinner was a 10 course meal and we were just starting.   Anyway finally we cornered the chef, he called it  his take on the poor mans caviar.

The weekend was filled with many wonderful dishes but that one stayed with me .
So today I will make this not as an appetizer but as a meal. It is a great vegetarian meal.


Ingredients
400grams of mushrooms , I like using brown mushrooms
2 purple onions
3 cloves of garlic
oil
salt and black pepper
sour cream
chopped chives for presentation colour .
1 lemon

pancakes
1.5 cups of  flour
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
oil for frying
1.2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup of soda water

This is such an easy recipe but just needs some preparation.
The mushrooms,garlic and purple onions you chop up into the tiniest pieces, think of the size of a pearl of caviar.  I also take the stems off the mushrooms, freeze them and use later for something .

Now you put oil in the pan and add the onions and garlic and quickly fry for about 2 minutes  then add the mushrooms.

No water is needed as the mushrooms give off water. Now you just fry this stirring on occasion.

 Notice how much water is given off by the mushrooms.
 The 'caviar' is done when the water which came from the mushrooms disappears and it starts to get dry.

 I cooked this for another 15 minutes until you can not see the difference between the mushrooms and the purple onions. Before it is done squeeze the juice of one lemon on to this mixture together with salt and pepper and continue to cook. The taste will just come alive.

During the last 20 minutes start the pancakes.
Pancakes are also easy to make. Just add the milk to the flour  and the baking soda and stir.

Now add the 2 eggs and stir until nicely blended.

This we will leave for about 30 minutes. That is the time I finish the mushroom caviar and set the table.

Now we wipe the frying pan with a paper towel that has some oil on it , heat the pan to medium high , ladle a small amount into the pan. These are to be made little like 3 inch diameter. So you can make a bunch of these very quickly.

 When the insides start to bubble then you flip them .

So this is how they will look and then you place them on the plate. They are ready very quickly do make sure you watch them !

Now that these are done and so is the "caviar" it is time to put it together. Place a spoon of the mixture on the pancake add a tiny bit of sour cream and sprinkle some chopped chives on top.

Make a bunch of these and then serve immediately. Whatever is left over you can keep in the fridge for a couple of days. This is a great appetizer for a dinner party or for a cocktail party also. It will get everyone talking as to what is in it !
I realized that this batch I did not make the onions as small as they should have been but my husband still ate 15 of them! A few times while I was cooking he came out and asked when it was ready . This is the type of meal that everyone loves. It is light, easy , tastes great and actually is an elegant way to start off a great dinner party. Or like we did tonight make it a meal!

Healthy Pumpkin recipes

The first year I was here I was trying to find a pumpkin , the type I was used to in North America.  I wanted to make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.   Well it was impossible!  After a few years yes there were some pumpkins available but for only like 3 days.  You see Hungarians do not eat pumpkin like North Americans , they eat squash mostly when it comes to eating these vegetables.  Pumpkins seem to be decorations only .

Of course making a pie is also difficult as they do not make pies here! I finally bought a silicon pie shell online and I can make my pies. 

But I first need a pumpkin. 

So in October I go out and buy the pumpkins as soon as I see one. I then cut it up , take out the seeds and roast it in the oven, scrap out the  insides and use that in baking.

I have added and article from "A Taste of Home"  with recipes and all about pumpkins for the people homesick for pumpkins in October.

I will be making a pumpkin pie very soon but I have to wait until I find a pumpkin.  Culinaris sells pumpkin pie filling that you can use in a pinch but I like to make my own .

So until I can find my pumpkin enjoy the recipes.

Healthy Pumpkin Recipes

These healthy recipes prove pumpkins are more than just a Halloween decoration

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

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Pumpkins are rich in vitamin A, which is known to potentially reduce the risk of some cancers. It's also beneficial to vision, especially night vision. Get more in your diet with these seasonal, delightful recipes.
Pumpkin Streusel Muffins
These nicely spiced Pumpkin Streusel Muffins are a great accompaniment to any meal — or try them for breakfast, dessert or a snack. The pumpkin flavor is complemented by a sweet brown sugar topping. You'll never know they're made with egg substitute.
—Connie Pietila, Atlantic Mine, Michigan
Frosty Pumpkin Pie
This Frosty Pumpkin Pie is so delightful that no one will guess it's made with reduced-fat ingredients. My gang actually prefers a slice of this layered dessert to traditional pumpkin pie at Christmastime.
—Janet Jackson, Homedale, Illinois
Pumpkin Dinner Rolls
For a delicious roll at your Thanksgiving dinner table, try these Pumpkin Dinner Rolls. It is a very easy yeast roll recipe and are on the table in no time.
—Connie Thomas, Jensen, Utah
Pilgrim Pudding
With a pleasant pumpkin flavor, caramel and almonds, this rich and creamy Pilgrim Pudding from our Test Kitchen tastes decadent, but it's surprisingly light.
—Taste of Home Test Kitchen, Greendale, Wisconsin
Curried Pumpkin Soup
This comforting Curried Pumpkin Soup is wonderfully warming on an autumn day, and the subtle curry flavor lets the pumpkin star. My family really enjoy dishes like this that have a delightful down-home flavor.
—Eleanor Dunbar, Peoria, Illinois

More Pumpkin Recipes »

a Pasta day

The Danube separates Budapest into Buda and Pest.  It was actually towards the end of the 1800 's that Buda, Pest and Obuda were joined to create Budapest and make it a world class city. This was during the Golden Age of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Today Pest is the area of the old buildings , the restaurants, the nightlife, the place where you go to have fun . Buda on the other hand is quiet and reserved.  There are many restaurants here also but the people who live here come for the hills , the scenery, the fresh air, it is more a family place.
It is very quick and easy to get across the river to either Buda or Pest. You actually can get any place in around 20 minutes. The Hungarians complain about the transportation but I tell them to go to any large North American City and compare and they would be happy with what they have here.  Public transportation is amazing considering sometimes in the car it would be an hour.  I used to drive everywhere and complain of the traffic and the parking fees which are crazy in Pest. I started taking the public transportation as driving was stressing me out too much . Now I hardly ever use my car preferring the bus, trams (streetcar) or metro ( subway) . I love taxis also and they are not expensive so depending on where I go I might take one.

OK I started to tell you about the Danube or Duna as it is correctly called.  I get so carried away.  I am fascinated by this river. It is the 2nd longest river in Europe after the Volga and in classified as an international waterway. It originates in the Black Forest area of Germany  where 2 smaller river join and passes through 4 central and eastern European capitals before it empties into the black sea.

The river is calming, it is no longer blue only in the late afternoon when the sun strikes it at an angle and then it turns blue and looks like was 1000's of years ago but still it is mesmerizing. The boats and  barges, the cruise ships and the kayakers all use this river so peacefully. It has only been lately that on some hot days there are speed boats and sea-dos. I never tire of the view of the river and can think of no better relaxation in the late afternoon then sitting on the balcony with tea or coffee and cookies and chilling.

Today as the weather has finally gotten colder (25) I decided to make one of my husbands favorite meals.
It is a typical pasta dish that the Hungarians eat.

Ingredients 
250 grams of pasta which is shaped into large squares or sheets.
250 grams of Ricotta cheese
100 grams of sour cream
250 grams more or less of smoked bacon cut into small pieces

Fry the bacon, when crispy take out the pieces and place on a paper towel to dry. Save the oil.

While you are doing this  ,boil the water and add the pasta and a pinch of salt  and cook until al dente , then strain , splash with a little oil so that the pieces do not stick together.

Take an oven pan and put a little oil on the bottom and now comes the layering.

Place one layer of the pasta and on top of that a layer of ricotta , spoon a bit of sour cream on top of this . Then another layer of pasta and repeat with the ricotta and sour cream .

Now you will add 3/4's of the bacon and some of the bacon oil ,drizzle it on . Now the last layer of pasta and the rest of the bacon is sprinkled and the oil is drizzled on top .

 The bacon is mixed in with the cheese. For a vegetarian version  just leave out the bacon....It will still taste great!

This you will cover and place in a 160 pre-heated oven . This dish is so easy that you don't even have to time it , just place it in the oven 1 hour before you want to eat.

When ready to eat take the cover off and slightly cool. When serving this have some sour cream at the table also and a bowl of sugar.

I also have a plate of marintated kosher dill pickles and  cabbage stuffed hot yellow peppers. My husband eats this sweet with sugar and I eat it with the hot peppers!

I was speaking with an old friend and he will come one day and make Slambuc. This is apparently a dish that is similar but made in a pot of boiling water and made by the herdsmen many many years ago. he will be making the thin pasta for that by hand so I can hardly wait for that 'cooking' day.

A Chocolate chip cookie and all is good again...

Each week has the same amount of time to it , the  same amount of days, hours and minutes and yet some weeks are shorter.  This past week was a very short one for me I do not know where it went. The Danube kept flowing , the boats kept gliding up and down , to Budapest and away from Budapest. It was as if everything was in fast motion, I was unable to catch any of the minutes.
So  I decided that this is a perfect time for chocolate chip cookies the great stress buster! 
Before I give you an amazing recipe I have a little story about them .

After we arrived in Budapest I went out looking for chocolate chip cookies . I knew it would be a very different lifestyle here but I had no idea they did not have chocolate chip cookies then . I had brought  my French's mustard and my  frank's hot sauce in my bag but did not think of the cookies.  Chocolate has a way of lowering stress in a  person  and so I really needed those cookies..... but no matter where I looked they did not have chocolate chip cookies. There were wonderful hazelnut cookies for Christmas but no chocolate chip with or without nuts. I got addicted to the pastries here and so soon chocolate chip cookies were all but forgotten. 
Over the years a few places like Tesco  would sell some cookies in a package that tasted like chemicals but still you could not find the real cookies in the coffee shops that a person from North America is used to  . I remembered  buying these cookies in Toronto and zapping them in the microwave. UMMMM so good, with the chocolate melting all over, they were so moist and so perfect to make a bad day good.  Here the millions of  coffee shops have cakes and biscotti. Now I love biscotti but I needed chocolate chip cookies. I would bring some back  in my suitcase when I came back from a visit. By the time I got them home they were totally crumbled. I gave up.

A little about the history of the Chocolate chip cookie....

"Like many great discoveries...and this is one of the greatest, It was a mistake.

Ruth Wakefield invented chocolate chip cookies in 1930 at the Toll House inn she and her husband Keneth ran near Whitman, Massachusetts. Like a bed and breakfast she made food for her guests. One evening in 1937 she got the idea to make a chocolate butter cookie so she broke up one of the bars of semi-sweet chocolate that Andrew Nestle gave her. She thought that it would mix together with the dough & make all chocolate cookies . Needless to say, it didn't. However the cookies came out decent so she served them. They of course were so good they had to be done again. She published the recipes in several newspapers and the recipe became very popular.

This gem of Ruth's she called the Chocolate Crunch Cookie and she made a deal with Nestle that they could put the recipe on their chocolate bar if they supplied her with free chocolate for her cookies at the Inn.Nestle tried to make it easy for people to make these cookies. They even included a small chopper in the package. Finally, in 1939, the Chocolate Morsels that we know today were introduced.

The Chocolate chip cookie is the most popular kind of cookie in America. Seven billion chocolate chip cookies are eaten annually. The Toll House produces thirty-three thousand cookies each day. Some Vendors only sell chocolate chip cookies. Half of the cookies baked in American homes are chocolate chip." from the kitchen project.com site.

So why are there no chocolate chip cookies here.....?.
Of course the reason could be that there are no chocolate chips!  I guess they did not need them as no one was making these cookies in Budapest. Should I contact Lindt?

I have spoken to friends who are Hungarian about these cookies. They have no idea what a cookie is so they were pleasantly surprised when they tasted one. Everyone wanted the recipe.
Today I will share with you a wonderful chocolate chip recipe .This is after looking at and trying many many recipes. I found this one in the New York Times and it was the BEST and did come out perfect every time.

First I must say that the original recipe calls for bitter sweet dark chocolate. In Budapest I have only found thin dark chocolate so I could not use that as chopping that up would produce slivers that would melt immediately and the cookie would become a chocolate cookie.
So I bought cooking chocolate that is used to melt and cover cakes with chocolate.

 I chopped the baking chocolate and whatever pieces where really small I placed in a jar to be used for Hot chocolate.  It was tough chopping 1 1/4 pounds of chocolate but worth it .

Next time I go to Toronto to visit I will be bringing back pounds of bitter sweet chocolate chips or thick bars.
Ok so lets start .....

Ingredients:
8 1/2 ounces cake flour  ( retes liszt in HUngarian)( 1 3/4 cups)
8 1/2 ounces bread flour ( 1 3/4 cups)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
10 ounces of non salted  softened  room temperature butter ( 283.5 grams)
10 ounces brown sugar ( read below about the sugar)
8 ounces of white sugar
2 large eggs room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/4 pounds bitter sweet chocolate chips ( around 567 grams)

In one bowl add the 2 types of flour, the baking soda and baking powder and the salt and mix.

In another MUCH LARGER  bowl add the sugar and butter and beat until sort of fluffy . I do all this by hand as I do not have a machine which can make dough. It is not that hard.

Then add the eggs slowly one at a time .
Then finally add the vanilla.

It will look like this when everything is added.Now  we will add the flour mixture into the sugar mixture and mix until it looks like dough.

Now comes the hard part! Add the chocolate chips.  You have to blend this slowly .It is a lot of chocolate to add to the mixture.

I use a spatula to mix and then my hands as it is hard to get all the chocolate into this dough.

Once it is all added  cover the dough with a plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 24-60 hours. This will really make a difference in the taste.

About the sugar. If you do not have semi sweet chocolate then reduce your sugar or it will be really too sweet.  I only used a total of  8 ounces of brown sugar and 6 ounces of white. At the end I realized I could even go less. I do not like things too sweet and the amount of chocolate in these cookies is huge.

1/2 an hour before taking the dough out of the fridge you must pre-heat the oven to 180. ONLY take out the dough from the fridge when this is heated.

Now we will take out the dough from the fridge it is quite hard. I made this dough yesterday sometime in the middle of the night so that for the weekend I could be enjoying chocolate chip cookies. I love the fact that the dough can be refrigerated for up to 65 hours  or frozen for 2 months . This means on a day when you have time you can mix everything ( it takes very little time to do that)  make the dough and then pack it all away to use when you are really in the need of a cookie fix but do not have too much time.
Ok so now I divide the dough into 4 pieces.

3 pieces I double wrap and place in the freezer for future use. Each piece will make approximately 12 cookies.

As I am watching my weight  if I made 48 cookies I would eat 48 cookies so I make sure the temptation is not there.

Look at all the chocolate chips in there!

There is no need to roll this out , I tear off pieces and make balls the size of golf balls. These I place on parchment paper and squish a little and sprinkle with a little  SALT.  The salt will make the difference.

These cookies need to be baked in a cold state and placed in a hot oven so work quickly , it does not matter how they look as they will grow! . Bake on the bottom or 1 above the bottom for 16-20 minutes.

Once done , carefully place on a dish and allow to cool for 10 minutes then eat. They are so good you can not just eat one. Take the rest of the dough from the fridge and make another 6 cookies. These cookies are so good , they are a perfect chocolate chip cookie and by making the dough and freezing it you will always have cookies when you need. Just place them in the fridge and defrost.

OK so these are now done , count the minutes that it takes to eat them . I leave out 2 for my husband because if I leave out more they will all be gone .

 So we now have our cookies on a plate cooling, the scent of fresh baked cookies is so wonderful. My husband is peeking in the kitchen to see when he can steal a cookie, such a sweet tooth he has. I give him his plate of 2 , he looks at the large plate which still has 10 on it but does not say a word. I silently place another cookie on his plate and he smiles.

So at the end of this short crazy week, smelling these cookies and biting into the richness of lots of warm chocolate chip is pure heaven . Suddenly the week is forgotten and I am once again sitting on the balcony enjoying the flow of the Danube and all is good!