A fresh new blog!

Hello you, who got lost here on this sadly abandoned blog...

I have a good news! After another baby, a full-time job and the new house, I decided to start a new blog to share my passion for food, but on a slightly different concept. Please come with me and start on a new journey in the Jurassic! Welcome to Dinosaurs In My Kitchen!

http://www.dinosaursinmykitchen.com/

Leeloo

Fleischnakas - Meat rolls from Alsace

After a pot-au-feu, usually we get a lot of leftovers of meat. How to use them? Making Fleischnaka is a yummy recipe! The direct translation would mean "snails of meat", but acutally it is much more like "meat rolls".

Ingredients:

For the stuffing:

Leftovers of Pot-au-Feu meat (cold)

For 500g of meat:

2 eggs

2 shallots

parsil

salt and pepper

For the noodle dough:

500g of flour 

5 eggs

10g of salt

a little bit of water

For the cooking:

A nut of butter

1l. of beef stock or the stock of the pot-au-feu

First prepare the noodle dough. Mix all the ingredients together to get a firm, smooth dough. And keep refrigerated for 2 hours.

Then, prepare the stuffing: Take off the fat from the meat and mince it with the shallots, the parsil.

Mix all together with the eggs, salt and pepper.

After 2 hours, roll out the noodle dough very thin and spread the stuffing on. Then roll it and slice it (3 to 4 cm wide).

 

 

Fry each side in butter and then boil into the stock for 20 mins.

It is then ready to eat with the stock as a soup or without just with a salad. Enjoy !

 

With the remaining dough, you can make noodle: just roll out the dough very very thin and cut very thin noodle. Cook into boiling salted water for 10mins. It is yummy with a stew or just with a nut of butter!

A traditional French stew: the Pot-au-feu

The Pot-au-feu is a popular winter dish in France. It is composed of a tasty veggie-beef stock, various beef cuts and veggies. The secret is a very slow, slow cooking... for at least 3 hours.

Ingredients (for 6 servings):

- 3kg beef: brisket, chuch steak, shin, gravy beef and/or blade; use 2 to 3 different cuts (this time I used brisket and shin)

- 6 marrow bones

- 5l. water

- 1 big onion picked with 4 cloves

- 2 garlic cloves

- 4 carots

- 1 or 2 turnip

- 1 white gabbage

- 3 leeks

- 8 potatoes

- 3 baie leaves, thym

- salt

Method:

Wash the meat under cold water and put into a large pot. Cover with cold water. Add the onion, the garlic and the green part of the leeks. Put on the low heat (lid on). Let cook slowly for 2 hours. Every 30 mins, remove the foam.

Salt after one hour. Do not salt the meat or the water before, otherwise the stock will be bland.

Prepare the veggies: peel off the carots and the turnips and chunk them. Chunk also the leeks and the gabbage.

After 2 hours, take the leek out. And add the baie leaves, a pinch of thym and the carots.

10 mins later, the turnips,

10 mins later, the gabbage and the leeks (only the white part). Check the seasoning.

Let cook for 30 to 40 extra mins until the veggies are all cooked.

10 mins before the end of cooking, add the marrow bones.

Boil the potatoes separately.

And now?

As an entry, eat the soup with or without veggie

As a main course, drain the veggies and the meat and serve onto a plate with mustard and/or horseraddish. The marrow is delicious spreaded on a slice of bread with some mustard or just coarse salt.

The leftovers are even tastier (but remove the grease when cold) and can be eaten as they are, warm or cold with a vinaigrette (1 Tbsp mustard, 2 Tbsp oil, 1.5Tps red wine vinegar, salt, pepper).

The leftovers of meat can be used in a shepard pie, in a potato salad, in Fleischnaka  (kind of meat rolls)... many possibilities!!
The stock is very tasty and can be used for your future dishes. I make ice blocks of it so that I can use as much as I need when ever I need (rather than buy stock with preservatives...).

I hope you will enjoy this winter stew! Let me a comment whether you have any question!

Vanilla-Caramel Flan: as simple as that!

I miss some French deserts, especially the most common like the Flan. Here is my recipe for Vanilla-Caramel Flan, very easy and delicious for all the family!

Ingredients (for 10 ramekins):

For the Flan:

1l. of milk

6 Tbsp of sugar

6 eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean, it is even better!)

For the caramel:

1/3 cup of water

3/4 cup of sugar

+/- 1 Tbsp of lemon juice

Preheat the oven at 200°.

Mix the milk and the sugar into a pot and heat it on a medium heat. Stop before it boils.
When the milk is being heated, mix the 6 eggs into a large bowl.

At this stage, you can start preparing the caramel, put the water and the sugar into a pot and bring it to boiling on a hot heat. Stir frequently and stop when the caramel takes a nice brown color and remove from the heat. Add immediately the lemon juice while stirring.

Place the ramekins into a oven pan or a lasagna plate, and add hot water in the pan (the flan will be baked into a bain-marie).

Back to the flans: Gradually pour the hot milk into the fresh eggs. Do not stop stirring energically to avoid your eggs get cooked. When finish you should see some bubbles on the top of the preparation.

Add the caramel into the ramekin first. And then add the Flan preparation.

Put into the preheated oven and bake for about 30 mins. Check the flans are cooked with the blade of a knife, which should be dry.

Let cool down and enjoy !!!

Variant:
- chocolate flans: add cocoa powder or dark chocolate into the warm milk
- cinamon flans: add 2 cinamon sticks into the milk (when still cold)

Cauliflower creamy soup with peas

Hard to take a nice picture of a soup but this one is really really lovely and easy to make. This is a perfect balanced dinner meal for kids and they will love it, like my son!

Ingredients (4-5 servings):

1 cauliflower

2 cups of peas

4 cubes of chicken stock

300 ml of cream

3 Tbs of gratted parmesan

Salt and pepper

1 cup of small pasta for soup (facultative)

Method:

• Steam the cauliflower until very smooth, using 2 liters of water (that will used later).
• Then save the remaining water used to steam the cauliflower (at least 1.5 liter) and bring it to boil. When boiling, add the chicken stock and salt.
• When the stock cubes are completely dissolved, add the peas and 5 minutes later the pasta. Cook for about 8-10 minutes.
• Mix the cream and the cauliflower in a blender. Add some chicken stock if necessary to get a smooth cauliflower puree.
• When the peas and the pasta are cooked, gradually pour the chicken stock with the peas and the pasta into the cauliflower puree which has to be on the heat. Do not stop stirring.
• Finally, add the parmesan and some pepper into the soup and serve.

It's ready! Bon appétit!

Let's make play-dough!! Not for eating!!! ;-)

Well, my blog is about cooking, traveling and more... So let's talk about more today!
Little ones are very keen to play with their hands. One very easy, quick and cheap method is to make your own play-dough.


Ingredients:
2 cup of flour
1 cup of salt
1 Tbsp of oil
3/4 cup of water (to adapt to get the desired texture)

Mix together the flour, the salt and the oil. Add gradually the water while kneading the dough.
Ready to use in 5 minutes!

For the colour, I used spices but you can of course use food coloring or painting.
For example:
- yellow --> turmeric, curry, curcuma
- red --> paprika, ground chili
- brown --> cocoa powder

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Eggs-cauliflower en cocotte

Today, I want to propose a new recipe of mine. This is a very easy and fast recipe that will wow your guests as an entry or a main. But where would this idea come from? I have no idea at all!
This recipe is an original way to propose cauliflower.
Originally from Asia, the cauliflower is mostly produced in China, India, France, Italy and USA. Usually white, it can be purple or orange (see here).

My recipe also uses a white sauce that is very common in French cuisine.

Ingredients (2 servings)

For the white sauce:

500ml of milk

40g of butter

40g of flour

Method: 

Melt the butter in a hot pot and then mix with flour. Out of the heat, gradually pour the milk and do not stop stirring to avoid lumps. Put it back on the medium heat. Do not stop stirring until you get a nice and smooth texture. When ready, add pepper, salt and nutmeg, a pinch each.

For the eggs en cocotte:

half a cauliflower

500ml white sauce

1 generous tsp tomato paste

1/2 cup of fresh cream

shredded gruyere or any other cheese you like

2 eggs

salt, pepper, parsley

2 toasts

• Steam the cauliflower for about 15 minutes. It is important that the cauliflower is just slightly undercooked after this stage (as it will finish cooking in the oven).
• Drain the caulifower and place half of the cauliflower in each cocotte (or ramekin or bowl, just use any dish that goes into the oven).
• Add 1 tsp of tomato paste into the white sauce and spoon the "rosy" white  sauce over the cauliflower.
• Mix the cream with salt, pepper and parsley
• Then spoon the cream over the rosy white sauce (1/4 cup in each dish, just make sure a slight layer of cream cover the white sauce).
• Break an egg without breaking the yolk and put it down in the dish (one egg in each dish or 2 if very hungry)
• Salt and pepper (just a little bit)
• Add the shredded cheese on the top, but avoid to cover the yolk.
• Bake in the oven for 7 minutes. Be careful, the yolk must still be raw.

Serve with toasts.

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