Peperonata - Rustic Italian Pepper Stew

As promised or said the post earlier, here's the peperonate recipe.
I made this italian stew a few times before but the different with this one are the peppers. The are special italian small peppers, called Papacella napoletana (describtion see my post "pepper-chili-dip"). They are as said smaller, tastier and a little bit spicer but sweet than normal ones. They are various in color and are all riped. They grew in italy and are different to tell from other peppers, therefore only the real Napoleans in italy can really make the difference. (thats how its been said).

What can be better trying new peppers than making only a pepper stew? The bought peperonata are usually made with sugar (too much) witch I don't like but if you feel like add a little sugar, still good just gives a sweet touch to the peperonata witch can be very good, when you can adjust it for yourself ;) I tried different kind of peperonate and still I love the unsweeted version better. But tastes are different.

If you got problems with digesting the pepperskin (as I do) roast the peppers in the oven till you can unpeel them, then continue with the direction below, just that the cooking time will be less!!! Note this!!

If you like a more stomach-filling stew just add some potatoes or serve the peperonate poured over cooked and halfed Potatoes pieces. The various kind to serve this dish are big, but only the one below is the real original way italian serve it - plain with bread!

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Peperonata - rustic italian pepper stew

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

500g mixed red, green and yellow peppers (cored and deseeded)

1 large onion (peeled and finely chopped)

2 to 4 cloves garlic (peeled and finely chopped)

600g plum tomatoes (peeled and finely chopped. )

400g tin of chopped plum tomatoes

salt and pepper (to taste)

oregano and oregano flowers
 

Directions:

Cut the peppers into strips. Warm the oil in a large frying pan or a wok, that has a lid and then add the peppers, onion and garlic. Cover and stew for 30 minutes.

Add the fresh tomatoes and the tinned tomatoes, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Leave to simmer over a gentle heat, uncovered, for 20 to 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before serving, and garnish with oregano leaves and/or flowers. Serve with crusty bread for a light lunch or supper.

Note:

The peppers must be sweet and ripe. Don't brown the onion, just let it soften to a pale golden colour. The texture of the peppers and onions should be silky and soft enough to crush between your fingers. The stew will mellow when left in the fridge for a day or two.

A simple Italian classic that brings out the best in fresh peppers. Can be prepared ahead of time as the flavours intensify. Makes a perfect accompaniment for any family meal, or a main meal for vegetarians when served with crusty bread.

Peper-Chili-Dip (Napaccella Napoletana Pepper)

 Whats more interesting than trying new discovered vegetables? A few day I saw special peppers at the store. They are called "Napaccella napoletana"

 

(sorry, after roasting)





 

Here's what they are described like:

""The Neapolitan is a amber_ferren pepper, small berries, slightly crushed and costolute (thats why they say curly), very meaty and tasty: ideal for traditional pickled or preserved in oil.

Neapolitan market stalls, from July until the first cold, overflowing with colorful peppers but only the authentic Neapolitan-now only those of a certain age-know understand at a glance the genuine curly papaccelle. The markets are in fact invaded by hybrid peppers, almost identical morphologically to papaccelle.

Actually recognize them is not difficult: the true papaccelle are small, reaching up to the 8, 10 cm diameter.

The berries have colours ranging from deep green to yellow Sun (yellow fruits are generally larger) or from green to red wine.

The sweetness of the flesh is the distinctive element that distinguishes amber_ferren from other varieties of similar appearance but decidedly spicy flavour. The perfume is particularly intense, with fresh and herbaceous notes. Sowing can be done from the second half of March to early July while collecting, done by hand, occurs from mid-June to early November.

The papaccelle can be eaten fresh, roasted, lightly stir-fried, or baked, stuffed with classic filled with tuna or anchovies, salted olives, bread crumbs, raisins, pine nuts, tomatoes and capers the piennolo. The berries preserved in red wine vinegar are the main ingredient of salad, typical dish of the Christmas holidays of Naples""

 

Of course I had to buy them, curious if they're really tasting different - and they do somehow. I buy a whole net and first I just made one on its own - plain tasted and some dizzled olive oil. I got to say they are really good. Hard to describe it, just more tasty, with the rest I made a peperonate (recipe later).

 

A few days later I bought a whole new net from them and I wanted to make a dip with them. I wanted to catch their spices into a dip together with a othe spicy ingredients - Chili ;)

 

The result is great!!!!!!! Spicy I got to say, cause I used a habanero chili..... (the only I had on hand, picking from my little habanero plant.)

 

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 Pepper-Chili-Dip

 

 

 Ingredients:
about 300g Papacella peppers (roasted, deseeded and peeled)
1 small chili
4 garlic knob
30g sunflower seeds
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. cuminpowder
1 tbsp. oil
salt

Direction:
Preheat over to 200°C. Lay the washed Papacella peppers, chili and garlic (with the peel) on a tray and roast till the skin turn dark and blows up. Take the chili and garlic earlier out of the oven when they are done (this won't be a long time). Put everything in a freezing bag and let cool, then unpeel and cut into pieces.

Meanwhile process the sunflower seed in your blender then add the peppers, garlic, lemon juice and cuminpowder. Process everything well trough. Add the oil and again process trought. Taste with salt and seal in hot washed glasses and let it sit in the refrigerator over night before eating.

The dip can be served with roasted and oily dizzled Pitabread scones, or use on your next lunch sandwich ;) Or whatever you are up to.

Sweet Potato Tortilla Canapes

Since a while I'm having a pack of wheat tortillas they had to be eaten. Till now I wasn't really in the mood for them, but today is deadline for them.

 

Still not feeling well, caughing, nose running something easy for dinner was just what I wanted! But loaded full with vegetable was for sure!

 

I made mexican wheat tortillas with sweet mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables from onions, beans, peppers, eggplant, okra and fresh coriander.

My creation intended to be more a finger food but can be easily eaten as a main dish. For mine it endet up to be a main dish served with a saladbowl. Yummy

 

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Sweet Potato Tortilla Canapes

Preparation time: 40 minutes
2 Persons

Ingredients:

Vegan wheat tortillas (6-8 pieces)

2 large sweet potatoes

1 lime

brown cane sugar

1 large onion

1 red and yellow bell pepper

1 small Eggplant

5-6 Okras

1 can kidney beans

1 small soy yogurt

50 g pine nuts

1 bunch fresh coriander

Agave syrup or maple syrup

Direction:

Peel the sweet potatoes, cut into small pieces and cook. Cut onions and pepper into strips. Cut Eggplant into small slices and okra into pieces. Finely chop the coriander, then squeeze the lime.

Fry the eggplant and okra in olive oil for 3-4 minutes and set aside. Now sauté the onions and add peppers and cook briefly. Stir in the eggplant and okra and mix with 1-2 tbsp brown sugar cane. Finally add kidney beans.

Drain the sweet potatoes, mash with potato masher, add lime juice and brown sugar and mix everything.

Heat oven to 160°. Heat up the tortillas for a brief moment.

Now on every tortilla put 1-2 EL sweet potato puree. Some vegetable mix, 1 teaspoon pine cores, 1 tsp Agave  juice and add some soy yogurt and fresh cilantro and tightly roll up. Repeat with remaining tortilla . Now cut each roll up evenly into sized pieces. Arrange them on a platter and serve.

Beetroot-Soup

Beetroot-soup together with some other ingredients is a traditional Russian recipe called "Borrtsch". I ate Borrtsch a few times - as my grandmother grew (they flee during world war) up some years in Russia she brought back the Borrtsch-Soup and we always ate it on Easter Sunday when being over at them together with my fathers brother's familily.

But for now I'm not posting a russian Borrtsch-Soup recipe. I just had Beetroot on the hand and if you have precooked ones you can make a pretty fast soup. AND I defently needed a hearthy soup as I'm feeling sick today. Cold, hurt throat, running nose, cough etc. This soup will give me some more warm from the inside and hopefully helps.









Red Beet-Soup



4 Portions

Ingredients:

1 Tsp mustard seeds

1 Tbsp. cross cumin seeds

2 Tbsp. vegan butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

500 g raw red or yellow beetroots, coarsely grated.

1 Liter vegetable broth

2 Bay leaves

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Sea salt

freshly ground white pepper

Direction:

Heat mustard seeds and cumin in hot clarified butter, stirring until it smells good and the seeds are poppin. Add onion, cook at low heat til soft. Stir in the root Beet and cook. Pour in the broth, add Bay leaves and boil. Simmer for 30-40 minutes (less if you used the precooked Betts). Season with Apple Cider vinegar, salt, and pepper, and continue simmer for several minutes.

 

Consistent with freshly grated horseradish. (it gives the special taste to it!!) Love it

Hope you like the "special" soup!

Coconut Balls

I really got a very nice Boss at work! She really cares for her employers. As we had very stressfull  and long days during the last few weeks, and I've been away the whole last weekend to a congress too, and she knew she will be gone to a congress one whole day she suggested that I can take off the whole day - to rest - sleep and recover. HOW NICE! I never had a Boss like her!

I really needed sleep and it did so good!!! Though I didn't slept long but all I wanted was to relax and clean up my appartement (even for that I had no time during the last two weeks).

After being finished cleaning up - I was just in the mood for preparing a snack or a dessert. I ended at the dessert but it had to be something fast done and these coconut balls are pretty fast done so far and soo good!

Of course some I will eat myself and I guess the most I will bring at work tomorrow.

Anyway, if you try these balls, I hope you like them, eather just for yourself or together with your beloved friends.

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Coconut Balls

 

 

Ingredients

6 tablespoons coconut butter

3 tablespoons agave syrup

1 tablespoon lemon zest

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3/4 cup oats

3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1/3 cup white chocolate chips

 

Directions

In a medium bowl, mix together the coconut butter, agave syrup, lemon zest and lemon juice.

Stir in the oats and shredded coconut until well combined.

 

Roll into 14 1cm balls.

 

In a microwave safe bowl at half power, melt the white chocolate in 30 second increments, stirring after each increment, until melted.

Spoon or pipe the white chocolate over the balls.

 

Keep the coconut balls covered and store in the refrigerator for up to one week.

 

Wild Rice Salad with Miso Dressing

Of course I don't know if your a housewife, working part-time or full-time. For mine, I'm working full-time - 42h per week. The whole last week was very stressful, with long (12h) working days (surgeryday). To be said, everyday I got very tired home. All I wanted was to relax and just a long sleep, but no - I will be away the whole weekend at a congress nearly 2 hours away - starting saturday and sunday at 8 a.m.

Finaly back at home my cats - sorry the starved at the point I left on saturday till I came home on sunday late afternoon.
Been at home I immediatly went into the kitchen to feed the cats and then I started to cook to my dinner. NO RESTING TIME. HOW could I ? I'm a single person! Anyway, after cooking I sitted down at 7.30 p.m. released myself before I will eat dinner. SO TIRED!  I could go to bed wtihout eating, but I need strengh for starting work on monday. UFF. You see, stressfull.

Still I want to show you - or better - give you the recipe of what I ate/cooked witch will give you at least at the moment the strengh if needed ;)

(As tired as I was I made a picture and wrote down the ingredients)

Hopefully you like it!



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Wild Rice Salad with Miso Dressing

sorry for the extra line beside the picture!

Serves 2 as an entree, 4 as a side

Ingredients:
1/2 cup wild rice (any rice works, timing will vary accordingly)

1 block extra firm tofu
2 tsp. coconut oil or a good oil
2 tsp. soy sauce or tamari
fresh ground pepper

1 heaping cup thinly sliced carrots
3/4 cup cooked, shelled, organic edamame
3 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
handful of chopped Cilantro or Pea Sprouts

Miso Dressing:
2 Tbsp. white miso
2 Tbsp. agave nectar or brown rice syrup
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
2 1/2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1 shallot, minced
Juice of half an Orange

Direction:
Rinse the wild rice. Bring two cups water to a boil. Add the rice, turn the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until all the water is absorbed (about 35-40 minutes), adding a bit more water if necessary to finish cooking. You will see a tuft of white pop from the center.

Wrap the tofu between a few layers of paper towel or a dish cloth and set it aside to drain for 10-15 minutes. Cut it into about 2.5cm dicees. Heat the coconut oil over medium high heat. Add the tofu and saute for about five minutes. Sprinkle the soy sauce and a few grinds of fresh pepper over the top and saute another few minutes until the edges are browned. Turn off heat and set aside.

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together (Don't be tempted to add salt, miso is pretty salty).

In a large bowl, combine the rice, tofu, sliced carrots, edamame. Toss everything with the dressing. Add the sesame seeds and cilantro and give it another toss.

Serve room temperature or chilled. Of course it can easely be eaten warm (as I did at this seasontime ;)

Leek-Puree/Dip

As I may have said earlier - I love Leeks! A vegetable I could eat every day easely. Unfortunatly the leeks in my garden are not ready to pick - or just too small and thin, and therefore I still I have to buy it.

Yesterday I chopped a few vegetable for my stew and at the end I had too much chopped leek leftover. To store chopped leeks in the fridge - no good idea, and wasting no way!

Hmm, what doing with it? As I made a lot of puree, dips the last few weeks why not trying to make mousse/puree/dip with it? The only reason I had at that moment, for a dip or puree the amount was not really enough. So I shortly stopped at the supermarket and got more Leeks.

I took a recipe from another puree and just varioused a little the ingredients. My first try I've made with Hummus, oil and broth - well the resultat was quite sticky. So the next time I used nutrional yeast and sunflowers and more oil and the result ended up to be perfect!

If you don't believe me, this dip tastes great - try it out, really!

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Leek-Puree - Dip

 

 

Serves 1-2

 

Ingredients:



450 g Leeks
1 onion, chopped
1 knob garlic, chopped
50 ml Oil
1Tbsp. nutrionational yeast
2 Tbsp. sunflowers
a little vegetable broth
salt, pepper, paprika
chives (as much as you like)

Direction:
Preheat a roasting pan or normal pan with oil, add the chopped onion and garlic, roast till translucent then add the chopped leek and steam till well done, - sometimes adding some vegetable broth if needed- , season.

Give into a foodprocessor or a pot, add one the oil, yeast, sunflowers, spices. Pulse well through (you may have first some problems as the leek is fasering) add the herbs and pulse again through till you get smooth puree. 

Season if needed and keep stored in well hot-cleaned-glassed in the refrigerator.

Note: I got to say: it was so good and is definitly something I going to do again and again. Well just a different puree/dip you can buy nowhere!