Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Lemon Quinoa with Zucchini and Chickpeas

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The main wave of emotions after the amazing Food Blogger Connect weekend still keeps me going and makes my head spinning! I don’t even know where to start so I need to calm down first than I can write my post about the event.

Anyway… until then I have a couple of recipes to share with you. I’m a bit behind with the translations (from Hungarian to English) so this and a couple of more recipes’ (that to come) photos were taken with my old camera. Lemon quinoa with zucchini and chickpeas is an easy summer dish that can be your  delicious lunch or dinner anytime.

Lemon Quinoa with Zucchini and Chickpeas

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

– 1 cup quinoa
– 4 small zucchinis (yellow and green), sliced
– 1 can (240 g) chickpeas, drained
– 1 onion, peeled and chopped
– 3 branches fresh thyme
– 1/2 lemon’s grated zest and juice
– salt, pepper
– coconut or olive oil

Method

Bring the quinoa, water and 1 teaspoon salt to a boil in a pot. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until the quinoa opens up revealing a little spiral and is soft and pleasant to chew. Set aside.
Heat a splash of coconut oil in a pan and saute the onion. After 5 minutes add zucchini and saute for another 5-6 minutes, then add the chickpeas. Season with salt, pepper and the leaves of thyme branches. Add lemon juice and cooked quinoa and turn off the heat. When serve sprinkle with lemon zest.

Tabuleh

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Yes, I have been away from the blog for a while… nothing happened it is just summer and I don’t want to sit in front of the computer after work too. We usually go out, meet friends, have picnic in a park or stay at home, cook a light dinner for us, drink wine and read good books. So this is the reason I’m a bit behind on the blog. 
The good news is I have so many recipes to share with you! Here is the first one… tabuleh is one of my favourite summer dishes.  I made this to my best friend, Eva’s hen night party.  Eva is a HR specialist but in her free time she writes amazing fables and short stories. We had so much fun together at the party,  we laughed a lot, shared old stories with each other and danced through the night. Friends are the most important ingredients in this recipe of life. Let’s see the ingredients of this tabuleh…
Tabuleh

Ingredients (serves 8)
– 12 bunches of parsley, chopped
– 1 small bunch of mint, chopped
– 200 g bulgur
– 500 g tomatoes, finely diced
– 1 bunch of spring onion, chopped
– 30 ml extra virgin olive oil
– 25 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
– salt, pepper
Method
In a small pan mix the bulgur with salted water. Bring to the boil, cover then turn the heat on very low and cook for 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork to separate the grains and set aside. In a large bowl mix everything together: parsley, mint, tomatoes, spring onion, olive oil and lemon juice. Add bulgur, taste it and season with salt and pepper. Add more olive oil or lemon juice if needed. Place the bowl in the fridge and leave it there for at least 2 hours (the best is a for a night).

Creamy Avocado Macaroni

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I can’t tell you how many years ago it was (but imagine a long long time!) that I spent every summer with my brother at my grandparents’ place in a small Hungarian town, called Makó. Both of my grandmothers cooked lunch everyday. When we heard the bell ring at noon on the radio, the lunch was ready, the table was set and we could eat. I can still evoke the smell of those kitchens. I remember the vintage cutleries and plates we used – today I’m trying to find some of these in my parents’ garage – I’m a kitchen props addict! 🙂 If we had pasta for lunch it was obvious that my grandmothers made it fresh. During Socialism there were no dried spaghetti, fusilli or penne pastas in the Hungarian stores. If you wanted to eat it, you had to make it at home. Oh, how I miss this home made pasta time!
Today, we, people are a bit too comfortable, don’t you think? It is easier to buy the dry pasta from the shelves of the supermarkets then make it at home. I know it because I do the same. So I decided to do something against it. I bought a pasta machine and from now on I’d like to make fresh pasta as much as I can.

I’m talking about my childhood and especially the fresh pasta because my dearest Italian friend, Giulia hosts May’s Monthly Mingle and the theme is Fresh Pasta. Behind the idea of Monthly Mingle is the talented foodblogger and food photographer, Meeta whose work I admire very much. She loves entertaining and with this virtual mingle she would like to invite everyone over to join her and her guest hosts for a bit of fun, story telling and hopefully a lot of laughter.

Giulia, as a true Italian, is a fresh pasta maniac. It has gradually become her favourite dish and her favourite executive toy when she’s stressed. Well, this macaroni making was my first try and I was a bit stressed to handle the pasta machine… twisting and cutting the macaronis at the same time! They don’t look very pretty but with the creamy avocado sauce the whole dish tastes fresh and delicious. It is a quick, comforting, home-y food.

Thank you  Giulia for setting this exciting challenge!

Creamy Avocado Macaroni

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the pasta
– 2 organic eggs
– 200 g semolina flour + more for dusting
– a pinch of salt

For the avocado creamy sauce
– 2 ripe avocados, peeled and pitted
– 3 garlic cloves, peeled
– 1 lemon’s freshly squeezed juice + lemon zest
– small handful of basil
– salt, pepper
– 1 tablespoon olive oil

Method

To make the sauce place all the ingredients in the food processor. Start blending it until becomes very smooth. Set aside.

To make the pasta dough mix together the flour with the eggs and salt in a bowl. Using your hands knead the dough until it gets elastic, kind of soft and doesn’t stick to your fingers anymore. Set aside for 15 minutes. In smaller portions press the dough through the pasta machine making macaronis or any kind of shape. Sprinkle them with flour.

In the meantime bring salted water to a boil in a  medium sized pan. Add in the macaronis (in portions).  When the noodles begin to float (3-5 minutes) on the top, remove with a slotted spoon, drain and rinse well and place pasta into a bowl. Follow this procedure until all the macaronis have been cooked. Pour sauce over the pasta and toss until fully combined. Garnish with lemon zest, pepper and serve immediately. (This dish does not reheat well due to the avocado in the sauce.)

Spinach-Walnut Penne

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I made this recipe a few months ago but I forgot to post it. Did it happen with you too? 🙂 I found the photos on my computer and I was glad to remember the recipe. The worse is when I find food photos and I don’t remember the exact quantities of all the ingredients – this way I can’t post the recipe on my blog. 
Spinach goes really well with walnut and goat cheese. I added some broccoli too, it was a leftover in my fridge and I wanted to use it. It is an easy pasta dish, the result of some improvisation and the ingredients are still seasonal (except walnut).

Spinach-Walnut Penne

Ingredients (serves 2)

– 200 g penne pasta
– 1 big handful of fresh spinach, chopped
– 1/4 of a whole broccoli, florets and stalk
– 100 g walnut halves
– 100 g goat cheese + 25 g for serving
– 1 cup (2 dl) dry white wine
– 1 lemon’s freshly squeezed juice
– 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
– olive oil
– salt, pepper

Method

In a dry pan roast the walnut with salt for 5 minutes. Set aside. Boil the penne in salted water al dente (according to the insturcitons on the package), drain and set aside. In a pan heat olive oil and saute the garlic for 2-3 minutes, then add wine and lemon juice. Stir around, cook for 2 minutes before adding the broccoli. Cook for 7-8 minutes, add spinach and goat cheese while stirring. Let it simmer for 5 minutes before adding the cooked penne and the roasted walnut. Season with salt and pepper, stir for another minute and make sure the penne is covered with this wine-lemon-goat cheese sauce. Turn off the heat. Serve it with goat cheese on top. Yum!

Creamy White Bean and Chard "Risotto"

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I have been using and cooking with chard for a while now. Chard is not very known in Hungary and it is not easy to find in markets. In Hungarian, we call it mangold. I usually buy it from my favourite producer, Matyas at the largest organic farmers market in Budapest. 
Chard has shiny green ribbed leaves, with stems that range from white (most popular in Hungary) to yellow to red, depending on the cultivar. It has a slightly bitter taste. Fresh young chard can be used raw in salads. Mature chard leaves and stalks are typically cooked or sauteed; their bitterness fades with cooking, leaving a refined flavor. Its taste has similarities to spinach and maybe kale. Chard is high in vitamins A, K and C, and also rich in minerals, dietary fiber and protein. I adapted the recipe (with a few things changed) from Green Kitchen Stories.

Creamy White Bean and Chard “Risotto”

Ingredients
– 2 cans white beans, washed and drained well
– 3-4 bigger chard leaves (if you use smaller, you need 6-8 leaves), stems dices, leaves slice into thin strips
– 1 onion, finely chopped
– 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
– 2 and 1/2 cups (375 ml) vegetable stock
– 6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
– 1/2 organic lemon’s zest and juice
– fresh thyme
– coconut or olive oil
– salt, pepper

Method
Heat 2 teaspoons coconut oil or 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan on medium heat, add chopped onion, garlic and stems of the chards. Saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until get tender. Pour 1 cup (250 ml) stock into the saucepan and cook and stir the vegetables until the stock almost evaporated. Now add the sliced chard leaves, the beans and the remaining 1/2 cup (125 ml) stock. Cook and stir for 5-6 minutes, then add mascaropne, thyme and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Serve it with lemon zest on top.