Cheese "Cake" (Prajitura cu branza)

So this is an interesting cake, it's called a cheesecake but it's not your traditional cheesecake with cream cheese.





This is yet another traditional Romanian recipe that I just love.  It's an easy to make cake, and the big difference between this cake and your traditional cheesecake is this is made with ricotta cheese.  This cake is light, and it's delicious. Here are the ingredients you'll need to make this cake:

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 cup of flour
• 500g of ricotta cheese

Preheat the oven at 375 degrees.  In a mixer, add 2 of the eggs and 1/2 cup of the sugar and mix well until light and fluffy. Add the sour cream and the melted butter and mix well.  Add the flour and the baking powder, and mix well.

In another bowl mix the ricotta with the remainder of the sugar and the remaining 2 eggs and mix well.  You may also add raisins with ricotta if you wish.  Personally I like a few raisins in this cake, so now would be the time to add about 1/2 cup of raisins.

You can use a cheesecake pan, butter it well.  Pour the cake batter first, then pour the ricotta mix in the middle.  Do not mix.  Bake until golden brown.  Let cool before serving.  You may also sprinkle some powdered sugar on top of the cake.

Easy and delicious.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Salad (Salata de vinete)

Have I got a treat for you! I mentioned before, I'm not crazy about eggplants, but this dish is one of my favorites, honestly.  I would say it's more of a spread than truly a salad, but you serve this salad on some nice crusty bread with some sliced tomatoes on the side, oh man, it doesn't get better than this.  It is the simplest recipe in the world, only 3 ingredients and it's just to die for.  I have grown up eating this salad, and it's probably one of the first things I ever learned how to make. So the 3 ingredients are:

• 3 or 4 large eggplants
• 1/4 cup of sunflower oil (do not use olive oil, doesn't taste good in this sald)
• salt to taste

Now to prepare, is just as easy, you can either put these eggplants on a grill and make sure you cook them on all sides, or you can simply bake them in the oven at 375 degrees, so you could put them on a cookie sheet, poke some holes in the eggplants, this is a very important step, once I forgot to poke holes in the eggplants, and they literally exploded in my oven.  So just bake them in the oven, make sure they are baked really well, and you'll have to turn them from side to side.  Once they are done, let them cool off.

After they've cooled off, remove the peel, using a knife, if you've cooked them enough, the peel should come off easily.  You may wash them, to remove any of the dark peel, but make sure you use paper towels to soak up the excess water.  Place them in your food processor, add the salt, and turn it on, slowly adding the sunflower oil.  It should end up like a paste as you can see in the picture.  And that's it, if the salad is still a bit warm, just put it in the fridge and let it cool off, it's better cold.

You can serve them with nice crusty bread, toasted or not, and just some sliced tomatoes on the side, and you've got yourself a meal.

Now there are other variations of this salad, you could add mayo, or mustard, but I've tried it and this simple recipe is still my favorite version of it.

Enjoy!

Moussaka with Ground Beef and Potatoes

Well, what's for dinner tonight? How about this great moussaka with ground beef and potatoes.  Now I know traditionally moussaka has eggplant in it, but my version has potatoes and beef.  I'm not a big fan of eggplant, though I will share a great recipe of this eggplant salad with you.  Now I'm not sure if moussaka is traditionally Greek or Arabic, but my version, I guess you could call it a Romanian version of moussaka.  So here are the ingredients you'll need for my version of moussaka:

• 1 1/2 lb of potato
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 lb of ground beef (you may substitute pork or chicken)
• 1  1/2 cups of tomato sauce
• fresh basil
• 1 beaten egg
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 cup of yogurt
• 1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Boil the peeled potatoes until tender, but not cooked completely.  Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, melt the butter and add the chopped onion and ground meat.  Fry the meat and onion for about 5 min then add the tomato sauce and the basil.
Now, slice the potatoes about 1/2 cm wide.  Grab a 9x13 pan and coat it lightly with olive oil.  Now we start layering, start with a layer of potatoes, we can probably make 3 layers of potatoes, but at least 2 layers, so one layer of potatoes, one layer of the meat, then repeat until finished, the top layer should be potatoes.
Mix the yogurt with the beaten egg and spread over the potatoes, then sprinkle with cheddar cheese.  Now of course instead of the yogurt you could make a bechamel sauce, but this is just as delicious, and easier.
Now you may say, Jo, this isn't really easy, seems like a lot of steps, but really if you think about it, it's quite simple, meat and potatoes and you layer them.  It's a bit time consuming because you have to wait for the potatoes to boil, but come on, trust me it will be worth it in the end.
Enjoy!

Mushrooms and Chicken in White Sauce

So this is another Romanian recipe that I grew up with, in Romanian it's called ciulama cu ciuperci si pui.  It's super simple to make, and basically you could make it with or without chicken, if you're vegetarian.  This is one of those recipes that would go perfectly with polenta or mamaliga as we call it.  I just made this tonight, and I'd say it took me about 15 or 20 min to get everything going, and then you just let it simmer for about 30 minutes.  I made this for dinner tonight, along with my favorite banana nut bread.  Here are the ingredients you'll need:

• 3 cans of mushrooms
• 1 lb of chicken breast cut in small pieces
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 2 tbsp of flour
• 3 tbsp of butter
• 1 onion chopped
• fresh dill
• 2 cups of water
• salt and pepper to taste

To make this, in a deep pan, melt the butter and the chopped onion and saute for 3 minutes.  Add the chicken breast  and cook until chicken is no longer pink.  Add the mushrooms and 2 cups of water, add salt and pepper.  In a small bowl whisk the sour cream with the flour and a tbsp of water.  Add the sour cream mixture to the pan and stir well.  Make sure the heat is on low, so that it doesn't burn, let this simmer for about 30 min.  Add the fresh dill and serve warm.  Enjoy!

Roasted Garlic and Tomato Soup

Here's an easy soup, that's very healthy and quick to make.  This roasted garlic and tomato soup is easy and quick to make and very healthy.  Here  are the ingredients you’ll need:

• 1 garlic bulb
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 big tomatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 cups of vegetable stock
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

First, start off with roasting the garlic bulb, if you’ve never done this before it’s quite easy, cut off the top and drizzle with some olive oil and salt.  We need to roast the garlic, the tomatoes and the onion, same with the tomatoes and onion, cut in half and drizzle with some olive oil and salt and roast in the oven.  After roasting squeeze the garlic out in a pot, add the roasted tomatoes, the onions, vegetable stock spices and thyme and puree in a food processor, or with a hand held one.  I find it a lot easier with the hand held ones.  That’s all there is to it, when you serve it, add some of the grated Parmesan cheese on top, and serve with a nice slice of toasted bread.  Nice, easy and healthy.  Enjoy!

Jo’s Chicken Pot Pie

Well my husband asks me all the time when am I going to make him some chicken pot pie and I always put it off thinking that it’s such a huge job.  Well I decided to try and see if it’s really such a big deal, so my husband went grocery shopping and bought all the ingredients I needed.  To simplify this I decided to use the regular puff pastry I always use.  It was so easy to prepare, I had no idea, so I think I will make this a lot more often now.  I must say, it turned out looking beautiful and just simply delicious.  The one I made ended up making about 6 servings, so here are the ingredients you will need:

• 1 onion chopped
• 1 carrot chopped
• 2 potatoes cut into small cubes
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• 1 can of sliced mushrooms
• 2 tbsp of butter
• 1 lb of skinless boneless chicken thighs (you can use chicken breast)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 1 box of puff pastry (you’ll need two sheets)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To start off I wanted to bake my bottom pastry, just to make sure it will be cooked and it will not get soggy, so I put it in a 9×13 pan, but you can use whatever pie pan you have.  So as I said, I stretched the bottom pie sheet on the pan and baked it for about 10 min until golden brown.  Also you will want to poke some holes in it, so it won’t puff up.  Next in a deep frying pan, melt the butter and then add the onion, carrots, potatoes, chicken and mushrooms and saute for about 10 minutes.  The potatoes should be soft and the chicken cooked.  Add the frozen peas, mushroom soup, salt and pepper, and flour and cook for a few more minutes until the sauce thickens, which means the flour has cooked.  Add this mixture to your pie pastry that has been baked and cover with your second pie pastry and fix the edges.  You will also need to poke some holes here and if you wish brush it with an egg.  Bake in the oven for about 30 min until the pastry is golden brown.  Serve warm.  It’s simply delicious. Enjoy!

Crepes (Clatite)

Well this is my favorite dessert ever, probably because as a child I ate this a lot, we made them quite often when we were kids.  They are easy to make, and let's be honest, but you can fill them with anything you like.  My favorite filling is nutella, or just any plain old jam, raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, apricot, whatever you have in your fridge.  I'm making them now because my husband bought this great blueberry Saskatoon jam, and it would be a waste not to make some crepes for it.  Another way these crepes are served, is with a cheese filling inside usually made from ricotta, eggs, sugar, sour cream and raisins and folded into squares then baked for a few minutes, but for today I'm sticking with the awesome Saskatoon blueberry jam. Anyway here are the ingredients you'll need for the crepes:

• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups of milk
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 tbsp butter
• oil for frying

Mix all the ingredients in a mixer really well and let sit for a few minutes.  In the meantime heat a non stick frying pan with a 1/2 tsp of oil really well.  It is very important that the pan is very hot.  Pour 3/4 of a ladle of the crepe mixture into the pan and spread the mixture to cover the entire pan, by rotating the pan.  Leave about 1 to 2 min per side then flip over.  Repeat steps until you've prepared all the crepes.  When you're done use your favorite jam and spread about a tsp of jam per crepe, then roll the crepe.

These crepes are very versatile, they could even be made savory and filled with chicken, or mushrooms or anything you can imaging.  No matter which way you make them, they are simply delicious.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Rumballs

I've made these chocolate rumballs many times and people just love them.  If we have a pot luck at work, I usually make these, I make them for the holidays, I simply just make them because they are easy to make and they are absolutely delicious.  If you don't want to add real rum, you can add rum extract, but they are much better with real rum in my opinion.  I can't remember now where I got this recipe, I just know I've been making these for a few years now and they are very popular.  Anyway, here's what you'll need:

• 1 box of chocolate cake (follow instructions to bake the cake)
• 1/4 cup good cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup of good rum
• 1 cup of finely chopped walnuts or pecans
• 2 cups of powder sugar
• 2 cups of shredded coconut for rolling the rumballs in

As mentioned above, follow the instructions to bake the cake, so you will need additional ingredients for that.  I usually buy the super moist chocolate cake mix, it much better.  Anyway, after the cake has cooled, crumble it up in a big bowl, add the powder sugar, rum, cocoa powder and the chopped walnuts and mix well.  Initially you may think there's not enough moisture, but as you mix it well, it will all incorporate really well and you will be able to roll rumballs. 

So start rolling, the rumballs should be just a little over an inch in diameter.  After you rolled them between your hands, roll them in the coconut, I usually roll them in the coconut one at a time as I make them, I find that the coconut sticks better.  You can store them in an air tight container in the fridge for over a week.  They are just delicious, great for the holidays, or just because you want something chocolaty.  Enjoy.

Tuna Salad European Style (pasta de peste)

If you love tuna salad, I guarantee you'll love this tuna salad.  It's a bit different than your traditional tuna salad with mayonnaise but much better, at least I think so.  I must admit I didn't make this, my husband made this today and I made him give me the recipe, because I just couldn't stop eating it, it was that good.  And not only I loved it, my dog did, I knew cats loved tuna, but I had no idea dogs loved tuna.  Anyway here's the ingredients you'll need:

• 4 cans of tuna drained
• 250 gr of cottage cheese
• 3 tbsp of cream cheese
• 4 green onions chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• juice of half a lemon (or more)
• parsley chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and mix in a food processor.  That's all, couldn't get any easier. Best way to serve this is either in a sandwich like your typical tuna salad sandwich or serve it on toast with some lettuce.  Enjoy.