Eating a piece of tiramisu must be the biggest sin you can commit when you are watching your weight. But when you look at this delicious treat, it looks so innocent and actually also tastes fairly light, one has a hard time believing that a portion contains more calories than a human should consume during a full meal. The treacherous ingredient that makes it a calorie-bomb is the Italian triple-cream cheese mascarpone, made from crème fraîche and cream, which contains about 80% fat. Luckily there is a low-fat alternative which contains only 40% fat and tastes almost just as good, which I used in this recipe. With 420 kcal per portion I still wouldn’t recommend eating loads and heaps of this tiramisu, but it does make indulging in this all time favorite dessert weigh a little less on the conciousness And the best part for me is that this is made entirely without eggs, so there should be no risk even if you keep it in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Tiramisu “light” (inspired by “meine Familie & ich”)
500g low-fat mascarpone
1 tsp lemon zest
100g sugar
1 tsp of vanilla
200 ml very strong coffee (cold)
4 Tbsp Amaretto
150g lady fingers (Italian sponge-cakes)
Unsweetened cocoa powder to dust the top
Combine the mascarpone, sugar, zest and vanilla in a bowl and stir well. Pour the Amaretto into the coffee, prepare a form (square) to stack the tiramisu in. Now drop the lady fingers into the coffe, flip them and start layering the bottom of the form with them. Once done, if you like the sponge cakes to be well imbibed with coffee sprinkle the layer you just made with 2 additional Tsps of coffee. Cover with a layer of the mascarpone mixture and continue this way until you are out of mascarpone and finish with a layer of it. Put the tiramisu in the fridge for 2 hours and dust with cocoa powder short before serving.
Oh boy the past few days have really been busy here in Aix en Provence. University was closed down because students throughout the whole country organise strikes against a law that would give full autonomy to universities (hence allowing selection of students by making them pass an entry exam). Many are fearing that this might lead to a full privatization of the university system (tuition fees etc). Anyway, all of this is quite new to me… I couldn’t imagine that a strike could block a whole university (or several actually) :p
So when you are in a stressful time you need to cook quick meals. Any form of pasta is handy but what kind of sauce can you make easily without fussy ingredients? Well of course, tomato sauce… But actually this is the first time since ages that I attempted to cook a tomato sauce. Usually the taste was always too bland or too acid and I preferred eating plain pasta. But I found an awesome recipe in a German cooking magazine, featuring one of my favorite German cooks, Tim Mälzer. I loved the sauce because it had a slightly sweet taste, didn’t include annoying onion or garlic pieces but was still very flavourful. Ricotta cheese goes incredibly well with this because it softens the taste of the sauce and rounds it up nicely.
Ingredients (Adapted from Essen & Trinken, Für jeden Tag - Nr.10)
1 onion, halved
1 clove of garlic, halved
400g of tomato dice (can) or tomato purée
1 Tbsp butter
50 ml water
salt, pepper
1 generous pinch of sugar
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried basil or 2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
100g of ricotta cheese, drained
Preparation
Put the onion, garlic and tomato dice/purée in a pan. Add the butter and the water and season with salt, pepper and sugar. Let it cook for about 30 minutes at medium heat. (Stir once in a while)
Remove the onion and the garlic pieces. Add the olive oil and the basil. Adjust seasoning if needed.
Serve on the pasta of your choice (goes really well with Gnocchi too). Sprinkle with ricotta cheese.
A few days ago I was browsing Elise’s wonderful blog and her last blog entry was about a pumpkin risotto which actually reminded me that I had never cooked nor eaten a risotto ever before. First I had to find out where to get the special, medium grain rice that you need for risotto, called “Arborio”. While walking around town this morning I actually discovered a charming little Italian grocer. He had exactly the rice I wanted plus some quality Parmesan cheese and prosciutto (12 € all in all, ouch :p).
Once I got home I started cooking immediately and when I got to the “add white wine” stage of the recipe I grabbed the sole bottle of wine I still had standing around (I normally don’t drink alcohol) and I was shocked to discover that it was a super pricey, Christmas present bottle of “Saint Joseph” wine from my father in law… well the stock was already cooking and the onions were in the pan so I couldn’t go to buy a different bottle fast. Well, I opened the bottle and prayed for my father in law never to find out :p The risotto itself was very tasty (it better be tasty at 20€ a portion^^), however I found it a tiny bit stiff so I’m going to add a little more stock next time.
Prepare the chicken stock and let it simmer at low temperature.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan together with the olive oil until they are foamy.
Add the onion and cook them at medium-low heat until they get transparent.
Add the prosciutto and cook everything together for about 2 minutes.
Turn the heat up and add the rice. Cook for 2 minutes while stirring constantly.
Add the white wine and stir until the wine is absorbed by the rice.
Turn down the temperature to medium and with a ladle add stock to the rice until it’s just about covered.
Cook until the stock has been absorbed. Now stir the rice continuously while adding one ladle of broth at a time, allowing the rice every time to absorb the liquid before adding a new ladle. After about 10 minutes of doing that, add the peas to the rice.
Continue until no broth is left and until the rice is al dente (cooking time overall of the rice is 15-20 minutes).
Just right before taking the risotto of the heat, add the rest of the butter along with the Parmesan cheese and some salt/pepper if needed.
Gnocchi is one of my favorite Italian dishes. Usually I eat them with just a little grated cheese and I don’t think that any type of sauce is necessary for them to taste good. It’s actually not easy to find a good sauce for Gnnochi and I’ve been searching for a long time :p For me usual pasta sauces (bolognese, basil pesto, carbonara etc.) were simply to heavy for a Gnocchi dish. Sometimes I ate them with a simple tomato sauce but my stomach isn’t always happy about that, so I continued the search and finally today I decided to try and make a Pesto Rosso.
I’m actually not quite sure if Pesto Rosso is a traditional Italian sauce. I didn’t find anything about it on Wikipedia. If you happen to know where Pesto Rosso comes from and if it’s used in traditional Italian cuisine, please leave a comment The only thing I know is that I found two different types of recipes on the internet. One type involved a lot of olives and fresh thyme. The other type leaves out olives entirely and uses basil as herb. The latter is the type of pesto rosso I tried here in France before and that’s the one I tried to reproduce with this recipe. However I don’t know if this is the “original” recipe (should there be one).
Unfortunately I didn’t make the Gnocchi myself as the process is quite time consuming and requires some practice. But if you’d like to give it a shot check out this video.
50g walnuts, chopped (you can also use 100g almonds)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (the best you have)
salt and pepper
Other than that:
500g of uncooked Gnocchi
grated parmesan or mozarella cheese (optional)
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Preparation
If you are using almonds, cook them in some water for approximately 5-10 minutes. Drain the nuts, cool off with cold water and peel away their skin. If you are using walnuts you can omit this step.
Put the fresh tomatoes in a bowl and pour some hot water over them. Let them in the hot water for about 2 minutes, drain and remove their skin (should be easy now because of the hot water). Cut in cubes and put aside.
Roughly chop the dried tomatoes. Put aside.
If you are using garlic, chop finely.
Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan and add 3 teaspoons of salt.
Put the fresh and the dried tomatoes in a food processor. Add the nuts, the garlic and the basil. Turn on the processor on high speed while slowly adding the olive oil. Once all the olive oil is incorporated continue to process everything until you are happy with the texture. Personally I like it as smooth as possible, but that’s up to you.
At last add salt and pepper to taste.
Turn of the food processor and put the pesto rosso aside.
Cook the Gnocchi according to manufacturer’s instructions.
Drain them well and serve with 1-2 spoons of pesto rosso. Sprinkle with some grated cheese if you like.
Serves 3-4. If you have some pesto rosso left you can conserve it in the fridge for a couple of days. Some even say that it conserves for up to a month if covered with a film of olive oil but I’m a little sceptical about that. Enjoy
[image to come soon] “Ok, what would you like for dinner tonight?”
“Pasta, Pasta!”
“Again? :p”
“Yes :)”
I’m sure you know this type of conversation just too well. What can you do if your family likes Pasta a lot but if you’d still like to cook something healthy?
While strolling over the vegetable section of a local shop here in Aix en Provence, I found a bunch of different vegetables which all looked very appealing but I simply didn’t know how to put them together. So while browsing the wonderful foodblog of Elise I stumbled on a recipe that I’ve always wanted to try out: Pasta Primavera.
Pasta primavera is an Italian dish that consists of pasta and fresh vegetables. A meat such as chicken, sausage or shrimp can be added if desired, but the focus of primavera is the vegetables themselves.
This recipe is so interesting because it is a healthy, low-fat alternative to all those pasta dishes with heavy sauces. Refreshing, light, a taste of autumn and italy on a plate. A great recipe to use up vegetable leftovers you might have in the fridge.
Ingredients
(You can substitute/adjust the following vegetables in any way you like)
2 carrots
1/2 zucchini
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 green pepper
1 onion
7 cherry tomatoes, cut in a half
garlic (if you do not like garlic, don’t put any)
olive oil
200 ml tomato purée
200 ml water
thyme or herbes de provence
salt and pepper
1 vegetable stock cube
200g pasta (penne for example, you can also use whole-wheat pasta)
grated parmesan cheese (optional)
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Chop the onions finely. Wash and cut the vegetables in bite sized pieces, stripes for example. Put a large pan on the stove and heat the olive oil in it. (medium heat)
At the same time bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add some salt and a bit of olive oil.
First put the onions along with the garlic in the hot pan, stir them once and cook them for 30 seconds. Then add the rest of the vegetables and stir to cover with the olive oil. Let the vegetables cook like that for approximately 10 minutes (while stirring once in a while), until they are almost soft.
Once the water is boiling, add the pasta and cook them according to manufacturer’s instructions.
After the vegetables are soft enough for your taste, add the tomato purée, the water and the vegetable stock cube. Stir well and let everything cook for a minute while adding some thyme (or herbes de provence) and salt/pepper.
Drain the pasta and add it to the vegeatables. Mix everything well and adjust seasoning if needed. Add the cherry tomatoes and remove from heat.
Serves 4. You can add some parmesan cheese but personally I left it away. Enjoy
And the best part for me is that this is made entirely without eggs, so there should be no risk even if you keep it in the fridge for 2-3 days.
