• 1 tbs butter
• 3 large ripe plums
• 2-3 tbs brown sugar
• ½ cup rum
• 1 cinnamon stick

Slice the plums into half inch discs. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the brown sugar and plums. Coat the plums with the butter and brown sugar mixture and let simmer on low heat until plum skin isn’t firm any more. Add the rum and drop a match stick into it. Let the fire burn out by itself and add the cinnamon stick. Let simmer in the remnants for about 5-10 minutes or until plums are soft.

Pro tip: Serve with vanilla ice cream, I didn’t have any – but any compote is good on ice cream ;)

Today I threw together a Brazilian fish stew, or at least somewhat inspired by Brazil. Very colourful and tasty, took some time to prep and cook though.

Here’s what we need:

• 28 oz can of tomatoes
• 1 lbs of salmon fillets
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large onion
• 1 big yellow squash
• 1 big zucchini
• ½ cup fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup dried cilantro
• 1 tbs peperoncino
• 2 plantains
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup water
• 1/4-1/2 cup lime juice

Roughly chop up the onion. Pour the olive oil into a big pot and fry the onions on low heat for about 5 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes and garlic, let boil under lid while cutting up the yellow squash into strips (like fries) and the zucchini into small cubes. Add to the mix and also add the cilantro, peperoncino. Cut up the parsley rough and add as well.

Put the salmon on top and squeeze a good amount of lime juice over them. Put on the lid and cut up the plantains. About 1 inch thick pieces (around 8 pieces per plantain) add to the mix and stir. Add water and let simmer on medium heat until the fish and plantain is cooked through. About 20 minutes. Stir forcefully to break up the salmon into small pieces.

Salt and pepper to taste and then it’s ready to serve!

Kicking off this theme weekend with plantains :)

For this simple recipe you’ll need:

• 1 plantain
• 1½ cup water
• 1 tbs salt
• 3 cloves of garlic
• vegetable oil

Peel and cut up the plantain into about half inch thick pieces. Fill up a frying pan with vegetable oil, it should cover up about half the slice of plantain, so this will vary depending on the size of your frying pan. I used a small 8 inch skillet and used about half a cup or so. Fry the plantains for about 2 minutes on each side on medium heat.

In a separate bowl: mix water, garlic and salt.

Take out the plantains from the frying pan and let them soak in the salty garlic water for about a minute or so. Heat up the oil again and refry them for  2-4 minutes (until tender).

WARNING: Use a splash screen when refrying the water soaked plantains in the oil. If you don’t have one, pour out the oil and refry them as if you were frying eggs. Good luck :)

For this seafood dish you’ll need:

• 2 lbs of mussels (I used Blue Maine mussels)
• handful of Thai basil
• 1 bottle of panang sauce (I got a pre-made one)
• 1 tsp red curry paste

Clean the mussels really well. Pull out any seaweed that they’re in the middle of eating (this was more than I expected!) Discard of ones that doesn’t close, or that give away an AWFUL odour. When they are all scrubbed and rinsed pour in the panang sauce into a big pan and bring to a boil, while heating up dip in the red curry paste. Pour over the mussels and simmer/steam for about five minutes and put on a lid. Chop up some Thai basil, turn off the heat and mix the basil into the mussels.

Here’s what you need:

• 1 lbs octopus (cleaned and rinsed)
• 1 lbs shrimp (peeled and deveined)
• 14 oz. can of coconut milk
• 3 tbs red curry paste
• ½ cup of water
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• ½ lbs asparagus

Start out with the octopus. I cut off the legs and chopped them up in about 1-1½ inch pieces. Same with the head, cut it up into 1-1½ inch strips. When it’s all cut up heat up a big frying pan and pour in the coconut milk and then mix in one tablespoon of red curry paste, let it all mix and then add another tablespoon. Taste inbetween each time you add the red curry paste until you’ve reached desired degree of spicy. For me three tablespoons was just enough. While mixing the coconut milk and curry paste heat up a pot with water and when it’s boiling blanch the octopus for about 30 seconds then add to the coconut milk/curry mix.

Let simmer for about five minutes and then add fish sauce. Again taste the mix between additions of fish sauce. 1-2 tablespoons makes it really delicious. Also add two tablespoons of brown sugar. Mix it all together and let simmer for another five minutes.

Add about a cup (½ lbs) of any vegetables you’d like, I used asparagus and also some fresh Thai basil. Pour half a cup of water over the mix. Put a tight fitting lid on and let simmer for 10-20 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

Add the shrimp about five minutes before turning off the heat. Simmer with the lid on.

Serve with the coconut rice I made and garnish with Thai basil, delicious! :)

Note: I read about cooking the octopus for a long time, and it seems as if unless you slow cook it for a very long time it will have that chewy, fibrous texture. Good luck!

I mixed together some ingredients and added ginger to the mix and let me tell you, it was so much better than I thought it would be – definitely Kingly Foods worthy!

My mix:

• 1 head of red cabbage
• 1 inch cube of fresh ginger
• ½ cup red wine
• salt & pepper to taste
• dash of Tabasco

Cut up the red cabbage into strips, about 2 inches long. Add some olive oil to a frying pan and let it heat up. Pour in the cabbage and pour over the wine. Put the ginger in a garlic press (you will be surprised with what you can do with these!) and press over the cabbage. Add salt and pepper and let simmer until the wine is all absorbed/steamed away. Stir occasionally. Finally add the Tabasco and serve :)

I looked up a remoulade recipe a while ago and made some changes to it. It’s not as good as other remoulades I’ve had in the past but it was alright :)

For the remoulade:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 2 tsp capers
• 2 tsp shallots
• 2 tsp spicy brown mustard
• 1 tsp dried tarragon
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbs lime juice
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 tsp fresh Italian parsley

Separate the yolks and whites in two different bowls. We will use both. Mix together the mustard and yolks. Add the oil in a thin stream against the side of the bowl. When all mixed together and smooth add all the other remoulade ingredients. It doesn’t matter what order :) When all mixed together, cover with plastic wrap and let stand in fridge while making the fish.

For the salmon:

• 4 salmon fillets  (inch thick)
• 2 egg whites
• Rest of shallot
• A tbs of dried tarragon

Mix together shallots and tarragon in a bowl. Dip the salmon in the egg whites, make sure it’s fully covered and dip down in the shallot/tarragon mix. Let fry on low heat for about ten minutes, flip fillets and cover. Let fry for another ten minutes or so. If unsure, just gently split the fillet with a fork or knife down to the middle to see if cooked through.

Served on a bed of potatoes garnished
with Italian parsley

this crop has become highly appreciated for its nutritional value, as its protein content is very high (12%–18%), making it a healthy choice for vegetarians and vegans. Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source. It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesiumiron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest. Because of all these characteristics, quinoa is being considered a possible crop in NASA’s Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned space flights

Source: Wikipedia

So I went out to buy a tiny bit to try it out. It’s as easy as pasta but is prepared more like rice, but it comes without the worry of accidentally burning it (unless you really forget about it!!)

Here’s the whole meal:

• 1 cup of qunioa
• 2 zucchinis
• 2 cloves of garlic

Prepare a pot with about two cups of water and bring it to a boil, add the quinoa and let simmer for about 10-15 minutes. The quinoa is cooked through when clear and kind of see-through. While boiling, cut up the zucchinis lengthwise and put them on an oiled aluminium wrap/baking sheet. Slice the garlic cloves and put a couple or three on each zucchini slice. Salt and pepper and broil for about 6-8 minutes.

The recipes for the basic meringues and the espresso zabaglione are the same, so I will only tell you what you need extra.

For the meringues you will need about 1.5oz of dark chocolate (around 54%). Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and let cool down, but not stiffen. Just so it doesn’t burn your fingers, stir it down carefully in the meringue batter. Make small cookie shapes and bake at 300F for about 10-15 minutes.If you did it right they will rise a tiny bit and be fluffy on the inside. If you did it wrong, like I did, they will be flat, crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Still good though :)

And for the zabaglione we are trading the Grand Marnier for 1 cup hot espresso. So whisk up the egg yolks and sugar in a double boiler and when thickened and ready just add the hot espresso slowly and whisk it to a smooth liquid and serve in espresso cups.

Delicious!

It requires a bit of work but all in all this shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.

Here’s what we need:

• 4-5 apples
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup gluten free flour (you can use regular flour too, same amount!)
• 2 oz of butter

Chop up the apples and put them in a greased up pan. Peeled apples are preferable. Mix the flour and the sugar together and pour the mix evenly over the apples. Cut up the butter in really thin leaves and cover the whole pan with almost no space in between the butter leaves. You can mix the butter into the sugar/flour mix before you pour it over the apples, but it’s not fun trying to mix 2 oz of butter into a cup mixture.

Put into the oven at 375F for about 25 minutes, until the top of the pie is golden brown and the butter and sugars has mixed together so there is no more floury parts. If after 25 minutes there still is, just add a tiny bit of butter on top of the floury areas.

When baked it will look crumbly and be a bit crunchy, sweet and fruity. Serve with vanilla custard. I used Marsan-sauce, a Swedish style vanilla custard that you can find at IKEA. Hey, you can even serve it with Zabaglione, it’s a custard too!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!