• 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 ;)

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 :)

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 :)

What we need:

• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1 can of water
• 1 can of jasmine rice
• 2,5 tbs unsweetened shredded coconut
• a pinch of salt

As you see I use the measurement “can” in this recipe. As simple as it sounds you just use the same can that the coconut milk came in. As a rule rice is cooked two parts liquid and one part rice. So it works out great.

In a pot pour in about a teaspoon of vegetable oil and grease up the bottom and sides. It just has to be a very thin layer. This will help the rice not stick. Pour in the coconut milk, water, rice, shredded coconut and salt and let boil up. Stir every now and then. When the mixture has come to a boil lower the heat to the almost lowest possible and let steam covered with a tight fitting lid for about 20 minutes. Check in on the rice around 15 minutes into steaming and see how much liquid is left, if already has been all absorbed then you can turn it off and let steam for another few minutes without heat.

The rice is ready to serve! It is rather sweet and my suggestion is to serve it with something spicy and slightly fruity. Mangoes and shrimp in Thai chilli sauce maybe?

Served with home made tomato based curry
chilli sauce. Shrimp and broccoli.

For the salad you will need:

• 1 red bell pepper
• about 1/3 cup kalamata olives (10-15 olives)
• about 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves

Pit the kalamata olives and cut them in half. To pit them I have two ways to go:

1. Cut of the top of the olive and squeeze out the pit.
2. Smash it with the back side of a knife (or any other big flat tool you have) then squeeze the pit out.

Cut up the sun-dried tomatoes into little squares.

In a small frying pan, melt some butter (or oil) and mince in one of the garlic cloves. Cut up the bell pepper into long inch thick strips and fry on high heat until slightly scorched.

Microwave the other two garlic cloves for about 15-20 seconds, this will make them soft and buttery and mild. Cut them up and mix all the ingredients together.

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.

Here’s what I used:

• 5-6 green onions
• 1 zucchini
• 14oz canned tomatoes
• 4 celery stalks
• 1 red bell pepper
• salt, pepper to taste
• garlic powder
• handful of parsley
• 1 tbs dried tarragon

Start out with chopping up the green onions and fry them on medium heat in a big pot in some olive oil. Add the zucchini and celery, stir and let cook for a few minutes. Add the bell peppers and the can of tomatoes, all the dry spices and lastly the parsley. Let simmer covered for about 10 minutes. Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste.

This is kind of Ratatouille inspired, simple, fast and can be made with any onions/chunky vegetables. Have fun! :)

Super Bowl Sunday is on. The game starts in about 5½ hours and I will not even have time to shop after work to get home in time. So no cooking for Kingly Foods today! Instead I pulled out some great recipes from the archive that suits the occasion perfectly!

From the left: Pico de Gallo, Honey Soy Wings & Pizza!

Enjoy the game!

Although I didn’t have these for breakfast they still fit in the previous sentence. It is indeed cold today and it calls for warm breakfast and lunch.

Fast and classic hash brownes with fried onions, really good. I promise. I got inspired watching Alton Brown making his “man food hash brownes” frying them in bacon fat. Neither do I have bacon, so I had to take a different approach.

hash ingredients:

• 4 baby red potatoes
• a quarter of an onion
• salt

Heat up a small frying pan with some oil in it to medium heat. While it’s heating up start shredding the potatoes (unpeeled!). I used a food processor and it worked alright. After shredding them you have to get rid of excess water and the easiest way to do this is to put them in a towel and twist out the water. Works with paper towels as well, but they will most likely break and you’re in danger of having potatoes all over the place.

Put the potatoes in the pan and distribute them evenly, sprinkle salt and cook for about five minutes. While cooking side one – chop up the onion.

Flip the potatoes and sprinkle with salt.

For me personally they always break so if you have any tips on how to not have them breaking I’m all ears :)

Cook for another 3-5 minutes and serve.

In the same pan, throw in the onions and fry them up until soft. You can raise the heat a bit if you like.

Great breakfast and lunch!

Super simple to make, I made it a little bit of my own with additional spices and here’s my recipe:

• 1 small onion
• A handful of cilantro leaves
• A packet (in this case 14oz) of cherry tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 tsp peperoncino
• A lot of lime juice (2 limes)

Chop up the onions. Dice the tomatoes. Pull off the cilantro leaves off of the stalks and either tear them up with your hands or chop them super roughly. Mince the garlic and sprinkle the pepper and peperoncino (not to be mixed with pepperoncini) and mix. Pour over a good squeeze of lime juice mix again. Super easy. I would say that if you’re not a big fan of lime – just use less or none at all. Originally there is none in there.

Note: The onions in the image were cut up too roughly, so I had to let it refrigerate over night to not have too much of an onion flavour.