The Great Cookbook Challenge of '17: Veggies with Walnut Dressing (California)
And finally, a new cooking entry \o/
But, before I start, I'd just give you a short heads-up on my stand in the new TOS kerfluffle. After mulling it over (and seeing another Great Exodus happen) I have decided that I'm here to stay. I've been here for over ten years, I have invested time and money into this journal, and I'm not going to let Putin or anyone catering to his whims dictate where I post and and were I don't post. I do have a DW journal (screen name is the same as here), and I guess I'm going to have another back-up session soon but I'll still only be treating it as a backup. This will remain my main journal, and while I'm sad to see people go (I do understand your reasons, though), I have decided that I will stay. Someone has to hold down the fort, I guess.
Anyway, let's go do some cooking writing, shall we?
California - Die neue Genussküche der amerikanischen Riviera, Annemarie Lenze
To be honest, when I bought this one, I bought it more for coffee table book purposes than actually cooking from it, mostly because it is so pretty. It's pretty big and has the very clean-cut, clear layout Kosmos cookbook usually have, boasting lovely full page photos with sort off breezy, easy-going optics and bright colors, somehow totally conveying what California felt to me when I went there in 2011.
The recipes are a mixture of Asian, Mexican and American West Coast cuisine, so stuff I really like. Moderate amount of seafood recipes (I do not like seafood. Dad calls it "Krabbeltiere" (creepy crawlies) and I absolutely agree. Yuck.), so that's fine with me. I chose the recipe for today because I love oven baked vegetables and I'm always kind of sad when Spring rolls around because usually, oven baked vegetables for me means sweet potatos, pumpkin, parsnips... you know, Fall and Winter stuff that doesn't work with Spring. This recipe is kinda oven baked vegetables, Spring edition, and it worked really well.
This is what it looked like after prepping:
And this is how it's made:
Veggies with Walnut Dressing
Ingredients:
(serves four)
2 Zucchinis (about 400g)
250g Shiitake mushrooms*
250g green asparagus
1 red onion
3 table spoons olive oil
sea salt, pepper
50g parmesan
100g walnuts
1 shalotte
1/4 organic lemon
4 thyme twigs
4 table spoons olive oil
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (160°C recirculation air). Wash the zucchini, halve lengthwise and cut into fine slices. Clean the mushrooms, remove the stems and halve the heads. Wash the asparagus, remove the stem woody ends. Peel the onion, cut into fine slices.
Chop the walnuts, put them on a baking tray and roast for about 8 minutes in the pre-heated oven. Take them out and let them cool.
Coat a baking tray with a table spoon of olive oil (seriously, take olive oil. Olive. Oil. None of that artificial no-stick stuff you Americans like to use O_o) and spread the veggies and mushrooms on the tray. Cover them with another 2 table spoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Put into the oven and back for around 15 minutes.
In the meantime, peel the shalotte and dice it. Peel the lemon so that you only peel the yellow part, not the white part and dice it (the peel, not the lemon). Squeeze the lemon for juice. Wash the thyme, dry and pull of the leaves.
Add the walnuts, shalotte, lemon peel and juice, thyme and 4 table spoons of olive oil to a food processor and purée. Season with salt and pepper. Take the vegetables out of the oven and drizzle with the walnut dressing on, sprinkle with parmesan.
*I left them out because I couldn't get fresh ones. And ordered oyster mushrooms. Which were covered in mold not even a day later *sighs
And tada, here you go:
(yes, I like eating stuff out of bowls. Yes, I'm not a really good food photographer. Let's move on.)
All in all, this was really pretty good. Even without the mushrooms, it was light, it was fresh and the walnut dressing (which was more of a pesto but what the hell) was really, really, really good. I actually considered making just the dressing again and use it as a sandwich spread and pesto for pasta because damn, that's good stuff.
I also think I'm going to try more recipes from this book (I marked a couple more) because it looks like there's a lot of nice light food with lots of vegetables and fruit in it and as little as I like it, Summer will soon be upon us and as much as I love Fall food, not even I can con myself into thinking it's Fall when it's 30°C outside. And not even I like eating sweet potatoes and loaded mac'n'cheese when the tarmac is melting off the street outside. So. Possibly, more Californian recipes for me this year! Yay!
But, before I start, I'd just give you a short heads-up on my stand in the new TOS kerfluffle. After mulling it over (and seeing another Great Exodus happen) I have decided that I'm here to stay. I've been here for over ten years, I have invested time and money into this journal, and I'm not going to let Putin or anyone catering to his whims dictate where I post and and were I don't post. I do have a DW journal (screen name is the same as here), and I guess I'm going to have another back-up session soon but I'll still only be treating it as a backup. This will remain my main journal, and while I'm sad to see people go (I do understand your reasons, though), I have decided that I will stay. Someone has to hold down the fort, I guess.
Anyway, let's go do some cooking writing, shall we?
California - Die neue Genussküche der amerikanischen Riviera, Annemarie Lenze
To be honest, when I bought this one, I bought it more for coffee table book purposes than actually cooking from it, mostly because it is so pretty. It's pretty big and has the very clean-cut, clear layout Kosmos cookbook usually have, boasting lovely full page photos with sort off breezy, easy-going optics and bright colors, somehow totally conveying what California felt to me when I went there in 2011.
The recipes are a mixture of Asian, Mexican and American West Coast cuisine, so stuff I really like. Moderate amount of seafood recipes (I do not like seafood. Dad calls it "Krabbeltiere" (creepy crawlies) and I absolutely agree. Yuck.), so that's fine with me. I chose the recipe for today because I love oven baked vegetables and I'm always kind of sad when Spring rolls around because usually, oven baked vegetables for me means sweet potatos, pumpkin, parsnips... you know, Fall and Winter stuff that doesn't work with Spring. This recipe is kinda oven baked vegetables, Spring edition, and it worked really well.
This is what it looked like after prepping:
And this is how it's made:
Veggies with Walnut Dressing
Ingredients:
(serves four)
2 Zucchinis (about 400g)
250g Shiitake mushrooms*
250g green asparagus
1 red onion
3 table spoons olive oil
sea salt, pepper
50g parmesan
100g walnuts
1 shalotte
1/4 organic lemon
4 thyme twigs
4 table spoons olive oil
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (160°C recirculation air). Wash the zucchini, halve lengthwise and cut into fine slices. Clean the mushrooms, remove the stems and halve the heads. Wash the asparagus, remove the stem woody ends. Peel the onion, cut into fine slices.
Chop the walnuts, put them on a baking tray and roast for about 8 minutes in the pre-heated oven. Take them out and let them cool.
Coat a baking tray with a table spoon of olive oil (seriously, take olive oil. Olive. Oil. None of that artificial no-stick stuff you Americans like to use O_o) and spread the veggies and mushrooms on the tray. Cover them with another 2 table spoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Put into the oven and back for around 15 minutes.
In the meantime, peel the shalotte and dice it. Peel the lemon so that you only peel the yellow part, not the white part and dice it (the peel, not the lemon). Squeeze the lemon for juice. Wash the thyme, dry and pull of the leaves.
Add the walnuts, shalotte, lemon peel and juice, thyme and 4 table spoons of olive oil to a food processor and purée. Season with salt and pepper. Take the vegetables out of the oven and drizzle with the walnut dressing on, sprinkle with parmesan.
*I left them out because I couldn't get fresh ones. And ordered oyster mushrooms. Which were covered in mold not even a day later *sighs
And tada, here you go:
(yes, I like eating stuff out of bowls. Yes, I'm not a really good food photographer. Let's move on.)
All in all, this was really pretty good. Even without the mushrooms, it was light, it was fresh and the walnut dressing (which was more of a pesto but what the hell) was really, really, really good. I actually considered making just the dressing again and use it as a sandwich spread and pesto for pasta because damn, that's good stuff.
I also think I'm going to try more recipes from this book (I marked a couple more) because it looks like there's a lot of nice light food with lots of vegetables and fruit in it and as little as I like it, Summer will soon be upon us and as much as I love Fall food, not even I can con myself into thinking it's Fall when it's 30°C outside. And not even I like eating sweet potatoes and loaded mac'n'cheese when the tarmac is melting off the street outside. So. Possibly, more Californian recipes for me this year! Yay!