Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in our Food section. To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
- Lisa Cirieco-Ohlman
Follow Lisa YouTube channel: Encouraged by her family and friends, Lisa jumped at the chance to share her passion for her collections, her creations, her junking excursions, and the colorful home she lives in. Tutorials, DIY, informative tips, cooking favorites, testing, cleaning and display advice, "What is it? Wednesdays", and creative solutions round out this "Follow Lisa" channel. New video loaded every week.
- Ceylan Ayik
Ceylan is a certified Integrative Nutrition Healthy Living Coach and RYT 300hours Yoga Teacher, whose aim is to empower busy women on their journey to becoming happy, healthy role models for their children, family and friends. She is passionate about helping them to transform their minds, health and bodies through optimal nutrition and yoga.
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Rosa Mayland - Rosa's Yummy Yums
An Anglo-Swiss girl delving into culinary spheres and the world of photography with a load of passion and a good dose of Rock 'n' Roll attitude.
Read the full blog entry from Rosa's Yummy Yums
There is no doubt that we are what we eat and this is why it is crucial to nourish ourselves as heartily as possible. After decades of bad dieting on convenient meal products, fatty, sugary and chemical junk, the Western world is at last/suddenly waking up, becoming more conscious of its hazardous food habits and aware of how wrong it was to have chosen the comfortable path of faineancy, irresponsibility and autodestruction rather than that of harmony, reasonability and amour-propre.
I make it a point of honor to sustain myself correctly, cook with the best produces available as well as to prepare meals, which are wholesome and take into account our individual needs. Porking out rarely occurs at my home, but if ever we decide to indulge, we still do it in a thoughtful manner (no big excesses and nothing industrially produced or additive-laden makes it to our table) and exclusively on weekends.
Read the full blog entry from Rosa's Yummy Yums
After having spent one week away recently, cooking uncomplicated meals, not baking at all and hardly being challenged culinary-wise, I was glad to rebound with my kitchen and put my brand new oven to work again. In order to celebrate our coming home, I prepared a semi guilt-free tart* with the last plums (one of my favorite dessert fruits) of the season and my trademark low-fat pastry.
This home classic and personal invention is easy to put together, but it is nonetheless almighty exquisite and deliciously homey. A heavenly treat which is best savored with a glass of quality Porto or a cup of tea and while nostalgically remembering past travel adventures.
* It contains about 95g butter less than the ones confectioned with shortcrust dough.
Plum Tart With Scone Pastry & Mascarpone
Recipe by Rosa Mayland, November 2012.
Serves 4-6.
Ingredients For The "Scone Pastry":
338g Plain flour
2 Tsp Baking powder
1 Tsp Fine sea salt
75g Unsalted butter
38g Castor sugar
Milk, enough to form a firm dough
Ingredients For The "Filling":
250g Mascarpone, softened
120g Light brown sugar
740g Plums, halved and stoned
Cinnamon, to taste
Method For The "Scone Pastry":
1. Heat the oven to 190°C (375°F) and grease a 28cm (11 inches) tart pan.
2. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt, then rub in the butter.
3. Stir in the sugar.
4. Add the milk and incorporate well (with the help of a knife) by cutting and turning the dough until it forms a clean ball.
5. Roll out the pastry and line the base of your tart pan.
6. Trim the edges and prick the base of the tart with a fork.
Method For The "Filling":
7. Spread the mascarpone over the base of the tart and sprinkle 50g light brown sugar over the cheese.
8. Place the plums, cut side up, in neat concentric circles in the tart shell. Cowd the fruits, but do not overlap.
9. Sprinkle the cinnamon and leftover sugar over the fruits.
10. Bake for about 40 to 50 minutes, until the fruits are soft and the crust is golden brown.
11. Cool on a wire rack.
12. Serve.
Remarks:
You can replace half of the plain flour by whole wheat flour and the castor sugar by light brown sugar.
For this recipe I used quetsch plums (the best plums, in my opinion), but any other type of plum (fresh or frozen) or fruit (pluots, mirabelles, apples, pears, peaches, etc...) will do.
Serving suggestions:
Serve for tea time or dessert, with a glass of Porto or a cup of tea.
Drizzle a little runny honey over the top of the tart if you find that it is not sweet enough for your taste.
Author's Bio
Rosa Mayland, the creator of Rosa’s Yummy Yums, lives in a small Geneva countryside village situated in the French speaking part of Switzerland - a few meters away from the French border. She’s an Anglo-Swiss food enthusiast who loves photography, loud rock or electronic music, walks in the countryside, meeting interesting people, cats, books and independent films. When she’s not writing for her blog, you’ll also find her over at The Rambling Epicure, a daily international food chronicle and online newspaper to which she contributes as a freelance writer.
As you can imagine, she is very passionate about cooking/baking and can spend hours surfing the net for inspiration, reading blogs, creating dishes, testing new recipes or going through cookbooks and magazines. She is crazy about flavorful and soul-uplifting grubs, spices and yummy textures, therefore she’s particularly fond of Asian, Caribbean, Mediterranean, South American, Middle Eastern delights as well as regional and traditional specialities!
Rosa has kindly agreed to let us post some of the recipes from her blog on knowitall.ch. Each month we will feature a new dish from her site, but due to space limitations we will only publish the recipes listed in each blog entry. However, you MUST click on the link provided with each recipe to read for yourself the inspiration behind each of the dishes prepared by Rosa and to see the wonderful collection of photos accompanying each dish. Many of these photos have been taken at locations in and around Geneva - see if you can work out where they have been taken!
Read the full blog entry from Rosa's Yummy Yums
Salt and seasonings are my big addiction. I would not be able to live without them as I cannot imagine enjoying a chow that is awfully bland, lacks soul or oomph. My taste buds need to be constantly challenged, otherwise the fanciful eater that I am gets terribly frustrated.
Pungent spice blends are heavenly and elevate cooking to another level. That is exactly what flavored salts do. They are so versatile and can spruce up just about anything, thus they have the power to completely transform a recipe. The perfect addition to your kitchen pantry and a great gift for any occasion.
Nowadays, you can purchase them from any deli, supermarket, corner store and market merchant. They might not be a rarity, but generally bought flavored salts are quite expensive. It is the reason why I highly recommend you to prepare them at home as they cost a lot less and you can let your imagination go wild (no limitations) as well as have buckets full of fun during the process.
In order to facilitate your task, I have gathered some useful information and tips that might come in handy when developing your own formulas...
Read the full blog entry from Rosa's Yummy Yums
A few days ago, I had some quark (fresh cheese which can be found in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Russia, etc...) in my fridge and really wanted to sublime it by transforming it into a fresh, tasty, healthy and summery sauce which could be poured cold over boiled potatoes, accompany hot or cold staples and be used in multiple ways (dip, spread and dressing), so that's how I concocted a succulent and versatile "Quark And Zucchini Sauce". Perfect for this transitional season...
Multi-Purpose Quark And Zucchini Sauce
Recipe by Rosa Mayland, September 2012.
Makes about 2 cups.
Ingredients For The "Sauce":
250g Quark (semi-fat preferred)
1 Small (150g) Raw zucchini, grated
2 Hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 Clove garlic, finely chopped
1 Shallot, finely chopped
2 Tbs Pumpkin seeds, toasted and finely chopped
2 Tsps Basil pesto (homemade or bought)
1 Tsp Lemon zest (organic)
1 Pinch Ground allspice
Red Tabasco, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Fine sea salt, to taste
Method For The "Sauce":
1. Combine all ingredients together.
2. Serve.
Remarks:
You can replace the quark by any other fresh cheese (goat, sheep or cow) of your choice, thick Greek yogurt, 2 parts ricotta and 1 part sour cream, mascarpone or cream cheese (please note that both the mascarpone and cream cheese are much richer than semi-fat quark).
Serving suggestions:
Serve as dip with raw vegetable sticks (carrot, cucumber, zucchini, celery, bell pepper, jicama, etc...) or slices (button mushrooms, cauliflower, etc...).
Serve as spread with bread and crackers or in sandwiches.
Serve as sauce with fish (truit, salmon, cod, etc...), grilled meat, boiled potatoes, oven fries, steamed vegetables or pasta.
Serve as dressing with potato, rice, pasta or grilled vegetable salad.
Photos courtesy of Rosa Mayland Photography.
Author's Bio
Rosa Mayland, the creator of Rosa’s Yummy Yums, lives in a small Geneva countryside village situated in the French speaking part of Switzerland - a few meters away from the French border. She’s an Anglo-Swiss food enthusiast who loves photography, loud rock or electronic music, walks in the countryside, meeting interesting people, cats, books and independent films. When she’s not writing for her blog, you’ll also find her over at The Rambling Epicure, a daily international food chronicle and online newspaper to which she contributes as a freelance writer.
As you can imagine, she is very passionate about cooking/baking and can spend hours surfing the net for inspiration, reading blogs, creating dishes, testing new recipes or going through cookbooks and magazines. She is crazy about flavorful and soul-uplifting grubs, spices and yummy textures, therefore she’s particularly fond of Asian, Caribbean, Mediterranean, South American, Middle Eastern delights as well as regional and traditional specialities!
Rosa has kindly agreed to let us post some of the recipes from her blog on knowitall.ch. Each month we will feature a new dish from her site, but due to space limitations we will only publish the recipes listed in each blog entry. However, you MUST click on the link provided with each recipe to read for yourself the inspiration behind each of the dishes prepared by Rosa and to see the wonderful collection of photos accompanying each dish. Many of these photos have been taken at locations in and around Geneva - see if you can work out where they have been taken!
Read the full blog entry from Rosa's Yummy Yums
I'm not going to lie to you and say that I hate all produces which are labelled as "deluxe", but generally, I'd rather settle for those that are less posh and sometimes dispised or neglected because they are supposedly boring, crude and too ordinary. You see, one of my passions is to transform frugal eats into dazzling and surprising specialities and use my creativity to sublimate them. I have a lot of fun playing around in the kitchen and revamping those “ugly duckling” of gastronomy. Through, Rosa's Yummy Yums, my aim is to show others that even the most unpromising root veggie, innard or cereal can be worked into something appetizing, refined and extremely savory.It is exactly what I did with the pasta salad I am presenting today. All components I employed are commonly found in a majority of pantries and fridges. There's nothing special about them, but the recipe I have put together is far from being average.
My "Creamy Fusili Salad with Sun Dried Tomatoes, Peas & Arugula" is an ode to spring and to the warmer days. It is fresh like the young leaves that are budding, buoyant like the birds that are singing on the top of their lungs, zesty like the cool April breeze and lusciously creamy like the first ice cream of the sunny season... Bliss in a plate!
