Category: Easy recipes

Chunky Monkey muesli

Elisabeth5 Comments

As a freelance translator with most of my clients based in France, I normally have very quiet Augusts due to the fact that every French person leaves on vacation for the entire month, reducing Paris to a ghost town of sorts populated largely by tourists and a skeleton crew of hoteliers and restaurateurs. But this year, just before leaving, a few of my clients decided to send me huge files to translate by the end of the month. That suited me as I’d already done a bit of traveling in July (to the Netherlands and England) and wanted to make some money.

When accepting these large files, I assumed that I wouldn’t be getting much of the usual work (smaller files with shorter deadlines), but it turned out that several of my regular clients had not completely closed up shop for August and still needed some things translated, and specifically by me. So I ended up having a very busy August indeed. At times such as these, my energy and patience for making elaborate recipes just isn’t there, and I find myself eating bowl after bowl of the same basic pasta with random vegetables thrown in.

One morning, fairly short on groceries and wondering what to have for breakfast, I noticed a box of rolled oats I’d bought to make muffins with and – too lazy to heat up water to make porridge – decided to put some of that in a bowl with some soy milk. Rooting around my kitchen a bit more, I found some walnuts and added them too. It turned out I also had a banana. After then, wanting to have an interesting photo for Instagram, I put some of the chocolate sprinkles I’d bought in Rotterdam on top.

I realized I’d basically made a muesli. Oats in this form are healthier than granola – if you’ve ever tried making your own granola at home, you know how much sugar and oil goes into getting the oats and things to stick together and be crunchy. And of course, plain rolled oats are much less expensive than granola of any kind, store-bought or homemade.

This particular muesli also reminded me of something. Walnuts, banana, chocolate… where had I seen that combination before? Of course, in Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream! Which to my great delight had recently come to Paris in the new dairy-free version. It’s a great combination of flavors, and what could be better than eating Chunky Monkey (of sorts) for breakfast?

I also put some chia seeds into this muesli, not for their gelling property – although you could easily make this into overnight oats if you, unlike me, have the presence of mind to get started the night before – but for their amazing health benefits. Walnuts too are bursting with good things. Even the chocolate provides magnesium and protein, so this is a breakfast nobody can argue with.

Of all the recipes I’ve posted on this blog, this is by far the easiest. It’s not really even a recipe at all but a suggestion for things to put into a bowl and eat. I’ve provided approximate amounts below, but you can really just combine these things without measuring. Just use whatever amount of each thing that seems good to you.

Chunky Monkey muesli

Feeds one hungry translator (or other type of person).

  • 3/4 cup (75 g) dry uncooked rolled oats (small oats if possible)
  • 1 tablespoon dry chia seeds (optional)
  • 1 cup (236 ml) soy milk (or other milk of choice)
  • handful (approx. 1/3 cup) walnuts
  • half of a banana
  • 1-2 teaspoons dark chocolate sprinkles/mini-chips

 

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Let’s get started!

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Combine the oats and chia seeds in your cereal bowl.

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Add the milk and give everything a good stir. You’ll see that the milk gets absorbed into the oats after a few minutes, so you may want to add a bit more milk later.

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Break the walnut halves with your hands (or roughly chop them with a knife if you want to be fancy) and slice some banana over the top.

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Finally, add your chocolate sprinkles. If you don’t have or can’t find sprinkles, mini-chocolate chips will do, or you can even roughly chop up some squares from a bar of dark chocolate.

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You’re all set! After enjoying this hearty, healthful and delicious muesli, you’ll be ready to seize the day.

Variations: If you’re not as exhausted or busy as I was when I came up with this recipe, you may want to take the time to actually cook the oats and make this into a warm oatmeal. Alternatively, as suggested above, you can stir the oats, chia seeds (not optional in this case) and soy milk together and put them in the fridge overnight to make overnight oats. And you can always experiment with different nuts, different fruit, or different milks (vanilla-flavored rice milk for example, which is naturally sweet) for different results.

Waldorf salad

Elisabeth3 Comments

“What is a waldorf, anyway? A walnut that’s gone off?”

“I think we’re just out of waldorfs.”
“There’s no celery, would you believe it!”
“If this was back in the States I wouldn’t board my dog here.”

For many people, it’s impossible to think of Waldorf salad without remembering the Fawlty Towers episode of the same name, which sees neurotic English hotelier Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) confronted with an impatient and shouty American guest who demands a salad he has never heard of.

After Basil’s first attempt to dodge the request, claiming the kitchen is fresh out of waldorfs, the guest and his wife inform him of the recipe, shouting “celery, apple, walnuts, grapes—in a mayonnaise sauce!” in his direction several times when he is slow to produce the salad. When Basil fails to find all the ingredients and goes to unreasonable lengths to put the blame on his (absent) chef, the guest becomes more and more enraged and, as often happens when Basil is involved, the situation degenerates into a public shouting match. Try to find the episode if you haven’t seen it, and discover how it happens that Basil himself orders the elusive salad by the end.

As Basil’s wife informs him during the episode, the salad is named for a hotel—more specifically, the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, where maître d’hôtel Oscar Tschirky invented the dish in 1896 for a charity ball.

Now you can join in on the fun and make a Waldorf salad of your own! It’s a salad that everyone always likes and also the perfect dish to bring to a picnic or potluck Easter brunch, as I confirmed a few weeks ago. And the shouting match is optional.

Waldorf salad

Serves 4 to 6 people

  • 3 red-skinned apples, cored and chopped
  • 2 cups red seedless grapes, sliced in half
  • 2 cups celery, thinly sliced
  • 2 cups chopped, lightly toasted walnuts
  • Lettuce, for serving (optional)
  • 3/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
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Begin by cutting the apple, celery and grapes into bite-sized pieces. Combine together in a large salad bowl.

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Next, toast your walnuts, allow to cool, and then roughly chop.

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Now prepare the sauce by mixing the mayonnaise with the lemon juice and salt.

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Add the walnuts to the salad bowl, spoon the sauce over the top and stir until evenly coated.

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Serve individual portions on fresh lettuce leaves, if you like.

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And there you have it! A Waldorf salad that will satisfy even the most demanding American that visits your hotel. 🙂

Variations: substitute raisins for the grapes (or use in addition), experiment with different types of nuts, use plain yogurt in place of the mayonnaise.

White chocolate mendiants

Elisabeth3 Comments

It’s that time of year again… hearts seem to be popping up all around town, mingling strangely with the last remaining Christmas decorations and sometimes (like this year) accompanied by snow. For my Valentine’s Day post last year, I waxed philosophical about the meaning of the holiday and presented you with a recipe for sugar cookies with rosewater-raspberry icing. This year, perhaps inspired by all the discarded Christmas trees I’ve been walking past on the sidewalks over the past few weeks, I decided to revisit a traditional French yuletide confection in a white, pink and red version.

As with the original dark chocolate version, this is a very easy and versatile recipe. You need only melt a bar of chocolate or two and then add whatever fruit and nut toppings you like. At the end, you have a very cute little DIY treat to give to your loved ones.

White chocolate mendiants

Makes around 12 mendiants

Ingredients:

  • about 5.6 oz. (160 g) vegan white chocolate
  • a few teaspoons of coconut oil, if needed to thin the chocolate (do not use any other type of oil)
  • freeze-dried strawberry slices
  • dried cranberries or other dried red berries of your choice
  • optional: toasted almond slivers, toasted pine nuts, candied ginger

Equipment needed: double-boiler or metal mixing bowl plus saucepan, parchment or waxed paper. A tray that can fit inside your refrigerator and a heat-safe silicone spatula will be handy too.

Gather the white chocolate plus all the berries and any other toppings you want to use. I used these 80-gram bars of vanilla-infused white chocolate from iChoc that I found at Un Monde Vegan in Paris, but if you live somewhere else you can look for white chocolate at an organic shop or online.

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Set up a double-boiler or, as I have done here, boil some water in a saucepan with a metal bowl on top. Make sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water.

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Break the chocolate into squares/chunks and put them in the bowl. You’ll be keeping the heat on so that the water continues to boil throughout the entire process.

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Using a heat-safe silicone spatula, stir the chocolate as it melts. While waiting for it to be ready, grab a tray that’s the right size to fit inside your refrigerator and prepare it with a sheet of parchment or waxed paper.

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If your chocolate seems too thick or dry, you can add a small amount of coconut oil to thin it. Add the oil sparingly, incorporating each amount to see the result before adding more.

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When the chocolate has fully melted and become smooth, place a teaspoonful or so onto a sheet of parchment paper and shape into a circle of even thickness. Make only around six rounds at once so you have time to garnish them with the fruit and other toppings before the surface of the chocolate cools. Once you’ve filled an entire tray, place it in the refrigerator to cool and set (this takes about an hour).

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Continue the process with the remaining melted chocolate. I melted three bars, which made about six mendiants per bar, and opted to do a different type of topping with each set of six. For the ones above, I used strawberries, cranberries and some almonds. I added a few pine nuts here and there after taking this photo.

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A strawberry-only version. Which of these three topping versions do you like best?

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After about an hour, the mendiants should be fully cooled and set. You can take them out of the fridge and put them on a plate!

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I plated mine for this post on this great contrasting blue/green plate that I nabbed in the sales at Habitat the other day… but if you’re making these to give to friends as gifts, you can wrap them up in a bit of waxed or parchment paper tied with some fancy string.

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They look kind of nice on a smaller rectangular plate, too.

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Two paws up from Sésame, who wishes you a very happy Valentine’s Day, by the way. 🙂

Enjoy!

Variations: experiment with other combinations of fruit and nuts. Make some dark chocolate mendiants to create an assorted set.

Chickpea of the sea salad

Elisabeth4 Comments

Chickpea of the what?

Allow me to explain. Those of you who live in the US will probably be familiar with the Chicken of the Sea tuna brand. I never knew why they called it that, but a quick visit to their site the other day revealed that fishermen of yesteryear used to refer to white albacore tuna this way because its light color and neutral flavor made them think of chicken.

Today, amid concerns about mercury levels, overfishing and bycatch (the needless demise of non-targeted fish and other species such as dolphins and turtles), more and more people are reducing their fish consumption. Happily, for those who like the taste of certain seafood dishes, there are ways to reproduce the flavors.

This very easy chickpea salad has a mayonnaise-mustard-caper dressing that gives it a tangy flavor reminiscent of tuna fish salad (hence the name). It’s also filling and protein-rich and has a bit of crunch thanks to the celery and onion. Furthermore, it is a versatile and forgiving recipe—the quantities of the various ingredients don’t need to be exact, and if you add too much of one thing you can easily balance it out by adding more of another. Also, if you love onion, you can add more that the amount specified, or less (even none!) if you’re not so much of a fan. If you don’t happen to have celery on hand, you could add other crunchy things like radish, green apple or even walnuts. This is a recipe where you can let your imagination loose and experiment endlessly.

It can be served in the same ways as a tuna or chicken salad: on bread for an open-faced or traditional sandwich, atop a green salad, on endive leaves, in lettuce cups or even on halved canned peaches! (yes, I’ve tried this and as strange as it sounds, it’s good!).

Without further ado, let’s move on to the recipe!

Chickpea salad

Makes about 2 cups of chickpea salad

Ingredients

  • 14 ounces (400 g) cooked chickpeas
  • 1/4 cup (40 g) finely diced red onion
  • 1/2 cup (112 g) diced celery
  • 1 teaspoon whole capers, or more to taste
  • 3 tablespoons vegan mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon brine from the caper jar
  • 2 teaspoons dried seaweed flakes or shredded nori sheet
  • 1/4 cup (5 g) chopped fresh parsley, plus extra for garnish

 

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Begin by dicing the onion and slicing the celery. If your celery branches are very wide, cut them in half lengthwise so the pieces are more bite-sized.

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Drain the chickpeas, saving the water from the can if you want to make something with aquafaba later.

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Transfer the chickpeas to a bowl and mash them with a potato masher or fork. They should be broken but not pulverized to the point that they become hummus (for this reason, it’s best not to use a food processor). There should still be visible chunks of chickpea in the mixture.

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Now, in a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, caper brine and seaweed flakes or finely shredded nori sheet.

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The mayonnaise mixture will look like this when ready. Taste it and adjust to your liking. You may find you would like it to be a little more spicy (add more mustard) or less so (add more mayonnaise), or more “tuna-y” (add more caper brine and/or seaweed).

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Add the onion, celery and capers to the mashed chickpeas and stir to combine.

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Finally, fold the mayonnaise mixture into the chickpeas and stir until thoroughly integrated. Add the shredded parsley and stir a few more times to combine. Your chickpea of the sea salad is now ready!

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The chickpea salad can be served in many ways. Here, I have prepared some mini open-faced sandwiches on a type of rye bread often found with the name Baltik or Artik in bakeries in France.

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Enjoy!

Variations: Make a curry version of this chickpea salad by adding curry powder and omitting the capers and caper brine. Add any of your favorite nuts and seeds (pine nuts are quite good in this). Serve in endive leaves, lettuce cups or on halved canned peaches as shown above.

Chocolate mendiants

ElisabethLeave a comment

It’s easy to get overly ambitious around Christmastime and to plan a number of grand meals and complicated desserts, only to wake up one day and realize it’s already the 23rd or 24th and you don’t have the right ingredients or enough time to make everything you wanted. This is especially likely to happen, for some reason, with dishes that you hope to bring to holiday parties, escalating your anxiety levels further. But never fear, your favorite blogger is here to the rescue! Today I bring you a very easy-to-make traditional French confectionery creation that will nevertheless impress just about everyone. And since the toppings can vary greatly, you might already have everything you need in your kitchen cupboards.

These little Yuletide delicacies hail from the south of France and the fruits and nuts traditionally used represent the colors of the robes worn by the friars in four mendicant orders during the Middle Ages. These are gray (raisins) for the Dominicans, brown (hazelnuts) for the Augustinians, white (almonds cut in half) for the Caramelites and purple (fig or cranberry) for the Franciscans. As these friars subsisted on charitable offerings, they were referred to as mendiants (beggars), and the confections took on the same name. These items are also among the 13 desserts served at the end of the traditional Christmas meal in Provence.

Today, many types and combinations of nuts and fruits are used, so feel free to use whatever you have on hand! I used walnuts, peanuts, pistachios, cranberries, physalis and pineapple.

Chocolate mendiants

Makes 12 to 15 mendiants

Ingredients

  • about 6 oz (180 g) dark chocolate in bar form (or chocolate chips)
  • toasted nuts (walnuts, peanuts, almonds, pistachios, macadamia, etc.)
  • dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, raisins, apricot, citrus segments, etc.)
  • other items such as pumpkin seeds, candied ginger, white chocolate chips, toasted coconut chips, colorful Christmas sprinkles, fleur de sel, gold leaf

Equipment needed: double-boiler or metal mixing bowl plus saucepan, parchment or waxed paper

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Begin by assembling all the fruits and nuts you will use, so that you’re ready once the chocolate has melted.

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Break or chop your chocolate bar into more or less evenly sized pieces.

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Next, heat some water in a medium-sized saucepan and place a metal bowl on top of it (or a second, smaller saucepan for a double-boiler). Be sure that the water in the saucepan does not touch the bottom of the bowl or second saucepan. Place the chopped chocolate in it and heat, stirring occasionally with a heat-proof spatula.

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Once all of the chocolate has melted, turn off the heat but keep the bowl on top of the saucepan full of hot water.

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Line a tray with parchment paper and, using a teaspoon (the kind you use to stir your coffee, not the measuring kind), form small, round disks. After creating them, go back and add a bit more on the top of each one to ensure that they are thick enough. Make only six at a time so that you have time to add all the toppings before the chocolate firms.

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Add your toppings. I like to start with the larger items and then add the other ones around them.

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Once you’ve finished the first batch, put the tray in the fridge and continue making mendiants until you have used up the rest of your chocolate. The mendiants will be set after an hour or two of chilling (allow two to three hours to be on the safe side).

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Serve your mendiants on a platter at a party, or box them up as a gift!

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These mendiants were my Christmas gift to the concierge of my building, who brings our mail to our doors and takes time out of her morning to give Sésame (who is in love with her) a thorough scratching and petting on the days when my mail includes a package. This year, I included some photos of the furry little guy, which she was delighted to receive (they now adorn her refrigerator door, I was told). 🙂

Variations: change things up with this white chocolate version!