Spagetti with clams (Vongole) recipe

Today, Katrin from Katrinshine is sharing a great recipe of spaghetti with clams.

You will need 300 gram of clams (vongole) per person, not cleaned or frozen! You can make clams spaghetti with frozen clams but the taste will be pretty much different.
Couple cloves of garlic.
Spaghetti pasta 100 gram per person.
Olive oil.
Couple tablespoons of white wine.
Salt.

Pasta and the rest will be cooked separately and combined in the end, so let's start with putting water on to boil for the spaghetti.

Peel garlic and roast it till golden in olive oil. It's better to remove the garlic cloves in the end of roasting. Add clams.

Saute, add couple tablespoons of white wine and saute a few more minutes. You may want to take out the clams to a separate bowl at this time.

When water comes to boil, cook the spaghetti. Cook until almost ready (one minute shorter than cooking time on the package and drain them well!)

Add spaghetti to the sauce and simmer a couple more minutes.
And that's it! Clams spaghetti is ready. Serve clams over spaghetti on every plate or the clams may be served in separate bowl where everyone can take as much as they want.

Recipe by Katrin (katrinshine)
Translated by Nadia (crafts2love)

Scorfano, rock fish with pasta

There is always a question, what to cook for dinner. Try this Italian dish our team member Katrin (katrinshine) loves to cook. It called scorfano.

 You will need 1-2 pcs. of rock fish
couple cloves of garlic
1 kg of tomatoes
pasta tubettini counting 80 gram per person
olive oil
some white wine
salt
fresh ground pepper

Pasta and the other ingredients will be cooked at the same time and combined at the end. So let's start by putting water on for the pasta.

Peel the garlic and fry it in olive oil till golden brown. You can remove it later if you don't like garlic pieces in food.

Add cleaned fish (keep head but scale and gut it), fry on both sides, add wine and sautee. Add sliced tomatoes and keep cooking.

After the water boils add pasta and cook till almost ready (check the cooking time on your package and cook for minus two minutes).

When we drain the water from tubettini I would suggest to leave some in case tomatoes don’t turn out juicy or just to have a bit more broth (I prefer it that way!)

Add tubettini (with liquid we saved) to the fish with tomatoes, gently stir and sautee for a few more minutes. It is done!

Serve a small piece of fish to everyone’s plate (whole one or break bigger ones) or just serve fish separately on a serving platter and let pickings begin!

Don’t forget to add some fresh ground pepper straight on your food!

Recipe by Katrin (katrinshine)

Translated by Nadya (crafts2love)

Pumpkin risotto

We love pumpkins! Pumpkin is very popular at this time of year and Katrin (Katrinshine) would like to share with us the pumpkin risotto recipe today. It is a simple but tasty and you will cook it in about 40 minutes. Perfect dish for the autumn supper!

 You will need:
200 gr rice
300 gr pumpkin
50 gr butter
50 gr parmigiano, grated
1 medium size onion, chopped
500 gr hot water or vegetable broth
100 ml white wine
Salt & pepper to taste

Remove the peel and the seeds of pumpkin. Cut it into pieces and boil. Remove the pumpkin from the water and whip it up with the blender. Reserve the liquid, this is your vegetable stock.

Saute the onion until golden in color in about half of amount of butter. Add rice and stir. Cook for about 5 more minutes and add some wine to the mix. Stir onion, rice and wine together.

Add some reserved vegetable stock or hot water to the pan, stir. Add pureed pumpkin and the rest of liquid. Stir and cook all together until rice will become tender.

Add the other half of butter and the parmigiano. Stir and leave for a couple of minutes under the lid.

It's ready to serve!

If you like add some chopped parsley when serving.

Enjoy!

Recipe by Katrin Katrinshine
Translated by Natalia Grimme

Barley and smoked bacon skillet supper

Almost anyone who recalls having some pearl barley during his/ hers childhood did not have a very positive impression about it. However, there is a way to make it taste great! Katrin (katrinshine) is glad to share her recipe with us today.

You will need:
1 cup of pearl barley

3 cups of water
2 lbs of tomatoes, chopped or 1 can (28 oz) of diced unsalted tomatoes

1/2 lbs of salted smoked bacon, diced
1 large onion, chopped
olive oil

Wash the pearl barley several times. Leave it soaking in the water for at least 4 to 5 hours. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to low. Cover and continue cooking until the barley is tender and liquid is almost absorbed or use a colander to drain barley (reserve some cooking liquid).

Heat the olive oil in a deep skillet and sauté the onions over medium-high heat until golden in color. Add the bacon and cook for about 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the tomatoes and simmer all together on a low setting.

Stir in the cooked barley and reserved liquid. Continue to cook over low heat until heated thoroughly.

Add some salt if needed. Katrin is not using any salt in her recipe because the bacon is salty already. But if you feel you need to add some, feel free.

Enjoy!

Recipe & photography by Katrin (Katrinshine)
Translated by Natalia (Grimme)

Vegetable Turkey

This recipe is not new, but maybe some people have not seen or tried it before.


A dip has to be prepared a couple of days or at least an hour in advance.
For the dip you will need:
~ 400 grams of cream cheese
~ 4 table spoons of sour cream
½ cup of finely chopped parsley
1/4 tea spoon of black or white grinded pepper
2 tea spoons of grinded lemon zest

*Cover the bottom of 10-12 cm wide bowl with cling film. Cling film has to be firmly attached to the sides of the dish.
* Mix cream cheese and sour cream in a blender until the consistency is smooth. Take the cream cheese out of the fridge some time in advance, as mixing warm cheese is easier.
* Add the lemon zest, parsley and pepper to the mixture. 3-4 table spoons of Tabasco can be added if you prefer spicy food. Mix in a blender again.
* Put the prepared mixture into the bowl covered with cling film. Carefully bend the corners and cover the cheese dip.
Put the dip into the fridge. It has to be used over 3 days.
Now let’s prepare vegetables for the turkey. You will need:
- celery
- baby-carrot
- parsley
- 1-2 cucumbers
- red and yellow bell peppers
- lettuce
- broccoli
- radish
- 1 small tomato
- ½ cup of pecans or walnuts

* Evenly distribute lettuce leaves on the top half of a round plate or a tray. Then put bell peppers cut in long stripes on top of the lettuce leaves alternating the colors.


* Afterwards lay 2-3 rows of rounds of cucumber. It is possible to stick short branches of parsley between the rows of bell peppers and cucumbers. Carefully place the dip on the lower side of the plate by overturning the bowl with caution. Remove the bowl and take off the cling film.



It’s time to form the turkey’s "body ".
*On the top side of the dip lay a row of baby carrots slightly pressing them into the soft dip by one side. Then place small leaves of celery on top of the carrots.
*Make the turkey’s "neck" from a celery stem, slightly pushing it into the "body". The bird’s claws can be made of carrots and don’t forget the "head" – place a tomato on top of the neck


*"Feathers" will be made from pecans. Start laying them from bottom progressing towards the top.
* Place broccoli on both sides of the turkey on the remaining empty space on the plate.

* Draw eyes and bleak with sour cream or mayonnaise, and the bird is ready. Bon appetite!

PS. I also had radish, so I used it too (see the first photograph).
It is not necessary to use exactly the vegetables mentioned for the turkey. Use your imagination and use other vegetables if you wish to experiment. Your relatives and guests will be surprised that it is possible to make a "bird" from vegetables.

Recipe by Albina (GoodWeather)