Room for Dessert - Food Blog

This post is Avi’s. I am writing it and took the photos, but other than that, it’s all his. He came up with the idea, created the recipe and made the dish. And how yummy that was! This is one of two recipes (and counting ) he came up with lately, I hope we make the other one soon, and if it turns out to be a keeper as well - we’ll be sure to post about it.

That being said, this post is a part of the Presto Pasta Night blog event - it’s a weekly event, hosted by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast, and it’s all dedicated to pasta recipes. How cool is that? (Those of you who visit here often already know that Italian food is my favorite, but I bet you didn’t know that one of my best friends calls me “Paaaaasta”, because I always say this word with a mellow-and-totally-in-love-tone).

A couple of weeks ago, I don’t remember exactly when and how, Avi came to me with the idea of making a cream and raisins pasta sauce. The only other sweet-ish pasta sauce I’ve ever tasted was a divine one (at a restaurant named Divina, imagine that ), it was a cream based sauce with a touch of orange. Yum! So Avi’s idea reminded me of exactly that sauce, and evidently his idea sounded awesome.

Last Saturday he got around to making it. He used onion and garlic in his recipe, which I thought wouldn’t accompany the raisins very well, but it turned out that the man knew what he was doing! He also added a touch of lemon to the sauce, which was subtle but at the same time gave it a great taste-hint and aroma. All in all it turned out to be a great sauce, the light sweetness of the raisins is a great match to cream based pasta sauce, and it also was a great match to the goat cheese filled ravioli that it was wrapped aound.

I’ve filed this post under both Main Courses and First Courses, since in Italy pasta is usually a first course, whereas for Avi and me (and for many restaurants here in Israel), it’s definitely a main course.

Cream and raisins pasta sauce / Avi Revivo
Makes 2 portions

Ingredients:
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250 ml cream (we used 15% fat)
1/2 - 3/4 cup raisins (we used mixed - dark and light)
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
5 Tbsp white wine
salt, pepper
milk, for thinning the sauce if necessary

Directions:
1. Fry the onion until brown and caramelized.
2. Add the garlic and fry for 1/2 min.
3. Add the white wine, stir well and cook until partially evaporized.
4. Add the cream, lemon juice, the raisins and salt and pepper according to your taste. Stir well and cook for about 15 mins. If during the process the sauce gets too thick, add a little milk to it and stir well. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

רוטב שמנת וצימוקים לפסטה / אבי רביבו
עבור 2 מנות

רכיבים:
2 בצלים קטנים, קצוצים דק
2 שיני שום כתושות
250 מ”ל שמנת (אנחנו השתמשנו ב - 15% שומן)
1/2 - 3/4 כוס צימוקים (בהירים וכהים, מומלץ לשים כמות גדולה יותר של בהירים)
2 כפות מיץ לימון סחוט טרי
5 כפות יין לבן
מלח, פלפל
חלב, לדילול הרוטב במקרה הצורך

הכנה:
1. מטגנים את הבצל עד השחמה וקרמול.
2. מוספים את השום ומטגנים כחצי דקה.
3. מוסיפים את היין הלבן, מערבבים היטב ומבשלים עד לאידוי חלקי.
4. מוסיפים את השמנת, מיץ הלימון, הצימוקים, ומלח ופלפל לפי הטעם. מערבבים היטב ומבשלים כ - 15 דקות. אם במהלך זמן הבישול הרוטב הופך סמיך מדי, מדללים עם מעט חלב עד שמגיעים למרקם הרצוי, מערבבים היטב. מומלץ להגיש בליווי גבינת פרמזן מגוררת.

Pizza night is such a great tradition! Whenever I see in movies or TV series families that have a weekly pizza night - I want to have one too. It’s such a nice together-time, and when the theme is such a tasty treat - how can one refuse it?

But, back to reality, if I’d let myself eat pizza in the evening once a week, I wouldn’t get very far (cause I wouldn’t be able to pass through the door). But there’s no harm in pizza nights every now and then, right?

So for a while now I’ve wanted to try to make home-made pizza. My childhood memories from home made pizza (not at my home, we didn’t make pizza at home, but at friends’ houses) aren’t so hot - I remember very thick dough (and I like thick dough, but that was too much even for me) that tasted nothing like a real pizza dough, sauce that on a good day would never resemble to the real thing, and some cheese. This held me back from making pizza at home for a really long time (silly me!), thinking that with home kitchen equipment there is no way I can produce pizzeria-style pizza (WRONG!). Lately though, while browsing through food blogs, and watching results of fellow bloggers and fellow food forum members here in Israel, I saw really impressive results.

I also figured that it could be nice to start using that new baking stone that we received among the presents for our wedding. So for the past couple of weeks Avi and I talked almost every night about making pizza at home (actually every time we talked it sounded something like this: Avi: “When are we gonna make pizza?” Me: “As soon as we buy a pizza pan“). Yeah, that’s me, I love to have all the right gadgets before I make any kind of food. It’s really the best excuse I’ve found to buying all sorts of great cooking gadgets!

Yesterday I bought the pizza pan and decided to surprise Avi with a home-made-pizza-night. Boy, am I happy I used the recipe I used! It belongs to Maggie, she is a friend from an Israeli food forum, actually a virtual friend, because I’ve never met her. She is SO talented! Every picture of every dish she ever makes would make your mouth water in a second, and she also tells the story of the recipes she gives so gracefully - I really admire her! Last but not least - she also lived in Italy for a period in her life, and she knows a lot about Italian food.
The pizza turned out delicious! The dough was so great to work with, I almost wanted to crawl into the mixer’s bowl and lie down to sleep on it! It made a superb crust, and eventhough I slightly overcooked it, it still had a wonderful taste. The sauce was also very tasty, and to sum it all up - I really recommend this wonderful recipe. Thanks so much, Maggie!

Place the dough on the pizza pan

Spread a little amount of the sauce on the dough. Notice here that
I’ve put a lot of sauce, because I didn’t read the recipe carefully.
This didn’t produce a wet dough at all, though.

After partial baking add cheese and toppings

And the final result (try to not overcook the margins, as I did)

Pizza / Slightly adapted from Maggie’s recipe
Serves 4-6 people

Ingredients:
For the dough:
500 gr bread flour (I didn’t have so I used all-purpose flour)
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp dry yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water

For the sauce:
1 fresh tomato, grated
100 gr tomato paste
1 flat tsp sugar
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

For the pizza:
200 gr mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1. Put the flour and salt in the mixer’s bowl and stir them well using a spatula. Add the yeast and stir well.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead for 10-12 mins.
3. Cover the bowl and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
4. Place the baking stone in the oven (if using one) and preheat the oven to the highest temperature available.
5.Punch down dough and knead briefly. Form 2 large pizza bases from it, or 4 smaller ones.
6. Place the dough on a pizza pan. Make the sauce, by mixing all the ingredients together and stirring them.
7. When the stove has reached the highest temperature, spread only a small amount of the sauce on top of the dough. Start spreading from the center and slowly spread towards the ends, leaving a small part of the crust uncovered with sauce.
8. Bake the dough and sauce for about 10 mins, or until the margins are half baked.
9. Get the pizza out of the oven, spread more sauce and scatter the cheese and other desired toppings. Put back into the oven until fully baked.

We also made a little focaccia from the dough

פיצה / עיבוד קל למתכון של מגי מפורום מתכונים של תפוז
עבור 4-6 אנשים

רכיבים:
לבצק:
500 גרם קמח לחם (השתמשתי בקמח רגיל)
1 כף מלח
1 כף סוכר
2 כפות שמן זית
1 כף שמרים יבשים
1 1/4 כוסות מים חמימים

לרוטב:
1 עגבניה, מגוררת
100 גרם רסק עגבניות
1 כפית שטוחה סוכר
2 שיני שום, כתושות
2 כפות שמן זית
מלח
פלפל

לפיצה:
200 גרם גבינת מוצרלה

הכנה:
1. מכניסים את הקמח והמלח לקערת המיקסר ומערבבים ידנית. מוסיפים את השמרים ומערבבים טוב.
2. מוסיפים את שאר החומרים ולשים 10-12 דקות.
3. מכסים את הקערה ומתפיחים במקום חמים עד להכפלת הנפח.
4. אם משתמשים באבן שמוט, מניחים אותה על רשת בשליש התחתון של התנור ומחממים את התנור לחום הגבוה ביותר.
5. מוציאים את האויר מהבצק ע”י מכת אגרוף ולשים קלות. יוצרים ממנו 2 בסיסים גדולים לפיצה או 4 קטנים יותר.
6. שמים את הבצק על רשת לפיצה (אם משתמשים). מכינים את הרוטב ע”י ערבוב כל החומרים.
7. כאשר התנור סיים להתחמם, מורחים על עיגולי הבצק מעט מאוד רוטב, עד השוליים שיהיו גבול הנחת הגבינה ושאר התוספות על הפיצה.
8. מכניסים לתנור ואופים כ-10 דקות, או עד ששולי הפיצה חצי אפויים.
9. מוציאים את הפיצה מהתנור, מורחים עוד מהרוטב בכמות הרצויה, מפזרים גבינה ושאר תוספות. מכניסים בחזרה לתנור עד לאפיה מלאה לפי טעמכם האישי(אנחנו אוהבים את הבצק זהוב ושעל הגבינה מתחילות להופיע נקודות זהובות).

For a while now I’ve been thinking about how many calories there are in mousses. And I’m talking about the ones that are cream-based, because the ones that contain uncooked eggs are off limits for me. I really love mousse but can’t eat it all that often because of how fattening it is.

The idea came to me while eating a super fluffy Muller Froop yoghurt - why not try and make a yoghurt based mousse? Obviously I didn’t expect it to taste exactly the same, and I didn’t doubt the fact that the yoghurt would definitely be felt, because its taste isn’t exactly neutral. But I was thinking that it’s worth the try, eventhough it would be just a fake, and not the real thing.

A few days ago I had the perfect opportunity to try it. Two very good friends of ours came to visit us - she is a nutritionist and he is on a diet (and has lost quite a lot of weight - very impressive!). So I thought they’d appreciate the relatively-low-fat dessert, as opposed to the ones I usually make. When I sat down to put a recipe together, I decided to use yoghurt combined with some sour cream, powdered sugar to sweeten things a bit, and vanilla flavoured instant pudding mix - in order to thicken the mixture. In the end I added strawberries, cause after all that WAS supposed to be a strawberries mousse
I beat the yoghurt and the sour cream for 10 minutes. Well, it didn’t exactly turn to whipped cream, to say the least. I didn’t want to use gelatin though, so I decided to wait until we eat it to see how the texture turned out.

The first thing I have to say is that it turned out really tasty, and was so easy to make. Our friends loved it as well. Also it was very fluffy, and the ratio of strawberries-yoghurt was perfect. The only problem was that it was quite runny. I initially wanted to pipe it nicely into the serving bowls, but the shape didn’t last.  Next time I’ll try to use some melted white chocolate though, I think it will get it thicker.

Strawberries Yoghurt Mousse / Self Recipe
Makes 5-6 portions

Ingredients:
300 ml yoghurt (I used 3% fat)
200 ml sour cream (I used 9% fat)
400 gr fresh strawberries, diced
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
3 Tbsp vanilla flavoured instant pudding mix
4 Tbsp powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Beat the yoghurt and sour cream in the mixer for about 5 mins.
2. Add the lemon juice, pudding mix and powdered sugar and beat for 5-7 more mins.
3. Gently fold the strawberries into the mixture.
4. Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving.

מוס יוגורט עם תותים / מתכון עצמי - מירי רביבו
עבור כ- 5-6 מנות אישיות

רכיבים:
300 מ”ל יוגורט (השתמשתי ביופלה 3% שומן)
200 מ”ל שמנת חמוצה (השתמשתי ב - 9% שומן)
400 גרם תותים טריים, חתוכים לקוביות
2 כפות מיץ לימון סחוט טרי
3 כפות אינסטנט פודינג וניל
4 כפות אבקת סוכר

הכנה:
1. מקציפים את היוגורט והשמנת החמוצה במיקסר כ-5 דקות.
2. מוסיפים את מיץ הלימון, את אבקת האינסטנט פודינג ואת אבקת הסוכר ומקציפים 5-7 דקות נוספות.
3. מקפלים את התותים בעדינות לתוך התערובת.
4. מקררים שעתיים לפחות לפני ההגשה.

Yeah, I know what you must be thinking right now… And you’re right! We ARE risotto junkies!
Yesterday evening was the first Friday in quite some time that we haven’t had a family dinner planned. I really love these quiet evenings every once in a while, and whenever such a Friday approaches - I make big plans of preparing big meals for just the two of us Yesterday was about the same, except that I kept feeling worse (I am sick for quite some time now) as the day progressed.

So we ended up preparing our favorite (comfort) food - Porcini Risotto. Last time I prepared it was also the first time, and I wrote down the recipe as I prepared the dish. This time I tested the recipe - printed it and followed it step by step, just to make sure that it’s complete and that I haven’t omitted any important details. The good news is that the recipe is accurate and gave us the same results as the last time, actually even better because this time I used better Porcini mushrooms. Also, if you can get your hands on some fresh Portobello mushrooms (the recipe also asks for fresh mushrooms), they really kick the taste up and are more recommended than the regular (at least in our markets, here in Israel) fresh champignon mushrooms.

The result is totally worth the time spent on carefully pampering and gently stirring the rice. I’m sure you will agree too, as soon as you taste this smooth and creamy piece of heaven! It goes wonderfully along with a glass (or two) of red wine - Merlot or Cabernet are both a perfect match for this dish, in our opinion.

The recipe, both in English and in Hebrew, can be found here.