STEW WITH PORK MEAT, ZUCCHINI AND EGGPLANT

       Here, in Romania, we have a saying: the best vegetable is the meat and there is no better bird as the pork, hahahaha... So, i think you guessed already, we eat a lot of pork meat here. Almost each family has a pig for Christmas and we cook a lot of traditional food: sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls), home made sausages, piftie (meat in pork jelly) and all kind of stews and soups. We are masters of stews and soups. Today i show you one that i like a lot, because it has 2 vegetables that i adore: eggplant and zucchini.
       You need:
1 pound pork meat
2 onions
3-4 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 zucchini
1 eggplant
5-6 tablespoons olive oil
salt, pepper
oregano
fresh parsley
rice
butter
       Cutt the meat in pieces as you like, add salt and pepper and fry them a few minutes, untill they become light brown. Add the onion cut in small pieces, the zucchini and the eggplant cut in 2 inch pieces. Cook them a few more minutes, till they change colour a little bit, add the tomato sauce and cook 2-3 more minutes, stiring well, add water enough to cover everything, but not to transform it into a soup. Taste it and adjust the salt and pepper, add oregano and other herbs to your like, cover with a lead and boil it untill the meat is
soft. When is done, add fresh parsley cut small. Serve it with rice boiled with water, salt and one tablespoon of butter, or with pasta, if you like it more.

      Enjoy it!!!!!

WALNUT CARAMEL BAR COOKIES

      Lets see: what are you doing if you loooooooooovvvveeeeeeeeee caramel and nuts and this recipe makes you die for a piece of it, but don't have any pecan on hands? You become creative, no? At least so did i. This is my version of the recipe, where i replaced the pecans with walnuts and the result was more than what i expected.

The dough:
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (80 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (95 grams) granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons lightly beaten egg (i used one medium egg)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
I stired all the ingredients into a bowl, untill i got a tough dough.

I lined up a pan with baking paper and press the dough in it, using my fingers (wet your hands, if the dough stick to your fingers). I let it chill for 1/2 hour, baked it at 175C, untill the edges were golden.

I let it cool off completelly.


The topping:
3/4 cups (150 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream
3 tablespoons (40 grams) unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon  salt
1 cup (114 grams) pecans, toasted cooled, and coarsely chopped (we dont have pecan trees
here, so i replaced the pecans with walnuts, the taste it is not too different, i think)
I cooked the sugar into a pan until it melted and became golden caramel. i poured in cream and cooked on low fire untill the caramel was dissolved. I removed it from head and added butter, vanilla, salt and walnuts.

I spreaded it on the top of cooked dough and baked it until it started bubbling on the edges.I let it cool completelly and cut it in bars.
       Enjoy it!!!!!

SO LONG TIME...

      ...since i didn't post anything on my blog!!!!!!!!! And so many things happened. We left from the village, returned to Bucharest and now i'm in Italy, since october last year. I'll be here for a few more months, i think. I missed my blog and posting here. I missed reading the other blogs. I just hope the things will settle a little bit and i'll have time to post again.
      For now, lets try something sweet, just to remember how to do it, so...
         YOGHURT PIE!!!!!!!!!

Ingredients:
2 pounds yoghurt
7-8 eggs
1/2 pound sugar
8 sheets of phillo pasta
vanilla, lemon zest, raisins
2 teablespoons of melted butter
Beat up the eggs with sugar untill they increase their volume 2-3 times. Add them to the yoghurt, add in the vanilla, the lemon zest and the raisins. Mix well. Grease a pan with a spoon of butter, grease 3 sheets of phillo pasta with melted butter and lay them one in top of eachother in the prepared pan, pour 1/3 of the yoghurt, lay another 2 sheets of pasta, add another 1/3 of yoghurt. Lay the last layer of 3 sheets of phillo and the rest of the yoghurt. Bake it for about 40 minutes at 350F. After you take it out of the oven let it cool
off for a few minutes and, if you want, dust it with powder sugar.

　Enjoy it!!!!!

FIRST HARVEST EVER

Yesterday i had the first harvest ever: my first zucchini!!!! 9 pieces!!! Wonderful zucchini!!! I was so happy. Today i used them and made the best zucchini soup and fried zucchini-cakes. I'll post the recipes, maybe they inspire somebody.

Zucchini soup:
1 anion
1 carrot
1 pepper
2 big zucchini
2 smaller tomatoes
2 liters water (1/2 gallon)
salt, pepper
olive oil
4 egg yolks
1/2-1 pound sour cream
dill
1/2 lemon
Cut the anion in small pieces and shred the carrot. Heat up the olive oil, add the anion and the carrot and steer for 3-4 minutes. Add the water. Cut the zucchini in 1/2-1 inch pieces, cut the pepper in strips. When the water is boiling, add the zucchini and the pepper. Boil for about 20-30 minutes and add the tomatoes, cut in small pieces. Add salt and pepper. Add the juice of 1/2 lemon. Mix the sour cream with egg yolks, add some liquid from the pot to warm it up. Add it in the soup. Remove the pot from stove, add the dill cut very fine and let it rest for a few minutes. Enjoy it!!!!

Fried zucchini-cakes:
2 zucchini
1 big potato
shredded cheese (as much as you want, i used about 1/2 cup)
3 eggs
2-3 tablespoons breadcrumbs
dill
olive oil
Shred the zucchini, salt them and let them into a strainer for 1/2 hour. Squeeze out all the liquid. Shred the potato and squeeze it out. Add it to the zucchini, add the shredded cheese too. Add eggs, breadcrumbs and chopped dill. Mix them very well. Warm up a few tablespoons of olive oil into a pan and with a spoon add the zucchini batter and form small cakes. Fry them until golden, turn them on the other side and fry again. Take them out on a paper towel. Delicious!!!!

JUST TO REMEMBER

I got another batch of chickens, 40 meaties. Now i regret i didn't order 60, but i'll buy more at the end of august, so doesn't matter too much. I think next month, july, i'll buy the turkeys and the guineas. And i'll process the first ducks (30) and the few meaties (9) i have now.
ETA: I've got my 20 more chickies. The guy that sells them is a friend of us and he brought them at home. Now i'm happy.

MORE DUCKS!!!!

First of all, hello to everybody. I didn't post for a while, i was way too busy. The work started on the fields, at home i have the chickens and the ducks and the garden, of course. I still cannot upload pictures. My daughter sent a card reader to me, but it is not working and it is brand new (i wish i had a few emoticons here to explain better how do i feel). So, i'm still not able to post pictures yet. And i have thousands of pictures. I would like to show you my garden, where i planted 177 tomato plants, 130 pepper plants, cabbage, eggplants, anion, zucchini, watermelon, melon, raspberry tree, bilberry, white gooseberry, blackberry, carrots, radishes, and other that i don't remember now. I would like to show you my chickens and my ducks, which grew up so fast!!!! Man, the ducklings are not ducklings anymore and they are not one month old yet!!!! I still love them so much. I love ducks, what can i say? Probably that's why i bought 40 more yesterday. They're adorable!!! My target for this year is 100 ducks and 200 chickens. I would love to get a few turkeys too (about 10) and some geese and some guineas. We'll see. I know they mean a lot of work and i'm exhausted already. I spent the last 2 days whit my chickens because they are sick. They've got coccidiosis and i lost about 20 of them in the last 2 days. I hope i saved the rest of them. Interesting, only the layers were affected, the meaties are fine. I'll let you know what happened farther.

FIRST DAY OUT

Today i took the babies out. Until today i kept them inside, but the chickens are growing fast and the cages are getting smaller. And the ducks? They are really crowded into a small cage where i have to put food and water too. So, even if they are so young (the chicks will be 2 weeks old tomorrow and and ducks are only 3-4 days old), i took them on the backyard and let them free. Man, they enjoyed it!!!! They were running, they were flying, they were jumping, they were dust-bathing!!!! I took a thousand pictures (Anitaaaaaa, send the card-reader!!! Hahaha, i will call her to tell her to read my blog). Now they are back inside, in our room. Geeee, when i brought them in, they just fell like the soldiers on the war: dead. They were tired (as i am). After they took a nap they ate like they never did before. And they drink a lot of water too. But i see that they are not so noisy anymore. Still tired, i guess. I'll take them out every day from now on and i bring them in at night. I hope we'll move to the new house this week and i can let the chickens into a coop at night (make room for more babies, because the store brought something different, not what i ordered and i have only 10 meaties now and i need more).