Black bean salad

This is terrific. Black beans, and tons of flavor: lime, lemon and orange zest, fresh coriander, red onion, et cetera. It's easy to make, pleasantly spicy, and makes for quick lunches -- at home or at the office. And it's terrifically colorful!

Ingredients (4 servings):

• 1 cup dry black beans
• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• heaping 1/2 tsp of your favorite spice (non-ground) (e.g., cumin seed, coriander pod, whole peppercorns, etc.)
• 1 small hot pepper
• 1 sweet yellow paprika (or half a bell pepper)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
• fresh coriander (at least 1/3 cup)
• 1/2 red onion
• zest from a lime, lemon and orange
• juice from one lime
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Instructions:

• Put the beans, two garlic cloves (cut into quarters), the bay leaf and the spice into a large pot. Cover with 2 inches of cold water and bring to a boil. Simmer gently until beans are cooked to your liking (do not overcook; they should be slightly crunchy for the salad). The simmering will take approximately 45 minutes, but check every 10 minutes after half an hour. When cooked, strain the beans and cool.
• Place hot pepper, paprika/bell pepper, coriander, red onion, the rest of the garlic and zest into a blender (a mini blender, if you have one) and mince. You can also do this by hand (which is how we did it last night), but it's more work than is really necessary.
• Combine beans, blender mix, and the remainder of the ingredients (cherry tomatoes, lime juice and olive oil)

Apples, strawberries and whipped cream

More specifically, apples stewed with butter, cinnamon and nutmeg; strawberry purée; and cream whipped with Cointreau -- and all served in a glass. Very yummy, very summery, very simple. The recipe is adapted from Baking Obsession. I did away with the crisps, and used Cointreau instead of Frangelico. Next time, I will cut down on the amount of whipped cream (we have enough left over to cover a cake) and half the amount of liquor -- the taste was, for me, a tad strong.

Halibut with grapes and raisins

The abject lack of good fresh fish here in Budapest means that we now by some of our fish frozen -- quite a shock from Canada and Cameroon. And it's hard to cook. But this recipe -- which uses grapes, raisins and balsamic vinegar -- worked like a charm. The balsamic vinegar turns the fish a pleasant brown, and the fruit adds an assertive sweetness.

Ingredients (two people):

• 2 halibut (or similar) fillets
• scant 1/4 cup raisins or sultanas*
• large handful seedless green grapes, sliced in half lengthwise
• 1 tbsp. good quality balsamic vinegar
• 3 tbsp. white wine
• freshly ground black pepper
• touch of butter

Instructions:

• Heat the oven to 400/Mark 6.
• Place the fish in a baking dish and season with black pepper. Dab with butter.
• Scatter raisins/sultanas and grapes over the fish. Mix together balsamic vinegar and wine, and pour over the fillets.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes, until fish is done.
• Serve over rice or couscous.

*I recommend soaking the raisins/sultanas in a tiny bit of white wine while the oven preheats. It will make them plumper and juicier.

Easter baking

Perhaps baking a large batch of cinnamon rolls and hot cross buns on the same day wasn't the greatest idea. After all, there are only two of us. But both are great, and we conjured up some gardening/eating-Easter-treats help. The cinnamon bun recipe is from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and the hot cross bun recipe is a variation on those made by Chez Piggy/Pan Chancho in Kingston. Instead of sultanas and candied peel, they have sultanas, raisins, dried mango and dried cranberries.

Another super summer salad

This one takes lettuce, baby shrimp, grapefruit, and an avocado -- use the leftover grapefruit juice with little bit of olive oil for addressing. Oh, and a cheese course to boot. Ta-daa!

Fancy pizzas

Well, they feel fancy to me. What a difference it makes to properly pair ingredients! The pizza dough is homemade (albeit in the bread machine -- but, for posterity, it does not belong to us), with generous scoops of dried herbs. The result? Delicious dinner, leftovers for lunch, and the fridge is free of lots of odds and ends.

Pizza 1: homemade caramelized onion jam, sweet yellow paprika*, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, leftover barbecued chicken

Pizza 2: pesto, cherry tomatoes, black olives, goat cheese

* Next time, I will grill the paprika first

Breakfast (?) bread

I am thoroughly sick and tired of cereal for breakfast. Especially the cereals available here in Budapest.* And I don't much like toast. In my search for new breakfast ideas, I found this dried fruit and nut soda bread on one of my current-favorite blogs. We made it last night, and tried it with our smoothies at breakfast this morning -- terrific. Delicious, and filling too.**

Recipe: http://www.bakingobsession.com/2010/02/18/dried-fruit-and-nut-cake/

I replaced the dried pears with dried cherries (this is Hungary, after all) and one cup of the walnuts with whole almonds.

* So why don't I make my own cereal? I used to, in Canada. But here I cannot get the ingredients I want (namely, a variety of grains -- oats, spelt, barley, etc.) at reasonable prices.

** But isn't it too sweet for breakfast? Granted, the entire loaf contains 3/4 cup brown sugar. But it doesn't taste sweet. And, per slice, this works out too much less sugar than a serving of your typical store-bought cereal.

Super summer salad

First, the photo is fuzzy because somebody didn't take the camera out of landscape mode. The salad itself -- Richard's idea -- was dead simple and delicious. Oh, and very colorful.

Ingredients (2 people):

• lettuce (we used lamb's ear)
• blue cheese, crumbled (quantity to taste)
• 1/4 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 small red onion, diced
• 1/3 cup walnut pieces
• small quantity dressing (olive oil and lemon juice)

Instructions:

• Toss the lettuce with the dressing. Place on plates and top with remaining ingredients.

Smoked salmon and avocado lasagna

I've been wanting to try this for years: smoked salmon and avocado, sandwiched between lasagna noodles -- what could be better? The result is amazing, but lifting the finished lasagna off the cutting board onto the plates was a trick.

Ingredients (2 people):

• 3 lasagna noodles
• 100 g smoked salmon
• 1 ripe avocado, sliced
• mixed salad
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp fresh lime or lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp good mustard or 1/8 tsp cracked mustard seeds

Instructions:

• Cook the lasagna, then rinse under cold water and let cool.
• Assemble the lasagna in the following order, on a wooden cutting board or rimless plate (to better be able to lift it at the end): lasagna noodle, smoked salmon, lasagna noodle, avocado, lasagna noodle. Cut the lasagna in half and carefully lift onto plates, together with the salad.
• Mix the oil, citrus juice and mustard to make a dressing. Pour half over the salads and half over the lasagnas.

Grapefruit shrimp salad

We were served this fabulous summer salad at Christmas in Canada a few years ago -- and have since become pros at making it. It is summery and citrusy and brilliantly colorful on the plate. It takes some time to segment the grapefruit and peel the shrimp, but the result is definitely worth it.

Ingredients (2 people):

For the shrimp:

• 16-20 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 tsp. hot red pepper flakes
• scant 1/4 cup unsalted cashews or blanched almonds
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• juice from 1/2 a lime

For the salad:

• mixed salad greens
• 1 grapefruit, peeled and segmented (reserve the juice)
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• 1/4 yellow or red bell pepper, julienned

For the dressing:

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. honey
• reserved grapefruit juice
• zest from 1/2 a lemon or lime
• freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions:

For the shrimp:

• Heat the olive oil and garlic in a pot, add the nuts and stir until they begin to turn golden. Add the shrimp and hot pepper flakes and cook for 1-2 minutes, until shrimp are done. Remove from heat and squeeze lime juice over shrimp. Alternatively, marinate the shrimp in olive oil, garlic, lime juice, and hot pepper flakes for 15-20 minutes and cook on the grill. In this case, just add the nuts to the salad as they are.

For the salad:

• Combine all dressing ingredients and shake well or mix in a mini blender.
• Place all salad ingredients on plates, and toss with dressing. Place shrimp and nuts on top, and serve.