Minta Eats

During days such as today – with beautiful sun and mild temperatures – last thing you’d like to do is to spend whole day inside. Knowing that the awfully gray and dull version of Autumn is waiting just around the corner I’d rather advice you to play badminton in garden, go for a impossibly long walk and eat some ice creams in the park. But after the whole day of running outside youd like to eat something warm, comforting yet quick and easy to make. What you say for pumpkin & pear soup with some chili?

Pumpkin and Pear Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 small pumpkin (ca.1 kg)
2 small garlic cloves
3 pears
1 l vegetable stock
2 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground pepper and salt
some hot chili powder – to taste

Heat the oven to 200 C. Cut pumpkin into smaller chunks (ca. 2 cm), moist with some olive oil and put on baking dish and bake in oven for 20 minutes. Meanwhile peel the pears and remowe seeds, cut into smaller chunks. When pumpkin will be soft, remove it from the oven, wait few minutes for it to chill. Remove the hard skin from the pumpkin cubes and skins from the garlic cloves and transfer orange flesh into medium pot. Add pears and half of the stock and bring to boil. Cook for some 10-15 minutes, so the pears will start to fall apart. Add salt and pepper and some chili and blend the soup (if it is to thick add some more stock). Serve with dollop of yoghurt and some parsley.

Pumpkin and Pear Soup

W dni takie, jak dzisiaj – gdy świeci piękne słońce, a pogoda rozpieszcza nas przyjemną temperaturą – to grzech siedzieć w domu. Lepiej wyjść do ogrodu i pograć w badmintona, wyprawić się na niemożliwie długi spacer lub zjeść lody w parku. Ale po takim całym dniu ganiania pewnie najdzie nas ochota na coś ciepłego, kojącego, ale i łatwego do przygotowania. Może zupa z dyni i gruszek, której słodycz jest mile złamana nutką chili?

Składniki
1/2 małej dyni (ok 1 kg ze skórką)
3 małe gruszki
2 ząbki czosnku
1 l lekkiego bulionu warzywnego
2 łyżki oliwy z oliwek
świeżo mielony pieprz i sół
chili do smaku

Nagrzej piekarnik do 200 stopni. Dynię pokrój na kawałki (ok. 2 cm kostki), obtocz w oliwie i razem z ząbkami czosnku przełóż na blaszkę. piecz 20 minut. W międzyczasie obierz gruszki, usuń gniazda nasienne i pokrój owoce na kawałki.
Wyjmij dynię z piekarnika, odstaw na chwilę do przestudzenia, a następnie usuń skórki (w piekarniku skórka wysuszy się i będzie ją bardzo łatwo usunąć), obierz ząbki czosnku i zmiażdż na pastę. Przełóż dynię i czosnek do garnka, dodaj gruszki i zalej 0.5 bulionu. Doprowadź do wrzenia i gotuj na małym ogniu 10-15 minut, aż kawałki owoców zaczną się rozpadać. Dodaj sól, pieprz i chili według uznania, zmiksuj zupę blenderem. Podawaj z chmurką jogurtu i pietruszką lub pestkami dyni.

Pumpkin and Radicchio from Hania, Jola and Ludwik

Since July Thursdays are for me…Slow Boxes Day. Each Thursday Jola  (or her wonderful daughter Hania) is delivering us wonderful boxes filled with fresh, just picked vegetable. Green onions, radicchio, spinach, sweet tomatoes, zucchinis …And pumpkins – orange warning  sign that Autumn is waiting just behind the corner.

Tagliatelle with Pumpkin

500 g pumpkin
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250 ml vegetable stock
150 ml heavy cream
4 tablespoon pumpkin seeds (preferably grilled on dry pan)
pinch of ground nutmeg
salt and freshly grated pepper pepper
some fresh parsley, chopped and Parmesan or blue cheese to serve

Peel pumpkin and cut its flesh into 1 cm cubes. Heat olive oil on pan, add chopped onion and frizzle till glossy. Add garlic (beware! garlic fries very quickly and is terribly bitter when brown) and after minute or two – chopped pumpkin. Frizzle for 2-3 minutes, add spices and half of the stock. Cover and frizzle for 10-12 minutes.
Meanwhile boil water in big pot, add some salt and pasta. Cook according to instructions on the package.
When pumpkin will be ready and tender, turn the heat off and add cream. Stir, so the juices from the vegetable and cream combine. Drain pasta and put into warmed bowl. Pour with pumpkins and top with some parsley, pumpkin seeds and cheese of your choice.

Slow Box in its whole Beauty

More on our Slow Boxes you can read in this article written by Agnieszka.

Zucchinis from Majlert's Farm

Zucchini is one of most wonderful vegetables. Well, of course, all are wonderful (especially if you get them from food-lovin’ people), but zucchini is an invitation to cooking experiments. You can do so much with it, really. You can stuff it, grill it, pure it and transform into creamy soup, saute it with some garlic and herbs and sprinkle with parmigiano, slice and put on savory tart or pizza, shred and add to some pancakes or mix with agg and do some fritters or…a bread. Easy-peasy one, with corn flour and buttermilk. Very summer-ish, very garden-ish. Very good.

Ingredients:

1 small (30 cm, thin) zucchini, shredded and drained from additional juice (you’ll have ca. 1 cup of it)
1 cup flour
1 cup corn flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large egg (or 2 small ones)
pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds to sprinkle

Zucchini Cornbread

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease baking form (25 cm-long one would be perfect). In a bowl mix flours, baking powder, salt. In a separate smaller bowl mix buttermilk, egg and olive oil. Add to dry ingredients, mix well and add zucchini. Mix and pour into baking form, spread evenly and sprinkle with some seeds or nuts. Bake for 25-30 minutes. When baked, take out and leave for 10-15 minutes on wrack to cool down.
Eat warm with some garlic butter or goat milk fromage.

Slow Box

For some time now I wanted to write You about a project we have run among group of food lovin’ friends and friends of the friends. It is called “slow box” , after “Slow Food” and “Box” words. The Green boxes or Organic boxes are well known in UK, US and Australia. In Poland, sadly no, especially that we hardly have any farm markets where you can buy fresh fruit and vegetable directly from the farmer who grown them. So, after one of our Slow Food Warsaw meeting we have decided to organize our own “slow box” action, so people interested could count on regular deliveries of fresh greens. Our vegetables came from the fram of Jola and Ludwik Majert , wonderful people full of  happiness, passion and knowledge of what they are doing. Each week on Thursday each participant could count on a big box full of …and this was the best part, as no-one knew what will be in particular week’s menu. So you could find arugula or fava beans or fennel or yellow beans or small zucchinis or zucchinis flower…Each time something different yet something great.

This couldn’t have happened without people who have joined the action and were keen on trying something new (in way of buying and eating;-), without Jola and Ludwik and Agnieszka and Piotr, who have allow us to use cold room in one of their places.

In this week’s issue of “Wysokie Obcasy”  you can find an article written by Agnieszka Kręglicka about our action.

Here’s the full article.

baby zucchinis

You can envy me, really. At least on each Thursday when I receive box full of nice greens and vegetables. Today in my green box I have found baby zucchinis, pak-chois, young corn, fava beans, endive and arugula, oakleaf salad…oh, they are so beautiful that You an just see and watch them. But far better is to eat them! Here’s some easy-peasy salad made from barley groats and grilled zucchinis. It’s totally no-fuss dish, perfect for  airless summer day.

You will need:

1/2 kg baby zucchinis
1/2 red onion
2 tablspoons of parsley, finely chopped,
1 tablespoon of mint leaf, finely chopped
sea salt, freshly ground pepper (I prefer red one here)
jouice from 1/2 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
100 g of barley groats
parmiggiano or pecorino – to serve

Boil slated water in medium-sized pan and add barley groats. Cook for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile slice zucchinis for 0,5 cm slices and transfer into bowl. Pour with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, add salt and pepper and mix, so all slices would be covered with marinate.
Grill zucchinis under the grill in the oven (5-7 min on maximum power) or on the grilling pan, till golden brown. Chop onion on small pieces
When groats are ready, drain them and transfer into a big bowl, leave to cool. When groats will be cold, add zucchinis, onion, herbs and pour some olive oil. Mix well, but be carefull not to tear the zucchinis. Serve worth some slices of parmiggiano or pecorino on top.

Baby zucchinis and barley groats salad

What’s Slow Food? Slow Food is all about food which is good, clean and fair. Food which taste great and was made with passion and heart. In Poland we have four regional SF conviviums: in Kraków, Lódź, Poznań and Warsaw. Last Saturday (16th of May) I’ve attened the meeting of the Warsaw convivum which was dedicated to early greens (nowalijki in Polish): asparagus, salads, starwebberis, herbs, radishes etc. Each meeting of Warsaw SF consists of two parts. First is the lecture held by some expert. This time our sepcial guest was dr Ewelina Hallmann form the Warsaw Agriculture University. The second part is feast. Despite the rain and cold weather that Saturday was great – inspiring, tasty and educational. Looking forward to join the next meeting.

To find out more about the meeting click here.