The Clumsy Cook

Unless you are Romanian, chances are you have no idea what mucenici are . And it's not even something all Romanians know and/or eat!  Basically, every March 9th, we are celebrating the Forty Martyrs , and the way we do it is by eating 8-shaped pasta in a sugary soup with crushed walnuts on top. Oh, and the men drink 40 glasses of țuică (traditional Romanian spirit) . In the Moldova region of the country (not the country Moldova, although they celebrate this too as far as I know) they have a dough pastry shaped like an 8, brushed with honey and topped with walnuts. But in Muntenia (the region where I am originally from), we make this sweet soup. The other regions of the country may or may not celebrate - actually, most people I asked in my current city, Cluj-Napoca (located in Transylvania as region), are not familiar with any of the mucenici . I was not a big fan of mucenici growing up. But for some reason this year I decided to try to make them - and surprise, surprise, I love t

Mashed potatoes is one of my favourite foods in the world - when I was a child it was my absolute favourite, especially with a sunny side-up egg with a runny yolk on top. But now I am a responsible adult and sometimes - but only sometimes - I want my mashed potatoes to have a higher nutritional value, which is when I add a lot of carrots and whatever other root veggies I have in the house. Ingredients: 4 potatoes 2 parsnips 2 carrots a bit of butter salt & pepper Quantities and root veggies can be adapted depending of what's in the fridge. Method: Peel, wash, chop veggies.  Put in a pot with cold water and salt, bring to boil, simmer until veggies are tender. If the parsnips get done faster just fish them out (they float anyway so it won't be hard). Mash the veggies with a potato masher. Add a bit of butter and adjust the seasoning. Mash them as much as you want it. Usually I make mine somewhat clumpy.  I especially like the root veggie mash with heartier dishes like coq

 No surprise here, but I love Julia Child. The first recipe I tried from her famous cookbook ( Mastering the Art of French Cooking vol 1 ) was this amazing leek and potato soup. I did not have high expectation, it's only three ingredients, very simple to make, but it instantly became a house favourite. It's a good soup, especially when you serve it with grated cheddar cheese and bacon bits. Yum! Unfortunately I do not have a better picture, which only shows how much we love this soup! Without further ado, here's how I make this simple soup. Ingredients (6 servings): 500g potatoes 500g leeks (sometimes we add less leeks but it tastes amazing anyway) 1.5L water salt bacon bits (optional) Cheddar cheese (optional) Method: Peal, wash and dice the potatoes. Clean and wash the leeks and remove the dry green parts. Slice the leeks too. If you do not have leeks you can also use onions, or do half leeks half onions .  Put the veggies in a pot with 1.5L of water and salt. Bring to b

 Actually... that is not the title. The author of this cake, Dorie Greenspan, misread the word tigré (which is a mini-sponge cake speckled with chocolate, topped with a dollop of chocolate cream - something like this ) as tiger and has pronounced that cake as tiger ever since. I did the other way around and after reading her story I mispronounced her recipe title (Chocolate and Almond Tiger Cake) as Tigré so... so now the name stays, okay? Greenspan based this cake on financiers, which is a French cake made especially for stockbroker clients - so they can eat it on the go. Hence why I call my cake financier even though it is not the same shape as a financier. But since this blog is only for yours truly, I will name the recipes in my recipe index (this is what this blog is after all) with the names I use.  This is a perfect coffee cake - they go so well together. Silly me took no picture from the side so that you can see the chocolate-speckles, so you will have to take my word for it. M

I like French cooking. I also like Julia Child. So when I saw that Melissa Clark has a series on New York Times Cooking about " The New Essentials of French Cooking ", I decided to cook them all! Now being the foodie nerd that I am, I also looked up Julia Child's recipes for Coq au Vin , and I ended up somehow combining the two recipes.  Julia has a recipe for any kind of wine you want to use for your chicken ( Coq au Riesling is probably next on my list), but I went with a burgundy red because 1) it was the only red wine I had in the house and 2) I wanted the deep flavours of a red wine infused in my chicken. Apparently people have been braising chicken in wine since Ancient Rome ( it's on wikipedia, Julius Caesar knew of this recipe !). and now it's finally my time to do it too. This recipe will definitely become an essential in our house too, especially if I'll get some red wine and not know what to make with it (usually a glass or two of wine is my limit.

Difford's Guide released earlier this year their Top 100 Cocktails (based on views on their website) and I decided to make them. Or at least some of them. Not in any particular order, because I won't buy all the new booze I need at once, but hopefully this year (or so) I will make all 100. And we are starting with number 100 (even though I said no particular order): Lynchburg Lemonade Usually served in a collins glass, it works perfectly well served in its smaller cousin - the highball glass, too. I won't buy all shapes and sizes of glasses just for my cocktails. Not because I don't want to, but because I do not have where to store them.  This one it's really easy to make and from what I read it was created for the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg. And guess who just got some Jack from Santa last Christmas? That is actually why I decided to start with the Lynchburg Lemonade. That and also because I wanted something light and easy to drink. Ingredients (1 s