Baked chickpea crisp

Ingredients:
- 1 can of chickpeas (400 g)
- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- chili powder (as you like it)
- salt (as you like it)

How to prepare:
Heat the oven to 200 Celsius. Pour the water off the chickpeas then mix the chickpeas with the olive oil, the soy sauce, the chili powder and the salt. 
Cover a baking tray with a piece of baking paper, pour the seasoned chickpeas in, shake the tray a bit and put it into the oven. After 20 mins take it out, shake it again and put it back for another 20 mins.
The time of baking usually depends on the oven, so it is advisable to taste it after 40 minutes of baking and try it again in another 10 minutes if you think it is not good enough. 

Tip:
It is the best to be eaten hot. If you don't like chili you can mix a masticated piece of garlic into the olive oil and use this as seasoning instead of chili.


Difficulty: easy
Time: 40-60 mins
Portion: 2
Washing-up: little

Pizza for Halloween

Ingredients:
- 1 pizza base (I used a small one, but you can use a bigger one, you just need more olives and mozzarella)
- 1 mozzarella
- 2+1 black olives (1/spider)

How to prepare:
Put the pizza on a baking pan. Take the mozzarella out from its liquid and cut two pieces of approximately 1 centimetre wide slices. Put one slice onto the pizza, cut the other one in half and put the two pieces to the two sides of the first slice to form a ghost.

For the spiders half an olive. Put one half onto the pizza and cut along the other half to 8 thin slices. Place these thin slices next to the big olive on the pizza; 4-4 to both sides. You can even use a third olive to cut a little head to the spiders' body.
You can make as many spiders and ghosts as you want as long as there is place on your pizza.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees and bake the pizza for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes take it out and cut little pieces from the third olive to form eyes and mouths to the ghosts and arrange them accordingly.

Tip:
You can also use green olives to make green bugs. 


Difficulty: medium
Time: 40 minutes
Portion: 4
Washing-up: little

Home made bread

Making a home made bread is not as difficult as you may think. It just takes time...a lot of time...but every minute is worth it!

Ingredients:
- 900 gramms flour (either plain or self raising)
- 25 gramms fresh yeast
- 100+500 ml of warm water
- 2 teaspoon of salt
- 4 teaspoons of sugar
- 1 egg

How to prepare:
Take a big bowl and measure 900 gramms flour into the bowl. Add the 2 teaspoons of salt and the 4 teaspoons of sugar and mix them.
Measure 100 ml of warm water and grind the 25 gramms yeast into the water. If it is done stir the water and the yeast and pour it to the flour-salt-sugar mix. Additionally pour 500 ml of warm water to the bowl and start to mix the ingredients starting it from the very edge of the bowl in a concentric way. If it is stiff add some more flour. It takes 5-10 minutes to knead it. It is ready if it "lets" me to form a "ball".

If it's ready cover the bowl with a textile and put it into a plaid and make sure it covers the bowl everywhere. The aim is to keep the dough warm. Leave it to have a rest for 2 hours.

After 2 hours separate the dough from the bowl with the same way as before: start it at the bowl and going in concentric way work the gases out from the dough. After this the dough looks like this:

Cover the dough again with the textile and put it back into the plaid, making sure again it keeps the dough warm. At this time it gets only 1 hour of rest.
After 55 minutes put a big oven pan into the oven to 100 degrees to make it warm.
When you meet the dough next time it looks like this:

Get rid of the gas the same way as before. Take the baking pan out of the oven and replace the dough onto the baking pan. Try to form a bread. (Not toast bread but traditional, "bread bread" form). 
If the bread form is made cover it again with the textile and the plaid for another 30 minutes.

After 20 minutes turn the oven to 180 degrees and prepare a sharp knife. Crack an egg into a little bowl and mix the egg.
After the 30 minutes resting time has gone take the bread and cut three straight lines into the surface of the bread with the knife. You can make it easier by holding the dough not to move while you are cutting. If it is done spread the egg onto the bread. 
During this process the bread does not stop getting bigger:

If cutting and spreading the egg is done push the bread into the oven (which has been turned to 180 degrees previously) and bake it for 50 minutes.
After 50 minutes take it out from the oven and put the bread onto the grill of the oven or onto a grate to let it evaporate. (I used my parrot's cage attachment that has never been used by him).

The bread can be kept in a bag or wrapped into in cling film because these do not collect the rest of the wet from the bread. It can be kept for 4-5 days, it does not become crumby. 

Tip:
After you spread the bread with the egg and before you push it into the oven you can sprinkle your bread with some linseeds, sesame seeds or sunflower seeds.


Difficulty: medium
Time: approx. 5 hours (the real time you work with it is 30 minutes)
Portion: 1,5 kg bread
Washing-up: little

Eating Out: The Kingsbridge Inn - Bourton on the Water

I had a lovely trip around Cotswolds. We visited tiny villages that showed me an other, different lifestyle.

We stopped for a late lunch in a village called Bourton on the Water. Restaurants go along the little canal and all of them are so attractive; it wasn't easy to make a decision about which one we should choose. At the end The Kingsbridge Inn was the winner because they have draft Hobgoblin, which was very important for someone in the group.
The inn was quite busy, we had to wait a lot to order our food, but we received it surprisingly quickly.

One dish was "red bean, smoked paprika and hot pepper burger". It was a bit hotter as I expected but it was not a problem. I loved the french fries they were so fresh and warm, it felt really good.

The grilled chicken and bacon salad was good indeed. It was served with garlic ciabatta, it was fresh and warm as well. With the salad that it was served with the dish was light but filling. 

For the latest food the original plan was to order fish and chips, but it was out of stock, so another dish had to be ordered, called "10oz Gammon Steak".
It was also delicious, french fries were amazing again and that piece of pineapple made a good harmony with the steak.

Overall it was not a typical elegant restaurant, just a kind of pub, but food was really good for the tired traveller. 


Food: 5/5
Price: Medium
Would I go again: yes

Gastrobook: Coca-cola - The cookbook

First time I saw the book I didn’t know whether I was excited or sick. You know, it is not usual to use a sweet, bubbly drink for meals. Even if it happens, writing a whole cookbook is definitely unusual; this is why I had to take a look at it.

The book includes 128 pages all together but recipes themselves start on page 70. The book starts with the history of coke: the idea, the glass, the coke itself. Beside the text numerous pictures and advertisements can be found, which guide us through the success of coke.

Recipes can be found in four categories, although not equally. You can find meals that are prepared with coke, such as soups, main courses, desserts and drinks.

The book has a great advantage: you can find a table under each recipe that lists the calories, sugars, fat, saturated fat and salt that can be found in each food.

If you ask me, in some meals coke could work, such as in “french onion soup” or “thick barbecue sauce” might be more delicious with coke too, I wouldn’t think it makes the meals worse. However, I don’t know how 250 ml of coke works in the “Italian minestrone soup”.

I’ve got the same problem with the “mixed bean chili”: I don’t know whether the sweet taste of coke could make it any better.

The cookbook includes quite a lot of meals that contain meat and coke together, not just different types of sauces, but “Coca-cola marinated steak” and “salmon with noodles”.

An interesting point is that the book does not use regular coke only, but light and zero coke as well. I wonder if it really matters what type of coke you use or all three types are advised to not to make the meals monotonic.

I don’t think that coke is the product of the devil himself and I am crazy enough to give a try for some of the recipes found in the book, but it is not the peak of gastronomy to use coke as an ingredient. Or maybe I’m wrong? Let’s try and see!

Apple soup with lavender

Ingredients:
- 6 red apples
- 300 ml single cream
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavour
- 500 ml apple juice
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- a dash of ground cinnamon
- 5 blades of dried lavender
- 30 gramms butter
- few drops of lemon juice

How to prepare:
Wash the apples, peel them, cut them in half and get rid of the cores and cut the fruit to small pieces. Put the pot onto the heat, add the 30 gramms of butter and the 2 tablespoons of honey and melt them. If they are molten keep a fistful of apples and add the rest of the fruit to the pot and stir them on the heat for 3-5 minutes. Meanwhile cover the apples that you've put away and drop some lemon juice to prevent them from getting brown. 
After 3-5 minutes pour the apple juice and the cream into the pot and also add 3 blades of lavender. Cover it and cook on low heat for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes get the lavenders off and make the soup creamy with a hand blender. Pour it through a colander  to make sure the soup is really creamy. Flavour it with the cinnamon and the vanilla, put it back to the heat and add the rest of the apples and cook for about another 5 minutes.
When it is served decorate it with the other two blades of lavender. Serve it either hot or cold.

Tip:
You can use 3 red and 3 green apples instead of 6 red ones as green apples have a bit of sour flavour which could make your soup better.


Difficulty: easy
Time: 40 minutes
Portion: 4 plates
Washing-up: little

Biscuits with sundried tomatoes

Ingredients:
- 150 gramms flour
- 75 gramms butter 
- half a teaspoon salt
- 1 branch of rosemary
- 8 pieces of sundried tomatoes (from oil)

How to prepare:
Drizzle the flour and the salt into a bowl than add the butter in small pieces. Chop the rosemary leaves and the tomatoes and add them to the flour and butter. Knead the dough, make sure the butter disappears.
Shape the dough into a roll and pack it into a cling film.

Put the roll into the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Turn the oven to 180 Celsius. While the oven is getting hot unpack the dough and cut to 5-6 mm wide slices.
Cut some baking paper on a wide baking pan and lay the slices on the paper.

Push the baking pan to the middle level of the oven and bake the biscuits for 10 minutes.

Tip:
You can also add some ground pepper to make your biscuits more spicy.


Difficulty: easy
Time: 25 minutes
Portion: 22-24 biscuits
Washing-up: little