Quinoa, carrot and mozzarella fritters

It took me a while to get on the quinoa bandwagon (I don’t really know why), but after I did I started making fritters with it quite often: with a salad they become a delicious and light lunch or dinner.

Here I have combined quinoa with other tasty ingredients such as carrots, mozzarella and olives – their saltiness goes really well with the sweetness of the carrots and the mozzarella. However

Pasta with onion and tomato sauce and the change in my cooking habits

I was talking to my husband the other day about how my cooking and baking have changed in the past year or so: I don’t bake as much anymore (lack of time + my lactose intolerance) and I also don’t test so many new recipes as I used to. Sometimes I flip through my books and magazines and the photos make me drool, however, I have been feeling the need of eating dishes I am familiar with.

I keep

Vegetable tagine and some planning in the kitchen

There are times when work is pretty intense (like last week, for instance), and something I have been doing for those times is to have ready or almost ready meals in the fridge or freezer – it makes a huge difference. Planning is, indeed, everything.

Meatballs, tomato sauce, pesto sauce, soups, beef stews – these have been my usual suspects lately. Now I will add one more dish to my list:

Red onion tarte tatin with rye pastry

I was never a pie/tart maker (one look at the blog index can confirm that), but I do love pies and tarts: I just don’t have much time for them, I guess. Two things that have helped me with this matter is making the pastry in one day and assembling and baking the pie on the other, or keeping an extra batch of pastry in the freezer – nothing like having the pastry ready when you find beautiful

Hasselback baby eggplants

If you have been reading me for a while now you probably know that I am a huge fan of Nigella Lawson – I was lucky enough to meet her a few years ago and got one of my books autographed. She is the one who, ages ago, introduced me to Hasselback potatoes, a recipe I find not only delicious but also really pretty.

When I was still working on the book project, I thought one day: “why not

Roasted tomato and red lentil soup and freezing feet

I believe that one of the reasons why my love for the winter has considerably decreased is the fact that at least here in Sao Paulo we are not actually prepared for cold temperatures: there is no heat inside most of houses and apartments, stores and restaurants – one suffers with the cold both outside and inside. Taking a shower is a nightmare, getting dressed another one. :S

As I type this