Only Amazing Recipes

Amazing gluten-free, low GI, completely guilt-free and simply delicious and healthy food!


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POWER UP PORKERS!!!


Last days of Febrarch. Febrapril is just round the corner. Feels like just the time for something warm and filling…comfort food – as the British call it. In most of the cases comfort food would be a dish that contains either potatoes or dough. This is because carbohydrates give us this “comfort” feeling. Great! But they also help us to gain a few extra kgs. As we don’t want that, we have to choose carbohydrates carefully and go only for those that have a low GI. They perfectly go with meat, fish or cheese and we totally avoid those harmful consequences we have to face if we eat potatoes or white flour dishes.
lentils
I found this dish in the Man’s Health magazine and since then it has become a frequent guest on our table. This dish is VERY tasty, nourishing and healthy!
Ingredients:
  • 2 tbdp olive oil
  • 6-8 good pork sausages
  • 1 carrot finely diced
  • 2 sticks celerey
  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 250 gr puy lentils (please use the one small and dark green)
  • 150 ml chicken stock
  • 150 ml red wine
  • 1 spring rosemary
  • salt and ground black pepper
  • a can (or more) of chopped tomatoes
Preparation:
 Unless the package says otherwise, soak the lentils in the water for 2 hours or overnight.  
1. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the sausages until browned, then remove and set aside
2. Add the rest of the olive oil to the pan. Cook the onion, garlic, carrot and celerey for 5-10 min, until lightly coloured.
3. Return the sausages to the pan along with the stock, wine, rosemary and lentils. (Feel free to sip the wine while cooking – it will inspire you and bring you in a great mood! But not overdo it!! ;-)
OK, HERE WATCH OUT IF YOUR LENTILS IS LONG-COOKING OR SLOW COOKING. IF IT IS A LONG COOKING, PLEASE PUT THE SAUSAGES BACK INTO THE PAN LATER  OTHERWISE THEY WILL BE COOKED FOR TOO LONG  AND FALL APART.
4. Add a can of chopped tomatoes.
5.  Bring to boil then simmer for from 40 minutes to 1 hour (it depends on the type of your lentils) until the lentils has softened. check the sausages are well cooked and remove rosemary before serving ;-)
LOW GI Complex carb (like lentils) and fiber are key to keeping the blood sugar levels stable, so combining lentils with meat means you wont be craving for a cheesecake later!
Buon Appetito!!
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Lemon Cheesecake with Mascarpone


Lemon cheesecake with mascarpone 2

I suddenly realised I have probably 10 or 15 desserts recipes on my blog and only one salad! Ouuch! Does it mean I don’t eat salads? It just means I eat very simple salads: mixed salad leaves + tomatoes +  olive oil + balsamic vinegar = amazing! :) Promise to take a picture next time! ;-) And now – another cake!

I keep exploring a weird and wonderful world of cheesecakes. Here is another amazing recipe which is now on the first place in my rating of (two) cheesecakes I’ve made so far! :)

This recipe is for the 25 cm. baking tin. Use a lose base tin.

For crust

  • 2/3 cup ground almonds
  • 2/3 cup flaxseeds
  • 3 tablespoons fruit sugar
  • 40 gr. unsalted butter, melted

For filling

  • 20 oz cream cheese, softened (I use Philadelphia cheese)
  • 8 oz mascarpone cheese at room temperature (about 1 cup)
  • 3/4 cup fruit sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

For the crust: Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.
Butter bottom and side of a 25 cm springform pan.Blend ground almonds, flaxseeds and sugar in a food processor. Add the butter and process until moist crumbs form. Press the almond mixture onto the bottom of the prepared pan (not on the sides of the pan). Bake the crust until it is set and beginning to brown, about 12 minutes. Cool. Decrease the oven temperature to 170 degrees C.

Make filling while crust bakes:

  • Beat cream cheese, mascarpone, and fruit sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium high speed until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
  • Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
  • Add vanilla, lemon juice, and salt and mix at low speed until combined.
  • Pour into cooled crust and bake until cake is set and puffed around edge but still trembles slightly when pan is shaken gently, about 40 min until golden. Turn the oven off and stand the cake in the oven for 20 min, leaving the door closed. Cool at a room temperature for 1,5 hours, then keep in a fridge. Try to wait for 8 hours before serving the cake. It will continue to set as it cools.

Sprinkle top with grated lemon zest! Welcome to heaven! ;-)


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Light & Lazy Apple and Almond Pie


I came across this easy-peasy, “no flour” wonderful recipe and thought,” This can be a perfect breakfast!”. I made a mental ingredients check list and  realised I had all of them at hand… As they say “You are attractive, I am remarkably attractive…WHY NOT TO…?!”

This is the result of my labour

 

Ingredients:

For a baking tin up to 22 cm

  • Apples (approx. 3 or more)
  • almond flakes
  • 1 egg
  • 50 gr. almond flour
  • 50 gr of fruit sugar (or sugar, if you dont mind)
  • cinnamon
  • cognac, brandy or liqueur (a few drops :)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Beat the egg with sugar to soft peaks. Add almond flour. Mix. Put the dough in the baking tin, previously greased.

Peal the apples and slice them – make the slices as thin as possible. Put a layer of apples slice on the dough, along with almond flakes ( I used quite a lot of flakes, almost as many as apple slices). Sprinkle the layer with “sugar powder” (I make it in the coffee grinder)  or sugar and with a few drops of cognac. I didnt have cognac in the house and used brandy. Start the next layer. You must have at least 3 layers.

Finish with the final layer of almond flakes, sprinkled with “sugar powder” and alcohol (it helps sugar to caramelise).

Bake until the pie becomes golden.Sprinkle with cinnamon before serving.

Voila!

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Lemon cheesecake


To get from good to great first you have to get from bad to good. So they say. I dont think I ever got to “great”. Usually I am skidding somewhere between bad and not that bad… But this time, I think, I jumped literally from nothing straight to great!

I had never made a cheesecake. They always seemed to me so mysterious, beyond my understanding and definitely abilities. Because I never made them, I also hardly ever eaten them – as a consequence. I avoid flour and sugar and of course the cheesecakes you buy in a shop or order in a restaurant are full of this stuff!

Having had a great experience with Masterchef recipes, I decided to try and adopt one of them according to my Low GI needs.

Lets see how it went!

Ingredients:

Base:
1/3 cup ground almonds (almond meal)
3/4 cup plain flour (in the original recipe. Instead of plain flour I used a mix of soya flour, chickpeas flour and organic milled Flaxseed)
1/4 cup caster sugar (in the original recipe. I used fruit sugar)
90g chilled butter, chopped

Filling:
330g cream cheese, softened
500g fresh ricotta
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups caster sugar (fruit sugar in my case)
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour
11/2 tablespoons water

Strawberries and raspberries, to decorate

1. Preheat oven to 150 C.

2. To make the base, place the ground almonds, flour, sugar and butter into a bowl. Rub mixture with your fingertips until it forms coarse crumbs.

3 Line the base of a 20cm spring form tin with non-stick baking paper. Place the base mixture in the tin and press gently with fingers until even and then smooth out with the back of a spoon. Bake for 15 minutes or until light golden, set aside.

4 To make the filling, place the cream cheese, ricotta, eggs, sugar, lemon rind, juice and vanilla in a food processor. Combine the cornflour and water until smooth and add to the cheese mixture. Process the mixture until smooth.

5 Grease the sides of the cake tin with a little butter and then pour the filling over the base. Tap lightly to remove any air bubbles. Bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off and stand the cake in the oven for 1 hour, leaving the door closed. Refrigerate until cold and serve with fresh berries.

Tip: if you baking tin is more than 20 cm (e.g. mine is 25 cm), cook the cake 10 min less to avoid “cracking”.

Everything worked fantastic! It turned out to be an absolutely perfect cheesecake you get from M&S, only mine is sugar free, gluten free and also has a low glycemic index:)

It was a tiny bit too sweet – the only thing I’d change! But you can live with it, cant you? :)

Thanks go to Donna Hay, MasterChef Australia judge and a cook book writer. 


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Very Chocolate Cake



I know. I know. You are going to say: “Chocolate cake?! Good grief! Not again!”

Sorry mates. Cant help it! I religiously believe in chocolate cakes. One of the best human inventions, they are good for your mind, and MY cakes are also great for your body! :)

Please welcome the 4th chocolate cake in my bespoke chocollection :) :

Flourless and Flawless Very Chocolate Cake.

Ingredients:

For dough

  • 6 eggs
  • 150 g of caster sugar or fructose (if you, like me, want a low GI cake)
  • 50g cocoa powder

For cream

  • 200 g double cream
  • 250 g dark chocolate 70%
  • *Cointreau liqueur

For syrup

  • caster sugar or fruit sugar
  • *Cointreau liqueur
  • water

*If you dont have a liqueur, you cant still make it but the cake just wont have this “orange&alco kick”.

Now put on your sexy kitchen outfit and start!

Preheat the oven 180 degrees.

1) Separate egg yolks from whites

2) Beat egg yolks with half of your sugar (or fruit sugar) till white and thick

3) Beat egg whites with another half of sugar (or fruit sugar) t0 soft peaks

4) Add cocoa powder and a table spoon of whites to the yolks, mix carefully. Then add the rest of the whites  - fold them in carefully with a wooden or silicon spatula.

5) Divide your mix into 2, place in two 25 cm baking tins and put in the oven preheated at 180 degrees.

6) Bake for 25 min.

While the cake is in the oven, prepare the cream. We are going to make a ganache.

1) Break the chocolate into small pieces and place into a medium bowl.

2) Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Almost bring to a boil and switch off the moment it is about to start boiling.

3) Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate, and mix gently until smooth.

4) Stir in the 3-4 tb spoons of liqueur.Done here.

Syrup:

Mix  sugar, a touch of liqueur and warm water (so that sugar could dissolve).

Get your cake out of the oven (if you havent done it yet. It must stay there only for 25 min, remember) and cool down. Soak both parts both your syrup and cover each with still warm ganache.

Done. You can serve the cake straight away. It will be very “chololaty” and creamy! But my advice it to put it in the fridge for about 4 hours (better overnight). It will have this thick crunchy and cool top – like you usually see in the chocolate bar TV commercials!

It is not a commercial. It was YOU who’s made THIS! :) Enjoy!

P.S. Another great thing about this cake. The description looks quite long but it will take you only about 40 min to make this cake from scratch – great INIT?!

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And again Amazing Orange & Almond cake


If you’ve fallen in love with citrus desserts, it’s for ever. Even reading orange or lemon recipe, make my mouth water and my hands becomes itchy – I wanna make it!!!!

I adore my Orange & Almond cake. When you make it, you start believing that Impossible is Nothing and what a pleasure to see how happy this cake makes your friends – mmmmm I cant tell you!:) I am very loyal to this recipe but when I saw an Orange & Almond cake recipe from Masterchef judge, Michel Roux I was immediately tempted to try! The recipe and my feedback happy to share with you now!
Ingredients:
For the cake:
  • 50g plain flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 250g ground almonds
  • 250g unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1tbsp grated zest of orange (you can make it the same way as a lemon one here)
  • 4 free-range eggs

For syrup:

If your baking tin is 20 cm or less:

If your tin is more than 20 cm (for example mine is 25 cm), use 100 ml of juice and 80 g of sugar

For decoration: 
Either:

  • 1tbsp marmalade
  • Handful of sliced almonds, toasted

Or:

  • Caramelised orange peel

Preparation: 

  1. Butter a round cake tin, approximately 20cm wide. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
  2. Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar, and add the ground almonds. Whisk the butter (room temperature) with the orange zest until pale, then add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the dry ingredients with a spoon. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 45 mins if your baking tin is 20 cm or smaller.Bake for 40 min., if your tin is more, than 20 cm. E.g. mine is 25 cm).
  3. Meanwhile make a syrup by boiling the orange juice with the brown sugar. I recommend using real_brown_sugar, like this. When you see that the syrup is beginning to thicken, turn off the fire and leave to cool – it will become thicker while cooling. It should be quite dark and thick, a bit like caramel.
  4. Once the cake is cooked, prick several times with a skewer to the base and pour on the cooled syrup. Leave the cake to cool completely.
  5. For decoration (choose one or more:)
    1) Brush on a little warmed marmalade and sprinkle it with a few toasted, sliced almonds.
    2) Simply use more syrup and it will make the cake’s top cameralised. Decorate with cameralised orange peel.
    3) Served with orange segments marinated in a generous splash of whisky and a little demerara sugar.

This time I didnt cameralise the skin in a traditional way but simply threw a few slices of peel in the syrup while cooking it :)

 

Ok, you probably now what my feedback, right? ;-)

Lets put it this way, if I had to pay £6 for a slice of this cake in the restaurant, I would think I got a bargain! It deserves to be on the best restaurant menu – no question about that! It is moist, rich and grainy. Butter makes it very rich a obviously it is by no means “low calorie” but it is a real treat. You will remember this taste and…your guests will never forget you! :)


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Himalayan Pink Salt


I am Russian. I live in Britain. My husband is Italian. My friends are from all over the world. Hmm… how does this work? Mixture of traditions, cultures, habits etc, etc. Lots of cooking and eating habits as well. I am looking for a balance in all this melting pot and find MY way, the way that is good for ME. It has taken me many years to find it and I am happy about the result at the moment. One of the ingredients of my lifestyle is That Secret Ingredient :)

There are loads of “diet improvement” programmes on British TV. I like some of them, when they educate people to cook from scratch instead of stuffing their faces with the supermarkets’ ready-made meals. But most of the time they piss me off, when they just telling people to cut calories. Booooohhhhh….   Its not gonna help anyone, Do You Understand??? People would be just starving themselves until that celebration, beach holidays, meeting or whatever. And then they simply go back to their chips, pizzas, burgers etc because they are just were constantly hungry and were not learning any new habits!

In this blog I am sharing loads of things that can help you get new habits, that will allow you live happier and healthier lives, full of good energy.

One of my recent discoveries is Himalayan salt. Using it is now my new wonderful habit. I learned about it from Claudia, who is vegan and knows loads about healthy ingredients. (By the way, it was her to told me about that wonderful Raw Strawberry Cheesecake.)  So, what is Himalayan salt and why it is better than usual salt or even sea salt?

Himalayan salt is millions of years old and pure, untouched by many of the toxins and pollutants that pervade other forms of ocean salt (have you ever thought that sea salt is actually coming from the sea? And seas are not the cleanest places these days!)

Theres is a lot of information about this salt on the Internet. The following salt’s qualities easily persuaded me to start using it:

  • HS controls the water levels within the body, regulating them for proper functioning (meaning you body wont keep the water you really dont need)
  • Promoting stable pH balance in the cells, including the brain.
  • Encourages excellent blood sugar health
  • Aiding in reducing the common signs of aging
  • Promoting cellular hydroelectric energy creation
  • Promoting the increased absorption capacities of food elements within the intestinal tract
  • Aiding vascular health
  • Reducing muscle cramps
  • Increasing bone strength
  • Naturally promoting healthy sleep patterns
  • Creating a healthy libido
  • In combination with water, it is necessary for blood pressure regulation
  • Prevents cellulite, when compared to table salt
  • Reduces chances of developing rheumatism, arthritis and gout, when compared to common chemically-treated salt
  • Reduces chances of developing kidney and gall bladder stones when compared to common chemically-treated salt

If all these qualities above are not that important to you, please carry on using table salt! :) If you would like to get a new habit and help your  body  get rid of any extra water easy – start using this wonderful pink salt!

Can be bought in health shops.

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