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Honey Eggplant and chickpea salad with grilled halloumi

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Sounds like a lot and it is. So many flavors, so much goodness but still so simple and quick. Leave the boring salads behind and start making those next level ones. Salads have never tasted that good! 

Sunmer ist getting closer and closer, which means many people try to live and eat healthier. And whats the stereotype thing to do in order to eat healthiet? Salads! But contrary to commin believes, the plain ones only containing leaves and a dressing, maybe a piece of chicken, are bot the healthiest ones! 

Why are conventional salads not necessarily healthy?

Because they will fill you up for an hour maximum and wont leave you satisfied! Whats the problem with that? If you are not filled and satisfied for long, you will start to get hungry again very soon and snack or binge eat on unhealthy things as you will develop cravings for that. In order to bot develop these, it is important to have a filling, nutritious and delicious meal. And I know that this can be difficult with salads but believe me, this one is everything else than boring. 

Whats in it?

You bake the chickpeas and eggplant in the oven, with a slight olive oil and honey drizzle to get them crispy and a bit sweet. Honestly, life changing! If you habe never done chickpeas or eggplant with honey, I‘d say you should head straight to the kitchen and get started! And its so simple! You place the main components of the salad in the oven for 20 minutes and you are already half way there. 

The most extra dressing

The remaining base of the salad is some basic spinach. Bot a lot, just to add some color and vitamins! But whats a salad without a dressing? My brother would say rabbit food! And he is right. It is boring and plain. I do not get those people who skip on salad dressings because they literally are the easiest thing ever and add a ton of flavor. Honestly, don‘t skip on that. In here we have a super extra, still super simple dressing. 3 ingredients (!!) so much flavor! The ingredients are purred tomatoes (the ones from the can or box), Tahini and lemon juice. I do not know why I have never thought of making dressing with tomato sauce before but it is good. I wouldn‘t do it with a green side salad but on top of buddha bowls or italian inspired ones or ones that are pretty extra, as this one, this is so good! Highly recommended!

The star of the show

Last but definitely not least, the grilled halloumni. I have never had halloumni up till a few months ago and from then on it is a must in my diet! So addictingly good. On salads, on bowls, on pasta, on everything. It really adds this last pinch of salt to anything. Like here. It adds the extra wow, the saltiness and satisfying touch. We essentially only need to grill it for a few minutes on each side and thats it! Assemble! You can serve it with some bread, although I believe that this is not necessary because it is amazing and filling as is! 

You can meal prep it, just leave the dressing extra and keep in mind that the halloumni won’t be as melty and good but it still tastes pretty solid. My recommendation: make it fresh, it is better.

I hope that you will like this recipe and that it will change up your regular salad routine a little! 

Enjoy,

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Honey Eggplant and Chickpea Salad with grilled Halloumi

Next level salad. Has nothing to do with the boring image of salads you have in your head. Sweet and tangy eggplant & chickpeas, combined with salty fried halloumi and the most extra dressing. Enjoy now & Thank me later!

Course Appetizer, bowl, lunch, Salad
Prep Time 5 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Total Time 25 Minuten
Servings 4 servings
Calories 366 kcal

What you will need

  • 2 large handful spinach
  • 160 g chickpeas from the can, rinsed, drained, and pat dry
  • 1 eggplant
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • some salt & pepper
  • 200 g halloumi
  • 1/2 lemon juiced

For the dressing:

  • 2 tbsp Olive Oil (just pured tomatoes from the can/ boy without anything)
  • 1 tbsp Tahini
  • 1 lemon juiced

How to

That is how it works:

  1. Slice the eggplant into about 2 cm sized cubes. Drain, rinse and pat the chickpeas dry. Place both in a bowl. In a seperate bowl combie the olive oil, lemon juice and honey. Generously salt and pepper the eggplant and chickpeas and then toss in the dressing. Bake for abou 20 minutes at 180°C.

  2. Meanwhile combine all the ingredients for the dressing.

    Heat up a grilling pan to high heat. Slice up the halloumi in about 0.5 cm thick slices. Just before the chickpeas are done baking, fry the halloumi on it for about 2-3 minutes on each side until it gets some grilling marks and melts nicely.

  3. When the tray is done baking, combine the ingredients with the spinach and the dressing. Seperate on bowls and top with the grilled halloumi!

    Serve and enjoy!

Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Wild Garlic Risotto

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Food tastes different when you have a relation to it. Like in this recipe. We went for a Sunday walk and my mom and I picked the wild garlic ourselves and cooked it into this delicious risotto for lunch. It makes you worship the ingredients, taste and work you put in it even more, which is so beautiful.

But I know we do not alway have the time or opportunity to go and pick the ingredients ourselves in the park or the woods, so it definitely is fine if you buy it at a fresh farmers market or even at the super market. But it will not totally taste the same as if you picked it yourself.

Risotto is such a must and a weekend meal in our house! We love to make it various ways. With peas, with mushrooms, with saffron, honestly options are endless. But it is spring, and right now almost everywhere in Austria you can find wild garlic and smell it from several meters apart. So we decided to take a walk and pick some ourselves and take it home.

Risotto actually is way less complicated than it might seem at first sight. It just is a lot of stirring, stirring, and stirring. No joke, it is an arm workout. So if you are currently in quarantine and wanting to work out and cook something good, here you have the perfect combination! The stirring makes it possible for the rice to absorb the liquid slowly and in depth to create a more intense flavour and a super creamy texture. You should not add all of the broth at one time because then the rice will become soggy and not creamy, which we do not want.

Also, the ingredients are pretty simple and you most likely have them all at home. It starts with the base: rice. For risotto, there is special type of rice, which is originally used in Italy. You can find it in any supermarket. The other main contents of this dish are broth and cheese. For the broth you can either use vegetable broth or chicken broth. Vegetable for the vegetarian version, chicken if you want more flavour.

After the cooking process is done, in other words the rice has finished cooking, we take it off the heat to stir in the remains ingredients. These are a mix of butter, grated parmesan cheese, cream cheese and of course the chopped wild garlic. The butter adds a lot of flavour and the cheeses melt into the rice giving it the typical risotto texture.

You can either serve it as it is because it is the perfect dish like that. If you want to serve it as a side with some grilled prawns or roasted beef that works perfectly fine too! Just grate some fresh parmesan on top and serve it with some wild garlic leaves.

This is such a comforting and family friendly meal. Perfect weekend lunch or dinner, super versatile and incredibly good. I hope you all like it and will enjoy cooking and eating it!

Love, Katie // One Petite Cuisinière

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Wild Garlic Risotto

Family friendly, spring viby, super creamy and delicious risotto. Weekend meal plans are saved. With fresh wild garlic and creamy rice this is incredibly delicious.

Course bowl, dinner, lunch, Main Course
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 5 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Total Time 25 Minuten
Servings 4 servings
Calories 509 kcal

What you will need

That is what you need:

  • 1,5 l vegetable broth
  • 320 g Risotto rice
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 white onion
  • 50 g wild garlic
  • 25 g butter
  • 45 g cream cheese
  • 80 g parmesan cheese

How to

This is how it works:

  1. Finely dice the onion. Heat up the oil and satuée the onion in it until it is glassy. Add the rice and gently stir through until everything is combined and slightly covered with the oil. Take one large ladle of the vegetable broth and add it to the rice. Reduce the heat to medium high and stir the vegetable broth through until everything has cooked into the rice, then add the next laddle.

  2. Repeat until the rice is cooked through, for about 15-20 minutes.

  3. In the meantime grate the parmesan, measure out the other ingredients and chop the wild garlic.

  4. Once the rice is done cooking, take it off the heat and stir the cheeses, the butter and the wild garlic in.

  5. Once everything is well combined, plate it in four bowls, garnish with some extra parmesan cheese and wild garlic.

    Serve and enjoy!

Vegan Kale Ceasar Salad

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Summer is (luckily) getting closer and closer, which means so do salads for summer bodies. But please, it shouldn’t be about the way you look but the way you feel! For me plantbased or veggie heavy dishes always make me feel the best, give me tons of vitamins, a lot of energy, make my sleep be that best it could possibly be and just shine grin the inside and out. 

But I know for a lot of people when they read „salad“ they either think of rabbit food (as my brother likes to say :)) or some green leaves underneath a ton of dressing. So today, we are doing none of those. Neither super boring and leaving us hungry, nor drenched in a fat heavy dressing. No. We a re doing a super delicious vegan and healthy version of the super popular ceasar salad. Still a little cheesy, with self dried tomatoes (best thing ever!) and crispy pan fried rosemary chickpeas. Sounds like a pretty solid dish to me and it definitely is! 

Why Kale?

That’s super simple: to switch things up. As good as Romain lettuce is sometimes, it is good to change things every now and then. And kale is a true superfood. Super high in fiber, minerals, vitamins, iron, antioxidants, and all of that other healthy stuff. And no, it’s not the raw one that is hard to chew but we are steaming it so it is softer, easier to digest and tastier. I know that there are a lot of people that absolutely can’t stand kale at all, no matter in which form, then I would recommend using spinach or lambs lettuce as this would work best for this. Also a mix with arugula would be great!

What else?

That’s a good question. Where to start? The oven roasted tomatoes, the incredible dressing, the crispy chickpeas or the croutons? 
One after the other. So what else is super typical for ceasar salad are the croutons. No normal croutons here but whole wheat garlic ones. You heard me right. A little healthier but so good! Pan fried with fresh garlic and a little olive oil, it’s the best add in (to any salad actually).

Homemade dried tomatoes

Next up; oven roasted tomatoes. If you have never made this before, you sure missed out on something and spent way too much money on store bought ones before. It is essentially 3 steps: cut the tomatoes, place them in the oven, take them out. Oh, yeah and eat them of course! That’s how easy it is. You just leave them in the oven for an hour and go take a bath in the meantime. After an hour they are going to be somewhat I like to call semi-dried. They are dried, but still a little juice and not tough like leather. 

Best crispy chickpeas

Next up, the crispy chickpeas. That’s THE way to do crispy chickpeas. So good you drain them from the can and rinse them. After tap them dry (this is important bc otherwise they are not gonna be crispy) with a kitchen paper. In a pan we add olive oil, garlic and rosemary and let them fry for 2 minutes to infuse the water. Rosemary and garlic out, chickpeas in and crisp them up for 5-10 minutes with some smoked paprika powder and sea salt. If you like the fried garlic and rosemary, go ahead and add them to your salad, otherwise don’t. 
You can make those chickpeas ahead of time and just keep in a jar to snack on every now and then. A life changer.

The dressing:

And lastly to top it all off, the star of the show: the vegan Caesar dressing. Yep. Vegan. No cheese and no sardines. No mayo. Good and good. Instead of Parmesan cheese (not that Parmesan wouldn’t be good, it’s delicious, but sometimes it’s better not to have too much cheese) we are using nutritional yeast (German: Hefeflocken)! You can get those in your local health store (Reformhaus) or in some organic shops. It is made out of yeast, high in protein and really resembles the taste of cheese. The base of the dressing are cashews. Ideally we soak them a few hours or the night before so they get softer and easier to blend. They will ensure everything to get really creamy and add a really nice flavor. We also have some Dijon mustard and capers in it, to replace the sardines, a little vinegar and that’s it. It actually is not super difficult but tastes amazing! 

So now, it’s just left to be mixed up! Nothing more nothing less! The steamed kale, the oven dried tomatoes, the croutons, and the dressing. Toss it all and enjoy! 

Note:

If you want to meal prep this, make sure to leave the chickpeas aside to keep the crunch. You can already toss the salad in the dressing because when using kale, it doesn’t really matter, since the kale then absorbs the flavor and gets softer! 

Happy cooking!
Katie // Une Petite Cuisiniere

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Vegan Ceasar Salad with Crispy Chickpeas

A vegan twist on the classic and it is so good! Super delicious dressing, best ever chickpeas, oven roasted tomatoes and homemade croutons.

Course Appetizer, bowl, brunch, dinner, Main Course, Salad
Cuisine American
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 1 Stunde
Soaking Time: 2 Stunden
Total Time 3 Stunden 10 Minuten
Servings 2 servings
Calories 411 kcal

What you will need

For the salad:

  • 4 handful kale off the stem
  • 15 cherry tomatoes
  • 1 slice bread
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 120 g chickpeas

For the dressing:

  • 25 g cashews
  • 2 tsp dijon mustard
  • 2 tsp capers
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced
  • 2 tbsp plant milk
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast

How to

That is how it works:

  1. Soak the cashews for about 2 hours to overnight in water. 

    Preheat the oven to 100*C. Slice the tomatoes in half and lay them on a baking tray lines with parchment paper. Bake them in the oven for an hour.

  2. In the meantime bring a pot with water to a boil. Take a sieve and place the kale leaves, that have been removed from the stem in there. Let them steam for 2-3 minutes. After remove them and drain under cold water. This will ensure the color to stay and the kale to cool down quicker.

  3. Take the bread and cut it into 1 cm cubes. Press out or grate 2 garlic cloves and combine them with the olive oil. Toss the bread cubes in the oil mixture and then fry them in a pan for about 2 minutes until crispy. 

  4. Take the chickpeas out of the can. Drain and rinse them to get rid of the liquid around them because this would make you go gasy. Tap them dry with some kitchen paper. In a pan heat up the olive oil. Once hot add the garlic and rosemary and fry for about 2 minutes, then take them out. After, you throw the chickpeas along with the sea salt and smoked paprika in and let them fry on medium high for about 5-10 minutes until super crispy.

  5. Drain the cashews from the water. Add them to a food processor and add the nutritional yeast, Dijon mustard, capers, salt, pepper, water and plant milk. Blend until smooth. If too thick, add some more water, if too thin, some more cashews! 

  6. Place the kale in a bowl and mix with the dressing. Separate it into bowl. Take the tomatoes out of the oven and add them into the bowls with the croutons. Top with the chickpeas and if you like it, the fried garlic.

    Serve and enjoy!


Savory French Toast

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If you have been following me on the blog for a while, you will have probably noticed that I am more on the savory breakfast side. Not that Avo toast and poached egg could ever become boring, but sometimes it is nice to switch things up, or to try out something different whenever you have a little time. This savory French toast is the perfect example for that.

Yes, savory French toast. No that’s not the one that is covered in a liter of maple syrup and a ton of sugar but that one that is covered with cheese and sprinkled with chives and topped with a poached egg. So. Much. Better. Honk breakfast sandwich but with a twist, which takes it next level.

When to have?

I would not have this everyday, because therefore it is a little rich but you can have it every now and then after a sleepin or as a hangover cure. Or make it for brunch when you have friends over or even as a breakfast for dinner because that is a decent option! It does not take long to make, as almost all of my recipes because who likes to wait a n hour when your tummy is growling? No one, right. 

What’s it made of?

Very few ingredients. First up; bread. Here I like to use dark or whole grain bread because it has a more intense flavor then white bread I believe, and it is a little healthier, which can never hurt! Next; eggs. Ken for the dipping batter and one poached one on top, which will be super yolk porn with that runny inside. Other than that we need some milk of your choice, grated Parmesan cheese, sea salt, herbs and black pepper for the batter.

As for the toppings, it is really up to you. I can’t leave out on Avocado of course (what’s a break my without?), and poached egg. Some more cheese and some super flavorful sautéed cherry tomatoes for that color touch and more flavor. I finished of with a sprinkle of chives. If you wanna do bacon, do bacon, if you are all the way down for hummus, you can top it with that! Really it is up to you. With such a delicious base you can’t really fail with the toppings! 

This recipe will make you look like a perfect chef at the next dinner party because it is so good. And super simple and versatile.

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Savory French Toast

Brunch, Hangover cure or breakfast for dinner. This is the pefect dish. Crispy and soaked bread with tangy cheese, runny yolk and creamy avocado = perfection.

Course Breakfast, brunch, Main Course
Prep Time 5 Minuten
Cook Time 10 Minuten
Total Time 15 Minuten
Servings 2 serving
Calories 407 kcal

What you will need

  • 2 slices bread (whole grain is best)
  • 3 eggs
  • 100 ml milk of choice
  • a pinch of salt
  • some pepper
  • 1 tsp italian herbs
  • 30 g parmesan cheese grated
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 2 tbsp vinegar
  • a handful cherry tomatoes
  • 1/2 avocado

How to

That is how it works:

  1. In a bowl crack one egg. Add the milk, salt, pepper and herbs and mix everxthing. Add in about a third of the cheese and dip the bread into it.

  2. Bring a pot with water to a boil and heat up the oil in a pan. Once the water boils add in the vinegar. Take a cooking spoon and make a swirl in the water. crack the two eggs into two seperate bowls. Reduce the heat until the water only simmers anymore. Take one and carefully and slowly let it slide into the water until it has set a little, then take the next one.

  3. Meanwhile place the bread slices into the oil and sprinkle with half of the remaining cheese. fry for about 2 miuntes on each side on high heat.

  4. In a seperate pan quickly stir fry the tomatoes until soft, if you decide to use some. Cut the avocado into slices.

  5. Take the bread out of the pan and place it onto plates. top with teh avocado and tomatoes. Take the eggs out of the water after 3-4 minutes and lay them on a paper towel to let the excess water drip of. Add on top and finish with a sprinkle of chives and the remaining cheese.

    Serve & enjoy!