Orange and rosemary cake and hoping for the best

Much is said about small joys in life, but today I got myself thinking also about small hopes: things we do hoping for the day (or the week, or the month) to be better.

I entered a shop earlier on today searching for a product that would make my hair shinier and softer without making it greasy (those of you who have oily hair like I do know what I’m talking about). I know it might sound silly or even vain, but that small gesture was done in order to make my day a bit sweeter – when you spend months searching for a new job without any success it is the small things that keep you going, combined with the support from your loved ones. It is putting a pair of comfy socks on a cold day, discovering a great TV show, singing in the shower, making a delicious meal out of whatever is left in the fridge or taking a beautiful cake out of the oven – on those days when frustration gets the best of me I avoid anything else that can disappoint me: those are the days for tried and true recipes, when you need a success to lift the spirit, not the days to try something new that can look (or taste) weird.

On one of those blue days I made my current favorite cake, the moist and delicious recipe by Nigel Slater, but swapped the lemon and thyme for orange and rosemary (I told you I would try to be braver when it comes to rosemary, right?). The flavor combo worked beautifully in cake form as it did in the cookies and the day was saved.

Orange and rosemary cake
slightly adapted from the always fantastic Nigel Slater

Cake:
100g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
100g almond meal
2 teaspoons rosemary leaves, packed
200g granulated sugar
200g unsalted butter, softened
finely grated zest of 2 medium oranges
4 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Syrup:
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
juice of the 2 oranges used in the cake batter
1 teaspoon rosemary leaves, packed

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Lightly butter a 900g/2lb loaf pan, line it with baking paper and butter the paper as well.
Cake: in a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, then stir in the almond meal. Set aside. Using a pestle and mortar, crush the rosemary leaves with some of the sugar until the leaves are finely ground and the sugar turns green and perfumed. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, the rosemary sugar, remaining sugar and orange zest until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally. Beat in the vanilla. On low speed, gradually mix in the dry ingredients.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

When the cake is almost baked, make the syrup: in a small saucepan, combine the sugar and orange juice. Cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, add the rosemary and cook for 1 minute. Remove from the heat (fish out the rosemary right before pouring the syrup over the cake).

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, prick it all over with a toothpick or skewer and gradually pour the syrup, waiting for the cake to absorb it. Cool completely before unmolding and serving.

Serves 6-8

Tomato and rosemary strata, a TV show and a song

What makes you take interest in something in particular?

The thought came to my mind last night, as I started watching The Americans – I’d been meaning to watch the show forever, I loved the pilot and cannot wait to watch more episodes, but I have to say that seeing – I mean, hearing – the amazing sounds of Tusk right there, in the beginning of the first episode, made me even more interested in it.

Strata was something I’d always thought of making, especially after seeing the lovely Nigella Lawson make one years ago, but since my husband isn’t very fond of the idea of a savory bread pudding – or any bread pudding, for that matter – I kept postponing it. When I saw this recipe the other day, full of cheese and tomatoes, I could not wait any longer: I cannot live without cheese and tomatoes are something I deeply love, to the point of eating a couple while prepping them for any recipe at all.

The strata turned out delicious: it sort of reminded me of pizza, but with a different texture. I had it with a salad and ate a lot more than I should have. :)

Different things can be triggers to something good: a song, certain foods… It’s a matter of keeping our eyes open – I’ll certainly be on the lookout for more strata recipes and interesting TV shows. ;)

Tomato and rosemary strata
slightly adapted from here

250g stale bread, sliced about 6mm (½in) thick
1 garlic clove, cut in half
60g (2oz) Gruyère cheese, grated
30g (1oz) Parmesan cheese, grated
5 firm, firm tomatoes, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
4 large eggs
2 cups (480ml) whole milk

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Oil or butter a 2-quart baking dish or gratin. If the bread is soft, toast it lightly and rub all the slices, front and back, with the cut clove of garlic. If it’s stale, just rub with garlic. Combine the two cheeses in a small bowl.

Layer half of the bread slices in the baking dish. Top with half the tomato slices. Sprinkle the tomato slices with salt, pepper, and half the rosemary. Top with half the cheese. Repeat the layers.
Beat together the eggs and milk. Season with salt and pepper, then pour over the bread and tomato layers. Place in the oven and bake 40-50 minutes, until puffed and browned. Remove from the oven and serve hot or warm.

Serves 4

Orange rosemary shortbread - becoming friends with rosemary

I have to start this text by confessing that it took me months (a quick look at Amazon shows me that I purchased the book in January, so almost a year) to make these cookies, all because I was a coward: I was afraid that all that rosemary in the dough would make the cookies taste weird.

I am thirty-five six years old and rosemary scares the bejeesus out of me: I always think that the food will end up tasting like soap. :S

I love cooking with herbs and will gladly add thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram, parsley, even cilantro to recipes without too much thought about it, for they make everything so much more delicious, but when it comes to rosemary I just can’t do it, and every time I watch Jamie Oliver adding tons of rosemary to his recipes I feel sort of desperate, my brain screams “it’s too much, too much!”. :)

I decided it was time to stop this nonsense and bought a small vase of rosemary to gradually start using the herb in my cooking, and these cookies were my first attempt at getting to know the rosemary better: they turned out delicious, the herb flavor perfectly complimented by the orange.

I feel a lot braver now. ;)

Orange rosemary shortbread
slightly adapted from the beautiful and delicious National Trust Simply Baking

½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary leaves
finely grated zest of 2 oranges
1 cup (225g/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
340g all purpose flour - I used 290g all purpose flour + 50g millet flour
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.

Put the sugar and rosemary in a food processor and whiz until the rosemary is very finely chopped. Transfer sugar to the bowl of an electric mixer, add the orange zest and rub them together with your fingertips until sugar is fragrant. Add the butter and vanilla and beat with the mixer until pale and creamy. On low speed, beat in flour and salt. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Roll out dough between two sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick. Use a 4cm (1½in) cookie cutter to cut out cookies – if the dough gets too soft, place it in the freezer for 5 minutes. Place cookies onto prepared sheets 2,5cm (1in) apart and prick them with a fork. Bake until lightly golden on the edges, 10-12 minutes.
Cool completely on the sheets over a wire rack. Remove carefully from the paper.

Makes about 60

Olive and rosemary breads

Joao and I are absolutely crazy for olives – that is why it is difficult for me to make a recipe that calls for them: we eat the whole jar beforehand. :D

The first time I made this recipe I used sage instead of rosemary, but after the breads were baked there was hardly any flavor left from the herb. Rosemary works beautifully here and even though it is a mighty herb it doesn’t overpower the olive flavor.

I highly recommend these still warm from the oven – and they reheat really well, too.

Olive and rosemary breads
from Donna Hay magazine

Basic dough:
1 teaspoon dry active yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup (240ml) lukewarm whole milk
2 ½ cups (350g) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 quantity basic dough
generous ½ cup black olives
1 ½ tablespoons rosemary leaves
all purpose flour, for kneading
olive oil, for brushing

Place the yeast, sugar and milk in a bowl and mix to combine. Set aside in a warm place for 5 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface.
Add the flour, salt and oil to the yeast mixture and mix until a smooth dough forms. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic, adding a little extra flour if the dough becomes too sticky – I used my Kitchen Aid to knead the dough.
Cover with plastic wrap, set aside in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Brush sixteen ½ cup (120ml) capacity pans with oil or cooking spray.
Press down the olives with the palm of your hand to remove the stones, then tear the olives into pieces. Knead the olives and rosemary leaves into the dough on a generously floured surface, incorporating extra flour to compensate for the wetness of the olives. Divide into 16 pieces and roll into balls.
Place in prepared pans, cover with a clean tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 45 minutes or until the dough is doubled in size. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
Brush with the oil and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

Makes 16

Pasta with tomatoes, olives, grana padano and basil

Joao loves pasta but he’ll mostly have it with tomato or bolognese sauce. He tried pesto when I first made it and liked it, but still looks at other pasta possibilities very suspiciously. That’s silly and I always tell him that.

So when I choose different pasta recipes to try he goes all “I want mine with bolognese sauce, please” and I go “ok, same old pasta for you, mister”. I won’t force him - mom made me eat beef so many times as a kid and I never learned to like it.
But things seem to be slowly changing around here… Bill’s pasta smelled so great that while eating I noticed a fork “stealing” spaghetti from my plate. And it happened with this pasta dish, too: every time I looked at my plate there was less food there – the fork had attacked again! I looked at Joao with angry eyes but it didn’t work. :)



I adapted a recipe found on a Portuguese food magazine called Blue Cooking and this is my entry for the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Ulrike, from Kuchenlatein.

Pasta with tomatoes, olives, grana padano and basil

400g short pasta – choose the one you like the most
60g black olives, pitted and roughly chopped
500g ripe tomatoes, cut in 8 parts each (half moons)
salt
freshly ground black pepper
rosemary leaves
½ cup (120ml) extra virgin olive oil + extra olive oil to drizzle
4 garlic cloves
200 grana padano cheese, in shavings
1 handful basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF. Lightly oil a baking dish and place the tomatoes on it; sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside.
Peel and cut the garlic cloves so there is one piece of garlic for each tomato slice. Place the garlic on the tomatoes, add some rosemary leaves on top, drizzle with olive oil and bake for 10 minutes or until the tomatoes are tender and the skin starts to blister. Remove from the oven, allow to cool then tear them into pieces. Set aside.
Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until al dente.
Place the basil in a small bowl, add the ¼ cup olive oil and process using an immersion blender – I halved the recipe and made the basil oil using a mortar and a pestle; a small processor would do the job, too.
Drain the pasta, add the olives, the reserved tomatoes, the cheese and the basil oil and gently toss the ingredients together. Serve at once.

Serves 4

Trivial food - steak with herbs

A dear friend of mine, who happens to have a lovely blog written in Portuguese, asked the other bloggers about the trivial food they cook at home.

I have lunch close to work and my dinner is always the same, so I though I should share one dish that João loves - beef. I mean, steak - he'll gladly have it everyday.

To change things a little, once the steak is grilled, I remove it from the pan and add a bit of butter. When it's melted, I add a generous amount of chopped fresh herbs - I usually use parsley, chives and basil or rosemary. Once everything is well combined I pour it over the steak. I serve it with sliced onions browned in olive oil, rice and salad.

It's not an actual recipe but it's a hit with my picky husband! :)

Broccolini, cheese and rosemary tart

I love puff pastry. I have to admit it. I know it’s not light or healthy and not good at all for my waistline, but the thing is delicious.
I never buy puff pastry exactly because I’m not that kind of moderate lady who knows when to stop eating something unless I’m at a party or having lunch with my bosses – that’s when I pretend to be that kind of lady.

There was some puff pastry left because of this recipe and since I’m not into wasting food – even when it’s fattening as hell - I used it to make a quick lunch. It was great because I needed to be back in the kitchen to finish the gateau.

I got the idea from this book – it was a potato, goat’s cheese and rosemary tart. My tart was made with the cheese and the broccolini left from our Saturday night pizza.



I liked it so much that I decided to use it as my entry for this Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Kalyn, the great mind behind this great event.

Broccolini, cheese and rosemary tart
adapted from Modern Classics Book 1

1 cup grated yellow mozzarella
½ cup grated parmesan
2 heaping cups broccolini florets
1 tablespoon rosemary leaves
puff pastry
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 205ºC/400ºF.
Cut the broccolini florets into bite-sized portions and quickly steam or blanch them – I prefer to steam because they remain firmer and greener. Set aside to cool.
Mix the two types of cheese in a small bowl.
Cut a 25x20cm rectangle on your puff pastry and place it on a lined baking sheet. Spread the broccolini florets on top, leaving the borders without filling (2.5cm should work).
Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the cheese over the broccolini and then top with the rosemary leaves.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and puffed.
Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

I think it can serve 2 with something on the side – I had ¾ of the tart and nothing else. João didn’t want tart but when he saw me eating it he kept asking for bites (he was having spaghetti, for crying out loud).

Chicken with rosemary and lime

I usually cook 2 different types of food for Sunday lunches: one beef-based dish for João and pasta or salad for myself. A friend of mine told me once that I was “brave” to do that. :)

The idea of making chicken that day was João’s, so I searched for a chicken recipe that would please us both.
This is a very simple recipe that I adapted from a Brazilian cookbook and it turned out very good. I served it with rice and arugula and onion salad.

If you (like me) love chicken but hate those white/pale pieces that look like Styrofoam then this recipe is for you.

Chicken with rosemary and lime

1 chicken (1.8kg) in pieces and with the skin on – I used only whole legs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
3 garlic cloves, chopped
salt
freshly ground black pepper
80ml (1/3 cup) dry white wine
2 tablespoons lime juice
grated zest of 1 small lime

Rinse the chicken pieces and pat dry.
Heat oil and butter in a large pan over medium heat. Place the chicken pieces without overlapping them.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook until golden. Turn the pieces, sprinkle again with salt and pepper and cook until golden – both sides should be nicely browned.
Add the rosemary, garlic and wine. Cook until tender – if it gets too dry, add a little water (I didn’t have to).
When it’s cooked through, add the lime zest and juice. Cook for another minute and serve right away.

Serves 4

Striploin with golden new potatoes, rosemary and tomatoes

An important Brazilian magazine launched a special edition with chefs’ profiles and recipes – Joao bought it for me.
I made a recipe from the magazine right after I got it but it didn’t work out – there was something wrong with the amount of flour. I’ll try it again some time.

I was flipping through the magazine the other day, determined to try a new recipe, when I saw this beautiful piece of beef with rosemary leaves. I had just come back from my grandmother’s house with a huge bunch of rosemary that she had picked from her garden.
It was a perfect coincidence.

I made ¼ recipe and it serves one really well: Joao had half of it for lunch and the other half I cut in strips, cooked quickly with finely chopped onions and served with bread as a Sunday night snack.

After slicing the beef, I noticed that the center part was too rare for Joao’s taste – so I grilled the steaks for 1 minute or so.

Striploin with golden new potatoes, rosemary and tomatoes

800g new potatoes
50g fresh rosemary
8 tablespoons olive oil
200g cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1,6kg striploin*
4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
salt and cracked black pepper

Cook the potatoes in salted water. Drain and set aside.
Remove the rosemary leaves and cook them in the olive oil until they’re crisp and crunchy. Drain and set both the oil and the rosemary aside.
Bring a frying pan to high heat and cook the tomatoes with 2 tablespoons of the reserved oil. Season with salt and pepper and cook until they’re golden. Remove from heat, add the vinegar and set aside.
Place the potatoes in a baking dish, season with salt and pepper and bake in a 220ºC/425ºF oven until they’re golden. Set aside.
Divide the beef in 4 pieces of 400g each. Season them with salt and pepper.
Heat up a broiler/grill – I used a frying pan like this – and grill the beef with the olive oil, saving 1 tablespoon. Grill both sides to your taste.
Heat the potatoes, tomatoes and rosemary in a saucepan, add the remaining oil and check salt and pepper.
Serve the beef with this mix and the mustard.

Serves 4.

*The beef cut I used is actually the interior part of the striploin.