Lunch box: mix of wild rice with vegetables

What’s going on in Pauline-Cuisine ?

This week, I will share with you an easy and colourful recipe for lunch box: mix of wild rice with vegetables. I discovered a large variety of rice when I came to live in London. When I lived in France, I only know a lot of white rice but I didn’t notice this kind of colourful rice: wild, Camargue, brown rice.

The first time that I bought a mix, it was just for trying but I was a little bit afraid about the cooking time, you need to plan at least 35 minutes. Fortunately, I escaped really quickly this “waste” of time by using my lazy option: using my rice cooker that it can do it in 35 minutes as well but without check. From this time, I took the habit to cook more and more of this kind of rices, I usually serve it as a main dish, whereas the white Basmati rice is usually use for accompanying a fish.

Last week, I went to my usual supermarket after work and I found an attractive selection of mini vegetables, it was a mix of small corn, mange-tout, broccoli and a small chilli. It was colourful and I thought that could be a nice addition to my mix of brown, wild and Camargue rice.

I sliced in small pieces mange-tout and mini corn and prepare the chilli. I used a pan in order to roast them. I have already tried to cook them with boiling water but the taste is not as strong as roasting them. I cook the broccoli really quickly, 5 minutes only in boiling water, if you let them too long in the boiling water, they lost their crunchy. When all the mini vegetables are cooked, add the rice and mix all of them together.

You can serve this dish warm or cold, if you serve it cold, you could add some dressing on top. I like this recipe both cold and warm:  so easy to do, healthy, tasty and so colourful. Don’t hesitate to try it and post some comments.

Have a nice weekend and see you next week with another tasty recipe.

Roasted apples and pears with pecan nuts and almond

What’s cooking on in Pauline-Cuisine ?

I recently put myself in the fact to create dessert for lunch box. Indeed, I am a sweet tooth and sometimes after delicious lunch box, I would appreciate a dessert. I didn’t want to have high sugar dessert or simple fruit salad; I wanted something in the middle, something with a nice touch on it. It took me quite a while before finding the right recipe that will tick all the boxes: roasted apples and pears with pecan nuts and flaked almond.

The two main goals of this dessert were: fruit based and healthy. As I have the habit to go to the market every Saturday, I am used to buy some apple but at the moment I quite fed up of the compote. So I decided to roast some apple and sweet pears in a pan with small pieces of butter. The smelling in the Kitchen was amazing :). After having roasting the apples and pears, I decided to add sliced pieces of soft prunes. I love this mix, but once again, I would like to add something, so I added pecan nuts and roasted flaked almond. The taste of the mix is great and the presentation of this dessert is amazing.

I hope you will find some time to try this dessert, easy to cook and so convenient as a dessert for lunch.

I wish you a nice week and see you next week with another delicious recipe.

Savory cake: Turkey, cheddar and fresh mushrooms

What’s going on in Pauline-Cuisine?

This week, I would like to share with you another recipe that could fit as a lunch box or main course, even as a starter for welcoming your guests. I will give you the recipe of a delicious savory cake with turkey, cheddar and fresh mushrooms.

Last weekend, I was thinking about my lunch box timetable and I was quite fed up of my weekly quiche. Even if I have a large variety of quiches and dough for quiches, I wanted something different. I was thinking of an alternative when I just thought about a dish that I like to cook when I was student or when I organized finger food diner in Paris for my friends. This savory cake is easy to do, hard to fail and it always makes a good impression. The original recipe was made with Italian ham and white wine but as I am not really keen in using alcohol, I decided to amend the recipe. Moreover, I replaced the Italian ham with turkey as the Italian ham is quite hard to slice in the cake. When I made the recipe I was a little bit worried about the size of the Turkey bits, I didn’t want them too big because it will be hard to eat as a savory cake is quite compact, I decided to make small square pieces and it works really well. The cake was airy and it was really tasty.

I encourage you to bake this delicious savory cake with turkey, cheddar and mushrooms as it is really tasty for your lunch break and easy to prepare. Don’t hesitate to comment the recipe.

Have a nice week and see you next week.

Lunch box: Salad with Chaource

What’s cooking in Pauline-Cuisine?

This week I would like to share with you a great salad. I know that we are still in Winter but sometimes eating a great salad helps me to feel sunny. When I served this salad last week, all the guests have highly appreciated it, so I decided to share with you this Salad with cheese and vegetables. That is a perfect recipe for lunch box as well.

I cook lunch box on daily basis. Sometimes, I feel tired of my old recipe, so I spend a lot of time on my cooking books and magazines but sometimes the magic doesn’t appeared :(. So last week, as I usually do one lunch box with salad, I had no inspiration for my weekly salad. I looked in the fridge and I decided to let my imagination goes. I had some Chaource leftover, I really like this cheese but the problem is that he becomes old really quickly, so it is good to put it in a salad. In order to make a festive salad I decided to defrost some figs.  At the end, I made dried bread in the oven in order to make handmade croutons. The result was a smooth mix of sweet and sour flavour.

I let you try this tasty recipe and don’t hesitate to add some comments.

Have a nice week and see you next week with another delicious recipe.

Lunch box: courgette quiche with courgette salad

What’s cooking in Pauline-Cuisine ?

This week, I would like to share with you two recipes that are perfect match for Lunch box. The first one will be my favorite courgette quiche with a small variation at the dough level. The second one is a salad of fresh courgette which is perfect to eat with the quiche, all in one amazingly tasty lunch box.

I remember the first time that I ate a courgette quiche, at this time I was a child and I was not really keen to the courgette. But my parents decided to have a small vegetable garden and courgettes were perfect to grow up, so one day, the garden gave us plenty of this "awful" vegetable. My mother knew that it was not my favorite vegetable and she decided to ask to her friends how do they eat courgette? and that it is the courgette quiche arrived on my life. Since this day, it is one of my favorite quiche, it is really smooth. Few weeks ago I decided to re-invente the recipe, I didn’t change the mixture but I have amended the dough, I decided to use a vegetable dough (made from a vegetable flour). That is a quite new product that I found last time when I came back to France. The flavor of the vegetable dough is spinach and the taste is great addidtion to the courgette.

In order to change with the traditional salad that I serve with quiche, I decided to give a try to a courgette salad. I read a lot of different recipes and decided to not cook the courgettes and I think that is the best way to eat them. In order to add some flavour I added roasted pine nuts and bacon pieces. This courgette salad is really tasty and it changes to the usual green salad with tomatoes.

I hope you will find time to try these two recipes. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

I wish you a please week. See you next week with another delicious lunch box recipe.

Lunch box: Bulgur salad with vegetables

What’s cooking on in Pauline-Cuisine?

Another lunch box recipe for this week: Bulgur salad with vegetables, we need to keep on track with the new resolutions.

I wanted to taste the bulgur, so many times, I saw it mentioned in my cooking magazines as great alternative to the more traditional semolina. In order to help me to cook it for the first time, I took the inspiration from a well known French cooking website: Marmiton. I mixed different recipes with what I already know on my favorite mix in order to achieve this tasteful and easy recipe. It is a kind of Taboule but the fact to use the dried tomatoes gave a something different to the usual recipe. Moreover, as the cucumber has been replaced by olives and that mozzarella has been added, this lunch box has a kind of Italian way.

I was surprised how easy it is to cook the Bulgur. The first time, that I saw the seeds, I though that will be more like the Quinoa, which is for my part quite difficult to find the right cooking timing. Moreover, I was impressed by the volume of it. So the first time that I tried, I cooked far too much of it and I wasted it, so in the recipe, I have taken care to give you the right amount of dried seeds.

I hope you will enjoy this nice salad, don’t hesitate to comment it.

Have a nice week and see you next week with another delicious recipe.

Lunch box: Leek and cheddar Tart

What’s going on in Pauline-Cuisine?

That is a new year and I am willing to discover new products and new recipes.

For Christmas, I went to France for visiting my family and my favourite thing when I am back to France is to go to big supermarkets in order to discover new products. Usually, I spend a lot of time in the sugar and flour area, always looking for new thing for my baking. This time, my eyes were attracted by some small box of flour. On the box, it is written vegetable flour. You can choose 3 different tastes: green vegetables, tomatoes or curry. I had a long hesitation between the green flour and the red one, I finally chose the green one because I thought that can be a great match with my leek tart or the courgette version.

Back to London, for my first lunch box, I gave a try to this flour. It is quite surprising when you open the box to see the green colour even if it is not too aggressive. I decided to bake the dough with my usual recipe, I love the fact to have self-raising flour and corn flour on it. My dough was definitely green and it was strange to put that in my tart mould. Then I add leeks, cheddar and fresh cream and bake it for 25 minutes. The dough was not as green as at the beginning of the cooking, so it was more appealing. The taste of the dough is not really strong; it is stronger if you eat the tart cold. I will definitely try my courgette version with this green flour.

I hope you will enjoy this new recipe that is really great for your lunch at work.

I wish you a relaxing weekend; see you next week with another delicious recipe.