Spaghetti with swiss chard sauce and cherry tomatoes

Ever since I have a balcony, I try to grow some vegetables every summer. This year I grew lots of tomatoes, some carrots, red radishes, mini cucumbers and swiss chard. I didn’t really knew what to do with the swiss chard first, so it grew kind of massive and I started to desperately think of ideas that would use a lot of it. So I came up with this blended swiss chard sauce, that will turn a whole bunch of swiss chard into a creamy, delicious green sauce. It you don’t want to blend the sauce, I recommend to use a different kind of pasta – so you don’t end up with either pasta or sauce on your fork.

Millet salad with pointed peppers and cherry tomatoes

Have you ever tried millet? It’s a not very popular – though delicious – grain, that is believed to be one of the oldest cultivated crops in history. There are many different kinds of millet, the most common one being pearl millet, which is also the one I used for this dish. You can use millet just like rice or quinoa, though if you use it for the first time, always check the packaging instructions! Millet is also gluten-free, so you can use it as a tasty substitute for wheat products such as couscous or bulgur. In whole food stores, you might even find pasta or bread made from or with millets!

After using millets in several sweet dishes (like a lovely millet porridge), I wanted to give it a try in a savoury dish as well, but I didn’t want to overpower its delicious flavour with heavy sauces or spices, so I went for a zingy, fresh and just slightly hot salad with crisp pointed peppers (ball peppers will work as well) and cherry tomatoes. If you can’t find millet in your local stores, try bulgur instead – this will work just as well. Of course it won’t be gluten-free anymore!

Hearty tomato soup with aubergines and green olives

Tomato soup is something that I almost exclusively eat during the summer – best made from fresh tomatoes of course. I made this one countless times last year, but just realized that I never posted the recipe! So here it is, late, late, but still. I really love the blend of the aubergine flavour with the rich flavours of ripe tomatoes in this soup, and the green olives just add the perfect spice to it. You can use fresh tomatoes – though that might be a little early in the year still – or you can just use canned ones. If using fresh ones, you can peel them if you want to, though admittedly I never do that. Once, because I am lazy, and second because I think the peel actually tastes really good. And this soup is meant to be “chunky” anyway, so some bits of tomato peel won’t be this noticeable. Concerning the seasoning, you can basically throw in any herbs that are growing in your garden – I recently went for rosemary and sage for example, but you can also just stick to the more ‘classic’ Italian flavours like basil and oregano. Just try what works best for you!

Polenta slices with tomato sauce and fresh vegetables

You may know polenta mainly as a creamy, hot side dish served with italian food, but polenta is much more versatile than that. It gets quite firm when it cools down, so you can easily cut it in shapes and use it as a gluten-free base for hearty slices, veggie burgers and the like. This recipe uses this quality of polenta to make hearty, pizza-like slices that you can eather serve hot or cold. They are perfect for taking to uni or work with you, and you can use whatever vegetable you have at hand for the topping.

Gnocchi with ball pepper and tomato sauce

Gnocchi are usually classified as a kind of ‘pasta’ and also on the menus in most restaurants gnocchi are normally arranged next to spaghetti, tagliatelle and lasagna. But gnocchi are actually made from potatoes and are comparable with little potato dumplings. Since they are made from boiled potatoes, they only take a few minutes to cook and are therefore perfect for quick and easy dishes. Just like this one: 

Filled mushrooms with tomatoes and goat cheese

Recently I have seen something new in the shelves of my local supermarket: ready-made filled mushrooms. Ready-made. Seriously. As if it is so hard to do it yourself! Not to mention that they were heavily overpriced as well. So my solution was: Nick the idea, not the product. And instead of filling my mushrooms with what looked like an oddly mix of not identifiable vegetables topped with something that should probably considered to be some kind of cheese, I went for fresh tomatoes mixed with herbes and a mild goat cheese. No ready meal can beat this.

Wholemeal pasta with green asparagus

I know wholemeal products sometimes have a rather weird image, making people think of self-knitted wool pullovers and space cookies served along with organic lemonade. But you don’t have to be a tree hugger to love wholemeal products – if you haven’t tried them already, do so! They not only have a very delicate taste, but also make you feel ‘full’ for longer, so you won’t go despoiling the fridge this fast ;-). And beside that, you can make delicious dishs from then – just like this: A lovely combination of pasta, asparagus and cherry tomatoes. 

Cheese omelette with tomatoes

Sometimes you just don’t want to spend a long time with preparing your lunch or supper, so the temptation to just grab one of the countless ready meals in the supermarket is huge. But since the ‘ingredients’ section on those meals always sends cold shivers up and down my spine (especially the number of ingredients that sound more like stuff I would expect to find in a chemistry lab), I rather go for something easy and simple to cook, and which is ready within just a few minutes. Like omelettes! This one is jazzed up with using two different kinds of cheese and fresh tomatoes – yummy!

Courgette pasta casserole with tomatoes

Since I am living in a student accommodation where I have to share my kitchen with 9 other students, casseroles became my favourite kind of main dishes. Why? Because while the dish is in the oven, you can start cleaning your stuff, wash the pots you used and put everything back into the cupboard, so your kitchen is less messy and your kitchen mates have more space for cooking their own dishes. And another plus: Nothing can really happen to the dish while it is in the oven, so you can also leave the kitchen (but remember to take your cooking timer with you) in the meantime and work on your next assignment or simply have some fun time. This casserole is a very basic dish – you can also use different vegetables or herbes in it. So here we go!

Cucumber radish salad with tomato and egg

On hot summer days, I don’t want to cook a hot dish or spend a long time in the kitchen. But nibbling nothing but lettuce for weeks isn’t a great fun either, so I created a fresh summer salad with spicy radish and fresh cucumber, served along with a horse radish-topped egg. Bon appétit!