How to make little chocolate vases

In this post I wanted to share a technique to make little chocolate vases (or dessert recipients). Although there are easier ways of doing this, we have decided to "paint" the vases on baking paper, which is a laborious, but effective technique. If you want an easy way, you can for instance use balloons to make little bowls, which is much faster too! 

You will need to be little more patient, but that's it. You will need some tube shaped glasses to use as a mould. Any tube would do really. If you don't have anything like them toilet paper rolls could be a good substitution. Just remember not to use a glass with a different shape, or it will be impossible to take the chocolate out. 

 

I decided to use this technique because I think that if you have a creative mind it could be use for so many projects. This is one of the easiest shapes you could try to work with. But you could give some nice shape to the borders, or live unpainted spots to make different shapes. Maybe some more videos coming up! 

A tip: the chocolate must be cold when you separate it from the paper and the glass. It is the most critical moment of the whole process.... quite easy to break them!If you break it just a bit it is quite easy to fix though. You just need to use some melted chocolate as "glue" and then give an extra chocolate layer. Since they don't have a smooth finish it will still look fine. But if you completely brake them... well, it will be difficult to solve! 

Around 3 layers it is usually enough, but it depends on the thickness of the layers you are applying. 5 minutes in the fridge between layers is more than enough. 

To fill the little vases we have used berries, nuts, honey and mint (trying to keep it healthy!!) but the possibilities are infinite. Just don't choose any hot filling, because it would melt the chocolate. What would you use? 

Here is the new video. I hope you like it!! 

Spinach crisps, a healthy snack

This post is an idea instead of a recipe, because it is as simple as it gets. We bring you a suggestion for a very healthy snack, what I believe is a fantastic substitution for potato chips. It is spinach based and it tastes yummy. My son, who is just over one year old, loves them. It is a great way to make children eat spinach. We presented a similar idea some time ago, with the baked vegetable post. We are continuously looking for healthy snacks to have at home when you suddenly become hungry, to avoid eating processed food. This one is, no doubt, one of my favourites. 

For me, spinach is the perfect food. You can eat 2 tons and not be worried about your line, they have just 23 calories per 100 g and they have plenty of fibre. As any dark green vegetable, spinach is full of nutrients and it should be part of any healthy diet (we get worried too often about what not to eat, and we forget it is very important to choose wisely what we actually eat!) And well... I love it. Another dark green vegetable that has become fashionable these days is kale. It seems to be a superfood, but I haven't been able to find a recipe that I like using Kale. I already gave up, but I know I will try again! Spinach is a different story. It is so easy to make delicious recipes including them. And I think this is one of them. 

I cooked them with cumin, a flavour combination I have already used in the chickpeas and spinach cupcakes. 

So here it is. A very short video with a suggestion that I hope you like as much as we do. 

Click here to see the video

Quinoa salad with sushi flavour

One day I had a great idea for a recipe. It was kind of an "Eureka moment": I am going to cook sushi with quinoa. Then I googled it.. and I realized lots of people had the same eureka than me. There is even another blogger describing how she went through the same "Eureka process"! 

I just had to try it, so I decided to cook it. Everything seemed to be going fine until I had to cut the sushi rolls. That was a mess... and a disaster. Quinoa doesn't have the same consistency than sushi rice, is much less sticky, and at least for me... that was enough for the recipe not to work. I guess I didn't follow the right recipe, or maybe I didn't have the right quinoa... not sure. I have to confess that I ate the mess. And I really liked it! So I thought... why not to convert the recipe into a salad? And that's how this recipe was born. The good part is that being a salad convert this recipe in a very quick and healthy way to eat something that tastes like sushi, something that you could cook any... Tuesday? 

Quinoa is very fashionable these days among health concious people due to its nutritional value. Its protein content is quite high (including all essential amino acids) it has a relatively low glycemic index and a good part of its fat content is essential fatty acids. And what's best.. it tastes great. You can use to substitute rice in any recipe (that's where the idea of quinoa sushi came from!)

Nori seaweed is another superfood included in this recipe. Its main use is sushi making, but it can be use in many recipes. It has an intense sea flavour, and a high concentration of minerals, vitamins and fibre. 

The wasabi paste and the soy sauce give the final sushi flavour to this salad. We have used avocado, salmon and sesame paste because that's our favourite sushi combination at home. But you can try with any other combination that you fancy!

So click here to see the recipe. Enjoy it!