Category: Jo’s kitchen

In case you’re checking my blog from time to time, you’ll most probably think that my poor cooking skills are able to create chaos and breakfasts only. But actually I’m cooking mostly dinners, as during the work week I’m working (so – no time for cooking whole day), and in the weekends we’re having brunches somewhere out (after our morning cafe in Starbucks of course). Well, during the work week, and especially evenings, I’m too tired (and too lazy) to cook anything fancy, so my dinner lists were short, simple (you know my taste for simple things) and unpretentious (omelettes, zucchini souffle,  salads, some small dishes in ceramic pots) but in the weekends I’m challenging myself to bit more sophisticated meals. One of the tuffest challenges I had past few years was to prepare nice and tender, juicy meat (steaks, ribs, chops, etc). I have tried couple of times but the results were poor to tragic. Meat was dry, tough, burnt and tasted like a shoe sole. Or brick. Friends and relatives were saying ‘Come on, this is the simplest thing ever’ and ‘Did you try to… (whatever)?’. Answers were of course, yes – I know, and yes – I have tried everything. In the end (it doesn’t even matter 🙂 ), I succeed after testing and failing again and again (what a surprise). I have managed to understand the problems I had in the past – poor quality of the meat itself, not good enough/not sufficient/or any pre-preparation, and last but not least – not Read More

I was inspired by one of my friends to do something with coconut flour and cheese. She made really nice low carb cheesy cake named ‘milinka’ (Bulgarian) and I was going to do the same, but found out that I don’t have one of the ingredients needed, so accidentally I did low carb muffins instead of milinka.  As you know, we’re trying to eat healthy and especially to avoid any refined white flours with high glycemic index. Most of the time I’m using wholemeal and einkorn flours, a lot of spelt flour (dinkel) or oatmeal, oat or flax bran – these are having approximately the same consistency as the regular white flour, but are not refined and are better for our bodies. Coconut flour on the other hand is specific, having totally different consistency and taste than the rest of the flours mentioned above. Cooking with coconut flour is different and there are more aspects to be taken under consideration than just replacing one flour with other.  Having that in mind you most probably know that every receipt with coconut flour contains a lot of other liquid ingredients, as this flour absorbs a lot. I have already shared with you 2 receipts with that flour (Coconut flour chocolate cake & Coconut flour cocoa muffins) but you should know that I’m still amateur in that area.  However, let’s get back to the cheesy muffins for healthy (and lazy) Sunday breakfast. You’ll need: 4 eggs – 2 to 4 BGN for 6 to 12 eggs pack 50 grams of melted Read More

Recently I was wondering what to do with my coconut flour. I bought a package long time ago and realize that as of then, I cooked with it just once and that was actually really bad buy for me. Bad but expensive… so, I looked all over the internet for something easy and of course – tasty. I have found something interesting in one of the numerous health web sites over the internet, with author Ambitious kitchen. I have changed couple of things in it (basically because I didn’t have some of the ingredients, but mostly – because I was following my intuition 🙂 ) and ended with a great result. So, here are my ingredients for this healthy cake with lots of love 🙂  1/4 tea cup butter (~70-80 grams) – 3-4 BGN for a 250 grams package 3 tablespoons honey – 7 to 10 BGN for a kilo jar 2-3 pinches of vanilla – up to 1 BGN for a 10 pinch package 2 eggs – 2 to 4 BGN for 6 to 12 eggs pack 3/4 tea cup of milk (~150-170 grams) – 3-4 BGN for a kilo bottle half tea cup coconut flour (~120-130 grams) – 10 to 15 BGN per package half teaspoon of baking powder – up to 1 BGN for a package (~20 tea spoons spoons) pinch of salt – 2 BGN for a kilo bottle dark chocolate (minimum 75%) – 2-4 BGN for a piece half tea cup coconut rasp (~120-130 grams) – up to 2-3 BGN per 300 grams package It is not Read More

Long time ago I bought chopper with the initial idea of preparing raw candies from  nuts, dried fruits and berries, avocado, cocoa and so on – healthy, sugarless ingredients. By sugarless I mean without any added sugar (white/brown sugar, honey, peanut butter, etc.). Nuts themselves are sweet, especially gathered with raisins, coconut rasp, dried plums and figs… so, you can easily make yourself candies with healthy ingredients and to eat them all without feeling guilt. Well, there have been months since I tried to use it, but once I got used to it – this chopper really helped me a lot in my cooking experiments. After using it numerous of times to chop onion, tomatoes and numerous of other things, I finally used it for the initial purpose I bought it for.  What I’ve used for my delicious unbelievably yummy candies?    2 packages raw nuts mix (almonds, raisins, peanuts, cashews, etc.) –  up to 5 BGN per package ~200 grams a handful of walnuts (~150 grams) – up to 15 BGN per kilo 2-3 full tablespoons of coconut rasp – up to 2-3 BGN per 300 grams package 1-2 tablespoons of cacao – up to 2 BGN per 300 grams package you’ll need additional coconut rasp and cacao to powder your candies as final touch It is pretty simple to do those candies, as you basically wont bake, brew and stew – you’ll only use the chopper and your hands 🙂 Put your nuts mixture into a bowl with lukewarm water for half an hour or something. Do Read More

There have been at least a month since I’m in love in this recipe that I have firstly saw in Sophie Yotova’s Foodie Boulevard blog. I have modified it (because I didn’t have all the ingredients in the first place) but it tasted so nice that I actually didn’t even try the original recipe ever (sorry, Sophie!). All you need is about 40 minutes and the following: couple of small apples (or 2-3 bigger ones) (~300-400 grams) – something like 2 BGN per kilo 3 eggs – 2 to 4 BGN for 6 to 12 eggs pack a tea cup of fine oat flakes (~120-130 grams) – 2 to 3 BGN for a kilo package a handful of raisins (~100 grams) – something like 2 BGN for a 150-200 grams package half tea cup of yogurt (~200 grams) – up to 2 BGN for 400 grams box baking soda (a tea spoon) – up to 1 BGN for a package (~20 tea spoons spoons) 2-3 tea spoons of linseed – up to 2 BGN for a half a kilo package 1/3 of a tea cup of wholemeal flour – up to 3-5 BGN for a kilo package 3-4-5 full tablespoons of honey – 7 to 10 BGN for a kilo jar pinch of vanilla or cinnamon (depends on your taste) – up to 1 BGN for a package Ok, let’s do it: Peel, core and cut the apples into a small pieces. By hand, do not use chopper for that because pieces would be too small. Read More