Yumi Yumi

Poster designed by Marju Randmer of Tassike.ee My local farmers market, Viimsi Taluturg , hosts a big apple feast tomorrow, called Ubinapäev . If I remember it correctly, its the third year in a row. And for the second year in a row, a group of local foodbloggers, including yours truly, sets up a apple cake stand, Toidublogijate õunakoogikohvik . There are five of us, just like last year, and as last year was lots of fun and a great success (we sold all the cakes within 2 hours or so), we're more than happy to participate this year as well. So all of you who are in Tallinn or Viimsi tomorrow, are most welcome to come by and have some apple cake. But come early :) Today's recipe is for apple and Cheddar cheese scones. The ones on the picture were made exactly a year ago, and come highly recommended. If it weren't for the prohibitive cost of Cheddar cheese over here, I'd make these for the apple cake stand tomorrow. These are excellent - slightly sweet, slightly savory,...

The silver-haired Amalfi-born and England-based Antonio Carluccio is known in the United Kingdom as the godfather of Italian gastronomy . This lovely dish is based on his recipe. Gently sautéed cubed aubergines/eggplants with garlic indeed have a flavour reminiscent of porcini/penny bun/cep mushrooms ( Boletus edulis in Latin) - hence the title of this post :) A handy recipe to have when you crave mushrooms but cannot get hold of good ones, or when you want to please somebody who cannot eat mushrooms for whatever reason.. Antonio Carluccio recommends this as a side dish to veal chops or Wienerschnitzler , but it's lovely as a vegetarian main with some crusty white bread as well.  Choose nice and firm aubergines for this. Melanzane al funghetto   ( Praetud pommud e. melanzane al funghetto ) Serves four 500 g aubergine/eggplant 2 garlic cloves 8 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 tsp seal salt freshly ground black pepper 2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley Peel the aubergines (not c...

You'll find the recipe for this wonderfully simple and flavoursome basic shakshouka at the end of this post. The colourful selection of hot peppers and tiny tomatoes is from our greenhouse.   I went to Israel back in June (see disclaimer at the end of this post), and fell in love with shakshuka (also spelled as shakshouka). Shakshuka is a northern African dish, originally from Tunesia or Algeria (depends who you ask from) that has become extremely popular in Israel over the last decades. We were told on several occasion that this is one of the two dishes that every Israeli man knows how to cook (I cannot recall what was the other one. Anyone?). I'm sure Israeli women are pretty good in making this dish as well, but yes, it's mainly men who boast who can make and eat the most fragrant and spicy shakshuka for breakfast :) As with many traditional dishes, there are as many recipes around as there are cooks.  The hugely popular Yotam Ottolenghi has a version in his second best...

What's your favourite zucchini/courgette dish this year? I'm still harvesting a good-sized zucchini or two every few days, and here's my favourite zucchini dish of 2012 (another recent favourite is this courgette/zucchini cake with lemon frosting , but as one is sweet and the other savoury, I believe I'm allowed to have two favourites :)). I spotted this idea in the May 2009 issue of the British food magazine Olive , but there was too little cheese and too much zucchini in the original recipe , so I've been playing around with it quite a lot. The tart has been a real hit with everybody who has tried it (just look at the number of comments on my Estonian site ), and I can see why - the cheese, garlic and courgettes work together immensely well. Use a slim and crisp zucchini for this - both for the looks and the texture. Courgette and Parmesan Tart ( Parmesani-suvikõrvitsapirukas ) Serves about 8 to 10 500 g puff pastry ca 500 g zucchini/courgette 2 large garlic clo...