dressing

Hey there followers,

just wanted to let you know that we are still here and we have not forgotten about you 🙂 On the contrary we have thought about the blog every day since leaving Denmark.

When first arriving to Atlanta on April 1. we had no place to stay and was so lucky that we could stay with some family friends for the first week. The following we stayed at a hotel on downtown and then left for Savannah and Charleston to celebrate my 30th birthday. Being back from our trip we moved in to a nice little town house in Roswell, 20 minutes north of Atlanta. When we moved in we had nothing, and mean nothing, except our two suitcases with cloth.

You might think that it is a womans biggest dream to go and shop for EVERYTHING, and so did I until it was my turn to do it… So instead of buying everything at once we ended up buying the most necessary things to begin with and then buy more as we need it. This has had a huge influence on our cooking and therefore also our blogging. However, we now seems to have enough kitchen stuff to make every day cooking easy and delicious and we will therefore strive to blog as much as possible again.

Cilantro Heaven

Cilantro has been one of our favorite herb for years, but in Denmark it can only be bought in small amounts at well-stocked super markets and then it was pretty expensive – at least compared to the amount needed. Over here, in the US, you can get huge bundles of cilantro on every street corner and I just love it – for me it is like cilantro heaven… And even though I can buy it every were I have sown some seeds and are now waiting impatiently for it begin to grow so that I can go out on out patio and pick it fresh and put in my chicken and cheese panini or as garnish on top of a delicious curry dish.
I buy cilantro every time I get to Farmer’s Market or the local super market and sometimes I get a little to excited and buy too much, which is what happened the other day when I bought 3 bundles when I only needed 1. When I opened the fridge this morning I realized that the last of the 3 bundles looked a little tired and needed to be used immediately or it would go to waste, and as a new thing in my new American life I have decided that nothing should go to waste unless it is dangerous to consume. So I thought “why not make a cilantro pesto?” and so I did…

Ingredients (1 cup)

1/2 cup roasted cashew nuts

2 cups cilantro

1/3 parmesan cheese, grated

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp. extra verging olive oil

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Put all the ingredients in a blender and mix at medium speed until smooth. Taste and add more lemon juice if necessary. The same goes for salt.
If you are the type that likes it a bit more chunky, you can stop the blender for every 5 seconds to take a look and stop when it has the wanted consistency.

Place the finished pesto in an air tight jar and store in a dark place. When you have opened the jar the first time, you can help preserve the remains by pouring some olive oil over the pesto, just so it is covered, before closing the jar.

Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (2.5 dl)

1.25 dl roasted cashew nuts

5 dl cilantro

0.8 dl parmesan cheese, grated

2 garlic cloves

1.5 dl extra verging olive oil

1 tbsp. lemon juice

0.5 tsp. salt

0.25 tsp. pepper

Pesto is one of those things that every one should have in their pantry. For years we bought it in the local super market, then we decided to buy it in the local Italian Deli and now we are making it our selves. It is as easy as boiling an egg and it only takes a few minutes.

This recipe is a pesto with spinach, almonds and parmesan cheese, but you can use all sorts of herbs, nuts and hard cheese.

That we chose to make a version with spinach, was actually because we had bought to much spinach at the local Farmers Market last wednesday and did not know what to use it for. So we decided to google ‘spinach recipes pictures’ and ended up with hundreds of pictures of meals containing spinach, but at that exact time none of it look appealing. Later the same day, we saw another blogger baking a cauliflower salad with basil pesto, and we immediately new what to make of the remaining spinach 🙂

Ingredients (1/2 cup)

2 handfuls spinach

1/2 lemon, juice

1/3 cup quality olive oil

2 tbsp. grated parmesan cheese

8 almonds, roasted

Salt & Pepper

Rinse the spinach thoroughly in cold water and leave it to dry on some paper towel (if you are in a hurry you can just dap it with paper towel to remove as much water as possible).

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth – it takes approximately 30-40 seconds. If you think that the pesto is a bit to thick and grainy, you can add more olive oil. Add one tsp. at a time, to prevent that it gets to thin.

Transfer to sterilized jar, seal and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

Serve as a dressing for raw cut vegetables, with pasta, tapas, or combine with sour cream and use as an alternative the the usual burger dressing.

Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (2.5 dl)

2 handfuls spinach

0.5 lemon, juice

0.8 dl quality olive oil

2 tbsp. grated parmesan cheese

8 almonds, roasted

Salt & Pepper

Food on Demant

by Ann & Chris Demant

Cilantro Heaven and Pesto

Spinach and Almond Pesto