If there’s a dish I baked most last summer (even at the beginning of fall), this was it! It was even appropriate during our detox (or I made it so)! The cherry tomatoes you're using must be delicious!

The ingredients needed for a round baking pan of Φ 22 cm are:

(for the) FILLING

350g cherry tomatoes

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1 & ½ tbsp of maple syrup

15g butter

+ 1 medium onion

+ 1 tbsp of butter

(for the) CRUST

1 tbsp of psyllium seeds

2 tbsp of (hot) water

125g gluten-free oatmeal

25g tapioca flour

60g (melted and cooled) butter

1 tbsp of apple vinegar

a pinch of sea salt

Wash the cherry tomatoes and place them in the baking pan. Sprinkle the thyme. Pour over the maple syrup. Cut out small pieces of butter and sprinkle them all over the cherry tomatoes.

Place the baking pan in the preheated oven for 14 minutes at 190°C.

Then, let it cool.

Meanwhile, clean the onion, chop it, and fry it in butter. Then, add it over the cherry tomatoes.

Make the crust using the recipe here.

Roll out the crust and cover the cherry tomatoes, ensuring you tuck the dough under the tomatoes.

Bake it in the preheated oven for 20 minutes at 170°C.

I was inspired by a vegan menemen made with tempeh. We were undergoing an atypical detox, but the vegan menemen tasted like the classical menemen that I love and have served so many times!

What do you need for a vegan menemen?

4 tbsp of olive oil

1 onion

2 bell peppers                                                                   

3 tomatoes

a pinch of dry oregano

a pinch of sea salt

a dash of pepper

How to make it?

Sauté the onion over low heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add the diced bell peppers; simmer them for 5-6 minutes.

Dice the tomatoes and mix them in with the oregano, sea salt, and pepper.

Add the tofu 3-4 minutes later (chop it in the pan or dice it before adding it).

 Serve it warm! Enjoy your meal!

How did it start? J

When I was a child, there was a magazine called ’Universul copiilor’ [’The Universe of Children’]. Whenever a new number came out, my Mom would buy it for me. One of these magazines included this recipe.

Well, we changed it a bit over the years, using various types of bread and cheese; however, I still love this recipe – it became part of my family.

How to make it?

For 1 portion, you will need

4 slices of bread

1 small onion

1 tbsp of sunflower or flaxseed oil

a pinch of salt

a little bit of sugar

6 tbsp of tomato juice

15g cheese

Place the bread slices into a baking pan.

Clean and cut the onion.

Sizzle the onion, adding a pinch of salt and some sugar into the oil (it will enhance the flavour of the onion). In the end, mix in the tomato juice. Spread the mixture over the bread slices, carefully dividing it.

Grate the cheese.

Place in the oven for 10 minutes (la 180⁰C).

I hope you enjoy it!

♥

My weeks are tough. I work so much that I cannot stick to my daily chores (the recipe should have been published yesterday). To top it all, today’s my name day (which nobody knows about), but I made a cake and a pizza, to keep things festive. J 

And I recall Iran. I miss Iran, I miss my friends there, I miss the taste of this mirza ghasemi... I miss wandering around – I have travelled through Romania this year, but I wish to do it worldwide, without restrictions. I wish to be able to hug anybody without asking if he(she) allows me to.

Each trip to Iran had a certain warmth about it. I haven’t found this warmth anywhere else but at home.

This dish from northern Iran (around the Caspian Sea) saved me on many days, while I was trying to navigate through the labyrinth of non-vegetarian lunches and dinners.

I liked it so much the first time that I tried it (I was in Masuleh) that I congratulated the chef and I asked for an extra portion. Our waiter told us how to prepare it and I wrote down the recipe knowing that I’d surely use it someday.

Mirza ghasemi is not hard at all to make.

For 4 portions, you’ll need

4 eggplants

3-4 garlic cloves

3 tomatoes

(Marcel insisted to add 1 onion to the mix)

1 large egg

salt

+olive oil for frying

Smoke the eggplants. Let them cool and clean them.

Start frying the garlic (cleaned and cut into pieces), then add the tomatoes (cut into pieces) and the thinly-cut onion (and fry everything on medium heat for about 5 minutes). Add the cut eggplants and a pinch of salt (and fry for 5 minutes more).

When the ingredients are well done, break the egg and mix well.

Serve warm.

This is an appetizer, but I also served it with rice or fries. You could also spread it on a slice of bread or a flatbread.

The flavour is fantastic! At least from a culinary perspective, we do travel.

My last memory connected to mirza ghasemi is its cooking by a dear friend met on Qeshm Island – he was from the north, I was craving mirza, he knew that I wasn’t going to find it anywhere, so he cooked it... and Marcel happily helped him. 

P.S. The eggplants were from a close friend of mine. J