Smoked salmon wraps with a big salad

Hot, hot hot. I'm just sitting in the garden reading one of my books. From time to time my mum or sister shouts to get my attention: 'Sunscrean!' or 'Shadow!' or 'Don't forget to drink!'. When I'm reading, nothing can get me out of my comfortable chair ... 

But I don't forget to eat. Most people lose appetite, but that doesn't happen to me I think. The only thing is that I really want to eat fruits, lots of them. I don't feel like eating anything else. 

For dinner, I didn't want anything cooked. Just raw vegetables and - as it was a long time ago - smoked salmon. To make the dish complete I had tortillas and a tzatziki-like dill and cucumber sauce.

It's ready in a blink of an eye. So you'll be free to read, play, enjoy ... or do anything else you want this Summer's day :D

Ingredients for 1:
- 2 small or 1 large tortilla wrap
- 5 cm of a cucumber
- 1 small pot of plain yoghurt
- some crushed garlic cloves
- teaspoon of dill
- ground pepper
- 70 grams (2 slices) of smoked salmon
- lots of raw vegetables for your salad! (I had cherry tomatoes, beetroots and carrots)
- chives for serving

How to:
Peel and cut the cucumber in very small pieces. Add them to the yoghurt, the garlic, the pepper and the dill. Set aside in the fridge until you need it.

Make a salad and dress it on your plate.
Make the wraps by putting the slices of smoked salmon and the sauce on the tortilla(s). Roll them up and you're ready to serve. Sprinkle the chives on the salad. It gives an extra garlic-like taste to the vegetables.

Great!

Fish on the BBQ

Barbecue today, according to me just the way a hot Summer's day should end. 

My parents are meat lovers, so they had a good steak and pork ribs. I looked in the freezer for some inspiration and found fish fillets. Now the problem was what to do with them. Plain is nice, but then you don't have BBQ every night, right?

In our house there are always oranges around. For my glass of fresh orange juice, my daily morning shot of vitamin C to start off ;) That was ingredient one. 

Second were fennel seeds. As I' was the only fish eater today, I didn't have to care about the others that don't like the taste of them.

A little olive oil, salt and red pepper finished my marinade.

Ingredients for 1:

- 1 white fish fillet

- juice of 1/4 orange

- red pepper to taste

- salt to taste

- dash of fennel seeds

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

How to:

Take a piece of tin foil large enough to wrap the fish later on.

Put the fillet on it and cover it with all the other ingredients.
Close the foil to make a package, fish en papillote. A quarter of an hour on the roster and ready to serve. 

Why make something difficult when you can do it easy? At least you have the rest of the time off to relax. Never waste a good Summer's day!

The fish and the marinade is very light. So it's a good recipe for people that don't feel like dining heavily. Of course that depends also on the side dishes ... ;)

Summer is in town!

Finally! After a very long time - a dreadful Summer in 2011 which couldn't be distinguished from Autumn, a long Winter and a wet, wet Spring - we finally made it into Summer.


This week temperatures rose up to 30°C, and it made me really happy. I think I'm not made for cold Winter days. I'm always shuddering, having cold hands and feet and drinking hot chocolate to warm myself. 


But I wasn't careful: I took my book (Emma by Jane Austen - a very good book by the way!) and sat myself in our garden. Of course I wasn't covered with sunscreen and happily read on and on. Result of it all is a lobster-look, red and fiery. In my yellow top I look really flashy. Now, I know it's not good so today I'm wiser and I've done my duty of having sunscreen and some more clothes on.


Anyway, apart from the annoying stingy feeling of a sunburn, Summer is just great.


Yesterday I went to dine out in Antwerp. I had a coupon of Flair magazine, with which I and a friend could dine out for a little amount of money. We had a wonderful time there. We sat by the Schelde and watching the sunset by the water.

   

Tonight we're at a barbecue of my parents' friends. I just love those nights on which every guest brings some part of the food or drinks to the place of venue. We're bringing some salads and the drinks. 
I decided to make a cold pasta pesto with pine nuts and tomato-mozzarella. 


Ingredients for tomato-mozzarella:
- 200 grams mozzarella
- good quality olive oil (I used basil scented olive oil)
- 3 large tomatoes
- oregano and basil to taste
- fresh leaves of basil/mint


How to:
Slice the mozzarella in fine, 1/4 cm slices. Cover them with some olive oil and the herbs. Let stand for a while so that the cheese can take up all the flavours. Slice the tomatoes in equally thin slices. Arrange the tomatoes and the cheese so that they alternate. Drizzle some more olive oil over it all and grind a little pepper or salt if you like. Decorate it with some nice fresh leaves of basil or mint.


What could you wish for more?