MULTI-PURPOSE QUARK AND ZUCCHINI SAUCE - SAUCE MULTI-USAGE AU SERE ET A LA COURGETTE & MY INTERVIEW FOR SAVEUR.COM

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.
- Amy Tan

And immersion in random absurdity can be a perfect remedy to thinking too much. It leads to art and science. It leads to madness and inspiration. It leads to fun.
-  Chris Corner of IAMX

Inspiration comes in many forms and shapes. It can be found serendipitiously at any moment (while you shower, eat breakfast, have a walk, meditate, etc... - especially during downtime as then your mind is free and you have the opportunity to be reflective), everywhere and in everything (books, music, photography, movies, beauty, ugliness, news reports, sad/tragic or happy events, people, acts of courage/kindness/cruelty, mistakes, smells, nature, memories, etc...). In order to connect with it, one just needs to open wide his/her soul and heart, be receptive to its calling and remember that it is as slippery as soap, as ephemeral as a rainbow, as fragile as a butterfly and as impalpable as a ghost.

It is wildly rampant, exhaliratingly magical, a kind of cosmic drug that sets you on fire, puts you in a semi-shamanic trance, makes you feel invicible and linked to the Universe, an awesome productivity multiplier, a great encourager, an amazing enthusiasmer as well as a terrific motivator. Its purpose is the arousal of our emotions and the elevation of our mind, but sadly, as it is the case with all that has the particularity of being immaterial, you cannot summon it at will or bottle it up for later use.

Inspiration is in seeing a part of the whole with the part of the whole in you.
- Kahlil Gibran

Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.
- Brendan Francis

Just like a vision or revelation, it generally grabs you unexpectedly, comes in a flash, hits you without warning and is highly perishable. During a very short lapse of time, ideas sparkle/fuse and start to form, but this state of awareness doesn't last eternally, so if you don't act immediately and capture those visions or thoughts on the spot, they tend to fade and disappear as quickly as it came.

Hence, it is good to know when you are prone to intellectual enlightment (aka peaks of brilliance - mine come mainly in the morning and occasionally in the evening) and always be ready to beat the iron while it's burning hot and make sure that you keep a consistant physical trace (more than scribblings, voice memos or sketches) of your creative meanderings.

You have to tap this source before the well of wonders tarishes as illumination will not wait for you. Once the train has left it will not come back,therefore, it is important to run with it, to let it sweep you away, to capitalize and focus completely on it as well as optimize it whenever you have the opportunity and not to be parasited by anything or anyone during these brief periods of sheer clarity. In one word, understand how your think tank functions, learn to make space in your day for your inspiration to proliferate furiously and try to momentarily isolate yourself from the outside world. You'll fastly see results if you follow those basic rules.

Regrettably, it is impossible to be constantly touched by divine grace and unfortunately, sometimes we have to go through a few depressingly and ego-shattering dry spells (writer's/painter's/composer's/etc... block) before we get our mojo back and chanel the spirits of ingenuity again. Happily, these phases are mostly not everlasting and a short break from the routine usually solves the problem. You'll be surpised to see in which manner doing something completely different or escaping to a happy and different place (holidays, a hike, a nap, visiting a friend or family, going out to eat, aimlessly watching a program on TV or surfing the net, etc...) can have a positive impact on your productivety/artistic performance.

Thankfully for me, those frustratingly infructuous  intervals rarely go on forever. It seems that I am always able to draw inspiration from whatever surrounds me (I even marvel at the stupidest and meaningless of things) and nearly never fails to find subjects to write about or compose innovative eats. I guess this has a lot to do with the fact that I am a person whose brain rarely rests and is like an erupting volcano, a daydreamer with an insatiable curiosity and an individual who has kept my inner child alive.

If you give me one simple ingredient and ask me to invent a meal, you can be pretty sure that I'll come up with a recipe which is far from being ordinary and has a zest of originality. Developping dishes without having to cogitate much is one of my strong points as I am capable of summuning my culinary genius easily.

For example, a few days ago, I had some quark (fresh cheese which can be found in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Russia, etc...) in my fridge and really wanted to sublime it by transforming it into a fresh, tasty, healthy and summery sauce which could be poured cold over boiled potatoes, accompany hot or cold staples and be used in multiple ways (dip, spread and dressing), so that's how I concocted a succulent and versatile "Quark And Zucchini Sauce". Perfect for this transitional season...

I am really thrilled and proud to announce that Rosa's Yummy Yums is listed on SAVEUR's "Sites We Love"!!! A dream come true... To read my interview, please head over there.

Sauce Multi-Usage Au Séré Et A La Courgette

Recette par Rosa Mayland, Septembre 2012.

Pour environ 2 tasses.

Ingrédients:
250g de Séré/fromage blanc (demi-gras de préférence)
1 Petite (150g) Courgettes, râpée
2 Oeufs durs, hachés
1 Gousse d'ail, finement hachée
1 Echalote, finement hachée
2 CS de Graines de citrouille, torréfiées et finement hachées
2 CC de Pesto (fait maison ou acheté)
1 CC de Zeste de citron (bio)
1 Pincée de Poudre de piment de la Jamaïque
Tabasco rouge, selon goût
Poivre noir fraîchement moulu, selon goût
Sel de mer fin, selon goût

Méthode:
1. Mélanger tous les ingrédients ensemble.
2. Servir.

Remarques:
Vous pouvez remplacer le séré par un autre fromage frais (de chèvre, de brebis ou de vache) de votre choix, du yaourt grec, un mélange de ricotta et de crème fraîche (2 parts/1 part), du mascarpone ou du cream cheese (n'oubliez pas que le mascarpone et le cream cheeese sont beaucoup plus riches que le séré demi-gras).

Suggestion d'accompagnement:
Servir comme dip avec des légumes crus en bâtonnets ou en tranches (carottes, concombre, courgette, céleri branche, poivron, champignons de Paris, chou-fleur, jicama, etc...).
Servir comme tartinade avec du pain ou des craquelins.
Servir comme sauce avec du poisson (truite, saumon, cabillaud, etc...), de la viande grillée, des pommes de terre en robe des champs, des frites au four, des légumes vapeur ou des pâtes.
Servir comme sauce à salade (pommes de terres, pâtes, riz ou légumes grillés).

TAHINOMELO WITH MAHLAB - TAHINOMELO AU MAHLEB

Lately, while looking out of the window, the following lyrics, sung in 1982 by the mighty Glenn Danzig, leader of my favorite punk formation (The Misfits – Danzig Era only, 1977-1983) constantly popped up in my mind:

Brains for dinner
Brains for lunch
Brains for breakfast
Brains for brunch
Brains at every single meal,
Why can't we have some guts?

OI! OI! OI!

Brains are all we ever get at this rotten fucking place,
brains are all we ever get, why can't we have a change of pace! ]…[

Don’t get me wrong, no brains were involved. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about the rain that had not stopped bugging us on a daily basis since about a month.  After such an extensive period of precipitations, it started to get so boring and frustrating that, very much like the vocalist of that mythic band, I quotidianly prayed for "a change of pace”. Unfortunately, cursing the dark clouds, invoking our brightest star and hoping that it will finally hug us with its warm arms proved unsuccessful until today. I really thought that I'd lose my marbles if the meteorological calamities continued to strike us and the status quo was maintained for another 24 hours!

 Although nature desperately necessitated intense watering considering that the Siberian winter we experienced at the beginning of the year (January and February) left the grounds dry and the vegetation severely dehydrated, the sad, monotonus and dreary weather began to negatively affect my mood.

You see, it can get extremely tedious to wake up every morning to grey blankness. I dearly missed the pure and blinding April light, the birds' ear-tearing cacophony of joy as well as contemplating the rays of the sun play with the lush green leaves on the trees. In lieu of that, all I could observe was an aqua deluge and apart from the sound of thousand of drops hitting hard the concrete and the howls of the semi-cyclonic gusts of winds that shook the whole building, nothing else was to be heard.

When you’ve been looking forward to spring and instead, winter comes back with full force and slaps you in the face with a mighty roar, thus shattering your optimism and scattering it all over the floor like the countless petal confettis that cascaded down from the trees and were dispersed all over the muddy ground, there is absolutely no way this can make you feel enthusiastic. All the contrary.

Much to my dispair, the violent Bise and strong downpours have washed away the marvelous fruit tree blossoms and prevented us from enjoying those iconic flowers as much as we wanted. With such stormy and miserable conditions I’ve had problems gathering enough motivation to go out for walks and brave the deluvial precipitations, crazy gales as well as fresh temperatures. Cocooning was definitively a more adequate option... 

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.  
- Brian Tracy

That reminds me of an important lesson of acceptance and resignation each one of us should learn as it would spare us a lot of trouble, unhappiness and senseless stress if we understood that we cannot have an authoritative influence over everything.

Nowadays, society is obsessed with controlling and conquering the world and what surrounds it. People hate powerlessness as it makes them incredibly anxious and uncomfortable. They are terrorized by the idea that some elements in our existence are out of our hands and totally depend on fate. 

We all can choose the path we take, our conduct, the attitude we have towards things and the individuals we want to be acquainted with, yet we cannot decide which events or circumstances we’ll come across on our journey as a manifested individual. There is no denying that a supreme principle exists behind them and that our luck as well as misfortune are not always easily explainable.

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.
- Henry B. Adams

The more chaos there is, the more science holds on to abstract systems of control, and the more chaos is engendered.
- William Irwin Thompson

None of us is entirely the master of our destiny. We contribute to it, but only to a certain degree. This fundamental force in the universe has always been there and will remain until the end of time. Even modern science recognizes it. Forever, humans have had to deal with chaos and unpredictability. Hence, resisting those incertainties is senseless. One should rather embrace them, make the most of them and recognize the possibilities they offer. Anarchy rules the cosmos. It has a purpose that evades us and the portion of unknown which is thrown into the equation is what makes our life even the more exciting.

Chaos in the world brings uneasiness, but it also allows the opportunity for creativity and growth.
- Tom Barrett

I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.
- Septima Clark

Creativity in its most meaningful sense renders order out of chaos. True creativity engenders new coherent form from existing patterns or ideas. The creative mind is not subdued by the apparent anarchy of random chaos.

- J.L. Read

In order to be creative, artists need to be organized as well as hectic. No art is born without a little discipline and a good dose of unbounded wackiness. Those components are complementary and if you seek to generate craft exclusively with either one of them, then you’ll get nowhere. In the kitchen, the same theory can be applied. No chef can cook like a beserker unless he/she incorporates a certain amount of method to his/her deliriousness. 

It is beautiful to see that there is a hidden plan behind everything and that even the most crazy phenomenon has a reason of being and a deeper meaning behind its apparent randomeness. This is why I believe that door’s will open for you when the stars are aligned and the right moment has arrived.

So, when life hands you lemons, don't dispair and "say oh yeah I love lemons, what else you got?" (quote by Henry Rollins). Remember that this is the result of your actions combined to a higher pattern (equation composed of controllable & uncontrollable factors: actions + attitude+ place + time + character + unpredictability = fate). You are not getting what you want because you have engaged yourself in the wrong direction and you are lost (not morally speaking). Thus, if you want to influence your kismet in a more positive manner, then it is essential to rethink your doings and turn bad situations to your advantage by adjusting your karma (every action or manifestation marks a rupture of equilibrium, so to counterbalance that, a corresponding reaction is demanded - concordant actions and reactions). In one word, never give up as you have some cards in hands and can still alter the course of your route... 

Since my photography "studio" is situated on my balcony, the unfriendly climate and lack of light of the last four weeks have greatly compromised my photoshoot projects. Seing my projects fizzle out has upset me immensely, yet I refused to let that discourage me and annihilate my cheerfulness or sap my energy, hence I decided that it was indeed a good excuse to relax a bit.

An auspicious contretemps and message from the sky which I greeted with open arms as I'm suffering from a photographer's and writer's block at the moment. I have the impression of turning in circles and inspiration just fails me. Anyway, I'm am pretty sure my readers don't mind if I occasionnaly publish a "simple" recipe and slightly slow up my posting rythm in order to regain my strength and not develop a bad case of blogging burnout (we wouldn't want that to occur, would we?).

Hence, the speciality I am presenting today is uncomplicated. Nonetheless, it is far from being uninteresting or ordinary. "Tahinomelo" (ταχινόμελο, pronounced tah-hee-NO-meh-loh) is a luscious Greek sweet sesame spread made with tahini and honey which is without a doubt foreign to the majority of my non Hellenic or Middle Eastern readers.

Not only is it easy to make as it requires only three ingredients, but it is also delicious, refined, very healthy, nourishing and is a great alternative to other industrial pastes that are far more calorific and less wholesome in comparison with that 100% natural treat. A perfect breakfast, brunch or snack indulgence!

Tahinomelo With Mahlab
Recipe by Rosa Mayland, April 2012.

Makes about a cup of tahinomelo.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Tahini

3/8 Cup (1/4 + 1/8 Cups) Runny honey
1/8 Cup Water
1/2 Tsp Mahlab (optional)

Method:

1. In a medium bowl, add the tahini and whisk together mith the water until you get a solid mass.

2. Incorporate the honey and and mahlab. Whisk hard until you get a smooth and pale spread that has the consistency of Nutella.

3. Serve.

Remarks:

If the paste is too thick or not sweet enough for your taste, then add a little more honey.
Tahinomelo can be stored unrefrigerated for several days, well covered.
Before every use, stir it well.

Serving suggestions:

Spread on bread (whole grain preferably), toast or crackers.
It is also perfect for making banana sandwiches.

Tahinomelo Au Mahleb

Recette par Rosa Mayland, Avril 2012.

Pour environ 1 tasse de tahinomelo.

Ingrédients:

1/2 Tasse de Tahini

3/8 de Tasse (1/4 + 1/8 de tasse) de Miel liquide

1/8 de Tasse d'Eau
1/2 de CC de Mahlep (optionel)

Méthode:
1. Dans un bol moyen, foutter ensemble le tahini et l'eau afin d'obtenir une masse solide.
2. Incorporer le miel et le mahleb tout en fouettant énergiquement jusquà obtention d'une pâte étalable et ayant la consistance du Nutella.
3. Servir.

Remarques:

Si la pâte est trop épaisse et pas assez sucrée à votre goût, alors vous pouvez ajouter un peu plus de miel.
Le tahinomelo peut être conservé à température ambiante pendant plusieurs jours.
Bien mélanger avant chaque utilisation.

Idées de présentations:

Tartiner sur du pain (pain complet aux graines de préférence), des toasts ou des crackers.
Cette pâte à tartiner est parfaite pour faire des sandwich à la banane.

KIPPER RILLETTES - RILLETTES DE HARENG

I'm a big fan of spreads and pastes as they are very practical, tasty and versatile. What makes them very exciting is that they can be paired with so many different accompaniments such as bread, crackers, savory biscuits, vegetables sticks and even with pasta or boiled potatoes. The association possibilities are endless...

I've also always loved smoked kipper fillets (in a tin/Appel brand) as they are healthy, incredibly delicious, cheap, very convenient and can be used in so many ways in order to make quick, easy, toothsome as well as quality meals...

So, for the farewell dinner that we organized on the occasion of our friends Jessica (see her blog "In Search Of Desssert") & Jonathan's definitive departure from Switzerland (they are going to start a new life in Austin, Texas), I decided that it would be a good idea to whip up some lip-smackingly luscious "Smoked Herring (Kippers) Rillettes" in order to serve them with my delightful "Hazelnut Golden Raisin Baguette" (see The King Arthur Flour recipe here).

These scrumptious and well-balanced rillettes were very popular and so was the bread. Both disappeared very rapidely. A real delicacy!

~ Smoked Herring (Kipper) Rillettes ~
Recipe by Rosa @ Rosa's Yummy Yums 2009

Makes enough paste to fill 5 espresso cups.

Ingredients:
125g Smoked herring fillets (tin), drained
150g Cream cheese
1/2 Tsp Preserved lemon puree (see remarks)
1 1/2 Tbs Lemon juice
2 Tsps Capers, washed, drained and coarsely chopped
1/4 Tsp Piment d'Espelette (see remarks)
1 Pinch Paprika
1/2 Tsp Walnut oil (optional)
20g Chives, finely chopped
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Method:
1. With the help of a fork, crumble the fish fillets very finely.
2. Add all the other ingredients and work the mixture into a homogenous paste.
3. Pipe the paste (or drop spoonfulls of it) into espresso cups.
4. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving (see remarks).

Remarks:
To make the preserve lemon puree, take a slice/piece preserved lemon and puree it with a fork. If you don't have any preserved lemons, just use the same quantity grated lemon.
Piment d'Espelette or Espelette peppers is a Basque chili powder. If you can't find any, use the same quantity of any chili powder.
I recommend you to keep the rilletttes in the fridge, overnight as the flavors tend to develop better that way.

Serving suggestions:
Serve this spread with "Lavash Crackers", "Oatcakes", "Smoky Chili Crackers", "Tiny Curry Scones", "Matzoh Sheets" or homemade bread (see bread recipes).

***************

~ Rillettes A l'Harreng Fumé ~
Recette par Rosa @ Rosa's Yummy Yums 2009.

Pour 5 tasses à espresso.

Ingrédients:
125g de Filets de hareng fumé (conserve), égouttés
150g de Cream cheese (type Philadelphia)
1/2 CC de Purée de citron confit (voir remarques)
1 1/2 CS de Jus de citron
2 CC de Câpres, lavées, égouttées et hachées grossièrement
1/4 CC de Piment d'Espelette
1 Pincée de Paprika
1/2 CC d'Huile de noix (en option)
20g de Ciboulette, finement hachée
Salt, à volonté
Poivre, à volonté

Méthode:
1. A l'aide d'une fourchette, émietter (finement) les filets.
2. Ajouter tous les autres ingrédients et bien mélanger afin d'obtenir une pâte homogène.
3. Remplir chaque tasse à l'aide d'une poche à douille (ou à la cuillère).
4. Réfrigérer au moins une heure avant de servir.

Remarques:
Ecraser le morceau de citron confit à l'aide d'une fourchette, ainsi vous obtiendrez une purée. Si vous n'avez pas de citrons confits, alors utilisez la même quantité de zeste de citron.
Le Piment d'Espelette est une poudre de piments doux en provenance du pays basque. Si vous n'en trouvez pas, alors vous pouvez utiliser la même quantité de piment en poudre.
Je vous recommande de garder les rillettes pendant au moins toute une nuit au frigo car, de cette manière, les saveurs se développent mieux.

Idées de présentation:
Servez ces rillettes avec des "Crackers Lavash", des "Palets A l'Avoine/Oatcakes", des "Crackers Au Piment Fumé", des "Minis Scones Au Curry", du "Pain Azyme" ou du pain maison (voir mes recettes).