Ok guys…Here go the recipes from our second IGS adventure (which I -unfortunately- was not around for, thus the lack of yummy photos 😦 )

Big thank you to K. for providing the recipe details.

Main Course

Marinated lentils

Mix 4 parts oil with 1 part apple cider vinegar. Taste and season, as needed . You can also add Dijon mustard, garlic & tomatoes, basil, chilli pepper & lime. Mix everything in and pour on hot lentils. Leave for 1 hour and serve.

Hint: This can be safely stored in the fridge, for a couple of days.

Bread

50 gr yeast (fresh)
5 dl water
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspons salt
1 teaspons sugar
Approx.12 dl flour

Crumble the yeast in a pot. Heat the water to 37C. Pour a little of the water in the pot with the yeast until completely dissolved, then add the rest of the water, oil, salt, sugar and almost all of the flour. Mix well and then take the dough out of the pot and work it on a bench with your hands. Add flour as needed and kneed until smooth and non-sticky (approx. 10-15 minutes). Put back in the pot, cover and let rise (preferably somewhere warm) for about 30 minutes. Uncover, remove and re-kneed to remove all the air (approx. 1 minute). Divide into 12-16 pieces, form balls and put on a baking sheet. Alternatively you can make 2 loafs. Cover and let rise for another 30 minutes. Heat the oven at 225C and bake for 10-12 minutes. If baking loafs set the oven to 200C & bake for 30 minutes, instead. Check if done by taking a bun/loaf out of the oven and turning it upside down. It is ready to be taken out if it sounds hollow when knocked on.

Hint: This is the basic recipe. Use you imagination, mix flours (50-50 wheat flour-graham flour or rye flour), add spices (basil, anis etc.), sun flower seeds, sun-dried tomatoes, walnuts, olives…The sky is the limit 😉

Dessert

Rhubarb with cardamom
4 servings

300g rhubarbs
1 teaspoon cardamom (preferably freshly grinded)
50 gr butter
1 dl brown sugar

Peel and cut the rhubarbs. Heat up the butter in a pan and add the rhubarbs, cardamom and sugar. Fry, at average heat, until soft. Serve immediately with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

P.s. Next meeting’s coming up soon and I promise I will have yummy photos from that one 😀 (so keep checking this space)

Ok people…Am back much sooner that I thought with all the details of our first “IGS Project” meeting.

(Big thank you to Kerstin for providing me with the recipe details in such a timely fashion).

So, to begin with, girlfriends (and loaded down grocery bags) started arriving at K’s place at around 18.00. Spirits were running high, curiosity was peaking and -with a fair amount of preparation and private consultations time behind us- it wasn’t long before the menu of the evening was revealed: Our main course, prepared by NNatasha & Kerstin, was to be crispy covered salmon accompanied by baked potatoes and carrots with a cheese sauce and as for the dessert myself and Siobhan had planned on triple chocolate & pecan brownies with whipped cream. Sarah was the “slacker” of our first night (we are all gonna take turns doing that, hehe), kindly tending to the pre-dinner snacks and booze.

We were all impressed by the efficiency and seamless coordination of our host and Scottish sista in preparing the first course and, I dare say, me and SSiobhan were even kinda skeptical as to whether or not we would live up to their high standard 🙂 . The fact that we were actually supposed to make the dessert wasn’t exactly boosting our confidence either. We are both quite good cooks, but as everyone knows you can’t easily correct things that go wrong with desserts. As Kerstin remarked making them is a form of chemistry and requires a high level of scientific precision!

In any case, a good couple of hours of peeling, chopping, measuring and mixing later everything was safely on its way to the dinner table, where the bottles had already been opened and the conversation was flowing. Turns out everything was DELICIOUS too and I even figured out the only way to actually enjoy salmon (not to mention how to whip cream without the help of an electrical appliance, hehe).

For the following couple of hours we gorged ourselves on the fruits of our labor, had a serious amount of laughs and exchanged our news -the highlight of which was Siobhan’s announcement that she is expecting a baby!!!!! I believe the oohhh-ing and aahhh-ing will reverberate through the ages…

At around 23.00, and having congratulated ourselves for a job well done, we decided to call it a day and go home. Next meeting will be arranged asap through e-mails, as per usual. In fact, we all enjoyed ourselves so much that we can’t wait and have already starting looking at dates. This time Natasha will be our gracious hostess (and official “slacker”), Sarah & SSiobhan will make the main course and me and Kerstin will take over the dessert (I need all the practice I can get…).

And now, I guess it’s time to stop my blabbing and give ya the recipes of the week (with bonus pics). So, here we go:

Main Course

Crispy covered salmon
5 servings

Salmon 600g
Small loaf of white bread, slightly stale
Sun dried tomatoes in oil, 1 jar..100g
Garlic, 1 clove
Basil..a bit
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C. Cut the bread into cubes. Mix bread, tomatoes and their oil, garlic, basil and a dash of salt and pepper. Put the salmon in a baking tray. Spread the bread mixture on top of the fish and bake for approximately 20 minutes.

Baked potatoes and carrots
Peal the potatoes and carrots & boil for approximately 4-5 minutes. Spread in baking tray and put in the oven until golden.

Serve the fish with the baked potatoes & carrots and accompany by cheese sauce.

Hint
Bake the potatoes for 5-10 minutes.Then put the fish in the oven, underneath the potatoes. That way the crispy bread cover will not burn and everything will be done at the same time.

Dessert

Triple Chocolate and Pecan Brownies with Whipped Cream
Makes 12 brownies

220g plain chocolate (preferably with at least 70 per cent cocoa solids) broken into pieces
75g pecan nuts broken into pieces
200g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
75g milk chocolate broken into chunks
75g white chocolate, broken into chunks

Preheat the oven to 180C/ Gas 4. You will need a greased and lined 20cm baking tin. Place the plain chocolate and butter in a large bowl and sit over a pan of gently simmering water. Leave to melt slowly, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the sugar, beaten eggs and vanilla extract. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold in. Finally add the pecan nuts and chocolate pieces. Pour into the tin and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, until the top is firm but the center is fairly soft when pressed lightly. Leave the brownies to cool in the tin and then cut them into squares.

Hint
They’re perfect eaten as they are, but they’re also delicious served slightly warm with a good dollop of extra-thick cream or ice cream. You can warm up the brownies in the microwave or just wrap in foil and place in a low oven for a few minutes.

(recipe taken from the BBC Food website)

So then, until next time…enjoy 😉

Intriguing title, huh? Here’s a bit more about it…

The idea came to me, out of the blue, during a Saturday brunch with girlfriends. It went a little bit like this: 5 expat sistas, all of different nationalities, getting together once a week to try out new recipes and share their news over the ensuing dinner.

After some discussion we decided that would, indeed, be a novel & entertaining addition to our weekly routine (not to mention an excellent opportunity for a combo of “social comment” 😆 and…BOOZE! Yep, as my friend Bettina would say: My name is Christiana and I’m an alcoholic. And so, by the end of our little get-together that day, we had already settled on a date for the official launch: 7th March 2007!

So, today, I’m proud to announce our first meeting was a resounding success! We all got together in one of our appartments, cooked the main course and desert in 2’s and had an incredible time over the most gorgeous dinner, afterwards! As a result we are planning our following adventure, already…

In the spirit of “immortalizing” our experience and keeping a record of all the interesting recipes, I decided to start a new post category, which will show up on the menu as “The IGS Project”. It will include a short account of each meeting, as well as pictures of all the different goodies prepared and the relevant recipes.

And now, for the origin of the name and today’s intriguing post title (come on, I know you are all aching to figure that one out)…

Upon returning home, and having decided to make this part of my blog, I started to debate what the whole thing could be called. I wanted to find a name that would incorporate both our nationalities and our project’s scope…As I already said there’s 5 of us, and we all come from different parts of Europe. I’m Greek and the other 4 are Swedish, Scotish, German- Irish & Irish. After a bit of pondering and using the initial letters of all our nationalities (G, S & I) I eventually came up with the acronym IGS (which stands for “International Gourmet Sessions) and serves both purposes mentioned above…And it was thus, that this became “The IGS Project” (name pending until approval by the other members, of course). Come on…tell me how smart I am…hehehe…

Summing up (’cause this is starting to become one hell of a post), the fotos and recipes of our first meeting will be posted as soon as I get the details on the main course which NNatasha & Kerstin cooked last night. Hope you all enjoy…