link love in bullet points

by on April 11, 2013

  • Atlanta is in full bloom. These are the days between cozy cardigans and shorts. I wish I would have been better prepared for this. I am still unpacking some of the last moving boxes and finally discovered the needed summery clothes! Oh and I found my Easter decoration, bunny you are too late for the party, off duty until next year. I am looking forward to spend some time in Atlanta’s Botanical Garden. Everyone is raving about it!
  • It’s the weather for maxi dresses and lunch breaks in the sun. But still, nights are chilly. I like to carry my denim shirt (picture top right left) with me all day and pull it out when needed. It looks even better with some winkles. And I could wash it very hot if something leaks in my bag and there are yoghurt stains all over… not that this ever happened to me.
  • My middle sister gave me Earl Grey’s Lady Violet, knowing my love for this kind of tea (picture top right). This is definitive not your regular black tea. I really enjoy the flavors: citrussy, perfume-like and flowery. The color is pale, but pale is elegant. Sold here or here.
  • Although I am a lover of aprons, I somehow forget about them and end up with stains. Even worst is my habit to wipe my hands on my pants. This apron is sturdy and durable (picture right bottom), I just have to remember to put it on. Since the start of the BBQ season I have to share it with Mr. F and denim is easy on the eye, rather than flowery pink aprons…

Collage a

  • I have a weak spot for Budapest shoes, Brogues shoes or Oxford shoes or what ever you call them… Those are so very much spring, love the colors.
  • Mr. F is a genius in making homemade sausage especially German bratwurst. I thought I should contribute at least a nice mustard and made Bryan Picard’s country mustard. He is a chef and blogging at The Bite House. Making mustard is so easy, you should try! This recipe leads into a flavorful and punchy mustard and is much better than anything store bought.
  • Little America! I stick to my position: there is always a need for a new bag. Also it’s an awesome color.

{ 6 comments }

barley risotto with loads of mushrooms

by on April 5, 2013

barley risotto-212

I started running again, for some good reasons.

I have a great view from my desk and there is always someone and something running up and down the street – no matter what. Seeing those elastic athletes passing by my window made me feel lazy and jealous. Would you call this peer pressure? I don’t know what came over me, but I had the urge to move my feet (and bud). So I started chasing them.

On the other hand, I should move myself a little more often anyway.  Let me correct that, I should run out of my door and don’t stop for a long while. Who thought painting a house in style a la Animal from the Muppet Show wouldn’t balance my calorie budget in regards of having take-out for dinner for two months straight?

Apart from that my diet is pretty simple, I believe in chocolate and greens, maybe not at the same time. But eating right qualifies me for something gooey, creamy, chewy and necessary sweet afterwards. You know what I mean. There is nothing I am willing to change on this topic so getting in shape is my only possibility.

The “before” is my problem, the weak-minded pre-running moments: getting ready, finding the right time and making time. I tent to have the same argument with myself: why shouldn’t I rather stay at home and having a cuppa and cookies? We are all human more or less. After all running is fun! I love running and as soon I am on the street, I enjoy it.

The other good reason for running is listening to music. Finding the right grooves to your moves (is it still ok to say grooves? I am so 80’s 90’s). I have to admit I started nice and slow, why hurry? I make two steps in the same time Mumford or one his sons sings hee-eeaa-aa-ar-rrtt. Nevertheless I am still proud of myself, no one told me about this hills in Atlanta, they kill you.

The next goal I am trying to achieve (and it could be lifesaving) is improving my post running habits. How awesome would it be if I could just collapse under my fridge, operate the water dispenser with my pinky toe and manipulate the water jet with my big toe for targeting my mouth? Genius but mostly gross I know, that’s why I haven’t tried it so far, but with the arriving of summer weather I might announce a victory over this challenge.

The other thing I love about running? This would be thinking, somehow my brain is overachieving while blood will be pumped throughout my body, no surprise this works even for me. Running gives me the time to reflect and evaluate, anyway I am thinking about food very often. Well yes, of cause I had been running when I imagined the toe-water dispenser idea.

And by the way if I said running all the time, I mean slow motion jogging, my fault, no judging please.

Barely risotto is also kind of genius invention. It wins in multiple ways compared to the real deal risotto. It comes with less cheese, less effort (no constantly stirring necessary) and is as comforting as healthy. This recipe can be easily morphed into vegetarian or vegan food.

barley risotto-202

barley risotto with loads of mushrooms

ingredients

  • 10 g / 1 small handful dried mushrooms
  • 200 g / 1 cup pearl barley, rinsed and drained
  • 3 cups broth (chicken or vegetable)
  • 3 garlic cloves finely diced (about 1 Tbsp.)
  • 2 tsp. ghee or olive oil (divided)
  • ½ tsp. dried thyme
  • ½ tsp. smoked hot paprika powder
  • 680 g / 24 oz. fresh mushrooms (baby bella)
  • crumbled feta cheese and fresh cilantro (optional)

instructions

  1. Soak dried mushrooms in 400 ml / 1 2/3 cups hot water for 30 minutes, drain and save the mushroom water. Slice the soaked mushrooms in stripes and set aside.
  2. Melt 1 tsp. ghee or oil in a large nonstick frying pan over a medium heat, add garlic and sauté but don’t brown.
  3. Reduce heat, add barley, sliced (soaked) mushrooms, mushroom water, 2 cups broth, thyme, paprika powder, cover with a lid and simmer for 45 to 50 minutes. Stir once in a while to make sure the barley doesn’t stick at the bottom. Add more broth if needed in the final stages.
  4. Meanwhile clean the fresh mushrooms, cut off the very end of the stems and slice them vertically. Add the remaining 1 tsp. ghee to another skillet over medium high heat and let melt. Add sliced fresh mushrooms and toss them around to coat them. If the pan seems too dry, add a little more oil and butter. Stir and toss the mushrooms occasionally. Fry them until brown for 10-15 minutes.
  5. Add mushroom to barley and stir well, serve with crumbled feta and/or cilantro.

Cooking time: 45-50 minutes

Number of servings (yield): 3-4

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{ 4 comments }

How to have more fun hosting a weeknight dinner party and pesto bread

by on March 26, 2013

pesto bread-170 We love our friends and would like to see them more often, but there is already not enough weekend left for family and hobbies. So you are waiting for an invitation for a weeknight? Maybe everyone is waiting for everybody else. You could be the first to wing it and start a regular thing. Don’t believe just because you are working you won’t have time to prepare everything. I help you out: I put on my think hat and here are my two cents:

Team up with another friend and share the party preparations (half duty but double fun).

Be prepared, many things can be done ahead of time: shopping for groceries, setting the table and cleaning your home, cooling the drinks. You should make a plan, I believe in lists. Consider your time realistically. You got one hour? Lasagna is not going to happen. Think more: couscous, pasta… also low maintenance.

This is not the time for testing new recipes. The key is a fool-proof recipe, one you did several times successfully, a simple one is the best idea. You make hands down the best French fries in town, great this will make you look good. You are not going to impress anyone with mushy Duchess potatoes.

Make sure to hand your guests their first drink, I might be old fashion but I think it’s a duty of the host to welcome and clink glasses with every guest. After that they are on their own. Put wine and water bottles on the table or nearby, and encourage everyone to self-service but keep an eye on the coy ones, you don’t want them to dry out. Introduce your friends to your fridge. It’s totally fine to let them grab their own beer. After all you have worked all day. It’s your party and it’s time to have some fun.

Don’t be ashamed to use store bought dips like hummus. Pimp it up with a drizzle of good olive oil and dust with cumin and smoked paprika powder. This looks stunning on a nice platter. And your guests have something to nosh while you are busy in the kitchen. Bread and butter is a classic and on the table in a minute.

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Make ahead: some dishes taste even better reheated like goulash. Compound butter can be made weeks earlier. It freezes well and upgrades a chicken breast, salmon, veggies, baked potato. There are tons of easy and mouthwatering slow cooker recipes out there.

For cold days: soup party! Serve a basic soup for example: consommé (or any clear soup), potato soup, tomato soup, pumpkin soup etc. Serve with a variety of add-ins and toppings for this soup: croutons, rice, bacon bites, pesto, eggs (cooked and chopped or poached), black or pinto beans, sour cream, avocado, cubed ham, grated cheese, herbs, green onions, barley. Place it in small bowls on the table and everyone can mix and match to his liking.

For hot days: salad party! Works basically the same like for soup. Make a mixed green salad and provide a nice selection of ingredients: bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, butter beans, chicken strips, red onions, sun dried tomatoes, olives, crumbled feta. I don’t know about you, but if I want to turn a simple salad into a whole meal, I just add beans and top it with an egg, and I am happy as a camper. Offer two or three different dressings: creamy like ranch dressing and tangy like vinaigrette.

Both options are easier on you when you feed guests with allergies, vegans or vegetarians. Most leftovers make a great stir-fry or stew the next day.

The most important thing is YOU! If you are a hot mess when your guests arrive, they won’t enjoy this evening. They are visiting you and want diversion from their working day. Make sure you are peachy, relaxed and ready to party. Have yourself in order and don’t worry about the food. Your friends will be happy to help in the kitchen and it’s fun. You don’t have to be finished with the meal at their arrival but you should have upgraded yourself and smile. If nothing helps, pour yourself a glass of wine and breath.

pesto bread

pesto bread

ingredients

  • about 500 g / 1 lb. pizza dough
  • 3-5 Tbsp pesto of your choice

instructions

  1. Reheat your oven to 200 C / 400 F and place your pizza stone inside the oven (if using otherwise grease a baking sheet).
  2. Transfer your pizza dough to a lightly floured surface. Roll out dough into rectangular shape. Spread pesto evenly on top of the dough. Roll up the dough from the long side, form a snail, tuck under the beginning and the end.
  3. Place into the oven and bake 25 – 30 minutes.
  4. Remove from your oven and let cool 10 minutes before slicing.

variations

You can make your pizza dough and pesto from scratch. If your pesto contains a lot oil, use just 3 Tbsp, so it won’t squeeze out so much. Cilantro and smoked almond pesto works great, is less liquid (so you can use 5 Tbsp) and vegan.

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{ 3 comments }

cilantro and smoked almond pesto

by on March 16, 2013

cilantro smoked almond pesto (1 of 1)

First comes first, thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post, you made my day. I am caught of guard about your honest emails, you might not know how helpful this is for me. I appreciate you all so much!

The other thing that’s bothering me about being new in town, is starting from scratch with everything. Beside the administrative stuff like getting a new driver’s license and car registration (check and check), I also have to find random shops like favorite groceries and pizza delivery service. But I postponed the search for a new dentist, there is no need to rush, who want’s that? Being so lazy about that topic is maybe the reason why I ended up at one of my last dental practice. This place stuck in the late 70’s including the receptionist hairstyle. I was amazed to find a computer on her desk, I rather expected paper stacks and steno notebooks. I spend the next hour saucer-eyed and with too much blood in my head. Let me explain… My former dentist was a little on the short side, means while he was sitting on his little stool his assistant pushed the antique dentist chair as low as possible and my feed went up and my head went down. That explained the (overflowing) blood in my head. And why I had my eyes gapping wide open? While he worked on my teeth he explained his practice situation. Turned out there had been a fire in his former rooms and he had to move temporary. One night after business hours a guy broke in, not for stealing the dentist’s favorite dental drill but for (gasp) self-immolation. He managed to survive without injury, I guess – I wasn’t able to ask any questions. But he burned down the whole place. I felt sorry for my tiny dentist, he had been still outraged weeks later. You might wonder why someone should try to perform suicide at his dentist office? Well I did, hanging there nearly upside down, with an over performing brain due to an unreasonable amount of blood and someone else’s fingers in my mouth. I put two and two together while listening to his next stories. Turned out he was head over heals in love with a guy in Berlin, he found it appropriate to share this with me because I am from Germany and… I don’t know actually. But suicide out of spurned love made sense to me.  I spare you the rest of his stories (involved carnival in Germany) because you won’t believe me anyway. Needless to say, this is no fairy tale, all true. It was so far the most bizarre and entertaining dentist experience in my life.

Back to business, Mr. F and many more are not a big fan of cilantro because it is too soapy for their taste. I shared this opinion but it grew on me and now I love it. I made this pesto for a couple of times and keeping it more or less “plain”, I mean no other spices or flavors added, allows me to combine it with more dishes. It is great as a base for a sandwich, fish burger, with baked potatoes, grilled meats, for seasoning rice, garnish for soup especially this one… Let me know if you have a combination I missed so far.

cilantro smoked almond pesto-131

cilantro and smoked almond pesto

ingredients

  • about 100 g / 3.5 oz. (1 small bunch of) fresh cilantro, washed and dried
  • 40 g / 1.4 oz. smoked almonds
  • ½ -1 garlic clove
  • sea salt
  • 60 ml / ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

instructions

Add cilantro, almonds, garlic to your food processor and blend until crumbly. Add olive oil and process just until incorporated. Season with salt to taste but keep in mind almonds are already salted.

cilantro smoked almond pesto (1 of 1)

{ 2 comments }

7 minute cookies – boozed or caffeinated

by on March 8, 2013

7 min cookie-142

Home is where the heart is. We all heard this phrase before. But I never thought about it’s meaning or the truth behind this. Until I moved again and again and again and again. I am in my fifth home, fourth state in four years and start to wonder where is my home and where is my love for it?

This must have simmered in me for some time and bubbled up last week while shopping for groceries. Life can be strange. Sometimes lightning hits you between milk and fresh bread. I was about to pay as the lady behind the checkout counter asked me about my key chain. It is green and you can read “Heimat” in big letters on it. I told it means home and my sister gave it to me before I left Germany and moved to the US four years ago. I still know exactly what she said: “This is to remember you where your home is”.  I heart the cashier saying something like awe and that is cute… But I was suddenly somewhere else with my mind. I turned my head that she wouldn’t see my teary eyes. I still don’t know what hit me, is it all the moving? Changing locations? Living so fare away from my family and friends? Or starting from scratch – again? I suddenly felt small and all alone. And I don’t know even why, I love it here, Atlanta had been very good to me so far. First I find myself silly and overreacting. But I realized you can’t move home like a box, it is not by default the place where you put your sox in a drawer. Home might be there your heart is but it is a feeling that has to develop. For now my home is as always at my parent’s house in Germany and here and now is the home to be – in process.

7 min cookies-1735

Baking is my cure for many things, it relieves stress and grey clouds. I started baking as soon as I was able to use the kitchen. I wrote down this recipe during our family vacation in Florida last year, our rental house had a small but well picked selection of cookbooks and I scribbled this recipe on a small piece of paper. I forgot to note the source, sorry for that, but you can find the recipe all over the internet, I guess it’s not a secret recipe, more a common one. I used milk chocolate my sister brought me from Switzerland and the rest was also good quality organic chocolate. I believe it’s important to use the good stuff if you use so much of it. The smell and look of the melted mess is insane, like shiny dark brown lava. I wish I could tell you how many cookies you will get, but they went so fast. I wrapped some and gave it to the handymen, it was one of these days they continually came in one after another and leering at my cooling rack. I had no choice than sharing. But I have to admit I ate more cookie dough than good for me and couldn’t stop.

7 min cookies Collage

7 minute chocolate cookies

ingredients

  • 400 g / 14 oz./ 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  • 55 g / ¼ cup unsalted butter
  • 340 g / 12 oz. chocolate (2/3 semisweet, 1/3 milk chocolate)
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 125 g / 1 cup all purpose flour
  • ½ tsp. fine sea salt
  • 130 g / 4.6 oz. chopped walnuts
  • 2.5 Tbsp. instant espresso powder or 5 Tbsp. bourbon

instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 175 C / 350 F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium saucepan (choose one that is big enough for vigorous stirring) over low heat, mix and melt sweetened condensed milk, butter, chocolate, vanilla extract. Stir well to prevent the chocolate from sticking to the bottom and burning and reduce heat if necessary. Remove saucepan from heat and add flour, salt, nuts and espresso powder or bourbon. Stir well.
  3. Drop with teaspoon or small ice scoop on lined baking sheets, leave space in between they spread out big times and bake for seven minutes.
  4. Still hot the cookies will be fragile and look undercooked, slide parchment paper with the cookies of the baking sheet and let cool before transferring to your mouth or cookie jar.
  5. They taste best the day made but still fudgy and yummy for at least three more days.

some notes

Good quality chocolate is the key. If you prefer a sweeter cookie or you bake for kids, you might want to use more milk chocolate and skip espresso and bourbon (you might know that).

You can also use just semisweet chocolate, I love for a mix of 45%, 60% and 85% (cocoa solids).

variations

Dived dough in half and flavor one half with espresso (for breakfast) and the other half with bourbon (for happy hour). :)

You can use any nuts you like, toasted hazelnuts are great and the cookies turn out more chewy. Almonds are mmmmh. Pecans and bourbon are a dream team.

Cooking time: 7 minutes (hence the name)

7 min cookie-140

{ 7 comments }

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