20 eggyolks

there are six appartements in my building and three of them are occupied by me, my best friend franziska and her boyfriend markus, as well as my friends leo and his girlfriend tanja. you see, we are almost taking over the house by now ... it's great to have my best friends in the building. we meet in one of our flats quite regularly to eat, drink and chat and generally have a good time.

on saturday it was markus's birthday and we had a big big party with about 120 guest all over the place. every appartement served a different food and drinks so people where litteraly forced to tour our building in order to experience full culinary offerings. i served kidney bean dip, magic monday morning (pear juice and rum) and chips in my appartement. franziska and markus served potato spread, white russian and pretzel sticks. leo and tanja offered a herb dip, vodka-orange and snips (peanut snack)

on friday we also made a giant cake. a cake with layers, which turned out pretty fancy! we never thought we could even handle such a big project, but we did! with a littel help from our friend martina who knows her way around the kitchen very well too us four girls managed to accomplish this pretty difficult task. check it out:


cutting a long story short: i still have 20 eggyolks in my fridge and don't know what to do with them. some sort of desert would be nice. any suggestions for a recipe where i can make use of that ammount of yolks?!? please help!!!

tagged with: cooking + food

IMBB#23: le far breton

le far breton est une recette de bretagne. un gateau très facile à préparer.
bretonischer backpflaumenkuchen.
prune flan recipe from brittany.

i have never deliberately chosen a french recipe because i always found french cuisine way to hard to prepare. maybe i was wrong. the far breton is a delicious dish which is rather simple and yet very rich and opulent.

i also decided to drink a wine with the flan and though we have a great tradition of winegrowing here in austria i opened myself a bottle of chateau camp de la val.

all in all a divine combination!

ingrédients pour 6 personnes
500 g de pruneaux dénoyautés
125 g de farine
125 g de sucre semoule
1/2 sachet de levure chimique
2 sachets de sucre vanillé
4 œufs
3/4 l de lait entier
2 c à s de rhum
sel

recette
dans une terrine, mélanger la farine le demi-sachet de levure chimique, le sucre, le sucre vanillé et une petite pincée de sel. creuser un puits, y casser les œufs entiers. mélanger à l'aide d'une cuillère en bois. dans une casserole, faire chauffer le lait avec le rhum, ajouter les pruneaux et faire cuire le tout 2 min, puis verser doucement sur la pâte tout en remuant vivement. verser l'ensemble dans un moule et faire cuire à 240°C pendant 35 min dans le four préchauffé. servir tiède ou froid.

tagged with: imbb23 + french

imbb23

i am racking my brain to find a decent french recipe for imbb23 hosted by cucina testa rossa. i never really tried to cook something french because to me french cuisine always appeares to be difficult recipes and tiny portions.

argh! i guess i have to look at this as a challenge rather than an obstacle i can not overcome ...

green nockerl with mozzarella

75 g potatos, peeled and diced
50 g spinach leaves
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp olive oil
30 g grated mozzarella
20 g flour
salt, pepper

01 cook potatos and mash 'em up
02 blanch spinach leaves
03 sprinkle flour on the work space
04 place mashed potatos on work space and make a dent in the middle
05 add egg yolk, oil, spinach, mozzarella and flour
06 season the firm dough to taste
07 make tiny dumplings and throw into hot water untill they surface
08 place on a plate and garnish with some more mozzarella, spinach leaves, or salad

update:
this recipe was supposed to be for gnocchi but somehow my sleight of hand seems to be a little sloppy. what was supposed to be firm and tiny turned out to be rather fluffy and nockerlstyle. in order to adjust the title and erase the gnocchi-part i tried to look up the propper english word for the southern german and austrian delicacy - and guess what: the generally understandable word for nockerl IS gnocchi.

how funny.
you live and lern.
:)

tagged with: cooking + food + recipes

my sister is staying at my place

my sister does not come over very often. as long as i can remember we where like best friends. we went to the same schools, we had the same friends, we even lived together for several years. i always was the bossy, protective one and she always was the cute little sister. while we where roommates we also had to go through some pretty tough times. my sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 19. it was terrible. suddenly i was so completely helpless. as the oldest sibling i always took care of pretty much everything that could ever harm my "little ones". i could not make this problem go away though.

it was pretty tough for the whole family, but it was particularly hard for the both of us as we where living together. i have no idea why, but after like three years in the same appartement we somehow had a big fight. it did not come out of nowhere, i guess we both kind of saw that coming. my sister moved out and after a while i moved out too. we did not leave on good terms and we did not have contact for months.

honestly, this was a scaring and scary experience for me. we where very close ever since we where children and not having my sister around every day was like cutting an umbilical cord. everyone always asked us how we handle this: being sisters and being best friends too. we always wondered: "yeah, what's so strange about that?!"

well, to cut a long story short: after hardly speaking to eachother for two years we now have very very different lives. but we have forgiven eachother for that stupid fight we both picked.

now.

we sometimes visit eachother and then it is just like it used to be. yesterday karin spent the night at my place and she made a phenomenal interpretation of this chicken saag (murgh saag) giving it her own twist. i made an espresso gratina for desert. we had a great day, checking out herbs and spices the indian and asian corner shops.

i let my mother spoil me

after a big big presentation at university last week (which went very well, by the way) i decided to take a few days off and spend some time with my parents and recharge my engins :)

my mother is the best cook i know and of course she made some wonderful meals to spoil her eldest daughter. her "lungenbraten in semmelknödelhülle" was simply to die for - i have to look that up in my dictionary since i have no clue about the english word for "lungenbraten". and i'll post a picture as well.


update: there seems to be no propper translation for the austrian word "lungenbraten". my dictionary proposese "tenderloin" so i'll go with

tenderloin in bread dumpling crust with mushroom sauce and potatos

funny enough my mother usually makes stuff like this up. i have never ever seen her use a cookbook for a main course. now there's where i have all my fondness of experimenting from ... :)