the parsnip, the ancient vegetable

well, you must be getting tired of me rambling on about newly discovered food. but i have another one for you. i am starting to think that my diet was very dull and narrow minded before i ordered this farm box, because now i discover something new to feast on every week. amazing.

maybe i am just such a creature of habit and i only ate what i always knew. there even is a saying here in austria about the stubborn breed of humans north of the danube: "was der bauer nicht kennt, ißt er nicht" -"the farmer does not eat what he doesn't know".

totally true.

we tend to blame this on the granite and its massive, hard and tough geological features north of the danube and the resulting hardship for local agriculture.

before i get off the point again i like to draw your attention to the veggie of the week: the parsnip! apperently this veggie was quite popular in mediaeval europe until the potato appeared. the parsnip then fell completely into oblivion. time for some research, don't you think? and once again i turn to wikipedia:

"The parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) is a root vegetable related to the carrot. Parsnips resemble carrots, but are paler and have a stronger flavor. Like carrots, parsnips are native to Eurasia and have been eaten there since ancient times. Until the potato arrived from the New World, its place in dishes was occupied by the parsnip. Parsnips can be boiled, roasted or used in stews, soups and casseroles."

(image from wikipedia)

so again i have to dive into the depths of the internet to find a decent recipe. i have quite some experience with root veggies, so making something cool should not be a problem. but then again, i wanted to experience the taste of the parsnip as pure as possible. so i went for an easy ...

parsnip au gratin (inspired by this recipe of stuffed parsnip on chefkoch.de)

275 g parsnip
1 carrot
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
butter
40 g breadcrumbs
salt
pepper

1. clean and peel parsnip
2. cut off four large discs (about 3 centimeters) from the thicker end of the veggie and throw the rest of the root into a food processor
3. cut the discs into chunks and also cut the carrot into smaller discs
   
4. place in a casserole
5. finely chop onion and garlic
6. in a pan, heat some butter and gently fry onion, garlic and the rest of the parsnip.
7. after about 5 minutes add breadcrumbs and continue to fry the mixture.
8. spoon on top of the carrot and parsnip chunks, put a few knobs of butter on top and grill at 200°C for about 30 minutes
   

this can be a side dish, but for me it was the veggie-main course of my late lunch. i ate it with a colorful mix of corn salad and radiccio. the gratin-top of the dish might also make a good stuffing for meat. i have to try that out some time.


okay, there is not much of the "au gratin" left when you ladle it onto the plate, but: oh my god! the taste was just perfect! hearty and rich, very nuttily and a little like parsley, a little like carrot ... it might become a staple food in my kitchen.

flavour enhancers and food additives

for the most part of my life i did not really care what i ate. if i liked a particular product i did not at all care what the label said. while i was aware of some cancer-causing stuff in my preprocessed food, of flavour enhancers and of food additives (i like to call them "e-nummern"), i did not care at all. i ate what i liked and i ate it all up.

i have to admit that i am a very sateless person. and i am a creature of habit. i still am a bit of a careless eater today. if i discover a new taste that i like i usually stock up my kitchen cabinets with the product, fruit or vegetable and just indulge in the new flavour until i am totally sick of it.

that is stupid, don't you think?

but maintaining this foodlog has influenced me beyond belief. i broaden my horizon with every blogpost i read on one of my 300 favorite foodlogs. that might sound cheesy, but i honestly learn so much on my daily tour through the internet. new recipes, new ways of living and cooking ... ever tried to cook gluten-free? that is damn hard! while i don't have to deal with coeliac disease i am always inspired by foodies that cook in a different way. i highly admire that.

and i read labels now. one of my favorite condiments is "brathuhngewürz", flavoring for roast chicken.

when i rip open a pack and sprinkle it over my chicken, i always lick that stuff off my fingers because i think it tastes sooooo goooood. with an increasing feeling of guilt, of course. i have been looking into the subject of flavour enhancers and food additives and i am increasingly worried. i replaced lots of the things i eat with organic products, i make my apple sauce of real organic apples now instead of buying the jars. the jars of apple sauce that always taste the same. always.

i like variety now. i enjoy the different flavours and textures. i am really taking this organic lifestyle seriousely and a reduced waistline, way better sleep and feeling less drained are some of the great side effects.

but then again there are things like this flavoring for roast chicken. it contains monosodium glutamate, which supposedly is bad for your health. i don't use lots of it, maybe i cook roast chicken every other month, but it still worries me. can i ever call my lifestyle "organic" when i cook with this stuff? it should be easy to reproduce because it only contains salt, paprika, garlic, pepper, marjoram and rosemary. i would ignore that monosodium glutamate, of course.

can you let go of your preprocessed things "poisoned" with the nasty flavour enhancers and food additives? well, for me that is really really difficult.

i forgot to mention that i am not only sateless but also bullheaded, stubborn and very obsessive when i get something into my head.

i already made some good changes in my life.
maybe i shouldn't worry so much.

stuffed onion

i am a real fan of food that makes your breath smelly :) it never occured to me that this affectation might be a problem until i once saw the sick look on my friend's face when i told her about the pleasures of garlic. we where just ordering doner kebap to go in a small turkish shop and she disgustedly asked me if i was ever worried about my bad breath after eating onions or garlic in public. well, i never really was! but from that moment on i always carried mints in my purse. thank good i hardly ever have to worry about my garlicky breath when i cook that stuff at home!

1 large onion
100 g swiss chard
50 ml teriyaki sauce
125 g rice

1. peel and slice top of onion.
2. bring 1 liter of salted water to a boil and add rice.
3. reduce heat, throw in the onion as well, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
   
4. wash swiss chard and cut into desired size.
5. in a saucepan heat teriyaki sauce and add the swiss chard. reduce heat and cover
6. make sure that the onion is tender when the rice is done. take out the onion and let it cool.
7. drain the rice and make sure to keep it warm.
8. remove centers of the onion and be careful to leave the shell intact.
9. chop centers and add to the swiss chard.
10. cook over reduced heat for a few minutes and add half of the rice.
11. mix thoroughly. the mixture should be rather sticky. spoon it into the onion and place on top of the remaining rice.
12. drizzle with teriyaki sauce.

i just wish you could stuff garlic. or i could try to stuff an onion with garlic! perhaps i should try to stuff an onion with altoids instead if i have plans for an evening with my thin-skinned friend!*lol*

technorati tags:stuffed onion, onion, swiss chard

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ever tasted an austrian central american tortilla española?

me neither.

but last week i had another cool new veggie in my farm box: the sweet potato. you should have heard my cry of joy when i saw it! because i have been sweet potato hunting here in linz for quite a while. no greengrocer in my area seems to have this central american veggie in their range of goods. how lucky am i to have it sent right to my porch?!

it is funny that the sweet potato is such a cryptical vegetable here in austria and a staple food in central america. is is becoming more popular these days though and people seem to know that a sweet potato is actually quite different from the potato we europeans know.

in my quest to cook this amazing batata i was browsing many recipes lately. originally i wanted to experience the taste of this new veggie as natural as possible. not to much spice, not to many other ingredients. should i make something like rösti? the purer the better, right?

but when i came across a lusty recipe of a remote relative of the rösti, i finally decided to make something inspired by the spanish omelette (tortilla española). i don't really know what a spanish cook would add to the basic recipe, but since i had some other stuff in my fridge i had to save from decay i accidentally made way more than just dinner for one ... and finally came up with a sweet potato tortilla served on a bed of salad.

150 g carrots
150 g potatoes
450 g sweet potatoes
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
4 eggs
75 g flour
salt, pepper, chili powder

(makes about 10 medium sized omelettes)

01 wash, peel and grate the potatos, the sweet potato and the carrots.
02 put them in a large bowl.
03 chop onion and garlic and add to the veggies.
04 add eggs and stir well.
05 if the mixture is too soft add flour to make it more smooth.
06 heat a little oil in a skillet and carefully spread the mixture over the bottom of the pan. i made little flat tortillas with a diameter of about 10 cm.
07 cook for about 3-4 minutes and flip once. cook another 2 minutes. the tortilla should be golden brown.
08 i then placed the mini tortilla on a bed of mixed salad.

i was a bit surprised that the mixture turned out so orange. i always figured the sweet potato is the same color as our potato. the tortilla tasted quite interesting and i still could identify the unfamiliar taste of the sweet potato. the taste of the eggs was quite dominant and maybe i should have taken less of them, but then again i killed to birds with one stone: cooking something remotely spanish for the first time and tasting a sweet potato for the first time as well.

i did put aside a tiny portion of the sweet potato and i fried it in a little butter just to experience a more pure taste. i have to admit that i am a bit clueless how i could use this new veggie in my kitchen but then again i suppose i won't get my hands on one of these babies anytime soon ...

technorati tags: sweet, potato, batata, tortilla

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bunte wirsingschichten / colorful layers of savoy cabbage

you might know by now that i like to make up my own recipes. maybe i take other recipes as an inspiration, but usually i go totally bananas and invent my own food. i am definitely not a copycat and i always (at least i try to) backlink when i make a wonderful dish of a fellow blogger. of course, we influence and inspire eachother and while i think this is a big plus there are definitely some disturbing things going on here on the net, especially if someone steals stuff and wants to make money off of it. as far as i am concerned i usually try to *steal* my mamas recipes (okay, i experiment with family heirlooms...) and give them my own twist. or i make stuff that my mama would never ever make. dishes with cabbage for example. why stick to the old dull stuffed cabbage? here's what i decided to create: colorful layers of savoy cabbage with minced meat and other veggies.

500 g minced meat
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 egg
breadcrumbs
250 g savoy cabbage
1 carrot
1 bell pepper
4 slices of gouda

01 chop onion and garlic, roast in a pan and put aside to cool
02 remove stalk of the cabbage and blanch
03 finely chop or grate carrot and bell pepper
04 add fried onion and garlic to the minced meat
05 add one egg and intensely mix the meat
06 add breadcrumbs until you get a hamburger-like consistency. season to taste.
07 butter a casserole and lay out first layer of cabbage
08 put a layer of meat on top
09 add a layer of the grated carrot
10 add a layer of the finely chopped bell pepper
11 add a layer of gouda cheese
12 cover with a layer of cabbage
13 put a layer of meat on top
14 add a layer of the grated carrot
15 add a layer of the finely chopped bell pepper
16 add a layer of gouda cheese
17 cover with a layer of cabbage
18 do you get the picture? continue to make the layers until your casserole is filled. your last layer should be a layer of cabbage
19 bake for at least one hour on medium heat (180-200°c)

while some of my inventions are not really a feast for the eye (as i mostly throw every ingredient in a pan and mash it up real good) this thing turned out really pretty. hey, and yummie! do i have to mention that?

ricotta pancakes with fruit on top

just lovely! i can share so many *firsts* with you here on my food-blog, and here is another one:

250 g ricotta
125 ml milk
2 egg yolks
20 g sugar
125 g flour
2 egg whites

3 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 kiwi
1 banana
1/2 apple

01 in a bowl, combine ricotta, milk, egg yolks and sugar. add flour and stir until well blended
02 beat the egg whites and gently fould into the mixture
03 pour batter onto a lightly greased hot griddle and turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes. cook until second side is golden brown
04 in a little pan, heat the maple syrup
05 cut fruits in little pieces and add to the boiling syrup
06 cook fruit mixture for a little while and pour over the pancakes

i have never made american style breakfast pancakes before! they taste just fantastic, i guess i will add them to my sunday routine! i am still used to eating pancakes (the much thinner version we austrians like to call "omletten") as a rich desert after a luscious meal - but hey, there seems to be nothing wrong with eating desert on sunday mornings!

(recipe can be found @ chefkoch and is by dialog)

technorati tags:pancake, pancakes, ricotta, fruit

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what are you?!

.... and how do i cook / prepare / eat you?!

well ... is it a fruit, is it a vegetable?! i can't even figure that out! can i cook this *thing*? or do i eat it raw?

i am really excited every thursday when my farmbox is arriving. while i enjoy to have fresh organic salad, carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, ... at my doorstep i am always very curious about the little unfamiliar surprises i find in the box. stuff i have never seen before, let alone cooked it. stuff that is not even available in my regular shops, stuff i would never ever voluntarily buy ...

now i don't have a clue about this thing here.
can you help me?

hazelnut-cocoa cream

in case you run out of nutella i have i nice little recipe for a similar spread for you! i silghtly modified one of the recipes i found in my new bread & spreads book. homemade stuff tastes so much better, it is amazing! especially if you are a sucker for cocoa like me (cocoa, not chocolate!) you have to try this one! so simple, soooooo fantastic!

60 g ground roasted hazelnuts
60 g soft butter
40 g cocoa
20 g sugar

01 put everything in a food processor or mix by hand until smooth
02 add sugar to taste.

i really adore the slightly bitter taste of cocoa, so i did only add two tablespoons. if you are a sweettooth you definitely need trice as much. i suppose this tastes good with maple sirup or brown sugar too!

okay, i agree, there is nothing like nutella, but this homemade spread is just as tasty and might be a good alternative every once in a while. i buy nutella maybe twice a year, but this spread might find its way onto my sunday breakfast table ...

give me gebäck!

tomorrow is world bread day! oh yeah - bread, bread, a thousand times bread!

i am a big fan of bread in general, especially the gorgeous dark schwarzbrot, the tasty loaf of bauernbrot and first and foremost (for me at least) the beloved gebäck in every way, shape and form. while i could survive on bread only i am a big big fan of the austrian gebäck. the propper english translation seems to be pastry, but as an austrian i have to say this is not entirely what i mean by gebäck. the english word "pastry" would much rather be our feingebäck, the sweet strudel or the sweet tart. when we speak of gebäck, we mean savory tiny little breads. i guess you can much rather compare gebäck with scones or bread rolls. we often like to call this little piece of bread weckerl.

in any given bakery, even in the tiniest shop around the corner you can find a gigantic selection of those tiny little breads. in austria and southern germany the semmel is the king of tiny breads, while the rest of the german speaking world you would simply call it brötchen, the diminutive of bread. we have kaisersemmel, kornspitz, mohnflesserl, salzspitz, vintschgerl, wachauerweckerl, kipferl, grahamweckerl, kartoffelweckerl and a wide, wide range of kornweckerl - fitnessweckerl, kürbiskernweckerl, schusterlaibchen, müsliweckerl, sesamweckerl ... i could ramble on for a while :) i especially like the ones with salt, caraway seeds or the mini breadloafs made of rye and spelt.


but my favorite gebäck of all is the good old mohnflesserl. a mohnflesserl is a traditional austrian gebäck, looking similar to a braided yeast bun. it is made from white bread dough, it is sprinkled with poppy-seeds and sometimes salt. i just love my mohnflesserl with poppy-seeds and salt. and while i also love it with jam, salami, cheese ... whatever! the best way to eat your mohnflesserl is with plain butter ...


but the task for bread day is to make bread yourself. what a challenge, because i have never made bread myself. so i went for groceries in order to buy flour, yeast, sour dough or whatever you need for making a decent loaf of bread. first off i needed to get inspired in my bookshop though. of course i did buy one of the bread books on display there ...


although in the books it's described as "very easy" to make your own bread, i suddenly lost confidence. i thought i might need a few trials (and maybe errors?) in my bread baking adventures. i was strolling through the aisles of the supermarket and i suddenly lost all my will to make bread from scratch in fear of not succeeding. though my general cooking skills are pretty okay i thought i'd rather head to the aisle with the bread mixes. i have never used a mix for making bread either, but adding water should be something i'd be able to manage despite of my lost confidence in making bread from scratch ...

i am sorry if i have to disappoint you here, but i did not want to show you my flat, not risen and hard-as-stone bread for a blog event :) yeah. i am a coward, i know - i could always pass a flat austrian bread for tiroler schüttelbrot *g* ...


so there you go. i am making bread, but i am faking it. i decided to take a brown bread mix, which would result in a kind of kornspitz-gebäck. i like kornspitz!

while it is easy to add water to the bread mix you still have to have some time on your hands. you have to let the dough rest for an hour, then form little buns or weckerl and let them rest for another 40 minutes. okay, fine with me. and i just prepared my first (fake)homemade bread! is there anything better than eating warm bread right out of the oven on a sunday morning?! i doubt it!

i need to keep this in mind if i ever have a boy over for a "pyjama party" :) i bet i can (also) seduce a man with my cooking skills on sunday mornings ... or i'll show him where the bread mix is and tell him to read the instructions - after all, the way to a womans heart is through her stomach too!

so check out the photos of my (still single) sunday adventure:


read the instructions on your bread mix!


add water and mix. knead for 8 minutes.


let the dough rest for an hour.


form little buns and let rest again for 40 minutes.


make sure to add a little bowl of water in the oven when baking the bread.
bake on 230 °C for about half an hour.


yum-mie!
the purer the better, if you ask me!
but a little butter and a little bell pepper does not hurt either!

though i might take on the challenge of making bread from scratch i definitely need to have the breadmix in my kitchen cabinet from now on - whether if it's for myself, for mister right or for mister right now, i could easily get used to making my own bread on sunday mornings!

hey, thanks for listening to my debacheries!

this blog event is hosted by 1x umrühren bitte
technorati tags: world bread day '06, world bread day 06

celebrating you

as i am entering my second year of foodblogging today i want to say

thank you!

you have made me a better blogger, a more open-minded eater, a bold tastebud-tester, an adventurous shopper, a brave and a very, very inspired cook!

as a little thank you i have compiled all the recipes i've blogged so far on little recipe cards for you to download and print out. enjoy!

bizarre meme

i have been tagged for the "bizarre meme" by rosa's yummy yums and since doing meme's and quizzes online is really fun and one of my favorite things to do on the net (i know, this might be a little lame) - apart from reading blogs of course! so here we go!

take the first book that you find underhand, open it on page 18 and copy what’s written on the fourth line from the top:
it is from a book i am currently reading because i am finishing my baccalaureat. it is called architektonische grundelemente und ihre dynamik (architectural basics and their dynamics): der punkt ist für ihn sowohl null-punkt wie beginn der materialisierung ... short sentence. i know!

what was the last program you watched on tv?
the thirsty traveller on the travel channel - i just love that show!

without verifying, try to guess the time it is?
about 23:30?

check out. it is:
23:54

which noise can you hear apart from the one of your computer?
since its sunday night i don't hear anything. the north side of my livingroom is facing up to a busy street though and normally i would hear traffic and trains ... oh! i can hear a lonely car now!

when did you go out for the last time and what did you do?
i went to an exhibition at my university yesterday evening.

what are you wearing now?
hey, it's sunday night, i am in my sweatpants and in a shirt with a stain on the belly ... i look like a mess - thank god i am single!

before you started this meme, what were you looking at?
i was watching a few episodes of sex and the city. i just love that show. i am thinking of buying the whole back cataloge ... i know it is crazy. but i think i might really need to own the dvds ...

did you dream this night?
i don't remember dreaming anything ... i have to admit that i was a little hammered last night after the exhibition ... and whenever i am a little drunk i sleep like a log!

when did you laugh for the last time?
yesterday evening, with my friends. oh, and today when i heard something fun on the radio.

what’s on the walls of the room in which you are?
some photos from my trip to the black sea and a big map of europe.

did you see something strange today?
no, not really. oh, wait, yes! i found a living caterpillar in my fridge today. this is the fun part of having a box of organic vegetables and fruits delivered every week ... i just hate tiny litte animals, everything from spiders to moths they just freaks me out! so as i was throwing the little fellow out of the window onto the neighbours terrace i was squeaking like a little girl!

what do you think of this meme?
oh, i love memes and online quizzes!!!

which was the last film that you saw?
i don't remember going to the cinema in the last two years. what a shame! but to my defense: i worked in a cinema for like 5 years and i could watch every movie for free (that is why i saw amelie 9 times). suddenly i find it very unreasonable that i would have to actually pay 7 euros for a movie! that's probably one of the reasons why i did not go to the movies lately. or maybe because i just want to own the dvds ...

if you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would be the first thing that you’d buy?
i'd probably want to buy a house or a flat. i am pretty low key and i have really everything i need. what i don't have is a place i can call my own. maybe i should start working on that. but then again, i would have to find myself a decent job first and forget about being an artist.

tell us something about you that we don’t yet know
i like to belive that i am psychic. i think of a person i haven't seen in a really long time and the person calls me the very same day. i also think that i can sense certain things. i think foreboding is the proper english word. that is cheesy, i know.

if you could change something in the world apart from culpability and politics, what would you change?
i would erase prejudice and jealousy

do you like dancing?
i love it! i don't mind being the only one starting to hit the dancefloor if i hear a good tune!

georges bush?
how can such a stupid person become president? i guess it is all about connections and election fraud ...

which name would you choose if you had a girl?
if i would have a girl i would definitely name it after my beloved grandmother who i still miss dearly. my grandmothers name was theresia, which is a little oldfashioned - i think i would probably give my daughter the middle name theresa. and first name? i like anna, and maybe ruth. i have not really thought about girls names before. although i would really like to have a girl as my first born. i was the first child of my mother and my mother was the first child of my grandmother. this is a cool female tradition i'd really like to continue!

and if it was a boy?
picking boys names is easier: jonas, daniel, david, jonathan, jan, till, ...

have you ever thought about living in a foreign country?
i am really in love with london. i have lived there already ... but since i am really rooted here in austria, i think i could never really live abroad.

what do you want god to tell you when you go through the doors of paradise?
i'd ask him why the hell he did not answer whenever i cried for help and asked for a sign of god ... where where you, master of the universe, when i was in dire need of help from above?!? and what is the meaning of life anyway???

which are the 4 other bloggers that you'd love to tag:
everyone who wants to do this meme is invited to join in the fun!

i am one lucky girl

i became hooked on cooking shows during my time in london. i quickly became addicted to carismatic tv chefs and tv cooking long before jamie oliver hit the small screen. the trend of tv cooking shows only started in the german speaking countries (or austria at least) two or three years ago. it quickly became a trend and though i enjoy some of the shows that are around on cable tv from germany i was always looking back wistfully on the british shows and the creative twist and yet sometimes very very british approach the bbc has always put on their cooking shows.

i was always very fond of ainsley harriott and gary rhodes. i actually saw gary rhodes on leicester square shortly before i left for austria again. but i was too shy to approach him for an autograph ...

now, i bought a digital sat receiver a few weeks ago and one of the first things i discovered was this german cooking channel, tv gusto. AMAZING!! a whole CHANNEL!!! as i am pretty addicted to tv sometimes i pretty much am nailed to my couch now skipping from the new found tv gusto to the new found travel channel and back :) one night last week on a commercial break on the thirsty traveller (so cool!!!) i switched back to tv gusto and there he was - AINSLEY HARRIOT was laughing, cooking and making jokes!!

oh my god! amazing! i cound hardly believe it and as i switched on my computer beaming with joy i quickly found out that tv gusto actually has a whole bbc food segment every evening. many different shows, various different chefs, supercool cooking for one hour, and every evening! i still can not believe it. this is just lovely. i certainly know where i will spend my evenings for the next couple of months. i will sit in my cozy livingroom watching gary rhodes do something amazing to eggs. or fish. or asparagus. or even cauliflower.

oh, i can hardly wait until tomorrow to see another british celebrity chef embark upon a new cooking adventure ...

technorati tags:gary, rhodes, bbc, food, cooking

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bite me!

this expression is a bit vulgar in english, isn't it? calm down, i do not mean to be rude, i just want to invite you to take a bite of my brussels sprouts, butternut squash and potatoes on skewers :) because in german "bite me" is much rather translated to "take a bite of me" or "taste me" - so it actually an invitation rather than an insult.

there you go. i was again very inspired by one of johannas recent posts and i decided to get myself some skewers and enter fall season here in austria with a little remembrance of summer and lovely nights out on the terrace barbecuing with friends. it is still lovely and warm outside, but you certainly can feel that winter is coming around again ... well, at least autumn. the children are passing me on their way to school again when i head for work in the mornings, and university will start again next week.

fall is my favorite season. i kick horse-chestnuts out of my way, i hop and skip a lot everywhere i walk and i even love it if i have to skip over puddles on rainy and misty days. i like to buy new pencils and beautiful moleskine notebooks in september, because fall has always marked a fresh new start for me. i am at university again, so stocking up for a new semester kind of makes sense. but even in the seven years i spent in different offices working for various companies i always got excited in fall. i went out and bought fresh new things for the office almost as if i was starting another semester in school. i am not nearly as excited about spring, you know? and it's not just because i just loooooove the vegetables of fall.

200 g butternut squash
12 brussels sprouts
3 potatoes
oil
rosemary
skewers

01 preheat your oven to 200 °C
02 peel and roughly cut butternut squash into bite size
03 cut each potato in 4 pieces
04 assemble veggies alternately on skewers and place on a baking tray
05 drizzle with oil and sprinkle with rosemary
06 bake for 20-30 minutes
07 serve as a side dish to meat or as a main course with a light yoghurt sauce on the side

gratinated canneloni casserole

i cleaned up my kitchen cabinets yesterday and i found some really cool pasta my brother brought back from a holiday in italy. i've had it for quite a while now and since it was stuck in the back of the cabinet i completely forgot about it. the pasta is canneloni-style and i always wanted to do something special with it - perhaps an exotic filling or a lavish sauce? well, i never got to be creative on this italian speciality, so i figured i'd just use it for a little twist on a regular dish.

easy sauce
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
8 tomatos
vegetable oil, salt, basil
1 mozzarella

01 cut onion and garnic and fry in a little vegetable oil
02 dice tomatoes and add to the onions and garlic
03 add basil and let simmer on medium heat for about half an hour
04 cook pasta
05 purée sauce with a hand blender
06 align pasta in a casserole and cover with sauce
07 cut mozzarella and arrange on top of the pasta - you can even stuff some into the canneloni if you like
08 put in the oven and roast until the mozzarella has melted

the recipe itself is nothing special really, but it sure looks very pretty. aligning the canneloni is a bit of a hassle, but the final dish is totally worth it.

technorati tags:canneloni, casserole

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the birthday cake

today i want to share another heirloom with you - our classic birthday cake, the beloved käsekuchen. it is a recipe my mother got from her cousin who lived in australia for like 20 years. i have no idea if our recipe has been altered compared to the original from australia and i don't even know if this is a traditional australian thing. it might be american too ...

it is just the best cake ever.
really.
trust me.

and it is a pretty easy and quick recipe. you don't have to bake the cake, just make some room in the fridge!

i remember my mum made me a "regular" cake for my birthday once when i was a teenager and i was terribly disappointed - which mama noticed of course. i did not want to be an ungraceful teeny, but this cake is some sort of a ritual dish at any of our birthdays, and so my mama smilingly sneaked out for groceries and made the cheesecake later that day. she understood. because a birthday without the cheesecake is no birthday.

250 g graham crackers (just take plain butterkeks, it's the best!)
125 g melted butter
250 ml cream
250 g curd cheese
1 small can of crushed pineapples, drained (about 300 g)
3 tbsp of vanilla sugar (you can even skip this!)
10 g gelatine

01 crumble the crackers in a food processor and pour crumbs in a cake tin.
02 melt butter and mix with the cracker crumbs. press firmly in the tin until the cracker crust is very solid. chill until topping is ready.

03 in a bowl, combine cream and curd cheese until smooth, add sugar if you like (though it is not really necessary).
04 fold in the drained crushed pineapples.

05 let gelatine soak in a little water for a few minutes. drain exess water and let gelatine dissolve completely over low heat.
06 combine gelatine with the cream and pinapple mixture and quickly pour topping onto the cracker crust.
07 cover the cake and chill for at least 2 hours. (plus, i allowed myself a little *i heart you, mama*-decoration )
08 enjoy!

best.
cheesecake.
ever.

well, actually i did never try any other recipe. what about your killer cheesecake? do you want to share the recipe with me? i might want to expand the horizons of my cheesecake universe just a tiny little bit ... maybe there even has been a imbb-foodblog challenge for cheesecake recipes in the past ... for there must be a at least thousand different variations of the classic cheesecake ... hm ... worth a thought, don't you think? if i would ever want to host a foodblog event, this would be it!

technorati tags:cake, birthday, mama, 52, imbb

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a shepherd's pie situation

getting rid of my leftovers in a creative way is a number one task in my kitchen. so how can i make something nice of a leftover chicken leg from the evening before? here's what i did:

1st layer:
2 tomatos
2 bell peppers
a little teriyaki sauce
1 left over grilled chicken leg

2nd layer:
3 medium potatoes
cream
salt
parsley

01 cut up all the ingredients into tiny pieces, put in a pan an saute until tender
02 add a little teriyaki sauce for taste
03 cook potatoes and mash them
04 add cream and parsley to make smooth mashed potatoes
05 in a little dish first add a layer of the the cooked veggies and chicken
06 top with the mashed potatoes
07 voila, leftovers cooked shepherds pie-style!

its nice to see that i inherited the economic way of cooking my family has practiced for generations. does not taste bad at all and saves a lot of money :)

technorati tags: pie, potato, chicken, bell, pepper, tomato

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things to eat before you die

it has been going on for quite a while now and i did not expect to get tagged :) but ulrike tagged me! but give me a minute, that one is tricky ...

1.) jambalaya (preferably on location in the gulf coast area of the usa)
2.) white truffles (from piemont, italy)
3.) fried green tomatoes (again preferably on location in the usa)
4.) i could never live without good austrian farmhouse bread. good bread is a substancial part of my diet, it has been my culinary companion for all my life. i could feast on farmhouse bread (fresh from the oven) and plain tap water drawn from the springs of my hometown (freistadt draws its water from waterprotection areas around the town). it is soft, absolutely delicious and i can really tell a difference if i compare it to the tap water here in linz.
5.) there is a "taboo food and drink" section on wikipedia. though i could never eat a cat, a dog or a guinea pig, i have eaten rabbits before as my grandfather was breeding them when i was a little child. i was playing with them, sure, but when they ended up on the dinnertable they where not the fluffy little animals anymore, they where just food. incredibly tasteful food my grandma had prepared for us. i have to admit that the fluffy little rabbits where haunting me and i have not eaten much rabbit ragout anymore since i witnessed by accident that my favorite bunny was being slaughtered when i was like 5 years old. gosh, this is a horrible childhood memory ... but i was going somewhere with this last thing to eat before i die ... call me crazy, but i always wondered what some insects taste like (there even is a a scientific expression for "eating insects"). sure, i'd have to overcome my sense of disgust first but i think i might try one of these fried little buddies. after all, it is rather common to eat them in non-european cultures. try everything at least once, right?

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pumpkin soup with zucchini (hokkaidokürbissuppe mit zucchini)

my busy life almost made me abandon my nice little dinnertable here on the web ... but today i am taking on the challenge of cooking another thing i have never cooked before: pumpkin! this might even be strange for some austrians as pumpkin (rather pumpkin seed oil) is a culinary speciality of one of our austrian states, styria.

i don't actually have a recipe for that one. i cut up a medium size pumpkin, i hollowed out the middle part with the seeds. i did not peel it, because you can actually cook and eat the whole thing. i stir-fried rater large chunks of the pumpkin in a little vegetable oil for a moment and later added about 1 1/2 liters of plain water. i let it simmer on medium heat for half an hour. when the chunks were soft enough i mashed the whole thing up with a hand blender. i only added some salt to season to taste. i grated about 1/3 of a zucchini and put it on the soup for garnish, but as i was tasting the soup i figured the zucchini can be mixed in as well. this gives the dish a lovely chunky note and a fine taste too. i also added some creme fin as a garnish on the plate, but if you don't plan on taking pretty pictures for you weblog you can mix in the grated zucchini and the creme during cooking. this would make perfect sense, and if i wasn't so focused on the visual part of a nice picture of my soup i would have done it myself :)

it might be a bit silly to cook an ingredient for the first time and not use a recipe whatsoever, but i wanted it to taste as pure as possible. i have been making soups of chunky vegetables before so i thought i can benefit from my experiences and handle a pumpkin the same way. it actually pays off to try things your way rather than stick to a recipe in every little detail. well, this is my cooking style (an inherited one ...) after all and while i succeed most of the time things can go terribly wrong if you are too careless. then again, i did not only inherit this style of cooking from my mum and my grandmother, i also inherited a bunch of valuable tricks that come in very very handy if you accidentally screw up a dish. i turned many mishaps in my kitchen into successful meals thanks to the valuable legacy of emergency assistance the ladies in my family passed on to me.

i don't have to be afraid of something getting burned, for example. of course i don't set out to ruin my meals but if i get carried away with other things during cooking (mostly digging around on the internet) i am safe to say that i have some neat tricks to rescue anything burned, too salty, to spicey or whatever. so while my soup was boiling away on the stove i was looking on the internet about the history and botanic classification of my organic food, because i usually like to have a little background of whatever i eat. especially if i cook something for the first time. zucchinis and pumpkins for example are actually in the same plant family (cucurbitaceae). i was pretty surprised to learn that they are considered a fruit and not a vegetable. i guess it's because we usually cook pumpkins and zucchinis in a savory way. in some germanspeaking parts of europe the expression "cucumber-pumpkin" is also common for the zucchini (i have never heard of it though). now that i look at my zucchini it suddenly resembles a pumpkin a lot ... hm, strange ...

see? i can get carried away or i can learn new things about my food durning cooking. some might consider this sloppy, i think it's freestyle and very self-confident. well, i think i am in a pretty talkative (writeative?) mood today and before i ramble on for even more paragraphes i think i should grab the ladle and eat some more of my delicious soup!