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!

jam again: plum and cinnamon

those rainy weekends are just perfect for making jam and preserve the spirit, taste and texture of this years pretty hot summer for rainy fall and snowy winter. this year went by so fast, i can hardly belive it. i can preserve summer in a little jar though :)

technorati tags: jam, marmalade, marmeade, zimt, cinnamon, zwetschke, plum

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what better way to celebrate post no. 100 ...

... than making salted macadamia millionaire’s shortbread

(16 squares) (recipe from waitrose food illustrated)

125 g salted butter, plus some extra for greasing
50 g caster sugar
175 plain flour
150 g roasted and salted macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

toffee filling and chocolate topping
100 g caster sugar
115 g salted butter
200 g condensed milk
2 tbsp golden syrup
200 g milk chocolate, chopped
50 g white chocolate, melted

01 preheat the oven to 150 °c
02 line a 23 cm square cake tin with greaseproof paper
03 rub the butter, sugar and flour together in a bowl until it forms a very stiff, crumbly dough
04 press into the tin and press the nuts on top
05 bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly golden
06 cool
07 meanwhile, make the toffee by slowly melting the sugar and 100 g butter for 10 minutes until thick and bubbling.
08 add the condensed milk and golden syrup and bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly.
09 reduce the heat and stir the mixture vigorously for 5-10 minutes, scraping the sides and bottom of the pan, until the toffee is thick and golden. if brown patches start to appear, add a drop of condensed milk
10 pour over the shortbread and set for 20 minutes in the fridge
11 boil 4 tbsp water in a pan, take off the heat and stir in the milk chocolate with the remaining butter until melted.
12 spread over the toffee.
13 chill for 2 hours
14 drizzle melted white chocolate from a teaspoon
15 cut into squares with a hot knife
16 voilá, death by chocolate & fudge!

it has been a good ride so far, i have made lots of new friends. thumbs up for another 100 posts!

don't throw me away, please!

over the last few years i have become more and more aware of global coherencies, especially concerning food and its industrial production. i was raised in a working class family and i was always very aware of the fact that some people have more and some people have less - mostly because i always was at the "lesser" end of the stick. i was used to wear clothes that family friends had withdrawn from their closets. as a teenager this started to bother me, but i guess that was just typical teenage behaviour. still, i never considered our family as "poor".

i always admired the fact that everyone in my big family had good economic sense. nothing was ever wasted (might be a relic of the postwar generation). i am a bit of a hunter-gatherer myself, i have a pretty hard time throwing stuff away :). as far as economic sense is concerned our women where certainly cooking very economically in the kitchen. hardly a thing was thrown out. i have virtually never seen anything rotten in the kitchens of my mother, my grandmother or my aunts.

i have intuitively lived by this rule while i was in my parent's household. but when i moved out i became rather careless about my food and for a few years. i must have thrown out unbelievable quantities of rotten food because i was not able to propperly keep house. but after some years of juvenile flippancy i started to think again. i eat fruits an vegetables when they are in season. i don't have my strawberries shipped around the world. i even became very interested in more extreme alternative lifestyles contrary to the throwaway society. freeganism for example. but since i am not really attracted by hardcore lifestyles (not interested anymore ... being way past my punk/grunge teenage days) i figured i have to follow a more moderate path. of course, mangos don't grow in my backyard and i buy them in spite of that. but to me it's becoming more and more important to support local organic farmers and their products. i can not throw my money out the window either, i am not very wealthy after all, but i don't mind to pay a little more for my locally grown food. to me it's becoming more and more important to lead an economically and environmentally sustainable life. i still know that i will not waste any of my food and that i will not have it laying in my fridge till it starts to crawl out of there by itself. every cent is well invested.

and in the tradition of my "i-never-throw-anything away"-family it's time to rescue some plums i had in my farmer's box almost two weeks ago and send them to their final destination ... my stomache!

so here's my plum dumplings & plum compote:

guilty pleasure

the other day i met lovely johanna from the passionate cook. she was in linz for a couple of days and she agreed on a little "date" at the most viennese kaffeehaus in all of linz. she was so very nice and generous to bring me many fine things - incredible wasabi-covered peanuts, very fancy chocolates, supergood marmelade and (magazine junkie flipping out-mode!) english cooking magazines.
and stupid me did not bring anything. how could i show up to an encounter with a foodie without at least a few little delicious things? (well, i payed her way in the kaffeehaus at least) .
i have been browsing the magazines and checking out the recipes over the last few days, and i came across a handy little conversion table of metric, imperial and american weights and measures. i always have trouble with converting measurements because most of the time i don't really stick to recipes. i will keep this one within easy reach for my next international cooking experiment!
and i will share some of the recipes of those supercool magazines in the very near future ... though the pictures in the magazines are a little intimidating as far as "foodography" is concerned. the recipes sure are all just to die for! i am already indulging in some very guilty pleasures ... i think i will try a naughty little salted macadamia millionaire's shortbread next week ... i first need to rush to the supermarket and get the ingredients for toffee filling and choclate topping ... *yummy*

EBBP#5

my busy day today actually took my mind off euro blogging for once. i hadn't thought of it all day but as i was just coming home being really exhausted and going throug my mail i found a note from mr postman! he wanted to deliver a parcel from sweden, oh my god, check this out! silly me, i go to work instead of waiting at the porch for my parcel!! first thing tomorrow i will head to the post office to pick up my present from scandinavia ... yeah, i am really excited. i have not figured out yet who sent the parcel because mr postman's handwriting is really bad ... stay tuned, i'll post about it tomorrow.

it'll be a full scandinavian day tomorrow. my sister is staying at my place tonight and a parcel from sweden will be the perfect kickstart for our day at ikea!

plus, we will also meet johanna tomorrow, she's in linz for a few days ...

update:

i have been a fan of hers ever since i started foodblogging and as i was rushing to the postoffice this morning it turnes out a lovely parcel from anne was waiting for me!

and how generous she is, incredible!

anne included a lovely note where she told me why she had picked out the things she sent me.

• dried strawberries (strawberries = summer)
  
• dried green iranian raisins (how exquisit!)
  
• chocolate covered sunflower seeds (extremely addictive!)
  
• pocky (yeah, pocky! unfortunately you can't get them in austria)
  
• sesame honey cakes (i just love sesame!)
  
• crisp bread "hales" (perfect, savory crackers are amazing!)
  
• biscotti with lavendar, almonds and chocolate (how thoughtful of you to include selfmade food)
  

thanks, i am really happy that you sent me so many lovely (and delicious) things! i hope you got "the perfect parcel" too, because i sure got my perfect one!

technorati tags: ebbp#5, ebbp5, ebbp

yay!

my parcel arrived safe and sound at aubergine's place in hungary!

obsessive-compulsive "waiting-for-my-parcel" disorder

as i am sitting here thinking about a parcel on its way to linz every single minute (especially after my sister already got hers) i figured i need to get my mind off of it for a little while. and what's a foodie got to do? of course! i need to cook something!

"sort of" pizza margherita

for the dough i was combining 150 g of flour with some salt and half a pack of dry yeast. i made a smooth dough with half a cup of lukewarm water and a little olive oil. after kneading it for a few minutes i let it rise for 20 minutes. in the meantime i cut up one onion and 5 tomatoes and made some fried-tomato-and-onion gravy. i placed the dough on my little baking tray and spread the tomato/onion gravy on the dough and covered it with mozarella.

very yummy.

still ... now that i am sitting here enjoying my litte mini-margherita i am starting to dream about euro blogging by post again ... talk about me being obsessed ... i might just be your regular crazy foodblogger though ... :)

all my prayers have finally been heard!

the one thing i was extremly keen on during my time in london where vinegar chips. when i went back there a few weeks ago the first thing we ate where in fact vinegar chips. over the past 10 years (gosh, i'ts been a long time since i've lived in london!) i have never ever seen them anywhere, neither here in austria nor on any trips i made around europe. you can imagine my excitement today when i found "sea salt & balsamic vinegar" at my local supermarket. i can't wait to try them tonight, i bet they taste fantastic.

i'm beginning to notice that it takes about ten years for all the products, flavours and "trends" that surrounded me in 1996/1997 in london to finally be available here in austria.

interesting.

my mama knows me soooo well ...

now that i am thirty and i have been moving out of my parent's ten years ago i notice that my mother still knows me very very well. a few weeks ago i told her that some of my herbs are slowly dying and how i'd rather have a blooming variety of different herbs instead of some half dead stalks. i never had the time though (or was i too lazy?) to get myself some herbs or some decent soil to plant them new.

thank god my mama knows me so well! she knew that i would not manage to extend my herb garden. since she still likes to be involved a lot in her children's lives (she is a real clucking hen!) she tends to take care of the little things we don't manage to take care of. today she does not mingle too much with the sometimes very different lifesstyles of her children. when i was a teenager though her efforts often seemed like she wanted to control every single aspect of my life. that made me crazy and i am really glad that she learned to let go (and i learned to appreciate her good intentions). she now focusses on peanuts (important peanuts!) rather than where i should live and what i should do with my life ... yeah, my mama is a very dominant woman and i have to admit that it was a relief once i cut the very strong umbilical cord and moved out.

i am her only child living away from our little hometown and i am glad that she still has my sister and my brother around to bug instead of me :) they sometimes complain about the nagging of our mama and i always tell them that they should move as far away from her as they can in order to appreciate what she does for us ... i think she sacrificed a lot in her life to make things better for her children.

so as my parents visited me last saturday my mama brought me a whole bunch of new herbs - herbs i have never even heard of! she must have noticed that all i ever talked about was parsley, chives and basil.

i am all set now with marjoram, anthriscus, thyme, parsley, rosemary and a special kind of basil, which is called basil lime (ocimum americanum).

having a colorful mixture of differnt herbs at hand all the time makes even plain old potatoes incredibly delicious and truly is an enrichment for all of my dishes!