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!

pudding from scratch

why did i always think making homemade cocoa pudding was difficult? it's not more difficult than ripping open a pack of dr. oetker chocolate pudding powder, actually! i found a recipe for cocoa pudding the other day at the tea-time blog and i was absolutely thrilled that it was totally easy and quick to have myself a little homemade pudding.

don't get me wrong, i do not shun finished products or convenience food from my kitchen, but i more and more like to look behind the scenes every once in a while. i'd like to know how a dish is actually made rather then shove it down my throat in an attack of the munchies. using instant products normally is way quicker than using the real thing (i guess i never ever prepared vegetable stock for a dish, i always use the instant one!) - but in the case of this pudding "the real thing" is even quicker and muuuuuch much more delicious:

500 ml milk
4 tbsp starch
2 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp sugar

01 mix starch and cocoa with the cold milk and bring to a boil while constantly stirring
02 add sugar shortly before the mixture starts to boil
03 remove from the stove as soon as it starts to bubble
04 thoroughly whisk for a few minutes (i used a hand blender) until the kokoa creme is cooling down
05 pour in little cups and sprinkle with some pistachios, flakes or any other garnish you like ...

great recipe, quick satisfaction for my sweet tooth!

technorati tags:pudding, cocoa

i am really looking forward to ebbp#5

on this weekend we're supposed to compile a parcel according to the theme "taste of summer" ... can't wait to send it off to its destination somewhere in europe ... this time cooksister is hosting the event.
although i was pretty sceptical at first because of the fiasco that happended to my parcel last time, i finally made up my mind and i also convinced my very own little cook sister (who practically is a foodblog virgin) to participate! i also was very inspired by the parcel i got from christina at ebbp#4. i found it particularly sweet that she included something homemade (pesto, baby!) and i decided to do the same for my addressee this time. so i am making a batch of "marillenmarmelade mit schuss" (apricot jam with a lacing of rum) in order send it off to ******* tomorrow ...

technorati tags: ebbp#5, ebbp5, ebbp

you grow girl, day four

an overnight explosion in my jar! i've never seen them grow so quickly ...

you grow girl, day three

the heat and the humiditiy here in austria seems to accelerate the growing of my sprouts dramatically ... usually it takes about 4 days for them to get that big!

you grow girl, day one

i have to admit, that i have no idea what "sprossen ziehen" is in english. can anybody help me out here? i am throwing seeds of fenugreek, lentils and radish in a jar and after letting them soak for a few hours you can see them grow ... after 3-5 days the sprouts taste marvellous on salads or even on toast ...

steaming, baby!

though i am very inspired by all you fellow foodbloggers out there i am often turning to www.chefkoch.de when i have to make use of various "leftover" things in my kitchen. so i was again going through their files in order to find a recipe for my swiss chard. i was immediatley convinced that i need to combine it with fish and dill ... though dill is not my favorite herb (in fact, i stopped eating it when i was a teenager) i figured that since i had it in my veggie-box this week i could again try if i might like it today ... and i was surprised that i hadn't liked dill for so long, because it is the perfect herb for steamed fish&steamed veggies!

3 frozen pieces of cod
salt, pepper, nutmeg
200 ml vegetable stock
300 g swiss chard
150 g cremefin (or sour creme)
3 tbsp dill

01 heat vegetable stock in a wok
02 clean swiss chard and cut into smaller pieces if necessary (i like big chunks!)
03 place in wock, cover with a lid and steam for abtou 10 minutes
04 add the frozen pieces of cod and steam for another 15 minutes
05 when the fish is done take vegetables and fish out of the wok and set aside
06 add cremefin (or sour creme) to the stock, add dill, season to taste and reduce until the sauce is getting really creamy
07 arrange the swiss chard and the fish on a plate and drizzle with dillsauce

after posting my pictures to flickr i was a little worried, because a fellow flickr-user pointed out, that cod actually is on a greenpeace list for endangered species ... though i think too that it makes more sense to use ingredients from local producers rather than having your piece of fish shipped around the globe, i would have my troubles with using carp or trout in my everyday cooking. i take pity in the poor fish when i have to cut off their heads and take out their guts ... i'd rather have my dead animals without their actual heads, eyes and guts. if i'd have to kill animals myself in order to get my meat, i guess i would be a vegetarian ... or i would probably eat spiders, because these are the only creatures i don't hesitate to knock off (bah, disgusting thought ... but maybe, if i fry them, and with a little seasoning, they would not even taste bad at all *ggg*)

technorati tags: chard, cod

EBBP#5 - the taste of summer

cooksister ist hosting EBBP#5 and i am in a moral conflict.

on the one hand i'd really like to get a surprise parcel by a fellow foodblogger. the first parcel i got on EBBP#4 was supercool!

but on the other hand my attempt to send david something nice turned out a disaster. i am still disappointed and i guess my adressee was disappointed too when he discovered that the thing i sent where totally rummaged by mice ... putting much effort (and money!) in the parcel and seeing it destroyed is not very funny ...

the thought of a surprise is very tempting, but i think i don't want to join in this time ...

technorati tags: ebbp#5, ebbp5, ebbp

bountiful harvest

looking at my gorgeous gemüsekiste was quite a surprise today. fantastic blueberries! i haven't eaten them since i was a kid and we picked them ourselves in the forrest. as i was going through the box "mmmmh"-ing and "aaahh"-ing i suddenly found myself with an unknown vegetable. it looked like spinach or salad ... being at my wit's end i decided to send my mother a snapshot. of course she came to the rescue. the mysterious vegetable is swiss chard. learned from the master (a.k.a. my mother) and i guess the master has to teach me another recipe containing mangold now ...

a rehearsal lunch

i am afraid of yeast.

honestly.

yeas is an ingredient i have never used before because i really think yeast is always getting out of control no matter if i precisely stick to a recipe. i've watched the women in my family cook with yeast like a million times, and i was always terrified by the duplication of the dough's volume.

i might not fully understand the concept of yeast. this is a "living" ingredient and i guess that's what makes it so uncontrollable for me. you never know what those little fungi are about to do. is it to cold for them to rise? am i killing them by pouring too hot fluids over?!

well. today i was taking on the challenge and overcoming my fear of the fungus.

as my sister and my brother are coming over on saturday and i have never ever made anything with yeast before i needed to make sure that the lunch my sister "ordered" was turning out fine. i mentiones before that we give eachother little presents for no reason and my sister gave me a lovely (and again colorful! yeah!) oven/serving dish that perfectly fits for a single household like mine. and the dish is perfect for buchteln, as she told me.

so i will rehearse a recipe for sweet yeast dumplings and berries for lunch today because i want to try out whether the fungus will obey me.

buchteln
200 ml milk
60 g butter
375 g flour
1 pkt of yeast
50 g sugar

01 sieve flour into a bowl
02 add sugar to the bowl
03 warm up milk and let butter melt in the warm milk (leave a little of that mixture to pour on the dumplings later)
04 dissolve yeast the fluid and pour over the flour/sugar mixture
05 add one egg and combine to a smooth dough
06 cover bowl and let dough rise for about 40 minutes at a warm place
07 the dough should be easily removed from the bowl
08 knead dough and make little dumplings
09 place them in a greased oven dish. arrange the dumplings closely, touching each other.
10 cover and let rise again for about 20 minutes
11 pour over the rest of the milk/butter mixture
12 bake for 30 minutes at about 200°C

berries:
300 g frozen berries
50 g sugar
1 tbsp starch
50 ml water

01 heat berries in a small pan
02 combine water and starch, add to the berries and bring to the boil
03 pour the berries over the dumplings while still hot

though the dumplings where not as fluffy as i would have liked them to be, they tasted quite okay for my first ever yeast-experience.

technorati tags: yeast

a little update:

my second experience with yeast was finally a winner! while i was on skype with my sister and my mom (her first time skyping *alone*) they both suggested to be more patient and let the dough rise a couple more times. i guess that was the whole trick!! i can't wait to have those little babies for breakfast tomorrow!

traditions, memories, changing habits and a recipe

angelika from the flying apple had a nice quote on her page yesterday: "the united states and great britain are two countries seperated by the same language".

one thing i was always strangely proud of was my dialect (you can probably compare it to the thick southern accent of some americans which not everyone who knows english is able to understand). i grew up in rural austria, in the north of the country in a region known as the "böhmerwald" (bohemian forest). i think i mentioned my strong bohemian influence in the kitchen before. there's a sarcastic comment used a lot in our region: "standard german is the first foreign language you need to learn". i always found this was actually true. nothing is as hard as being eight years old and having to answer questions by word of mouth in proper german. our teachers really had to drill us back then in the 80s ... today this is practically irrelevant because kids grow up with both standard german and dialect and most of them are not shy at all to switch to standard german. i was always pretty embarassed if i had to lose my dialect because i simply was unexercised - there was never really a need to speak standard german until senior grades. i had to communicating a paper to the class every once in a while but i never really had to do the talking part in standard german.

i was entering a whole new world when i finally moved to the bigger cities of upper austria after school. and three years ago i moved to the provincial capital of upper austria, linz. ever since i have settled here things have changed a lot and i was rather oblivious to that. i still talk mostly dialect, but now that i am taking my vocational baccalaureat diploma in arts my friends come from all parts of austria and germany as well. and i have to adjust my talking a little. sometimes a lot, and sometimes i have to really speak propper german in cheerful talks or private conversations if i want fellow students from the ukraine, serbia, or even vorarlberg to understand me. vorarlberg is a federal state of austria whose dialect is pretty much schwyzerdütsch (swiss german). i often whip out my best german and this fellow student from vorarlberg only notices his relapse into his dialect by the questionmarks floating over my head.

i hadn't really noticed that the same thing happens from time to time when i am with my folks back home. my articulation really has changed and my folks unconsciously call intention to the fact that i modified my vernacular. they raise their eyebrows when i use "sprechen" instead of "redn". and only that reaction makes me notice that i have shunt another dialect word from my vocabulary. of course, give me one afternoon and i fall back into my dialect as though nothing had happened.

one thing i painfully realized lately is that i substitute the beloved word "erdapfel" (earth apple) with the standard german "kartoffel" a lot. erdäpfel are a staple food cultivated by virtually every household in the smaller villages of the bohemian forest. my grandfather still stores his potatoes in an "erdkeller", a cellar near the house excavated around 1900. it is located on a hillside and has a stone-vault and a time-worn wooden door. this cellar always was a magical place for me, my siblings and cousins. we would always sit on top of the hill with the cellar underneath us pretending that gnomes and dwarfs where living behind the wooden door of the cellar ...

(thank you for taking the pictures, karin)

my grandfather wants to give up this earth cellar as it is getting too difficult for him to store his potatoes and wine far away from the house. i think this is pretty sad as there are so many childhood memories connected with this magical spot. i hope he just leaves the cellar empty instead of really flatten the area in one go and also destroy the nearby meadow arranged as a garden by my late grandmother.

every member of the family currently is using up the big pile of potatoes in the earth cellar from the last harvest. and now we actually get to the point of my rampant post. i have an easy savoury potato spread for you that has a long tradition, especially in rural areas of austria. we mostly eat it as a snack with bread, a "jause", which is a light meal taken in the afternoon. today the spread is very popular for barbecues or parties: it's the famous "erdäpfelkås"

(about 20 servings)
1 kg potatoes
250 g sour cream (i use cremefin instead)
250 g onions
salt, pepper, parsley, chives

01 cook potatoes and let cool down
02 peel cold potatoes and mash roughly (using a fork)
03 chop onions very finely and combine with potatoes in a bowl
04 add sour cream / cremefin, add herbs and season to taste

technorati tags:recipe, potato, potatoes, onion, onions

oh my god, somebody stop me please!

i am going all domestic right now with that newfound inspiration for cooking. i have never made jam for example - and right now - guess what - i am making jam. actually, it might be marmalade, i have no idea what the correct definition is. in german this would be "pfirsichmarmelade" and i can't wait to put some on my toast tomorrow morning.

i guess i am finally ready to be a housewife. and since the way to a man's heart is through his stomach i only need to find myself a decent stomach now ... oh, sorry, i meant man, so we can eat, drink and be merry ...

oh and, thanks nerissa, i forgot to mention that this is actually peach marmalade :)

technorati tags: jam, marmalade, marmelade, peach, pfirsich

i am very inspired

oooooh, ordering this farm box (thanks for the propper english expression, tea!) was probably the best thing (food-wise) i have done in a long time! i was thinking about recipes, variations and dinner options all day! i virtually could not think of anything else at work and i am glad that i could leave early to meet my mother and my sister. they where in linz today and when they gave me a ride home i was rambling about my delicious veggies the entire way home :) i think i don't need to mention that my girls are inspiring me a lot!

today they inspired me to pimp my zucchini

2 zucchinis
1 onion
1 mozzarella
oil, salt, chili, fennel seeds

01 cut zucchinis in half
02 put in the oven and give them a quick roast to soften the inside
04 saute the onions in a little oil
05 scratch out a bit of the the inside and sprinkle with fennel seeds
06 put the zucchinis back in the oven
07 mix the zucchini-pulp with the onion and season with salt, chili a fennel seeds. keep stir-frying the mixture
08 cut mozzarella
09 when the pulp-mixture is done take the zucchinis out of the oven and put the pulp-mix and the mozzarella on top
10 bake for another 15 minutes or so, until the mozzarella is turning slightly brown.
11 this might work as a side dish as well :)

i have one word for you: a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!

technorati tags:cooking, food, recipe

my very first "gemüsekiste"

perfect! now i don't have to carry my vitamins home anymore, the'll be delivered right to my front door! as i found out last week there's a farmer near linz who offeres various boxes of veggies, fruits, and you can even get bread and other bio-products from other local farmers! i ordered over the internet and i am quite content with how fast my order was processed and how very obliging they handled my calls and mails.

my first treasure chest is called "die bunte" (the colorful) and contains salad, strawberries, carrots, peaches, tomatos (oh damn, i forgot to mention that i don't like tomatos!!), lemons, zucchinis and onions. great! i am so looking forward to cooking dinner today!

addendum:

i was cooking the tomatos today, imagine that! i was so excited (and so hungry) that i completely forgot to take a picture and post it here :) i don't acutally have a recipe, but i made an italian-style sauce for my pasta. i was blanching the tomatos, then i peeled and diced them. i also used the delicious spring onions and did sauté them before adding the tomatos. i added some more basil and a little salt and threw in some mozzarella. this sauce was incredibly easy and quick and it tasted like heaven! and finally i can make use of unloved tomatos! i never ever would buy tomatos on purpose, but now i have a good recipe and i might hit the tomato display in the veggie section of my supermarket every once in a while ... oh wait, i don't have to! i can just wait for them to arrive on my doorstep :)

colorful dishes

lately my siblings and i give eachother little presents for no reason from time to time. today was my lucky day because i got some rather special stuff from my sister and her boyfriend:

i am totally into glass and white as far as my tableware are concerned, yet my little sis knows that i need some color in my life. red for example. it's her favorite color and picking it for my new cereal bowl and coffee cup was a brilliant idea!

thanks baby! you know what's good for your elderly sister!

if you want to pep it up, just "strudl" it!

on my last post i mentioned that i sometimes transgress my rule of low cal by wrapping my veggies up in puff pastry. as much as i like that, i really need to pull myself together in order not to drift off into my old habits.i figured i could still indulge in wrapped up food and make it a little healthier. on my quest to substitute the junk with healthy stuff i once more was digging into our family traditions.

i was always fascinated with the way my grandma used to make strudl. though it was mainly the plain old apfelstrudel on our menu we would also have a savoury strudl every once in a while.

the greatest thing however was watching my grandma preparing the dough for the filling , which we call "strudlziagn" - loosely translated as "pulling the strudl". i was sitting next to her, my legs dangling under the dinnertable and i was completely hypnotized by the way she was transforming a sticky lump into waferthin and perfect sheets of strudl the size of the dinner table. that was real art. it was tricky, you had to be quick and i never ever have seen one single hole ripped in her thin sheets of dough. you could virtually read a paper through it. how she managed to do this was beyond me. and it still is, actually.

sometimes some of the grandchildren where allowed to help and granny would give us little lumps of dough and a dish cloth and we would make a sticky something that was looking like a pizza. displeased with our poor achievments she would always grab the "pizza", scrunch the dough up, lifting it up in the air and letting it hang from her hands and pulling it in shape at first. when it had the right size she would place the dough on the cloth and with quick movements she pulled and tuged a litte - within less than a minute our lumpy stuff was a perfekt piece of raw material for her strudl.

in remembrance of my late grandmother i tried to make the perfekt strudl myself today. don't get me wrong, i have made strudl before. you just HAVE to make strudl when you're austrian :). but i always bought the thin sheets of strudldough. today i actually tried to make the dough myself and i did the "strudlziagn" myself as well. THIS was the real challenge.

125 g flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
a dash of salt
water as needed (about 100 ml)

01 sift the flour onto your working space or in a bowl
02 make a dent in the middle and add oil, salt and water
03 combine to a smooth dough and let rest at room temperature for about twenty minutes
04 you can use a rolling pin to bring the dough in shape. you can also use your hands and try the traditional way of "strudlziagn *ggg*

as you can see, i did not really succeed, i ripped the sheet while i was rolling the strudl. hey, this is really a hard thing to do with such delicate pastry! but even the leaking thing is rather nice to look at. so i don't count this as a flop, i actually am rather proud of the outcome.

guess my grandma would be proud too ... well, actually, i think she would have grabed my lumpy thing and made some propper strudelteig out of it :)

i still miss her sorely.

technorati tags:cooking, food, recipe

watching my weight apparently makes me a pretty dull foodblogger

i hardly ever cook something spectacular now. i braise my vegetables, i steam my meat - actually i hardly ever eat meat. i feast on fruits and vegetables and the apple has replaced my beloved sausage sandwich. i switched to light stuff and products that have less calories, fat and e-numbers in them. strangely enough i have a weird craving for spelt, buckwheat and amaranth ... hm ...

i allow myself sweets though. well, not sweets actually, but sweet things. like 70% dark chokolate. i guess this is why i don't have the munchies for opulent dishes right now - it makes me stick to my plan and the good news is that i have like 3 kilos less than 2 weeks ago. and my pants fit better.

as i am getting acquainted to the odd bio lifestyle i sometimes can not resist wrapping up steames veggies and roast turkey breast in puff pastry which actually shoud be shunt from my fridge since it has way too much calories ... eh! what the hell!


tagged with: cooking + food + diet