*Easy* Beetroot-Ginger Soup

Four weeks ago, Timo and me left Hamburg and went to South of France. We left Hamburg at a great latesummertime. It was about 26°C, perfect. In France, for sure, it was warmer, but not too much. It was an awesome extension of our summer.
When we left France and arrived by plain in Hamburg, the first sentence I said to Timo was: "First thing I will do: Put some warm sox on!"
It was about 12°C (we just came from 30°C). Damn, it was cold! Fall is coming. No, it was already there!We had a wonderful wonderful summer this year here. A lot of sun, not too hot, and very often rain in the night, good for the plants! My tomatoes grew and grew...I still harvest them.
But now, it`s time for tea. Time for hot-water bags. For warm sox. For thick coats. For a pair of gloves when I ride my bike at 7:30 a.m. in the morning through the forest to my work.
And it`s time for soups!!

Soups are really the best cold-weather-food. They warm you up from the inside, and because I am a reeeeal human ice cube when temperatures fall, they are survival food for me.

Two years ago, I felt in love with beetroot. It happened, because I ordered a "green box" from a farmer. I get it every two weeks, filled with a lots of veggies and fruits. Often enough, they add veggies I eben didn`t know. And sometimes they add some I knew but I never prepared. I mostly prepared stuff until thrn what I new from my childhood, and beetroot was not in. So...I got beetroot and I started to cook with it. Yea, really. I felt in love!

And here is the easiest, simplest method to use it (except rasping it). In a warm way. And the addition of ginger increases the inner heat it will produce.
Cosy times are coming! (I will start to sew my big huge biiiig Patchwork blanket...part of cosy times :))


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Beetroot Ginger-Soup... to have a warm dinner AND to freeze a lot.

Ingredients:
> 600 grams beetroot (I had two corms), peeled and chopped into dices (red finger alarm!)
> 2 shalotts, peeled and chopped fine
> 100 grams of ginger, peeled and chopped fine
> 50 grams of potatoe, peeled and roughly chopped
> 400 grams of red cabbage, sliced into fine stripes
> 1600 ml vegetable stock
> some vegetable oil
> 4 tbsp Aceto Balsamico vinegar
> Spices: salt and pepper from the mill, 4 tsp coriander (grounded)

Method:
>> Heat vegetable oil in a big pot
>> Add onions and ginger. Sweat them.

>> Add potatoes, beetroot and red cabbage. Add vegetable stock, let simmer for about 30 minutes.
>> Purée with a hand blender until as smooth as possible (it wull stay a bit grainy)
>> Add salt, pepper, grounded coriander and Aceto Balsamico. Add some seasoning if needed.
>> Optional: If you like it more liquid, add a bit more water.

>> To have a more creamy soup, you can add a bit of cream or curd or sour cream, like you want it. It makes the soup wonderful soft.
If you want a special little kick, roast some almond slices and give them over the soup.

And I like to serve it with a nice piece of Baguette or dark bread with butter.

Dance the ColdWeatherDance for warm feet and sing a warm song of your choice, filling up your soup and kitchen with great mood. Dammmdammdamm...

THANK YOU ALL - all around the world !!!

Hey and hello all around the world,
I just had a look at my blog statistics... and I wanted to say THANKS A LOOOT!!! to all of you!
...I could see that I`ve got readers from all around the world, USA and Australia at the top, Russia, Canada and Latvia following, but I also see visitors from the U.K., Italy, France, Austria....and more!
this is so AWESOME!!! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! I really really appreciate this!

I have been in holidays to south of France, Languedoc-Roussillon, and just came back.
I will start blogging as soon as I have time again for cooking and photography. And I really can`t wait for it!

Thank you all again, have a wonderful wonderful rest of the week,
*Fabia*

Currant-Baiser-Tarte

 I posted a lot of sweet stuff the last time, I know. Well, the reason is, that it is summertime, with all its berries and fruitstuff. I mostly use them to bake or to make chutneys or compotes or whatever.

Yesterday, we had a lovely couscous with aubergine, brown onions and red currants. I also use the fruits in some salty stuff, like you can see :) ...well...like you can READ. But we ate it before I could shoot some nice pictures for you. It was damn tasty, so I guess I have to cook it again, make some photographs and post you finally something salty :)
Summer, sweet summer...

So here is once more a wonderful tarte. The last time, I am so in love with tartes, because they are so thin and not so heavy like bigger cakes. We`ve got now 34°C here, and really: we do not eat much. Food must be light or cool. This cake is more light than cool :). But you can also put it in the fridge and eat it cooler.

Oh - and for sure: Easy to prepare! ... On my photos, you can also see some raspberry. It`s just because I didn`t buy enough red currants. For sure, you could take every berry you want. But....currants....you should not miss that!

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CURRANT - BAISER - TARTE
1 tarte tin  (max. 28 cm diameter)Ingredients:
> Shortcrust > for the recipe look here
---- TIP: You can perfectly freeze shortcrust. Just make the double amount you need, flatten the half into a circle, wrap it in plastics and put into the freezer. 3 months. Perfect. The bestestest way is to freeze it directly in the tarte tin. If you put it out, let it defrost and you can directly blind-bake it -----
> Filling:
>> 750 grams of red currants (for sure, you can also make a mixture of red/black/white)
>> 4 eggwhite
>> 180 grams sugar
>> 100 grams hazelnuts, grounded
>> a pinch of salt

Method:
> Preheat the oven: 190°C (375° F).
> Cover dough with baking paper and fill in raw lenses. The dough should be completely covered. The lenses prevent the dough from getting bubbles.
> Put into preheated oven for 15 minutes.

During these 15 minutes:
> wash berries and take of from the truss
> whisk eggwhite and salt with your handmixer until nearly stiff. Step by step, whisk the sugar into it. You should get a beautiful white, sticky baiser mass.

> Take dough out of the oven. [Entfernen] lenses and baking paper.
> Reduce heat to 170°C (340° F)
> Cover dough with 2-3 Tbsp of your hazelnuts.
> mix the rest of the nuts under the baiser mass.
> Mix the berries verrrrrrry carefully under the baiser mass. Have a look that the berries do not burst.
> Cover the whole dough with the mass. Yeah, there is a little hill...don`t worry, it won`t run over.
> Put all in the oven (middle) and let in for 45 minutes. After 15 to 20 minutes you should cover the cake with a baking sheet, for that it doesn`t get too brown on the top. Not earlier, because the baisermass is still sticky then - the sheet will glue on it and destroys your beautiful baiser surface.

Enjoy and sing any summer song you want while dancing under the apple trees (if possible).

So nuts!: Hazelnut Icecream

 

Summertime is icecreamtime. Okay, I know a few people who love to eat icecream all the year round, but me, I am a very "seasonal" eater.
I like fresh stuff in the summer, like fruits, yoghurt, icecream and so on, but in winter, I don`t eant eat yoghurt, but more warm and heavy stuff.

So it`s not a wonder that our refrigerator is full of icecream at the moment.
We have lemon sorbet, orange sorbet, strawberry-lemon-elderflower sorbet, some chocolate chip icecream, rosemary-honey-icecream, and I am on the run to prepare ananas sorbet and cherry icecream. Well,..umh... I actually lied...Timo ate already the lemon and the orange sorbet. He is not easy to stop while eating fruit sorbets. Especially the lemon one - he says, it`s the best he knows...this is why I have to post the recipe soon. When Timo say "It is the best I know!" it`s kind of a gold medal for me. YEY!
But first: MY favourite.

Hazelnut Icecream is and has always been my baby. Hazelnut icecream, best with hazelnuts and hazelnut sauce. I am nuts about nuts, really!

I found this recipe in a beautiful icecream book a few years ago.
Even if homemade icecream is not going to be as soft and creamy as the one in the supermarket (because there are no chemical add-ons inside that makes everything creamy and tender), I prefer it. The taste is often more honest. The flavours are real. And you know what you put inside. For me, this is very important. I don`t want to have ingredients in my food that have more "x", "y" and "z" I ever can spell in my life.
I wanna know what comes into my stomach, because what I eat is the fuel for my body. I also don`t put hot frying oil into my car.

Well, okay...ehm...back to icecream.
I really like this one. It´s "just" a simple hazelnut icecream. Without glamour and a big bang. It`s pure in taste. I love it like this!

P.S.: You need an icecream machine for this. There are methods to prepare icecream also without a machine, but I didn`t try them yet. Google it, if you need it. But the machines are not expensive. I paid 30 € for mine, and this was 10 years ago. I am still using it and it works fine!

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Hazelnut Icecream
...for two small glasses

> 150 grams whole hazelnuts

> 2 eggs + 2 egg yolk
> 500 ml milk (no low fat!)
> 50 grams sugar (fine,if possible)
> 75 grams brown sugar
> 200 grams Crème double
> 3 Tbsp Frangelico (or another hazelnut liqueur)
> 50 grams dark chocolate

>> Preparing the hazelnuts:
Preheat the oven to about 130°C - put hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast it. Put out when they smell lovely roasted. Let them cool down a little. While cooling down, you can hear little sounds of the cracking peel. This is a perfect moment to wrap them in a kitchen towel and roll and scrub them with your hands on the table ... that helps to get the dark brown and a little bitter peel off.

>> Preparing the icecream:Mix eggs, eggyolk, white sugar and 40 grams of the brown sugar in a pot until it gets foamy (about 1 minute long)
>> Heat milk in a pot slowly until it begins to cook. Take down from heat, let cool down for a few minutes. Add egg-mixture to the milk.
>> Heat all at middle heat, 8-10 minutes, stiring all the time.
>> When the mixture begins to steam, it must have more or less 75° C (if you`ve got a thermometer you can have a look). Take down from heat - it shouldn`t get hotter, because the eggmixture will clod.

>> Grind 120 grams of your roasted hazlenuts with the rest of the brown sugar (35 grams) in a kitchen machine.
>> Mix 1/3 of the eggmixture with the grinded hazelnuts for about 1 minute
>> Add the rest of the eggmixture, mix very well and let cool down in the refrigerator for at leats one hour.

>> Put a sieve upon a pot. Add your mixture into the sieve and strain it until you have only the dry hazelnut rests left over. Put them in the trash bin.
>> Beat the Crème Double until fluffy and fold into the mixture.
>> You can pour it now into your icecream machine until it`s freezy enough to put into a pot. Deep freeze for at least 4 or 5 hours.
>> Melt chocolate ina hot water bath, let cool down a little and pour over the icecream. Sprinkle immediately with the rest of the nuts.


>> If you wanna serve it, put out of the freezer 15 minutes before you want to eat it.

Don´t forget to dance around in the kitchen, singing "Hallelujah, I just made icecream" or something else what makes sense.

Summerly Apricot-Lavender Compote

First of all: Sorry, lovely people, one month has passed and I didn`t post you more stuff.
I really cooked a lot last time. Summer was immediately there, with sun, strawberries, cherries, berries, apricots and and and, and my eyes and ideas were exploding - my time unfortunately not.

I took the time for cooking, even if my "normal" work (in filming and computer game artwork) takes me up a lot at the moment. But when I come home from work, cooking and experimenting in the kitchen is my evening meditation (I guess, Timo is quite happy about that kind of relaxation method :)). I love to smell everything, to cut and to feel the stuff I am preparing. But I actually had no time for pleasurable photography,and I don`t want to make just "clickclick" for quick pictures.

I can`t do "big" things in my little leisure-time in the evening. So I watched out for easy but interesting and summerly yummyumms. Here is one of it. It is quickly made, I swear, and if you fill it in sterilized jars (cook them in hot water for 15 minutes, fill in stuff when glasses come out hot), you can store it in the fridge for one or two weeks.

As dish I made pancakes and waffles...this is a very quick meal, easy to handle, and you can use a lot of creative stuff for topping.
For example this one here.

Have a look at the photos. The apricots here are cutted in half. After eating, I must say I would cut them smaller. Make bits you can eat easier than half an abricot.

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Apricot-Lavender Compote
...for two small glasses

> 4 apricots, pitted
> 2 tbsp sugar
> 60 ml apple juice
> some lavender blossoms, dried (here in Germany, you get them in the pharmacy, f.e. - you don`t need much. Buy the smallest amount they sell. You don`t even need 10 grams)


>> Cut apricots in small pieces (size = nice to bite on)
>> Melt sugar in a little pot at low to medium heat (be careful...it takes some patience until it melts, but then it caramelizes very quickly)
>> When lightly brown and glossy, add juice and let cook while stiring until the sugar dissolved completely
>> Add apricots and a good pinch of lavender blossoms (their taste is quite intense, don`t use too much)
>> Let cook for about 5 minutes
>> serve it warm or cold or put it in sterilized glasses and then in the fridge.

Is the chicken local?

Nothing to eat today...but...some of you might know this. For those who don`t: watch it! It`s wonderful and funny... I also buy my meat at a local butcher, and I guess if I ask him, he prooobably knows the name of the cow I will eat, because his father has a farm and slaughts the animals on it.
But...well...ah! Just watch by yourself!

*Easy* Crispy Oven French Fries - WORLD`S BEST!

With French Fries for me it is like with Pizza, Lasagne, Burger....with all the Classics:
Most you can get are "okay" to "not very awesome", sometimes you are lucky and get very good ones.

And again: I was on the hunt for MY perfect French Fries...the problem is: when you found them and you do them at home...you never can eat some outside from anywhere and be satisfied. Damn.

But nevertheless: I found my personal FAVs, and the same for Timo. We both love them!
AND!!! LADIES! - and Lords, for sure:
They are made in the OVEN, with a little bit of oil - but they are NOT deep-fried, so there is nearly no added fat in it!!! THIS is the REAL deal with that recipe here. Eat French fries without bad conscience.

Okay, let`s go.
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Crispy Oven French Fries
serves one as a generous side dish

> 2 BIG potatoes, floury
> salt
> neutral oil (for frying)
> polenta
> paprika powder

>> Preheat oven: 180°C/ 360°F
>> Peel the potatoes or not, like you prefer it (I like them with peel)
>> Cut into 15mm x 15mm thick long slices - you can choose your own thickness. They shrink while they are heating a bit, so don`t  make them toooo thin.
>> Prepare a big bowl of ice water (some cold water with ice cubes is perfect) and put potatoe slices into it for 15 minutes.
>> Dry them as best as you can on a kitchen towel. Ehm...dry them really WELL!
>> Mix them with paprika powder and polenta (own measure)
>> Give them on a baking sheet on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil.
>> Give into oven for about 20 minutes. Have a look at the color. They should get really dark yellow, like on the photo.
>> Take them out into a bowl and salt them


ENJOOOYY!

*Easy* Rhubarb Syrup

Some things in life just arent`t fair. You do so much and you get much less.
I think sometimes about it when I listen to the song "Ironic" from Alanis Morissette.
But I guess it works sometimes also the other way `round. Sometimes it needs just a spark and you get fireworks back (especially with best friends :))

For me, it works also in cooking.
One of my passions is to find the simplest basic recipes with the most magical flavor.
I mean those kind of recipes you can recite after you did them one or two times. And I mean also these kind of basic recipes that allow you to power them up with a flavour you are just in the mood to add.
When you found one, it surely will be a "Classic" for the rest of your life. Yeah. I am collecting "Classics", I am on the hunt!

Pizza, bread, basic sauces, icecream... (the chocolate icecream I wrote about is already one of my "Classics")
Here is one more of my beautiful babies!
Springtime here, that means april and may, is rhubarb-time. I always try to cook some things with it in, because the time is so short. It is not always easy, because Timo doesn`t like it at all. But that syrup is awesome, because you can store it in the fridge for long, and it is so refreshing. You can bring it to grillparties or take it into the office or whatever. It is just lovely.

And ... like I told you: it is so easy you can do it soon by heart!

Best is: be creative in serving!
Add ice cubes. Sparkling water. Lemon slices. Mint leaves. Prosecco. Other kinds of alcohol. Add to icecream. Whatever!
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RHUBARB SYRUP
About 1 liter

Ingredients:
> 1 kg rhubarb (makes normally about 500 ml rhubarb juice)
> sugar
> 1-2 lemons (1 lemon contains about 30 to 40 ml juice)

Method:
>> Peel rhubarb and cut roughly. Put into a pot with 50 ml of water.
>> Heat until it cooks, let then simmer at lower heat until the rhubarb is completely soft, like mush.
>> Give into a linen sheeth or very fine colander and let drop for a while. Then begin to squeeze it as much as you can. That will take some time and takes some effort. But do it for every drop. In the end, the rest of the rhubarb should be very dry...you can knead it like a dense dough then. Throw the "dough" away.
>> Measure your juice amount, put back into pot.
>> For every liter juice, add 700 grams of sugar and 70 grams freshly squeezed lemon juice.
>> Heat but not let cook...until the sugar completely dissolved.
>> Pour through a fine colander into sterilized bottles (I lay the bottles into hot/cooking water 15 minutes before using them)

...and now enjoy it with whatever you think it`s good (on my pic with cold water, ice cubes and fresh peppermint). Preferably on a warm or hot day in the sun :)

Lime Turkey WOK

The winter is over!
It was quite fun cooking during that cold season. The food is always very heavy and strong, what is really the best when you come from a walk in the cold cold air.
But I am looking forward so much to the springtime, and I prefer now light food. We love to cook in our WOK, so here we go, this is our first WOK food this year!

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Lime Turkey WOK
(serves 2)

Ingredients:
> 200 grams turkey cutlet
> 1 lime, untreated (you need the peel)
> 1 stick of lemongrass
> 1 piece of ginger (size: half of a thumb)
> 1 garlic clove
> Pepper
> 150 grams fresh mushrooms (I prefer oyster mushrooms)
> 150 grams PakChoy
> 2 Tbsp oil
> 3 Tbsp fishsauce
> 2 Tbsp Ketjap Manis
> 6 Tbsp chicken stock

150 grams rice, dry


>> Prepare rice (instruction HERE)

>> Cut the meat into stripes.
>> Wash lime with hot water. Grate the peel and press the juice.
>> Cut the top of the lemongrass, quarter lengthwise and chop into little pieces
>> Peel ginger and garlic and chop also into little pieces. Mix with 1 Tbsp limejuice, limepeel, pepper and lemongrass and rub into the meat. Put into fridge until you need it.
>> Cut mushrooms and PakChoy into large stripes.

>> Heat WOK until very hot, add oil and heat it until hot.
>> Add meat and fry 3 minutes until lightly golden brown.
>> Take out meat off the pan and put mushrooms in the rest of the oil. Stir and fry 2 minutes.
>> Add PakChoy, stir one more minute.
>> Add fishsauce, Ketjap Manis, stock and 2 Tbsp limejuice
>> Add meat and let cook for 3 more minutes.
>> Add once more pepper.

> Serve with rice!

 

How animals eat their food

For everybody who does not yet know it...you HAVE to watch it! Enjoy!

Little Ginger Cakes with Caramelsauce

Until now, my year was a little bit of unhealthy. I was ill a long time and couldn`t go to the sports, what annoyed me a lot. The weather here in Germany was a catastrophy - the winter didn`t want to leave at all, and everybody`s mood sank to the ground.
In wintertime, I always eat more, and in combination with "no sports" and "ill", this is not a good idea, even if the food was mostly healthy.
But there was also Easter and some birthdays, and I got used to too much sweets.
A week ago (I am finally healthy, yey!) I felt, my body doesn`t like all that anymore.
I remembered a good advice of a cook (could be Jamie Oliver) who said: Eat sweets ONLY when you made them with your own hands!
After a week without any sweet, I wanted to allow myself something, so I decided to bake some little cakes with ginger, because I knew: this recipe isn`t that sweet.

After this one week without "supermarket"sweets, I already taste the "sweetness-factor" differently. The supermarket sweets seem too sweet. So these cakes are superbe, if you search for something not that heavy.
You can surely leave out the caramel sauce, but this one is not that sweet, too!

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Little Ginger Cakes with Caramelsauce

(9 flat muffins)

Cakes:
> 2 Tbsp chopped candied ginger
> 1 tsp ginger, grounded

> 90 grams butter, soft
> 2 tsp fine grated orangepeel
> 60 g brown sugar, soft (Muscovado is the best choice)
> 75 grams creamy honey
> 2 eggs
>100 ml milk
> 150 grams flour
> 1 tsp baking powder

Caramel Sauce:
> 125 ml cream
> 75 grams brown sugar

Preparation:
> Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F
> Prepare muffin tin or something with a similar size: grease and sprinkle with flour
> Mix chopped candied ginger with a bit of the flour and stir, until the pieces do not stick together anymore.
> Combine butter, sugar, orangepeel and honey with a handmixer until smooth & creamy
> Add eggs and mix, too.
> Fold in well the flour, baking powder and ginger (candied and grounded) with a spoon
> Add slowly milk while mixing.

> Fill muffin tin with dough.
> put into oven for about 12 minutes - FINITO!

> For the sauce, combine cream and sugar and heat it softly until the sugar dissolves. Then increase heat and let cook for 6-8 more minutes. Let cool down a little bit and spread over the cakes.

If you want, sprinkle with sesamseeds or some nuts.

Coalfish India

We always try to establish some kind of "fish-day" - in many german parts, friday is the traditional one.
the "older" people still hold this tradition up. But the younger ones don`t. Well, Timo and me, we do not manage it, too. I am living in a harbour city but eat too less fish. I want to change that!

I made this one, because I found this package of green rice I bought in a wonderful store in Tübingen, South of Germany. I was just curious about. I mean, it has a beautiful vibrant color! Very special!
But: choose normal rice for that.There was no preparing advice on the package, so I cooked it like normal rice. It was really clingy after that. Still tasted okay, but not what I wanted.

Fish fits wonderful to rice, and I have this great korma paste recipe from Jamie Oliver.
(>> http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/uncategorised-recipes/easy-homemade-curry-pastes)
I make always more and freeze it. So I had a great dish to prepare quickly after work.

So, if you want to have some light fish with oriental spices, try this!


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Coalfisch Karma Korma

serves 2

Ingredients
> 2 x 180-200 grams coalfish filet (with or without skin)
> 1 TBSP korma paste (I do it myself, the recipe is from
> 2 green onions
> Olive oil
> 100 ml coconut milk
> some parsley or coriander leaves to sprinkle
> a little bit of chili
> 1 lemon, bio
> basmati rice for 2 (~150 grams dry rice)

Preparation:
First, prepare the rice:
>> Wash the rice in a sieve until the water coming out is clear (if it doesn`t , the rice gets clingy).
>> Heat some water in a pot, add a bit of salt and put rice into boiling water. If the rice is starting to "dance", let it cook for 5 minutes, then strain it.
>> Put water into pot again, a few centimeters high. Let boil and reduce heat until it simmers.
>> Put the sieve with the rice above and cover with aluminium foil. Then let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

Prepare the fish:
>> Heat big pan at medium heat.
>> Cover one side of the coalfish (if it has skin: on the fleshside) with half of the korma paste
>> Add a bit oil to the hot pan and put fish with the korma side down into it.
>> When it gets a bit of color after 4-5 minutes, turn and let fry for 5 more minutes.
>> Heat pan more and add green onions, the other half of the korma paste, coconut milk and chili.
>> Let cook a few minutes until the fish begins to fall apart.
>> If necessary, add lemonjuice to the sauce.

>> Put rice on plates, add fish and douse with sauce. Sprinkle with some green onions & parsley/coriander.
Serve with lemon pieces.

Mushroom-Tarte

I have these strange moments when I am on the market or somewhere where you can buy food, whereever, and see something that I know just from hearing but never prepared it yet by myself.
For example; I have been to the Languedoc (France) with my best friend last may, and we went on the marché du jour. I saw these awesome artichokes....I only knew them from pizza, from not-so-good-pizza, and I thought..how do they taste when they are prepared fresh???
Well, we bought some, and really: I HAD NO IDEA how to prepare them.
So first, I anatomized it, peeled off, cutted, twitched and picked....
Finally I called my boyfriend in germnay, he had to google it for me. That was quite funny, because he is absolutely not that "kitchen-boy".Now, he had to help me with THAT!
At the end, after a bunch of work, because we wanted to leave the artichoke in a whole and had to peel out the hay inside with a small spoon (we didn`t know any good trick to do it with less effort) we had a wonderful dinner with fresh fish and artichokes, olive oil and baguette.
It was worth the work!

The same happened to me on the market when I saw dried mushrooms.
Until I was something about 20, I HATED mushrooms, especially cèpes. I had a bad experience when I was a kid, so there was an obstacle. But things can change.
So I prepared these Mushroom Tarte,and what can I say?
It was awesome!
It smelled like...like..something mysterious, it smelled dark, it smelled like I bite into a forest. Mossy, tangy...full! Yeah, I guess I eat now more mushrooms.

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Mushroom Tarte

Ingredients:(springform of ~28 cm aperture)

Filling
> 700 grams fresh mixed mushrooms
> 35 grams dried mushrooms, different kind (cèpe, morel, shiitake ...)
(you can also take a plus of grams of fresh mushrooms instead of the dried ones. I prefer to have a lot of different ones, but if it is easier for you, take less sorts.)
> 2 shallots
> 1 garlic clove
> 1 small branch fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
> 2 tbsp. olive oil
> 250 grams liquid cream
> salt, pepper
> bit of lemonjuice
> 2 eggs
> a small bunch of chive, chopped
> 1 hand full of grated Gruyère (or another melting, aromatic cheese, not soft)

Shortcrust:
(you can also buy that one readymade in the counter fridge)
> 250 grams flour
> 125 grams COLD butter, chopped in dices
> a pinch of salt and sugar
> ~ 4 tbsp. COLD water


>> let dried mushrooms soak in hot water at least 1 hour.
>> In the meanwhile you can prepare the dough:
Put flour on a work surface, add butter. Rub butter quick and soft into the flour, until you`ve got little rough flakes. Add salt, sugar and water and combine QUICKLY until you´ve got a dough. Wrap in foil and put into fridge. for at least 30 minutes.

>> Preheat oven to 230°C (air circulation) ( 450°F)
>> Put soakes mushrooms into a sieve, rinse several times with clear water. Let drip down.
Chop all mushrooms (also the fresh ones) into pieces.

>> Peel shalotts and garlic, cut into little dices.  Put off the thyme leaves.
>> Roast shalotts, garlic and thyme gently in olive oil
>> Add fresh mushrooms. Add soaked mushrooms after pressed out all the water.
>> Roast a few minutes. Add cream. Let cook softly for some minutes, until cream boiled down a bit.
>> Flavor with salt, pepper and lemonjuice.

>> Whisk eggs with chopped chives, mix it with the mushrooms. (Leave some chives for decoration)

>> Roll dough out (thin) on a floured work surface, pinch a baking paper into a springform pan (~28 cm aperture) and put dough inside.
>> Your rim should be around 4 cm high.
>> Prick little holes with a fork into the dough.

>> Sprinkle dough base with grated cheese. Put mushroom-egg-mixture on top.

>> Put into oven for 15 minutes. Reduce then heat to 180 °C (350°F), leave the tarte for 10 more minutes in the oven.

>> Sprinkle with leftover chives.

FINITO!

Leek-Hash-Casserolle à la Dad

This one so so so so simple recipe is a homage to my daddy.
He was not very often at home, because he worked the whole day long, so my mum cooked a lot of awesome stuff.
But he did sometimes two meals for us (well, I remember those two, probably it was more...and I didn`t mention the Christmas roast goose, this is special).
The first one was just a good wholemeal bread (we have wonderful bread in Germany!) with fresh cheese, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Quite simple, but awesome.
The second one is also simple, but warm instead of cold, and you can read the recipe here.

He cooked leek with hash, mixed with nutmeg, salt and pepper, and it was just wonderful. So easy!
My mum mostly cooked casserolles for us. We were three (wonderful :)) girls and it was not easy to get us full. A casserolle did always its work.

So I took daddy`s recipe of the leek stew and made a casserolle out of it. It is so so so so tasty, just try it out. The crispy lid makes all just....just....aaye! Just heavenly!
Enjoy!
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Leek-Hash-Casserolle
serves 2

Ingredients:
> 2  leeks (~ 400 grams)
> 200 gramsground beef
> salt, pepper, nutmeg
> 1 Tbsp mustard (not too hot)
> 2 Tbsp Crême fraîche
> 70 grams Pecorino/Parmesan, grated
> breadcrumbs
> 250 ml vegetable stock

>> Preheat oven to 190°C / 380°F
>> Heat a pan with a little bit of oil and roast the meat a few minutes. Take out of pan and put aside.
>> Put leek into hot pan until it gets soft. Add vegetable stock & mustard. Let cook ~8 minutes.
>> Take pan from stove. Add Crème fraîche and two third of the cheese. Mix well.
>> Put all into casserolle. Sprinkle generously with all the breadcrumbs and the last third of cheese.
>> Sprinkle with good oliveoil
>> Put into oven for 20 minutes. The casserolle should be now as crusty and golden like on the photos. Take out and enjoy!
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Orange-Choc-Stix

I am kind of a person that doesn`t like throwing something away - I mean food. Everything else is easy. But food? No way!
It is always a challenge for me to deplete everything in my fridge, all the leftovers from cooking sessions, and I am extremely proud if I made it!

I never thought about the peel of oranges. Sometimes you rasp it to use it sprinkled in pancakes or something, but the whole peel?
But then I remembered something I saw once in France (OMG, I love this country!)
And because Timo is a chocolat AND a fruit junkie, this was perfect for another of my glorious wonderful kitchen experiments he has to taste before I do :P

Well, what shall I say? It worked. These beautiful and tasty sticks are awesome to eat along the way, because (probably your opinion is different) you cannot eat that much of it. It`s more a tasty pleasure than a crapulence, like you sometimes have with chips. Once you`ve started to eat, you do not stop, and afterwards you feel bad. Not like this with these Choc-Stix.

Enjoy them with hot tea, coffee, milk or whatever comes in your mind. Or pure.
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Orange Choc Stix

Ingredients:
> 2 oranges, peel untreated (!!!!!!!!!!!)
> 70 ml orange juice (taken from the 2 oranges)
> 160 grams sugar
> 260 ml water
> 60-70 grams good dark chocolat (at least 70 %)
>> Carve orange two times all around, so that you have four areas of peel you can now carefully peel off   from the pulp.

>> Give the peel for two minutes into hot water, just to blanch them shortly. Drain on a kitchen paper.

>> Combine water, orange juice and sugar in a pot and heat it until it cooks. Add the peel pieces. At low heat, let them simmer for 90 minutes.

>> take the peel out of the sirup, shake off the too-much-sirup-stuff and put onto a cake rack - let it dry there for about 2 hours.

>> If you want, you can scrape clean now the white inner stuff from the peel and put into trash, so you just have a few millimeters of pure orange peel. I didn`t do that and it tastes the same, for me. Some say, it is more bitter. I don`t think so. 

>> Cut the peel into long stripes, as thick as you want them to be.

>> Melt chocolate on a hot water bath and dip them into the liquid chocolat. Shake off the choc a bit and put on a baking paper to dry.

>> Store them in a screw top jar or something similar....not to forget: dance around and sing "Hallelujah! I`ve done something gorgeous!" (with the melody of your choice)
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