Cooking & Recipes

TSiR 2 – Sweet or Savory – Vanilla Meets Asparagus

TSiR 2 – Sweet or Savory – Vanilla Meets Asparagus

For the second issue of the “The Spice Is Right”-event, titled “Sweet or Savory”, Barbara from Tigers & Strawberries asks us to switch spices. So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pick a spice, that is usually used in your native culture (If you are American, you can decide what I mean by your native culture–if you are Italian-American or African-American, then you take the food culture you grew up with) as either a savory or a sweet spice. You explain how it is used in your culture, and then, turn it all around, and use the spice in the opposing fashion. Since I am challenged by dietary adjustments to my menu options because of allergies, I knew I would have to prepare something not using…

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WCC #4: Easter Breakfast – Corn Fritters

WCC #4: Easter Breakfast – Corn Fritters

Alicat at Something So Clever hosts the 4th edition of the Weekend Cookbook Challenge and the Theme is “Easter Breakfast and Brunch”. While my Potato Saffron Rolls would have made the perfect entry for this event, I wanted to try something new and came up with a hearty, fusion cuisine crossover of latkes and corn fritters with an Indian twist. This is from a (German) cookbook titled “Fingerfood” (ISBN 3-8290-2312-X) which has been dormant in my cookbook shelf for years. I take it out every now and then, marvel at the tiny delicacies – and prepare something else.

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TSiR 1 – Ancient Spices: Saffron

TSiR 1 – Ancient Spices: Saffron

It took me some time to decide on a particular spice to feature in this first edition of “The Spice Is Right” (see description and rules here at Tigers & Strawberries). First, I had coriander in mind, being well known as the Mexican herb – cilantro, or in Europe, coriander green / leaves, and well loved for its seeds’ sweetness in the cuisines of India and the middle east as well as in Europe. But then I thumbed through one of my favorite cookbooks, Elizabeth Rozin’s “Blue Corn and Chocolate” (from the Knopf Cooks American series, unfortunately out of print). In this book, Rozin gives a detailed report of the fruits of the New World – the Americas – such as potatoes, corn, tomatoes, vanilla and many more – easily…

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Chinese New Year – Beef & Broccoli

Chinese New Year – Beef & Broccoli

Welcome to the Year of the Dog! A few fascinating entries have arrived already for the Chinese New Year event: Zorra presents Shrimps sweet & sour with mango (in German) Ulrike serves a bowl of Egg Drop Soup (in German) Kaffeebohne teaches her son how to eat with chopsticks – recipe for Beef with Curry Sauce included (in German) and Kochfrosch wraps up lovely Dim Sum (German, too), Of course, these will be included in the complete round-up by the end of the month, too, but I just wanted to give you a taste ahead of the crowd . And here is my entry to this event – nothing fancy, I’m afraid, but really tasty: Beef & Broccoli with Oyster Sauce Ingredients: 350 g beef steak 1 bunch of broccoli,…

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SHF # 15 – Sugar Low Friday

SHF # 15 – Sugar Low Friday

“Sugar is the devil” – and Becks & Posh invite for a Sugar (not) High Friday. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it to a SHF for the next months since I am livin’ la vida lowcarb, but now I have the perfect excuse to dig out my bottles of sugarfree Torani syrup (with Splenda) and create something I *really* miss – ice cream. There are no low carb products whatsoever in my part of the world, and even obtaining Splenda-sweetened syrups is quite difficult. But for a special treat, they are perfect. (I am awfully sorry this is not frugal as far as fats are concerned, but I am sure you could subsitute half-and-half for the cream). Sugar Free Caramel Ice Cream Ingredients (4 servings approx.) 4 egg yolks…

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Chicken Madras, Delia-style

Chicken Madras, Delia-style

Last night’s dinner was Chicken Madras. The original idea came from Delia online. Usually, I prefer real Indian food to colonial curry powder dishes, but this time I wanted something easy. Delia Smith’s recipe fit the bill. Of course, I fiddled with the recipe – I didn’t have garlic, so I used a shallot for the spice paste – even better since my DH has a sales job and his customers prefer non-garlic salespeople . This worked fine, but I wholeheartedly recommend making the spice paste in a mortar, if you have a decent one. Tainting your blender with a miniscule amount of turmeric-yellow spice paste isn’t worth the cleaning, after all. And I didn’t have Sharwood’s Hot Curry Powder, either. I think I have seen Sharwood’s products over here…

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IMBB #19 – Vegan Cooking – Kabocha Squash Fusion Soup

IMBB #19 – Vegan Cooking – Kabocha Squash Fusion Soup

This month’s IMBB event is hosted by Becks & Posh, featuring vegan cuisine. While, as an ex-vegetarian, vegan is not my preferred style of cooking, I do eat a lot of vegan meals without thinking about them or considering them especially “vegan”. Thank you for the idea of cooking decidedly different : ! For this event I was planning to make fabulous veggie sushi, which – unfortunately – turned out less than fabulous because I got the wrong kind of nori leaves. So I grabbed the latest addition to my cookbook shelf – Anita Loh-Yien Lau’s “Asian Greens” – and found lots of lovely ideas… my entry is slightly adapted from a recipe for Squash Coconut Soup. Kabocha Squash, Coconut & Curry Soup with Bok Choy The soup turned out…

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IMBB #17 – Tea – Green Tea Shrimp & Almonds

IMBB #17 – Tea – Green Tea Shrimp & Almonds

This month’s IMBB event is hosted by A la Cuisine, featuring tea as ingredient. Tonight we had a fabulous dinner with Prawns with Green Jasmine Tea and Almonds What you need:

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IMBB #16 – Eggs – Japanese Omelet Salad

IMBB #16 – Eggs – Japanese Omelet Salad

This month’s edition of Is My Blog Burning is hosted by Seattle Bon Vivant, featuring one of the most versatile ingredients ever: eggs! Funny enough, my second entry to an IMBB event is also the first native entry to this blog on its new location. I am glad I made it just in time to participate – although I knew all along what I was going to cook, the approach of incredibly hot summer weather (and hey, we’re even north of Seattle over here in Hamburg, Germany) slowed my mind considerably. At last, I managed to get the ingredients I needed for a Japanese Omelet Salad This is inspired by and adapted from a recipe in Paul Gayler’s ‘Vegetarian Cookbook”. The recipe says to put the rice and veggies into…

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Dim-Sum Stuffed Peppers

Dim-Sum Stuffed Peppers

This is taken from one of my all time favorite cookbooks, Elizabeth Rozin’s “Blue Corn and Chocolate”. I’ve had more shrimps (more like a 1 lb-bag) which was ok, a few tablespoons leftovers went into a tortilla de camarones or Spanish shrimp omelet for the BF to take to work today. At the Turkish greengrocers I bought 4 small green blocky peppers, I have seen these at oriental markets, but nowhere else. They are perfect for stuffing the traditional way (rice or ground meat or both) and seemed to fit the description in the recipe. The recipe says ‘makes 16 stuffed pepper pieces’. I found that smaller (and rather flat) pieces work perfectly – probably my blocky peppers are much larger, which would fit the increased amount of stuffing. Makes…

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Bento-Boxen

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