Chocolate with salt

I have days, when I really struggle a lot to find something I could dish up. There are millions of recipes out there, but nothing seems to be right. And then I open the fridge and close it again, go through my cupboards and still don't know, what to do.
Wednesday was such a day and I hate them. It feels like I don't have two brain cells to rub together. And the more I open and close my fridge and cupboards, the less of an idea I have of what to cook.
That's the point, where I have to take a deep breath, decide on one component and work my way forward. Mostly I pick an ingredient we haven't had for a while, like tinned tuna this time.
So I searched the internet for quick and easy recipe, as after the indecisive search I was running out of time and found that great simply recipe (in German language).
I didn't change much, but I substituted the mayonnaise partially with Greek yogurt, as I don't like to use mayonnaise only. I also added juice of half a lemon to get a nice taste and add some more acidity.
The salad was quickly made, apart from waiting for the rice to cook through, and was fresh, satisfying and very tasty. So tasty, that I ate it the next day again... and it was even better.
I think it's a brilliant dish to have either for lunch or dinner. You can also prepare it the day prior and put it in a Tupperware and take it along to work.
I 'm pretty sure, this Tuna rice salad will be dished up in our house more often .

I wanted to publish that recipe for a long time already, not only because I love it, but also because it changed my attitude toward stuffed peppers. Not that long ago, you could have chased me by just mentioning that dish. Mostly burned pepper mush with a nasty skin, preferably stuck to my palate. It just wasn't mine, partially because I was convinced, that I only like raw peppers.
Now thank to that recipe, I started using peppers in my cooking more and more and in any preparation form.
So what makes the difference? To begin with, the peppers stay nice firm, as they are just steamed. In my opinion, the fresh taste is also very well preserved and you don't get that overcooked pepper taste. The skin is obviously still there, but as the pepper stays firm itself, it's not bothering at all.
During the winter time, I make that dish quite often, as the peppers are fresh and affordable, and it's quickly done, light and very tasty - and suitable for our whole family.
You can serve it with rice, noodles, potatoes or bread.
I should also mention, that I found the recipe in my favorite German recipe database chefkoch.de under
Illes gefüllte Paprikaschote „der anderen Art“ . Illepille, thank you. You will see, I didn't change much, as it wasn't necessary for our liking.

I was just waiting for the ridiculous price for snow peas to drop, so I can do that delicious dish, that I just love, not only because it's so easy and quickly done. The combination of flavours and textures is so beautiful. 
To be honest, I was sure, I wrote already about that dish and was surprised not to find it here. On the other hand, I also wasn't cooking it for quite a while, because of the already mentioned crazy price for snow peas.

I'm trying to grow snow peas in our garden for years already, but that's what you can call an epic fail. This year the plants grew indeed and were even carrying some fruits, but despite our new sprinkler system, the plants dried out eventually after having only one set of fruits. I won't give up thou and gladly take any advise that could help to finally cultivate them in our garden. 

But we're not talking about my garden... The idea for the following dish came from here (in German language), but I've made the recipe only once with pork and substituted with chicken instead. You will see, that I changed some other things too, but all in all left the recipe as is.

And here comes one of our all time favourites:
Chicken stew with snow peas and almonds.

Maybe you remember the quick and delicious spelt-curd-bread I presented in February, possibly one or the other even tried it out. As for me, it became my favourite bread and I'm baking it almost every week, alternating the seeds I'm putting in. 


So why revamping it? Well, I had the problem, that with the given quantity of ingredients, my bread either overflowed the baking dish 
or if I separated it in two baking tins, the breads turned out to flat, because there wasn't enough dough. At least with backing two loaf, I've been able to find out, that the bread is staying fresh and fluffy for a really long time. Even after 5 days in my cupboard, wrapped in a kitchen towel, the inside was almost as good as on the second day. Not that its very important to us, because normally we eat that bread within two days, but still good to know.
So last time I was baking with my original recipe, I've put the dough in only one baking tin again and my bread rose so much, that the thin crust broke and the still fluid dough flowed out all over the oven. I almost started to cry.
So that week I decided to reduce the amount of flour and adjust the other ingredients. But I didn't adjust consequently, because I wanted to experiment a bit. The idea of baking a smaller bread was initially grounded in getting hold of smaller packages of instant yeast; instead of 10 g they are only 7 g now. I wasn't sure, how the bread will come out, but as you can already guess, it turned up just better than the previous. Even my husband asked, if I changed something.

So here comes my revamped and improved Spelt-curd-bread with sunflower seeds

I discovered, that I seem to be on a culinary world trip lately. I started with Thailand (Beef Massaman Curry), went then Egypt (Okra-mince casserole) and today I landed in Turkey.

Our organic market has lately aubergines on offer. It's a vegetable I like, especially the color (I know, it's a bit strange statement), but it's also a veggie I'm kinda scared of. You need to salt them first in order to get the bitterness out, but you must be careful with your salt amount. I managed to screw up my Moussaka a few weeks ago in putting way too much salt on the aubergines, because I wanted to make sure, the bitterness is out. I obviously didn't try the aubergines and so my Moussaka was dreadfully salty.
But I'm not giving up easily, so I ordered the aubergines again and this time I salted the aubergines only little, after I watched Masterchef Australia (again) and watched how a proper Moussaka is done. 
But that day I wasn't up for a Moussaka, I think I also didn't have mince in my freezer. I was late with my lunch, so I was looking for something quick, easy but substantial. So I found this recipe and that's my take on

Turkish pilaf with aubergines

We haven't had fish for quite a long time, beside the tuna wrap lately. It's funny however, that I didn't categorise it as a fish dish right away. Anyway, let say it like that, we haven't had a proper fish dish for a long time and last time we were shopping I got hold of kingklip again. I really like the fish, as it has a white flesh with firm texture and a slightly sweet taste. It's native to South Africa (and Australia and New Zealand,  but is also found on the costs of Argentina and Chile). It's a member of cusk eel family and is also known under that name in Europe and southern America ( source: Seafoodsource.com ).

The idea for the dish came up, because I had cabbage left and I thought, there was once a dish with fish and cabbage I used to make back in Germany. And then I remembered, that it wasn't cabbage after all but creamed sauerkraut. The recipe for the creamed sauerkraut I used here is from the famous German chef Johann Lafer and I found it here (in German language).

I was actually planning to make that dish with bacon. Unfortunately I realised too late, that we don't have bacon in the fridge. But if you have some at home, I would highly recommend to fry your kingklip wrapped in bacon, as it's not only complements with the creamed sauerkraut but also with the fish. If you try it out with bacon, please feel free to leave a comment of what you thought about it.

One of our all-time-favourites are wraps. They are not only done quickly, but are mostly light and always delicious. We eat them filled with either chicken and salad, or with mince, corn and beans for the richer version. Or as this time, with tuna.  I didn't have the ingredients for my usual tuna wrap (I will post about the next occasion), so I thought I will take a filling, that was initially a salad, inspired by that recipe (in German language). 
At this point I must confess, that I didn't do the wraps myself but used store bought wraps. I tried to do them once and it went horribly wrong. But it doesn't mean, I won't try it again, one day. For now the store bought must do it - and they are delicious too.

The first time I've made that dish, we were growing beetroot in our garden and all the beetroot was ready at the same time, so I was looking for different dishes I could work with. I love beetroot, but the only dishes I could come up with, were salad or soup. I wasn't in the mood for either of those. I knew, I will cook some beetroot and preserve for later, but there was still plenty left. So I stumbled upon that recipe, but decided to use a tart I knew from another recipe I've made several times already. I love that dough recipe, as it's really quickly done and doesn't contain half a cube of butter (as you maybe remember, I'm trying to lose some weight). Also I'm not a fan of puff pastry tarts - I guess it's also the butter content. Don't get me wrong, I love puff pastry, but not in that kind of dishes. Beside, there are so many fantastic tart doughs and using puff pastry is kind of boring, to me at least.
Why am I telling all this, because every time I've made that tart, I thought, it must taste great with goats cheese. So that time my inspiration came from the goats cheese lying in my fridge and of course the glass of ready-to-eat beetroot in my pantry. As I said, the very first time, I've made the tart with fresh beetroot and wasn't that stoked about the outcome. Since I'm using jarred beetroot, I like the taste much more. And that's really rare, as I normally prefer fresh products.
By the way, we don't grow beetroot in our garden anymore, because we are way too impatient and somehow the bugs in our garden seemed to love the beetroot at least as much as we do. So no beetroot anymore, we tried carrots instead. But that's another story.

Let's start with my Beetroot tart with red onion confit, goats cheese and walnuts

I know it sounds strange, but I actually don't mind, if I have to get rid of groceries in my pantry or fridge, because then I tend to get my best ideas for a dish. This time we had plenty of peppers left, one of it even started to get wrinkly, so it was really time to do something about it. I also had fresh pasta left, that I had to use within the next days, so I already had two ingredients. Otherwise our fridge was pretty empty, as we planned on going shopping that day, but had to change our plans last minute and postpone to the next day. So I checked my deep freezer and the fridge and found eventually some frozen bacon. All the other ingredients I kind of always have at home, so here we go, my

Tagliatelle with a spicy pepper - bacon sauce

As you can see, I was raised catholic, at least the first 10 years of my life or maybe even longer. That was mostly the time when I lived in Poland. Poland is very convinced catholically and you didn't have much of a choice back then, in great part because my grandparents were devout. I remember my grandparents house with all the crucifixes and pictures of the pope and saints. It was very impressing. The time we moved to Germany, my parents felt more liberated and turned their back on the church. But some habits die hard and so here we are, we had fish for lunch. 

I was unfortunately forced to make a longer break from writing again, as my husband and I suffered from food poisoning end of last week. We had sushi from our supermarket, as usual,  but that time we seemed to have bad luck. I must admit, it tasted different and was more sticky than usual. And I remember I was gulping the last pieces and was wondering why, since sushi is one of my favourite meals. Luckily our daughter decided not to eat with us, what she normally does, so we just had to cope with our own sickness and the daily madness of having two little children. I guess we won't have sushi for a while now.

So after a few days of dieting it was time to cook again and what better meat to start with than chicken.
With that said, I'm always waiting for the grape season, so I can cook one of my favourite chicken dishes. It's again an easy and quick dish, with lovely flavours. I don't remember where exactly I found the recipe, but I know, that I cooked this dish over and over. When I look back, my daughter was even enjoying that dish with one and a half already.

I hope you'll like it as much as we do.

I'm always looking for nice fish recipes, preferable quick and easy to make, as I usually need them for lunch. I rarely get hold of fresh fish, if so, it's mostly salmon, which is ridiculously expensive in Namibia. The most popular fish species you can buy in the supermarket is hake, kingklip, smoked haddock, salmon and salmon trout, less often and then rather fresh, is kabeljou and sole, but to be honest you can get hold of it almost exclusively at the cost. So every time we are at the cost, we obviously buy our fish at a fish deli, enjoy it fresh there and can't resist to bring some back home, of course frozen. 

But today I was up to something simple and quick. I had hake in my deep freezer anyway, so the choice was obvious. 

We ran out of bread yesterday and our shopping day is still a few days away. I haven't baked bread for months, so I didn't have any starter/motherdough  to bake my usual bread. I baked already bread without a starter, but they aren't as tasty, additionaly they also don't stay fresh longer then one or two days. I've set my starter immediately, but was still sitting with the problem of not having any bread at home. I decided to give it a try and find a new recipe for a quick bread.

I intended to find a recipe for a spelt or full corn bread, considering us trying to eat as healthy as possible since new year. Christmas time was a killer, we haven't watched our figure at all and since it was as hot as I mentioned already, we had lots and lots of ice cream. Now we are back on track and trying to avoid white flour, too much fat and of course ice cream. I know, my apple - kefir pancakes haven't been really diet food, but one day a week we are allowed to sin - it makes it definitely easer to stick to our plan.

By the way, for our Namibian followers, you get spelt flour only under the German name Dinkelmehl, at least I haven't found it otherwise yet. Please contact me, if you could buy it differently.

Anyway, I discovered this very interesting bread recipe I couldn't wait to try out. I should mention at the beginning, it's not meant to be kneaded by hands, because the dough is too runny.