Chocolate with salt

It was my fathers in law birthday last Sunday and since he doesn't want us to buy him anything, I decided to bake him at least a birthday cake. Or let's better say, I baked two, but about that later.

First I was thinking of a "Death by chocolate" cake, but it's summer and lately extremely hot, so I preferred to make something else. The outcome was very similar to a Black forest cake, just lighter and fresher. And sugar free. At least the first one...

Why sugar free? We are working on our diet or let's better say on our healthy living and started cutting out all the sugar. I got hold of dextrose and rice syrup as a substitute and am trying to use only those from now on. I will post the whole story about changing our diet to sugar free some time soon.

Back to the cake(s). As I already mentioned, I used dextrose for the first cake instead of sugar and the cake turned out as sweet as any other cake I ever ate. The recipes I sourced for the sponge cake and the filling were both with sugar, so I just had to adjust the quantity, as dextrose is less sweet than sugar. According to an experienced blogger, the conversion from sugar to dextrose is 1:1.5 and I was more than happy with that. At the end, you have to find out for yourself. I also got the feeling, that depending on the manufacturer the dextrose is more or less sweet, but always less sweet than sugar. More about that in the next post.

First of all, dextrose reacts differently than sugar. By whisking the eggs up with the dextrose and later with sugar, the sugar - egg mix was definitely more fluffy and didn't collapse as quick, after I sifted the flour in. All in all I had to bake four sponge cakes. Yes, four.
My first sponge cake didn't rise as I hoped. I stuck to the recipe (in Polish language), but already while reading I had my doubts. I was wondering, why I was supposed to whisk the eggs up, only to take the whole air out by mixing in the flour. I waved scruples and rather conformed to the recipe.
My mixture collapsed immediately and I was wondering, how on earth that dough will ever rise.
My gut feeling was right and the dough hardly rose and only on one site. The taste was nice though and the final result was enjoyable, so it ended up in the freezer for future desserts.
With the second sponge cake, I sifted the flour in again and instead of mixing, I carefully folded it in. That looked more like an airy sponge cake dough. It came out fantastic.
So why did I make two cakes in first place? Definitely not to see the difference between sugar and dextrose, or to groove my sponge cake baking skills. It's more simple - we just couldn't resist to try the first cake and ended up eating it all.
But four sponge cakes? The third one and first with sugar, stuck to my silicon cake mould, and because it was very airy, it completely crumbled in my fingers. So there went my second sponge cake into the freezer and I had to bake again. Yay.

Some time back I bought agar agar, actually in order to make jam without sugar. Agar agar is a vegetarian/vegan gelatine obtained from algae. I wanted to use it for the cake, but had to discover, that it's unsuitable to bind cold fluids, as it has to be heated in order to start the binding process.
I've read, that for cold fluids you can use carob gum as a vegetarian alternative and I will try to get that. Not that I actually need to find an alternative to gelatine, as we are definitely not turning vegetarian, I'm just curious, if I could get it here in Namibia.
I used agar agar just to thicken up the cherry juice, only to finally try out how it works, but if you don't have agar agar, simply use the gelatine for it as well.

The cake has to rest for at least 6 hours to set properly.

It's amazing how time flies. I didn't even realise, so much time passed already, since my last post.
First, my whole family was fighting a severe stomach bug and it took me a solid week to recover. My baby son just kept on getting sick, we then went on a short holiday and here we go, two months passed.
I must admit, I have veneration for bloggers. who manage to write frequently, some even several times a week. How are you mange to do it?
With my two little kids, my hands are quite full. And I must admit, my family is definitely my priority.
Additionally I'm constantly tiered lately; the lack of sleep from the last weeks is taking its tall and in the evenings I'm mostly way to tiered to have one straight thought, much less writing a post. But as usual I'm not holding back with excuses, shame on me.

The stomach bug was definitely a horrible time, especially when our weekly delivery of the fantastic organic fresh food from our Namibian farmers came and I saw it all, but felt nothing but nausea.
Additionally I won an ice cream competition, where you had to suggest a new summer taste. My idea was inspired by my favourite cake, the black forest cake - vanilla with cherries and chocolate chip. To my surprise I was one of the lucky winners and they delivered exact that ice cream to my house and I had to suffer for many days longing for it to taste, but fighting my nausea at the same time. I can't remember, when the last time I was so badly off.


I'm back with, what I would say, is my all Namibian dish, since all ingredients can be sourced here in Namibia. Parsley roots and pomegranates I'm even growing in my very own garden, although not the one I used here - they're just not ready yet to be used.



Oryx is THE Namibian game, we served it already at our wedding and we just love the taste of it. The one we've had this time, was, I suppose, from an older animal and had a very intensive odour and a very "gamy" taste. Maybe not to everybody's liking, but for me it worked extremely well with the delicate sweetness of the pomegranate sauce.
The parsley root with its natural sweetness, made it a perfect side dish to the game. And since I need a salad with almost every dish, apart from soups, I also had to dish up a small leafy salad.

Not only am I late this week once again, it's also beetroot again, but in my defence, it's that time of the year and I still had some left in the fridge. Beside, I just love beetroot.
I had to promise my husband though, I wouldn't dish up beetroot for a while, especially after I presented him a fresh squeezed beetroot-apple juice the next morning and I must admit, I kind of overdid it. A bit.

I also promise, I will get better with my writing. It's not like I'm not cooking or baking, I just can't find the time to actually sit down and write. I vow to improve.

I have to share this dish with you, as it was a superb combination with the hake and I can imagine it to be the perfect partner for many fish species.

I found the recipe here, in one of my favourite German recipe databases and followed the recipe almost as is.   And as much as I like to adjust recipes to my liking or just take them as an inspiration, much the same I'm happy to find a recipe I can go with.

To freshen it all up, I served the Hake on a beetroot purée with some leafy greens in a tasty vinaigrette.

Lately I struggle to find the time and leisure to write. I don't know if I should blame it on the sleepless nights due to my baby boy or the famous springtime lethargy.
Yes, it's springtime in Windhoek and it's nice and warm and just beautiful. It's my favourite time of the year, with very nice temperatures, it's already hot, but not too hot and there are no mosquitoes, bees, moths, cockroaches and any other crawling stuff yet.
We are also busy preparing our veggie garden. This winter we decided on throwing everything out, feeding the soil and starting from the beginning and I promised myself to learn from my mistakes made the last years and hope we will have a bigger yield this year. I would also like to invest more time in my garden and I'm really looking forward to it.
With the beginning of the spring and the temperatures rising, our appetite for salads is back. What a better way of saying goodbye to the winter than with a combination of winter salad with fresh and young beetroot.
I must honestly admit, that I wasn't sure, if beetroot is edible raw. Only when I started researching for that matter I realised, that I was drinking beetroot juice for ages without giving it a thought for once. So the obvious answer is, yes, beetroot is edible raw and very healthy.
To make the salad substantial, I added my gratinated goats cheese croutons was a match made in heaven  with the sweetness of the beetroot and the fruitiness of the pear.

I'm so late this week and apologizing for the delay. We have winter holidays and the kindergarten is closed; after almost 2 weeks at home, my three year old is missing her friends and is noticeably bored. I just hear her calling me all day and she wants to be carried around all day long. I'm so thankful for my husband being home and helping out, but both our patience is spent.
That's the best time for takeaways, but if it comes to takeaways here in Windhoek, the choice is very poor, beside the unsatisfying taste.
We have lots of different chicken and burger takeaways, Italian and Chinese and that's mostly it. There is a new place, that just opened a few weeks ago and is actually selling Döner Kebabs, but the last time we were there to try it out, the whole shop was full of smoke. I'm sure, we will give it an other try, but for now we decided on homemade.
This are moments, I really miss Berlin or Cape Town and the fabulous takeaway places, where you can get Döner, Shawarma and Co.
Berlin of course, as the hometown of the famous Döner Kebab, had the most amazing places you can imagine. Additionally I was living in Tiergarten Moabit, a suburb with mainly Turkish and Arabic population, so needless to say I was sitting at the source. From greengrocer, baker to the butcher, I had the best culinary experience from the Middle-east world right on my doorstep.

But that's far away now and I decided to try it myself. I'm not sure I can call them Shawarmas though, but let say it's my take.


We had them actually twice that week, once with lamb and once with beef.
Lamb was definitely the big winner. Even though I took lamb chops, not the best cut for that purpose, but it was more than delicious. And the dogs were happy about the leftovers hanging on the bones.
The beef was o k a y, but somehow it wasn't as satisfying as the lamb. I don't know, if the meat seasoning didn't work that well, or maybe I've cut the meat to thick, somehow we were missing something.

The pita bread was the second time head and shoulders better, for one thing because I managed to overbake them the first time by not sticking to the recommended backing time, for another thing the dough was resting for four days in the fridge and the flour had enough time to develop.

We'll definitely have that dish more often and next time, I will try to stick more to the original ingredients like tabbouleh and hummus (chickpeas are already bought).
But for now, we were more than happy about the outcome of my first homemade Shawarmas.

I have a very special relationship with kale and until that dish, it wasn't a very good one.
My first encounter with kale was at German Christmas markets. It was that ugly side dish served with sausage or with sausage pieces in it and the texture and dead green color of it, simmering the whole day, always threw me off and I actually tried it only once and it was as dreadful as I always imagined, so I pushed even the consideration of preparing it myself far from me.

My next collision with kale wasn't good either. The organic store, we order from every week, offered kale and I didn't really know what it is. The funny thing is, when I looked for Kale in German recipes, I found lots of them and I didn't even stumble upon the German expression or let say, I didn't really realize, what it was..
Unfortunately either the Kale was old or I prepared it incorrectly, it was a big failure. For the first time in my life I had to throw away a whole dish to the bin. And the recipe sounded so good, the finished dish looked delicious, but the kale was just so extremely bitter, it was inedible. I remember putting tons of Parmesan cheese on it, hoping to make it at least edible... It ended in the bin and I gave our house keeper the second bunch I still had in the fridge.
I asked her later, if the one I gave her was also bitter, but she negated. So I tried to figure out, what I did wrong and asked her how to cook it properly, in order to avoid the bitterness.

I ordered once again kale at our organic store.

Third time lucky, this dish was divine! The combination of all ingredients, including the potatoes and the smoked pork chops was just perfect. I almost forgot, I found the recipe here and didn't change much, it was just good as it was.

I stumbled upon this recipe last week on a search for a quick lunch recipe. I was bored with my old one and gladly tried this one out. Granted, the chicken must be marinated first, but according to the recipe, it's enough, if the chicken just sits a bit in the marinade, while preparing all the other ingredients. I would have preferred the chicken to be marinated longer and will definitely do that next time.
Even so, it was divine and we couldn't get enough of it.
I must admit, I didn't know, there is something like Thai chicken wraps; that's how the dish was called. So I researched and found to my surprise quite a few recipes. But, Thai wraps are wrapped either in lettuce leaves or rice paper and not tortillas. As you can see, I wrapped mine as usual in tortilla bread, so I refused to call mine "Thai".
I didn't change much to the original recipe, just substituted the ingredients I had to. Out came unbelievable tasty, fresh wraps with a sweet and nutty flavor.

There are a few things, that are difficult to get in Namibia, especially if it comes to meat. It's not that we don't have a wide selection of different meats, we definitely do, it's more to get meats I'm used to or love to eat.
We managed now to get veal on regular basis, which is really good, but last time I was so adventures to ask for veal cheek and heart and earned only a look of disbelieve. So I guess no chance there.
Or quail for example, no chance either or at least our butcher can't help us.

Today I'm not writing about my cooking or baking, I want to give credit to the work of others.

My daughters third birthday was coming up and this year was all about Tinkerbell. That made it easy to find a cake theme.

I baked these two cakes for her first birthday, a little yellow duck and a pink cake with duckies on it. But I'm not a pâtissier and not the best cake maker either. But, I could put as little sugar in it as I wanted and I've made the icing on the duck out of juice and custard, what made it fruity and fresh and not too sweet.

A TV show reminded me of that dish and pulled me right back into my childhood. I just love this sour cabbage soup and I haven't eaten it for over 5 years. Unbelievable.
It's winter in Namibia and although we have a very mild winter this year, I'm still in the mood for winter dishes like soups and braised meat.
We got hold of smoked pork cheek that week and I was wondering anyway, what I will do with it. Traditionally, the polish cabbage soup is cooked with pork ribs, but you can use smocked pork cheek like me or bacon.
And I actually was planing on cooking a lentil soup, what might happen in the next weeks, or a pea soup, but then we watched the already mentioned TV show, where a Polish woman invited for a dinner party and she introduced her guests to her polish roots and traditions. My husband looked at me and wondered about the sauerkraut soup and I promised him, he would love every spoon of it.
The woman in the show served the soup in a small bread like in my picture. In Poland we traditionally serve a sour dough based soup called żurek in such bread bowl, but I like the idea and would say it's good for any hearty soup. Especially if you're one of the persons, who love to dug their bread in a soup, you will love that invention; apart from the very nice presentation of course.
I cooked my soup a day prior, because it tastes better in my opinion, if it stands for a while.

After breakfast the next day I started with the bread. I found the recipe for the bread here (in Polish language). It's a very nice blog, I really like to look in from time to time, especially if I need a reminder of how to cook some of our traditional food.
The bread turned out nice and went well with the soup, but I think I would go for a sour dough bread next time. The reason is just, that I really like the combination and I missed somehow the sour dough taste. But that's just me.
A warning beforehand though: if you're not polish, you're most probably not used to eating cabbage or sauerkraut. That means, the soup will not be easy to digest for you, even with the marjoram and caraway seeds, so rather try the soup on a Saturday for lunch first and check out how well you cope with the cabbage.

I must admit, we're not eating fish as often as we should. I can't even figure out why, because we really like eating fish and most dishes are quickly done.
Anyway, we finally had fish after three weeks or so and I found that very appealing recipe (in German language), but somehow I failed to execute it. As you can already see on the picture, the whole crumbling story didn't work out for me. The recipe stated explicit not to use egg and flour to crumble the fish, just season and press the couscous firmly onto the fish. The reason was, not to overpower the taste of the fish. Well, that worked out for me until I started frying the Kingklip and by trying to turn it, the crust just crumbled away.
I'm not sure, what the cause was. Either I didn't press the couscous enough into the fish, or maybe it doesn't work with frozen fish or I shouldn't have put lemon juice on it. Maybe it was just my old pan, either way, I sprinkled the couscous over the fish, because I didn't want to leave it out. It gave the dish a nice crunchy texture and I would have loved the crumbling to work out. So good luck to you and let me know, if you figured out, where my mistake was.
It's always very frustrating for me, when a recipe doesn't work out, the way it's described. Especially, when it sounds easy and the pictures look nice and tempting. I think I was angry the whole day, even though it was still a very tasty dish. But that's just me.
I also want to mention, that I used a store bought chutney. Normally I try to avoid using any store bought ingredients, I could do myself. And chutney is one thing, I could easily do myself. Though I didn't have any mangoes, but chutney in the fridge, I cheated a bit. Besides, my chutney was made from apricots and peaches and not mango.
A day later I found a mango-chili-marmalade in my fridge I didn't even know off and I could imagine, that could have been a nice substitute too. Anyway, guilty as charged, next time I definitely do the chutney myself...

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.

First of all, I need to apologise for me staying absent for such a long time. Beside our holidays, a few things came together and so I didn't get the chance to write or to cook. And before you know it a whole month has passed and you begin to wonder, where the time has gone.
I was also busy working on the new design of the blog, as you can see. I wanted to minimise the loading time  and make everything easer to read. Unfortunately I still have to work on the mobile version, as the menu keeps staying cut off, no matter, what I do.
But that's a minor matter, lets move on to the essence, the cooking. Today it's more mixing but not less tasteful.

or at least not really or nothing to write about.
As much as I love cooking, I also need and like my holidays. That means lots of takeaways and comfort food like crumbed pork chops, pasta with tomato sauce or viennas in a bun on the go. But it's also the time of my husband cooking his wonderful stews, braaing and of course eating out. Okay, I admit, the latter is not happening as often, as we were used to.

And as much as I love writing and cooking and writing about cooking, at the moment it's time for my wonderful husband and my beautiful kids.

Thank you for following me so far and I promise,you hear from me very soon. Until then, I'll leave you with that.



And that.

You can call the dish a fusion of Polish and Italian cooking. Nothing new of course, I had a very similar dish once in an Italian restaurant in Windhoek, they obviously served instead of pierogi ravioli. 
Close enough, I thought and that's how I've got the idea.
Would I have known, how much work it would be, I guess I would have ordered some takeaways from the mentioned restaurant. And don't think, I don't like complicated, time consuming dishes. I do. Well, not at the moment. Not with a toddler and baby to look after. But I did it and it was delicious, even if the tomato sauce was a bit too sour. Will I cook it again? Most definitely - when I have enough time and patience.

I grew up with pierogi, for me it's THE Polish dish. I love them, no matter if filled with cheese and potatoes (russian), sauerkraut and mushrooms, just mushrooms or meat. They are also very tasteful with fruits or with chunky cottage cheese for dessert. They are also called dumplings or polish ravioli.

I remember my whole family standing in the kitchen sticking the pierogi together. And last week I also remembered, why all of us helped - it takes for ever to get them done. Beside the meat being cooked three ways, cutting out the dough and sticking the pierogi is so time consuming. I'm sure every Polish housewife and cook laughs at me now and does them on their head, but since I'm doing them maybe twice a year, it's a never ending story. But said that, it's worth it!

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.

I already announced on my FB-page, that my next post will be about that fantastic bread. I had saved the recipe for quite a long time and was just waiting for the right moment to bake it. I found it here (in German language) and it was advertised as the perfect bread for braais (BBQ). Last Saturday we were invited for a braai and I thought, it's the ideal time to give it a try. That way I also had a small present. 
I halved the ingredients as I thought it would be too much. Well, stupid me, I didn't expect the bread to be that good and I ended up baking the next day again.
I knew, I took a risk baking a bread I never did before, especially because it took me longer then I thought and the bread was just ready as we had to drive. But the recipe was described  as  easy to make, so I thought I will take my chance.
Luckily I had sour dough in my fridge. I wasn't sure if I can still use it, as I've made it month ago. But all went well and the bread turned out "divine" as my friends remarked. And it has been proven, that my sour dough turned out nice and potent, so I "fed" it with 100 g flour and 100 g lukewarm water immediately in order to make sure, I can use it again. I read in bread baking forums, that people use their sour doughs or mother doughs for 20! years by only feeding them on a regular base. That's so spectacular.

Beside that, I think the fact, that all the herbs and the tomatoes were home grown, made the bread even more special.

The following salad is absolute my favourite, for many years already. The idea or let's better say the original, as I'm making it exactly as I ate it for the first time, came from a restaurant in Berlin, Steglitz. The salad was named after the restaurant itself and is until today their biggest seller. 
As I made it a few days ago, after a really long time, I had the feeling, I forgot something. When I looked up, if the restaurant still exists, it hit me right away: I forgot the potato croutons. So even if they are not on the picture, the recipe is not complete without the potato croutons.
The salad is for me of course connected to a lot of memories, but even so  the combination of the flavours and textures is amazing. What I like most, to my surprise, is the combination of cucumber, orange and avocado. I'm always placing these ingredients together on the plate, so they are enjoyed together.
The only thing I'm missing, is the fantastic herbed feta they used, it was very soft and not as salty in taste as the one I'm getting here. Still, the salad is in my opinion one of the best.
So, there is not much to say, just try it out and I hope you'll love that salad as much as I do. 
Leafy salad with herbed Feta, avocado and oranges

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

We haven't had pancake Sunday for a long time now and somehow Mother's day seemed to be a perfect day to revive our tradition. First I wanted to make my favourite apple-kefir-pancakes, but I remembered I had blueberries in the freezer. I was always wondering, what was the fuss about blueberry pancakes, but since I've tried them for the first time, I fully understand the excitement. What a combination, but I guess, you already knew.

What makes my pancakes special? Maybe one of my favorite ingredients: kefir. If you can get hold of it, and I'm sure you can, try it out and let me know what you think.

I must confess, that I've made these fantastic pancakes for the first time already a few weeks ago, but by the time I thought of taking pictures, they were all gone. So this Sunday I had to hold back for a moment, to take a few snapshots, before I made a dive for them.

We managed to go to our organic market on Saturday morning. It's a really nice, small market, mostly  extremely packed with people, but I kinda like the atmosphere. That's one of these moments, when I miss the beautiful, huge markets of Berlin, I loved to saunter around on my days off. I like getting my groceries from the markets, it's like the small corner shops from the earlier days. You get the chance to talk to the farmers, see where your food is coming from, ask questions and being social.
Be that as it may, we bought okra again and I was eager for preparing another, for me exotic, dish with that wonderful vegetable.
As you maybe remember the article I read about okra and the writers dislike for okra getting slimy. Well, the following dish is one of those, but it didn't bother us at all, as it was in perfect harmony with all the other ingredients. I guess, if I have more time for preparing lunch (at the moment both kids are at home due to the kindergarten being closed for two weeks) I will give it a try to prepare the okra as in the article described, in order to get rid of the sliminess and check if I prefer the dish that way. But as I said, I wasn't bothered and just noticed, what the author meant.
The dish is inspired by that recipe, but as you will see, I changed quite a bit, especially because I was running out of time and the given recipe was very time consuming. Nevertheless we were more than pleased, so was our guest, we had that day for lunch. There is only one thing left to say, you must find out for yourself which recipe you prefer. Anyway, here is my take on

West African chicken stew with okra

We love our comfort food, that good home cooking, especially now in winter. The evenings are getting quite chilly nowadays - yes, also in Namibia, so we prefer rather something substantial. Coq au vin is one of the classics I really like to prepare, because it somehow cooks itself. Last year Christmas we got a pressure cooker from my parents in law, since then I do my coq au vin in there and after only 1 hour of cooking, the flesh is falling off the bone and melting in your mouth.

I honestly don't remember where I got the initial recipe from, it's so long ago and with years I stumbled upon many recipes with similar ingredients structure and I just added and abandoned here and there ingredients. The recipe I cook with  stayed unchanged for the last few years, so I guess I found for me my perfect coq au vin.

First of all, I don't use the whole chicken, as in the original french recipes described, instead I'm just using drumsticks and thighs. For us two ( and a half) I mostly buy a package of 8 each and it's more than enough for one dinner. The amount of the sauce is as much as for a whole chicken, because we love a lot of sauce, so if you prefer using a whole chicken, you don't really need to increase the ingredients.

Aside from that, if you are lucky to get a Burgundy wine, you must promise to use that. If you're not, as myself, you must use a decent wine, preferable a Pinot Noir and not the cheap "papsak" wine (wine in a box), you normally would take for cooking. I know, one should always take a good wine for cooking, but let's be honest, who really does it. So make an exception and you will be rewarded with a delicious dish.

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

As I already mentioned, we finally found a Namibian supplier of dairy products, that is on top of it organic.  We order every week online, not only our milk. Since they work together with other farmers, we also get the chance to order organic vegetables, meat, preserves and all kind of yummy stuff.

Here I was talking about old habits and fish on Fridays and just on Good Friday I decided to make Massaman curry. But let me start at the beginning.

We love to watch MasterChef, especially MasterChef Australia and while we were in South Africa on holiday, we missed quite a few episodes and were now feverish catching up. One episode was a challenge to improve a bad Massaman Curry. To be honest, I've never heard of that kind of curry before, but then I never was a big fan of curries anyway, mostly because they were way too spicy for me. They described the curry as rather mild compared to other curries, so I had immediately to look up the recipe, as it sounded delicious.

I found one here, but I wanted to do make the curry paste from scratch, so I also orientated me on that recipe and I was really happy, that I had almost all ingredients at home, although I had to substitute galangal (never heard about it before) with ginger, the cinnamon sticks with grounded cinnamon,  the shrimp paste with fish sauce and I had to leave out Mace (outside tissue of a nutmeg - never heard about it until MasterChef, so I had no clue where to get it) and unfortunately lemon grass, because mine was mouldy. Also I had to substitute tamarind pods with lime juice.

I have to admit, I missed quite a few ingredients, but even without them we had a very delicious curry I was really proud of.

But it was a long road - somehow I misread the cooking time. My husband remembered, that it has to cook for at least two hours, I on the other hand read somewhere it takes about 50 minutes. Well, as it turned out, that was for a Chicken Massaman Curry.

Anyway, I started late morning with the paste; and here the tip of the day: don't do a curry from scratch, if you have a baby and a toddler to look after at the same time. I burned my first set of spices and my first grilled garlic and onions and it took me till late afternoon to make that paste only . That evening we had instead of curry chicken piccata, as my curry was only ready the next day. My husband wasn't a happy camper, smelling curry all day and having chicken piccata to eat, but I can recommend now to prepare the curry the previous day. 

As I already mentioned, I'm trying to get rid of my pregnancy fat, but without dieting, because I'm not allowed to do so. And even if I'm one of these women, whom most other women hate, because I can eat as much as I want, as long as I work out just a bit, I'm not really getting fat. I'm also rather a stress non-eater than stress eater so that also helps a lot. But my second pregnancy is not that long ago and I gained with my first pregnancy a few kilos, kept them throughout the time in between and gained again with my second pregnancy, so I'm sitting now with few kilos I need to get rid of in order to have my comfort weight.

Best option is to change my eating habits, which never have been really bad, but lately I felt for stuff like chocolate, the already mentioned fantastic ice cream, croissants and cakes or combinations of all above. So yeah, it's time!

We're trying now to eat more lean meat and more fish, leave the pork out and cut short on fat and sugar. We will see, how it'll work out.

On that note I want to introduce you to another of my favourite chicken recipes:

Chicken Piccata

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

How about a nice smoothie?


Your children don't like eating fruits? Do they refuse to eat breakfast? You don't have the time to have breakfast before you go to work? You need a healthy boost for the day? Here is your answer: have a smoothie! It take's me about 10 minutes and it's ready. My husband and my daughter are always looking forward to their smoothie in the morning. We drink it in the car on our way to kindergarten and work.

Today morning we had a

Banana - Kefir smoothie with toasted muesli

Ingredients (for 2)

4 small bananas ( or 2 big)
2 handfuls toasted muesli
250 ml Kefir
200 ml apple juice
1 tbsp honey

Blend all together in a food processor till smooth. If you don't have Kefir, you can always substitute with yoghurt.

Have a great start to the day!

The last three weeks we've spent in South Africa with my parents joining from Germany. What a great holiday! I wish I could now report, that it was a culinary journey through the country, but unfortunately with a baby and a toddler, dinning out was kind of out of question. We enjoyed every lunch eating out though and had here and there really good food. Our last day in Knysna for example we found that little cafe / restaurant directly by the heads with a stunning view and even a kids corner. We were impressed by the menu and the philosophy - I actually posted the introduction out of the menu on Facebook. So after a fantastic coffee, we decided to stay longer and try out the food and we haven't been disappointed a bit, if anything we were more than thrilled. So thrilled, that coming home, I had to make that fantastic burger for lunch again and share it with you.