Chocolate with salt

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.