Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2012
About flour
I never paid a lot attention to the flour, since I refused to bake for many years. I suppose that was one of the causes for my continued failure in my baking projects. If you want to bake well, you must start to understand the difference between flours. I got that, when I eventually gave baking another try and with lot's of experimenting I started to love it. I still fail now and then, mostly because I don't stick exactly to the recipes, which seems to be very important, but more and more the outcomes are really tasty. The most important thing about the use of flour is the content of gluten and its effect. Gluten is the main protein in wheat and its content is influenced by the milling, the husk and the removing of the wheat germ. Gluten gives the dough its elasticity, as it absorbs water very well, that again makes the dough light and spongy.
Most of the facts below refer to an article in the South African "Food and Home", Issue June 2011. I'm not talking about all flours discussed in the article, only about flours I mostly use.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
And here I am
I've been planning to start my own blog for almost a year now however as a full time mother of a 1.5 year old daughter, it is not easy to implement all ideas immediately. When I moved from Germany to Namibia my culinary career ended abruptly and I was wondering how I could fulfil my passion again. An idea of a deli has been raised but unfortunately is linked to a lot of time and money. But what is not, can still well be!
So one day I had a thought, why not start a blog? I usually cook two meals per day and gladly something new every day, so this is a nice way to capture everything.
I try to keep my cooking diversified and therefore am always trying something new. But we also have our evergreens and they are not as exciting as one might think: a delicious pizza, crumbed pork chops or homemade hamburgers are always a winner. Nevertheless a little break from time to time is always appreciated, that’s when my husband cooks his fantastic stew or we just have some takeaways.
The Namibian food culture revolves mostly around the braai, which is the local term for BBQ, as well as potjieskos which is a stew in a cast iron pot prepared on coals and ideally simmering the whole day. Our favourite potjie is with oxtail, mmmmmmm.
I will try to post from time to time also some recipes for braais, but they are mostly prepared by men whereas woman are then responsible for the sides and salads. But it’s part of my life and if I spot something special I will gladly share it with you.
Aside from that, many of my dishes are influenced by my Polish roots, always a fond memory of my grandmothers cooking, who not only inspired me but always let me be part of it. Among our family, we used to cook together a lot, generally for special events like Christmas and Easter.
I will try to post from time to time also some recipes for braais, but they are mostly prepared by men whereas woman are then responsible for the sides and salads. But it’s part of my life and if I spot something special I will gladly share it with you.
Aside from that, many of my dishes are influenced by my Polish roots, always a fond memory of my grandmothers cooking, who not only inspired me but always let me be part of it. Among our family, we used to cook together a lot, generally for special events like Christmas and Easter.
My other inspirations are from friends, restaurants I worked at and places I visited. Bit by bit I’ll post my recipe collection to share with you and it might even inspire you. The collection also includes, in my opinion, perfect burger buns and my favorite pizza dough.
So please join me and support me on my journey.
So please join me and support me on my journey.
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