Chocolate with salt

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.

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 rain just doesn't want to come and we are over a month late this year. Every day we have cloud covered skies, yesterday we even had thunder, but still no rain. The days are so hot by now, that even me, who normally doesn't mind, just wishes the rain to fall. The Namibians are praying and wishing for nothing else then rain at the moment.

Wouldn't we have such nice organic ice cream, I would say, the weather is perfect for loosing some weight (I'm trying to get rid of my pregnancy fat), but yeah, we have extremely good ice cream , so no, no weight loss here.

Still, I love salads, no matter what weather we have and when it's as hot as it is at the moment, I don't want to eat anything else. But Namibia has a tradition of eating primarily meat. I got to know people, who said, they don't eat anything green or others, who said, they don't eat meat, the cow has had already enough grass. So you can imagine it's kind of difficult to introduce salads as a main course.

Therefore I thought, why not combine meat with a nice salad to start with. Normally I would have taken a rump steak, but we've got the opportunity to buy veal, that's why the following salad is with veal stripes.

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.

Kefir is a pro-biotic dairy drink with a thick and creamy texture and a refreshing sour taste, sometimes with a yeasty tone. Depending on the fermentation period it might be slightly fizzy and even contain between 0,08% and 2 % alcohol.


The kefir grain is a complex composition of specific bacteria and yeasts in one symbiosis, that contains a micro flora which develops its characteristic white, spongy form. The appearance reminds a little of a coral or cauliflower.


In order to make kefir, milk (raw or pasteurized, whole or skim milk) is steeped with the kefir grain in a suitable jar. The fermentation time is about 24 hours at room temperature (between 10 and 25 ° C).
After fermentation, the finished kefir is poured through a sieve in order to separate it from the grain. The grain is optionally washed and immediately reattached with fresh milk. This process can be continued indefinitely and with good care a kefir grain will last a lifetime!
The finished kefir can be consumed immediately or stored for later use in the refrigerator.

After some time, the grain begins to multiply and grows. Finally, you are able to either increase the amount of milk (to make more kefir) or share the grain with someone else. The passing on to family members or friends is not only fun, if anything happens to one's own grain, there is still an alternative available.
But there is also the possibility to freeze or even dry the grain.

Buttermilk by contrast is the remains from butter making and contains less than 1% fat and valuable lecithin.

Source: http://www.kefir.at/wasist.php  (in German)

At the Easter party last Sunday at the kindergarten I talked to a friend about cooking for kids, as we have to prepare for our children breakfast and lunch for the kindergarten every day. I'm cooking for my daughter every morning something fresh. You can imagine the looks and the obvious questions; what time am I waking up, how do I do it and what am I cooking. A lot of the mothers don't realise, how quick cooking for children can be. 

It was always very important to me, making food for my child that is diversified and balanced, as it is for my husband and me. From the beginning, when I introduced solids to her, I gave her everything to eat that was of course suitable for her development. Till she turned one, or even a bit longer, I completely cut out sugar and strong spices, as I did with honey and nuts. Till today I try to reduce or even leave out the sugar, but I'm not to quibble about it. I was rewarded with a child, who eats almost everything, who is always keen on trying everything new I give her and who is eating by herself since she is 11 month old. And I'm still able to give her oats sweetened only by a banana and the natural sugar from the milk and oats. You would be surprised, how curious children can be about food and ready to try almost everything, if you are convinced of what you are giving them. All without pressure of course. But I also appreciate, that I'm very blessed with such a good eater.

Preparing food for my daughter takes me normally not more than 15 minutes. The key is good preparation. Stuff I always have in the deep freeze are  ice cube size portions of chicken or veggie stock, finely diced onion and garlic, chopped fresh herbs (parsley, dill and basil), 3 sorts of early harvest vegetable mix and mostly a pancake or two, left from last Sunday.  I'm also lucky to have an own veggie garden, that's why I have additionally fresh courgettes, tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers, paprika and different herbs handy.
Don't be afraid of frozen vegetables, they contain normally more vitamins, than the "fresh" stuff you're buying at the supermarket. The onion and garlic I prepare in order to have a bit for the small portions. And it makes such a difference in terms of taste, if you either use or leave out the onion and garlic. At the end it's your choice, especially, because every child is different. But don't be afraid of offering your child something new, you'll never know, if he or she will like it.