Chocolate with salt

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.