For the Love of Food

While on our self-guided tour of all the inner courtyards in town, we came upon a courtyard that was selling some Apple Ice Cream – professionally homemade. Because of the sugar content, I wasn’t able to have any, but my husband sure did enjoy some! When I asked him if it tasted good, he smiled and said it was so terrible that I would never want any, then quickly turned around and scarfed it down. He’s a bad liar. He just wanted to make me feel better about not being able to eat any, but at this point (6 months without sugar..and counting) I rarely crave sugar.

I did, however, find this a clever idea. Green Apple Ice Cream – I have to try it soon! Apple season is just around the corner!

All submissions for September’s Taste&Create are finally in! Better late than never, I say!

Before we get to the good stuff…

I plan on holding this event once a month. So, I’d like to announce T&C II.

What it’s all about: community, sharing, tasting, and blogging. Continue Reading »

August 24th was the official opening of Fürth’s Ufferpromenade. We’ve been anticipating it for quite some time now, and since I have a garden plot in the Inter-Cultural Garden (which is along the promenade), I have been able to watch it turn from a jungle of tangled weeds to a really beautiful walkway for everyone to enjoy along the river.

To celebrate the large amounts of people that would be passing by and through our garden (the mayor estimated about 30,000 visitors), we decided to have a lettuce auction to help raise some money for our organization. It quickly turned into much more with people from our garden donating extra herbs, zucchinis, peppers, and huge pumpkins! We didn’t raise much, but every little bit counts! Continue Reading »

I can’t remember the last time I had a really “cool” birthday party. I think it might have been back in middle school. My mom always threw great parties for us, but once I got older, parties didn’t interest me much anymore. There were so many friends to invite and if you forgot one person, that was it, I’d be hated forever (back when I cared about those sorts of things). So, it was much easier to celebrate with family – no hassles, no having to change my clothes 20 times to find the perfect outfit, and probably much more relaxing for my mom.

This year I am part of the inter cultural (community) garden in my town. So, with great sunny weather, good friends, and always looking for a reason to showoff my cooking skills, I decided to throw myself a birthday party. It’d been years anyways!

Luckily it was a hit and everything ran smoothly.

Actually, as we left our home to go to the garden, I kept feeling that things had run “too” smoothly and I was definitely forgetting something! Nope. This was not the usually Thanksgiving rush to cook everything in the same day. I had meticulously planned this, picking out recipes that required little or no cooking and could be prepared a few days in advance. And, even though I had to bake my cake 3 times before it came out ok (I realized that in the midst of my cooking that I didn’t have any baking powder – my neighbor was all out too – tried a substitute, but it was a bust – tried a second time with a substitute, but that was a bust too – I got my lazy ass to the grocery store the next morning, and it came out like it always had – excellent), everything worked out so well.

Sunday I had a lot of recipe requests. So, I am doing a mega-recipe-link-up with all my birthday party recipes! I also had a great opportunity to plug my blog – I really need to get business cards!

Ok, so, what did I serve at my party?? Continue Reading »

Yeah, I know, lately, I have been skimping on the quality of some of my photos. Sometimes it just can’t be helped since I refuse to publish a recipe with out a photo. I just can’t stand all those cookbooks without a picture for every single recipe.

This is a really great salad that I had at a friend’s house warming party. I made it for my birthday, and I guess it was a hit since it all disappeared.

The recipe contains honey. I have been avoiding honey out of fear that it would have the same affect on me as sugar does. Since I haven’t had any pain for a while now, I decided to go out on a limb. So far, so good. I can add honey back to the list!!!

Salad Ingredients:
120 grams of Spiral Noodles
25grams sliced Munster cheese, jullianed
1/2 a Red Bell Pepper, chopped
1/2 a Green Bell Pepper, chopped
1 small Red Onion, diced
50grams Cocktail Tomatoes
100grams of marinated Artichoke hearts, quartered

Dressing Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons of white Balsamic Vinegar (5,4% acidity)
2 Tablespoons of Orange juice
1 teaspoon of Walnut Oil
1 teaspoon of Honey
1 Tablespoons chopped fresh Basil
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions:
Cook the noodles according to package directions. Pour out into a colander in your sink, and cool down with cold water.

Combine all salad ingredients in a bowl.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients. Pour over salad and mix well.

Let sit a few hours to let flavors soak in.

Makes 1 main portion serving.

BTW – the photo above is of 1 layer of the cake – I never got to take a picture of my birthday cake!

So, this cake was almost a disaster! I had planned everything – bought everything – heated the oven – and mixed in most of the ingredients, when I realized that I had no more baking powder!!! AHHHH! ok, well, I didn’t exactly panic. I went to my neighbors, and she found out that she was also out of baking powder – hehe. It was the late afternoon, my son was in a great play-by-himself mood so I could merrily bake, and there was no way I was going back to the store. So, I looked online. What could I use as a substitute?? Well, it seems that baking soda and cream of tartar was the most popular substitute, but I don’t have cream of tartar at home. Some other sites suggested that baking soda and something sour such as yogurt would do….yeah, that was a flop. Maybe my yogurt wasn’t sour enough – I don’t know. It just didn’t work out well. I baked it for 2 hours – it was just too mushy.
So, later that evening, I tried again, pouring less in the baking pan hoping that it would bake better….uh, no.

So, the next morning, I got my lazy ass to the grocery store, got some baking powder, and voi la, as the recipe had always worked for decades before, it came out perfect! So, before you go ahead and make this lovely recipe, make sure you have baking powder! Continue Reading »

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I was going to create a rose butter recipe for you. It really was so simple to make. Instead of making an entire stick of butter into one rose butter recipe, I decided to deviate for the recipe that Gisela Kadegge shared with me for the second half.

I wanted something sweet – a dessert butter.

How did I decide to use orange and rose petals together?
As you may know by now, I am a very visual person when it comes to food. So, naturally, I decided what colors would look best together, and went from there.

The taste was absolutely fabulous! I liked it even more than the Rose & Shallot Butter than I made with the first half of my stick of butter.

For you – Continue Reading »

The recipe for this salad was requested over and over again at my birthday party on Sunday. So, here it is!

Garden Salad:
Ingredients:
1 small Red Onion, diced
4 Red Chard leaves with stems, chopped
4 Cups of Baby Romain Lettuce
1 small Cucumber, sliced into rounds
1/2 a Kohlrabi, peeled and chopped
Carrots, sliced into rounds
Sunflower seeds

Directions:
In a small pan, toast the sunflower seeds until light brown; salt.
Place all ingredients in a large bowl (except sunflower seeds) and toss with dressing (see recipe bellow). Then, add sunflower seeds while still warm and mix. This will help soften the salad.

Makes 4-6 side servings.

Thyme Balsamico Dressing:
Ingredients:
1/8 teaspoon of Salt
1/8 teaspoon of Pepper
1 Tablespoon of fresh Thyme leaves
1.5 teaspoons of grated Parmesan cheese
1 Tablespoon of yellow Mustard
1 teaspoon of juice (grape or apple)
1 Cup of Balsamic Vinegar (with only 6% acidity)
1/3 Cup of Olive Oil

Directions:
In a mortar crush salt and pepper with a pestle. Add the thyme and crush until the leaves have come apart. Add the grated Parmesan and crush into the mixture. Stir in the mustard, juice, and then the balsamic vinegar. Finally, whisk in the olive oil.

Yes, this is the same dressing I used to marinade the Bacon Balsamic Turkey in!

September 1st and 2nd were quite exciting this year for me. It was nosey-neighbor-day in town…well, at least that’s what I like to call it. It was really “Einblick in Fürther Höfe”. Basically, the city of Fürth sponsored the event run by Planungsgruppe Meyer-Schwab-Heckelsmüller. There was a great booklet printed with all the houses that would open their doors to the public to show their inner courtyards. It was a big hit!

One of the courtyards we visited had a beautiful table set up where Gisela Kadegge was selling products made with rose petals. I thought her cupcakes were beautiful, but I couldn’t try one. She also had some rose butter, which was quite delicious. And, I was even able to have her attention for a short moment to get a general recipe for the blog! Continue Reading »

The other day I came across the Food Wishes Video Recipe Blog. I could have just spent hours there watching Chef John prepare all these exotic yet simple dishes. One that particularly caught my attention was his Tandoori Chicken – the busy (lazy?) American Version. I don’t like thinking of it as a “lazy” version, but rather a version for those with limited cooking supplies. I took it one step further since I don’t a grill either and broiled it in my oven. I’ve never had the original version, so I can’t compare, but it was so good, that I plan on making it over and over again. I even have plans to make it for my birthday get-together.

Here is my version of Chef John’s recipe for Tandoori Chicken: Continue Reading »