For the Love of Food

Souvlaki is one of my favorite summer time meals. And, and although the weather is so cool here right now you’d think it was Fall, it’s still nice to pretend that it’s sunny outside! But, honestly, souvlaki is great any time of the year, and although most recipes require you to grill your meat, I cook my in a griddle pan (without the grill ridges).

So, what goes well with souvlaki?? Zatziki – zattiki – zatziki, rice, and cabbage salad. You can vary the vegetables beyond cabbage salad if it’s not winter, but it’s quite delicious.

Please don’t be scared of the long resting hours – these recipes are all really worth making and well worth the wait. Continue Reading »

So, still no move date in sight to our newly renovated home from Pravexx (we should have moved in on February 5th,   then March 5th, then April 12th, then May 5th, then May 10th, then May 15th..today’s the 15th and still no move in sight). And, while I have told you in the past that I couldn’t post as much until I move to the new home, I have decided to stop waiting for the big move day.

In someways I have become a “broken food blogger” – I only have 4 plastic yellow pickinick plates to photograph on, one salad bowl, and 3 forks. But, in no way have I become a broken foodie – there is a big difference! Although my current kitchen/foyer is smaller than the bathroom of my last apartment (2 meter x 2 meter), I still cook for my family every day and I still send my son to preschool with delicious homemade meals.

There are somethings that you should never let go of. The most important being your dignity in the kitchen. Last week I cooked a 5 course meal with one electric burner and a toaster oven for 15 people and no body would have guessed. Granted it took me 3 days to prepare, but I accomplished it and it made me feel good.

So, today I want to share with you a recipe that I found way back in the winter when I lived in my old home, but still use today in my tiny hole-in-the wall kitchen. The recipe says it’s an Italian salad dressing, but I find that it can go either way Greek or Italian. Continue Reading »

Oh Summer, how I miss you!

Today is one of the few sunny Autumn days that we get here in Germany. Usually, the sky is the same shade of gray-white until late March. But, it’s a small price to pay for those long summer days that I love so very much!

In the mean time, enjoy this salad that I made back in August. Continue Reading »

I really love throwing a party – and I never need a reason to throw one for friends and/or family. So, with Foodbuzz’s 24,24,24 monthly event, I have an even greater motivation to throw put together some sort of event centered around food.

For this month’s event I have chosen to throw a grill party for family and friends visiting from out of town. My title “Achtung! Die Grillsaison hat begonnen” (“Attention! Grill-Season has begun” translated into English) is a favorite German phrase that you will see and hear everywhere once grilling season starts – which is about mid-May. So, with my grill party I decided to showcase typical German foods that you would find at a grill party. Naturally, there are many many more dishes and meats that are grilled at a German grill party, but these are my favorite that I can get my hands on here in Bavaria.

Our menu consisted of:
Potato Salad
Tossed Salad
Bread
Tzatziki Sauce
Noodle Salad
Grilled Vegetables
Chicken legs
Bratwurst Kebabs (Bratwurstspieße)
Crunchy Kebabs (Knusperspieße)
Pork Steaks
Pork Belly
Rostocker Bratwurst
Poultry Kebabs (mixture of chicken, turkey, and duck)
Cevapcici
Vanilla Pudding with Rote Grütze (red fruit jelly dessert topping)

Let’s just say we had a lot of food and a lot of leftovers! We were expecting some more friends to come by, but after a pipe burst in their home they were busy with more important things. So, there were 9 of us. I prepared everything..well, I do have to add that most of the meats and the potato salad were all marinated/made by the butcher…and my husband grilled with help, every once in a while, from my father-in-law. The rest of our guests enjoyed themselves, relaxed in our garden, and ate until they couldn’t eat anymore.

Our guests wished not to have their photographs on my blog, so here are some pictures of my family:

me “helping” with grilling

Bellow are the dishes that I made, including recipes, and bellow that are the dishes that we didn’t prepare ourselves. On top of all this I had planned a German creamy cucumber salad, but ended up forgetting it at home. We had it the next day for lunch and it was fantastic. But, it went so quickly that I never got a photo of it! Continue Reading »

*Here is another blog post I found in my Drafts folder from August 2007!! It’s not only cheap, but delicious, filling, and very easy to make.  Because I do not own a grill, I broiled the skewers in my oven.*

Usually my husband and I usually reserve Greek dining for special occasions since Greek restaurants can be a bit pricey (in our town). Then I got to thinking, I can cook Greek too…and it’s amazing how simple and inexpensive it is!

Here I have made Suvlaki, Tzatziki, and Salad and I served it with some döner bread that I bought at my local Turkish store. The souvlaki recipe is based on Suvlaki Hoirino on About.com.

Continue Reading »

Well, I am quite pleased to say that our potluck was a huge success.  Not only did we had over 30 people show up for dinner, but we had many people show-up in the morning to help with our garden Spring Cleaning event.  And, after many hours of hard work in the garden and in front of the grill, we were all ready to sit down and share a nice large meal together.

The buffet was full and everything was picked away to the last piece!  The chocolate-coated fruit was a huge hit with the children and it was gone within minutes!

The whole event was such a great success and made all our gardeners so happy that they asked what we had to do to have another event like this.  I got so many compliments on organizing the event and thanks to our “sponsor” – Foodbuzz – for making this possible.  So…we are thinking and hopefully next month we will come-up with something new and exciting for Foodbuzz 24,24,24 again.

See recipes bellow: Continue Reading »

In an attempt to recreate an Olive Garden similar Salad, I threw together some salad items, made some corutons, and topped that with my favorite Greek salad dressing.

Homemade croutons are extremely easy, and they hold in a sealed container for a few days. Continue Reading »

Happy 2009 everyone!

I decided to analyze my blog from January 2008 – December 2008 to see what you like.

Why?
I want to see more of you around my blog more often. And, that means finding out what you like.

How?
I looked at all my posts and saw what you commented most on and I learned quite a lot.

What? Continue Reading »

I was so tired of eating turkey the week after Thanksgiving. We had never had left-overs for more than 2 days after Thanksgiving, but this year 6 of my guests didn’t show and I was left with quite a lot of turkey. So, we packed up what was left of the turkey and froze it.

The other day I pulled out a leg/thigh piece, defrosted it in the microwave, took the skin off, pulled off the meat, and shredded it by hand. I ended up with about 3 cups worth of shredded turkey.

I can’t remember where I saw this idea, but it sure was a fabulous-tasting one – and quite a delightful break from the traditional turkey over and over again.

I’d also like to wish you all a merry Christmas – will post more on the 29th of December – Christmas is 3 days long in Germany (25,26,27)!!  So, in case you making turkey for Christmas as well, this is a great left-over recipe. Continue Reading »

This year I am trying to be more conscious about my buying habits and trying to buy in season and local products only.

For many of you this may be self-implied, but for me, having grown-up in semi-tropical Miami, FL, this is really hard when living in Germany.

I don’t like apples. I don’t like pares. I don’t like cauliflower….

I like mangoes and star fruit and avocados and tomatoes and…

But, it is not the season of all the foods I love and grew-up on. So, I have come up with a basic salad that makes me quite happy during Fall and is very much in season! Continue Reading »