Yesterday I went to the museum, and let me guided through
the exhibition of a forgotten artist. Her work is stunning and
her life is so sad - somehow I could feel for her.

Afterwards I went to the Cathedral - up to the tower for the
first time. The view is amazing, even if it was still cloudy
when I was up there. Here are some of the pics I took and
you could see more here.

Back home I was hungry, but didn't got anything to cook
quickly, as I planned to get my hands on soba. Thus my
hunger has to wait. Making soba is not as it looks like (I
read some instructions and watched a few videos the night
before). The mixing part is not the problem, as I am used to
kneed my noodle dough with my hands, but the rolling and
cutting parts are tricky. I tried to roll it out using the pasta
machine, but I was afraid, that it'd break, so I went back
to do it by hand. As the result my soba was all short and
thick ^_^

In my soba:

180g buckwheat flour

20g corn starch

300ml hot water (or 250ml? add little by little)

a pinch of salt (normally, it doesn't belong to soba, I think)

a pinch of matcha powder

It was time to harvest some strawberries today before the
slugs, insects and birds eat them all up.



I also pulled and picked some greens - borage and lemon
balm. My garden is full of borage. They sowed themselves.
Each year more and more, since I wasn't able to pull them
out as soon as they started to bloom - the bees & bumble-
bees love them so and I love bees & bumble-bees.



A friend was so kind to cook chicken soup and brought me
some last week. I don't want to bring the boxes empty back
to her. So I was thinking of bringing her some strawberries.
But the strawberries were not sweet at all - too much rain
and too little sunshine. So I decided to make chutney and
fill it up in glass jars.



I had the rest of the chutney for dinner with some baked
potatoes - yumm!



In the chutney:
Strawberries - cut the big ones in halves
Ginger
Onion
Chili - with the seeds
Sugar
Lemon balsamico
Cidre vinegar
Salt
Pinch of cardamom seeds
Pinch of Black caraway seeds
Pinch of dried Rosemary
Lemon balm

For the baked potatoes: mix sweet paprika, cumin, salt and
pepper with olive oil, put the potato wedges in and mix until
all well covered with the mixture. Bake them in 220°C oven
for about half an hour until they are golden.

I loved my mom's ikan pepes. She used averrhoa bilimbi
and they makes her ikan pepes so special. I miss Indonesia
a lot at the moment, especially the food (of course, my son
would say, only food in my head lol). Looking at what I
have in the fridge, I decided to do my own take on ikan 
pepes for lunch..



... and failed shamelessly! lol I don't know - either I used
too much lime (as substitute for the bilimbis) or my tongue
hasn't been able to taste everything right. I could taste the
hotness of the chilli, although it was not as hot as I expected
using two chilis, but I couldn't taste the sourness at all - only
the bitterness (the last rice cakes I ate yesterday was also
bitter instead of sweet). Weird!

But at least I had some fun with my kitchen waste while I
was waiting for the fish to cook ;-)

Sick on holiday - arghh!! The summer flu has caught me.
Again, I cannot smell and can only barely taste anything.
Thus, when I made some rice (cup)cakes yesterday (well,
it started as a rice noodle experiment and ended up in
strawberry rice cakes), I thought they were not so sweet,
but my son told me that they're very sweet o.O



The rice cakes are more an Asian style of cakes - steamed.

I used the following ingredients, but I'm going to vary a bit,
to make the cakes less sticky (and also perhaps less sweet)
next time (if ever ;-) as I'm not such a sweet tooth actually).
For 8 cups.

150 g wholemeal rice flour
50 g starch (mine was a mixture of rice/corn/tapioca)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
200 ml hot water (or 250 ml? - I forgot..)
2 Tbsp sugar

Mixed everything up and wait for half an hour.
Add one egg (size L). Mixed again.

Prepare a steamer (I used a similar setup as here, but used
the steamer basket of my pressure cooker instead of the
bamboo steamer). Arrange the muffin cups in the steamer.
Fill in 1 Tbsp dough in each cup. Steam them for around
5 minutes. Cut strawberries in half and arrange two halves
in each cup. Cover the strawberries with dough. Eventually
sprinkle with some coconut rasps. Steam again for another
15 minutes.

Taste better, when the strawberries are still warm (but then
the cake is also stickier...).

In the past weeks I've been eating much more meat than
I usually did. Although one bad experience with a butcher
weeks ago reminded me that it's time to reduce it again,
somehow I couldn't stop carving for meat dishes. Yet, I
am no longer willing to buy anything from that butcher
anymore. I need an alternative.

I remember, my grandma used to have vegetarian days and
eat fake meat dishes. As I was more a vegetarian than I am
now, I used to taste them too and I had to say, I liked fake
meat.


top: before and after cooking the dough
below: fake chicken in murgh badami style


After watching some videos and reading some posts about
homemade seitan, I finally tried to make my own to cook
murgh badami (or rather a murgh badami inspired dish). I
start with wheat gluten, instead of flour - it saved me time
(and water).

My homemade seitan was too chewy, especially the bigger
pieces. The smaller pieces was better (although my son was
still not convinced - he's rather a real meat lover). I need to
do some experiments to improve the texture. Isn't cooking
fun? :-)

Making (Chinese style) noodles or pasta has become a ritual
in my off-days lately, like today or on Sundays.



After trying some different recipes, today I slightly modified
her recipe and think, I finally find a mix I prefer for my pasta
- not too stiff and not too soft.

300 g wheat flour (type 450)
50 g wholemeal semolina
3 eggs (size L)
ca. 1 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt

This is the first time I made tagliatelle. I normally don't like
this kind of pasta. But after making ravioli for the my son
and his friends, I still had sauce left and somehow it was
calling out loud for tagliatelle.



Ingredients I used in the sauce (no sugar needed, if using
a lot more tomato puree, which I ran out of...):

1 garlic clove
1 onion
1 pepperoni
1 red bell pepper
1 leek
2 carrots
300 g ground meat
2 Tbsp tomato puree
690 g passata
olive oil
sugar
salt
pepper
nutmeg
paprika powder
oregano
basil

Can't tell you the amount of the spices though (it's already
a magic, that I still remember what I put in - ha!), since it's
a tasting-and-adding thing. I'd advice you to do the same.
I think, that's one of the fun part of cooking: the taste of the
food reflects the mood of the cook. And my mood today
was a good one :-)

My food today yesterday* spun around spinach and noodle.

Remember my first attempt in making fish balls? I used frozen
fish and thought that was (one of) the reason of my failing.
I took another chance today yesterday.



I used this recipe for inspiration, but I played a bit with the
amount of the cornstarch. The consistency of the balls are
not yet perfect. See those tiny loose parts in the water? I
ran out of cornstarch after I cooked the test ball and realized
it was too soft. I added a little bit of flour, but obviously still
not enough...



Nevertheless I was finally able to enjoy a meal I was longing
for since last month. Homemade egg noodles with fish balls,
shrimps, shiitake and spinach (lacking Asian greens ;-)).

The spinach I used was frozen spinach, so I still had some
left over. Luckily I remember a recipe I wanted to try for a
while: homemade ravioli (the pasta machine was still on the
table anyway).

I didn't have Ricotta, but I have milk and lemon, so I made
paneer to substitute it (made it once here). I didn't use egg
for the filling - I simply forgot to add the leftover egg white.
I mixed the flour with some wholemeal semolina, so the final
result was a bit umm... "leathery". Yet the taste: heavenly!!
- even without the sage and butter sauce.




For my son I made some ravioli only with paneer (and salt),
as he doesn't like spinach nor parmesan. He loved the ravioli
too. This dish will certainly be on our plates regularly ^_^

___
*) Typing too long and suddenly it's Monday already. Enjoy
your week! :-)

I made some samosas using this dough recipe for the second
time. As for the filling I mainly took only potato and peas.
They taste great plain, but even better with chutney... yumm!!!

When I bought the fish yesterday, it was because I wanted
to eat a bowl of noodle soup with fish balls. In the evening
I read a few beef/chicken/fish ball recipes and noodle recipes
for some ideas.

So I ground the fish this morning, mixed it with salt and pepper
and a little bit egg white, which was difficult to portion of
course and thus too much. Instead of making balls I decided to
put it in a foil, made a roll.

While the fish roll was in the steamer, I started to make the
noodle. This was the ground recipe, but I added the leftover
egg yolk, some more flour and a little bit oil. After letting the
dough rest for a while I let it through the noodle machine a few
times before I finally let it through the spaghetti cutter. The
result: the perfect egg noodles!!!



Now back to the fish. It's certainly the most boring fish thing.
Far away from the delicious fish balls I was imagining!! :(

But suddenly I had an idea what to do. I cut the fish roll in
slices and fried them. Along some Chinese cabbage and
Ramiro pepper and basted with hot vinegar sauce, I got a
Pempek inspired lunch :)



Now I need some elves to help me wash the huge pile of
pans, bowls and plates...

*

A nice source with some live music videos.

Sorry for the overload of food posts this weekend, but I
simply gotta celebrate the return of my senses :) It's so
good to be able to smell and taste again!!!


Yesterday's dinner


Tea time on Sunday (the recipe)

It's getting better. With the illness as well as with the knife.
Not really good yet, but better. There's a perspective, right?



Wishing you a lovely weekend!

polenta bread

Bound at home over the weekend because of the fever and 

running out of bread for tomorrow, I luckily still had a sachet 

of leaven. I didn't have rye flour for the recipe on the sachet, 

but I found a package of polenta and a bit of whole wheat 

flour - time for an experiment! And here's the result..

siomay

Siomay - that's how we called this dumpling in Jakarta. This
one is a non-pork version though.

Sorry, no "after" photo - they're gone too fast..

happy valentine

cake not by me, but from a friend ;)

calling for spring

It feels like spring the last days. It's still cold, but the sun
has come out (living near the lake has some bright sides,
but the dark side is certainly the abundance on gray - cloudy
or foggy - days not and those only in winter). So, I guess,
it's the light I have to blame for my action in the kitchen
today.

I was preparing our lunch (turning leftovers from a raclette
day last weekend into spicy, mixed rice vermicelli), when I
suddenly had to interfere my cutting action and play with
the leek slices instead.



The shape of the leek slices (don't they look like tulips?)
and my mood because of the weather was simply calling for
spring.



Hope, you're having a lovely weekend too...

yumm...

I made a hot spicy curry with courgette, potato, tomatoes,
red onion, red chili, garlic, lemon juice, shrimps, salt,
pepper, cumin and a little bit honey. But the curry wouldn't
be complete without the fresh basil - it's not only to garnish!


with fresh courgette, tomatoes and basil from the garden :)

over

Yayy, my school was finally over last Friday! Now it's
time to catch up with everything else that I neglected
the past weeks - friends, shop, blogs, garden and the
housework.

Two weeks ago a girl from my class has given me some
trouts - smoked and fresh ones - to thank me studying
with her. So, today I cooked trouts in a sauce mix of
tomatoes, chillies, rhubarb, lemon, lemon balm and
parsley. Yummy!



The recipe was a modified version of my mom's recipe,
in which averrhoa bilimbi is originally used for the sauce
(my mom got the great idea to use rhubarb instead).
The fish and the sauce mix are normally wrapped in a
banana leaf. Since I don't have any (I'm still thinking
of planting a banana in my garden just to have the leaves
for my Indonesian cookery :)), I put everything in a
casserole instead.

The next task is my garden. At the moment the spiders
and ants are about to take over my garden. Look at those
garden spider babies in my lavender bush! There must be
over a hundred of spiders - yikes!



I planted carrot and peas a few days ago, but on Friday
I got some veggies and herbs (and some chocolates) from
the girls in my class - so sweet! They simply know how
to spoil me :) My garden is now full (and so my stomach ;)).

a lovely day

I whined about the dark and misty days, but when the
weather showed it's best side today I stayed at home!!
I worked on the torch - mixing colors, making some new
things for my rapidly-reduced-in-volume shop.


Can you see the Alps on the horizon? Stunning view today!

And guess what.. there was a time, when I was organized!
I'm amazed :) I found the recipe of my carrot soup again,
which I then made for dinner today.


GINGER CARROT SOUP (for 2 persons)

3 carrots - peeled, thin sliced
2 potatoes - peeled, thin sliced
1/2 sweet sour apple (just because I was in the mood,
not in my original recipe :)) - peeled and sliced
-> put all in a pot, covered with water, let cook

and while they're cooking..
the green part of a leek (I had scallion today) - fine sliced
2cm (or less, just as you like) ginger - fine chopped
-> sauté both in a pan in bits of butter
-> put aside

1TS sunflower seeds (can be replaced with cashew nuts
or peanut or sesame for different tastes :))
-> roasted in a pan
-> put aside

..when the carrots etc. are soft, then
-> puree them using a hand mixer
-> add water (or orange juice), if needed
-> add honey (if you like), salt and creme fraiche
-> served it with the leek, ginger and sunflower seed

Guten Appetit! ^_^


...



When I was about to throw the organic waste away,
my hands were itching to do something with it.


She's looking sad, eh? Probably because she knew,
I'd throw her away right after I take the photo..

fish casserole

.. that's my meal for today :) My son never wants to eat
fish, so I only cook fish, when I'm alone. Normally I'm
pretty lazy and buy ready fish casserole, which I only
have to put in the oven. But yesterday I've bought fresh
pollock and created my own. I buttered the casserole, put
the fish in the casserole, salted, peppered, then covered
with chopped garlic, mozzarella, tomato and onion cubes,
some more salt, olive oil on top of it all and off in the oven
until the mozzarella turns brown, spread some chopped
parsley and chives afterwards and served it with rice.
Yumm...



Hope, you had a great weekend. I'm wishing you a great
start of the new week tomorrow!

changing

Changing weather, so I'm changing my banner too :)
My Etsy shop and here. Well, actually the reason was
I was browsing my banner folder, wanting to have the
same one for PaperNStitch. Yes, for the first time in
2 years I'm doing marketing outside Etsy - running
from 10/27 to 11/22 (now that I finally have enough
stuff in my shop ;)).

But I'm wandering.. back to the banner. Well, I didn't
have a bigger version of the last banner. As I saw my
very first banner (well, actually it's a pre-version of
my very first banner on Etsy), I fell in love again with
it. So, I decided to take it as my new banner. Icy cold
is all that I can say ^_^

So, let's take a Hokkaido soup to get warm again :)

Wanna make one? I can't give you an exact recipe - as
you know, I never follow any. But these are in this
soup: Hokkaido pumpkin, potato, onion, water, vegetable
stock, cream, salt and pepper (pepper! Normally I never
put it in pumpkin soup, but my son wanted it so and it
tastes just great!). As decoration on the soup I have
a borage flower, a Jiaogulan leaf and some chive.
Guten Appetit! :)