Seelen or Swabian Bread Rolls

My BFF was on holiday in the Black Forest and visited one of the remaining flour mills there. A bit of telefone conference later, I knew what I wanted from there.

Seelen or souls can be found in all bakeries in the Southwestern part of Germany. They are traditionally eaten for breakfast. They often have a sprinkle of caraway seeds and salt or poppy seeds and sesame seeds on top. 

The flourmix contained salt but no other ingredients. I added a little yeast and water to it. The dough was made in the Thermomix first. But I gave it a couple of folds later on my floured work surface.

The dough needed a longer time to rise and stayed in the fridge for 12 hours. I made it last evening and it was ready to bake for breakfast this morning.

I only used 500 g of the 1000 g package. 8 Seelen came out of it. With 350 ml cold water and 6 g of fresh yeast.

Zucchini Crostini - vegan

This is a recipe from Süddeutsche Zeitung, Kochquartett by Caroline Autenrieth.

Sommer veggies like zucchini and tomatoes are plenty in the moment. My bowl of freshly harvested tomatoes is not getting empty. The best time to prepare something new. I made the recipe my own way as always.

While it was baking in the oven, I let the ingredients list run through my head again. That was the moment I discovered I made a vegan dish.

Eat it as it us or as a side dish with meat or fish. I ate it as it was and it was delicious.

Recipe for 2 in a medium size oven proof dish:

Tomatoes to cover the bottom of the dish, cut up depending on size

1 large zucchini, 1 large onion, 4 cloves of garlic

Italian bread with olives, olive oil (lots of it)

Salt  pepper, parsley 1/2 tsp veg stock paste, 50 ml water

Preheat the oven 180 C.

Put the tomatoes im the dish, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil and stick in the oven to give them some time ahead.

Cut the onion in rings and the garlic in slices and sauté them in a wide pan in olive oil. Season. Cut the zucchini in 4 mm discs and add them to the pan. Fry them for 3 min and add water and veg stock paste. Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and cook for 10 min. Add the parsley.

Take the lid off and crank up the heat to reduce the liquid in the pan. Take the dish out of the oven and spread the zucchini mix on top.

Cut the bread in 2 cm tranches and cover the dish. Drizzle with olive oil and stick in the oven for 10 min.

Peach frozen and grated on Greek Yogurt

Do not watch Insta cooking Reels!

The tiny note papers on my livingroom table are getting more and more. So many great ideas are flooding the Internet. Some of them are sticking to my mind and need to be explored.

I would never have thought that grating a frozen peach would make it more tasty. It is a bit of a pain to grate it, but with the help of a towel or a potholder it works.

Topping Greek yogurt with it is great. A bit of honey and some pistacchios make the dish even better.

Barbie Pasta

The new movie BARBIE inspires people to cook the theme.

I saw a short movie clip and a cooking Reel and decided to give it a try. And NO foodcoloring was used! The Reel had definetely some help in that department.

Looking for a very fast pasta dish, BARBIE should be your choice.

I was grocery shopping at LIDL this morning (Greek week started today) and bought some goat cream cheese. That is one of the components. For the red part cooked red beets were used.

Recipe for 2:

200 g short pasta

300 g cooked red beets

150 g goat cream cheese

50 ml double cream, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp olive oil

Salt, pepper, Italian herbs

Grated Grana Padano

While the pasta is cooking, put all the ingredients in a blender and mix it well. Drain the pasta, mix with the BARBIE and add cheese.

Potato Salad with Peas

This is a very quick potato salad.

Eat it on its own, like I did or serve it with some meat or fish. My container of blanched peas has still a lot of them inside. I am looking for dishes where I can use up some of them.

I bought a small bag of little potatoes - Drillinge- they are called here in Germany. I cooked the smallest ones in the same size and just cut them in 4 pieces afterwards.

The dressing was easy:

4 tbsp sour cream, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

6 tbsp peas, 1 large spring onion, 4 stalks parsley

Salt and pepper

Mussels and Peas in Tomato Sauce

It is cleaning out the freezer time before the next round of tomato sauce hits the freezer.

I found a couple of things that needed to go, but the amount of tomato sauce portions was low. 3 of them went in todays mussel dish.

A bag of frozen mussels and frozen peas needed to go. I blanched the peas and put them in a container for further use. A deep spoon here and there added to a recipe is a good way to take care of them.

The tomato sauce is fully seasoned and ready to eat. The defrosted mussels and the peas went in the hot sauce. Just some pepper and salt and the dish was ready to eat.

400 ml tomato sauce

200 g mussels

50 g peas

Salt and pepper

Prawn Pasta with Pistacchio Paste

 I watched Vincenzo's Plate. 

The very basic combination of nuts and oil with prawns and lemon caught my eye. I was on a holiday trip and came home around Lunch time. Not much time to cook something that takes a while. 

Before going outside to harvest tomatoes, cucumber and figs (yes, fig season started too)

I pulled the last few large tiger prawns out of the freezer. Submerged in cold water to help with defrosting. Now I had to shell a hand full of pistacchios.

They went in a food processor with olive oil and a bit of water. Now I started the pasta, because the cooking time is 12 min. Keeping some of the pasta water.

Recipe for 1:

125 g tagliatelle, salt

60 g pistacchios, 4 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp water

8 large black tiger prawns, raw

1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice, zest 1/2 lemon, salt and pepper

2 stalks tarragon

Heat up 1 tbsp olive oil on medium heat and add the prawns. After the first turn, squeeze the lemon juice in the pan. After 4 min in total, add the pistacchio paste. Stir well and add pasta water to loosen up the sauce. Reduce the heat and finish the prawns. 

Add the pasta and a little more water and the lemon zest. Chop the tarragon and finish with it.

Wrapped Feta Starter

We shopped in a large Turkish supermarket today. Veggies are still a bit cheaper there. 

It took us some time to find the things we needed, because it was a bit unorganized. 

We bought a great feta cheese in a plastic container in a brine. Very creamy and 55 % goats milk. 

We bought pepperoncini in brine, red peppers, olives and a cucumber.

A cucumber went over the Mandoline. A small block of cheese. This was seasoned with some paprika and wrapped in the cucumber slice. A tiny piece of raw ham for additional saltiness.

On top either black olives or pepperoncini or both.

Pork Loin Saltimbocca

My friend wanted to use the BBQ and found a new recipe. But the type of meat and preparation were changed.

Skewered meat, a tomato spread on top, wrapped in bacon. That sounded tasty. But it was a lot of work.

The tomato spread was made in a small food processor. 

Recipe for 3:

500 g pork loin

100 g sun dried tomatoes in oil

3 tbsp olive oil, 30 g Parmesan, pepper

3 stalks sage, 125 g bacon strips

Paste:

Drain the tomatoes, but keep 2 tbsp tomato oil. Shred the sage leaves. Grate the Parmesan. Put that all in a food processor and make a paste.

Cut the pork loin in 2 cm slices and press them down with your hand. Spread tomato paste on one side and wrap each piece in bacon. 

Skewer 5 pieces on 4 skewers tight to each other. Put on the BBQ for 12 to 15 min. Turn every 3 min.

Serve with a salad and Baguette.

Cestino Calabrese

Cestino means basket.

It is a piece of dough that is formed by hand in a small rectangular shape. The dough is a very good quality pizza dough.

The filling varies from Salami or Parma Ham in Bechamel or tomato sauce with finely chopped vegetables.

I was in Künzelsau at the Café Auszeit a part of the Hotel Anne-Sophie. 

The Cestino Calabrese was served with a small very tasty salad bowl.

We had the chance to talk to the CEO of the Hotel/Restaurant.

Eating out in the deep end of the Hessian Odenwald

I was at the Grüner Baum Gasthof in Oberzent-Hesselbach. 

Nameing Restaurants "Green Tree" is very common here in Germany. They are older houses with a tradition of decent food. Nothing uber fancy, but often with local produces. 

I have been here pre Covid once. The quality of the food is still very good today. Nothing has changed, because it is family owned and operated. The youngest generation took over 5 years ago.

When we arrived, on a Thursday at lunch time, there were only 2 other guests. When our food was served, the restaurant filled up. Lots of people on electric bikes joined us and a then many seniors.

I had a very fresh and tasty salad first and a very decent Cordon bleu with lots of melting cheese inside. French fries and gravy. A love a good ice cream for dessert. A walnut ice cream with Bailys cream liqueur was a nice treat.

My friend had a very good vension goulash with dumplings

Pasta alla Buttera

This is a Tuscan recipe.

There are lots of different ways to prepare this pasta dish. I used up some of my home grown tomatoes and made them in to a passata. For additional color I used some tomato paste.

The heat in this dish comes from one dried red chili. The Tuscans love their spicy dishes. But one was just enough.

I had leftover toasted Panko breadcrumbs with fried garlic from two days ago. I used these with only a little Grana Padano cheese to bind the sauce in the end.

Recipe for 2:

2 salsiccia sausages (with fennel)

180 g short pasta

15 black olives, destoned

2 shallots, 2 garlic cloves, 1 red dried chili, oregano, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper

1 tbsp tomato paste, 250 ml passata

Peel the sausages and chop the meat. Chop onions, chili and garlic. Fry these in olive oil and break down the sausage meat.

After that is no longer pink, add tomato paste and passata and don't forget to season. Add the cut up olives. Finish with a little cheese and more breadcrumbs. Mix with the pasta.

Cook the pasta.

4 tbsp olive oil

Grana Padano and toasted garlic breadcrumbs

Cucumber with Hummus filling

My single cucumber plant behind the house thinks that it has to feed a family of 5!

I have even given cucumbers to neighbors to prevent them from getting bad. Someone on TIK TOK filled a cucumber with some Hummus and stuffed a variety of other ingredients in it. But only the Hummus filling stuck to my mind. 

I used what I had sitting in front of my eyes. Some cheese and some tomatoes. The Hummus was bought at the Deli counter of one of my favourite supermarkets.

Cut the cucumber lengthwise. If it has a lot of seeds, just scrape them out with a spoon.

Spread Hummus on both sides and layer with cheese and tomatoes. Put the top on the other side and enjoy.

1 cucumber

60 g Hummus

1 slice Emmenthal cheese

Cherry tomatoes

Chicken Wings marinated and Oven baked

This time, no Air Fryer.

I watched 5 German Chefs preparing their favourite chicken dish. One of them made wings. I used the ideas and created my own version with the ingredients I had at home.

I pulled a couple of different sauce jars out of my cupboard. Every time I use one of them, I check if they are still good to go. The small Oyster sauce jar is often moldy after a very short period of time. BINGO, I had to throw it out. The Ketjap Manis was dried up too.

I used some Chinese Char-siu Sauce instead. That has the smokey ans sweet touch I was looking for. Mixed with dark soy sauce and some sweet chili sauce a great combination.

The wings with the marinate went in the fridge to rest for 2 hours.

Bake at 180 C fan for 30 min

Now is the time for some topping. Cut 6 cloves of garlic or 3 single Chinese ones in slices. Fry them in medium high oil until golden brown. Get them out on paper towels. Do not discard the oil. Use the garlic oil for future pasta dishes. 

In the same pan brown Panko breadcrumbs. Mix them with the garlic later to top the chicken wings.

Ingredients for 2:

6 large chicken wings

4 tbsp Char-Sui Sauce, 4 tbsp dark soy sauce, 3 tbsp sweet chili sauce

6 garlic cloves, 100 ml veg oil, 50 g Panko

Serve with some rice and some mixed greens.

Puff Pastry with Ham and Cheese

A quick Sunday lunch.

Not much work to do. The preparation time is less than 10 min, baking time is about 12 min. What is not to like?

I saw this as a Reel on FB. Just once, but the idea stuck. I added some wild salad greens for color and taste. 

Only cheeses and ham looked a bit boring to me. Cutting it up before putting it in the oven looked like a smart idea. That makes it easier as a shared dish to eat with friends.

That is a good fingerfood to serve as a snack with wine or cocktails.

Ingredients:

1 rectangular sheet of puff pastry

100 g goat cream cheese

4 slices Emmental cheese

6 slices cooked ham

40 g mixed wild herb salad

1 egg, sesame seeds

Preheat the oven 200 C fan.

On one halve of the pastry schmear the goat cheese, top it with salad leaves

Layer the ham on top and layer the cheese over it. Now fold over the other side and take a fork to press down around the seam. Take a large knife and precut the pastry. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake for 12 min.