Potato Mash, Swiss Chard Colcannon style

I know, I know Colcannon is made with cabbage. But the Swiss Chard is grown so much and lots of it had to be eaten.

Seen recipes with kale and spinach, I though why not use the veggies I have grown myself.

 

Making it a deluxe version was a must. It was poor people food in Ireland, but my butcher gave me 2 pairs of Wiener sausages for free, because their skin was a bit crinkled and he could not sell them anymore. So I ended up with 6 Wieners instead of 2. The 2 fresh ones will last a bit in the fridge now.

The 4 Wieners went in a pan together with some cubed ham to brown a bit and then the Swiss Chard I prepared before were combined. In the end the mashed potatoes finished the dish.

Ingredients for 2:

550 g peeled potatoes

100 ml milk

50 g butter

Nutmeg, salt, pepper

250 g Swiss chard

1 small yellow onion, 1 green onion, 1 shallot, 4 garlic cloves

Grapeseed oil

4 Wieners, 150 g cooked ham cubed

Sandwich in Racecar style

Motorsport is one of my new hobbies. Building a racecar would be my dream. 

I started small this time and the car eco-friendly, because it is edible.

I saw a photo of a sandwich car and thought, why not. I loved the idea. It was a bit fiddely to get the components to stick together, but with the help of  some toothpicks, it worked.

Depending on the size and width of your desired car, use a baguette roll or a double roll. That one is not so slim and sits the driver - aka the egg- a lot better. 

I gave one racecar to my neighbor. She told me this morning that it looked so cute and she did not want to destroy it at first. But she enjoyed it.

Ingredients:

2 long bread rolls

Cream cheese

Cooked ham

Dijon mustard

Mustard from a tube

2 hard boiled eggs

Tomatoes

Red bell pepper

Cucumber

Toothpicks

Have fun playing with your food. 

Plum Compote or Zwetschgenröster

Zwetschgenröster is an Austrian plum compote. Often served with Kaiserschmarn or ripped pancakes.

But it goes well with plum dumplings too. They are on my to do list for Friday. The compote can chill in the fridge until then.

My BFF has brought me 3 cardboard boxed filled with fruits. She lives in a tiny village with lots of farms around. Some of her neighbors begged her to pick fruits from their trees. They have more than enough this year.

She can't prepare everything on her own and asked me to take some off her hands. Since we've met today to be together with some of our former coworkers, she unloaded her trunk and stuffed everything in mine.

Now I have to decide what to do with plums, pears, apples and even a garlic bulb.

Compote for most of the plums is a solution. Pear and plum jam an other. But I will spare some of them to make Austrian plum dumplings with compote. 

Put everything in a pot and cook until the plums are soft and mushy. You can reduce tge wine first with the spices to get the alcohol out.

Ingredients:

200 ml red wine

50 g sugar

750 g destoned plums

1 star anise, 2 cinnamon sticks, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp potato starch wit 2 tbsp water

 

Topokki Streetfood style

My last trip to an Asian supermarket brought me a package of garlic-soy Topokki. Just a small portion to try.

Today was the evening to try it. Just dump the content of 3 packs in a small pot and add water to it. The ricecakes need a bit of force to seperate, but with the help of a spoon it worked.

The description on the back of the package said to add veggies and egg to your liking. I took some of my purple napa cabbage and some green onion and added it the last minute of cooking.

A good dash of toasted sesame and an egg out of the microwave did the job perfectly.

It was good and can be repeated if I can find that package again.

Purple Napa Cabbage Salad with Apple

It was the first time I have seen purple napa cabbage or China cabbage at the supermarket.

I will call it Unicorn Cabbage!

It looks different, but tastes like its green cousin. Close your eyes, no idea that it is purple. I first thought it is like a cross between radicchio and chicory to make it red. But its not.

I made a salad and added a red apple to it. Sweetness and more crunch are a good combination. Fresh basil gives a kick.

Ingredients for 1:

1/2 purple napa cabbage

1 red apple

6 basil leaves

2 tbsp olio de olive con limone

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp Agave syrup

2 tsp raspberry vinegar

2 tbsp microgreens

Smoked salt, pepper

KINDER Country Dessert

KINDER products are getting more and more refined. The older generations will know the chocolate covered bars with rice crispies in sweet milk bars.

But they are still sold with the emphasis of cereals - like healthy breakfast. There is nothing healthy about them.

But this dessert tastes like them and only the 70 % chocolate has some sugar in it. No refined sugar added. 

I saw this on FB, but a larger pot with just a tiny scraping of a sugarfree chocolate sounded not so good to me. 

It is easy to prepare when you have a craving for a dessert. I was generous with the chocolate, so don't eat both portions in one go.

Recipe:

200 g low fat curd or use Skyr

100 g whole milk

2 g Chunky flavour vanilla

6 thin rice waffles (salted)

60 g 78% Lindt chocolate

Glitter and sprinkles

Mix curd and milk with a whisk. Put the rice waffles in a freezer bag and bash them. Add to the milk mix. Use as much Chunky flavour to sweeten to your taste. 

I like it less sweet.

Put 50g of the broken pieces of chocolate in a bowl and in 30 sec blasts melt them. Stir in the 10 g to temper the chocolate with it.

Use two glass jars and fill them with the mix. Let it sit in the fridge for 15 min. Put the chocolate and the glitter and sprinkles on top.

Yellow Zucchini in Cream Sauce with Tagliatelle

I picked some yellow zucchinis off my plant. Now I needed some ideas to prepare them.

When I am on a longer strech of the Autobahn - highway- I often start thinking about recipes. A two hour drive lets to some good ideas.

Mentally checking what's in my fridge is important, especially on a Sunday when all shops are closed. Cream Cheese, check!

Recipe for 2:

125 g tagliatelle

1 tbsp olive oil

1 yellow zucchini 

3 green onions, 2 garlic cloves

150 g cream cheese

Smoked paprika, herbes de Provence, smoked salt, pepper

Some fresh herbs for garnish.

Keep the pasta water ready.

Chop onions, garlic and zucchini and start the tagliatelle in salted water.

In a large pan heat up the oil, fry off onions and garlic for 3 min, then add the zucchini. Season very well and after 3 min add 3 tbsp pasta water to help with cooking.

Next the cream cheese with more pasta water follows. Drain the tagliatelle and add them with a little more water. Finish with fresh herbs.

Pizza in a very famous Motorsport Restaurant

I went out to have a Pizza in the famous Pistenklause below the Hotel Tiergarten. The Schmitz family owns it. Her daughter was the famous racing driver Sabine Schmitz, who sadly died of cancer 2021. A corner on the Nordschleife was named after her. 

The apartment I am staying in this time is less than 100 m down from that corner and you can hear the engines blasting by.

This restaurant is a place were all motorsport fans and racecar drivers love to come. An Italian restaurant with solid good food and a very special atmosphere.   

The walls and even the ceiling is full of memorabilia and so many photos that it takes hours to look at all of them.

Racecar drivers like Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna und Mika Häkkinen partied here after their podiums.

I had a Pizza al Tonno.

Tom Ka Soup and Salad

I am trying out an other restaurant in Nuerburg this evening.

After 2 fast laps in a rental track focused car on the Nuerburgring Nordschleife I was ready for some food. This time I have an apartment in the middle of the town and just walked 3 minutes down the hill to Lindenhof Restaurant.

They serve a lot of vegetarian options, but some chicken, beef or seafood is still on the menu.

I choose a Thai Soup as a starter. It had a seared scallop added to it. The lime in the soup was prominent, but the soup needed it. Coconut milk and finely sliced button mushrooms were the base of the soup.

Then the salad with charcoal grilled chicken breast arrived.

Jucy chicken with a good smokey flavour. The salad with soak cranberries and chopped walnuts was very good. Non of my hated arugula in sight, yeah! The dressing was creamy and a little on the sweeter side due to cranberry syrup.

Waffle with Toppings

I am on my way to the Nuerburgring again and stopped in Bad Bertrich first to treat myself to an hour in the Spa.

After that I needed some coffee and a treat.

This time a loaded freshly baked waffle. I could not decide what kind of topping I wanted, but there was the option: with everything.

Vanilla Ice Cream, cherry compote, whipped cream and powdered sugar.

Together with the coffee a real treat.

Aubergine Dip

The aubergine pot behind the house was very busy producing lots of long fruits. 

Over the last couple of days I collected a bunch and looked for an inspiration to cook them. We still have hot summer weather and a creamy and cold dip sounded nice.

I did not want to use the oven again, I switched to the compact one - the air fryer. It had enough room to put the aubergines in.

I had cut them up through the middle and salted them. After 15 min drying them with kitchen paper. A bit of spray oil and 13 min on 160 C in the air fryer basket and they were done.

Scraping the flesh out with a teaspoon is a little tedious. Mix them with the following ingredients and take a stick blender to prepare a cream.

I ate that with my lentil chips/crisps I made yesterday.

200 g Greek yogurt

2 tsp garlic paste

1 tsp dry Italian herbs

Smoked salt and pepper

2 tbsp fresh chives

Lentil Chips/Crisps with Dip

A couple of years ago the food industry came up with a "healthy" snack option than pototo chips.

They are made with lentil flour. Or pea flour or beets or sweet potatoes. They suggest the customers to eat the better snacks.

But that is a false promise. These new chips/crisps are as unhealthy as potato chips. Just more expensive and trendy and in a smaller bag.

I saw a Reel and thought: Why not? Red lentils are a staple in my household and boiling water is easy. Some spices and a hot oven.

The oven was still hot from baking the Zucchini Potato Parmesan Bake. I only had to pull the baked goods of the baking sheet and stuck fresh baking paper on it.

The lentils were soaked in a bowl for 3 hours, drained and put with boiling water and spices in a blender. Through a fine mash sieve until most water has run out. Spread thin on the baking paper and baked.

Soak 115 g red lentils in water for 3 hours, drain. 

Add 320 ml boiling water to them, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning and Bruschetta seasoning. Mix well. Drain and spread and bake

200 C fan 30 to 35 min. Break apart after baking.

The dip is just some cream cheese and Calabrese pesto. Together it tastes good.