Salsiccia with Lentils and Pasta

In a neighboring city is a small Italian food shop. My BFF sometimes goes there. She bought a very fennel seed heavy kind of dry salsiccia for me.

It took a while until I found a way to prepare it. But what goes great with sausages of all kinds? Lentils.

And very small Italian pasta, that I bought in an other Italian supermarket.

Ingredients:

175 g salsiccia with fennel

1 onion, 2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

1 carrot

1 medium can of brown lentils

1 tsp veg stock paste00

Pepper000

65 g pasta

Enough water to cover

Parsley

In oil start the discs of sausage and when they loose some fat, add onion and garlic and cubed carrot. The complete content of the can of lentils goes in. Add the veg stock and more water. Add pepper and check if salt is needed. Cook for 5 to 7 min.

Cook the pasta on the side. That way the lentils don't get mushy. Bring them together and add some fresh parsley.

AUDI Experience Lunch

I wanted to use the last chance to drive an AUDI R8 V10 Performance quattro and booked a Pure Performance Training in Neuburg/Donau.

A huge complex with a racetrack and a new huge building where they are producing the new Formular 1 engine.

An interesting complex. The catering was great, coffees, cakes, sandwiches and a hot lunch. 

There were different options to choose from. Vegetarian pasta, the same with prawns and beef goulash with polenta patties and side salad.

I went for the beef and it was good.

 

AUDI FORUM Food

I am in Ingolstadt on a short stop to a driving event at the AUDI Experience Center in Neuburg on the Donau.

220 miles of driving and a Museum stop sounded good to me. And a huge glass front that showed the tables of a restaurant.

After looking at the history of AUDI and the many cars and motorbikes I went to the restaurant.

A self service restaurant with different stations of food and drinks.

My first stop was a huge mug of milk coffee and then some coke. Driving makes thirsty.

I decided on pork roast and French fries. Very good, but too much fries for me. 

Blue Cheese and Apple filled Pastry

I am going on a 3 day trip tomorrow and looked through the food that should be gone before that.

2 apples, a half eaten piece of blue cheese and a roll of puff pastry. No the usual ingredients for lunch. But a combination of apples and cheese oftem works. 

Wrapping that in puff pastry was a good choice. A couple of bits and pieces were used up too.

Recipe for 4 pastries:

1 round puff pastry

1 egg yolk

2 apples

4 tbsp pumpkin seeds

3 tsp honey pepper

Preheat the oven 220 C.

Quarter the puff pastry. Core and peel the apples and cut them in 4 equal slices. Put them 2 each in the middle of the pastry.

Top with pumpkin seeds and 2 tranches of soft blue cheese. Drizzle honey on top and ground some black pepper.

Fold the sides of the pastry up and close them. Brush with egg yolk.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Salami Pizza

When I prepare homemade pizza dough, I usually freeze 2 smaller balls for future pizza needs.

I found a ball of dough in my freezer the other evening and took it out to defrost in the fridge over night. In the morning I let it sit on the kitchen counter to get back to room temperature and rise a little, but still in its bag.

I did not have tomato sauce on hand, instead I used Ayvar, the Balkan red bell pepper paste.

Ingredients:

1 pizza dough

3 tsp Ayvar

6 Mini Mozzarella balls

50 g Salami

3 Mini yellow peppers, homegrown

1 green onion

25 g Emmenthal cheese

Majoram, pepper, salt

Preheat the oven 220 C fan.

I harvested the mini yellow bell peppers on my balcony today. Cut some salami from a chunk of salami I bought and tossed everything together.

Bake for 8 min.

Marinated Chicken Steaks in the Oven

An easy way for tasty chicken. 

I used boneless and skinless chicken thighs that were marketed as chicken steaks. Important here is the marinate to keep them juicy after they come out of the oven. The idea came from CanansRezepte.

I marinated them 2,5 hours, but over night is great too. If you are in a pinch timewise, put the chicken steaks in the marinate for 1 hour minimum in the fridge.

Cut up bell peppers went on the baking sheet after half of the baking time. And a pilaw with short oil roasted angelhair pasta and pilaw rice cooked in veg stock with added ayvar was served on the side.

Recipe:

400 g boneless skinless chicken thights

2 red bell peppers

1 tbsp cold butter

Marinate:

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp paprika + smoked paprika + piment d'Espelette

1/2 tsp cumin

Pilaw:

30 g small angelhair pasta

1 tbsp olive oil

1 ricecooker cup pilaw rice

4 rc cups veg stock

3 tsp ayvar

Bake at 180 C fan for 20 min, add peppers and bake 15 min more on baking paper.

Potatoes rosted with Honey on Olive Cream

My newest French Gourmand magazine issue has this recipe and I had a jar of brown and green olives to get rid off.

First I only saw that honey was on top of the roasted potatoes, but then reading the whole recipe I discovered that more honey was used mixed in with garlic and olives.

Fresh herbs, cream cheese and a bit of Greek yogurt as the base under the potatoes, but with olives, garlic and honey. Sounds strange, but the tangy olives, the strong taste of garlic gets smoothed out with the honey. It rounds the flavours very well.

Ingredients for 2:

600 g potatoes

Olive oil, salt, pepper, 4 tsp honey

Cream:

200 g cream cheese

100 g Greek yogurt

60 g Kalamata and green olives

1-2 garlic cloves or 2 tsp paste

Chives, parsley, watercress, sorrel, sage

Salt, pepper

Cook the potatoes with or without skin until done. 

Preheat the oven 200 C.

Use baking paper and put the potatoes on top. Use the bottom of a glass and press them down. Spray with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 10 min, then drizzle the honey on top and bake 10 more min.

While the potatoes cook or are in the oven, stir the cream cheese with all other ingredients together. When the olives still have the stones, get them out before putting them in.

Leave some olives whole for topping later.