2011 Eastern European Reading Challenge

Here's a way to expose yourself to new books and new writers and new cultures.

After a Motorcycle Ride

I took a walk, P took a ride.  This is what he saw.  Malibu Pier.

And this is what he ate when he got home.  Camembert with lingonberry jam on my homemade hemp seed bread.  

By the way, I think I fell in love with him after he made me a meal of fried Camembert with lingonberry sauce more than 20 years ago in an apartment over the Sunset Strip.  Hard to resist.

Palatschinken with blackberry jam

I could eat these every day for every meal.  Have I ever said that before?  Because I would never get sick of these.

Leftovers

Every culture has its dumpling.  The Austrian version is the Knödel and it's mostly bread with eggs and onions and parsley, all boiled together into either a ball or a sausage-shape.  For our recent winter goose meal, I baked the bread that became the Knödel.  But the next few dinners were what I really looked forward to: Knödel leftovers or geröstete Knödel mit Ei (fried dumpling with scrambled egg).  You can improvise a lot with this by adding savory fried onions and/or cranberry sauce or apple sauce.  Or cheese sprinkled on top.  Or bacon if you are the vegetarian-who-eats-bacon.  Since it's really the same ingredients as French toast, maybe try some maple syrup.  I bet that would be good.  But I chuckled when I was having dinner #2 of this delicacy (and I don't use that word lightly) at the fact that we were having bread that had first been baked, then boiled, and now fried.

Leftover Dinner #1

Leftover Dinner #2

Homesick and Hungry

Almost every year, P gets homesick and hungry for a good, winter, central European meal.  

The stuffing for the goose starts with onions and butter in sage.  Then he added carrots and walnuts.

Slow-cooked goose, red cabbage made the day before (it improves as it marinates), carrot-walnut stuffing, and Knödel with gravy (dumpling made from my homemade bread).

A's amazing pumpkin tart.  She baked a real pumpkin, none of that canned stuff for her.  The crust is graham cracker.  This had a gorgeous, caramel flavor.

A's Christmas cookies.  

A's red wine.

A Working Girl's Dessert

Trogir

I just remembered the Croatian town of Trogir.

(I did not take this picture.  I borrowed it.)

Shanavision

Shanavision is the blog my friend is keeping while she's on sabbatical in China with her husband and daughter.  She is a painter and a teacher and I've known her since college.  She's the only one of my friends who actually became the artist we all set out to be.
Here's one image from the beginning of her adventure.

Yellow

I have no idea how I happened to collect this yellow bunch.

Breakfast

My own toast with homemade apricot jam from Karin in Austria; if only you could always have homemade jam.  And by the way, toast and tea is the best meal ever.  Always.

Garlic

Take it off the heat 

as soon as it starts to turn golden.

The hot oil will continue to cook it 

to the perfect shade of finished.

nami-nami: a food blog: Roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic

nami-nami: a food blog: Roasted cauliflower with bacon and garlic: "First of all, thank you all for your kind feedback about the upcoming Nami-Nami Cookbook! Your support means a lot to me... I'm trying to..."

I did not make these

I got them at Frosted.

There's No Substitute for Red

Why do I covet certain Swedish red things?

(Höganäs teapot)

(Hasbeens clogs)

I Am So Proud of Our Rolls (and Jenny would be too)

It's only our first attempt so some of them are ugly, but they get prettier after they're baked.  

(recipe from the Tassajara Bread Book)

sprinkling the rolls with poppy seeds and sesame seeds before baking

right out of the oven

It's finally schnitzel season

And high time too.

I am a proud member of the My Husband Cooks Club.

A Typical Dinner at Our House

P's perfect turkey Bolognese sauce.  This time he added some finely chopped chipotle peppers on top for some extra smokey heat.

And for dessert--coffee and chocolate ice cream over homemade vanilla cake.

Loot

What P brought back from Europe: Pischinger Eckerl (my favorite Austrian chocolates), Italian pumpkin flour, Julius Meinl cups and saucers, 7 tubes of his favorite Estragon mustard, sock yarn from Ursula, pink pepper corns covered in powdered chocolate (never heard of that--do I season with it or snack on it?), homemade apricot and plum jam from Viennese friends, Rum Kokos (his favorite chocolate), pretty pencils, Wiener Werkstatt earrings, soap.  Lucky me I didn't go this time...

In Honor of Our First Day of Swimming This Year

"bathers 1927" by Zinaida Serebriakova

Prison

from yesterday's

LA Times article

Toppings

P's Liptauer on my homemade whole wheat (with oat bran) sandwich bread

peanut butter and Nutella on homemade peasant bread (with wheat germ)

Meals at Home

Breakfast: homemade granola with bananas and rice milk

Lunch: peanut butter and jelly on homemade pumpkin seed bread; tea with milk

Dinner: pasta with garlic, olive oil, and feta 

Pecan Dreams

From The Tassajara Recipe Book; Favorites of the Guest Season

So simple and sweet.

Work Socks

OK

Grains

  This recipe comes from The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook.  

Baking in Another Language

Kürbiskernbrot.  Pumpkinseed bread.

I translated from German, measured ingredients out in metric... This must be good for the brain.

The dough is greenish from the pumpkinseed oil.

Loaf pan oiled well and sprinkled with crushed pumpkin seeds.

Successful experiment.  

I'll make this again.

 

Cake

This turned out well.

Either/ Or

You could have a craving for something sweet.  You could fool yourself it's healthy, after all, it's got fruit in it.  You could make this:

Fresh Raspberry-Sour Cream Crumb Cake.

Or if you're really lucky, and someone's making you dinner, he might give you something simple and delicious like this while you're waiting:

Chives on homemade bread with butter.  In Austria it's called Schnittlauchbrot.  We like to get this at our favorite cafe in Vienna, das Kleine Cafe.

What's for Breakfast?

I don't even like Reindling.  What's next?

California Reindling

It'll be a shame if this doesn't turn out.  It's a Kärntner Reindling.  I'm translating from German to English, from decigrams to centigrams, portioning out little weighed bowls of milk and sugar and butter and flour.  I'm even doing algebra (I think) to convert cake yeast into my fast, fool-proof yeast amount.  I don't know if it's going to be correct.

And another thing: I keep spilling.

This could be a huge waste of time.

This is supposed to be rising.

Ooops.  That was supposed to be 4mm thick, not 4cm.

I stuffed it into a pan that was probably too small.

If you take off the burnt raisins, it looks okay.

Cooling down.  It smells good.  Even if it's wrong, it smells correct.