My boyfriends' advent calender DIY

Hey mates!

I was terribly busy with crafting and cooking and baking an opulent advent calender the last few weeks.I'm gonna share just some pictures of the content of the calender :)

These funny fellowers are filled with 24 different small chocolate bars (from there)

 Additional, I added a small present for each day, for example:

 handmade filled chocolates, truffles and advent cookies 

white chocolate and cherries

traditional advent cookies

raspberry filled chocolates

dark choc. rum truffles 

 homemade preserves:

christmas balsamic vinegar, flavoured oil, chocolate chilli liqueur

plum jam, tomato chutney, rum oranges and pickled feta

If you're intrested in knowing any of the recipes above, let me know! :)

Savoury baked apples / Pikante Bratäpfel

Although i did do a lot of baked apples in my life, i haven't ever seen a savoury baked apple. I'm wondering why... Well, but this needs to be changed and here is the opportunity to: Ann-Katrin, from the German blog Penne im Topf is introducing new and small blogs during the Advent season and i'm taking part with this wintry baked apples! 

They're filled with chestnuts and red cabbage and reeeally simple to make.

You'll need:

- 6 quite big apples

- 1/2 head of a SMALL red cabbage 

- about 15 chestnuts

- 2 small shallots

50-60g margarine/(vegan) butter

What you have to do:

1. Cut your chestnuts the way above and roast them, sprinkled with water, for about 25 mins with 200°C.

Resprinkle with water if it is evaporated. (~every 5 mins)

2. Meanwhile, cut the red cabbage into tiny little cubes/stripes, as well as the shallots

3. After the 25 mins, let the chestnuts cool down until they're cooled enough to get peeled.

4. Peel the chestnuts and cut them into chunks

5. Mix everything together and add the butter (it should be all sticking together)

6. Core the apples generously and fill them with the mixture, bake them for 20 minutes with 180°C

I think they go best with a nice mushroom sauce and a piece of steak! 

Yellow Okra Coconut Curry

Ooh, i truly love Thai Currys, i mean... who doesn't? ;)

I would leave every Indian Curry standing for a lovely yellow Thai Curry. What's your favourite Curry?

I you haven't ever had okra (also called ladyfingers or bhindi) you should know that they taste most alike green beans and if cooked for too long, they start to ooze a slimy liquid which is good for thickening. Also Okra is rich in fibre (~5g per 100g), in antioxidants and in Vitamin C (36mg per 100g). Moreover It's supposed to be really soothing for the enteric flora and super low in calories. 

A superfood, indeed! :)

 

ingredients:

- 500g Okra

- about 10 cherry tomatoes

- 50g fresh or desiccated coconut

- 2 med. sized onions

- 2 cloves of garlic

- small piece of ginger

- 1 tsp ground cumin

- 1 tsp ground coriander

- 1 tsp tumeric

- 1 1/2 tsp Paprika ground

- 1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper

salt, pepper

- 1 tin of unsweetend coconut milk

(optional: a few prawns for decorating 

 & desiccated coconut to coat the prawns with)

method:

- Cut the okras into about 4cm long pieces

- Cut the onions into small cubes

- Cut the ginger and garlic into tiiiiiny little cubes

- Heat up some oil in a pan, add the onions and stir, until they start to brown

- Add ginger & garlic

-Add all the lovely spices, the okras and the coconut and let them roast over moderate heat for about 3 minutes.

- Add the coconut milk and the tomatoes

- Let the whole meal simmer for ~ 20 minutes or until the okras are soft

(Meanwhile, roll the prawns in desiccated coconut  and start to fry them, 2 minutes before you plan to serve, in plenty of oil.)

I recommend serving the meal with a mixture out of brown and wild rice. :)

Quorn jetzt in Deutschland verfügbar!

Juppi! Letzte Woche bin ich durch den Edeka geschlendert, und was ist mir im Veganen Kühlregal da aufgefallen: Quorn! Ein Produkt, das ich aus meiner England-Zeit kennen und lieben gelernt hab.

Quorn ist ein weiterer Fleischersatz, jedoch nicht aus Tofu oder Seitan, nein, sondern aus Mykoprotein, ein aus Pilzkulturen gewonnenes Eiweiß. Hört sich nicht umbedingt schmeichelhaft an, schmeckt aber fantastisch, die Konsistenz und das Aussehen sind sowas von 100% und Quorn ist äussert kalorien,- und cholesterinfreundlich, dafür reich an Proteinen, Ballaststoffen und Aminosäuren!

Hier z.B. ein Auszug aus der Nährwerttabelle des Quorn Geschnetzeltem

Richtwerte	Pro 100g	Pro Portion
Brennwert – kJ/ kcal	477/114	415/99
Eiweiß	14,0 g	12,2 g
Kohlenhydrate	5,8 g	5,0 g
- davon Zucker	1,3 g	1,1 g
Fett	2,6 g	2,3 g
- davon gesättigte Fettsäuren	0,6 g	0,5 g
Ballaststoffe	5,5 g	4,8 g
Natrium	0,3 g	0,3 g
Salzäquivalent	0,8 g	0,7 g

Erhältlich ist Quorn im Moment nur in ausgewählten Edeka, Rewe und Globus Märkten.
Hier hat der Hersteller super Rezepte veröffentlicht.
Mich hat Quorn garantiert überzeugt, ich hoff das tut es mit euch auch. :)

vegan Red Cabbage Soup

Hey Guys!

Gosh, it's terrible, i haven't posted anything for months, i was stuck in... well, sort of a transition phase.

My voluntary year in England ended ans so i moved back to my parents to Germany.

The summer months were lovely back home and i started to work in a quite posh 

restaurant in September as a waitress (of course my main interest if watching our chef while he's cooking :D)

but now most of my friends moved to another town for studying and i have to wait for another half a year (hopefully). Well, that's the actual state of affairs, but the most important thing is that my motivation to cook and blog is back!

It seems like the winter already started in my hometown, the forecasts for tomorrow are about 5°C and snow in some parts of my area.

My grandparents (whom i cook for, if they don't cook for me) enjoy a good and warming soup when the weather is like this (rainy, windy, cold) and so we had lovely spicy Red Cabbage soup.

It was oh so delicious, the cinnamon harmonized so perfectly with this thick soup, full of vitamins (C, B6 and E) and fibre!

Ingredients:   

• 2 med. sized onions          
• 1 peeled apple
• ~1/2 red cabage head              
• 1 Tbsp jam (cranberry or black currant should do fine)
• ~1 litre vegetable stock
• a whole lot of salt & pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• pinch of ground clove
• (optional: vegan cream)         

method:

• Cut the onions, the apples and the red cabbage into small cubes (keep them all seperate)
• Fry the onions in some oil or vegan butter until soft, add the jam and let it roast for a bit
• add the Cabbage and the apples and fry the whole mixture for about 5 minutes
• Add the vegetable stock and let the soup simmer for ~ 45 mins over moderate heat, stir occasionally
• Blend the mixture with a blender, add more stock if you are not happy with the consistency
• Season the soup heavily, add the rest of the spices
• If would like to have a creamier soup and a more pinky color, add some vegan cream when you've turned off the heat

ENJOY! :)      

  

                                              
         

"Graze box" review I

Hey guys!

You've probably already heard about this snack/nibble boxes, that are called "graze box", at least in the UK they seem to be hyped, because they are advertising on many websites at the moment.
That's how i took notice of this adorable, with healthy nutritious snacks filled boxes and of course i desperately needed one! :D

So every monday I'm excited the whole morning until RoyalMail finally arrives at about 2pm with my snackbox... And to be honest, most of the snacks are already gone on the same day... 0:-)

Well anyway, this  is the graze site, where you can order the boxes. You can choose when and how often (every day, every week, every forthnight) you want to receive your box and they're gonna send it to you!
Every box contains 4 little plastic boxes with yummi contents, as you can see on the picture above.
What you can't see is, that they are quite small (they fit trough the letter slot) but certainly you can't expect a large size for £3.89 (including free delivery!).
If it appears you don't like a content of your box (or you like a certain one especially) , you've got the oppurtinity to let the graze people know that by just clicking "bin it" (or "like it") on the website.

pumpkin and ginger cake with an afternoon infusion

i like the idea it comes with an infusion,

the cake itself is solid but not remarkable      

Just to make you even more hungry, i'll show you the contents of my boxes every week with a little review on them.

cookies and cream

mini chocolate cookies, roasted hazels, white chocolate buttons and sunflower seeds

It was all right, it didn't knocked my socks of or anything

baked soy bits with sweet chilli sauce

the only thing of the whole range until now, i couldn't eat
the "bits" come with the distinctive soya flavour
and i just dislike sweet and sour/hot stuff

tutti frutti

blueberry infused cranberries, pineapple, cherry infused raisins and green raisins

OMG you never knew dried fruit can taste SO good!

The pineapple was heaven on earth. There are no artificial preservatives in the fruit, 

just pure nature's goodness.

vegan Rhubarb-Marzipan-Muffins with cinnamon crust

Hello!

There are a few more rhubarb stalks left in the Dandelion garden, but due to my latest rhubarb addiction they won't make it long. :D

My father always says you mustn't eat rhubarb after the 24/06 anyway, because by then the concentration of oxalic acid in the stalks has increased so much that it might harm people.

The following recipe is by far my favourite rhubarb rescipe,

because of it's unqiue taste and because of the fact that it is vegan, low in carbs, low in fats and low in sugar!

I know thy don't look any special,  and withouth the crust they wouldn't be outstanding,

but the lovely tart rhubarb with the sweet marzipan and the crunchy cinnamony crust makes one of the most delicous muffins i ever had, with the addition that you can enjoy them almost without any guilty feelings :)

Anyway, this muffins passed the taste-test by my colleagues, who often perk their eyebrows up when i start baking and I've been asked fot his recipe several times.

See you guys with the last wild garlic recipe for this season! ;)

Wild garlic muffins / Bärlauch-Muffins

As I told you in the last post, I'm gonna spoil you with many wild garlic recipes now, 
before the season is completely over (at least in England it still isn't :D)

Some friends and me had a picnic at Leeds Castle 
(is supposed to be the loveliest castle in the world, wasn't quite convinced)
 a few weeks ago and for this reason I prepared some wild garlic and rhubarb muffins (recipe is coming in the following post), which both were a great hit!

See you next time! :)

My First post: Wild Garlic Pesto

Wow!

My first post...

I've been planning this blog since i came over to England when all my colleagues started to mention my "incredibe cooking skills", that's exactly 10 moths ago!

And now i'm finally writing on my first post in my first blog ever :)

At the charity i'm working at in the moment all the wild garlic is flowering now (due to the late spring season this year).

When you walk through the garden,

you get this intense smell of garlic in your nose and if you're a garlic lover, as i am, that's just beautiful.

This is the backside of the house where the charity i'm volunteering for is in, by the way.

It's a ~650 years old farm house, with a garden as big as ~ 4 football fields ans absolutely adorable!

But back to topic... I was wondering what to do with all this masses of wild garlic, and i decided to make something durable, and you shouldn' dry wild garlic and it looses to much of it's lovely flavour while freezing.

Well, and the outcome is this wild garlic pesto!

Personally I enjoy it most on a nice rye or sourdough bread, topped with a bit of yogurth.

But i already tried it in several more dishes, what i'm going to show you in one of my next posts. :)

But, ATTENTION, when picking wild garlic, always check every single leave to make 100% sure you're actually picking wild garlic and not lily of the valley.

 

The right and shiny one is a lily of the valley leave, while the matt one, with the strong garlic smell is a leave of the wild garlic plant!

Take care, see you then!