Recipe: Butternut Squash Soup

This soup is perfect for a light, healthy lunch or dinner.

Ingredients:
1 butter nut squash
1 pear
2 cups soy milk
1 cube veggie broth
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 apple- diced







Preparation:

Cut the squash in 1/2 and place face down in a glass dish, with a bit of water  to cover the ground of the dish. Bake for 30-45 minutes at 180 C degrees until the squash is easily pierced with a fork. Then peel (or scoop out the soft pulp) and place the squash in a pot on medium heat.

Add the pear, sliced in 1/2, the soy milk, veggie broth and spices.

Blend for a few minutes until the soup is hot and the consistency is a velvety texture.

Scoop into bowls and serve with a sprinkling of diced apple and a bit of cinnamon.

It tastes soooo good, you will love it !
Enjoy

Recipe: filled mushrooms

Its the week of simple dishes I believe, or as a matter of fact side dishes.

Today I made stuffed mushrooms as a side dish.
Ingredients:
mushrooms
cream
ham in cubes
cheese
onion
cucumber
butter


First clean the mushrooms, but if possible not with rinsing water, since we don't want to get them soaked and wet. Than coop a onion fine and also the cucumber. Beat the cream and than add the onion and cucumber, together with some salt and pepper, this is the sauce cream you serve later the champions with.



Next, cook the spinach in a pot and add a bit of onion and the ham. Use this to fill the mushrooms and on top add some grated cheese.

Now bake the mushrooms for about 15 minutes on 180 C in the oven. They should look as nice golden brown as here on the pictures.

Serve with the Cream,
Enjoy !

Recipe: Gorgonzola Spaghetti

Lazy days, but Happy days.

Do you know those days, busy with work, complete without power you get home, and the last thing you want to do is spend hours in the kitchen ?

I had recently such a day, and its still a wonder that I took the camera to document what I was up to.


I made one of the laziest recipes ever, but tasty like hell. Spaghetti Gorgonzola

Ingredients:
you guessed right..
Spaghetti
Gorgonzola cheese
milk or cream
1 egg
Salt and pepper

Mix all except the spaghetti in a pot and let the cheese melt under medium heat. Bring once to boil, add now the the still hot spaghetti mix and serve.
Done in 10 Minutes, tasty and filling.
I wouldn't invite guests for such a dish but for a lazy day the perfect solution !

Enjoy !

Recipe: Wild Duck

Hey Ducky,

here my experience how to cook duck from stretch. First: You need to know a hunter you is so kind to get you some wild ducks, legally shot in the right season.

Second step is to plug and gut the ducks.
Its for a modern human maybe not that easy to do so, my experience was its a messy and hard business, and you need to have a good stomach to do so.

Its rewarding however after that long preparation to have the bird finally on your plate.

I went with a really simple recipe, but i believe something went wrong, not that the duck was burned, ok on the picture below it looks pretty black, but that's from soy sauce i put on top.

My duck was way too dry, and I didn't like the sauce. Also, on a wild duck, there isn't much meat on it, so the below duck wasn't enough for 3, not even for 2 people.

I served it however with some vegs, so it turned out not to be a complete kitchen disaster.

I will however do make more research how to get a better result, and than publish the recipe here.
Still got 2 ducks in the freezer and will try soon different recipes and approaches, and will let you know what worked best for me.



If you have a suggestion please use the comment function.

Recipe: Sesame Rice Balls side dish

I made too much Sushi rice the other day, so I kept it in the fridge for one more day, which is usually not a good idea fro sushi rice since it shouldn't get too dry.

I however didn't want to make sushi twice in a row so I used the rice, formed balls and did turn them in sesame seeds.

In the oven i gently rewarmed the balls and served them as a side dish with meat.

Its a tasty alternative to potatoes and if you serve it with some sauce to go with it its quiet filling.

Enjoy !

Recipe: Semolina dumpling soup- Griessnockerl Suppe

Time to write about something easy and fast to cook. This tasty soup takes you no longer than 10 minutes to make.

First make a dough with the below ingredients:

125ml milk
120g semolina
80g soft butter
2 eggs
salt
pinch of ground nutmeg

Than, form little dumplings and put them in soup soup you made from stock.and let them simmer for approx. 10 minutes. Do not cover the pot, and watch them, once the swim up and you tried one and its soft its time to serve.

If you wait to long or boil it too hot, they dumplings will break and you got a semolina soup.(which doesn't taste bad either, but doesn't look as good)

Enjoy !

Recipe: Apple Avocado Smoothie

The other day I saw we had too many fruits at home so i thought lets do a smoothie for a change.

On yummimix.com I found this unusual recipe which tastes not too bad and is very healthy.
Ingredients:
1 large apple, washed and quartered
1/2 avocado
1 orange
3 mint leaves
1/4″ slice of lime (with some peel)
1/2 cup water
1 cup ice cubes

Place all in your blender and blend until its really smooth.
It easily serves 4 and gives you all the vitamins you need for your day !

Happy St. Patricks Day

Fois Gras de Canard

Here another Specialty from France,
Fois Gras. I picture already my colleague Brice getting homesick and commenting on Facebook about this great delicatess from his home country.

For some people this kind of food might be very controversial, since the ducks have been specially fattened in order to get a big liver and fat.


Interesting is also that the technique used to conserve this product is more than 4500 Years old.
If you want to learn more about that product I suggest to visit Wikipedia

I taste this product once a year at Xmas, on plain toast bread, and can tell you, its delicious !

Hollondaise from Hell

I recently posted about how to make Sauce Hollandaise, well, one lesson i have learned when i produced now this disaster on the left (basically its scrambled eggs now) is to watch the heat !

Good side is,
its pretty fast to make a second attempt to get it right !

Recipe: Kasnocken

Its about time again to write something about home,
was just looking in the freezer and found some Bierkäse (Beercheese) from home,
so I thought lets make quick some Kasnocken.

Ingredients:
1/4 l water
1 egg
1 cup (300 g) flour
1/4 cup (70 g) butter
120 g fat cheese and 120 g low-fat cheese OR 250gram Pinzgauer Bierkäse
salt and pepper
1 big onion, cut into rings
1 bunch of chives, finely chopped

First make a dough with 1/4l water, 1 egg and the cup of flour. This dough should be fairly firm, similar to a pizza dough. Than bring a pot of water to cook. Using a special sieve or with a chopping board, let the dough drop into the boiling water, once you drop it slowly little dumplings are formed in the water. Let them boil 3 minutes, than get rid of the water.

Now add the dumplings back in, but first the butter. On medium heat you cook them until the cheese which you gridded on top of them is melted. now put the chives on top, and in a separate pan you fry the onion rings and also put them on-top.

Kasnocken are traditionally served in a pot or old pan, the whole family sits around the table and eats from the same pan. Milk as refreshment is served with it, also a little green Salad.

The slightly burned bit on the bottom is a speciality and called "Prinzn".

Enjoy

Recipe: Sauce Hollandaise

Sauce Hollandaise (Dutch sauce)  goes great with fish, but also meat and only takes a bit of preparation.

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
3 Tablespoon water
1 Tbsp citron juice
Salt & Pepper




Mix the egg yolks with the 3 Tbsp of water, citron, and salt & pepper in a small pot. Bring water to boil in a bigger pot and place the small pot in it, constantly stir the sauce, but be careful that it doesn't get too much heat, otherwise you cook the egg yolks and the sauce is a disaster !

It should get the consistency as shown in above picture and should be served straight away. You cant reheat the sauce.

Enjoy !

Table decoration

There is a saying, that we also eat with the eye,
meaning, if something is attractive presented, it tastes even better.

My aupair is a master of folding techniques, my self I rely on folding instructions,
which can be found for example on this website.

Doesn't it look great ?

New Review Inchidoney Hotel

Checkout my latest review of the Inchidoney Hotel and Spa in Clonakilty on West cork Times.com

DIY: Kaercher Power hose

Daddy got a new toy.
I got myself a Kaercher power hose, again I got a very good deal at West Cork Builders, I wrote about another shopping experience there a while ago.

I am very happy with the new tool, and i have no excuse anymore for a dirty car or dirty windows.
Also its great to give a good spring cleanup arround the house.

Here a before / after picture, can you see how much dirt I could get rid of in front of our utility room ?

I might make some other example pictures, but I guess you get the picture, it just cleans like hell !

Recipe: Jaegerschnitzel

Most people don't know, but there are actually 1000 ways how to cook a Schnitzel.

Today I show you how easy it is to prepare the Jaeger schnitzel (Hunters Schnitzel)

Ingredients:
Pork chops, per person one
Mushrooms
Carrots
Asparagus or other veggies in season
Nocken as a side

Clean the mushrooms and cut them in slices. Do the same for the carrots and also clean the asparagus. I cook carrots and asparagus  separately in pots with boiling water for 10-15 minutes,later remove the water and add some butter and keep it warm.
To the carrots I like to add a bit of honey and garlic at that stage. Spice the Pork chops with salt and pepper and fry them in a very hot pan for 2 minutes on each side, than set them aside and let them rest.

Now fry the mushrooms in butter on medium heat, and add a bit of cream and flour to get a nice sauce. Add back in the pork and serve as suggested above.

Enjoy

How not to cook a duck

via Face book,
since the last post was about duck,
this video demonstrates, how not to cook one.

Have fun: