And now the German Cheesecake 'Käsekuchen'

Yuppie, I will get a cheesecake today ;o)).

Make a pie-pastry from 200 g Flour, 125 g Sugar, 1 tsp Baking Powder, Vanilla Sugar, 130 g Butter, 1 Egg and put in the fridge for at least 30 min.

Roll out to a thin crust and fill a round form with it. Bake at 175 °C for about 20 min.

For the filling: Mix 3 Egg, 180 g Sugar and 100 g Butter until creamy. Add 5 tbsp Flour and mix into the cream. Add 750 g Quark (curd cheese, fromage frais) and 200 g Sour Cream, Juice of 1 Lemon and a handful of Raisins stir until smooth,

Take the crust out of the oven and fill the Quark-mix into it.

Bake at 175 °C for another 1.5 hours.

Mezze Feast

Finally, today I thought about making photos (or rather got my better half to do it) while cooking. First, I made a mixture of an Arabian Salad and Tabbouleh (from the recipes I got while attending a class at Petra Kitchen in Jordan - I still remember that evening, we had so much fun). Second, I tried a recipe for baked Falafel if found at a Vicarious Foodie's blog and made some Meatballs with Mint and Tzatziki.

My Arabian Tabbouleh Fusion:

For my fusion salad I chopped 4-5 tomatoes, 1/2 cucumber, 1 red pepper, 1 piece of garlic, 1 cup parsely, and a few mint leaves very finely, seasoned with fresh pepper, salt and a bit chili and a lug of olive oil and lemon juice. Lovely.

Falafel

As I said I looked for some falafel recipes that I could bake in the oven instead of frying and decided to try the one from Vicarious Foodie, I just changed a few ingredients to suit my taste and just saw that I forgot the onions (buaahh):

1 can of chickpeas (small one), 1/8 cup minced onion, 1 glove minced garlic, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/4 tsp ground coriander, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/3 cup pasely, coriander and mint leaves (together not each), 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 spritz of lemon juice, 1 tsp tahini, a few crackers to roll the falafel in. 

The taste was lovely, but they were a bit crumbly, so next time I firstly will include the onions ;o) and roll them in a beaten egg before rolling in the bread (or cracker) crumbs.

Meatballs

1 lb minced lean beef, 1 lb minced lamb, parsely, mint, coriander (there was enough left from the salads ;o), 1 finely chopped onion, pepper, salt, chili flakes.

Mix all together and fry in some olive oil until golden or as brown as you like.

Tzatziki 

1/4 cucumber finely chopped, normally I use lot's of dill, this time it was (who would have guessed?) mint, garlic (to your taste), olive oil, salt, pepper and 4 tbsp of greek yoghurt. 

This time I made a rather small amount as we only where 2 people and I didn't want to eat tzatziki all week (altough I really like it). Mix it all together and enjoy.

Lentil and Veggie Salat - Yummi

Currently, I am looking for some healthier recipes and I am absolutely delighted with this one. I found it at "Cook yourself thin" and adapted it a bit to my taste and I think you can try it with many different veggies.

1 Aubergine, 1 Zucchini, 3 Peppers (red, green, yellow), a few Tomatoes, 1 Onion (red or white), 1-2 cloves of Garlic, Salt, Pepper, Chili powder (or fresh Chili), fresh Parsely a bit of fresh Mint, a handful of green Lentils, Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, Goats Cheese (if you like)

Cut all vegetables in slices (tomatoes and onion in quarters), put in a deep baking dish (like a lasagna form) sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper and chili and bake in the oven for around 30 min at 200-220 °C. Stir once or twice to get veggies evenenly brown.

In the meantime cook lentils in little water with a tabelspoon of balsamic vinegar (takes about 20 min.)

Mix veggies and lentil and season to taste with more balsamic vinegar, parsely and a bit of mint.

You can let it cool down to eat as a salat or put some Goat's Cheese on top and grill for it for additional 1-2 min.

I will include a photo as soon as I make it again. Can't be too long ;o)

Teneriffe, Spain

Oh my, I haven't posted in ages...

Our latest holidays have been to Tenerife, Spain and we brought some very nice new culinary delights home.
My biggest love is Pescado estilo Canario, the better half can't get enough of Torrijas and if I just wouldn't have changed my diet I still would like to eat Quesillo ever day ;o).

Pescado estilo Canarias
For this recipe, the whole fish is cooked in seafood or fish broth. Put the fish on a plate and rub the plate with chili, pour olive oil over plate and fish, afterward pour a bit of aceito balsamico into the olive oil on the plate (not the fish). Drizzle with a bit of the broth and eat with papas arugadas or bread. Lovely.

Torrijas
The idea is similar to "bread and butter pudding" or "Arme Ritter" in Germany, however it is deep fried in olive oil. In Spain it is eaten around Easter, and we love to have it at breakfast, but it is evenly delicious cold in the afternoon. But let's start from the beginning.

Get a white bread that is not to fluffy, wait until it is a good day old. Slice the bread ~2 cm thick. Heat 1/2 l of milk and soak the slices into it. But on a plate for some time to rest. Beat up 2 eggs and pour in a deep plate. In an other plate, prepare a cinnamon and sugar mix. Heat a deep pan with a very good amount of olive oil and roll the first batch of milk-soaked bread in the eggs. Ensure that the olive oil is really hot before putting the slices in. Fry until golden from both sides and drain on a paper kitchen towel before turning it into the sugar mix. Enjoy!

Quesillo
It's a flan - very similar to flan caramel - and I haven't found a recipe yet to try.

Multicolored Coleslaw

We have been shopping today and I remembered the recipe from Jamie's latest book (Jamie at home) for coleslaw. Luckily, I could get lots of crunchy veggies for and gave it my own twist. Unfortunately, I don't have a food processor yet, so it was pure manual labor (took me probably 1 hour) but it was absolutly worse it.

Here my version of it (and you can at least feed 4 people with it): 1/2 small red cabbage, 1/2 small cabbage, 1 fennel bulb, 1 red onion, 1 shallot, 1 parsnip, 3 carrots, 250 g yoghurt, 2 tablespoon mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon honeymustard, fresh chives, parsley, mint, fresh black pepper, salt

I loved how the mint and fennel works in it, amazing.

Cut (or process) everything in julienne slices, mix it together and you are done. We made same oven-baked potato wedges to go with it, that we spiced with some mustard seeds, chili, pepper, salt etc.

Yummi - I will buy a food processor next weekend - you bet!