Recipes « trivial bliss

Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

Pflaumenkuchen vs. Autumn

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

"Pflaumenkuchen" with whipped cream

I’ve learned that beside the normal calendar there is a meteorologic calendar which divides the year into the four seasons. How could I think that beginning of September belongs to summer? I hate wearing socks as much as I like walking barefoot and yesterday I had to make the first compromise. We went out in the evening and it was way to cold for sandals, so I decided to wear my boots without socks because otherwise I would have felt like in winter. I don’t know whether it’s the discovery of the year but wherever I complained about the cold weather some educational voice would answer “The meteorologic calendar says it’s autumn since September 1st”. Does that mean I missed my chance to make a German “Pflaumenkuchen” at the end of this summer? Give me a break! (more…)

Cake + Recipes

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Quiche or a matter of courtesy

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

Quiche with peas and mint

Do you like quiche? I don’t. Or should I say I didn’t? I’ve tried so many of them, usually recommended by friends with an introduction like “Quiches can be so boring, dry and flat. This one isn’t, have a bite, Im sure you’ll love it as much as I do!”. I’ve been raised up with a mother who taught me to be complimentary and diplomatic, above all when friends give gifts to you or invite you for dinner. You wouldn’t believe how many tasteless dusty bites of Quiches ended in my mouth, turning to unswallowable pulp and doubling its size until a combination of a glass of wine and body control saved me just before I mumbled “Oh, how delicate!”.

Little Quiches in a muffin tin

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Recipes + Starters

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High in potatoes, rhubarb and elderberries and possibly a change in the law

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

waffles with whipped cream and jelly of elderberries

Finally we had our first big potato harvest. It was a beautiful day, sunny and dry, Thomas spent the morning in the garden and proudly presented the fruits of success: about 25 kilos of gorgeous-looking potatoes. He was sweaty and full of dirt but..gee!…he looked so damn happy.

our own potatoes

Now we store them in my dad’s workshop where it’s cold and dark and every time I see them I have to smile. Never ever in my entire life I would have imagined that I could possibly have such strong feelings for comparatively shabby dirty fellas. I always loved eating them though and last week we had them in four variations: mash, salad, simply boiled and potato fritters.

Jamie's potato salad with smoked salmon

The salad is from Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie At Home” book and you serve it with smoked salmon and horseradish sauce, it really is delicious and one of our all-time favourites (more…)

Garden + Recipes + Vegetables

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Nobody’s Parfait?

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

basil lime parfait

Lately we were invited by friends and they surprised us with “a perfect dinner”. We all like watching “Das Perfekte Promi Dinner”, a TV series adapted from the British “Celebrity Come Dine With Me”. The German version features celebrities whose name in the majority of cases you’ve never heard of and most of them are either athletes decorated with a silver medal for something like hurdle race or so-called actors from soaps running on TV in the afternoon when most people are at work. Anyway, we love to slouch on the couch while watching other people sweating in their kitchen, working on the decoration in order to get a good rating from the guests at the end of the evening. That night at our friends’ house it was lovely weather and we had the aperitif on the balcony and the four courses (salad, meat dish, dessert and cheese) inside. Everything was very good and each course had its perfectly matching wine, it was a great evening and we had a blast (by all means we had a perfect dinner and rated them 10!). The absolute winner certainly was the dessert: a basil lime parfait.

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Dessert + Recipes

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Impress your guests with an inexpensive dinner

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

As I wrote many times: we absolutely love having friends for dinner. It’s great to go to the food market and pick fresh vegetables, organic meat and the right selections of wines and ingredients for mouthwatering desserts. These are the special days, it’s nothing we do every day. Luckily we’ve learned to pull something out of the hat with a little less effort and costs because – especially when you have kids - you never know how many people there will be at the dinner table until last minute. One of our favorites for these occasions is homemade pasta. There’s millions of good ideas and recipes but I think everyone has a standard formula for feeding a bunch of people without spending a fortune but still raising a cheer. Ours is ravioli. The fillings do vary from ricotta and spinache to cheese, onions and bacon or walnuts, cheese and basil…whatever there is in the fridge. Until we found our best pasta dough it took a couple of attempts. The most difficult thing was to keep the pastry elastic and dry because otherwise it will either stick to your fingers or end up perforated, both is annoying. Our recipe with a guarantee for success (a friend who is an Italian chef gave away his secret) is the following: