Spring is in the Air!

Hi, Y'all!

Hubby and I got our first shots with Biontech on Wednesday, and whereas I was kind of tired yesterday, Hubby fights against some nasty headaches on day 2. But apart from that we're awfully glad that it happened way faster than expected. 

The weather in our new hometown is quite aprily which means, a bit of sun, a bit of wind, a bit of rain, sometimes warm, sometimes pretty cold. But when you look at the trees and bushes, you instantly realize that spring is not only around the corner, it is already at our door. And I very much hope that it decides to linger for a while! 

And therefore, I decided to make something spring-related for Saturday's dinner: home-made pasta, yay! I happened to find a special pasta-flour, and as hubby made the pasta dough, an egg-dough it was. To be exact: 1 egg per 100 g flour. And because I couldn't decide on a filling, I made both, one with wild garlic and one with goat cheese. 

They weren't much complicated: The wild garlic one consisted of said garlic, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and egg yolks (the egg whites went into the scrambled eggs next morning). And for the second filling I mushed the soft goat cheese with a fork, added a whole egg and some spring onions and was done. 

Looked like this:

And from the second picture you might guess the topping for the ravioli... I decided not to overwhelm the delicate pasta fillings and stayed away from a tomato sauce. Instead I chose two different butters - yes, once again, I couldn't decide :-) The first one was a melted butter with lemon juice and zest which was served with the wild garlic ravioli, and for the goat cheese ravioli I made melted butter with honey and sage. Will definitely do that again!

For dessert I made some panna cotta. Isn't overly complicated but looks always very impressive and was therefore the perfect match for the pasta. After mixing the heavy cream with the gelatin, I poured it into the famous all-purpose little glasses which you can find at the well-known Swedish furniture shop. And as I felt kind of adventurous, I placed them inclined in a muffin tray to let them sit. 

And just to be clear: They lasted for the whole weekend! Although we are like two hungry caterpillars, we sometimes can restrain ourselves :-) When everything is congealed, you can easily mash some berries (either fresh or from the freezer) and put it on top. That's definitely something to brag about, don't you think?

Well, ok, ok, you could top it off with some mint leaves or chopped pistachios, but you have to leave some room for improvement, right?

And a few days ago, I made some oven-roasted cauliflower slices, and obviously you can only slice up the middle part of the cauliflower head, the rest falls apart. To use that up, I threw it in my blender to shred it. You could make some fried kind-of-rice with it, and about that I was going to make. I fried the cauliflower in a pan with some olive oil, then set it aside and took the same pan to fry some minced veggie-meat, onions, garlic and red bell pepper. I then added a can of diced tomatoes and some tomato paste, spiced it up and re-added the cauliflower. You could put some shredded cheddar on top and gratinate it in the oven, but I simply threw some feta-cheese into the mix. Looked like roadkill but tasted like heaven!

And sometimes it's wise to listen to the offspring... I alcready created some art work (or let's say, some diy projects) for our home, but the bedroom was still in need of some decoration. I already finished two art works but I didn't like them at all and was on the verge of giving up and throwing them under the bus. But after a thorough inspection of our youngest, she told me to try again, because it wasn't as bad as I thought. 

So I ran and purchased some more paper and started over. And what can I say? The second attempt was waaaay better! I wanted something delicate and flowery, not dramatic but abstract, and it should fit into the whole picture. Therefore, I chose a combination of water color and metal foil. Sounds funny, looks good.

In detail:

Sometimes it's good to take advice, sleep over it (one night or 25) and start all over again :-)

Have a nice weekend, you lovelies!!

Happy Belated Easter!

Hi, Y'all!

Did you find all your Easter eggs? We spent our Holidays pretty comfortable: hubby's firstborn has been visiting, we devoured the egg liqueur/advocaat which my mother in law made, all Covid tests turned out negative, what more can you wish for?! 

Apart from the nasty white stuff falling from the clouds and the fact that it's freezing cold outside, the weather is kind of nice - sun is shining and the first spring flowers bloom. Therefore I was in the mood for asparagus and made a quiche with smoked salmon and green asparagus for hubby and me:

And when our Billie Eilish-double was here (picture in my last post) we made a pizza with white asparagus, zucchini and bechamel instead of tomato sauce - and for the vegan child no shredded cheese on top: 

In the meantime both daughters have chosen to live vegan, and thus we're having lots of vegetarian/vegan dishes on our menu right now. Yesterday, for example we had a hot curry with potatoes, carrots and cashews. Easter Sunday I had some time to kill and therefore decided to try home-made gnocchi. In fact they weren't so complicated as I feared. Basically I cooked potatoes, peeled and mashed them. Then I added some flour, salt and nutmeg and mixed everything into a dough. 

I divided the dough into smaller portions which I rolled into balls and made that typical pattern with a fork. Actually I wanted to roll them with the fork, but these silly little guys were so stubborn! Well then, let's have potato cookies instead of gnocchi... 

This is the complete outcome from 750 g potatoes and 270 g flour:

Afterwards you cook these buggers in a large pot with a lot of salty water. I can't tell the exact cooking time, but you throw them into the boiling water and they sink. As soon as they come up again, they are finished. Therefore, don't leave the pot, it might be done quickly! 

But pure gnocchi might be boring, thus I threw some onions, spinach, chickpeas and cherry tomatoes into a pan and spiced that with lots of garlic, nutmeg and some more. This is my personal traffic light coalition (politically correct and super yummy):

Appr. two thirds of the gnocchi I mixed into the pan, and the rest I roasted in a separate pan to get them really crisp and crunchy. My conclusion: easier than anticipated, but took quite some time to prepare. Now I'm thinking about preparing them in bulk and freezing them. The only thing I don't know yet is, if I should freeze them cooked or uncooked - but I should be able to find that out. And then, these gnocchi might be a nice alternative, even for weekdays. 

And similar to my last blog post, please find some doggie content:

But before you inform the humane society, please be aware that this little old girl is well loved and spoiled rotten! 

Take care and stay safe!!!