Glance into my Saucepan

Hi, Y'all!

At the moment, the Weather in Germany resembles 50 shades of grey, but take comfort in the fact that there's also winter in Malta. Temperatures are somewhere between 10 and 16 degrees Celsius, it is often very windy and therefore it feels rather chilly. But as soon as the sun comes out, everything is just perfect.  

Since our arrival we have been working out a routine for our life here. In Germany I was used to buy a whole week's worth of groceries every Friday. But here things are swinging differently. I buy my fruit and veggies at Charlie's who parks his produce truck directly below our balcony every Tuesday and Friday. The quality is awesome and the prices unbeatable. For instance: Today I bought 2 kilos of potatoes, one cauliflower, a kilo of marrows, four bananas and 15 free range eggs for 12 euros! That's pretty affordable, I must say. And because they harvest everything exactly when it's ripe and won't last that long, it makes sense to buy everything fresh twice a week instead of only once. 

At Tony's bakery I buy a typical Maltese wheat bread, that is freshly sliced as delish as toasted - one loaf has about 500 to 750 grams and costs 1.10 euros, and small soft rolls are available for 15 euro cents. Some of the larger supermarkets offer online orders and free delivery when you order at least for 75 euros. If I need that much (especially heavier things like juice cartons or flour) then I have them deliver my stuff. Depending on the time of ordering they even do same-day delivery. But if I only need a few bits and bobs that I don't get at the veggie stand or the bakery, I could go to the various small corner shops.

There are even a few Lidl shops on the island, and the next two are in easy reach if I take the bus. Lidl offers good prices for gouda, parmesan and soft cheese, it has an awesome chocolate muesli, fruit infusion tea and dog treats which Heini likes very much. And he can chew them with the few teeth he is left with :-)))

Oh, and every two weeks there is a truck with cleaning and hygiene stuff - a drugstore on wheels so to speak. I didn't buy there, yet, but my neighbours love to buy their laundry detergents from them. And lately there is a fishmonger who visits our church square every Thursday. Thus everything within two minutes walking distance, and therefore I don't mind to spread my shopping over the whole week.    

And the laundry situation is similar. In Germany I did the laundry once a week, and with a washer and dryer combo that was easy peasy. Here we don't have a dryer, but with 300 sunny days and a constant seabreeze that is no problem at all. Okay, when it's very humid a dryer might come handy, but without it, at least we save some energy. And that's a plus. Anyway, we have two (or better 1.5) drying racks which can bear not more than two wash loads. Therefore I daily check the weather, and when it's fine, I do the washing. It's simple as that and works just fine!

And here are a few examples of what's been cooking lately:

This is fennel au gratin. In former days I didn't like fennel at all, but here I tried it a few times and always liked it very much. Once I sauteed it with lots of garlic and lemon over spaghetti, some other time with carrots and arborio rice as risotto and on the picture above simply scalloped with almond cream and parmesan.

By the way, here they have very young garlic which looks almost exactly like spring onions. At first I didn't realize it was garlic, but my landlady told me it's perfect for artichoke stuffing. Because the Maltese don't just boil their artichokes and serve them simply with butter or mayonnaise. No, they stuff the artichokes with tuna, said garlic and parsley and of course I had to test that. I made way too much stuffing, so I mixed it with cream cheese and had a wonderful spread for my home baked bread. 

The marrows I mentioned earlier come in two versions: long like normal zucchini and round - and the latter are ideal for filling. Like here with soy chunks, tomato paste, garlic, almond flour and shredded cheese: 

Side dish was polenta with lots of rosemary and sea salt - highly recommend that! 

Last Sunday we were invited by our landlords. Side note: Every Sunday the family gathers, that is Mary and Joe, their two children with their respective spouses and three children all in all. They sit together on the kitchen bench in front of the fireplace, chat and munch on sandwiches and finger food very similar to Spanish tapas, e.g. bigilla (a spicy dip made from beans) with crackers, sheep cheese from Gozo Island, seafood, olives, pistacchios, potato crisps - no formal dinner but very casual and chilled. And because I didn't want to come empty handed, I made some monkey bread. You can pull it apart easily and just eat it as is; no spread needed. Basically it's a yeast dough formed into lots of small balls which you place in a round baking pan. Between the two layers of dough balls there comes a hearty dose of pesto and shredded cheese. If you want, you could brush the balls with melted butter, but I thought that was a bit too much. They liked it very much that way!

Of course, I have to end that blog with something sweet. Since two weeks we have a new kitchen gadget. We weren't in dire need of it but once it's there, I kind of like it. The device looks like a modern coffee machine with water tank, ingredients container and outlet in the front. But in fact it's for making plant milk. You simply put some almonds, rolled oats or nuts of your liking into the container, fill the water tank and push a button, and in less than three minutes you have a bottle filled with delicious plant milk. We take it for our breakfast smoothies, pour it over cereals and are even working on a barista version with oats and cashews. Surely it produces some pulp in the process which is far too good to simply compost. Therefore I added some wheat flour, sugar and baking powder and made some kind of pound cake with it. It's barely risen but nevertheless was very yummy. I might test some bliss balls or energy balls for example with some dates, dried fruit, shredded coconut or cocoa - possibilities galore. And the cake definitely was a good start... 

With that said: Stay safe and sane and never stop trying something new!  

Finger Food

Hi Y'all!

After we got almost used to living in Malta and already know some people, we wanted to do a little get together for them. A new year's reception so to say, because around the holidays everybody was so busy that we didn't want to add more stress to the mix with our invite. Thus we had them here last Saturday for some drinks and snacks, and I wanted to share with you guys what we had. 

Btw we were ten adults and three children, and because some of them - like us - like to eat vegetarian and are open to vegan alternatives, I made vegetarian food only. As one person is lactose intolerant I should have prepared more vegan stuff, but for next time I know better. 

Surely I know that finger food might cause more work than a three course meal, but I didn't want to be glued to the stove that night, and the advantage of cold snacks is, that you can prepare them beforehand and sometimes even freeze them. Besides, the atmosphere is more casual and you need less space for plates :-) 

Please find below the actors in order of appearance: 

I started on Tuesday with preparing a carrot orange soup - unfortunately there is no picture. Basically I diced carrots, potatoes and onions and sauteed them in olive oil. Added orange juice and vegetable stock and let that simmer for 30 minutes. Also I added a piece of ginger roughly the size of my thumb, but removed that before blending the whole thing. I seasoned the pureed soup with an oriental spice mixture called "Ras el Hanout" which went perfectly with it. After cooling I put the soup in bags and placed it in the freezer. 

On Wednesday I baked two kinds of vegan muffins. One was with cocoa and Coca Cola to make it extra fluffy, and one - a classic - with apples and cinnamon. After cooling down they went into the freezer as well - and luckily there is a picture: 

Furthermore, I soaked some cashew nuts over night in order to turn them into vegan cream cheese and vegan feta cubes on Thursday. I served the cream cheese together with olives, crackers and edam (not vegan) on a grazing board, and the feta cubes made it on some little skewers together with cherry tomatoes. 

Any party needs meat balls, right? For my vegetarian version I mixed and then pan-fried oat flakes, eggs, onions and shredded cheese. They are delish either warm or cold, and the size is variable also. For the party I made them roughly the size of table tennis balls. 

In parallel I made a Zucchini cake in the oven, which is also yummy either warm or cold. Insanely easy: Grate 500 g of zucchini, add one diced onion, 5 eggs, 200 g flour and 150 g shredded cheese. Mix and season everything, spread on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. 

Afterwards I mixed a yoghurt dip which I served with veggie sticks on Saturday. The children devoured them, although I expected them to stick to the candy I had for them. Pleasantly surprised! 

Then I prepared tortilla roll-ups. Basically I took tortilla wraps, brushed them with herbal cream cheese and topped that with sun-dried tomatoes and olives. Rolled that up and let cool in the fridge. The next day, I only had to cut that into slices and put on toothpicks. But to be honest, they were nice, but I prefer the version with cream cheese and smoked salmon...

The last thing I did on Friday night was hard boiling some eggs and starting a yeast dough to have that rise in the fridge over night. 

Besides laying the table and arranging the food, all I had to do on Saturday were things which were best fresh out of the oven. Thus I combined the yeast dough with a healthy amount of olive oil, sea salt and rosemary and made some focaccia bread - went very well with the soup. 

I removed the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and mixed them to a paste with mayonnaise, mustard and spices. That went into a dressing bag and from there back into the whites - deviled eggs = classic 70s party snack... 

That was followed by some puff pastry action. On one of them I spread green pesto and red on the other one. The red one was cut into strips and twisted, and the green one was rolled up and cut into slices. Both of them received a generous sprinkling of shredded cheese and went onto their merry ways into the oven. Quick and easy! 

Please excuse the cling wrap on some of the fotos. Actually I don't like it, but the prior tenants left it here and thus I used it. And I didn't have time to make proper pictures when everything was ready and uncovered. But this is what it looked like:

Was a very nice evening!

Stay save and sane and celebrate and parties as they come!!!

Happy New Year!

Hi, Y'all! 

From the bottom of my heart I wish you a happy new year filled with peace, joy, health and also success in any form. Spend time with your loved ones, don't put off anything you want to do and enjoy life to the fullest - nobody knows how long it will last.  

Our New Year's eve was pretty lazy at first, and then we had a nice dinner. Not the usual suspects like raclette or fondue, no - this year we had vegetarian cabbage rolls with dumpling filling and mulled wine sauce. It was quite elaborate thus we won't have that every week. But absolutely delicious!  

Why elaborate? Well, you start with the dumpling filling, that means, you fry garlic and onions in a pan with herbs de Provence and add some plant based milk to heat it slightly. Add all these ingredients to some diced stale bread. Mix in an egg and some grated carrot and let that rest for half an hour. Season thoroughly because the filling soaks up spices like a sponge.  

Fry some mushrooms, season them as well and set them aside. In case you still have some leftover bread, dice it and fry it, too, and sprinkle it with some sea salt. Set aside too, will be needed for serving later. 

Remove the stalk of the cabbage and carefully separate the single leaves - they should stay more or less intact. That might get more difficult the closer you get to the center of the cabbage, because the leaves are more folded then. But with some patience one can manage that. Then I blanched the leaves in boiling water and cut the middle ribs of the leaves which were too thick. You could have done that before, but I didn't want them to fall apart in the water. After that you layer two or three leaves and brush the inner leaf with mustard. Place roughly a tablespoon of dumpling filling in the middle and add some of the fried mushrooms. With all your light-fingeredness you can muster fold it into a roll and fix it with some kitchen yarn or toothpicks. I then put all my rolls into a large dutch oven, added some vegetable stock and let that simmer for 45 minutes with a closed lid.  

In parallel, I fried some diced mushrooms, onions and carrots, deglaced them with mulled wine (normal red or even beer would work as well) and filled up with veggie stock. That simmered also for 40 minutes with a closed lid. The recipe called for sieving the sauce and thicken it with flour afterwards, but I couldn't stand to throw away the perfectly fine veggies. Thus I blended them in the sauce and saved me the thickening. 

For serving I first poured some sauce onto the plate, then placed the rolls on top and garnished them with the croutons and some roasted sunflower seeds. You could offer mashed potatoes as a side dish, but the dumpling as filling worked fine for us.

For Christmas we had our traditional potato salad and wieners on Dec 24, and on Christmas day we were invited by neighbours/friends. Thus on boxing day I had enough leisure time at hand to prepare a vegetarian "meatloaf" - which also couldn't be done in a haste... 

Not sure, if I mentioned it before, but basically you have to fry some onions and garlic together with some diced mushrooms until they are soft. Mix them with grated cheese (the more mature, the better), cooked wild rice, cottage cheese and chopped nuts. Season with thyme, sage, salt and pepper and stir in four eggs. In theory you could substitute the eggs with chickpea flour and water, but I haven't tested it, yet. Fill the dough into a loaf pan and bake it in the oven for an hour. Serve it hot with a roux or cold with a mayonnaise or tartar sauce. Equally yummy!

A few days before Christmas we went to Msida to get our Maltese IDs. They informed us we could collect them and we agreed on 23 Dec. What they didn't tell us was that the three remaining admin clerks had a Christmas party, thus no IDs for us, but a nice bus trip through Maltese pre-Christmas chaos instead. Well, we will do that again on 2 Jan and let's hope the New Year's party of the admin staff is over by then... Oh, and by the way: According to the bus schedule, Msida is only one stop after Paris. Everything is smaller here - even the distance to France! :-)

And what I also wanted to mention: Unlike in Germany, there are only orchestrated fireworks here in Malta. Organised by highly skilled specialists with a licence and with fireworks which weren't thrown together in some eastern European backyard with highly dubious ingredients. Usually it takes place in the capital, Valletta, but this year they made an exception and transferred it to Mellieha. That came in very handy, because after our dinner it took us only five minutes of walking to get to the spectacle. And it really was spectacular! Although not very long (appr. 20 minutes or so), but there was some music, some drinks, nice temperature outside, no-one got hurt by fireworks, the crowd was manageable and everybody was in a good mood. Community service took care of the cleaning up, and neither days before nor after people were disturbed by stray fireworks. Children with a light sleep and frightful animals definitely appreciated that. I like! 

With that said - all the best for 2023 

- it will be exciting for sure!