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!