Oh yes, Summer’s here! Temperatures are slowly but steadily rising to a level where – if you want to survive the stuffy city nights – you have to find somewhere else to be during the day – and don’t even think about looking at your stove too closely, it might get funny ideas… – in order to keep the apartment cool…’ish. Of course, that raises the question of minimal-prep, healthy, filling and refreshing to-go’able meals that don’t turn into a pile of ick once exposed to a bit of sun.
Continue reading “Roasted Bell Pepper & Apricot Gazpacho with Spicy Goat’s Cheese Filo Pillows”
Time to celebrate… good times, glorious times, delicious times for everybody with a sweet tooth for mother nature’s gem collection! Bushes, shrubs and other assorted types of greenery are bursting with berries this time of the year, just waiting to be picked, devoured and turned into yumtastic things – after the cook has taken his or her fill of the raw bounty, of course~
The city Hubby and I call home has always been the go-to place in the region to indulge in healthy helping of the real, authentic, non-europeanized food from whatever country you could possibly think of. From a serious Argentinian Asado to a Zambian deep-fried Kudu surprise, you name it, you’ll most likely get it – as long as you don’t expect it to be adjusted to please a central-european palate.
Sometimes, recipes aren’t about using specific ingredients in a specific way to create something new entirely – sometimes they’re all about highlighting that one spectacular item you brought home, make that one thing, possibly a rather humble one, the shining star of your dinner table. One of the things I absolutely love building a dish around is, as you may have noticed already, cheese in all shapes and sizes.
In the aftermath of last weekends heat blast, I’ve noticed some of my circuits and tastebuds having obviously taken a more thorough scramble than I first thought. For example, even though the temperatures have dropped to reasonable levels, at least as far as end-of-April goes with close-to-zero-degrees night breezes, I can’t get myself to close the windows at night. Most of the members of my – admittedly small, but cherished – shoe collection have sort of a… sinister? Confining! look to them after just one weekend of flipflop-freedom for my feet.
Eeesh… remember my little rant about Mother Nature not having gotten the Spring-Time Memo yet just two weeks back? Well, you know what they say about the hazards of poking sleeping dragons and other elemental forces… It seems, someone speared that memo with a cattle prod and popped the metaphorical Nature Dragon a good one with it.
As usual, as soon as the temperatures are rising noticeably, people get too greedy with soaking up every sunbeam they can catch – and a lot of them not only catch some vitamin d… they also catch a cold. The annual bout of spring-colds is making the rounds and I for my part seriously don’t feel like joining the sneeze choir. Actually, since I’ve found myself flat on my (red) nose three times – three out of three times during our vacations (yay for AC’s on full tilt in hotels and airplanes…) – last year, I simply refuse to get sick this year at all~!
I hope you guys enjoyed the holidays as much as we did~! With all that chocolate-box-business, a much needed meaty experiment to counter the sugar overdose, a medieval festival and our family’s annual Easter Breakfast, it’s been quite a foodylicious set of days for us, leaving both of us in the mood for a light and healthy touch to our dinner plans… to say the least~
Birds singing, beautifully arranged flowerbeds all but exploding with colors, bees buzzing around, nosy bunnies zipping around every patch of green in town whenever they think nobody’s watching, temperatures rising… finally it’s that time of the year again~! I know “Easter” doesn’t necessarily mean “Spring” around the globe, but our corner of the world serves that pretty fairytale-painted cliché perfectly.
“Yarrrrowlgrrrr~!” That’s tummy-speak for: “It’s seriously time for a change in seasons in the kitchen!” Much to hubby’s and my own tummies’ dismay, mother nature doesn’t seem to have read the memo yet. Well, actually, the winter-(food)-blues isn’t all that bad just yet, but the idea of Spring, fresh veggies, berries and, most of all, our regions fresh asparagus is starting to dig serious roots into our subconscious these days.
Nahdala's Kitchen 