Culinary Adventures
Slowly but surely, the world around me is going bananas. The great outdoors around me looks like an 80’s aerobic class and the local brewery teamed up with a Cirque de Soleil stage set and all the confetti ever produced for the CSD parades all across the globe… and had a good twirl on the Studio 54 floor together.
Dear fellow Food Bloggers,
you will all (most likely) be familiar with this situation: there’s a dish you cook up regularly, say when it’s cold and icky outside and a case of the flu is setting up shop on your doorstep. Like a classic Chicken Broth / Noodle Soup kind of a dish, or any of its comfort-foody relatives. You’re used to going though all the steps, auto-pilot being an understatement here, but the result always puts a huge smile and a satisfied expression on your faces, no matter how easy-breezy the prep seems to be by now.
For some reason, while everything else in the stone-fruit department has been gone for a while already, apricots have been available for a really, really long time this year, until about 2 or 3 weeks ago, in fact. The problem with these freaky late stone fruit? They’re… tart, to say the least. Pretty much inedible in a raw state to be honest. The good side of the deal? I’ve got no qualms about throwing them into the pan whatsoever~! That’s the perfect(-ly late!) opportunity to cook up one of my favorite end-of-summer dishes and share it with you guys.
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.
Continue reading “Chicken & Leek Gyoza with Mango-Papaya & Sage Salad”
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~
You guys might remember that pesky Annual Cold Snap during February I mentioned 2 weeks ago. Well, this year it brought a friend and the two of them really went to town. The usually relatively short cold front freezing the dress choices for Valentine’s Day into non-existence recently teamed up with a Siberian cold front nosing around our neighborhood.
Continue reading “Steamed Duck & Plum Dumplings with Szechuan Duck Broth”
All right, so the “real” winter has nosed its way in – the one without the sparkly decorations, festive mood-inducing drinks, foods, gatherings and all that jazz. Not that I’m particularly downed by the holidays being over, but I have to say, the great outdoors in all its grey-on-grey splendor is looking a lot more gloomy than it did just a couple of weeks ago. Oh well… as I’ve mentioned before, there’s one surefire way – at least for me – not to succumb to the general greyness of days like these:
Continue reading “Saffron-Lemon Chicken with Apricot-Rosemary & Barberry Chutney”
A quick glance outside is revealing a Wonderful Winter-Wonderland these days. Finally, I might add – the last couple of Decembers have been depressingly warm, way too warm to really appreciate the festive groove town decorations and christmas markets were struggling to spread. Yultide season around 15-17°C? Excuse me, when did I move so far south? I know it’s a clichée, but winters have to be cold to count around these parts of the world!
Continue reading “Honeyed Duck, Lemon-Thyme Polenta Tiles & Blackberry-Port Sauce”
Unlike last year, we had a couple of good things waiting for us when we got home from Madeira this time. Really good things. Like the newly released GW2 Path of Fire expansion and – let’s hear it for careful planning – another week off from work~! Of course, hubby and I parked ourselves in front of our screens and went on a gaming binge until we both developed that tell-tale sitting-in-the-same-position-for-days headache, square and bloodshot eyes included. And this is where the other really good thing comes into play~!
Continue reading “GW2 Spicy Chicken Wraps, Tomato Hummus & Grilled Vegetables”
When Hubby gave off a somewhat strangled noise, skirting the edge of panic last weekend while giving his weather forecast app a disdainful glare, I knew we were in trouble.
“34°-38°C each day and not much cooler during the night for a week straight… I don’t even want to know how this is going to turn out in August, when it’s actually supposed to be this hot” he said, and went ahead reading reviews of high-powered fans and mobile ACs. I, on the other hand, experienced a sudden pang of panic too, a food-related one rather than a fear of melting in the heat.
