As I was trying to get some sort of order into my personal collection of recipes, marking the ones I wanted to use for specific months or seasons for the blog I realized I might be running into some minor snags down the road, during the summer stretches in particular. The last couple of summers quite literally left us standing out in the rain until halfway through, then came crashing in with record temperatures without even as much as a „How do you do?“, causing havoc left, right and center for 2-3 weeks, just to poof out of existence with temperature drops from 40°C to 12°C in a matter of 1-2 days.
Continue reading “Hazelnut-Crusted Turkey & Passionfruit-Leek Salad”
Asparagus season! Finally! I have been eyeballing the Tyrian Steak & Asparagus dish for months now, internally drooling and ticking the days off on my calendar, the X marking the beginning of the season. I know, I know, basically everything is available at any given time (if you ignore outrageous prices), but some things, for me, just have to remain a seasonal thing, something to look forward to and revel in once it arrives. Cherries, strawberries, plums, mushrooms… and asparagus. Only once did I make the mistake of giving in to the allure of a box of pretty-in-white asparagus I found some time around christmas. Apart from them having a terrible texture and no flavor, eating asparagus in winter was just plain weird.
I’m always on the lookout for new ingredients to play around with, having an extra eye out for lean and healthy meats. Quite some time ago, ostrich was being marketing’ed all over the place every time the words “health”, “shape” and “alternative for chicken” popped up. Ironically you couldn’t get a hold of the stuff anywhere outside of a ponzy restaurant. Up until about 2 or 3 years ago, after which it became much more common, ostrich steaks sometimes appeared as a highly overpriced rarity during BBQ season, ready marinated and prepped for convenient use. I really, really don’t like approaching a new ingredient if it’s already been messed with, especially if it’s doused in „marinades“ or „sauces“ of questionable origin and flavor that usually come with a ton of don’t-worry-about-its in them, so I ignored these birds for a while.
About 15 years ago the entire culinary world, so it seemed, was raving about a shiny oh-so-new and oh-so-trendy kitchen toy – the wok. A couple of weeks into the craze little teenage me went to the bookstore in search of a chinese or thai cookbook – if woks are all the rage all of a sudden, there have to be cookbooks covering any and all types of asian cuisine popping up left, right and center, right? Boy, was I wrong…
Late last October ArenaNet finally released the long awaited expansion Heart of Thorns. Since there’s usually a couple of recipes released with every chapter of the living story or the various festivals, I should have known something was coming my way. I only took note of the recipes for sale in the new areas in passing though, firmly in the grips of the new chapters and all the wild, new things going on all over the place. Little. Kid. Locked. In. A. Candy. Store.
Nahdala's Kitchen 