For some reason, certain clichés and stereotypes are insanely slow to fade away. For one, there’s still a surprisingly (and shamefully) large percentage of neanderthal “gamers” desperately clinging to the illusion that the world of gaming is a chest-thumping, club-swinging men’s world. Another cliché sticking to us gamers like a bad habit is, of course, that we don’t do “healthy”. How can we? We’re sitting in the dark basement with our faces taped to a screen all day~!
Continue reading “GW2 Crispy-Fried Eggplant with Toasted Barley & Pomegranate Salad”
Alright, time to lighten up the wintery mood of our meals! While I’m honestly not fed up with Winter-themed comfort food at dinnertime yet, I’ve recently found myself prepping zingy, light and summery meals for lunch – looks like my inner clock is slowly but steadily ticking towards warmer temperatures while my tummy’s still kinda-sorta content being wrapped in a wintery comfort-blanket of sorts~!
The colder and nastier it gets outside, the more often my mind wanders off to about 2,800km west-southwest of here, to Madeira. Since there’s nothing I can do about shortening the actual distance on the spot, I can only tap into my recently refilled inner reserve of Madeira-Zen, roll up my sleeves and start cooking to bring a delicious little piece of the island into our corner of the world instead~!
With the season of shorter, darker and colder days having set up shop on our doorstep, I find myself digging deeper and deeper into my repertoire of bright and colorful lunchbox’able recipes and combinations to bring a bit of smiles’n’sunshine on Hubby’s and my desks during the day. This particular salad is something that makes an appearance on our table quite often, during the hottest as well as during the coldest and darkest times of the year, but of course it has the biggest “brighten up the day” effect on us during the November Nasties.
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.
I guess, if you’ve followed my posts for a while, this one might just raise an eyebrow or two. Potatoes really are a rare sight in my kitchen – and that’s exactly why I actually have quite the number of leftover-potato-recipes up my sleeves. You see, the fingerling/baby potatoes I always use, for Papas Arrugadas, Lemon-Confit Potatoes or the humble Potato & Herby Fromage Blanc dinner every once in a while, always come in 1kg packages. Since 1kg of potatoes is a lot for two people and the next potato-gig is at least a month or two away… Well, you get the picture.
With the evenings and nights finally being somewhat cooler for the last couple of days, BBQ activities have recommenced all around us in a kind of desperate way that makes you think the world is coming to a screeching halt any moment now. Much like the BBQ-Version of that loony rush on grocery stores and supermarkets the day before major holidays, everyone seems to be under the impression that there’s not going to be any food. Ever again. Starting in 1 minute.
Ok, I’ve just noticed that three out of four recipes for this year’s BBQ special are vegetarian options. Sort of. The upcoming dessert is seriously hard to imagine in a meaty context anyhow, but still, once that fact dawned on me, I had two options. Go veg on this one too or go all out carnivore galore. Well hell… I did what I always do when I can’t decide between two wildly different things: I pick door number three.
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.
Nahdala's Kitchen 