recent dinners

Stock boiled veggies, couscous with marinated feta, salad greens, fresh cherry tomatoes and mixed unsalted nuts    

Store bought fresh mozzarella and tomato filled tortellini with a fresh tomato and capsicum sauce with some grated hard goat cheese topping

Vanilla slice from bakery (to cheer myself up) and home made pumpkin and zucchini soup with Store bought fresh mozzarella and tomato filled tortellini

platspiration

 hairdresser on fire

hairdresser on fire 

 a cup of jo , tonbogirl

glamcanyon , stil in berlin

Australian Favorites

I do not normally have any big cravings for Australian food (apart from Vegemite on toast) but since my boyfriend and I moved to Germany he has had 2 cravings, Australian style fish and chips and beef sausage rolls. I was going to save making it till his birthday in November but on Friday I had a craving for spinach and ricotta rolls so I bought all the ingredients and this afternoon set aside some time to make some from scratch. I used this recipe for the spinach and ricotta rolls and this for the beef sausage rolls but tweaked it to our taste. I managed to make 2 of each and had one for dinner tonight and another for the freezer to have another time.   

For the spinach and ricotta rolls:

 chopped 2 large shallots with two cloves of finely crushed garlic and fried till soft 

 

 finely grate carrots, coarsely chop a hand full of mixed un-salted un-roasted nuts (mine where walnuts, cashews, almonds and hazelnuts) 

 

 pre chopped frozen herbs (8 different kinds), thaw packet of cooked frozen spinach, rinse in cold water and squeeze out the extra liquid

 

 smooth ricotta and hard goats cheese, finely grate goats cheese

 left bowl - herbs, carrot and cooked onion mix waiting for mince

right bowl- spinach, nuts, carrot, herbs, cooked onion mix waiting for cheese  

2 large fat spinach and cheese rolls ready for the fridge to firm up for a few hours before cooking

For the sausage rolls:

 mince (80% beef and 20% pork), sausage mix with herbs, carrot, cooked onion mix, mince and lea and perrins worcestershire sauce worked into a fine paste 

 2 long sausage rolls ready for the fridge to firm up for a few hours before cooking

Sausage rolls with salad and spinach and ricotta roll with salad

after cooking

Currently September

 
 Left- a day out at Wasserkunst Elbinsel Kaltehofe in Hamburg that is an island in the middle of the Elba that use to be a water treatment farm that has been turned into a wetlands

Above- the cable car over the river in Cologne going from the zoo to the botanical gardens  

Loving: Making the best of the last good sunny weather before it starts to get cold again. I have spent large amounts of time at the "Beach Bars" (in the loosest sense of a beach) basking in the warm evenings drinking Mojitos while hanging out with friends has been a fun highlight to my quite repetitive days. Hamburg is a city that in fine weather is one of the most beautiful cites in Germany so going to the parks have been a favorite outing for me and my boyfriend on the weekends.    

Anticipating: Christmas time. I have never had a cold Christmas and everyone has told me that the best thing about December is the Christmas markets. Hot mulled wine, traditional baked goods and lots of traditional wooden ornaments. I am also hoping for some snow seeing that I have never seen any but Hamburg unfortunately is not known for snowing during winter but I can always hope. I will miss not having my family around for Christmas and even though an Australian Christmas is hot it has not yet hit the hottest part of summer so being outside is the norm and everyone is always in the party mood.  

Listening to/ Reading/ Watching: I finally got round to watching season 3 of Offspring. I did watch the whole of the first season and most of the second season but being in Germany when the third came out an Australian friend of mine told me about a live streaming website to find it on I got straight into it and I love the drama and humor balance that it manages to have. During my time in Herrang (a place that you no explanation can ever capture what ti is relay like, next time I will have to go for 2 or 3 weeks) I read the book Call The Midwife in my non dancing time and became obsessed with it. While reading it I was told by an English friend of mine that it had been made into a tv series and when I got back home instantly started watching the it. I can recommend that even though it is a very good tv series to read the book, it has so much more impact on you on how these women lived and how hard it was to bring a child into the world and most of all the dickensian squalor that was still prevalent into the 50's. I have also been getting into many British tv murder series with my favorite being Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (a grandma private detective), Rosemary and Thyme (crime solving gardeners) and The Bletchley Circle (4 ex Bletchley park code crackers trying to find a murderer). 

outfit post and cooking

(sorry about the picture quality it has gone dark again and there are only lamps no over head lighting in the bedroom,grrr)

outfit - hoodie - billabong, top - witchery, jeggings - h&m kids section

The summer weather in Hamburg has officially left us and the days are starting to get cold, grey and dark again. I have started to layer up when going out instead of just throwing on a cardigan over a singlet or t shirt and having to remember to put socks on to keep my feet warm. Yesterday I went into TK Maxx to scope out there men's winter clothing for my boyfriend (he hates shopping but needs a new work jumper) I also went to look in the kids section which is on the same floor and found myself a new hoodie. It is a girls Billabong hoodie with fake sheepskin lining and a detachable fur trim on the hood. It is so warm and being a kids jumper it is not too long like I find with adults sizes (being 5'2 and a size 6 means kids clothes fit better, even better than petite specific clothing) and the best bit is it only cost €13 with the original retail price being close to €90.      

(trying out a new up-do since my hair is getting longer, now the back is already down to my shoulders again)

Some of my recent home cooked dinners:

Shallot, tomato and broccoli spicy egg scramble with rice noodles and topped with grated hard goats cheese and balsamic vinegar 

 not the best looking thing in the pan but very tasty 

 I use this method for making perfectly cooked rice noodles but I then after draining them pour over boiling water till they are warm and they come out the texture of just over al dente pasta

Corn tortillas filled with cucumber, tomato, avocado, salad leaves, grated carrot, cheese and hot Heinz baked beans

 

This may sound a little disgusting but I am not a big fan of kidney beans and on a cold night when I am not in the mood to take a long time making dinner it's hot and fills you up, plus I relay like the sauce in Heinz baked beans (I have never found a cheap version that tastes as good).

Going Veg

Over the past few weeks since coming back from my holidays I have made some changes to my diet. After living in Germany for 7 months I have started to dislike the traditional German food being very bland, too much cream sauces, everything dripping in fat and most meat being pork (a meat that is not eaten a lot in Australia) because of this I have made a conscious effort to change my diet and become vegetarian.

I do normally eat veg only dishes at least 3 times a week and was vegetarian for a time in my teen but never put a lot of effort into it. My Auntie Vera and Uncle Ted have been vegetarian for years and every time I have cooked for them at family events I have always checked labels for animal products or just made the whole meal vegetarian so I know how easy it is to make good food that is delicious. I have also been very interested in "WW2 ration diet" for years that is mostly a vegetarian diet with low animal fat intake being obsessed with WW2 history.I have always loved eating anything with spices in but unless I want to eat currywurst (tomato sauce with curry powder) I have to make it at home anyway with ingredients from the Middle Eastern or Asian supermarkets if I want any strong flavors. 

Some of the big reasons are:

- I no longer have to cook dinner for 2 people every night or eat dinner after 7pm when he gets home every night. 

- The cost of beef and lamb are extortionate and to buy it for only one person is wasteful  

- I have a yeast allergy that stops me from eating lots of bread, crackers, crisps and pre-packaged food (read the labels, you will be surprised) 

- I get bad stomach problems (IBS is what they all say) when I eat white pasta, white bread, fatty pastries (Germans love there bakeries and I live with 5 in about a 3min walking distance) 

- I don't like pork that much (never relay have ever, I once went for nearly 2 years without eating any pork product including bacon) and chicken that costs 2Euros a Kg is not the best for you

I am not going crazy and cutting out all animal products from my diet, I am still eating eggs and dairy products, but am trying to have 2 vegan meals a week and eat raw food as much as possible. I do not eat soy products and have not done so for years so (I have my reasons!!) so I do not just swap meat in recipes for tofu making cooking a very interesting experiences of forward planning to find other forms of protein and iron.

The good things about eating vegetarian:

- less processed foods that are high in fat and salt and less pre-packaged meals and sauces

- fresh, frozen and dried veggies are cheap and more nutritious and non wheat grains (polenta, couscous, quinoa, amaranth)   

- I can monitor the amount of fat that is added to my food and make them good fats (olive oil, avocado, nuts) and the amount of dairy I eat (eg. swapping cream for yogurt in recipes) 

- using alternative grains than just eating bread and pasta (eg. swapping rice noodles where I would normally use pasta)   

- finding new recipes to cook and trying veggies that I wouldn't normally eat (ether because they are not popular in Australia or my boyfriend would hate it) 

The benefits I have already found:

- feel better in general, things are "moving" better

- a lot more variety in diet and flavors  

- any problems with food can be easily identified and removed from my diet

- my skin is looking better with fewer breakouts and my moods are more even (no big PMS mood swings seen)

- much less money spent at the supermarket because of having fresh food and planing meals ahead of time

The problems/disadvantages I have found:

- going to restaurants and having a vegetarian meal normally consists of veggies dripping in mountains oil, cheese or cream (this includes salads), marked as vegetarian but made with chicken stock/containing bacon as a garnish or potatoes,potatoes,potatoes

- ate a vegetarian hot dog and had the worst food poisoning ever (nearly had to go to hospital)

- having to buy meat for my boyfriend if he decides to eat at home and always having to throw half of it out that doesn't get cooked or frozen making the freezer full of glad wrapped packs of meat  

At the moment I am not going militant vegetarian, I have had beef when I ate out with my boyfriend at a steak restaurant and kangaroo meat at a work function because I do love it, but having a little of what you like is not so bad and having lots of what is good for you is always a good thing. I hope that it all works. 

a good idea for carrying food and so cute too

recent vegetarian cooking experiments

Crust-less Veggie Quiche (capsicum, onion, mushrooms, tomatoes and zucchini)   

Mixed salad with pickled beetroot 

 

 Quick Veg Soup

frozen soup stock veg starter 

frozen veg in water to make stock

 grated carrot and pumpkin with veg stock