Some pictures ...

[Vader]

Spicy sweet potato wedges


Black salsify au gratin


Chcolate and vanilla pudding


Beef roulade with red cabbage, taters and gravy - a German winter classic


Naan


Little pizzas


The Grand Canyon of Lasagne


Vegetarian "doner kebab" with feta cheese. I bought the original wrapping Turkish restaurants use for this. Unfortunately I
had to buy a pack of 2,800 bags. Technically I could now eat a Doner every day for 7,5 years. Needless to say my wife
thinks I'm crazy as all get out. But that ain't news.


Veggie grain burgers (spelt and buckwheat)


Tarragon-vanilla-orange risotto with baked mushrooms

[Vader]

continuing my vegetarian diet:


spicy fried eggplants and mushrooms with yoghurt-garlic-mint dip


creamy cauliflower soup


fried eggplant and potatoes in pita bread

[Vader]

Over here Santa comes on Christmas Eve, so we are already through for this year. Just as the years before my parents, in-laws and the sis with her partner came over to the Vader demesne to celebrate. I paused my low-fat vegetarian diet for the holidays and this is what I served my guests:





This is the puff pastry with avocado cream filling Menolly shared on Facebook a while a go. They were delicious, though cut open not even remotely as picture perfect as in the pictures in Menolly's link.


Kötbullar - Swedish meat balls


Smoked mackerel and lox rolls with cream cheese and cucumber. Served with a honey-mustard-dill dip.


Puff pastry with oregano in the foreground and with pears, lingonberry and camembert in the background.


Grilled pimentos with cream cheese and crawfish


Crawfish salad


Thanks to Menolly the whole family loves them orange-beet-cheese snacks


Vitello tonnato and vitello tacchino (the same only with turkey) in the background. And a glass of dry sparkling Riesling (obvioulsy I also paused my non alcoholic diet as well)


The dessert: mousse au chocolat and vanilla mouse with fruit and raspberry sauce.


We also had cole slaw, cured pork roast, greek slaw from red cabbage, tomatoes filled with cream cheese, various kinds of bread, butter (herb butter, plain butter, curry butter and orange-vanilla-taragon butter).

Now I indulge myself in a nice Brunello di Montalcino before it's back to the chopping board tomorrow, planning New Year's Eve Dinner.

[Menolly]

ayeup. Somehow I missed this post.

I will one day make it to Germany for the holidays, Vader. Expect one more for meals when that happens.

(Stone, expect me to drop in on you as well. As long as I'm crossing the pond, may as well visit the British Isles as well.)

[Vader]

Unfortunately most of the pictures from New Year's Eve didn't turn out to be good. So here's just a few that are less crap than the rest (though I'm not satified with them)

We spend the evening with friends and had an Italian buffet this year. Here is part of my contribution.

Different anti-pasti


The same anti-pasti closer. This here is red onions, baked in honey-mustard-vinegar sauce.


Fried and marinated eggplant


Fried and marinated zucchini


Fennel-salad


Fried and marinated mushrooms


Homemade bread


Pure awesome from Sicily. Risottto balls filled with bolognese and deep fried. Can't beat that. They have the size and color of small oranges, hence their name: Arancini.


Postively my favorite potato salad. Small potatoes cooked in the skin, cut in halves and seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, dried tomatoes, black olives. arugula, parmesan, capers and anchovis.



I also turned 9lbs of bolognese, a gallon of sauce bechamel, enough pasta sheets to build a house from and 4 lbs of parmesan into a lasagne so mighty, you could staff black holes with. Didn't bother to take a picture of my lasagne though, since I already have dozens of lasagne pics.

Not from New Year's Eve but still awesome: Stuffed avocao (courtesy of Menolly). The picture was taken with my cell so it isn't really good either.



Happy New Year y'all.

[Menolly]

all looks as awesome as always, Vader!

[Vader]

Asian week.

Duck soup


Fried pork sweet sour


fried duck




Sushi


Teriyaki chicken


Raw beef. Extremly yummy when dipped in soy sauce and egg yolk.


The complete Japanese dinner. On the left we also got some sesame fried tuna, salmon and prawns because not everyone here likes raw things.


Optically the sushi is far from being perfect. The filling is all cattywampus but taste wise I'm satisfied. On a second note I got to do something about the light in my kitchen.

[Vader]

Here's some more, though non are low carb, I'm afraid.


A hot green Thai curry with chicken, bell peppers, green beans and potatoes.

A dish a typical German would perceive with distrust. Here potatoes are usually considered a "Sättigungsbeilage" - a horrible word displaying so much culinary barbarism that every language not having such a word in its vocabulary, is a blessed language indeed. It roughly translates into "filling side dish" and describes side dishes high in carbs used to make you feel full and eat less from the "good stuff". Using potaoes as a vegetable instead is a concept largely unheard of.


After the "sinful season" I'm back to my vegetarian diet - at least on week days. Here is spaghetti aglio e olio just with a heap of arugula and parmesan.


The same dish on the fork.


A Mediterranean style bread I love to make. This time I ran out of sourdough, usually it turns out more lofty.


A light snack for in between - tomato-thyme ragout, served cold in a roasted roll.


A ragout ("sans meat" as Menolly would put it) with zucchini.


The Vadress decorated her dish with mozzarella instead of parmesan. She's got an eye for it.

[aliantha]

Sunshine!

I dunno why, but this thread always makes me hungry.

[Vader]

Fried mushrooms and a tomato salad with a nice yoghurt-lemon-mint dip.



Chicken filet in tomatosauce with arugula and pasta.



Another hearty winter classic - stuffed cabbage. As a kid I hated it. We lived in an appartment house and our neighbor always ate cabbage (because it was cheap food, I suppose). The entrance hall always smelled of cooked cabbage and it made me want to throw up. With that smell in my nose and the feeling of nausea I refused to eat cooked cabbage as a child. Today I can eat it every once in a while. Stuffed it is delicious. However there have been civil wars here over the question what kind of cabbage should be used. Some people use white cabbage, I always use savoy cabbage. The taste is finer IMO.

[Menolly]

heh, since I just made Unstuffed Cabbage (basically deconstructed cabbage rolls layered in the crock pot and then stirred together for service) last week, cabbage rolls won't be happening for awhile. Or maybe not at all. The casserole version really tastes similar, and is so much easier...

But it all looks scrumptious! Is there any filler other than meat in your rolls? I usually use a little rice. And is that raisins or another dried fruit in your sauce?

[Vader]

The classic German version has just meat in it. Usually what we call "half and half" - half beef and half pork. I season the meat like my "Frikadellen" (fried meat balls): chopped onions, sweet paprika, salt, pepper, a roll soaked in milk, dried majoram and fine dijon mustard.

The sauce has no dried fruits (it's just a bit of cabbage that looks like dried fruit in the photo). You could of course add dried fruits (if you can stand the combined attack of dried fruits and cabbage on your bowels). I have seen lots of stuffed cabbage recipes from the US where they use dried fruits in the sauce and rice in the filling. Maybe I'll try it next year. Apart from red cabbage no cooked cabbage this year anymore. If you allow a bit self adulation, I take some pride in my sauces and gravies in general. I make them from scratch, using only home made stocks and broth and usually my guests enjoy them big time.

What you called "unstuffed cabbage" is what my mom usually does. She is all for simple solutions but still makes yummy stuff. My father traveled the world a lot when he ws still a business man and so my mom sometimes tried to cook "exotic" stuff for us. Pretty experimental sometimes, but it coined my curiosity for new tastes. And food was always fresh. I don't remember any convenience food or ready-made products at home. I think I was 18 when I ate my first pizza from the freezer and you can imagine my disappointment.

Around the same time I ate for the first time at that famous American burger joint with a capital M. No comment. The Vadress is 7 and a half year now and she ate once at M and twice at BK and though most of her friends love the stuff from there she always says daddy's burgers and homemade fries are way better. She has developped such a fine taste, she became my biggest and most honest critic.

Talking about the Vadress - when she was still in Kindergarden (she's in 2nd grade now) they had a breakfast there and the kids should say what they wanted to eat. Most kids went like rolls, toast, butter, gouda cheee, ham, salami, apples, bananas, cornflakes and such. The kindergarden teacher called me and said "Your 4 year daughter asked for blue mold goat cheese topped with thyme-honey. Can this be right?" And I went like "Yeah, that's my girl."

[Menolly]

So the soaked roll is your binder/filler then. And I am guessing your sauce is way different from the sweet and sour I am used to. Would you mind writing up a receipt for them? I admit I would still probably do it a la deconstructed, but it would be interesting to try the authentic German flavors, if your receipt qualifies as such.

[Vader]

It's pretty much authentic I reckon.

• Cut a bit of (savoy) cabbage, celeriac (or celery), carrots, leek and onions ino small cubes.
• Roast in a bit of butter fat
• set aside
• in the same pot fry the cabbage rolls until colored from both sides, take them out.
• add a bit of concentrated tomato purre
• deglace with a dash of white wine
• put root vegetables back to the pot
• Place cabbage rolls on vegetables
• Add enough beef ore better veal stock to almost cover the rolls
• Add a bit of thyme and bay leaves
• Cook covered on low heat for at least an hour
• Blend sauce with vegetables (for strong taste) or strain it. Reduce a bit and season with salt (if necessary). It should have a strong taste, slightly sweet due to the cabbage.

[Vader]

So the soaked roll is your binder/filler then

Yes, together with an egg and A HEAP of breadcrumbs I forgot to mention.

[Vader]

Not exactly haute cuisine but hard to top in terms of sociability. Raclette - the electric table-top grill version with small pans. The Vadress loves it and though the pans are small you always eat more than you actually intended to do.

[Vader]

For aliantha: Hungarian goulash with beef, bell peppers and mushrooms.

[Vader]

You got Halloween where kids dress up and go from house to house to get some candy.

We have two separate events instead of one. At "St. Martin's Day" in fall kids sing in front of doors to get sweets. Around this time of the year is "carnival". In some parts of this country (especially in the Rhineland) grownups go nuts and drink, wear silly costumes and usually behave like brainless cavemen. You might imagine I avoid carnival like the plague. For kids, however, it's a great time with fancy dress parties at school and everywhere - and which kid doesn't like to dress up?

This year the Vadress (7) decided to be a princess at the school carnival. Parents should bring food and stuff for the party and we were given the task to bring assorted cold cuts and stuff. Since I was bored I decided some decoration was called for, so I made toadstools from radishes. The kids loved them and all were eaten. This is one of the plates we prepared.



A simple vegetarian awesomness. Red thai chilis, green bell pepper, brown mushroom, zuccchini and onions fried in olive, salt, pepper, a dash of lemon juice, cherry tomatoes, cooked spaghettis. All cooked in one pan and served with freshly greated parmesan.

[aliantha]

For aliantha: Hungarian goulash with beef, bell peppers and mushrooms.

How did I miss this? Yum!

Also, the toadstool radishes are adorable.

[Menolly]

as always, my food styling is no match for Vader's, but I'll share anyway.

For some reason, I chose not to stick to my low-carb WOE today.


Here is the start with sauteeing sliced bananas in butter.


...a sprinkle of brown sugar and ceylon cinnamon


bananas flipped over and sprinkled again with brown sugar and ciinnamon


sauteed low-carb tortilla with a couple smears of nutella


carmelized bananas added to one side


folded over tortilla


low-carb tortilla filled with nutella and banana for brunch!