Another day, another oven dish. I had pierogies in the fridge and decided I wanted them done in the oven with leftover frozen harissa seasoned tomato sauce, broccoli stem leftovers, cauliflower florets, soy cream and plenty of grated hard cheese. It was so filling that we couldn’t even eat all of it in one sitting but it was yum.
Probably about 20 years ago in Dublin my then boyfriend and I made Puerco Pibil from the Robert Rodriguez movie “Once upon a time in Mexico” and never got around to making it again as you need some special ingredients (banana leaves, annato seeds, habañero chillies) that were hard to come by where we were living after we moved away from Ireland. The other day my now husband and I watched the movie with our son and decided it was time to eat this dish again. I did the shopping and my husband cooked. This turned out so well, it was well worth all the planning and effort. The meat had turned so soft! And the spices were absolutely mouth watering. 🤤
I had bought some ready made cevapcici last week which I got out of the freezer last night. The name alone makes me think of 1970s style summer holidays in what used to be Yugoslavia. I never went there but Balkan style food got very popular with Germans and there used to be Yugoslav restaurants everywhere. Strangely we never went there either as far as I remember, so it took me until well into the 2020s to discover the delight they are.
I researched what to eat with the cevapcici and settled on tomato rice and a Greek style farmers’ salad with lots of feta cheese. I also made sure to have Ajvar in the house, another specialty from that region, a dip made from bell peppers and it’s supposed to be spicy.
What can I say, the family was very satisfied, my son said this felt like summer on a plate and made him happy. 🤩
The only letdown were both versions of Ajvar, neither of them were spicy, not even what Germans call “pikant”, despite both jars claiming to be just that. Next time I buy Ajvar from a Turkish supermarket. 🔥
I cooked this pasta with lamb ragù dish from a recipe recommended yesterday by @xvf17 and what can I say, yet another good meal was enjoyed in this house. 😋 All the different tastes (fennel, mint, harissa, lamb mince, etc.) worked really well together and there was a nice kick to it.
It didn’t take me quite as long as advised in the recipe (2 hrs 15 mins) but I only made half the amount and didn’t have to wait for that much liquid to evaporate, so everything was done after 90 minutes. It was really worth every minute. 👌🏻
As pasta I used a type of Rigatone as that works really well with ragù, and I like this one despite being wholemeal.
I wanted to make May Turnip steaks and then I ran out of time and ended up with wild garlic tofu steaks instead. 🥴 The tofu came as it is and I just needed to heat it up, easy peasy.
But I did make pickled napa cabbage (with a little added red cabbage which gave everything a hint of blue), and also blanched okra with ginger soy sauce. And of course rice and furikake (it said やさい／野菜 on the sachet). A good meal after all.
When we were living in the UK Pancake Tuesday became a thing in our family. At first I was confused as there is no such custom where I grew up in Germany but reading about lent (Fastenzeit in German) it all made sense, it’s about using up all the high energy but easily spoilt food items before you start “giving up something for lent” (in the past that was fasting). I didn‘t grow up in a religious family so these concepts were not familiar to me at all but they seem to be still part of British culture. Here in Germany this time of year is all about carnival, at least in certain areas. 🥳
The pancakes eaten in the UK on this Tuesday are usually simple ones with lemon juice. I like them but my guys don’t really take them seriously, especially not as a proper lunch. So over the last years we started having more varied pancakes, Indian or Japanese types are very popular. Today we had Okonomiyaki. So good!
Yesterday we had Mapo Tofu (minced meat and tofu) with just a little bit of Napa cabbage. It was nice and spicy because of the Pixian Doubanjiang (spicy fermented bean paste) that I used for it. There are so many interesting seasonings in this world.
This main meal was very nice, yet somewhat unusual as it was so simple and comparatively mellow.
I defrosted the cod while I boiled sliced salad potatoes and prepared the marinade for the potato salad. At some point I also found the time to boil some green beans (seasoned with pepper, salt and garlic granules). The defrosted fish was then also seasoned and covered with flour and quickly fried in oil and butter.
We had pilau rice and Chinese street food style tofu slices. Those slices were so easy, yet so good. You fry them in some oil on one side until browned. Then turn them over and sprinkle them with ground cumin, chilli powder, five spice powder, and salt. Don’t skimp! Fry them another 2 minutes and add chopped spring onions and coriander during that time.
Over the weekend my husband made us a huge cottage pie. I would have preferred the shepherds version with lamb, because it usually tastes better, but didn’t fancy the trip into town. However this one with a mix of pork and beef was wonderful, especially on the second day it tasted great. My son and I are already looking forward to eat the leftovers on one of the coming days. 😋😋😋
You wouldn’t believe that the HomeCooking group currently has 374 members - as only very few of them post anything. I’d love to see many more contributions! 🧑🏼🍳👩🏽🍳👨🏿🍳
🥘🍔🌭🌮🌯🥙🥗🥪🍕🍖🍗🥓🍱🥘🧆🍲🍛🍜🍝🍣🍤🥟🥞🧇🍪🍞🥣🍚🍘🍙🍢🫘🍡🫕🫔🦪🧈🫓
The tofu cubes tasted a lot like spicy smoked cheese, really nice! Our son shunned the mentaiko since he found out what they are 😆 but my husband loves them.
We compared the two different rolled up omelettes and I think everyone preferred the sesame version but the dashi one was a lot juicier which was nice too.