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How to cook basic polenta, creamy or sturdy. I suppose most of you have at least heard of polenta, but to tell you the truth, I know lots of people who actually never tasted polenta. If you happen to have a Romanian or Italian friend, I am pretty sure you got to taste polenta at least at their house, if not, well, it is time you do. What is polenta? Polenta is a dish made from coarsely ground cornmeal. Some water and a bit of salt, a little bit of cooking and you're done. You have an excellent, healthy and delicious meal. You can have polenta as a side dish for other dishes with sauce or it can be a meal in itself with just a bit of cheese and yogurt/creme fraiche/ sour cream on the side. And the possibilities of making a main dish using polenta are endless. You can make casseroles, you can grill it, you can bake it, you can fry it and so on. It goes well with any kind of meat, any kind of vegetable or dairy product. Polenta is a staple in Romanian cooking. It has always been considered to be peasant food, but...


Do you use Yummly? I do have an account there for a while now, but I have only recently noticed that the traffic coming from Yummly is constantly growing. That made me curious to learn more about Yummly and to actually use it not only for sharing my own recipes and those of my favorite blogs, but to use it as one would use Pinterest for instance, for collecting my favorite recipes into specific collections and going there immediately when searching for a specific recipe. I find the site to be a mixture between Foodgawker and Pinterest. Loads and loads of amazing food photographs without the hassle of submitting your pictures and hoping of getting approved like in the first case and without the distractions in form of photographs featuring other interests like in the case of Pinterest. Just recipes, everything you could think of and everything so easily found. You can search not only by using keywords like chicken or pumpkin, but also by your individual taste, allergies or diets. You can build your own collections and save everything appropriately, so that it can be easily found in the future. What I also like very much is that when...


The second recipe in the Schnitzel series is basically the same recipe as the pork schnitzel from Saturday with a pretty important difference (for me at least). Although using the same ingredients and achieving the same end result, these schnitzel are not fried in lots of oil, they are just brushed with very little oil and baked. I was a bit skeptical in the beginning, didn't really believe that I could achieve the same crispness and nice golden color by just baking the schnitzel, but – surprise, surprise – it works!!! I would have not spotted the difference between the two kinds of schnitzel, if someone else would have served me the two without telling me which schnitzel is fried and which one is baked. The big advantage of baking a schnitzel instead of frying it, is obviously the fact that you would not have to use and then eat so much fat. But another huge advantage in my eyes is the “cleanliness” of this method. No more splutter and fat everywhere, no frying smell filling every corner of your house. And you can place all of your meat on one baking tray and put it in the oven, instead...


How to make dashi and ramen soup with soy sauce eggs is the last post from this Stocks and Broths series. I wanted to end with something that was completely new for me, something that I have never cooked or eaten before. I've heard of dashi many times before but never got the chance to eat it anywhere or cook it myself. Japanese restaurants are not something you would find in rural Germany, the only good sushi I get to eat is when traveling to a larger city, like Munich or Cologne. And to be able to buy Japanese ingredients to make the dashi myself, well, for that I would have to drive about 60 km to Kassel or order the stuff online. Which is not something you do on a whim, especially since you have no idea if you would like the results anyway and since Japanese ingredients are not exactly cheap around here. But what doesn't one do for the blog? :) So I wanted to make something completely new for me and, when it came to stocks or broths, I really couldn't find anything less known to me than dashi. I mean, kombu and bonito flakes? I...


This fish stock was for me the biggest revelation of this Stocks and Broths series. I love everything I shared until now, I would not have presented you with recipes that I find mediocre, but the fish stock totally blew me away. The reason for this is that I have actually always found fish soup disgusting. I had it a few times and found it each time terrible. The only one I've ever liked was a fish soup I've made and shared sometimes last year, but the only reason I liked that one, was because it wasn't actually a real fish soup, just vegetable stock with fish cubes in it. When I decided to make this Stocks and Broths series, fish stock was the last thing on my mind. I knew I would make vegetable, chicken, beef and bone broth and was thinking what else I could share. I wanted to make something that was new for me as well and the first thing that came to mind was dashi, the Japanese broth made out of kombu and bonito flakes. Then I thought about mushroom stock, something that I've wanted to try for a long time and then it hit...


What is and how to make bone broth? This is a question that occupied my mind for a while not long ago. I had never heard the term before and then, all of a sudden, it kept popping up from all over the place. I found several blog posts concerning it, I heard about it being sold in bone broth bars in the US, I've read about all its benefits and then I've started to inform myself in order to make it as well. After reading about the way it is made at home I realized that making bone broth is really not that difficult and the way of making it is not very different from the way of making a normal stock. The main difference is the time of cooking. I usually cook my stock for about 6 hours but you need about 24 hours to get a real bone broth. OK, after throwing everything in the pot and turning on the heat there is not much more you can do, but still, knowing you have to keep your stove on for 24 hours at a time and overnight can be quite intimidating. But, none the less, I've made...


How to make chicken stock and  semolina dumpling soup - Romanian supa de galusti. Post three in the Broths and Stocks Series is the chicken stock, probably the most popular stock there is. It is definitely my favorite stock, nothing can ever be so good and comforting as a good chicken soup made with homemade chicken stock. And the best things you can eat with your chicken stock are the Romanian semolina dumplings. Everyone, who ever had anything to do with Romania, must know the famous Supa de galusti. I can imagine it to be the most commonly cooked dish everywhere in Romania, every child grew up eating this on a regular basis. A really simple and good chicken stock, a few carrots and the semolina dumplings, it doesn't get any better when it comes to soup. Few and cheap ingredients and lots and lots of flavor and goodness. One of those chicken soups for the soul, I would say, definitely for any Romanian soul on this planet.     How to make chicken stock from scratch The way I make this chicken stock is very similar to the way I made the beef broth before. This time I use...


The second post in this broths and stocks series is a light beef broth made with beef meat and bones and lots of vegetables. As I mentioned in “Roasted Vegetables Broth”, the first post of this series, a broth is the liquid resulting after simmering vegetables and some meat. The main differences between a broth and a stock is the use of meaty bones in the first case and less meaty bones in the second and the time of cooking. This beef broth was cooked for only two hours. The result is a very light, delicate broth, perfectly suited for a nice, clear soup with some other ingredients added to the final product to make it more filling. I like to add lots of vegetables when making broths, not only the typical carrots, celeriac and onions, but also leeks, tomatoes, parsley roots, bell peppers and garlic. I think the more you use, the tastier the soup. I often keep the green parts of green onions or scallions (that people usually discard), wash them well and throw them in the soup. Broccoli or cauliflower stems are also a great idea, if you have any leftovers. And as most of the vegetables...


February! Already! And a new begin here at Where Is My Spoon. Why? I needed a new idea, something to renew my energy and motivation, something to challenge me more in the kitchen, to give me the possibility of learning new things on a more regular basis and to be able to share them as well. Why now? Well, I have been thinking about the need of bringing something new to my blog for a while now, but didn't really know what. There were many things, ideas going in and out of my mind, some things about which I spent an hour thinking and then again things that occupied my mind for weeks at a time. I felt the need of finding a new direction, a new focus or better said A FOCUS, I often felt that my blog was a bit about this and a bit about that and I wanted to give it a bit more structure, not only for the readers but also for me. It was not always easy for me to pick a recipe I want to publish, because I wasn't always sure what fits at what moment and so on. What? I have decided...


So? Are you already in the Christmas mode? We certainly are, the house is all set up, lights and candles everywhere, the advent calendars with chocolate are on the wall and the kids get to eat a small piece of chocolate first thing when they wake up in the morning, the chimney is on every day, I bake bread more often than during the rest of the year and we drink a lot of tea. That, for me, is the prelude to Christmas. That and the ever growing need to find the right presents for all the loved ones. It is quite easy to do that for the children, they have huge lists of things the Christkind (that is the child Jesus, which brings presents on Christmas Eve, no Santa Clause in Germany) should bring them, so we only have to pick. But I find it more difficult to find the right presents for the adults. And what makes things even more difficult is that in three cases I have to think of a double present. My brother-in-law had his birthday at the end of November, my mother-in-law will have her on the 15th of December and my husband on...


The best, easiest and healthiest yogurt salad dressing there is! Only 5 minutes to make. Forget all the bottled salad dressings, full of weird things that you don't actually want to eat. To make this dressing takes about 5 minutes, it tastes better than any dressing you could possible buy, it is healthy and clean, low-fat, low-sugar and versatile. You can use this basic yogurt dressing for just about any kind of salad: leafy salad, cucumbers, broccoli or other veggie salad. You can even eat this as a dip, on top of hot cooked potatoes or in a chicken/vegetable wrap for instance. How To Make a Basic Yogurt Dressing - Low-Fat, Healthy and Variable This is a basic recipe for a yogurt salad dressing, I start here everytime I make it, but sometimes I change it slightly depending on the kind of salad I have, on my mood or whatever. You can enhance it by adding one grated garlic clove or one teaspoon horseradish, you can add some chili sauce or even ketchup or mayonnaise, you can change the kind of herbs, vinegar or oil you use according to your taste, and so on. And if your children usually have...


I think you would agree with me that chicken thighs or drumsticks or chicken in general is something that most children like. Soft, tender meat, not much fat, crispy skin when everything goes well, some potatoes and veggies on the side and my children couldn't be happier. Me too, actually, I love chicken as well (probably the main reason why I could never go vegetarian, although we don't eat a lot of meat generally). Chicken is comfort food for me, something that reminds me of early school days, when my grandmother would still work full-time. I used to come home from school at about midday, I would open the door and smell the wonderful chicken my grandmother had cooked for me before she left for work. I only had to heat it up a bit (although I ate it lukewarm or cold quite often) and ate it with bread and sliced tomatoes most of the time. There was no better after school meal for me during those times...   And it is pretty much the same with my own kids. Thank God, they don't have to let themselves in and spend the whole day home alone, but they love eating...


This is the easiest way of preserving cherries, either sweet cherries or sour cherries. And the best thing about it: this method of preserving cherries is also very low sugar, only 1 or 2 tablespoons sugar (to taste) per large jar. I mentioned it before that we have a lot of cherries this year. In comparison to last year when we didn't have any. Two years ago we had even more than now, but I think the three years before that was also bad, either nothing growing, or cherries full of worms or birds eating everything before we could pick any. Fast forward to July 2018. We never had so many cherries as we have this year. I preserved 17 large jars of cherries, made cherry butter, countless cakes and desserts with cherries and the tree is still heavy with cherries. So the probability is that next year we will have nothing again, so I have to find a way of preserving what we have now. I have to admit that at the moment I am so annoyed of pitting cherries that part of me wishes to leave what's still in the tree for the birds, but on the other...


Peanut butter is a wonderful thing. For me it is quite a new discovery, I made it the first time only about a year and a half ago. But ever since, I almost always have a jar of homemade peanut butter in the fridge. The first time I had peanut butter was about 15 years ago. I was a student still living in Romania and had only known peanut butter by name, from all the American movies and series in TV. I used to know an American girl working in Romania and she had some peanut butter which she had brought from home. I was curious and I tasted a teaspoon of it and found it absolutely disgusting. So bad that I refused to taste it again for more than 10 years. It was sickening sweet and weird and of a strange, unknown consistency. Then as I started reading blogs, I kept finding recipes over recipes containing peanut butter, not only sweet recipes but also pasta, spreads, soups and so on. That raised my interest again and decided to give peanut butter another try, but this time pure peanut butter with no sugar involved. I had it once and I...


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