This is the easiest, most straightforward way of preserving apricots. Not to mention it is very low-sugar. PRESERVED APRICOTS And not only apricots, I preserve the cherries and the gooseberries growing in my garden the same way. I love this method because it is so simple, it involves the minimum amount of work and time and on top of that it uses just a little sugar. No sugar bombs in a jar, just a hint of sweetness, giving you the freedom of using the preserves in any way you like later on, not worrying if maybe they are already too sweet or anything. The fruit softens slightly but keeps its shape and structure, the fruit remains almost as “al dente” as fresh. So all you have to do actually, is to clean and sterilize your jars, wash and stone the fruit and boil the jars for about 20 minutes. I find this method especially suitable during the time when there are lots and lots of fruits growing in my garden, so many that I barely have the time to do more laborious work. For instance, we have this huge cherry tree, which bestows us with extremely large...
Soft and delicious rice pudding topped with a tangy and easy to make apricot sauce. Who doesn't like a nice, creamy, luscious rice pudding? I really can't think of one person who would refuse that... And then everything topped with this bright colored, tangy and sweet apricot sauce. Love it! I could have it every week. Well, I don't manage to make it quite every week, there are so many other things I like to cook all the time that even the classics get neglected sometimes, but I could say that we have rice pudding about once a month. Even if I forget about it for a bit longer sometimes, I can be sure that at some point or another one of my kids would ask about it: “Mama, when are you making rice pudding again? This evening? Tomorrow?” And I never say no, I might say no to pizza or a calorie-loaded pasta casserole from time to time, but I never manage to say no to rice pudding. It used to be one of my favorite sweet dishes as a kid as well and I remember asking my grandmother so often to make it again, but most times she...
Only three ingredients: apricots, sugar and lemon. The result: a simple, fruity and delicious apricot jam. APRICOT JAM RECIPE Another month and with it another theme on Where Is My Spoon, this time apricots. So get ready for two weeks full of recipes featuring some of the best summer fruits – the apricots. And today our favorite apricot jam. I say some of the best now, as a grown-up, because I remember I did not like apricots much as a child. Not sure why, I have always like fruit, but I used to enjoy the tangier sorts better and I suppose apricots lack the tanginess. Really ripe apricots like the ones we used to have in Romania are mild, aromatic, sweet and soft. An absolute delight nowadays, if I ever get my hands on really ripe, good apricots. Which is not an easy task here in Germany, buying apricots, nectarines or peaches in the supermarket is like playing the wheel of fortune. You really have to get lucky to get some good ones. And be ready to pay quite a few Euros more (and even that is no guarantee that the fruit is ripe and tasty). ...
Smooth and flavorful basic tomato sauce, easily made and extremely versatile. You might wonder why a recipe for a basic tomato sauce? Tomato sauce is readily available and from the processed sauces one can buy, tomato sauce is not the worst. Depending where you buy and how much you are ready to pay for it, you should be able to get a decent quality nowadays. Still, I never buy it. Why should I? Unless I am ready to pay 3-4 Euro for one small jar of it, I know it will not thrill me and to pay so much for only tomato sauce doesn't make any sense to me. Making your own tomato sauce is totally easy, cheap and delicious, nothing you can buy can come close to homemade tomato sauce. And the best of it, you can make a large batch of it and either freeze or can it. I used to can it, but lately I prefer to freeze the one or two extra jars, it means less work for me... Over the years I have made lots and lots of different tomato sauces mostly because there was a time when my son's favorite and one of the...
How to cook basic polenta or Romanian mamaliga, 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 mamaliga or polenta at least at their house, if not, well, it is time you do. MAMALIGA OR POLENTA RECIPE What is polenta? Polenta is a dish made from coarsely ground cornmeal. Some water and some salt, a little bit of cooking and you're done. You have an excellent, healthy and delicious meal. You can have mamaliga or polenta as a side dish for other dishes with sauce or it can be a meal in itself with some 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 make cake, you can make polenta chips and so on. It goes well with any kind of meat, any kind of vegetable or dairy product. ...
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...
