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...
Perfectly oven roasted chicken thighs, a basic recipe for baking chicken thighs in the oven. OVEN ROASTED CHICKEN THIGHS 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 long gone 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 had 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...
How to preserve cherries - the easiest way of preserving cherries, either sweet cherries or sour cherries, in a low sugar way: 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've made 17 large jars of preserved 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 the cherries 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 side I know that...
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...
This is another one of Yotam Ottolenghi's wonderful recipes. I could cook my way through all his books and not get tired of it. You can find this recipe in his book “Ottolenghi – The Cookbook”. I have “Plenty” and “Plenty More” as well and am happily anticipating my birthday (coming very very soon) because I know that I will receive “Jerusalem” from my mother-in-law. She asked me what I wanted for a present and that was my wish. Hopefully she didn't forget it. I am sorry I didn't know Ottolenghi existed during the time I lived in London, it would have been great to eat in his restaurant. The cases for this cups are quite an universal recipe, if I can call it so. I used it several times and filled the cups with different things, like white chocolate, but also cream cheese andberries, dark chocolate, pudding and fruit etc. The recipe is perfect, I had my doubts the first time I made them, I thought I would never manage to get the cups out of the muffin forms in one pieces, but I did. They came out perfectly. I found it a bit difficult to roll the dough...
I love baking, I think I have already mentioned that. About a few years ago I discovered the fondant covered cakes. They were back then really not very popular in Germany or in Romania, so I had actually never seen this kind of cakes before. Things are changing now, they are becoming more popular, especially in Romania, where, from what my aunt is telling me, there are a lot of bakers selling fondant cakes already. About 2-3 years ago I started trying to learn about working with fondant. It was pretty hard at first, but slowly I am getting better at it. I have to say that Pinterest has a lot of influence on this learning process. I mean, I bought a few books, but there is no way I could have learned so much just with the books. I am not an expert but I am doing my best, learning something new every time I make a new cake. And I have made a few of them already, for my family and friends, I am always happy when somebody asks for such a cake, the whole process from gathering ideas, making fondant, baking and of course eating is a...
