Pumpkin Casserole

1 medium Hokaido Pumpkin
200g Feta Cheese
250g Mushrooms
Salt, Pepper, Herbes de Provence
250ml (1 Cup) fresh Milk

• Slice and sauté the mushrooms i a hot pan. (Tip: make sure to have enough heat to get rid of the moisture and do *not* add all at once)
• Pre-heat your oven to 160°C (320°F).
• Remove the seeds from the pumpkin and cut it into 3-5mm thin slices.
• Prepare the casserole dish by applying some olive oil then stack the ingredients:
  start with pumpkin, then add mushrooms, pumpkin, feta and finish with pumpkin
  Apply salt, pepper and herbs to the pumpkin and mushroom layers.
• Pour the milk and put the dish into the oven until the pumpkin has soaked up the milkd and gets a little golden crust (~30 minutes).

Enjoy it as a side- or main dish

Raspmary Ice Cream (Raspberry and Rosemary)

750 g Raspberries
3 tsp Chopped Rosemary
150g Powder Sugar
3 egg yolks
1/2 Lemon's Juice
400 ml Fresh Cream

In the mixer, stir the egg yolks and sugar to create creamy base.
In the meantime pass the raspberries through a sieve in order to remove the seeds then add to the base.

Stir in the remaining ingredients and place all into a 1/2 liter ice cream maker do the cooling (will take up to 30min).

Sorry, no photos available yet - the desert vultures were too fast ...


Kudos to the best ice cream place ever, which inspired me to create this recipe:
Gelateria di Piazza - San Gimignano

Specknüdel = Speck Pastalings

300g (Süd)Tiroler Speck
1 Onion
fresh Parsley

400g fresh pasta dough

Finely chop the onion and sauté in some butter. Chop the speck and parsley and mix with the onions.

Split the pasta dough and the speck-mix into 12 equal pieces. Take a piece of dough and use your hands to form something like a bowl-like shape. Place the speck-mix in it and close it to form a ball-like dumpling. The dough should be as evenly distributed as possible. the dough is sticky enough not to require any glueing eggs or anything.

Place the pastalings in a steamer (I use the bamboo steamer from the asian food store) and steam for about 15min

Serve with field salat with a balsamico dressing that may be on the sweet side

Baum5 Wholegrain Bread

1 cup rye

2 cups wheat

1/2 cube yeast (20g)

3 Tables spoons olive oil

1-2 Tables spoons Salt

1-2 Tables spoons caraway seeds

1 pinch ground cilantro seeds

Grind the grains into a bowl to create some fresh and warm whole flour and create a "crater" in the middle

Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup warm water (not hot! - that would kill the yeast bacteria).

Pour the yeast-water into the crater and mix with some of the flour to create a viscid starter dough. sprinkle some of the remaining flower over it, cover and let it rest in a quiet war place for about 15min.

Add the salt, caraways, olive oil and about 1-1.5 cups of warm water. mix well and then let the kitchen machinery knead it for 10-15 min

Cover it up again and let it rest and rise for one hour (again in a quiet, warm place)

Heat the fan oven to 200°C (= 400°F).

Mix down the dough to get rid of enclosed air, form a loaf and create a smooth surface with your wet hands

Bake for 45 minutes

Pasta with Baby Tomatoes and Ginger

Let me start this post with a shout out to a place named "Gast" here in Munich: Thanks for coming up with this meal and for applying the live cooking concept!
Some weeks ago I enjoyed the following pasta dish at Gast. The recipe of this I have created as an interpretation of what I have been "shown" by the chef that day. Here it is:

250g baby tomatoes
1 table spoon ground ginger
1/3 cup fresh cream
1 table spoon chopped mint leaves
500g spaghetti, tagliatelle or similar pasta

Chop the baby tomatoes (save any juices) and stir fry them in some melted butter (no, do not substitute it with evil margarine or olive oil or whatever!). When they're hot add the freshly ground ginger. If the tomato chopping has produced juices, add them now.

Gast doesn't do that, but it has proven to be good: Add about 1/3 cup of fresh cream.
Finally, add the mint leaves and some salt and pepper according to your taste

Serve on some fresh pasta with Parmesan if you like

Here's a tip for grinding the ginger: Go to Muji's or any other well equipped kitchen supplier and spend five bucks on a ginger grinder - it produces a wonderfully creamy paste when grinding the ginger that no western cool will come up with!

The influence of your job on your body

I've been wondering for a long time how your job influences the shape of your body via its influence on the diet. And I've been noticing some extreme cases where the change in diet obviously has a huge impact on one's physique:

Here's some examples:
1) The fattened politician
When in the opposition fighting to get to power they look healthy an tanned, they do sports to keep themselves fit. But once the get elected these guys seem to undergo a diet-disaster that makes them fat. Is it due to the cookies served at numerous meetings? The sandwiches at press conferences and art events? The buffets at conferences? The numerous 12 course gala dinners?
Austria's Alfred Gusenbauer for example seems to have almost doubled his size while in the office as chancellor. Once he stepped down and took on a real job again he went back to his original decent size.
Another one, Germany's Joschka Fischer is a special case. He tried to fight back at times but somehow turned into the perfect example of for the yo-yo effect.

2) The traveling consultant
Well, working dreadful hours away from home, staying in hotels (and their bars) and eating in multiple restaurants of all sorts of quality levels does not leave much room for a healthy living. Some fight it with morning sports or late night gym sessions, but only the weekends at home keep them from following the politicians' fattening trail.

3) The fragile Pope
Popes are a special case. First of all they are rather rare these days. So I have been watching them for 20+ years and have noticed that they all seem rather fit and agile when the white smoke rises from the the Sistine Chapel. However, I have not yet figured out what turns them into rickety old men within just a few months. Is it the sudden change in food once they relocate to Rome? An overdose incense (it does contain THC, after all)?

These are the ones that I notices so far - I'm sure there's more out there.

Turkey is meat for vegetarians! Get a GOOSE!

Now, since it's Thanksgiving and people out there are done driving their turkeys aroun the block before roasting them for hours on end I'd like to post my own personal opinion on that white fleshed bird: Turkey is meat for vegetarians. It tastes like rice crackers, is dry as bone and the color of the meat is closer to paper than to a muscle. Never, never, never will it enter my kitchen! - I'd rather have a tofu "steak" than turkey.

Enough of the bashing - what alternatives are there? Well, if you need to feed a hungry bunch and want to taste real poultry beyond chicken and are not quite happy with that lame ol' duck - get a goose and make your dinner guests happy!

ST.MARTIN'S GOOSE (also perfect for Christmas)

1 free range goose (ca 750g per person)
2-3 apples
Salt, pepper, majoram
"Bratschlauch" XXL - That's a roasting "tube" (or bag) sold per meter here in Germany.

Preparation:
Wash the goose on the inside and outside and cut off any fat. Spice it with salt, pepper, majoram (inside and outside), stuff it with 2-3 apples (not too sweet).
Tie the legs and wings close to the body and slip the bird breast-down into the "Bratschlauch" and tie that up. poke 3-4 small(!) holes so that hot air can escape. Place on a baking tray that is capable of holding a good amount of juice(the deepest one you can find). Put the goose into the preheated oven at 160°C = 320°F. The bird will stay in there for about one hour per kg (30 min per pound).
Note: Keep the the FAN of you oven OFF!

After 2/3 remove the "Bratschlauch" and carefully turn the goose upside down (breast up). Remove a good part of the juices and use for serving and fine-tuning the red and white cabbages.

When the skin has turned crispy it's ready to be served with red and white cabbage and a load of potato-dumplings

The Roast Stag that Feeds Two Dozen

When the hay meets the stag

It's just great to have freiends with similar interests when it comes to food! So last friday a friend drops us a call just to reveal that they have a leg of a healthy bavarian stag hunted by another friend that they want to dine with us.
Of course I said yes and so the super-organic formerly wild and proud stag ended up in our kitchen the next day. And as we decided to have him as our sunday roast I sat down and scanned some recipes in our collection and here's what I found... 

The stag was to be roast at a low temperature of 90°C and spiced just with some bay leaves, salt and pepper. Well, not just - there was some special additions to that: A nest of hay that I got from my neighbour who runs the farm the we get our milk, potatoes and eggs from. He pointed out that I should use the hay from the second cut of the season as this provides a much better and stronger aroma. The hay was enriched with some rosemary and thyme before it formed the nest for the beautiful yet huge piece of meat.

Hardly any pan is big enough

The stag is ready for his hay ride

Some 6hrs later the meat had reached the desired 58°C in its center and was served to everyone's pleasure with some Schupfnudeln, red cabbage and a creamy pepper sauce. So the two families - a total of 5 adults and 5 kids sat down and ate, and ate and ate, took a break and ate some more...

Waking up from a 6hr nap

Still, about 3kg of the wonderfully juice and tasty meat remained on the tray.

These's always good use for left over roast I said and took 2 of the 3kg through the grinder, added some sauteed onions, garlic, eggs, parsley, majoram and salt and started rolling the 40+(!) inners of the newly created Stag Hachée Dumplings. These are now packaged in smaller batches and are awaiting they "harvest". Then they'll end up in a cover of potato-dough and a side order of red cabbage - enough to feed about another dozen adults... Invitations to special guests will follow ;-)

41 Hirschhascheeknödel

Hollerröster a.k.a. Stewed Elderberries

Once a year it's time to harvest the elder bush in our backyard. Those blossoms, which have not been turned into the beloved sirup or jelly at spring time have now turned into near-black berries. Every year we're surprised how many we have left on there.

So, after 3 hours of de-vineing we ended up with not only blood-red hands two but also with two large bowls of berries ready to be processed. One half of it was bound to become stewed:

We added some sugar, sliced apples, red wine, lemon juice and a cinnamon stick and let it cook for a while (If we had had some plums at hand we would have added those as well). Then we added some vanilla pudding powder to get it thickened (Milli's family tip). If you want no pudding you can let it simmer until it thickens - but watch out it tends to overcook and add some extra color your kitchen furniture and floor if it does ...

Here's the result:

The kids love this wonderful and healthy dessert as it tastes wonderful and turns their lips, teeth and tongue blue ...


Wondering about the other half? That we threw into the steam-juicer and got three bottles of wonderful sirup.

On The Prowl In And Around Liguria

Our recent trip the Ligurian coast near SanRemo led to a whole bunch of additions to our pantry ...

• Sausages crafted by fine Salumieri from Trentino, Umbria and Tuscany from venison, horse, wild boar and of course pork
• Honey collected from the blossoms of orange-, acacia- and chestnut trees
• Unfiltered Ligurian olive oils
• Fine olives black and green
• Procini collected and dried in the woods of Trentino
• Truffeled porcini pesto
• Hand picked tuna filets in extra vergine olive oil
• Mozzarella di Buffola, Pecorino Toscano and other cheeses
• etc.

And other than cheap wine - these fine foods do taste just as good back home as they did in and around our lovely holiday home in a renovated 400+ year old "rustico" at Pietrabruna