March 22nd, 2011

Sorry for not blogging. My excuses are Hedgehogs, Cardmaking and writers block. And Brian will tell you it has also been Facebook. LOL I do like playing Country Life and Zoo.

  I don't know if you all have heard of Amazon's Kindle. I thought since I was starting to get back into reading again, that one for us would be a good idea...... Needless to say, one wasn't a good idea..... But Two were!!! You really can't be borrowing the same book that someone else is reading at the same time. Now you are probably wondering why on earth is she going on about a Kindle on a cooking blog...... I have found a great use for my Kindle. Cookbooks and recipes!!!! There aren't alot of cookbooks available yet for it, but they are coming and I have a few of them already. I like finding the freebies and when they are found are immediately downloaded to my kindle. But recently I have been thinking of all the recipes I have saved on my computer..... I usually print the recipe off and then take it down stairs to try cooking..... Not anymore! I download them to my Kindle now and use it as a cookbook. I am in the new stages of testing this new way of keeping recipes so I will let you all know how I get on. If you do get a kindle or other e reader as they are called I can recommend you download a program called Calibre to help convert your files to the mobi format that kindle uses.
  Also Calibre gives access to a few free magazines and newspapers one of which is Epicurious. There is another one too that I like called Big Oven, but for some reason it isn't downloading now. I will need to figure that one out later. I did try one of the recipes from the Big Oven download that I did have and it turned out really nice. They also have a web site that you can get recipes from..... http://www.bigoven.com/  
This is the recipe I tried and it turned out really yummy!!! We also had fresh homemade rolls to go with it and a grating of parmesan cheese. :)
White Bean, Spinach and Pasta Soup .

  Not only can you use the Kindle to keep cookbooks on, and your recipes, but the ones we have can access the internet too...... So I can also read blogs and google other recipes on it. And it is alot smaller than most cookbooks. I haven't found the limit yet of how many books I can store on it yet. And you can always keep them backed up on your computer too. But I can see loads of possibilities for this little machine in the kitchen. The only draw back to the Kindle is that it doesn't do colour..... but they are working on that!

October 24th, 2010

I apologize for not blogging about food, but we have had a busy year here. Baby hogs, new windows and a new boiler along with making cards and keeping my craft group going. But I will try to do better. I have still been doing a bit of cooking and some new recipes. I found a lovely website that has German and Austrian recipes. And Google Translate, does a really good job of translating the recipes into English.
http://www.chefkoch.de/
The recipes brought back memories of our trips to Austria and the lovely food we had to eat there. In the mornings there were always lovely breads to eat and one of my faves were these pretzel rolls. I thought they were so hard to make, but actually they are really easy.

http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/1199651225822377/Schwaebische-Laugenbroetchen.html
The Natron in the recipe is actually Bicarbonate of soda or baking soda.




One of the tips I have is to sprinkle the seeds on immediately after you take them out of the boiling water/soda mixture. You can also make soft pretzels using this recipe. And you snip the rolls after you boil them. They are lovely and autumnal looking. And they went well with the Hungarian stew I fixed that day. You can also find the recipe for this stew on the website too.






For the dough I used my breadmaker to make it. Once it was formed into a ball and before letting it rise I took it out and then followed the recipe. It makes it sooooo easy. And they are really scrummy served with mustard on them. Brian ate about 3 before I could dish up the stew.

This recipe is also on the site. But I am not sure where I found it. I slightly changed it anyway, as I usually do with most recipes. I modify them to fit what I have on hand. Take some puff pastry and I had the pre rolled ones. Cut in half. Mine made enough for 4. Take some cooked ham, chicken and chop into about 2cm chunks. I mixed it with some chopped onions, broccoli and tomatoes and some fresh basil. You can really add any vegetables or meat you like, and your fav herbs too. Mix with some cream cheese or quark and some chopped or grated cheese of your choice.  Put filling in the middle of the puff pastry and brush the pastry with a beaten egg with a little water added to it. Then fold one side over and brush and then the other side. Using a fork crimp the edges and then brush again with the egg.

Bake at 200C for about 40 minutes and serve hot with some salad.