The Pumpkin Invasion!

It’s September____It’s Germany____Flu started to torture people____we are in need of Vitamin C

So, what is a healthy carrier of Vitamin C?

Yes, I know, the first thing coming to your mind is ORANGES.... Very good Kronk!, aber...do you know how much do oranges cost in this country? Plus, it is not the right season for citrus...so to avoid becoming poor and eating sand dressed up as an Orange....i had a [n orange] dream: Pumpkin!

So, what about a Pumpkin? It’s orange [Very good Krong part II], it has the same behavior of a potato [in fact you can make Pumpkin Gnocchi, Pumpkin Purée uzw...] only sweeter....

It was cold, it was late...and the first things which crossed my mind were Boiling and Baking... 

What do you need:

. 1 Kitchen

. 1 Steamer [or just boiling water....that’s not difficult to find....]

. 1 Knife

. 1 oven-proof dish

Ingredients:

. 1 Pumpkin

. Extra-virgin Olive Oil

. Vegetables [what ever you have in your refrigerator]

  I’ve used:

  . 2 Carrots

  . 2 Celery Stalks

  . 2 Potatoes

  . 1 Leak

  . 2 Little Onions

. Grated Cheese [as much as you want]

. Salt - Pepper - Rosemary ....

1. Wash all your veggies [be careful with the Leak and the Celery Stalks]
2. Cut the Pumpkin in two parts and remove its seeds working with a spoon [when what you are scooping away starts to become harder, that’s the moment to stop]
3. Remove the hard skin of the Pumpkin [it’s a hard work, but you can definitely use your fantasy]. Once the orange skin has been removed, dice the Pumpkin [into 2-3 cm dices].
4. Put the Pumpkin dices into the steamer and cook them for 6/7 minutes.
5. Peel the Potatoes and the Carrots and dice them [dices as big as the previous Pumpkin dices____in this way all these vegetables will have the same cooking point] and put them into the Steamer for 6/7 minutes.
6. Thinly slice the Onions, the Celery Stalks and the Leak.
7. Put into the Oven-proof Dish [in this order] Pumpkin, Potatoes & Carrots, Leak, Onions, Celery.
8. Season with Salt _ Pepper __Rosemary ____ ..... _____ and pour a discrete amount of Olive oil over the Veggies.
9. Bake it at 180°C for 10 / 15 minutes [or until the Veggies on the top start to brown] 
10. 5 Minutes before the end of their baking time, pour the Cheese over the Veggies and put it back into the Oven.

It is a very very easy Dish to cook, but the result is quite impressive . . . In Italy we say “Provare per Credere!”

Serve very hot as a side dish, or, if you prefer, as a main course accompanied with some cheese, Cous Cous ....or a good Polenta as I did!

Enjoy and Bis bald!

Witamy w Berlinie

And here we go again....

I have not been writing so much in my Blog lately ____ It has been quite a busy week!

Last weekend our home received the first member of our new Family....

________No, that’s not a Knife, not even a Pumpkin or a Cat....___________

Polly came to visit us [and Berlin] from Milan....

It has been a wonderful two-day-and-a-few-hours together....but this is the kind of things which give you the possibility to see your new life from a different point of view, zB difficulties turn into new reasons to laugh louder and louder . . . 

And it comes the moment when you can not really distinguish the line which divides what is friendship and what is family.

So...thank you Polly for your visit....

And, don’t worry....after the sugar and the honey I’ll be back soon to my _Kynismus_

Bis bald.

Mini-Bobo Muffins

I usually don’t eat sweets, plus, I really hate cooking sweets (too much maths and too little fantasy....), but, when it’s September and it’s 9°C and you are freezing your butt to death, Muffins could make the difference!

So, the first recipe of this blog will be something sweet, and it will be dedicated to a friend of mine who just become a mother of a beautiful Mini-Bobo.....

For 8-10 muffins

What do you need:

- 1 kitchen

• 1 Oven
• A huge amount of cups 
• 2 bowls
• Spoons (the more - the better)
• Food scale
• A recipient for cooking your muffins (so... muffin tins....or....whatever....you have a brain, use it)
• Someone who will help you doing the washing up afterwards [not necessary, but very helpful]

Ingredients:

• 105g Plain Flour x2
• 75g Sugar x2
• 75g Milk x2
• 1/2 Tea-Spoon Baking Powder x2
• 1 Egg x2
• Vanilla Flavor 
• 40g Unsalted Butter x2

  [all these ingredients are marked “x2” because you need to do the same thing with the    same ingredients 2 times _____ ]

• 50g White Chocolate
• 50g Dark Chocolate
• 1tea-spoon Coffee-Powder

PREHEAT YOUR OVEN TO 180°C

1. In a Bowl mix Flour, Baking Powder and Coffee Powder
2. In a new Bowl mix the remaining Flour and Baking Powder and Vanilla Flavor

[Do the following sequence into two different new Bowls]

1. Mix Sugar and Butter. Mix them well and energetically until they have become a smooth cream
2. Add the Egg, mix it well into the starch.
3. Add Milk, as above.
4. When all the ingredients are very well mixed and you can not distinguish one from the other, add the mix of Flour [the one you have prepared before], stir it (or better spin it!) until everything becomes a very smooth dough.

1. Melt dark and white chocolate into different bowls (in a microwave, or over a bowl filled with hot water)
2. Add the dark chocolate into the dark mixture [the one with Coffee Powder], add the white chocolate into the white dough, stirring carefully.

1. Pour the black mixture into the muffin tins [1/4 way of its capacity] fill it for 3/4 with the white dough. 

1. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes

If you are not planning to eat them all in a few hours, store them into a plastic Tupperware once cold. 

Music: Goldfrapp -Supernatural- ....that’s the thing that will make the difference!

Enjoy....viel Spass

Bis bald.

FRIDAY I'M IN.....Muffin

As our friends at “©the white trash Burger” [where we actually have never been....but it’s on the “to go” list]

THANK FUCK IT IS FRIDAY!

Just a quick list to be updated on what happened this week:

• EC card __ Arrived....but the pin code doesn’t work_____ sob sob...
• My I-phone___ arrived____sort of____ we’ve actually spent an evening to go and collect it from the DHL zentrum in “somewhere over the rainbow” in Süd-Berlin
• Our free-time just collapsed after having decided to enroll to an intensive GERMAN COURSE [_____4 days per week _____4 hours per lesson _____ a huge amount of homework] ....so we are supposed to be at the Gothic Rathaus-Charlottenburg every morning at 9.00, just to be sure to have breakfast with Cruella Devil.
• Is 9°C a good temperature for mid-September ? ?

Ok....so....It’s friday....so....relax...and take it muffinsch!

Up and down like a Yo-YO

...it seems (and please, as Aretha Franklin used to say "say a little pray for me") that this new Berliner life is going to take off, especially after the 74 Euro BVG Fahrkarte! 

So, tomorrow I will speak a perfectly fluent German [and I'll probably be blond, sparkling, rich, win a nobel prize . . . ] and this evening...Moroccan Tajine, just for fun!

Tomorrow I'll post the recipe...perhaps!

Bis Bald!