Vanilla Chocolate Chip Biscotti

No, I haven't started making loads of sweet, sugary, chocolate-y stuff again. I promise. I'm still eating very healthy and am still running every second day. Yay me!

This is a recipe I made some 4 or 6 weeks ago, I just haven't gotten round to writing anything about it before now...

Monsters

So. Daylight Saving Time. It's been two days and, surprisingly, it doesn't feel that bad this year. I don't have any problems getting up at my normal time (i.e. an hour earlier) and am extremly pleased to have one more hour of daylight in the evening.

I am, however, feeling a little drowsy, but that's propably just due to the spring fever I suffer from every year.

Chocolate Spice Cake

Remember when I talked about the start of spring and healthy food, and the end of heavy buttery, sugary stuff a few weeks ago? 

I've been eating quite healthy for the last few weeks. Salad, rice, veggies, olive oil instead of butter. But somewhere in the middle of it, I had a relapse. Major relapse. And it came in the shape of a moist chocolate spice cake. Moist + chocolate + spices + cake. Honestly, who'd be able to resist? Not me, obviously.

 

Sweet potato fries/chips and a curry dip

 I have a very soft spot for chips (or fries or french fries or whatever you may want to call them), and I could happily eat them on a regular basis if only they weren't so unhealthy and fattening...
The solution: homemade, oven-baked sweet potato chips! Looks like fast food, tastes like fast food but is neither fast nor unhealthy. Isn't that something!

 

Everyone's Irish On March 17th

Beannachtaí Na Féile Pádraig or Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

For those of you who've been living completely behind the times for the last centuries and don't know what March 17th is all about: We are celebrating St. Patrick's Day. The day of the Irish patron saint St. Patrick who brought christianity to Ireland a bit more than one and a half millennium ago. It is said that he banished all the snakes from Ireland (thanks, Paddy, I appreciate that!) and explained the concept of the Holy trinity to the Irish by means of a shamrock which has developed into an ubiquitous feature of St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

Rice salad with prawns, avocado and cucumber

Every once in while, after a long day out, I come home hungry and there's only time and energy for something easy, something simple, something sleazy, something inching past the edge of the reserve. Now through lines of the cheap venetian blinds... I might have digressed into an OK Go song. Back to the food. I didn't mean something sleazy, of course. And nothing to do with venetian blinds, either. But something easy and simple that doesn't take hours to prepare. For example this nice, spring-summery rice salad.

March photo-a-day 14: Fruit

Candied papaya. Yum!

March photo-a-day 13: Silverware

A beautiful set of real silver cutlery I inherited from my grandma.

March photo-a-day 11 and 12: "Can't live without" and "Favourite Drink"

Actually two things I can't live without and one of them happens to be something to drink.

Tea and chocolate. Could it possibly get any better? I don't think so.

Wild-Berry New York Cheesecake

It's cheesecake time!

My flatmate has been pestering me about making a New York Cheesecake ever since I moved in last October. And even though making cheesecake is not something I have to be talked into, it took more than four months until I/we finally made one. Well, the search for the perfect recipe might've been a partly reason why it took so long. Most New York Cheesecakes are more of a plain cheesecake and lack the New York part. They're not as dense, not as moist, not as delicious as they're supposed to be. Well, most of them. But not this one. This one is perfect. And it is perfect because of one secret ingredient. Wanna know what it is? Do you? Do you? Do you?

*drum roll*

March photo-a-day 10: Most used appliance

Not sure if it actually is my most used appliance but I'm very fond of my handheld blender.

March photo-a-day 9: Lunch break

On March 9th was my grandpa's 95th birthday, and all the family came together to have lunch at a fancy restaurant. And it was my mum's birthday, too. Happy birthday again!

Here's what I ate: A salad with fried perch and prawns, roasted tomatoes, avocado, grapefruit, and a yellow fruit I wasn't able to identify (it looked like mango but didn't taste like it). It was delicious!

March photo-a-day 8: Vegetable

Very behind on the #marchfoodphotos. Not my fault, a family gathering and several journeys across the country were involved. And now, there's some catching up to do.

Cauliflower. Not my favourite vegetable but very photogenic.

March photo-a-day 7: Pantry

The pantry. Even better then the kitchen because it's an entire room full of food, albeit not a very large one.

And this is my shelf. The white rat on top of the small black tea caddy is guarding my food. Her name is Getrude. She has a brother, Gustav, who's currently hiding behind the Sel Du Camargue.

March photo-a-day 6: What's cooking?

I'm a bit behind on the #marchfoodphotos, partly because yesterday was a bit chaotic, but mainly because it's impossible to take a picture of "what's cooking?" when you're not cooking. Even in a foodie's life, there are days when the only kitchen appliances being put to use are the kettle and the toaster.

Today, something is cooking. Sesame-coated falafel. They tasted nice but I'm not completely happy with them, so no recipe post.

March photo-a-day 5: Best condiment

Best condiment? Well, that's a no-brainer.

Maple syrup. I go through at least one bottle a month. On my own. I pour it onto fruit and cereal, veggies, puddings, yogurt, pancakes, waffles, and poultry. It goes into salad dressings, hot chocolates, cupcake frostings, custard, savoury cream sauces, smoothies, fried onions, soups, and early morning green monsters. Maple syrup, without you, my life would be boring and empty.

Strawberries

Yes, I know it's not really spring yet. And I know that strawberries are not in season yet. And I know that the strawberries available right now come from very faraway places and are not an ecologically sustainable thing to buy. I know, I know, I know.

But when I was at the Asian foodstore today, those babies were staring at me, practically begging me to buy them. And so I did. Everybody's allowed to slip up every once in a while. Even me.

While they were still a bit tart, they tasted like spring and strawberry, and they weren't watery at all. Hello sunshine!

March photo-a-day 4: Dishes

The top cupboard in our tiny, messy student's kitchen featuring, amongst others, my favourite bowl (the red and white one), a former candlelight jar turned wineglass (green, on the top shelf), two mugs I brought back from Stavanger in Norway (the black and white ones), and an adorable teapot and cup set I bought in France a couple of years ago (the bone coloured one on the left side of the top shelf).

The kitchenware not featured in this picture occupies the bottom cupboard and the sink.

March photo-a-day 3: Kitchen

Where the magic happens.

That's the prettiest part of my kitchen which incidentally is also the only part that doesn't look like a complete mess right now.

March photo-a-day 2: Something sweet

Challenge day 2 and a super moist, decadent chocolate spice cake. Add some white wine, a macbook, and the world's best flatmate, and you have the perfect friday night.

I'll post the recipe in the next few days.

Take care!

Lemon chili prawn pasta

You know those dishes that can transport you to a completely different place, a completely different time, a completely different feeling? This simple pasta dish is one of them. It tastes of summer in an intense way that very few other dishes do. It's reminiscent of warm summer nights in Italian cities, of lunch at beach restaurants with your skin and your hair still salty and sticky from the sea, of azure skies, rocky beaches, and weeks of walking barefoot. Of wine drunk from water glasses, of hot, dry air heavy with the smells of rosemary, thyme, and oregano, of glowing sunsets, sandy flipflops, and loud and colourful saturday markets. Sunny, summery freedom in a nutshell pasta bowl.

It's one of my favourite and certainly one of my most-cooked recipes from Sophie Dahl's first cookbook, and it is absolutely made for those times when you think that you can't possibly walk around another day wrapped in jumpers, scarves, hats, coats, and warm boots. With a dish like that, summer can't possibly be that far away.

Make yourself a bowl of this stuff and enjoy your 4-months-early trip to warmer, sunnier places. And it will cost you much less than a round-trip ticket to Rome. Nice for impressing guests, too.

March photo-a-day 1: Breakfast

Photo challenge day one. The theme was breakfast, and today's breakfast consisted of a homemade raspberry marzipan danish and a nice hot cup of coffee.

I won't insult you with a real recipe, I basically spread 4 rectangular sheets of puff pastry with a 1:1 mix of marzipan and low-fat cream cheese, put some defrosted raspberries and some almond slivers on top, rolled them up, and baked them at 200° C/390° F for 20 minutes.