Hope, you all had a good 1.Advent weekend! Mine was filled with decorating the house and – lovely tradition- making Advent wreathes together with my best friends (which certainly means having tea and coffee and a lot of gossiping..).
Saturday my talented brother stopped by and helped me to brainstorm on my new kitchen plans. More about this project soon: I’m actually planning to transfer my kitchen from the north to the sunny side of the house. A true challenge!
Found these cuties while out there looking for rose hips to decorate my Advent wreath. Can you believe, the southern blue of the sky is true, no Photoshop!
Only one week until 1. Advent! For us it’s the weekend we light the first candle of the Advent wreath and we decorate our homes in the traditional colours: sprigs of fir, box and holly, red candles and ribbons. Red faced little apples and nuts on silver plates, pine sprigs and amaryllis on the window sills.
Feel inspired by my pictures; if you are interested you find all these pretty things in Ursula von Hake’s studio and shop.
I especially fell in love with those laquered boxes and the fancy trays and side tables. Living in the forest with the one or the other stag lurking around the corner of the garden I also couldn’t say no to traditional stag candles (They hide in the left corner of the second picture. I’ll post better pictures later!)
I suppose, the only thing you reliably can buy cheaper in Switzerland than in Germany are dried morels. So whenever I happen to stay in Switzerland I pass by Migros and grab a few 20g envelopes of these wonderful mushrooms. Yummmm!
Inspired by Sylvias Pasta from sea and forest I decided to combine the following:
a butternut squash + vegetable stock + morels + crabs = delicious surf and turf lunch!
To even increase the pleasure you may pimp the soup with a shot of white wine and with the strained soaking water of the morels . The crabs and the morels should be braised in olive oil, garlic and coarse salt before being placed on the soup. Salt, pepper and hot pepper flakes to taste.
For now I’m collecting ideas, browsing cookbooks and blogs. I write to-do-lists and have a look into my chests filled with Christmas decoration in the basement. I call up my dearest relatives and friends to find out how many guests we will have on Christmas. Hopefully last year’s crazy snowfalls won’t keep them off from coming.
Ah, and have you already thought about Christmas gifts? Everything planned and fine??
If you are looking for pretty and useful things made from extravagant fabrics I strongly recommend you browse the website of Juliane Jdanoff. Luckily she lives and manufactures in Dresden. I promise, you couldn’t resist if you saw all these beautiful pieces exhibited in a winter garden flooded with sunlight. I was tempted to buy a baby’s napkin bag sewn from an eye-catching monkey/ jungle fabric to use it as a clutch!
Juliane is open to suggestions, be it special sized cutlery bags or your desired colours or designs. Just pass by, give her a call or send an email!
Well, Sauerkraut actually is fermented white cabbage, a VERY traditional German winter vegetable. (Some of you might have heard about it?)
The traditional way it is served with mashed potatoes and a piece of roast meat, or Bratwürstl, or goose…
The way I recommend to prepare it today is entirely without meat, a bit crossover (lentils, curcuma and apricots) and very warming. The perfect lunch for someone who has been outside the whole morning raking oak leaves, planting tulip bulbs and piling logs…. Although the sun is still shining (splendid november until now!), the air is getting chilly.
Here’s the recipe: Potato-kurkuma-sauerkraut
500g sauerkraut (canned – or the fresh fermented kraut, which must be cooked before)
60g dried apricots, cut in small stripes
60g lentils
600g potatoes, in small pieces
1 onion, chopped
250ml vegetable stock
1 ts paprika
1 ts caraway seeds
1 ts kurkuma (turmeric)
1 tbs curry
1 tbs olive oil
Put the onion and the olive oil in a sauce pan and fry until golden. With a wooden spoon stir in the paprika powder and then add the vegetable stock.
Add now potatoes, lentils, caraway, curcuma and curry, cover it and let it simmer for about 20 minutes until the lentils are smooth.
Finally add the apricots and the sauerkraut. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes to give the sweet and the sour time to blend in.
When I use freshly cooked sauerkraut I like to add a few spoonfuls of the delicious sauerkraut stock. And of course, for me a dash of Tabasco!
Moritzburg Schlossteich without water after the big fish harvesting
Believe me, this drink has been a real challenge to photograph! Due to the mixture of the violet acai berry powder, the dark orange quince sauce and the green portulaca leaves it quickly adopted an uninviting brownish greyish colour (just like a facial mud pack!)
I took two nice glasses we inherited from Grandpa – those with the silver rims, poured in the drink and decorated it with pieces of beautiful apple skin. Now a little bit of overexposure, focus clearly on the apple skins and a seductive name… I hope, you’ll like my marketing efforts!
To prepare Powerdrink N°3 in your own kitchen, blend
1 apple
1 banana
a handful of portulaca leaves
1 teaspoon acai berry powder
1tablespoon quince sauce ( to be prepared like apple sauce; can be substituted by quince jelly or quince juice)
1 teaspoon flax seed oil
1 teaspoon almond butter
a glass of water (2 glasses, if you prefer your drink more liquid)
Enjoy and be healthy!
There’s a very nice Deli just beside Zeitenströmung, Dresden, Königsbrücker Straße 96.
Recently I went there with a friend, and our mission “lunch” was a true success! I recommend you give it a try if you are in the area. The atmosphere is relaxed, food and wine delicious!
If you happen to stand in front of the Elements Restaurant (hungry as we both were) looking for the Deli, just follow the street in direction of the beautiful fountain; it’s the small door on the left!
The Restaurant, very modern and edgy, located in a huge manufacturing hall, only opens in the evening.
October 14th, 2011 the Museum of Military History has been reopened after 7 years of reconstruction and extension. Both, architecture (see my January post) and exhibition are breathtaking!