Mini Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 9 sheets of puff pastry
• 100 g chocolate (I used dark chocolate)
• 1 egg
• 70 g sugar
• 200 g cream cheese
• 1 tbsp. sour cream
• 1 tsp. lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Butter 9 cupcake forms.
3. Melt the chocolate and set aside.
4. Cut each sheet of puff pastry into three pieces, roll them a little thinner and place them in the cupcake form.
5. Beat the egg and the sugar until white.
6. Add the cream cheese, sour cream, lemon juice and molten chocolate and mix until smooth.
7. Pour the chocolate-cheese-mixture into the puff pastry.
8. Bake on the medium rack for about 20 minutes.

Honey-Balsamico Sauce

Ingredients:

• 3 shallots
• 1 apple
• 1 tsp. oil
  
• 20 g butter
• 20 g flour
• 200 ml vegetable broth
  
• 3 tbsp. balsamico
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 1 twig rosemary
  

Directions:

1. Chop the shallots into thin rings. Cut the apple into small pieces. Chop the rosemary finely.
   
2. Heat the oil in a pan.
3. Sweat the shallots and apple until the shallots are lucent.
4. Set the shallots and apple to the side.
5. Heat the butter in the pan and add the flour. Slowly stir in the vegetable broth, making sure no clumps remain. Briefly bring the sauce to a boil, then remove from the heat.
   
6. Add the balsamico, honey and chopped rosemary to taste. Then stir in the shallots and apple.

We served this sauce on potatoes and medallions of pork fillet. We added the meat juices from the fillet to the sauce.

Congo Bars

Ingredients:

• 150 g butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 200 g brown sugar (1 cup)
• 1 packet vanilla sugar (about 3 tsp.)
  
• 350 g flour (3 cups)
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 100 g chocolate
  

Directions:

1. Chop the chocolate finely.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
   
3. Combine butter, vanilla sugar and brown sugar using a mixer until blended.
4. Add eggs, one at a time to sugar mixture, mixing on low in between each addition.
5. Add flour, baking powder and salt and mix until combined.
6. Butter a baking form and fill it with the batter.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes.
   

Enchiladas

Ingredients:

• 500 g broccoli
• 250 g ricotta
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp cumin
• 100 g grated cheese (Gouda)
• 1 egg
• 6 tortillas
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. pepper

Directions:

1. Cut the broccoli into small pieces. We cooked the broccoli for 3-4 minutes, but this is probably not necessary.
   
2. In a large bowl mix the broccoli, ricotta, cumin, garlic and 50 g of the cheese.
3. Stir in the egg and the salt and pepper.
4. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
   
5. Fill the tortillas with the broccoli mixture and wrap up tightly. Place them into a casserole dish.
6. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.
7. Place into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

This tastes good together with a tomato salad.

Vegetable Patties

Ingredients:

• 300 g zucchini
• 300 g carrots
• 2 onions
  
• 4 eggs
• 120 g flour
• 200 g cheese (Edamer)
• 60 g oats
• 2 tsp. parsley
• 2 tsp. curry powder
• 1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
• 4 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. salt
• oil

Directions:

1. Chop the onions, zucchini and carrots finely. We use a food processor for this.
2. Stir in the eggs, flour, oats and cheese.
3. Add the seasoning generously.
4. Heat a little oil in a pan. Spoon the vegetable batter into the pan and fry from both sides for about 2 minutes.
   

Zucchini Gnocchi

Ingredients:

• 400 g gnocchi
• 2 tsp. oil
  
• 1 zucchini
  
• 3 large tomatoes (about 300 g)
• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 100 g feta
• 2 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. parsley
• 1tsp. thyme
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Directions:

1. Chop the onions and the garlic finely. Cut the tomatoes and zucchini into about 2 cm cubes.
2. Heat oil in a large pan.
3. Fry the gnocchi in the pan briefly. Add the onions and garlic and fry until the onions are slightly translucent.
4. Stir in the zucchini and fry for about 3 minutes until they are soft.
5. Add the tomatoes and crumble in the feta.
   
6. Stir well. Add the herbs to taste.
   

Scarborough Muffins

Ingredients:

• 125 g flour
• 50 g oats
• 40 g chopped walnuts
• 40 g chopped almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 10 g fresh yeast
• 60 g yogurt
  
• 75 ml milk

Directions:

1. In a large bowl mix flour, oats and chopped walnuts, chopped almonds and baking powder.
2. In a small bowl mix yogurt, milk and yeast.
3. Stir the two mixtures together and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
5. Line muffin forms with paper cups or butter the muffin forms. Add the batter to the muffin forms until 3/4 full.
6. Bake for about half an hour.

Makes about 8 muffins.
These muffins taste good with cheese.

Cucumber Sandwiches

• Step 1: Toast
  Ingredients:
  • 100 ml water
  • 12 g fresh yeast
  • 18 g salt
  • 250 ml milk
  • 500 g flour
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 20 g sugar
  • 20 g starch
  • 30 g butter
  
  Directions:
  
  1. In a small bowl mix water, yeast and salt. Stir well and leave for at least 30 minutes. I usually leave it overnight.
  2. Add the milk to the yeast mixture.
  3. In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, starch and butter. Add the yeast mixture and knead well. The dough is somewhat sticky and very soft.
  4. Place the dough in a bread pan and leave to rise for 2-3 hours.
  5. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
  6. Place toast onto the middle rack and bake for 35-40 minutes. The toast should sound hollow when tapped with a wooden implement.


• Step 2: Cucumbers
Ingredients:
• 1 cucumber
• 2 tsp. dried dill or 30 g fresh, chopped dill
• 125 ml mayonnaise
• salt and pepper

Directions:
1. Cut the cucumber into very thin slices.
2. Mix the dill and the mayonnaise.
3. Cut the toast into slices and remove the crust.
4. Spread mayonnaise on the toast silces and lay cucumber slices on top. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.


• Step 3: ...
• Step 4: Profit!

Spiced Soy Granulate for Tacos

Spices:

• 1 tsp oil
  
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 small onion
  
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp cumin
  
• 1/2 tsp oregano

Other Ingredients:

• 1/2 l vegetable broth
• 300 g soy granulate
  

or (carnivorous version):

• 500 g ground meat
  

Directions:

1. Soak the soy granulate in the broth for half an hour. Meanwhile:
2. Chop the onion and garlic.
3. Heat oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic briefly.
4. Add the spices and mix well.
5. Drain the granulate and add it to the pan. (Or: add the meat here)
6. Fry for 2-3 minutes. (Or: until the meat is done)

The picture shows the soy granulate version.

Rosemary Rolls

Ingredients:

• 250 ml milk
• 1 tsp sugar
• 10 g fresh yeast
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp margarine
• rosemary
  
• sea salt
  

Directions:

1. Mix the milk, yeast and sugar in small bowl and leave for about 30 minutes.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the yeast-mixture and stir well. Add the oil and knead the dough until it is smooth and does not stick to your hands anymore.
3. Butter a spring form (26 cm diameter). Alternatively one can use a large cast iron pan.
   
4. Divide the dough into 7 pieces and place into the spring form. Leave to rise for about 1 hour. I left mine to rise about 3 hours and it rose so much that one could no longer distinguish the individual rolls, as you can see in the pictures.
5. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
6. Melt the margarine in a small bowl.
7. Carefully spoon the margarine over the rolls. Sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt.
8. Place into the oven for about 12 minutes until they are nice and brown.
9. Om nom nom.

Chocolate Lava Cake

I accidentally stumbled across this recipe the other day and had to try it:
Chocolate Lava Cake
It tastes wonderful. I want to make it again, but I probably shouldn't.

Kumquat Muffins

I usually make muffins using butter milk. I did not have any and wanted to make muffins so I tried using cream cheese instead. It worked very well.

I think one could easily replace the kumquats with any other type of fruit or leave them out altogether.



Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100 g cream cheese
• 150 g kumquat

Directions:

1. Chop the kumquats including peel, I used a food processor to do this.
2. Whisk together the margarine and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one by one, whisking each time until you can't see any trace of egg.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C
4. Whisk in the cream cheese and kumquat.
   
5. Mix the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar. Add the flour mixture to the cream cheese mixture slowly.
6. Either line the muffin cups with paper liners or butter you muffin cups well. The batter should make about 12 muffins. I fill the muffin cups until they are 3/4 full.
7. Place the muffins in the oven for 18-20 minutes.
   

Marzipan Lemmings

On my birthday I decided to make a lemming cake, so I made these cute figures out of marzipan.
I'm not quite happy with the way the hair turned out, it looks sort of like a helmet.
The next few pictures show the lemmings on the cake. Yum.

Avocado Wasabi Salad

We found this delicious recipe for a salad:
Avocado Wasabi Salad
We didn't have any broccoli the first time we made it, but it was still great. The amount of dressing is a bit much and we still have some in the fridge, so next time we're probably only going to make half the dressing.

Spinach-Feta-Pastries

Ingredients:

• 50 g Butter
• 10 g fresh yeast (or a packet dried yeast)
• 250 g flour
• 90 ml water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar

• 250 g frozen, chopped spinach
• 100 g feta
  
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp. creme fraiche
• salt
• pepper

Directions:

1. Defrost the spinach.
   
2. Place flour in a large mixing bowl. with butter . Make a small mould in the flour and pour the water in it. Crumble in the yeast, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp sugar. Mix these with the water. Add the butter and knead well. It should give a nice soft dough, which does not stick to your fingers, if it does add more flour.
3. Leave the dough to rise for an hour in a warm place.
4. Chop the cloves finely.
   
5. Mix the spinach, the cloves, the creme fraiche, feta and salt and pepper to taste in another bowl.
6. When the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 200°C.
7. Roll out the dough to about 0.5 cm thickness. Using for example a large glass of approximately 10 cm diameter cut the dough into round pieces.
8. Place about a tbsp. of the spinach-mixture onto every round piece. Fold together and use a fork to press the edges firmly together.
9. Put on a baking sheet and bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes.
   

Kaiser Rolls

Ingredients:

• 250 ml water
• 10 g fresh yeast (or 1 packet dried yeast)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 450 g flour
• 20 g butter
• 1 tbsp yoghurt (optional)
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp. milk

Directions:

1. Crumble the yeast into the water and mix until dissolved. Add the sugar and salt. Leave it for at least half an hour in a warm place.
2. Place flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter, yoghurt and yeast-mixture. Knead until you get a soft dough. It should not stick to your fingers, if it does add more flour. If the dough is very hard and not pliable add some more water.
3. Leave dough to rise for about 20 minutes.
4. Shape the rolls and place on a baking sheet. I used these instructions. Of course any other shape also works.
5. Leave the rolls to rise for at least another 20 minutes, but no longer than an hour.
6. Mix the egg and the milk and carefully glaze the rolls. This gives a nice brown crust.
   
7. Preheat the oven to 250°C and place a small bowl with water in the oven, so that there is some steam in the oven while baking.
8. Place the rolls in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.
9. Turn down the heat to 200°C and let the steam out of the oven. Bake for another 10 minutes. When tapped with a wooden implement the rolls should sound hollow.

"Hirse-Pfanne"

We made this german recipe: Hirse-Pfanne.
I didn't add the whipped cream to the yoghurt and it was very good that way too.

It seems that 'Hirse' translates to millet, but I couldn't find very many english recipes with millet. Can you buy millet in England or another english-speaking country?

Stuffed Paprika

We made one large paprika (ca. 350g) per person.

Ingredients (per paprika):

• 1 large bell paprika
• 2 slices toast
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
  
• 1 tomato
• 100g goat cream cheese
  
• 2 tbsp. crème fraîche
• salt
• pepper
• basil (I used 2 tsp. chopped fresh basil)
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. thyme

Instructions:

1. Cut the toast into small cubes and chop the garlic.
2. Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the toast until it is brown. Add the garlic and fry briefly.
3. Chop the tomato.
4. Preheat the oven to 200 °C
5. In a bowl mix: the tomato, the crème fraîche, the goat cream cheese and the spices. Add the bread and mix briefly.
6. Cut the top off the paprika and scoop out the seeds.
7. Fill the paprika with the cream cheese mixture.
8. Wrap in aluminium foil and place in the oven for 45 minutes.
   

Oat bread

For this bread, you have to start the day before you want to bake it. On that day, it only needs a few minutes. On the next day, it takes about 20 min to prepare and 45min to bake.

Ingredients:

• 200g oat flakes
• 400ml buttermilk
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 250-300g flour

Directions:

1. Soak the oat flakes in the buttermilk. Leave in the fridge over night.
2. The next morning, preheat the oven to 180°C. If you have a fan oven, do not preheat and use 160°C to bake later.
3. Mix the baking powder, the salt and 250g of flour in a large bowl.
4. Add the oat-flake-buttermilk mixture to the bowl. Knead until smooth.
5. The dough should stop sticking to your hands after some kneading. If it doesn't, add more flour until it does.
6. Form two loaves from the dough.
7. Place them on a tray with baking paper and put it the oven (middle rack) for about 45min.
8. Tap it with a wooden implement (e.g. a spoon) to see if it's done. It should sound hollow. You may have to bake it up to 10min more.

This bread is really tasty, even our cat likes it.

Cup-O'-Ccino (with liquid chocolate core)

Ingredients:

• 120 g margarine
• 100 g sugar
• 2 eggs (large)
• 180 g flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 6 tbsp. espresso
• 150 g chocolate

Directions:

1. Chop 50 g of the chocolate into small pieces.
   
2. Place margarine and sugar in a large bowl. Mix until fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, beating the mixture until it is smooth each time.
3. Preheat the oven to 180° C.
4. Mix the flour and baking powder and stir into the bowl. Add the espresso and chopped chocolate and stir once more. The batter is now done.
   
5. Take three cappuccino cups and smear a bit of margarine into them. Add batter until 2/3 full and press a third of the remaining chocolate in each one.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes and serve warm.

This recipe can be made in any cups as long as they can be placed in the oven. If smaller cups are used, the cakes will be finished sooner. For example, if the batter fits into 5-6 cups, they would need about 15-18 minutes.

The Cup-O'-Ccino is a type of cupcake (seen in the front of the picture) and not - in fact - an owl.

Guacamole

Ingredients:

• 2 avocado (very ripe!)
• 6 tbsp. lime juice
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion
• salt & pepper
• chili powder
• 1 tomato
  

Directions:

1. Peel the avocado. Place in a blender with 3 tbsp. lime juice and 1 tbsp. olive oil.
2. Chop the garlic and onion. Also place in the blender.
3. Add spices to taste. (salt, pepper, chili)
   
4. Blend!
5. Chop the tomato. Place in the blender.
6. Blend again briefly. (the tomato should remain chunky)
7. Enjoy!

Be careful with the chili. Guacamole tends to be a lot hotter if you eat it the next day. If you have the patience, leave the guacamole to sit a few hours before serving. (We never do this, because we don't)

It is best served as a dip for tortilla chips, although on the picture above it is shown on scrambled tofu.

Scrambled Tofu

Directions:

1. Go to http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=110 and do what it says. :D

The only things we did differently were that we left out the mushrooms and the nutritional yeast (where can you get this stuff?). It was yummy none the less!

Especially the tummy-rubbing part was easy, because the amount was more than enough for the two of us and we were full for the rest of the day.

As the only side dish, we made some Guacamole.

Miso Soup

Ingredients:

• 400 ml water
• 1 tsp. dashi-no-moto (powder)
  
• 1 shiitake mushroom
  
• 2 tbsp. miso paste (we used dark miso paste)
• 275 g silken tofu
• 2 scallions

Directions:

1. Drain the tofu, then cut it into small pieces.
   
2. Cut the shiitake in small pieces, place into a pot with 400 ml cold water and the dashi-no-moto and bring to a boil.
3. When the water in the pot is boiling turn down the heat. Then mix the miso paste with 6 teaspoons of the hot water in a small cup.
4. Add the miso and tofu to the pot. Turn up the heat again.
5. Cut the scallions into small rings.
6. When the soup is boiling again, add the scallions and take the pot off the heat.

As you can see on the picture, using this much tofu and scallion results in a very "full" soup. We think it would be better to use half the tofu and only one scallion.
The soup was very tasty, but we were full after eating it and didn't have much room left for the yummy sushi we wanted to eat afterwards. :(

Plantain Curry

Ingredients:

• 2 plantains
• oil
  
• 3-4 scallions
• 1 yellow (bell) pepper
  
• 1 tbls. curry paste (yellow)
• 400 ml coconut milk
• 1 tbls. sugar
• 1 tbls. vinegar
• 4 tbls. fish sauce
• 3 cm ginger
• 1 tsp. coriander green
• lemon grass

• 1 cup rice as side dish
  

Directions:

1. Peel the plantains. One way to do this is to slice into the peel lengthwise with a knife. Then the peel can be stripped off somewhat more easily. Then dice the plantain into ~1 cm thick cubes.
2. Heat the oil in a wok. Fry the plantains about 4-5 minutes.
3. Cut the scallions into small rings and the bell peppers into small pieces. Chop the ginger finely.
   
4. Add the white parts of the scallions to the wok and fry for about a minute.
5. Add the curry paste, the coconut milk, sugar, vinegar, fish sauce and ginger. Stir. Leave to simmer for 10-12 minutes.
   
6. In the meantime, you can prepare the rice.
   
7. Add the peppers and leave for another 2-3 minutes. The Curry is done when the plantain is soft, but not dissolved.
   
8. Remove from the heat.
   
9. Add the coriander green, the lemon grass and green parts of the scallions. Stir briefly and serve with rice.

Plantains are cooking banananas (like Nanny Ogg we know how to spell banana, we just don't know how to stop) and we got ours from a local Asian super market.

They taste like banana but have the consistency (and cooking properties) of a potato. The curry can also be prepared with potatoes instead of plantains. In this case, use about 4-5 potatoes.

Concerning the fish sauce: If you want to make a vegetarian version, you can replace it with soy sauce. Although fish sauce adds more flavour (and doesn't make it taste "fishy" at all).

Tomato Gorgonzola Pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 garlic clove
  
• 4-5 scallions (we only used the white parts)
  
• oil
• 250 g pasta (e.g. Penne)
• 125 ml whipping cream
• 125 ml milk
• 150 g Gorgonzola
• 2 tomatoes
• salt, pepper, oregano
• fresh basil
• a little grated Parmesan
  

Directions:

1. Chop the scallions and garlic. Heat oil in a pan to medium heat. Add the garlic and the whites of the scallions. Fry for 1-2 minutes.
2. Pour milk and whipped cream into the pan. Let it heat up while you chop the Gorgonzola coarsely. Add the Gorgonzola.
3. Bring water for the pasta to boil and cook according to the instructions on the package. For us it was 8-10 minutes.
4. To peel the tomatoes, we placed them in boiling water for a 1-2 minutes ("scalded" them). This makes the peel easy to remove (e.g. with a knife or your fingers). Chop the peeled tomatoes into small cubes and put them in the pan.
5. Turn the heat down. (The tomatoes should only get warm, not cooked mushy)
6. Add spices to taste! (salt, pepper, oregano)
   
7. Add pasta to sauce, stir.
8. Serve with freshly chopped basil and Parmesan on top.

As you can see below, the Gorgonzola sauce was quite tasty. :D