Clementine Jam

I took 400g of clementines, peeled them and removed skin (at that point I thought "I will never ever do that again! What a stupid, stupid idea!) and 130g of sugar, clementine zest and half a lemon squeezed. Then cooked it for 3-5 minutes and filled it in clean jars. And that it is. Very easy.
And it is delicious and I love the texture and I will have to peel clementines again :D

Fill your heart with cherry jelly

Almond honey hearts filled with cherry jelly.

Recipe:
I took my autumn leaves recipe and changed it a bit, because I really liked the consistency of them. So here it is:

You need:

350 g flour
150 g freshly ground almonds
100 ml of acacia honey
140 g butter
1 tea spoon baking powder
1 packet vanilla sugar
40-50 g powdered sugar
pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients. Put a little more flour in if it is too sticky. Put the dough in the fridge for two hours. Then cut the cookies and bake them for 7-10 minutes around 180 °C. Warm the cherry jelly, put it on the full heart cookie and put the part with the heart shaped hole on top. You can powder them with sugar, but I think it is better to powder the cookies with the hole first and then stick them together. Otherwise the jelly in the middle is not that pretty anymore.
Enjoy.

Puff Pastry Plum Roses

They are very easy to make. Cut the puff pastry into stripes. Slice the plums (not too thick!) and put them on the stripes, roll them in and fix the end with a bitt of egg yolk, so it sticks together. And that is it. :)

Autumn Cookies

Finally I am proud to present you my improved recipe of autumn cookies.
After the first attempt to create some, I changed the crappy recipe from the net, and here it is. It tastes so much better!!!

You need:

350 g flour
150 g freshly ground walnuts
150 ml of maple syrup
150 g butter
1 teas spoon baking powder
1 packet vanilla sugar
70 g powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients. Put the dough in the fridge for two hours. Then cut the cookies and bake them for 7-10 minutes around 180 °C. Ready!

Quince Jelly

You will need:

1kg quinces
1 lemon
750ml water
325g jelly sugar 1:3 (I don't like it too sweet)

Wash and cut the quinces, pour water in and cook them for 45 minutes.
Take the water, add lemon juice and sugar in, cook it for 5 minutes and fill it in clean jelly jears.
You can make jam from the rest of those fruits. Just add jelly sugar, cook it for five minutes and put it in jars.
I don't like addings like rum or cinnamon, because I like the pure smell of quince jelly which has a slightly hint of roses in it. Though I was thinking about adding some mint to it. But I did not. Hmmm.

Autumn Snack

I got these mushrooms on a market recently and fried them jently in lovely butter with onions, salt, pepper, parsnip. Yummy!

Yummy quinoa :)

This is a recipe for Anna in Berlin, because I promised her a savoury recipe. And here it is! :)
Recently I have come across QUINOA.
I have to say it is just great. Here is a recipe I'd like to share, because it is delicious, inexpensive and healthy.

You will need:

an amount of quinoa you need (I usually take a cup of red quinoa)
1 big onion (diced)
3 little tomatoes (diced)
1 bell pepper (red or yellow - very pretty) (diced)
chives
1 cup of vegetable stock
(easy version)
butter or/and oil
salt, pepper to taste
spoon of creme fresh

You can also add
coconut milk
mushrooms
carrots
pumpkin, chili, whatever you want, basically.

Fry the onion in butter or/and oil until lovely golden, wash the quinoa and add it into pan, fry it a bit until everything is well mixed, add pepper, tomatoes, stir and let it bouil slowly on a low heat. When the water is almost gone add vegetable stock.
Let it all boil on a low heat (about 15-20 minutes) until ready. Add salt and pepper, serve with chives and a spoon of creme fresh. It is very easy and quick.
Give it a try! :)

Pumpkin Soup Time!

So here is one of my favourite recipes in autumn. This is definitely worth trying.

Ingredients:

One half of a medium sized pumpkin

2 onions

1 orange

1 tin of coconut milk

1 lovely piece of ginger

2 spoons of olive oil

salt, pepper, garam masala mix

(You also will need a bit vegetable stock, about two cups for this amount of pumpkin.)

Cut the onions and ginger and fry them in olive oil until they are soft. Squeeze the orange into the pan and fry it all with orange juice. Add some masala powder.
Add the bits of pumpkin into the pan and cook it all until they start to get a bit soft. While cooking, add a bit of veg stock and half the can of coconut milk.
After simmering about 10 minutes put everything into the pot with veg stock, and cook until soft. Then take the blender and puree the whole pumpkin. It should become smooth and nice. Pay attention not to have too much veg stock in the beginning, otherwise it can become watery. It is better to add some later if necessary. :) Oh yes, and salt it of course.

Pink!

I recommend this cold soup for the hot summer days. I have tried it in Latvia and since then it has become one of my favourites.

So here ist the recipe:

1,5 l buttermilk (or kefir, or yoghurt)

1,5 l cold sparkiling mineral water

ice cubes (if you want to eat it cold immediately)

bunch of radishes

1 big cucumber

1 bunch of spring onions

1 bunch of dill

1 bunch of parsley

5 cooked beet roots

salt, pepper, lemon juice

2 boiled eggs (optionally)

How to make it:

Pour the buttermilk and cold sparkiling mineral water in a big pot. Grab a grater and grate the beetroots, cut the cucumber, radishes, spring onions, herbs and put it all in the pot. Add the lemon juice (to taste), salt and pepper. Stir and put it all in a fridge, let it cool down and that is it.

It is perfect if you make it in the morning and eat it in the evening after a long hot working day (like me today:). So it is wonderful.

You cann add a boiled egg and some creme fraiche to make it lovely... But that is optional.

And this colour just makes you happy. :D

First blueberries this year

Jogurt, vanilla seeds, acacia honey and blueberries.

Red Currant Poppy Cake

My aunty from Canada came to visit us and I made this cake. It turned out well. It is very easy to make and you can put black currants in it or any other fruits...
Here comes the recipe:
Ingredients: 4 eggs, 50g sugar, 100g butter, half a teaspoon lemon juice, pinch of salt, 250g poppy seeds, 125g flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 350g red currants (or black currants, or both), powdered sugar.

Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and lemon juice, set aside.

Beat the egg yolks, sugar, add poppy seeds and soft butter, add slowly sifted flour mixed with baking powder, add red currants and finally put the egg whites in the bowl and mix carefully.

And that is it. Put it in the oven for 50 minutes (°C180). It is very easy.

You cannot do anything wrong apart from forgetting the butter (like in my case). Luckily I recognized it when the mixture was hot but not baked. So, phew. :D

Have fun, and sorry for letting you wait, I was busy these days.

Strawberry Ice Cream

400g strawberries, 150ml yoghurt, 150ml cream, 50g sugar. That's it.

Strawberry Jam

Some strawberry jam made for the first time! 1kg of strawberry, 1 vanilla pod and 300g of jelly sugar, cooked for 3 minutes. Ready.

Summer Drink

Very easy. Water, ice, elderflower syrup, mint leaves, strawberries, lemons.

Cheesecake-Icecream

150 g cream cheese

250 g sour cream
200 g cream
bit of lemon juice
fresh vanilla seeds
70g sugar

Preparation like raspberry icecream

Raspberry-Yogurt-Vanilla Ice Cream

150 ml cream, 150 yogurt, 300-400g raspberries (fresh or frozen), 60 g sugar, ½ vanilla pod or 1 packet of vanilla sugar, 1 table spoon lemon juice

I have a very simple ice machine. I have to put it 24 hours in the fridge. Then I have to prepare the ice cream mix 12 hours ahead. Then I add the ice cream mix and after 45 min it is ready.

Just puree the raspberries and put them through a sieve to get rid of the seeds, add vanilla, sugar and yoghurt and then add whipped cream. So that's it.

Next time I want to try making mango ice cream and reduce cream to 100ml, just to see what happens...

What do we have here...

So, today I have tried a new recipe and of course I had to change it my way. ;) Here it is:

You will need...

For the dough:

1 egg

400 g of flour

about half a cup of water 

pinch of salt 

(in the original recipe there was also olive oil, two eggs and 500g of flour, but I prepare it the way my grandma did it) 

For the filling:

250 grams of ricotta

2 cooked lovely beetroots

salt 

pepper

For the poppyseed butter:

Well, poppyseeds and butter :)

Actually it is pretty easy (if you are familiar with this kind of recipes), but of not, I will tell you how it works. 

Sift the flour, make a little hole in the flour and put the egg in it, add a pinch of salt and then, either with a fork or a mixer (you need those dough hooks) start on a low level to mix the egg, carefully adding the flour from the sides. If it gets too thick and you have still a lot of flour left, start to add the water bit by bit. After a couple of minutes you shoud have a lovely smooth dough, not too sticky and still soft and shapable. Let it stay for a half an hour under a tea towel or sth. 

(While the dough is resting prepare the filling. Put the ricotta cheese in a bowl and grate the beetroots. Add salt and pepper and try if it is tasty. I bet it is. )

Then take it and knead it for a couple of minutes, add some flour if it is too sticky. Then roll it out, take a glass and cut the raviolis. Take then a teaspoon of the filling, place it in the middle and stick the edges together. Pay attention to the filling, it should stay inside. 

Let some water boil, salt it a bit and add the raviolis (or whatever you might call them, Maultaschen, Vareniki :). Boil them for five to seven minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the butter and add the poppy seeds. Get the raviolis out if the water, put them on a lovely plate and pour some poppy butter over them.

Merry Christmas!

300 g flour

110 g sugar powder

1/2 vanilla pod

2 egg yolks

200 g butter

1 jar cherry jam

1/2 vanilla pod

So, sift the flour, add sugar powder, vanilla pod seeds, 2 egg yolks, butter and mix it all thoroughly. Let it rest in the fridge or 2 hours.
Choose a lovely cookie cutter in shape of a heart or a Christmas tree.
Cut the cookies and bake them for 10-12 minutes at 180-200 °C.
When they are ready, let them cool down.
Warm the jam (I prefer cherry) and mix it with vanilla seeds, put it on the cookies, then stick them together. It is nice to cut a hole or a heart in on of the cookies. It looks very lovely (I was just in a hurry ;).
So that's it. Enjoy.

Spice up the coming winter!

What I love about December is the smell of Christmas cookies and different spices I always connect with this magical time of year. Recently I have discovered a lovely recipe (that I had of course to change a bit as usually) of a Winter Punch.
Usually I buy a mix of spices for mulled wine, but this time I went for apple cider with a range of well chosen spices. It was amazing and definitely worth trying!

You will need:

1 bottle of cider
70 g of brown sugar
10 pods of cardamom
1 vanilla pod
3 aniseed pods
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cloves
a piece of fresh ginger
1 organic orange

Take half a cup of cider and let all ingredients simmer for a while. Then put everything into a pot with the rest of the cider and let it heat (do not let it boil!).
There is also the option to put some cider in a jar, to add the spices and let it for a couple of days in the fridge and use the extract then, but I did not have the time. Anyway it was just delicious.

Snack

This is one of my faves. Bananas, physalis, apples, grapes, some acacia honey and lime juice. Love it.