It’s getting spiny
Only plants with character get their own song…
These spiny friends are not yet on my balcony.
Browsing category: Allgemein, stil(l)eben
Turkish style stuffed green peppers with dill-mint-yoghurt dip
It’s a sunny saturday but the sun still doesn’t have the power to warm up the air properly. So what to eat?
I decided on something light and fresh but giving enough energy to warm my body from the inside: Stuffed green peppers turkish style with dill-mint-yoghurt-dip. It is the recipe of a former very good friend how I kept it in my mind.
Ingredients for 2:
Stuffed peppers
10 small green peppers (I always buy them at a Turkish shop)
200g mixed minced organic meat
100 g risotto rice
1 onion
2 table spoons of seasoning mix for dolmades (it’s a mixture of the following spices in case you cannot find it: Red capsicum, coriander, curcuma, cumin, pepper, salt, thyme, laurel, garlic, fenugreek, mustard flour)
Ground pepper
Salt
Tomato concentrate
Fry the chopped onion until golden and mix with the minced meat. When the meat is nearly done add the seasoning mix, pepper and salt. Then add rice, water and a bit of concentrated tomato. In the meanwhile wash the green peppers, remove the top and the seeds. Prepare a huge pot with only about five centimeters of water on the bottom. Put some peeled garlic cloves inside, tomato concentrate and some beef stock. When the rice is soft put the minced meat-rice stuffing in the peppers and stack them in the pot, add a lid and cook for 30 min until the peppers are soft.
Dill-Mint-Yoghurt-Dip:
300g natural yoghurt (3,5%)
1/2 cucumber
2 fresh garlic cloves
dill
mint
salt
ground pepper
Peel the cucumber and rasp. Finely chop dill, mint and garlic. Mix everything with the yoghurt. Add salt and pepper. Put the dip in the fridge so the aroma can get to work.
I serve fresh mint-tea with it. Enjoy!
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Leaving luggage behind: My spring books
Two days and a 71% solar eclipse ago, spring officially started, at least in theory. Looking out of my window it rather looks and feels like early autumn. Never mind, I’ll postpone my bicycle tour and strolling around in my new spring outfit and instead celebrate the start of spring indoors with the heater turned up to 22°C, a freshly boiled aromatised black spring tea, tasty Swiss choclate and travelling to other people’s lives by reading.
Selbstporträt mit Flusspferd by Arno Geiger: After a long time I found an author (although Austrian;-) that knows how to use the German language and how to create vivid pictures in the mind: 32 year old Julian travels back in time to his early twenties when he split up with his girlfriend he admired so much for her stable self while he was drifting. Who was I back then? How did I feel?Geiger hit the nerve of the inside of a 22 year-old as I experienced it. I realised that some things got really easier since then although the time studying retrospectively often seems the most unburdened time.
Umweg nach Hause by Jonathan Evison (English original title: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving): On this one week road-trip every passenger has his personal luggage to carry (I would say the size of the biggest Gregory backpack available) and demons to fight. After the week each person is smarter in regard to their demons, got rid of part of their luggage, made new friendships and goes back to their lives with new energy. What also made me smile is how each character is described in the front inside-cover of the book including the position in the car they occupy.
The Weekender (Issue No. 16/2015): My favourite world-escape magazine this time features two dropout stories that will stay in my mind for a while:
1. A Dutch Family that moved to a little place in Portugal to live in a Yurt. When I read the article it turned out that I know the area pretty well, it is a stone’s throw away from where I married last year. Maybe I already met one of the family members when strolling around the cork oak-bamboo-eucalyptus forests or caught a wave on the beach with them… Is life not all about coincidences?
2. An artist spending half the year (the summer months) in the little village of Cabo Polonio on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay in a house he built mostly from things he found on the beach. Because of massive sand dunes Cabo is only accessible by foot, horse or 4×4. So, the perfect place for world-escape.
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It’s spring time baby!
1. That’s what happens when a designer goes on a business trip to Amsterdam and passes a photobox. I love you too!
2. Blue top by American Apparel
3. Protea Flower necklace from Swiss designer Florian T.
4. Nail polish by Zoya (ZP 441)
5. Portuguese ceramic swallow from La vida portuguesa.
6. A definite sign of spring: Anemones in all different colours. And a definite way to put bad thoughts away. Thank you mummy!
7. I call them: White “Little Muck Pants”. I got them on sale from Stine Goya and couldn’t resist. I still do not know why the silk pants were in a winter collection…
8. Lipstick by Mäc (VEGAS VOLT B70)
How lovely the nail polish and the lipstick go together with the flowers! Kind of hard to imagine the pants in the folded state, but since they are sold out anyway… We are also looking forward to springtime, the first green is sprouting, can’t wait!
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33°55ʼS, 18°25ʼE – City of the Protea Flower
Florian T. loves travelling and aesthetic objects with meaning - as do I. He chose for each city he selected for his necklace collection an object that he connects with the city and created pendants in different materials. I couldn’t resist on my weekend trip to Zurich for valentine’s day to get a protea flower necklace from the Swiss designer. Highlightmyday made the decision easier as lovebirds got 31% off the normal price when kissing in the shop. Great valentine’s idea!
The owner of highlightmyday shares the shop with a vintage clothes’ shop. It’s a great and friendly place to get inspiration and in touch with the locals:
highlightmyday
Josefstr. 144
8005 Zurich
Speaking of european distances 
Great to be able just to pop to zurich for a weekend, and what a lovely nacklace! Just one question: What is that in your hand in the picture up top?
These are the most delicious sweets. The word choclate coverend marshmallow might be the English translation for it but it does not describe at all what it is: a fluffy milk cream covered in milk choclate;-)
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Walking in Paris
3,5 hours later: Bienvenue à Paris. I really should do this more often, hopping on the TGV for a short trip to Paris. Well, Paris in January might not be the perfect time to travel, but hey it’s “soldes” which means you get the clothes in the little boutiques for up to 70% cheaper! I enjoy the sense of detail when they lovingly wrap up your new gatherings in the shops…
In some metrostations I felt like walking in a spaceship when finding my way out of the underground labyrinth.
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Visit from Mr. Naïman from Beirut
Mr. Naïman says Merry Christmas!
Mr. Naïman visited me for christmas from far Beirut, Lebanon. Actually he thinks of staying a little bit longer. He so far enjoyed the bee’s wax candles on our christmas pyramid especially when it got dark and he could spot the patterns of the pyramid wings moving on the ceiling while he was lying on my wooden living room table and soaking in the fresh forest smell of the post-officer incense smoker.
He did not know the christmas story so I told him about Jesus, Joseph and Mary while standing at the pyramid with all the members of the christmas family carved out of wood like Mr. Naïman himself. As Mr. Naïman travelled light only with his summer outfit he was very lucky that he could spot the world outside my home packed up in a warm coat only the head looking out when we went on our bikes to church.
Beef wrapped up in ham, pancakes and puff pastry what we call “Beef Wellington” was a dish he tried for the first time. He found it delicious. “It is like wrapping up a christmas present while eating”, he said. He also liked the chocolate mint cookies although he found it strange that we bake cookies in the form of nutcrackers. For the evening Mr Naïman looks forward to tasting hot elderberry juice with vanilla cream topping and watch a real arthouse movie.
Lovely necklace! The pictures feel so nice and warm, just like inside in winter is supposed to feel. Greetings from the snow.
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Chocolate-Mint christmas cookies
Ingredients (for 25 nutcrackers):
Dough
300g spelt flour (type 630)
100g cocoa (it gives the flavour of the dough, so take a good one;-)
200g cold butter
100g sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
a pinch of salt
some flour for rolling out
Decoration
200g icing sugar
Some mint oil or crushed mint candy
Decorative sugarpearls
Step by step dough making
1. Sift flour and cocoa in a bowl. Add butter in little bits, sugar, egg, egg yolk and salt and mix everything with your hands until you have a smooth dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge for one hour.
2. Preheat the oven (200 Degrees Celsius)
3. Put some flour on your work space and roll out the dough till it is about 0,5 cm thick everywhere. Cut out the shapes and put them on a tray with baking paper. Then put the little fellows in the oven for 8-10 min.
Decoration
1. Take the icing sugar and add one tea spoon of water. Mix the water in with the sugar so you get a thick white paste. Add a drop of mint oil and/or pinch of crushed mint candy.
2. Use a wooden pick to decorate your cookies with the icing sugar paste and the decorative sugarpearls while they are still warm.
yeah kekszeit
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Weekend favourites
The Eucalyptus branch reminds me of warm sunny days in Australia, Northern Spain and Portugal, but also on how much longer eucalyptus must exist than humans, it looks so ancient.
My new cooking pot I am very proud of: perfect for surviving the cold season in style with tasty soups and self-baked warm bread…What I still can’t get is why it takes me so much longer to eat a soup than a plate of pasta..
Perfect weekend-read: The weekender. My favorite article is about a university in Piemont, Italy, where you can learn the art of slow-food cooking. Well, my new cooking pot fits perfectly for slow -food and now I know why it takes a while to eat a soup. That is mean to be..
The girl seems to walk on freshly fallen leaves in sunshine. There is only the skateboard or bike missing, then it could be me…
What I like about the cold season: oranges become cheap and I can drink heaps of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Loool I love this : ) I see that Mr. Naiman is in good hands : )
Thank you so much!
<3
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Fall is all about…
1.) learning new creative stuff: Crocheting flowers to make a colourful granny square blanket for the cold winter days to come.
2.) Writing down crochet patterns , recipes etc. you got from your friends straight away so you do not forget them.
3.) looking forward to spending hours in bed with new books and a fresh hot ginger and organge drink while it is getting uncomfortable outside. Well, as we still enjoy warm sunny days this book by Lukas Bärfuss needs to wait for an other little while before being read.
4.) Lying on my bed with my new flatmate Pepe showing him the glow-in-the dark stars and playing with my still flying helium filled birthday balloon. The balloon seems to enjoy the warm air from the heater as he is dancing gently on the ceiling even if I am not holding the string.
5.) admiring this hand-made postcard and lucky stone by my friend. I would not have the patience to create it and put this filigree pattern on a stone. You can get the work of maasarbeit at the “1.Tübinger Koffermarkt”. This postcard by some other friends reminds me of summer in Portugal , the luck of having such wonderful friends in my daily life and of my time in kindergarden where I spent hours painting wax Crayon pictures putting black watercolour on top of the painting and afterwards letting a new picture come into being.
6.) trying new Polaroid films while enjoying the colours of fall and the warmth of a truely Indian summer
7.) metterschlings that wait to be put on postcards and send to friends
this is the song i sing to little pola every evening! she loves it very much. and me too.