Swiss Chard Soup

Last year I grew swiss chard in the vegetable patch. It did remarkably well and we've been used it as a substitute for spinach, which worked very well. Here is a picture my husband took the last year. 

What I love about the swiss chard is that it matches our house really well, with it's red stalks and green leaves. Maybe I will change the paint in my living room to match it (just joking!). We've tried all kinds of things like eating it as a salad, making what Germans call Rahmspinat, in fried rice, with noodles, in cutlets and in patties. 

Preparation time: 30 minutes; makes 1 litre

Ingredients:

1 medium	Onion
2 tbsp.	Oil
2 cloves	Garlic
500g	Swiss chard
1 L	Milk
1.5 tbsp.	Flour
1/3	Vegtable cube (Knorr)
	Salt and pepper

Method:

Making this soup is really easy. Start by chopping your onions. They can be chopped any way you like because you will blend your soup at the end. Heat a saucepan on medium high heat. When the pan is hot add the oil and then the onions. 

A note here, if you use a stick to blend your soup don't make your soup in a non-stick pan, because your stick will damage the teflon coating. 

While the onions are frying coarsely chop the garlic and add it to the pan. You should stir the onions every now and then to prevent them from burning. While everything is cooking chop your Swiss chard roughly. 

You should chop the stems a bit finer than the leaves. I chopped them in 1 cm pieces. 

Then add the leaves to the pan and stir. Put the lid on the pan and let it cook until the leaves have wilted. You will notice because you'll have a whole lot less of leaves in your pan!

Remove the lid and sprinkle 1.5 tbsp. of flour over the leaves. Stir the flour in and keep stirring until all the flour is incorporated and cook for another minute so that the flour gets cooked. Next add the milk, salt, pepper and vegetable cube. I use a Knorr cube, which is huge so I used about a third. You don't want to add stock to your soup. I don't actually know why, but the only definite piece of advice my mother gave me to making this soup is "do not put any water in it". 

Heat everything through and then puree your soup. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to use a stick blender. If you have a metal one you can just stick it directly into your saucepan and puree the mixture. If you do this be very careful. Make sure that your blade is fully immersed all the time and start out on your lowest speed. Any mistakes here will result in hot soup flying all over your kitchen and possibly all over you. A safer way to do this would be to cool down the soup and then puree it. If you are transferring the soup to a liquidiser you should definitely cool the soup down before liquidising it. 

Once pureed reheat and serve hot. 

Three lentil and potato curry

 I was going through my store cupboard and found all kinds of things that needed to be used up. Among them the split green gram that I had once bought to grind to make mung kawum for Sri Lankan new year. Since I subsequently discovered roasted green gram flour I now don't need to roast and grind my own, but that left me with a 2 kg bag of split green gram! Every now and then I substitute it in my regular lentil curry, but no one really likes it 😞. 

This happened round about the same time as I got into baking sour dough bread. In order to make the bread I bought a large enamelled cast iron pot. It's turned into my favourite pot and as soon as this pandemic is over I'm going to go shopping and find a set of smaller pots. I think we've been eating one pot meals ever since I bought it. I use it for pasta dishes, ramen noodles, steaming dumplings ... it's really versatile. 

So I had my pot and I had my split green gram and I decided to make a one pot curry (duh!). It turned out pretty decent. I've made it twice and the pot has been scrapped clean each time. One more time and I'll be done with my green gram! I might even have to go out and buy some more. Now wouldn't that be ironic.

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 4 as part of a multi-course meal

Ingredients:

1/4 cup	Split Mung beans
1/4 cup	Channa lentils (yellow dahl)
1 tsp.	Salt
3 tsp.	Curry powder
1/2 tsp.	Chilli powder
1/2 tsp.	Turmeric
1/2 tsp.	Methi seeds (fenugreek seeds)
1	Tomato, diced
1/2 cup	Diced onion
1 tsp.	Garlic paste
1 tsp.	Ginger paste
2 1/2 cup	Water
1/4 cup	Red split lentils (Masoor dahl)
350 g	Diced potato
1/2 cup	Coconut cream (or 5 tbsp. Maggie coconut milk powder made up to 1/2 cup)
	Handful coriander leaves

Method:

When you look at the list of ingredients you are probably going to think the same thing that I did when I made this the second time: That's a lot of spices for so few lentils! I promise you it works, but if you don't like spicy food you can always reduce everything by a little bit. 

Split red lentils (top left), split mung lentils (top right) and channa lentils

Start out by washing your mung lentils and your channa lentils and then put them in a heavy bottomed pan with a fitting lid. Into the pan add salt, curry powder, chilli powder, turmeric, methi seeds, the diced tomato and onion, the garlic and ginger paste and the water. 

• Curry powder - I use Sri Lankan unroasted curry powder. If you can't get Sri Lankan curry powder substitute it with Indian Garam Masala. If all you can get is European style curry powder, which you can recognise by its distinctive yellow colour, you can use this but you should not add any turmeric. Instead substitute the turmeric with curry powder. I have not tried this recipe with either Garam Masala or European curry powder, so I'd love your feedback if you try it. 
• Chilli powder - different brands have different hotness so adjust to your taste. If you want a milder spicy taste use paprika powder instead.
• Tomato - I use a medium sized tomato. Say about 8 cm in diameter. If you don't have fresh tomato use 1/4 cup of tomato puree (non-concentrated). It works fine.
• Garlic and ginger paste - although you could use pre-made pastes I seriously recommend that you make your own paste. I used 2 cloves of garlic and a 2 cm piece of ginger to produce the required amounts of paste. 
  

Give everything a stir, put the lid on and bring to the boil over high heat. You need to boil it for 20 minutes. Make sure that it does not dry out. I made this in a cast iron saucepan with a pretty tight lid so I assume that if you make it in a regular saucepan with a not so tight lid that you might need to add a bit more water. If it looks like it is going to dry out add 1/2 cup of water at a time. Make sure you bring it right back up to boil quickly. In order for you to know that it is not drying out you should check it after 10 minutes and give it a stir. Then check on it every 5 minutes.

While your dahl is cooking wash your masoor, or red split, lentil and set aside. Peel and dice your potatoes. The weight given here is the weight after they were diced. It seems like a lot for the small amount of dahl, but it works. 

After 20 minutes are up add the red lentils to the pot, stir and put the lid back on. If the curry is drying out add 1/2 cup of water. Boil for another 5 minutes. Then add the diced potato, stir and boil for 5 minutes (with the lid on). Finally, add the coconut milk and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on. 

Finally add a handful of finely chopped coriander leaves and serve.

We like to eat it with bread and butter, but you can eat it with rice and pair it with any other curry. 

We had ours with some freshly baked sourdough 😋

Burritos with re-fried beans

My kids love burritos, but only if they can have guacamole with them. In San Francisco it was easy enough. Just trot down the road to any old Mexican restaurant and buy some. Things are not as simple here in Germany. Yes we do have Mexican restaurants but we have not yet been able to find a good one. We have tried. The best one is run by a Sri Lankan and the food tastes like you would expect Mexican food in Sri Lanka to taste like!

Of course you could just eat it without the wrap!

So there is no choice but to make everything from scratch. At least I have found places to buy the tortillas because making them is a pain in the .... Salsa and guacamole taste really bad here in DE, so we have to make that from scratch. As a result we only make this when the tomatoes are red and ripe and the avocados are on sale.

Here is what you need to put together a burrito:

• Tortilla wraps
• Re-fried beans
• Guacamole
• Salsa
• Sour cream
• Grated cheddar cheese

Optional

• Mexican rice
• Grated iceberg salad

And of course tortilla chips on the side. 

Refried beans sprinkled with cheese

Chunky salsa

Vegetable skewers

These skewers are another product of trying to use up the leftover vegetables in the fridge. They turned out really well and are perfect for a BBQ. But even if the weather is freezing you can fix them in an oven.

Ingredients:

1	Sweet potato, large
4	Potato, medium
2-3	Beetroots, boiled
500g	Broccoli
	Olive oil
1 tsp.	Garlic paste
1/4 tsp.	Roasted curry powder

1/4 tsp.	Chili flakes
	Salt and pepper
20	Bamboo skewers

Method:

Fill a basin with cold water and allow your skewers to soak. This will prevent them from catching fire when you put them on the grill or in the oven. 

Put the fan oven on at 200 C (220C convection oven).

Peel the potatoes and cut into 2 cm dice. I made 20 such cubes. Each of the vegetables is going to have a different taste, thus you'll need two roasting dishes. One for the regular potato and one for the sweet one. You can't really just grill the potatoes on the skewers, that would take forever and the other vegetables would be over cooked. So I pre-baked them. I did this in the oven. The sweet potato I tossed in olive oil (less than 1 tablespoon), salt and the chilli flakes. The regular potato I tossed in olive oil, garlic paste (make it fresh) and salt. Put the potatoes in a baking dish and bake until just tender. You should be able to get a fork about halfway through. If you want to do this on a BBQ just wrap the cut and marinaded potatoes in foil and grill them.

If you use fresh beetroot you'll have to boil them until they are barely cooked. If you live in Germany you can buy precooked ones in the store. This will save you a lot of time, however, the quality of the beets may note be great. I always buy organic ones from Lidl. I've tried other ones but they don't taste good. 

Cut your beet into 2 cm dice, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and roasted curry powder.

Wash your broccoli and cut into 20 pieces. Again drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. 

Once all the vegetables are ready skewer them and grill them for about 5 minutes. After this time some of the surfaces will start to burn giving it a nice "grilled" look. Then turn off the grill and put on the oven and leave for another 5 minutes or so. Just enough so that the broccoli is tender.

We found the broccoli a bit dry. That would have not been an issue if I hadn't forgotten to make a the dipping sauce! You can find the recipe here. Another nice accompaniment would be sauce hollandaise. 

Coconut Mango Tart

 This is still a draft of the recipe. Once I get another can of mango pulp I'll try it again and post the exact amounts.

The tart has 4 layers. A biscuit crumb layer at the bottom, then a cake layer, a coconut cream layer and finally a mango cream layer at the top. 

Preparation time: depends!; made 6

Ingredients:

Biscuit layer:
	Biscuits
	Butter/margarine
Cake layer:
	Sponge or white cake
Coconut layer:
250 ml	Coconut cream
	Pinch of salt
2 tbsp.	Cornstarch
2 oz	Sugar
1	Egg
Mango layer:
250 ml	Unsweetened mango pulp
	Pinch of salt
2 tbsp.	Cornstarch
2 oz	Sugar
1	Egg
1oz	Butter/margarine

Method:

Crush the biscuits (about 200g?) and add some melted butter (or margarine if you need it to be dairy free) (about 2 tbsp?). Stir well to combine and press into the bottom of the dish.

These are some Santa cookies leftover from Christmas

Take a pre-baked sheet cake. It can be any kind. I used some left over cake from my daughters birthday. You can use sponge cake or any butter cake. It should not be very thick. About 1 cm should do. Cut it to shape and place it on top of the biscuit base. If you have some left over cake "crumbs" you could mix them with a bit of buttercream and press them on top of the biscuit base.

Here you can see that the biscuit layer is very thin approx. 0.5 cm and the cake is about 1 cm. The "pudding" layers are also about 1 cm. Notice that the coconut layer is thinner in the middle than on the sides. This is because the cake layer was not flat

Make the coconut pudding. This is just a pastry cream substituting the milk with coconut milk and leaving out the butter. Coconut milk is very fatty. You don't need any more fat. If you don't have coconut cream just use any type of coconut milk. Just be aware that you may have to add more cornstarch to make the pudding thick enough. In a small saucepan bring the coconut milk/cream and the salt to just under a boil. While it's heating whisk together the cornstarch and the sugar. Add the egg to the mix and whisk until smooth. Then take 1/3 of the hot milk and add it to the egg mixture whisking continuously. Once well combined pour the egg mixture back into the hot coconut milk and whisk. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking all the time. Once it thickens remove from the heat and allow to cool. Pour the coconut pudding on top of the cake while it is still warm and allow it to cool.

While it is cooling make the mango pudding. The process is the same as above just substitute mango pulp for the coconut. If your mango pulp is sweetened omit the sugar from the recipe. Add the butter (or margarine for a dairy free variety) once you remove the pan from the heat. Add a tablespoon at a time and whisk each time until well combined. 

Pour the mango pudding on top of the coconut pudding. Cover with cling wrap and allow to set. Decorate with fruit and some mango pulp and serve. 

Mini Grilled Eggplant

When I saw these mini eggplants in the store I just had to buy them. I had no idea what I would do with them! The shop owner said that usually people cooked them with walnuts. I'm guessing that is a mediterranean way of cooking them. I searched the web but couldn't find anything that hit the spot, so I went out on a limb and created my own recipe.

Preparation time: 1.25 hours; serves 4 as a main dish

Ingredients:

1 kg	Eggplant (about 16 fruit)
1/2 - 1 tbsp.	Salt
3 tbsp.	Oil
1/4 tsp.	Turmeric powder
1/4 tsp.	Chilli flakes
1/2 tsp.	Ground cumin
	Black pepper, freshly ground
Ingredients for sauce
1/2 cup	Coconut cream
1 tbsp.	Miso paste
1/2 tsp.	Dark soya sauce
1/4 tsp.	Chilli powder
A few mint leaves finely chopped, to garnish Method:

Wash the eggplant and slice lengthwise down the middle. Leave the stem on so that the fruit stays together. It also makes it look pretty and gives you something to grab the fruit by once it is cooked and soft.

Place the eggplant cut side up on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Leave them to stand for at least 20 minutes, but no more than 1 hour. You should see beads of moisture form on the top of the eggplant.

While the salt is drawing out the water from the eggplant you can set about making the sauce. It's a really simple sauce to make, but it's full of punch. Simply put all ingredients in a small saucepan, put it on medium heat and stir to combine all the ingredients. I don't know if you can replace the coconut cream with fresh coconut milk. Maybe if you squeezed some fresh milk and then let it sit for a while in the fridge, you could skim off the cream. You might also be able to make a thick cream from Maggie coconut milk powder, but I have not tried it yet. I used canned coconut cream. The dark soya sauce give the sauce a bit of colour. Contrary to what you might think dark soya sauce has a lower sodium content than the light variety. Adjust the chilli powder to your taste. 

Bring the sauce to a boil over medium heat (about 5 minutes) and then reduce the heat to the lowest setting possible and simmer for about 10 minutes. 

By now the eggplant has probably been sitting for long enough. Wipe off the moisture that has formed on the top of the cut surface with a paper towel and try to take some of the salt off too. You don't need to get all the salt off because there won't be anymore salt added. Just the excess that fell on the baking tray and that sticks to your paper towel and hands.

If your grill needs to be pre-heated now is the time to put it on (a Foreman grill won't work because it will squash the eggplant).

Now with a very sharp knife score the top of the eggplant as show in the photograph below. Don't cut all the way through to the skin, but go deep enough so that the spices get inside and so that it cooks quicker.

Place the eggplants cut side up on a baking tray that can be used under a grill and brush the cut surface with oil. Then take a pinch of turmeric and sprinkle a tiny bit on each cut surface. Do the same with the ground cumin. Note that there is more cumin than turmeric so you should put twice as much cumin as turmeric. Finally crack some fresh black pepper on top and sprinkle with chilli pieces if desired.  

Flip the eggplant over and oil the skin sides of the eggplant.

Put the fruit under the grill at 240 C for 2 minutes or until golden brown. If the fruit is too close to the heat the skin will burn, which has it's own taste but might not be what you are looking for. I had mine on the second level from the top. 

Flip the eggplant and continue to grill for another 8 minutes. If your eggplants are not getting nice and golden on the top, but they are cooked, move the baking tray closer to the heat source. Keep a sharp eye out to make sure you don't burn them.

Reheat the sauce while the eggplant is cooking so it can be served hot.

Remove the eggplant from the grill and serve immediately with the coconut/miso sauce. 

You can sprinkle some finely chopped mint either on the eggplant (if you are serving the sauce on the side) or after pouring the sauce on the eggplant. 

Or you could cook them till they are just cooked and then put them back under the grill just before serving to brown the tops. Reheat the sauce, adding a bit more coconut cream if it has dried out, and serve hot. 

Here is a shorter version to use when cooking https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DgJXRfl66SHnFnMRu5S3xvAP8cbqOMmGMDFnXVNoOSE/edit?usp=sharing

Origami window dressing

 My window has been looking pretty empty after I took my Christmas decorations down. It's not totally bare because 3 of my orchids happen to be in bloom. I have a total of 5 orchid plants. I did not buy any of these plants. They were all gifts. The only indoor plants I buy are cacti because everything else dies. But apparently not orchids. I've even chucked them outside because I really did not want to deal with them, but they relentlessly survived. I feed them once a year if they are lucky and I water them once a week (which I'm told is plenty) and they just keep giving. My husband says I must be growing old because I have a knack for orchids and only old people grow orchids! But he's just joking, of course.

Being just the beginning of February I felt it was too early for spring and flowers. God forbid, it is still snowing outside. I thought we need a bit of peace and goodwill and someone really needs to use up all that origami paper that has accumulated over the years. I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but when I see cheap origami paper I just have to buy it. I have no idea why. I also buy origami books. I have one math book which describes the geometry of origami. I have another in which the origami insects are so complicated that I have never managed to complete a single one. I actually know why. It says you should use the highest quality paper to prevent tearing. And cheapo me does not have any high quality paper and is not going to invest in any. This is how I came up with the idea to make strings of origami cranes to dress my window. 

All you need to make these strings are:

1. Origami paper
2. Fishing nylon, beading nylon or any other thread
3. A needle with a head big enough for the thread to fit through
4. One weight per string 
5. Blue tac, a glue gun 

First of all make the cranes. I will not go through how to do this because there are hundreds of instructions out there. If you are like me and like an old fashioned paper instruction try this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orizuru (I'm trying to be neutral here!). If you prefer a video ... well you know exactly what to do. Some cranes are slightly easier than others. The one on Wikipedia is the easiest type. If you don't know the origami notation then probably a video is a better option for you. 

I used multicoloured origami paper so I lay them out on the table and swapped them around until I was happy with the colour combination. I mean, I wasn't totally happy with my combinations, but I really didn't want to make anymore cranes so I made do with what I had! 

Measure how much string you need and add on about 30 cm so you have some extra to tie knots and adjust the length. Start with the bottom most crane. Thread the string into your needle, gently press your crane flat, and then pass the needle through the hole in the bottom and out through the middle of the body. By pressing the crane flat it is easier to see where the middle is and it is less likely that the paper tears.  Continue threading your cranes until you have the desired number, which in my case was 4. 

You'll need a weight at the bottom of the string because the cranes don't weigh enough to keep tension in the string. You can use anything for the weight. I happened to find these "things" in my basement. I bought them on sale at a crafts store because they were pretty (and on SALE). I'm sure I'm not alone on this one. My husband keeps me out of craft stores because I can't help myself. And if I do wander in because I really, really need something (like a pot of glue) I always head over to the sale rack, and I ALWAYS find something that has my name on it. I remember when I picked these up. I was standing outside with my husband while my kids were inside buying stuff. Then my husband popped into the bakery opposite to pick up some bread. One of my kids popped their head out of the store just then (I'm sure they noticed that I was alone) and asked me if I could come and look at something they wanted to buy. Unable to resist I took that bold step into the store, I looked at their potential purchase and then was told by my eldest "hey mama, you know they have some nice stuff on the sale rack". I gave her a scolding, told her that she would be in trouble with her father (as would I be), and all too willingly headed to the back of the store. My kids had a field day of it, picking things up and enticing me with them. "Mama, wouldn't this look good", "Oh mama, look how cheap this is. Are you sure you can't use it?", "This looks really, really cute". They got so much fun out of it and I got a whole heap of stuff that was so cute, so cheap, and I so did not need. Including these metal lattice hanger things. When we came out of the store my husband just shook his head in despair and I blamed it all on the kids 😉

Now string your weight on to the bottom and secure it with a double knot.

My window is above my kitchen sink and I have to climb on a stool and lean over the sink and kitchen counter to get to the top. So it's not very easy to adjust things in situ. So I hung my strands onto a curtain in my living room using a safety pin. Then I figured out how to space the cranes. I used a tiny piece of blue tac to hold the cranes in place. A tiny piece right at the bottom. Because I used blue tac I was able to adjust the heights so that they matched. It is also much easier to adjust if you find it doesn't work when you move it to where it should be. You could of course use a glue gun to place a small bead of hot glue at the bottom of the crane. But you then have to be sure that you have the right place. If you don't have blue tac you can use any other type of poster tac or you could use plasticine, clay or play doh (although the play doh may not work quite as well). If you want to be really fancy you can string a bead on before you string on a crane and tie the bead into place. The problem with this is of course that it would be really hard to change it later and you would have to tie that knot before you put the next crane onto the string. 

Then you are done. All I had to do was to move the cranes over to my kitchen window! 

If you are wondering how I attached them to my window frame I used some self adhesive ceiling hooks. I'm so happy with these hooks that I bought a heap more so that I could dress all my windows for Christmas. Needless to say the hooks are still in a drawer and the windows were completely naked! Well maybe I'll get round to it next Christmas.