We made it to Friday my friends and my heart is full. We have a full house and bellies full of good food and Oktoberfest beer. This weekend some work friends of the Kiwi are coming to town so here’s to more good conversations, breaking bread, and more trips to the Wies’n.
All is well.
{photo by the Kiwi}
Along with the new design and the new approach to blogging, our ‘Friday Links’ series is going to be changing a bit as well. It’s going to be a bit less random and more focused on food, the food movement and our kitchens. That’s the reason we’re here right?
There are a lot of great conversations being held about food right now, helpful tips being shared, great recipes I want to try and products I am drooling over. Smart, creative, funny people are talking about food, and I love having a platform to share their stuff with y’all. Hopefully the articles will spark discussion, the tips can be life-savers, the recipes will be inspiring, and products to die for. I certainly think they are.
{read}
Modern Farmer talks global agriculture with Bill Clinton. {modern farmer}
I am so intrigued by this free online class from Harvard about science and cooking. {edX}
Need a guide for organizing the chaos that is happening in your kitchen? {the kitchn}
Great article about stocking a whole foods pantry. {naturally ella}
An initiative to cut down on food waste and turn it into an inexpensive alternative to fast food. {the salt}
{make}
Can’t wait to try my hand at these cookies. Almond Joys are my favorite candy bar ever. {in the little red house}
Getting on the lentil train with this perfect fall stew, minus the carrots obviously. {in the little red house}
I’m making sauerkraut this weekend. Has anyone else had a whack at it? {the kitchn}
{love}
This apron is just precious and so functional. I love that loop! {schoolhouse electric}
Emily’s printables this month are the cutest yet. I use them all the time for meal planning, blog scheduling, and grocery lists. {jones design company}
One of the wonderful things about the expat community is how incredibly welcoming it is to newcomers. It’s easy to make friends in that kind of environment, especially for us wallflowers, but the community is also tends to be fluid. Most folks, at least here in Munich, tend to be on fixed term contracts and will be leaving after a year or two. So as wonderful as it is making friends from all over the world, you know that eventually they will be moving on to new places or going back to old familiar ones. It’s lovely having friends all over the world, but it’s also a bit lonely when all of your friends have left while you’ve stayed behind.
But then… they come back!
It seems like our house has been {and will continue to be for a few more months at least} a revolving door. Friends and family have made our sofa bed their home and lots of great visiting has been happening over a couple beers and a table full of food. These awesome people have also unwittingly been guinea pigs for lots of new recipes so for that, thank you.
Today one of my friends from my au pair year is arriving and, since food is my love language, naturally I made cake. So here’s to catching up, trips down memory lane, great conversations, trips to the Wies’n, and tons of great food.
Peach and Rosemary Polenta Cake
{inspired by Adventures in Cooking} The whole recipe is reduced to make a two layer cake instead of three only because I don’t have three pans. Aside from adding the peaches, I replaced the sugar in the cake with honey so some amounts of other ingredients also had to change to compensate for the differences.
The Dry
1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour {I used spelt.}
1/3 cup uncooked polenta {or cornmeal. It’s the same thing. I can’t get cornmeal here, so I went with polenta}
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
The Wet
3 eggs
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp apple juice {I used unfiltered.}
1/2 Tbsp vanilla
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 cloves, crushed and ground
To Fold
2 Tbsp rosemary, finely chopped
2 small peaches, cubed
Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.
Sift the dry ingredients together into a medium sized mixing bowl and then set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and honey. Then add the olive oil, apple juice, vanilla, and spices and stir until it’s combined.
Slowly add the dry ingredients in batches and mix until it’s just combined. Don’t want to over mix it! Gently fold in the peaches and the chopped rosemary.
Pour the batter up into two 6 inch cake pans and bake for 30 minutes.
When they’re finished transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and let them cool completely before icing.
1 stick {140g} butter
1 cup powdered sugar {icing sugar for the Kiwis}
1/4 cup honey
1 Tbsp cream {or in my case, soy cream}, optional but recommended
First step is to brown the butter. The short version is melt the butter over medium heat then let it keep cooking until it goes from light yellow to a rich tan color, little black bits start to form, and it starts to smell like nutty toffee. {Eva over at Adventures in Cooking explains this process beautifully, so if you’re unsure head over there and read up.} When you get to that point, set it off the heat to cool for a bit then pour it into a bowl lined with plastic wrap. Pop the bowl in the fridge until the butter is cooled and firmed enough to use for the buttercream.
When you poke it the butter should feel soft but your finger shouldn’t sink in. Let’s make some buttercream!
Sift your powdered sugar into a large mixing bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and add them to the bowl along with the honey. Beat them all together until you like the consistency. If it’s a bit thick, add some cream to smooth it out.
Happy monday my dears! How was your weekend? The Kiwi is finally on the mend it seems and not a moment too soon. Oktoberfest kicked off this weekend and, while neither of us were up to a Maß, we certainly were up for a wander around the Wies’n and some Hax’n-semmeln—{pork} knuckle sandwiches complete with cracklin’. Yum!
Clearly things are looking a little different around here. Obvs I want to share all the brand spankin’ new features with y’all, but I also want to talk a bit about blogging with intention.
This design is so much closer to my original vision for the blog and, in general much more reflective of my style. Aesthetics aside, it should be much more efficient and resources should now be much easier to find. Looking for some inspiration for dinner tonight? Our recipe tab has you covered. You can now search but meal or course, by ingredient, or search specifically for vegetarian dishes and dairy free treats. {If you’re looking for a specific recipe the search bar on the sidebar is still probably your best bet.}
If you’re looking for one of our DIY tutorials check out The How-To Series button on the side bar and all of our food guides can now be found in the {wander} page. You should also probably check out our new about page.
You know, when I started thinking about getting into this blog game I tons of ideas about how I wanted to blog. The two best pieces of advice I read were to stop waiting for everything to be perfect and just take the plunge, but also to continuously examine your goals.
Following the first piece of advice, back in May I took the plunge and launched. Talk about a learning curve. I’ve learned about my strengths and weaknesses. I’ve learned what stuff I love to write about and what makes me feel proud and like I’ve accomplished something. As I continue to learn, I’m examining my goals for this space and as always trying to be transparent and authentic. In that vein, I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned so far about myself and what I want for the blog.
I can learn new skills and develop new passions {and the blog will evolve with my passions.}
Photography has always been the Kiwi’s thing. When I started thinking about the blog he gave me a quick run down of the camera and set me loose. I expected to be overwhelmed. {I was.} I expected to ask him 100 million questions every day. {I did.} I expected to get frustrated and end up officially dubbing him the Kiwi+Peach photographer. {But I didn’t.} I actually found that I love the photography part almost as much as the cooking part. I love the creativity, I love the aesthetics, and I love seeing improvement. {I mean, it really couldn’t have gotten much worse.} Am I great? No, but I’m improving every time, practicing, understanding and capturing light in better ways, and being more creative with the props and staging. Will future posts have more photos? Probably.
I should write what I love at a quality I am proud of even if that means not posting every day.
One thing I know is that that I want this to be a marathon, not a sprint. I set out with the mind set that come hell or high water I. will. post. every. single. day. damnit.
Kudos to those of y’all who do it, but it’s not for me. The posts I feel the proudest of are recipes that I’ve made over and over again and that I know are going to work for you 100% of the time. I simply can’t crank one of those out every day, but more than that, I don’t think I should. In the future I think its safe to say that y’all can look for one or two new, quality recipes a week {with lots more photos!}
What else have I learned I love posting about? I love sharing my favorite bands with y’all. This is the stuff that’s playing pretty much non-stop in our house. This is the stuff that inspires us and I hope it just might inspire you too. {If you love folksy music with great lyrics too, we’d love to hear some of your favorite bands!}
I also really love sharing articles about food, food science, and the food movement in friday links. I read a lot of articles. I mean lots. and I want to encourage discussion. If you have an opinion about an article I post, let’s chat!
Which brings me to the next lesson I’ve learned {and one of my biggest weaknesses}…
Connecting with others and forming genuine relationships is the reason I blog.
This might be obvious to most folks {why would you put this stuff out there if you didn’t want to connect} but it’s actually the hardest lesson I’ve learned so far. I’m not an out going person. I’m friendly, I’m kind, but in social situations, I don’t tend to seek out strangers to initiate a connection. {Does that make me a wallflower?}
Blogging a strange thing. Here we are, pouring time and energy into our little creative corner, sharing our lives, our passions, our knowledge and hoping that people {strangers} identify with you and your voice. But it also does a wonderful thing–it connects us with people we feel are kindred spirits. People on a similar journey. People with shared passions. People we admire. People we feel like we can learn from. People we want to be BFFs with.
Here’s the thing though, I’m crap at the actual connection part. I’m terrified to send that message or tweet that would allow a real relationship.
I’ve followed the same few blogs for years and I can count on one hand the number I’ve ever commented on. It’s not because I don’t connect with what they’re saying–the exact opposite actually, and I’m scared of that a comment from a complete stranger saying “Yes, yes, yes to everything you just said.” comes across as a bit strange.
This blog world is a strange one though, and having experienced the other side of things, I would venture to say that most bloggers really want genuine relationships with their readers, awkward as the beginnings may be. I know I do. I want to know you. I want to know what makes you tick. I want that connection. I’ve learned that comments can make your day. I think it’s high time I start commenting, messaging, tweeting, messenger pigeoning these ladies and let them know that they inspire me, that I, too, think their child/home/dog is just the cutest thing, that their recipe was a hit with the Kiwi, or maybe just say hi. Who knows where this openness, kindness, and honesty will take us?
If you’re thinking posting this week has been sporadic then you’d be right. Remember when I said that I thought we were on the mend? Well that only appears to have been half correct. I am much better. The Kiwi on the other hand got much, much worse. Between doctor’s appointments, pharmacy runs, working on the re-design that I really want to go live before Oktoberfest begins and trying to convince the Kiwi that he really must eat something, I’ve been on the struggle bus.
Something that makes all of this easier? Eggs. The Kiwi won’t eat much, but he’ll eat eggs. Needless to say, there have been a number of different egg combos whipped up in the kitchen this week, but the favorite has been this one.
Sautéed Tomato and Garlic Fried Egg with Gorgonzola
olive oil
1 tomato, cubed
1 clove of garlic, pressed or minced
2 eggs
2 ounces gorgonzola, crumbled
2 large crackers or a piece of toast
basil optional
Start heating your pan on medium high heat. When it’s starting to get hot, add your oil and wait a quick minute for it to heat up too. Cube your tomato and prep your clove of garlic to press. When the oil is hot, add the tomatoes and press your garlic. Give it all a stir and leave it to cook for a couple minutes.
Push the tomatoes to the side and crack your eggs into the pan. Sprinkle them with a bit of salt and pepper then let them cook on one side for about 2-3 minutes or until the whites are looking pretty firm. Very carefully {you don’t want to break the yolk!} flip them. I’m a runny yolk fan, so I tend to only leave it on this side for 45 seconds to a minute, but you be the judge.
Transfer the egg to the cracker then top with the sautéed tomato and garlic, gorgonzola crumbles, and, if you’re so inclined, a bit of basil.
After Florence we made our way down the boot to Rome. While there, we took a day trip to Pompeii stopping on our way back in Naples just so we could eat some real Napoli pizza.
After some research, we decided on heading towards Starita. We had left Pompeii earlier than we’d planned because it started bucketing with rain, so we arrived at Starita {after navigating possibly the sketchiest part of Naples} around 5pm. It was clear that they weren’t open for dinner yet but a kind neighbor that was passing told us they opened at 6. That seemed like a reasonable time to wait. Besides, we had a awning over us and I had a good book. I could have waited forever. Which is exactly how long it felt like we ended up waiting. Turns out Mr. Kind Neighbor was mistaken. They don’t open until 7. Could we have gone elsewhere? Sure, but we would have been flying blind and we weren’t in a big hurry. I can tell you this though, it was worth every minute we waited to eat some of that pizza. Y’all, it. was. so. good.
So what did we have? I got the classic margherita which uses all DOP {Protected Destination of Origin} marinara, buffalo mozzarella and basil on top the traditional Napoli pizza crust which in and of itself is unique. The Kiwi’s pie had pecorino, pumpkin flower, walnut cream, and zucchini on it. While mine might have been a classic, his was genius and so very tasty. As were finishing our pies, I was starting to feel as if I couldn’t look at food again for days, so naturally we ordered dessert. A dessert pie with fresh ricotta, almond slivers, and warm honey drizzled over top. There are no words. It was just… amazing.
And with that amazing meal, our short time in Naples came to a close as we rushed back to the main train station to catch the train back to Rome, the final stop on our Tour of Italy and food-wise, our most successful town to explore.
{I hesitate to call this a food guide since we only went to one place. Obviously this is not comprehensive, so if you have some favorite eatin’ spots in Naples, please share in the comments!}
Until 2012, I think it is safe to say that I had never had couscous, which is absurd. It’s now one of our pantry staples. While it might not be a whole grain, it is the perfect vehicle for lots of tasty dishes and a staple in a number of cultural cuisines.
The first time I had couscous was on an evening when the Kiwi had volunteered to cook. At the time I had an hour and a bit commute to and from work every day, so I never hesitated to take him up on that offer. The thing is though that whenever he volunteers to cook, he refuses to tell me what he is making. {I have come to realize that this is because he has no clue what he’s making until about 6pm, but that’s beside the point.} The point is, I had no clue what I was going to be walking into.
The first thing that hits me when I walked through the door was fish. Really, he hit me with a fish.
No, that didn’t happen. I’m just kidding. The whole house did smell like fish though, and I was a bit skeptical. I had no reason to be.
The Kiwi is a great cook, and that is because he follows directions well. He likes to have a recipe and generally sticks to the recipe pretty closely {as opposed to me who views recipes as mere suggestions}. Following a recipe from the free e-cookbook by Jules Clancy called Stone Soup: Minimalist Home Cooking, he had made a warm, garlicky tuna and cherry tomato salad over couscous {pg. 59}. It was outrageously delicious, and {bonus} the fish smell didn’t even linger.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve yet to come up with anything that improves this recipe. It is pretty perfect and so is the book. The whole book is full of simple recipes that use 5 ingredients {or less} that you probably already have in your panty. There are very few processed ingredients to be found in the book which is absolutely the type of recipes we like. Oh, and have I mentioned it’s free?
{Just as a disclaimer, we aren’t being paid to promote this. We are just fans, and we thought that you, our dear reader, would benefit from the knowledge that this wonderful, free product exists. Go, download it, and see if we’re not right.}
Thanks so much for your sweet understanding yesterday. We seem to be on the mend, but we definitely needed a day of rest and recuperation. We’re still taking it easy though, so I’m settled in with my trusty blanket and a nice mug full of apple cider preparing for movie marathons and a little blog reading.
Having a similar kind of weekend? Here are some links from around the web to get you started.
In terms of motivating me to not rely on processed goods, there are definitely benefits to not being able to find the processed things I’ve relied on in the past here in Germany.
Last fall, motivated by a need want for all things pumpkiny and no canned pumpkin puree to be found, I was left with no choice but to figure out how to make it on my own.
Now, I won’t go as far as to say that the canned stuff isn’t good for you because it’s fine. Most of the time it is 100% pumpkin with no additives or preservatives save salt {but even then only in a few cases}. But the taste folks. Oh, the taste. If you’ve ever had a pumpkin pie with the real stuff… I’ll just say that there is a difference. A delicious, delicious difference.
Step One Lob the top off the pumpkin and then cut it in half. {I enlisted the help of the Kiwi. Dull knives make this hard work.}
Step Two
Scoop out the seeds and guts. {Once you get the pumpkin in the oven you can go back and pick out all of the seeds for making pepitas!}
Step Three
Cut it into quarters and place on a baking sheet. Pop it in the oven on 350°F/175°C for an hour.
Step Four
After an hour, take the pumpkin out of the oven and let it cool for a bit until you can touch it comfortably.
Step Five
Scoop out the flesh of the pumpkin and put it in a food processor. Add a 1/2 cup of water and pulse, scrapping the sides occasionally, until its pureed to a consistency you’re happy with.
Step Six
You can use it immediately, or you can spoon it into a baggie or tupperware container and freeze it. I do about a cup of puree per bag so that I can defrost just one at a time. It will keep in the freezer for about 9 months I hear, but I’ve never tested it. The stuff is gone pretty quickly around here. The Kiwi loves him some pie.
There you have it folks–fresh pumpkin puree you can use to get your beta carotene fix in things like hummus, ravioli filling, pancakes, etc. Really, the possibilities are endless, so get to roasting and pureeing while the pumpkin gettin’ is good!
Last week I mentioned making a spiked lemonade to go with the shrimp tacos we had for our Labor Day celebration. Well folks, here it is!
We have loads of rosemary at the moment. It is quite literally taking over our herb garden, so I’ve taken to throwing it in everything: drinks, cakes, even the pumpkin ravioli I’m making tonight. Along with the slightly herby taste that the rosemary gives the simple syrup, I feel like the maple syrup compliments the bourbon beautifully. In my world, lemonade is a very summery drink, but the maple and the bourbon give it just a hint of Fall, making this the perfect accompaniment to a Labor Day feast or really, any feast this time of the year.
Rosemary and Maple Bourbon Lemonade
{makes about 4 drinks}
Rosemary Maple Simple Syrup
2 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup maple syrup
5 sprigs of rosemary, washed and leaves striped
The Spike
1 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice {about 3 lemons}
1/3 cup bourbon
Boil your jug and start heating up a pot on medium heat. Once the jug boils, measure your water into the pot and then whisk in the maple syrup. Add the sprigs of rosemary {stalk and leaves} and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.
While the syrup is simmering, you can be juicing your lemons. Remember to roll them really well before you try to juice them. This will break up all the little membranes, and you will get so much more juice!
After a couple minutes of simmering, strain the syrup to remove all the rosemary bits. In a pitcher, stir together the juice, the bourbon, and the simple syrup. Pop it in the fridge for a few hours to cool.
Serve over ice. Extra rosemary optional but oh so pretty.
After a busy weekend of showing the Kiwi’s parents the sights, we’re enjoying this slow and rainy Monday morning. No rushing. Just sipping coffee, sharing a slice of cake, and listening to this:
{photo by the Kiwi}
Kiwi + Peach 