Still a few months short of our blog anniversary, but entering a new calendar year, O. and I wanted to sincerely thank all of you for your emails, seasonal greetings, New Year wishes, your company and feedback. The last nine months have been a blast and we’re looking forward to seeing you in the next year. Aside a few house-keeping things, the more than less obvious face lift of d:d turned out slightly more invasive than originally intended, but I was on a roll, what can I say…

To complete the last year with a few seasonal shots, here are some impressions from our last walk through the snowy neighborhood.

Found just around the corner (“I love life”). Very philosophical and a great theme for 2006!

Jackson – the latest addition to Harry’s family. What a cute Jack-Russell and one kind soul he is.

Oliver must have had his lucky day, just when it was his turn to shoot a few photos he noticed Mr. White. The only challenge was that as soon as he would kneel down to take the photo, Fluffy promptly walked purring right towards him…

Although it seems quite idyllic the sad truth is, most of the snow is gone by now or turned into ugly slush and puddles. It hasn’t been cold enough for the snow to survive a day or two. Oh, well, looking forward to spring anyways ;)

Hope you’re all enjoying a splendid evening with plenty of good food, a sound basis to enter twothousandandsix. May all your wishes come true!!

I grew up in a family of raisin lovers: milk chocolate with hazelnuts and raisins, pilaf, apple-strudel, Milirahmstrudel, apple crumble with raisins, raisins covered in chocolate, various cakes, Christmas Stollen, cookies and many more – I had a pretty hard time avoiding those little vulgarities. But I learned to deal with it, my way that is: Either I sweet-talked my dear grandma to make an additional – sans raisins – version of the dish (yes, she was a heart of a grandma) or I started the dissection of the dish, picking out the tiniest little raisin – receiving disapproving looks. And to top things off, Oliver looooves them. He could probably survive on just a handful of nuts and raisins…GREAT!

Growing older and getting tired of hunting down each and every raisin (in a dish I wanted to try for all the other reasons), I tried hard to getting used to them – or even like them? No such thing. Zero progress, nada. Not even the slightest improvement. What’s the reasoning behind my raisin-dislike, is it the texture, their taste, or both? As I do like dried fruit in general (prunes, apricots, cranberries), it can’t be their looks or haptic. And why should their taste bother me? I enjoy sweet and fresh grapes whenever I can, and the same with wine. Since I can’t figure it out on my own, I feel I need to get with “Unresolved Mysteries”…

In the end I still do what I’ve done over the years: Removing the tiniest bit of a raisin, choosing a raisin-less version of a dish or avoiding it altogether. Concerning our Christmas Stollen: Option #2 was the way to go. Sacrilege you think? Salvation, I say!

Stollen is a traditional German Christmas cake – show me one family not having one during Christmas season and I start eating raisins. Well maybe not, but “Dresdner Christstollen” is said to be the most famous and oldest stollen, with lots of raisins, currants (dried equally bad), orange peel and candied lemon (even worse than raisins). So this particular one never really was an option. But there are several other variations, much better suited for a picky stollen-eater like me: Mohnstollen (poppy seed), Nußstollen (nuts), Mandelstollen (almonds, marzipan), Quarkstollen (curd cheese). Having tried several recipes over the past years, I haven’t found one I wanted to stick with. But this year I was lucky. Very lucky. In fact, as I’m writing this, the third batch of Quarkstollen is giving our kitchen a wonderful aura. The recipe is absolutely fool-proof, the preparation time (minus dough rising and baking) is less than 15 minutes, but the outcome is indescribably yummy! As it doesn’t contain typical Christmas spices, which one could add of course, this will be a regular cake/sweet bread on our table throughout the year. Perfect for lazy Sundays with a cup of tea, prepared just a day before. Which leads me to the next benefit: This stollen doesn’t need to sit and rest for some days until you’re allowed to cut off the first slice. I even tried it lukewarm from the oven and had Oliver pull me away from it…it was so good.

Merry X-mas and happy holidays to all of you!

In a medium sized bowl, dissolve yeast with 4 tbsp of lukewarm milk and 1 tsp sugar; let the mixture rest for about 15-20 minutes. The original recipe suggests a cup for this step – which taught me, that yeast doughs can not only rise but literally walk away… A cup is definitely too small for this pre-dough!

In a large bowl, add the flour, remaining sugar, dig a hole in the middle and pour the yeast pre-dough into its center. Add the remaining milk and place the butter in small pieces along the edge, then add the curd, lemon zest and a pinch of salt.

Knead very well, feel free to use a food processor/KitchenAid of your choice. If you feel the dough is too “soft/wet” add more flour by the spoon. When the dough has begun to pull together, cover it up and let rise for about 60 minutes at a cozy, warm place.

Meanwhile chop the dried apricots into small cubes – my substitute for the soaked raisins the original recipe calls for. It worked like a charm, giving the stollen some color and a wonderful flavour. Punch dough down, return to floured work surface and add and knead in the apricot bits. Continue kneading until smooth. Preheat oven to 175 °C (347 °F).

Roll or flatten dough into a rectangle about 4cm thick (1,5 inch), pinching the ends to almost close and put on baking sheet.

Bake for about 50 minutes, or until loaf turns golden brown. Just after removing it from the oven, brush top generously with melted butter. Once cooled off, dust amply with confectioner’s sugar and wrap closely in cling film.

Tip: When ready to serve, dust with another sprinkling of confectioner’s sugar. Best eaten the next day.

Feeling a bit under the weather lately – our local weather forecast was pretty much right on with predicting a last minute white Christmas or in other words: it’s been cold, cold, cold – I spent Friday night all cuddled up on the sofa watching TV instead of our regular Friday night movie surprise at our sneak preview get-together.

My latest DVD additions I’d seen already, including one of my birthday gifts: Nip/Tuck, second season – which to me, is the best TV series ever been shown. It just knocks you of your feet, also it’s not for the faint-hearted or easily offended.

Anyway, I ended up zapping through the channels and settled for – who would have guessed – a late night cooking show. Actually, it was more like a cook off, than a typical cooking show: Kochen bei Kerner. One of the few formats, for whatever reason, I was never particularly interested in in the past. I suspect it must have had to do with the everyone’s darling host of the show (fulfilling the “perfect son in law” profile to the dot) or with some of the cooks on the show, that aren’t exactly my type either. From a young, contemporary, unconventional chef to a two Michelin star, GM awarded culinary master: Tim Mälzer, Ralf Zacherl, Rainer Sass, Sarah Wiener and Johann Lafer.

What in fact kept me wide awake after 11pm and continuing to watch the show was the omni present teasing, taunting and to certain degree viciousness among the cooks. Simply hilarious, watching all those egomaniacs assuming that their contribution to the menu was the most critical one…and on top being super defensive about every move they made. Somewhat confusing, because that’s really what the concept of the show is about: have your fellow cooks provide honest feedback. On the other hand it so well supported the entertaining character of the event.

Some of the highlights included Ralf Zacherl in the final stages of preparing his dish (fried scallops on oranges with a red beet sauce) waiting on the other cooks feedback, when Tim Mälzer backed off explaining his special and hearty *cough* relationship with him to the viewer and refusing to even taste the tiniest bit of what Ralf had cooked. Followed by a host in denial (couldn’t believe Tim wasn’t going to even try; etiquette/faux paux?) and a dead silent audience. We on the other end were rolling on the floor, entertainment at its best, thanks to a great, award worthy camera man capturing the cooks faces with perfect timing. Unreal.

Turning the camera to the audience to display the nauseated face of a women who was given a bite to try of the fried scallops. Noticing she was on TV, what options did she really have? With a hint of sarcasm, Kerner offered her a shot of Schnaps against possible sickness.

At the end of the show, the host asked the entire audience to come forward and try the different courses straight from the stove. Being surrounded by the studio audience, an apparently starving woman positioned her body right next to him, presumably thinking the show was already over, further pushing herself in front of him – while rubbing against Kerner – and in the course of action excusing herself with that very specific tone of YOU-MIND? (read: get the hell outta my way, I’m HUNGRY), reaching for a fork that was a little out of her reach. She would have died seeing herself on TV…

The monkfish in brick pastry (much like Phyllo) with the spinach and goat cheese looked so good, we had to try ourselves. We skipped the couscous, but instead arranged it on wild rocket. Extremely yummy.

PS: In case you wondered why we didn’t show one cut in half – we tried…making a clean cut is anything but easy, virtually impossible :)

Add the olive oil, lemon juice, pinch of sugar, salt and pepper to a bowl and marinate the monkfish in the mixture for a few minutes.

Defrost spinach, chop finely and squeeze dry. Sweat finely diced shallot in olive oil, add the spinach and steam for about 2-3 minutes at medium heat. Season with salt and pepper and a bit of fresh nutmeg, then set aside. Once cooled off, add the goat cheese and blend roughly.

Depending on the thickness of the brick pastry you may want to use two layers (and hence need 8 sheets in total). Lightly coat pastry sheets with melted butter (just the inside), arrange a small base in the center fo the pastry sheet(s) with the spinach mix and place a fillet of the monkfish on top. Lift the ends of the pastry and form a pouch, tieing it up with a cooking thread.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes at 210 °C (410 °F) in a preheated oven.