Overall, our kitchen is well equipped, this is not to say that we collect gadget over gadget over gadget – in fact we’ve been quite conservative with new acquisitions. Shelf space is a limited gift here, so I usually think twice before adding a shiny new toy that in the end may only scrape a living by collecting dusk.
One thing, however, has been missing all this time: a proper ice cream maker with a built-in compressor system. The thought of it was continuously galloping through my kitchen dreams. For the longest time, we’ve been pondering back and forth, if we really needed one and if our ice cream consumption would justify such an investment. We’ve been debating a lot… in fact over a whole year now, until I finally told Oliver I would get an ice cream machine TODAY. Stuck at work, all I got as a reply was a “Can we make our first batch include walnuts…“, which was the kind of response and affirmation I was hoping to get. 24 hours later a shiny new Gaggia Gelateria was making herself comfortable on our kitchen worktop, forcing the KitchenAid to the cheap seats in the back (for the time being).
The hardest part was waiting the required 12 hours before hitting the churn-button, because moving (tilting) it upsets the coolant in its freezing system. On the other hand it gave me ample time to grow my ice-creams-I-must-try-list rapidly. After our first weekend together I can safely say, that our new house mate isn’t only a very quiet gal – an ice cream machine with the name Gelateria has to be a she – but does prepare the most delicious desserts, too! She’s a keeper. To put her full potential to the test and thus to good use, we decided to dedicate this week to ice creams and sorbets only – ie. we will present our top 3 favorite frosty creations over the course of the next few days – stay tuned!
Having lived in and around Atlanta for more than four years must have spoiled me in terms of enjoying the art of BBQs, house boat happenings (mostly at lake Lanier) and laid back pool and backyard parties that would start around noon and last until late hours. Not to say that Germans can’t have a decent BBQ or BYOB happening, for sure they can, but it’s different and usually doesn’t include good burgers.
Fine, Munich with its gazillion beergardens isn’t exactly known as burger paradise, but looking for pulled pork sandwiches with a tasty BBQ sauce or a rack of perfectly prepared baby spare ribs with meat that falls apart when merely looked at – don’t even think about it, you won’t find it here. I haven’t.
When Johanna’s theme for this month’s “Waiter, there’s something in my dumpling!” caught my attention, my thoughts immediately started revolving around possible recipes and believe it or not they all had to do with…? Dumplings. We Bavarians truly love our dumplings and the Bavarian kitchen has countless variations of what we call Knödel: made with potatoes, old breadrolls, prezels, liver, semolina, curd or yeast dough, just to name a few. So one would think that with the vast number of options, why wait?! Per Johanna’s ground rules, they have to come with a filling and since most of my favorite savory dumplings don’t have a filling and my number one filled sweet dumpling has already been featured on delicious:days I was a bit in trouble. Hmmm…
What lead me out of the dilemma was an idea sparked by an email, sent by a friend with whom we will spent our upcoming holidays with: Georg, who traded in his pans (not pants!) for a rudder, promised to cook us his famous strawberry dumplings. There you go! Since the strawberry season is in full bloom we already had them in every thinkable way, with panna cotta or on-top of a cake, but as a filling for dumplings? Warm?
Are you are a well organized person? I am most definitely not. Although I do like things neat and clean, for some reason I have a hard time keeping certain areas that way. There are a couple of fields where I could clearly do better, browser bookmarks for instance or proper recipes organization.
Despite my affinity to the computer per se and as much as I appreciate the web as a vast inspirational resource, I simply cannot become friends with electronic recipe organization. Having tested various applications over the last years, not a single one managed to convince me to stick with it. Sure, the search functionalities are a huge plus, but the missing paper factor weighs much harder for me. Handwritten recipes develop their own personalities, may it be the aged paper from previous centuries, a beautiful handwriting (which I have not) or the stains and greasy marks, that tell a story of victory success (hopefully). Some of my most precious recipe notes date back to the 70s, were written by my mum or grandma and – more often than not – leave me a bit puzzled, because important information like actual title or “minor details” such as the baking time are missing… but it’s tangible, you can hold it in your hands and feel it.
