after more than two years, we returned to the beautiful val bregaglia for vacation. again, we were staying in hotel helvetia in vicosoprano on the swiss side of the valley.

we stayed during the first of the two “chestnut weeks”, dedicated to edible chestnuts which are growing all over the valley. except on the day we arrived on and the first half day, the weather was really good!

we visited sils and chiavenna:

we again visited the chestnut forest in castasegna:

and we walked another part of the via panoramica, this time from soglio, and then descending to stampa:

also, again, we enjoyed some great culinary specialities. in particular, we enjoyed several meals (again) at hotel corona, where we also had the opportunity to meet the goats producing the milk for the wonderful goat cheese, which is part of our favorite tomato goat cheese salad. also the different pasta and meat dishes we had were fantastic. yeah well. if it wouldn’t be so far from here (5-6 hours by public transport, depending on how often you want to change trains), i’d guess we’d go there more often ;-)

i have to admit that i haven’t been really updating my blog for quite some time now, even though there was a lot i wanted to add. now that i finally have a bit of spare time, i want to add at least some of these things.

after being on muottas muragl, we continued to the other end of switzerland, namely to the small village of broc, where the chocolate producer cailler is located. there, we signed up for a course on making pralines.

we first drank a nice hot chocolate in the cafeteria:

after that, we explored the shop, before finally our course began. at the beginning of the course, we began to prepare the filling.

for that, we started heating chocolate (cailler cuisine of course ;-) ) with a bit of cream, and later added some butter. that was put into the fridge to cool down. while it cooled down, we took a look at the available garnishments:

(the alcohol should be added when melting the chocolate. we decided against it since you have to decide between all your pralines having alcohol or none.) after some time, we put the chocolate cream into an icing bag and created little heaps (i’m tempted to write turds – the similarity was quite obvious). these were cooled again, until we transformed them using our hands to balls. these were cooled down again, and we were provided with chocolate for the shell. (producing that one yourself is quite tedious work, since you have to invest quite some time to preserve the glossy look. i guess at cailler they have machines for that.) we then put garnishments into pots and started to produce pralines. here are some results:

the process of getting to this point was to take a ball of filling, put it into the shell chocolate bowl, turn it around there, extract it and bath it in the garnishment bowl:

afterwards, the pralines had to be cooled another time. we then were provided with packaging and decoration material:

afterwards, we went on a tour while our pralines were staying in the fridge. after the tour, you end up in a room where you can try all pralines produced by cailler, and you can eat as much was you want. finally, we picked up our pralines and began to return home. it was a great and tasty experience!

here’s my project 52 shot for the twentyseventh week. the topic was

fruchtig.

today, i was eating something very fruity: something with marrons. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 10s, f/20, 105mm, iso 200.

yesterday, my mind came up with a good excuse to make a strawberry cake, so i went shopping, bought a cake pan, some strawberries, and other necessary ingredients, and this morning i began crafting a strawberry cake:

it tasted pretty good, in my opinion. i could have eaten much more of it, if my colleagues wouldn’t have helped me… anyway, here are two strawberry cake macros, which might make you even more hungry :-)

today i went shopping, and bought quark. haven’d had that for a long time. i turned parts of it into stippmilch, a dish popular in the münsterland in germany. mix quark with milk, add some sugar, and done it is. i also added brown sugar and cocoa nibs (unfortunately it’s not the right time for strawberries).
i just love this dish. it’s simple, refreshing, you can make it as sweet (or non-sweet) as you want. just perfect. if it just wouldn’t be such a hassle to get quark here…

well, in december i didn’t managed to post some of the things i wanted to, for example something on a squash soup. i got the recipe from a friend and mixed it with some i found online. it consists of squash, cut into small pieces. note that it is a good idea to take squashs whose hull is edible, like hokkaido squash, butternut squash and buttercup squash).

the pieces are cooked a bit with onions, garlic and spices such as cayenne pepper and curry, until water with stock is added:

after cooking it for 30-40 minutes, one can add crème fraiche (or sour cream if you live in a country where you can’t easily get crème fraiche).

enjoy!

after sharing one pancake recipe more than ten days ago, i thought i’d write about another one which i tried more often. it’s the result of preparing enough spinach sauce for a few days, and trying to combine that with pancakes.
i again made a lot of spinach sauce today, so i can eat a few days from it. i took one onion, one garlic bulp and one red chilli and chopped them. then, i put them in a pan and roasted them gently, adding “some” cayenne pepper.

after that, i added the frozen spinach, and let it defrost. during the process, i added some hot water, some more water with corn starch, and some whipping cream.

as usual, i prepared pancakes and added some of the spinach sauce on one half.

finally, i flipped the other half over, and obtained a small stack of spinach pancakes.

often, i experiment when cooking. adding or removing or exchanging ingredients, changing the result a little every time; i guess this is not that uncommon for anyone used to cooking. sometimes, i do some more experiments, like today. two days ago, when shopping, i got a spontaneous idea, namely to try a omlette with zucchini and cheese. well, i bought everything i needed, but on the way home, i continued to think and planned to replace the omlette by pancakes. well, and today, i finally tried it out. first, i cut the zucchini into small slices:

then, i prepared pancake dough – flour, a few eggs, salt, milk, and mixing it together. then, i started baking pancakes.

for the first try, i took the done pancake out of the pan and placed it on a plate. i added grinded mozzarella on one half, put on some of the zucchini slices, and flipped the other half over:

it tastes good, but i thought i can do better. so i tried to add some spices, in particular cayenne pepper, after putting the cheese on. i also put on the cheese while the pancake was still in the pan, as otherwise the cheese doesn’t really melt. it then looks like this:

finally, i had a small stack of pancakes, part of whom i enjoyed eating, while putting the rest in the fridge to enjoy it at tomorrow’s lunch.

last saturday, i was spending the afternoon and evening with a guy from the netherlands who is vegan. hence, for lunch and dinner, we tried to find vegetarian/vegan restaurants. he brought a list from happy cow, and for lunch we decided to go to a vietnamese place called white oak ii. it features a large variety of vegan vietnamese and chinese food, often things which originally contain meat, but where the meat is replaced. this was really amazing. the restaurant is placed in a small vietnamese mall, not obvious to find. i definitively have to go there again.
for dinner, we went to the coup, a vegetarian place at 17th avenue. this was a bit more pricy and stylish, but also very good. a place i also have to go to at least one more time. i had a vegetarian burger there, in fact the first vegetarian burger i ever had: it was really good! as was the spiced (in the sense of chili!) iced chocolate shake (hmmmm) and a cocktail called the “malibu barbie colada” which, despite its funny name, tasted fantastic. for dessert, i had a piece of organic chocolate torte, which in fact is vegan.

ingredients:

• the big lebowski (imdb).
• a sufficient amount of vodka.
• a sufficient amount of kalúha.
• a sufficient amount of milk.
• some hardware to play the movie.
• some glass for the white russian(s).
• optionally, some ice cubes.

instructions:

1. pour some of the vodka, kalúha and milk into the glass. add some ice if needed.
2. start watching the movie, while drinking the white russian.
3. as soon as the glass is empty, pause the movie, refill the glass and continue the movie.
4. repeat until the movie is over.

the amounts should be chosen high enough to ensure that you won’t run out of white russian during the movie.

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well. seriously. (as serious as one can be after watching the movie and drinking several white russians.) the big lebowski is a movie by the coen brothers about a hippie slacker, called simply the dude, who is drawn into a kidnapping case which turns out to be a bit more complicated, with a bunch of different parties taking part in the game. the movie features great characters, most notably el duderino, his friends, donny and walter, and the german nihilists (nagelbrett by autobahn!), some great dream sequences, lots of bowling, and lots of white russians, all drunken by his dudeness.

if you’ve never seen it, watch it. and don’t forget the white russians.