Spring is here, and even though we are all in quarantine, we can at least enjoy some of the great ingredients that are harvested at this time. In my case are strawberries and asparagus. It always gets a bit tricky to cook the same food for us three, as I am an adult, Pepa, a toddler, and Otis, a baby. So here is how I solve this including a video of it at the end. As I am writing a book for some months now, one of the things I need to do is to try different kinds of cooking technics. KMB & Braun Household send me the Multiquick7 to try it out. I had a Stabmixer from Braun for 20 years, and it still works as if it was new. But much has changed in technology since 1999. And all the new features that it has made my life (with kids) nowadays easier. Now even more as I make all meals for us three at home. Making meals for us three could be time-consuming if you can't make them at the same time. So this recipe won't take more time than a conventional method, and it will include a baby meal. What you need for this recipe: A steamer or a steam basket 2 cups strawberries 1 cup of apples in slices 10 asparagus 2 garlic cloves lettuce fresh spinach 1 egg 200 ml of neutral oil a squeeze of lemon juice white vinegar a handful pistachios salt and pepper and a multiQuick7 of course We start steaming now. Add the apples and 1 cup strawberries in the steamer or a pot with a steam basket. If your baby is 10 months old, you can add 1 asparagus. Add some water and let it steam until the apples are very soft. You can add some cinnamon to the water as well. For the dressing, you need to make a mayonnaise first. This is super easy with the Multiquick 7. Check the video here or at my IGTV. Put in the glass the egg, oil, lemon, and insert the Multiquick 7 stab. Start blending with the Activeblade all the way down for a while until you see white coming up. Then lift the blade slowly until all is mixed and then push up and down until the consistency is perfect. This takes about a minute, and it is fools-proof. Add some vinegar to it until it reaches a dressing consistency. Change from the Activeblade to the mini processor and use it to make the pistachios small. You can use any other nuts, but I love how strawberries taste together with pistachios. Heat a pan with some oil and add the chopped garlic. Break the last part of the asparagus stems with your hands and fry them until they are golden and take them off the heat. By now, the fruits should be done. If your baby has no teeth still, I would use the Activeblade again to make it very smooth, but in my case, I changed to the mashed potatoes accessory and puree it until the fruits were done. Put it aside and let it cool down. In plates, add the lettuce and spinach, use the rest of the strawberries thinly cut, and the asparagus cut in 3 cm pieces. By now, the baby food will be at room temperature. The cutest thing I got with this PR package was this lovely bib for Otis... Isn't it the cutest? I drool every time he wears it! Now we are ready to eat. Add the vinaigrette/dressing over the salad and sprinkle the pistachio dust over it, and you are ready to eat. As I never get to eat warm, because I need to feed Otis, and sometimes Pepa, at the moment, I am eating a lot of cold foods. This salad tastes delicious warm, or after some time sitting there. Eating fresh food that has a similar taste to the food that you regularly eat, helps your kid develop the same taste in food as you have. This will help you in the future to avoid "food dramas" and unnecessary "double cooking." Otis was a big fan of this food and couldn't get enough, Pepa had the salad and even got to help to feed Otis. This meant one spoon for her and one for him... kids! Here is a short video of how easy it was to make this spring meal at home using Braun´s Multiquick7. I hope you liked this and you will make it at home. Please tag me in your stories or posts to see how you did! AD/PR Sample
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Pepa´s Birthday is in May, but last May I was swamped with work and it was just impossible to pull off a big birthday party. We celebrated together at home on the actual birthday and made a cake, but she was asking for a birthday party... So why not make a "Half Birthday Party"? Halloween was the date... So I opened Pinterest and started my mood board... Halloween without scaring all the kindergarten kids... The main thing about planning a birthday table is to check how many stuff fits in your table. I arranged plates around and ended up with 14 dishes. And here I will show you what they were: Here is the Table. It is important to keep the taller plates at the back and the cakes in the middle. I have to accept that I didn't attempt to make my own cakes. I used instant cakes for all these recipes... No room for mistakes. 2 days before the party I baked the cakes for the cake pops. I mix them with frosting, made the small balls and froze them. My favorite cake pops were eyeballs on forks. You can make them with just dipping the cake pops in candy melts or white chocolate and painting the veins with food coloring. The iris was candy melts as well and I added a bit of chocolate glaze to it. For the savory treat, I carved a pumpkin and put inside a plate full with cheese sauce, added nachos and a guac-mayo sauce... I couldn't get the adults away from that corner! The witch cake was supposed to be Witch Pepa. I baked 2 boxes of cake in three forms. Covered it with cheese frosting and started making the witch. The legs were made with the tubes where the rolled fondant came. The legs were my dad's work. He covered them with fondant and colored the rest of the fondant with red color and piped the stripes. Thanks, dad! With the rest of tule from Pepas costume, I made the witch skirt and I added mini marshmallows for the "underwear/skirt" What is a Halloween party without ghosts? For this ghosts, I made cupcakes and added frosting over it. Then I put a mini Chocolate Kiss on it and covered it with a circle of rolled fondant. Then I decorated the eyes and mouth with decorating glaze in black. Worms on earth... I made this 2 days in advance as well. Made some chocolate boxed pudding and put it in small cups, added a gummy work in it and then cover with chocolate powder. I put chocolate in my food processor and done. During Halloween times the store LIDL has red apples... all red. That means they are red outside and inside. The best thing about this apples is that they don't oxidate. I cutted slices of them and added spekulatious cream (you can add peanut butter instead) and paste teeth gummies. If you don't have these apples, you can use regular red apples and don't peel them. And if you don't find teeth gummies (found them in IKEA) just add mini marshmallows. The boxed cakes came with glaze. So I used them to make these monster cupcakes. I dipped them in the glaze and add a decorating eye and then piped the glaze over it to make the hair... these were my favorites. No Birthday is complete without a chocolate cake. And I made this one. I baked two chocolate cakes in 4 forms and made chocolate mousse. The decoration is 2 spekulatius cookies as graves and a twig my mom found outside that looked just like a dead tree. Thank mom! For the third cake pops, I used the chocolate glaze that came in a cake box and then I added some white glaze lines to make these mummies... The eyes came in a decorating set for bees. For the hungry kids, I made vegan sausage mummies. I cut a sheet of dough and rolled it over sausages. Then baked them and added 2 eyes with piping color. They are super simple to make and were gone after a few seconds... I make them for Pepa at home all of the time. My mom made the ghost lollipops... Can you imagine I had only 4 left after the birthday party?? They are regular lollipops covered on a napkin and with 2 stickers on them. For the sugar-free kids, there was some food as well... Mandarines painted as pumpkins are one of the best healthy treats IMHO. And for drinking, besides water, I made a red punch and added some fingers inside. Plastic ones of course. Four the adults was a separate table with chips, punch, gin, and beer... Who says it is not possible to have fun as an adult on a kids party? I love that Kettle Chips make orange and black bags. We were witches and here you can see our costumes... My mom made Pepa's skirt without sewing. Making this all work and look good was hard, but Pepa was a witch as she wanted and she finally got her birthday party...
Thanks, Sophia for grabbing my camera and taking pictures as I was walking back and forth with all the kids and Pepa. OMG! December starts tomorrow and I can't wait for you to see all the prizes I got for you guys. Every Saturday there will be a blog post showing you the brands that will be in the next advent's week. All prizes are just for people over 18 years old and living in Berlin-Brandenburg. Every morning. I will post a picture on Instagram with the prize of the "door" and how to be the winner of the day. I will post a video of the draw each day to show the fairness of the contest. So now here are the first-week brands (not in order): RESTAURANT // BLEND BERLIN KITCHEN AND BARBerlin is known for its highly diverse population - primarily the Turkish, Eastern European and Eastern- Mediterranean nationalities are broadly represented. This is also reflected in Berlin’s culinary landscape with its many restaurants, street food stands and other food shops of this kind. The food style at BLEND is inspired by this and has many influences of the German, Turkish, Eastern-Mediterranean and Eastern -European cuisines. The food concept at BLEND aims to embrace the "Berliner food culture" and is best described as a fun dining kitchen inspired by the (ethnic) cuisines and ingredients of Berlin. Dishes are served in a fun way and creatively with a certain twist given their use of ingredients, preparation method or way of serving. As much as possible, dishes are regionally sourced and in season. BLEND Berlin Kitchen & Bar Budapester Straße 25, 10787 BERLIN – GERMANY Telephone: +49 30 2696 2696 Website: https://restaurant-blend.com/ E-mail: info@restaurant-blend.com Instagram @blendberlin RESTAURANT // JOLESCHLocated in the middle of trendy Kreuzberg, but away from the hustle and bustle, the restaurant Jolesch offers you since nearly 25 years delicious Austrian cuisine in a cozy and authentic atmosphere. Enjoy traditional alpine dishes like Wiener Schnitzel (as well vegetarian and gluten-free option), Tafelspitz, and Kaiserschmarrn as well as modern creations of chef Tobias Janzen. Restaurant Jolesch Muskauer Str.1, 10997 Berlin Telephone: +49 30 - 612 35 81 Website: www.jolesch.de E-mail: mail@jolesch.de Instagram: @restaurant_jolesch ICE CREAM CAFÉ // PAUL MÖHRINGHomemade soft serve ice cream - with a pinch of madness. You can build your own creation with a wide variety of toppings such as olive oil & sea salt or choose from the range of specials they offer such as "The Butcher": Creamy vanilla ice cream, maple glazed bacon, whiskey sauce. There are also a couple of more traditional options if you prefer more traditional flavor combinations. Paul Möhring also offers great coffee, perfectly poured, with beans from Bonanza Coffee. During winter Paul Möhring also serves homemade cakes and brioches which you can garnish with their toppings. They also offer hot apple strudel or nice little chocolate lava cakes. When it's freezing cold outside you may also want to warm yourself with hot buttered rum, Glühwein or cardamom hot chocolate. Paul Möhring - Tradition & Wahnsinn Oranienburger Str. 84, 10178 Berlin Telephone: +4930-84711028 Website www.paulmoehring.de E-mail: traditionundwahnsinn@paulmoehring.de Instagram @tradition.und.wahnsinn DRINKS // BULMERS CIDERMade with apples and tradition. Bulmers cider is a refreshing alcoholic beverage made with apples and tradition. That’s because, in Hereford England where Bulmers is made, apples have a long and tasteful history. For more than 130 years the H.P. Bulmers Ltd. has been producing premium ciders and exporting it – for the world to enjoy. All these years later, the entrepreneurial spirit lives on through a new generation of apple growers, sourcing only the highest quality apples – making every Bulmers an original. Bulmers Cider Website: https://de.bulmers.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bulmers.DE/ #bulmerstime COFFEE SHOP // %ARABICA%Arabica Coffee is one of the newest coffee spots in Berlin. You can find this hidden gem hiding in a backyard in Kreuzberg. The first thing you notice is the minimalist interior, a mix of Japanese simplicity and that follows as well the iconic Braun designer, Dieter Ram. Japan meets Germany. In the middle of the store, it is a big open kitchen surrounded by glass, like an aquarium. And that kitchen is run by Tyler. Tylers has worked in some awesome places I had the honor to visit, like Noma, Momofuku Milk Bar and Torissi (that is closed now but it is a spot everyone still talks about). In addition to that resume, he makes all handmade fresh pasta and uses all local ingredients who he visits regularly for sourcing. His mindset is sustainable and all those dishes he prepares are carefully sourced and prepared simply to bring the power of ingredients out on to our pallets. % Arabica Berlin Kreuzberg Reichenberger Str. 36, 10999 Berlin Telephone: +49 1515 9899294 Website: https://arabica.coffee/en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/arabicaberlin Instagram: @arabica.germany BREWERY // BRLOBRLO BRWHOUSE is a Brewery, Restaurant, Bar, Beer garden, and above all the home of BRLO and the Berlin craft beer movement. They have such an affinity with this city that their roots are apparent in their very name. BRLO is the old Slavic origin of the name Berlin (Hard to pronounce until you’ve had a few). With the BRLO BRWHOUSE they created a Craft beer playground, in the heart of Berlin. Here they have not only realized their vision to provide contemporary brewhouse gastronomy, but also a venue which caters to beer culture, the culinary arts, crazy ideas, and one of a kind individuals. A unique concept deserves a unique venue. It is not only their offering which is one of a kind but also the venue in which it all takes place. The complete structure is composed of 38 up-cycled shipping containers. The modular nature of the structure means it can be quickly disassembled and reconstructed anywhere in the world. As they only have this site for a few short years they will once again be in search of a new home for their BRWHOUSE. This one of a kind concept and structure is the brainchild of world-renowned architects GRAFT. BRLO BRWHOUSE Schöneberger Straße 16, 10963 Berlin Telephone: +49 30 55577606 Website: www.brlo.de E-mail: Susanna@brlo.de Instagram: @brlobeer VEGAN CAFÉ // ATAYA CAFFEEAtaya is probably the best hidden vegan pearl in Prenzlauer Berg. It lays in the middle of a very residential neighborhood and probably if you have been there it's because someone told you about it or you googled for the best vegan in town. What is makes this place so special is the kind of cuisine they serve. The owners come from Senegal and Sardinia, making every plate a fusion dream. Their ingredients are all organic, vegan and they don't use plastic at all. Even they don't use paper cups for coffee-to-go. Ataya in Africa is a place where the community gathers to talk, eat and drink tea. From men to women and even children. They drink tea together and solve problems while grabbing a bite as well. And you can feel this when you go inside their cozy café. ATAYACAFFEE Zelterstraße 6, 10439 Berlin Telephone: +49 30 33021041 Website: http://atayacaffe.de/ Instagram: @atayacaffe
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June 2021
AuthorsI am Andrea, or as my friends call me, Jinx. I am a foodie living in Berlin, eating my way through life. Here are my recipes, cooking events, dining experiences and more... |