Weeks (or months?) ago, I briefly mentioned that I was probably going to post about food again some time soon - maybe making a welcome change for my readers from the seemingly endless sunsets and sunrises and other sky pictures I have been posting this year.
Well, here it is. I do not have much time, as I want to start work early today, and there is really so much I could say or write about food. But for now, this will have to do, with a few pictures for garnish.
Since I have retreated to working almost exclusively from home again, most weeks I have managed to fit in one lunch break per week at my parents'. It is always good to see them, but we have to be cautious; my Dad especially is in the high risk group, and I have not hugged or kissed either of them since March. Usually, my parents have only coffee and a snack at lunch time, but for me, they often adapt their schedule so that we can have a full meal together. At other times, they keep me company (at a distance) while I am the only one to eat a cooked lunch, and they join in for the coffee afterwards, before I walk back to my place and resume work.
My own cooking habits have not changed - I still very, very rarely cook for myself. I often have a bowl of salad in the evenings, making it a full meal by adding all sorts of things such as diced feta or other cheese, a handful of almonds and cranberries, a chopped apple and so on - whatever takes my fancy and is at hand.
But when O.K. and I spend the weekend at my place, I enjoy thinking about what I could make for us, buying the ingredients and then cooking - I know the food will be shared with me and appreciated. When I have leftovers, either of the cooked meal or of the fresh groceries I bought, I use them up during the week; those are the only occasions when I cook for myself, and I so hate wasting food.
Here is a very small selection of meals I had lately. There were many, many more, of course, but I do not take pictures all the time, even though it may seem otherwise.
Sweet potatoes - so versatile! 
I halved them and roasted them in the oven. 
With a mix of sour cream and goats cheese with fresh herbs for topping, they made a nice meal for O.K. and myself one weekend earlier this year.
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| Caprese with yellow tomatoes, at my parents'. |
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| Savoury pancakes with creamy mushrooms and salad, again at my parents'. |
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| Fish & Chips at "my" Irish pub, with a refreshing glass of cider. It was a beautiful warm day at the end of August, perfect for sitting outside on the market square. |
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| A small aubergine and two zucchini were left over after one weekend and needed using up. (I also made something with the Hokkaido pumpkin you can see in the background, see further down.) |
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| I sliced the vegetables, sprinkled them with a bit of olive oil and salt and roasted them in the oven. |
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| They made for very tasty roasted veggie burgers on crusty rolls from the bakery down the road, with leaves from the potted parsley on my window sill. |
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| The Hokkaido pumpkin was chopped and boiled until soft, along with a few carrots. I mashed it all up and added coconut fat, salt, pepper and plenty of ground ginger. |
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| Served with a dollop of cream, fresh parsley and a crusty roll, it made a nice lunch for O.K. and myself two Saturdays ago. |
This weekend, O.K. will be here; I have a few ideas for our meals and hope my cooking will turn out how I want it (it doesn't always!).
These meals all look so fresh and healthy and good! I've never had sour cream on a sweet potato, usually I use a little butter, salt, and brown sugar on them. Fish and chips is a meal I haven't had in ages, maybe it's about time!
ReplyDeleteI love the plate the savory pancakes are served on, and I love your fox napkins and mug. Cute!
My Mum's flower patterned tableware is pretty, isn't - so cheerful.
DeleteI was wondering where you saw my fox mug (I do have one), then I understood that you must mean my flask. I fill it with water and carry it with me on all my hikes and longer walks, and also on my train trips (2 hours one way) to and from O.K.'s. It is supposed to be for children, but I couldn't resist when I saw the fox and other woodland animals on it!
PS: Brown sugar on sweet potatoes? I can not imagine it, but it sounds like it is worth a try!
DeleteGreat food and very enjoyable veggie meals I'm sure. Betting that O.K. loves your cooking! The soup at the end of the post looks delicious - I'm planning a similar one with one of my awaiting pumpkins this weekend. I've started to use coconut oil just recently for some of my recipes, it's really good - plus I often use coconut milk, keep a few cans on the shelf at the ready.
ReplyDeleteI see you have an Autumn theme going on with your pretty fox and owl napkins!
Have a great weekend Meike. Hope the weather is good for you two to get out and about.
Hugs - Mary
Thanks, Mary!
DeleteAs for O.K.'s opinion of my cooking, I am not so sure - half the time I am disappointed myself, but we usually eat it up anyway. And home-cooked food in the company of the person you love is always nice! Also, a glass or two of wine can be helpful :-)
Those all look absolutely delicious- hope you have some lovly Autumnal meals this weekend.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cathy! We did; I made pizza last night which is nice all year round.
DeleteI have just rediscovered sweet potatoes. I usually just bake them, add salt and pepper with little butter. I never thought to try sour cream.
ReplyDeleteThe idea for the sour cream topping came from the supplement of my weekly paper. They have one recipe every week, and it is almost always something that interests me enough to want to try it.
DeleteThere's some interesting ideas. I use sweet potato (kumera in my mind because it is a staple in New Zealand and that is the Maori name generally used in New Zealand for what we call sweet potato). I don't ever recall using it before I lived in New Zealand. Now I use it all the time but in soup with butternut squash. You've reminded me that I haven't had a pancake for a long long time. I eat omelettes quite often though.
ReplyDeleteVegetables are so versatile, aren't they, and taste great no matter whether we prepare them as soups, stews, roasted, and some make very nice salads.
DeleteIt is rare that I make pancakes at home, but like you, omelettes feature regularly, as do scrambled eggs and eggs sunny side up.
These are nice, simple and healthy . I will try a few of them myself. Thank you Meike!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome, Jenny - thank YOU for reading and commenting!
DeleteYou are a wonderful cook by the looks of these special meals! I think it is great that you are able to share lunch with your parents once a week. I know that means everything to them and to you too!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Bonnie! May I emphasize that the food on the flower plates was prepared by my Mum, not by me. She truly is a wonderful cook; I sometimes get fancy ideas and experiment with stuff, and not all my experiments turn out as good as I thought!
DeleteI would not *turn my nose up* at any of the food on this post, to use an old expression. Those roasted veg burgers look scrumptious, and I do believe I can smell the crusty bread, here in rain-beaten Scotland.
ReplyDeleteVery glad you can spend time with your parents, even if you can't hug them for now.
Glad too that you cook when you and O.K. are together. Perhaps this winter you could more often cook for yourself: Hot food is a great protection against colds.
I have always lived on my own, and there are recipes which are quite gratifying to do, alone in the kitchen.
Something I read in an interview with Truman Capote: If you can't sleep in the middle of the night and are hungry, open a carton of fresh soup. Eat it with crackers and a glass of wine. In winter a glass of red wine at night can be comforting, along with the soup. Putting some tinned tomatoes in fresh tomato soup, with ground pepper, seems to comfort the soul as much as the body.
I am blessed in that I usually sleep straight through. Sometimes I have a wonderful dream that I am in a glass-roofed market and there are two separate bakeries, the kind of bakeries that were everywhere when I was a child. Some other magical world !
Hamel(d), I seriously doubt that Truman Capote will have given any thought to soup. "Open a carton of FRESH soup"? Let's leave aside that one does hope food is FRESH, opening a carton doesn't quite cut the mustard. And who drinks wine with soup (liquid on liquid)? Even I don't.
DeleteHorns locked,
U
If you ever happen to come this way, Hamel, you are welcome to pop in and share whatever I happen to be cooking. It will usually be something along the lines of what is above. Also, if you click on the "Recipes" label on the top part of my blog, you will find some more meals I more or less regularly make.
DeleteAs for cooking for myself, most of the time I simply can not be bothered. I love my salads and fresh stuff such as peppers (preferably yellow or red), but going through the whole process of preparing, cooking and cleaning up for just myself during my lunch time or after work just doesn't seem worth the effort - for me; I understand and admire anyone who cooks properly for themselves.
Drinking alcohol when I am on my own does not happen. It is one of the handful of principles I have made up for myself, for very good reasons, and I stick to them no matter what.
Having said that, O.K. and I love our wines along with the weekend meals; if I should sum up this past summer in one word, it would be Rosé.
Your bakeries dream sounds nice! Can you smell the baked goods in your dream?
Other Voices, Other Rooms ... Other Customs.
DeleteOnline I found tips on Le Vin, Le Soupe. Here are two, Ursula:
*A guide to pairing wine with soup.* Stacy Slinkard. The Spruce Eats.
*Delicious wines to pair with soup.* Wine Folly.
Ginetta Lucacini, my Italian aunt born in Livorno, made consomme with little pasta shells: I can't recall if she served it with white wine, but there was Chianti with the herby lamb, roast beef, or venison that followed.
I drink Chablis or dry Normandy cider with fish soup and another glass with a three-cheese macaroni. Plus crusty bread.
My Waitrose has plastic cartons of fresh (as opposed to tinned) chicken and vegetable soup, tomato, ham and pea etc.
Before his decline Truman gave thought to many things. He would have liked a book called *Much Depends on Lunch* by a lady whose name escapes me.
Better not to drink alone, Meike. There was a time I liked being drunk alone, listening to John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Sidney Bechet. Bottles of golden rum from Cuba and Barbados were ever in my larder. I would pair it with soda, Rose's Lime, and fresh lime, ice. It got to be a habit I broke years ago.
Graham Greene drank rum punch in his book *Getting To Know the Colonel*.
Correction. Greene's non-fiction account of Panama under the regime of a liberal military leader (who was assassinated with the collusion of CIA) is titled, *Getting to Know the General*.
DeleteThe Colonel I have in mind must be Colonel Jock Sinclair of *Tunes of Glory* my favourite postwar Scottish novel along with Muriel Spark's *The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie* and *The Dear Green Place* by Archie Hind and *Lanark* by Alisdair Gray.
Correction 2.
DeleteMargaret Visser's book is titled *Much Depends on Dinner* and is available in paperback.
Much as I like the looks of golden rum and whiskey, neither are my preferred drinks - too strong for me. I am more for the bubbly stuff; a nice, well chilled glass of sparkling wine, or a mix such as Apérol Spritz, Hugo, Belsazar, Rosato - you name it, I'll have it. G&T is also welcome, and of course a refreshing shandy never goes amiss during or at the end of a long walk or hike.
DeleteThere should be a poem for sparkling wines, even these names sparkle !
DeleteHard spirits, rum and whisky, become (bad) familiar spirits.
Used medicinally with honey and lemon or cloves, hot whisky will fight a cold.
My sisters enjoy G&T before dinner: there is an expensive tonic they like.
In my youth I liked Beefeater Gin or Gilby's and drank it with vermouth.
I must have thought I was Scott Fitzgerald: If only Scott had patterned his life after the studious T.S. Eliot, who admired *The Great Gatsby*.
*Tender is the Night* describes walking in Alpine meadows rather like your Black Forest hikes. Shandy is the very sound of summer, the smell of grass being cut.
If there is one tip I'd like to give to anyone cooking anything, Meike, it's: Don't worry. Anxiety over a dish makes a bad sous chef. Confidence is everything. The other tip: Never cook when angry or unhappy. As if by osmosis the dish will pick up the angry/unhappy vibe. And turn out accordingly.
ReplyDeleteApropos of nothing: Do you cook any of your mother's/childhood dishes - I mean the ones you love at her or your grandmother's table? There is a reason behind this question.
Enjoy this weekend's/your offerings,
U
Sometimes it is the other way round, Ursula: I am over-confident that a certain idea, a specific combination of ingredients, will work out, but the result falls short of my own expectations. Never mind, I always learn.
DeleteAs I mostly cook when O.K. is here with me, the danger of cooking when angry or unhappy is minimal to non-existent. But I agree; one's mood reflects in one's cooking. You are of course familiar with the saying "Der Koch ist verliebt" when a dish has too much salt.
Sure, I make childhood stuff all the time! My Spätzle are the same ones my Mum has been making all her adult life. Other things are based on my Mum's but have seen slight adaptations from my part. But there are also things only my Mum can make properly, and whatever I try, I can't get it right; think Heidesand. They sound so simple but are definitely not.
I love, love, love sweet potatoes but here in Sicily they are not available. Sometimes some organic shop sells it but once in a blue moon and they are not so good as the American ones. Now that Thanksgiving is coming I will ask my fruit man if he can get them.
ReplyDeleteActually, I don't know where the sweet potatoes come from that I buy at my local Aldi, only 5 minutes on foot from my house. They have changed so much, from what used to be a rather shabby, extremely cheap chain of supermarkets, they have now a lot of really good organic produce on offer, plenty of stuff aimed at vegetarians and vegans, and are still at the lower end of the price range.
DeleteAubergines are one of my favorite vegetables. I like to eat them in Chinese and Japanese cuisine with soy sauce or hot soybean paste. Happy new week to you.
ReplyDeleteHello crane, thank you! I didn't even know aubergines feature in Chinese and Japanese cuisine.
Delete