Oh, I am so glad October is finally over. Somehow it was a month of stress with not actually doing much. November, though, will be a month of even more stress, but with really doing things also.
Well, that doesn't mean I did nothing this month. At least I got Bloggers Around the World running for a single month again this time and I got to do some cooking for it myself as well.
Therefore it is time now to devote a post again to the round-up of it all.
What have you all been doing this month? We shall see ...
Sometimes you wake up ... it's best to wake up every day ... and you already know what you want for dinner. I just had that a few weeks ago. And it was chilli that I wanted, some really hot chilli with some coffee in it. So I had to gather all the forces of hotness and have some chilli ...
I had to do quite some harvesting on my chilli plants to do this, but still I am lucky the plants continue to produce more chillies.
Here we go then for the Coffee Liqueur Chilli ...
So far, things are still fine. After all, the sun is shining today and it's still quite warm. So I enjoy it ... and while we are at it, we can go for some more Mediterranean food. My mind is still on the current Bloggers Around the World: Greece. And once more I like to go for a vegetarian dish: Spanakorizo. Some rice, spinach and egg is involved. Of course I make sure we aren't going to miss out in the feat department. Whatsoever, the name of the dish would be translated spinach and rice.
If you have some fresh spinach available go for it. However, I had to use frozen one. No worries, both ways it's going to work ... Wish I could say the same for my spinach in the garden, which didn't work at all this year.
Now, though, we want to cook ...
Oh, how lucky we are that some words have different meanings. Do you know this game - we used to play it sometimes in school - where two pupil are explaining two different things, bit by bit of course and the answer to both things is the same word. Ah, maybe then again you don't know.
Fine, let's have a try: the one thing can take you to the moon ... and maybe back as well (ah, I was just listening to that song again) and the other thing is edible.
You know the solution already? I guess you have cheated. How could you not? After all it was quite obvious from the title of the post that the answer is: rocket. Then I guess we can skip the singing and the lyrics analysis and go directly over to preparing some food, burgers to be precise. Well, to be even more precise: 'To the Moon & Back' Rocket Burgers ...
Let us suppose you have your beef burger patties already ... eh ... ready. Then we ...
I have quite a lot to do and to decide at the moment. Not really an easy job. Every day a little bit more is accomplished. Nevertheless, the show must go on and ... will go on ... as far as it is in my hands. Right now I prefer to cook larger amounts of food so I have some for the days ahead. Otherwise I appreciate quick and easy food as well. As you know, cooking some Greek food is on my list for this month. Therefore, it is only logical to have a quick and easy Greek meal ... or two.
Here is what I came up with today: Strapatsada. It is popular in many regions in Greece. It's really quick and easy to prepare and for sure you have all the ingredients ready with no big fuss about it.
Let's see ...
From what I gather by looking around, it's time for squashes and pumpkins. Really? Yes, I would say so. What do we get out of it? For example, I bought a Red Hokkaido squash. Well, I didn't have to go that far and travel to Japan to get it. From it we can get vitamin A and vitamin C, calcium, potassium and iron to mention just a few. Furthermore it is low in calories and sodium. That is, if you are caring about nutrition facts and ... eh ... calories. However, I guess we have to mess around with the calories anyway. But at least you can say, the calories didn't come from the squash.
We are going to have some soup. One day I was invited by some friends ... eh ... just a moment, I invited myself and ... we had some pumpkin soup. Some time later I tried to recreate that soup without having the recipe.
I may have gotten it slightly wrong, but I will give you some alternative ideas, too. So you can have it one way or the other ...
Do you like to have food for free? There are many ways for that ... but then again, there is always something to give to get something. Even when you are invited for dinner by a friend, you have to give something. A 'thank you' would be something good, although it doesn't seem too common anymore. At least you have to get to the place to get the food ...
Wait! We don't want to go that far in classing 'food for free'. Let's talk about foraging. You have to invest some time to get the food. Also you need to get answers ... answers to the questions: What? When? Where?
This would be a good spot for free food ...
But when and what?
It is over when it is over. Therefore I have the honour to tell you, it isn't. I still got some plum deals for you. As I told you before, I checked some of my cookbooks for inspiration and nearly missed this one ...
It's from the book The little Paris kitchen by Rachel Khoo. I tried to do a similar setup for the picture as was in the book, but I didn't dare to take the photo outside in the garden on the lawn, because it was too cold for my taste at that time. I suppose that won't improve for a while.
Now to the recipe. I had to do a few adjustments, since I didn't have French smoked sausages and pistachios. Let's see ...
It's about time we travel on. Last time we had a longer period for linking up, but I guess that won't be necessary this time. I simply make things fit into my tight schedule. Time is always rushing. Everyone knows how it is. However, that isn't the main thing. We are interested in the destination for this month.
Where are we going to? What will we be cooking?
