Pumpkin and Potato Fritters with Goat’s Cheese Dip

Officially I am crazy ... well, maybe not officially, but in some sort of way, but ... well, that might not be something new about me. You might have heard so before. Anyway, you might have seen this post before as well, but ... I don't know ... I am trying to do something here ...

For today I have selected … something with pumpkin.

For the purpose of this recipe I selected Hokkori F1 squash as it is supposed to be good for frying. I reckon, you could even make pumpkin chips with it.

Anyway, from a friend I got a quarter of the squash and therefore I had to use it quickly, but to be honest, I even didn’t manage to use up that quarter of it for this recipe, so there is still a tiny bit left of it in the fridge. That is so, although I made a pumpkin omelette with parts of it the other day.

From the flesh of the Hokkori F1 … well … eh, it looks just like pumpkin to me. Now we have to see, whether the sweet flavour and the dry texture is doing any good to my recipe …

Ingredients3 medium sized potatoes
The same amount of pumpkin flesh
1 egg
2 tbsp. bread crumbs
Salt, pepper
Oil for frying
200 g goat’s cream cheese
1 tsp. chilli powder
1 tbsp. tomato puree
2 cloves of garlic

MethodFirst of all we need to do some grating – be gentle to your fingers, no hectic movements. Accordingly grate the potatoes and the flesh of the squash into a bowl.

Mix that together with the egg, bread crumbs and a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning. Here we would be ready for the fritters already.

Now we devote some time to the dip – piece of cake. Simply put the goat’s cheese, the chilli powder, the tomato puree into another bowl and grate in the garlic. Thoroughly combine everything be stirring through. Lovely, the dip is also done.

If you want to – I wanted to – prepare a salad to have on the side. Just use the usual suspects for it or whatever you like or have at hand.

Heat up some oil in a large pan and start frying the fritters by placing a tablespoon of the mixture for each fritter into the pan. Of course, you will not forget to flatten and turn them.

Either have an eat as you go, or just fry off all of the mixture and then have it together with the dip and a salad properly at the dining table … or just dig in!

Time for Fitness - Arepitas de Yuca

Everyone of us needs some exercise to use that muscles well we find in our body. I'm sure, but not quite filled with knowledge on that, there is some kind of saying in different languages and cultures, but here in Germany we say: "Wer rastet der rostet." That is, if you rest, you put on rust. I don't like to put on rust. It doesn't look so fine on my beautiful body.
What did I just say? Never mind. Don't pay any attention on the comment about my body. I wasn't meant to say that. Anyway, instead of rusting sometimes I do some running, although that is less at the moment. Instead I do some exercises in the house, like push-ups or dancing. However, as you might be well aware of, there is one particular kind of exercise, I prefer, a way of burning that molesting old calories. I used to call it food fitness, putting your muscles to good use, while cooking.
The other day, we cooked our version of 'Bandera Dominicana' (Dominican flag). That dish contains rice, some kind of meat stew and a dish of beans (the latter might lead to some other kind of exercise, I don't want to dwell on in more detail). On the side we had a little dish, that is called Arepitas de Yuca. Maybe you also have heard of yuca under the name of cassava, manioca or mandioca or other.

Well, don't get me wrong on that picture ... I didn't eat that little.
I don't like to throw all the recipes of the complete 'Bandera Dominicana' at the moment, but if you insist I will do so at a later point in time. Don't fear it will take months again until I continue putting up posts here on the blog.
Let us just concentrate on the fitnessy part of the whole plate, the Arepitas de Yuca.

Fitness ingredients:
Yuca
Egg
Sugar
Honey
Salt
Aniseed (optional)
Oil for frying

Instructions for exercise:
Let's do some exercise then. The more you prepare the more exercise you will get from it.
First of all we start with the yuca. Remove that brownish stuff all around ... äh ... let us call it peel the yuca. Then we go for the fun part ...

... grating, and when I say grating, you have to grate it very finely. If you just go for one root, that is not enough in my opinion. Let's have at least another one to give those rusty old muscles a little workout.
The results of your work you can mix with a pinch of salt, an egg, sugar and honey according to your taste and if you like to have aniseed in it, you are welcome, too. The trick is, you could even add pepper, if you wanted to, but ... we didn't want to at that very moment.
Having done that you are ready for frying ...

... adding tablespoon portions. Make good use of the space in the pan or ... whatever.
Fry the are-it's de yuca golden brown on both sides in order to ensure that they are well cooked on the inside. Removing them from the oil put them on kitchen paper to get rid of the excess oil. Then you can snack away or ... eat them on the side of a greater scheme of meal.

Well, in the end you will end up putting in more calories eating all the food then you spent for preparing it. However, that wasn't our goal in the first place. We just wanted a bit of exercise for we need it so badly. Still there are other things we need so badly and one of those things is dessert ...

There is always room for some ice-cream, pudding, dessert, postre and sweets. I made that one healthy by putting on some blueberries. So, the day is saved.
Finally, do you have any further suggestions of exercise in the kitchen apart from dancing and making music with spoons and pots in the kitchen? Let us know! Please share.

No Pirates, just food - Mofongo

Well, I don't know, what is going on, but ...

Did you know why I first liked to visit the Caribbean? Well, it was a very strange idea of mine. It had to do with Pirates. Back then there was a computer game going by that name and I used to play it a lot. After I while I thought, well, it would be nice to visit the Caribbean once. So I did.

Well, these days I haven’t much to do with Pirates or computer games, but I still like the Caribbean and to be more specific when it comes to food.

Fine, it’s no secret we are travelling to the Caribbean with our Bloggers Around the World challenge and I have also shown you some dishes I tried. Today I like to show you another one.

Of course, everything depends here on the ingredients. If you happen to get your hands on some cooking bananas you can go ahead. For we need some cooking bananas so to speak. In the Dominican Republic they go by platanos (which auto-correction tried to turn into platoons, which I really don’t appreciate of auto-correction).

The dish is called Mofongo (auto-correction had no ideas here – good). It’s a lovely side dish to put together with some meat and if you care some rice

Ingredients:
2 cooking bananas, peeled, cut into pieces
100 g ham, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 spring onions, chopped in rings
Salt pepper
Oil for frying

Method:
It’s all quite simple. Bring the oil in a pan to heat and then you fry the pieces of the cooking banana.

Then you remove the banana pieces from the pan and bash them up in a mortar.

While you have your pan still on the heat it’s good to reduce the heat a tiny bit and fry the onion, garlic and ham in it. Really, no big deal.

Once all is nice, get the mashed up bananas back into the pan and cook them together with the rest. Season it all with salt and pepper and finally add the rings of the spring onion to finish it all off.

Then enjoy your Caribbean style meal, it’s quick, simple and delicious. For sure I will have it more often, when I get my hands on cooking bananas. I have to buy them anyway each time I see them. So it’s just a matter of time.