A Day out, Flowers, Caribbean and Dominican Tortilla

Finally we got the sunny weather. If you combine this with a day off and time to spare this makes for a good opportunity to have a day out. Accordingly we decided to take the train to Hannover, Germany, and look around of what is to see, buy some special food items and eat something special.

Arriving at the train station gives you the chance to have a snack right away, so we are having roasted pork in a bun. There is a place as well, that sells roasted pork in a bun nearby where we live, but that isn't half as good as the one at the train station of Hannover with soft onions on top of the meat. You could easily fill up on that, but ... I think it's better to leave some space for more.
For me, visiting Hannover means to go and see the Herrenhäuser Gärten. The gardens are really beautiful and you can enjoy them a lot. On this day it was quite quiet, if you don't count the workers. There are some days they have special events there and you can see a lot more. For the time being we enjoyed this quiet time, although it was that quiet, that they even turned off the water. If you want to see the grand fountain of water, which can shoot up the water even over 60 metres you have to be there before high noon or after 3 p.m.

Originally we only wanted to see the great garden, but the ticket came as a package with the mountain garden and the greenhouses as well. It's worth a visit as well. I would really enjoy to have some of those plants at home, too, but ...

Good there wasn't even a tiny cloud in the sky that day. So we could enjoy the gardens to the full ... with some bottles full of water.

So far regarding the cultural part. Of course you could do a lot more, but if you are walking around all the time and want to do a wee bit of shopping as well, the options are limited.
After walking around all day and buying a lot of chillies, platanos (plantains) and guandules (pigeon peas), it was time for more than a snack ... We set out for a place called Boca Chica. It's named after a place in the Dominican Republic. As we don't have the chance to fly every year to the Caribbean, this was the best we could do for now. The weather was right and they had a nice terrace where to enjoy the meal outside. We started with a mixed plate of starters ...

There was a lot going on on the plate: tostones (fried plantain), boquerones, aubergine salsa, plantain salad, yucca salad, mango, chicken, calamari and Dominican tortilla.
The Dominican tortilla is a bit like the Spanish tortilla, but instead of potatoes you use rice. This is a very good opportunity to use up leftover rice. Simple mix it with some eggs and if you like to get a bit more taste out of it add shopped up coriander or peppers. Then just fry it as small cakes. 
Next up the main dish with some fish ...

I decided to go for parrot fish as I never had it before. Seems quite healthy to me, but I still have to work a bit on my tastebuds regarding seafood. Well, that's not so easy around here as we don't have the chance to have it too often as no sea is nearby.
The rice had some guandules (pigeon peas) and that was something I had for the first time as well.
Something I didn't have for the first time was postre (dessert) ...

I have to try this one as home myself, if we ever get hands on ripe plantains around here. Well, it's not too fancy, but it makes for a solid dessert.
Anyway, it was a luvly day out we enjoyed very much. I hope I get my hands on some good and delicious cooking again soon.

Roadside Meal - Chicheron - Crispy Pork Belly

There are a lot of things I do not understand. Well, that is only natural, because there are a lot of things that is going on on this planet and beyond and if I would be able to understand all that I would have an IQ of above 200. Hm ... interesting ... I haven't checked that lately though, but I don't want to give an hypothesis of how high my IQ actually is nor do I want to give any suggestions regarding that right now.
That wasn't going to be the subject anyway. We are trying food here and supposedly from around the world. Going back to the do not understand part. For example there is this scandal going on at the moment with eggs and a chemical called Fipronil. On the one hand they say you should through this eggs away or bring them back to the supermarket and on the other hand an adult could eat seven of those eggs in a day and it won't happen nothing. Who is eating seven eggs a day?
Anyway, how can they put prices in the supermarket and write it is a special offer, when it's in fact the same prize as always or even higher.
How does it come that our fridge is always empty again so quickly. Well, for that one there might be an explanation ... eh ... it seems we are drifting away from the subject. Just to give an idea of where we want to get here ...

... maybe the might help to focus. That is one crispy pork belly or as they would call it in the Dominican Republic: Chicheron.
There again we get to the point I originally wanted to talk about when I said 'do not understand'. Over there in the Dominican Republic for example you find shops that sell chic heron at the roadside. Here it comes ... the curious part ... in one spot there are for example four shops next to each other that sell Chicheron. Then in another place there are four shops together that sell fish and no shop of Chicheron. Or four shops that sell fruits and no shop of Chicheron or fish. Again I could go on for hours, but that's how it is.
Anyhow, the way I put it on the picture is not the way you have it locally it rather might look like this ...

You might just stop with your car, taste a bit of what you are interested and then buy a loadful of it and hit the road again or ...

... you might eat it on sight with some hot sauce and yuca and bananas on the side. Well that looks just like a little snack for me, you might think, but ... no I didn't eat it all.

Well, when you are blogging about food, you even might do some other things, when you are around, but those images might be too hard for some to see, so only read ahead when you are absolutely sure you can take it ...

Travelling and Cooking: Salad with Green Plantain

We have been travelling a bit, flying over the Atlantic ocean from Madrid, Spain to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. There was a lot of running involved at the airport. At one point there was an employee of the airport shouting all the time at passengers that people with a European passport go to one line and other to another. I wonder for how long she made it. Anyway, it was a wonderful vacation with sun, sea, beach and food.
One day La Romana, Dominican Republic, we went to the mall and there was a cooking show going on with Gabriella Reginato. Well, I have never heard of her before, but hey ... it was about food and we still had a bit of time. The first dish she showed was Sangria without alcohol. There was some rosemary involved in this and it tasted good.
Next up was a salad with green plantain. That was very delicious and we thought we have to try it at home, just to have some other fine dish with plantains. 
Therefore I had to adjust the recipe of Gabriella a bit to fit the ingredients we have available here and to have it written in English.

Ingredients:
1 green plantain, cut into small cubes
1/2 red bell pepper cut into small pieces
1/2 yellow bell pepper cut into small pieces
1 green pepper, cut into small pieces
Some leaves of coriander
2 spring onions, cut into small rings
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 lemon
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Method:
To start with, we are going for the cooking of the plantains. Put them in salted water with the juice of half of the lemon. Bring to the boil and cook for 10 minutes. Then let them cool down a bit.

The rest is super easy, for as you have done all the chopping already. Well, don't call me lazy when it comes to writing up things. It's just the way it is. No, not the lazy part, but putting the dish together.
Put the plantains, peppers, spring onions, garlic, coriander in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, then add the remaining juice of the other half of the lemon. Finally add the olive oil and then you are ready to it, if ... you like it at room temperature. Otherwise you can put the salad into the fridge to let it cool down further.
Anyway, this amount of salad would serve for two people, but of course it is only a side dish.

I hope you try it out. Have a look also at the original version, when we tried it the first time in the Dominican Republic in the mall.

Again, another post comes to an end. It went quickly, just as the vacations. It seems that those always end to fast. Have a luvly time!

Hasta luego!

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.

Bloggers Around the World: Caribbean Round-up and New Challenge

Did I mention to shut down this blog? I would say that was a total misunderstanding. What shall I say? At times I don't even understand myself.
I know, however, that it's time again for another Bloggers Around the World round-up.
Therefore, without any further ado I bring you the December/January round-up of Bloggers Around the World: The Caribbean ...

Depending on the area were you live on our wonderful planet, you may feel like Elizabeth from the The Law Student's Cookbook. She would rather trade ice scraping of her windscreen with putting on sunscreen. I can only agree with that, although I hardly use sunscreen even when there is sun.
Anyway, have a closer look at this sunny and warming Jamaican Curry from the Law Student's Cookbook.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for taking part. Well, I don't know about you, I can already feel the sun coming.
If that's not sufficient to bring you in the mood, I like to remind you have a few things I did here on my blog a few days ago.



There was this dessert that was created from a cocktail ... the Paradise Cocktail Dessert. If that doesn't help towards the sun ... at least if you would have five in a row ... well, it would make a difference ... or rather change things ... in your head it is.
In that post I disclose a few things from my past life ... and I might go on with that in the next post of this series.
Not dwelling too long on the aforementioned thought I like to draw you attention to a warming soup: Sopa de elote.



As far as I know, soups help in cold weather. Therefore I also have a few more soups ready at my disposal.
For now we are through with the Caribbean round-up for Bloggers Around the World ...
... that is at least what I thought, but ...
... there is one more ... eh ... soup, that reached us and I don't want it to go unnoticed. Ruth from 8&Ruth kept fighting and finally brought as a quite greenish ... eh, green vegetable soup, that has written Jamaica on it. Have a look and see, whether you notice ...



Where shall we turn next?
I know at least were some would like to go, but ... somehow my mind is already fixed concerning the next stop. I hope, all the fuss about the Maya calendar last year didn't make you feel bad about the Maya and you don't mind to go to Mexico.

Yes, that's our next stop: Mexico. I guess you know what that means and you don't need any further rules as to that. I only hope, we will turn up the heat considerable ... chilies, you know!

I don't want to forget to remind you of a few things (rules):

1. Leave a comment with a link to your post here in this very post, below. 
2. Link to my blog and this challenge in your post.  
3. Use the "Bloggers Around the World" badge (the one you find at the beginning and end of this post).  
4. You can use a new or an old post, but it has to be adjusted accordingly (you know, all the linking). 
5. Have fun and enjoy it!

Get your chilies, chocolate and whatever you need ready and start cooking or baking something lovely Mexican ...

Cuban Special - Sopa de elote

That post about the Caribbean yesterday really made me long for it ... to be there. Especially with the weather that presented itself to me today, this is only logical. I even checked some prices for flights. There were even some reasonable ones ... great!
But wait! Although this could bring some sun into my life, it's not going to happen. Oh dear!
Well, we still have our dreams, memories and ... some food.
The following  dish is from Cuba. It is called sopa de elote, which is a soup with sweet corn. I took the recipe from the Caribbean cookbook from my shelf and ... completely messed it up. How lovely! Here we go ...

Ingredients:
285 g of sweetcorn (I used a tin)
1 chilli
500 ml chicken stock
200 ml cream
Salt
Parsley

Additional ingredients I was supposed to use, but didn't:
2 eggs, slightly whisked together
Pepper

What I did:
In fact it's all not a big deal. I just tossed the sweetcorn and the chilli together with a bit from the chicken stock into the liquidizer and pureed it all. 
Then I put it all together in a pot with the remaining chicken stock and the cream and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, in which I forgot to do the below mentioned thing.
A pinch of salt! Served in a bowl with some chopped parsley on it.

What I should have done additionally:
The whisked eggs were supposed to go in as well after the salt with some stirring, but this completely escaped my mind. The soup tasted fine nevertheless.

What I did afterwards, because of frustration:
I have to say, I wasn't frustrated with the soup itself, but while fetching the sweetcorn from my supplies I noticed a lot of things that I'm supposed to use up very soon ... argh! Maybe you see some of the results here soon. That is, if I should survive.
While starting to get rid of some of the things I added a few splashes of sweet and smoky BBQ sauce to the soup and ... it didn't taste too bad. Nevertheless, you don't have to try this at home.

Finally, I don't know whether that sopa de elote is such a dish that makes you directly think about Cuba or whether this soup is so special, but it connects with the Bloggers Around the World Caribbean challenge anyway ...

Conquest of Paradise ... Paradise Cocktail Dessert

On the 3rd of August 1492 Columbus set sail from Spain with three ships the Santa María, the Pinta and the Niña to find an alternative route to India. In October 1492 he reached what we know today as ... hm ... eh ... the Caribbean. The conquest of paradise was about to start. At least that's how it is called sometimes.
Enough with history lesson. If you want to know more, read a book. That's still a very good thing to do. But wait, not now. Rather read on first of all. We are having our own conquest of paradise, though slightly different. We are having it for pudding.

This dessert is based on the cocktail called paradise, which is common all throughout the Caribbean ... that is if my Caribbean cookbook is right.
I guessed, we could use this for our Caribbean themed Bloggers Around the World challenge for this month. You have still a few days left to take part as well.

 

Let's go into some details. However, should it be the case - strangely - that you are not fed up yet with your plans for the new year with having a lighter diet and loosing some weight, then don't read on or ... do so at own risk.
After the recipe, I tell you some random facts about me in connection with the Caribbean.

Ingredients: 
Tin of peaches (about 800 g)
4 cl apricot brandy
1 sheet of gelatin
250 g mascarpone
4 cl white rum
4 cl orange juice
2 tbs fruit sugar

Instructions:
Cut the peaches into small pieces, while you pour the juices from the tin to a pot. Add the apricot brandy to this very pot as well. Of course, the small pieces of peach go in as well. Bring it to the boil and leave to simmer.
Meanwhile you put a sheet of gelatin into cold water and let it soak for 7 minutes. Then get rid of the water and put the gelatin to the pot. Keep stirring until the gelatin is dissolved. Then remove the pot from the heat and allow things to cool down.
Now focus on the mascarpone. Mix it with the fruit sugar, rum, and the orange juice. Put it into the fridge.
Once the peaches have cooled down sufficiently divide them between some dessert glasses (4-6 will do). When the peaches are cool enough you can also divide the mascarpone mixture between the dessert glasses and transfer the glasses to the fridge until the desserts have properly set.
You could leave them in over night, for several hours, or just eat one of them without waiting too long. 
Alternatively you can even have a paradise cocktail with some ice cubes, 4 cl white rum, 2 cl apricot brandy and 1 cl orange juice. It's up to you.

Here now 10 facts about me and the Caribbean.

1. A computer game made me want to go to the Caribbean. 
2. That visit actually made me learn Spanish. 
3. I visited the Caribbean several times. 
4. While going scuba diving I saw fishes being fed with bananas. 
5. I went on a trip with at least 19 people in a mini van. 
6. I was invited by locals to a wedding, had lots of sweet cake and had to dance Merengue all night ... strangely all the 'girls' wanted to dance with me.
7. Years later I was still remembered by my dancing ... kind of.
8. I guess that climate would be better for my chronic illness.
9. There was a 'girl' called Betania, well ... eh ... she wrote down a recipe for me.
10. History could have gone totally different for me ...

Now you know a little bit more about me. Do you have any connections with the Caribbean?