We are doomed ... an Invasion is coming ... a Pizza Invasion

Beware! Do not be mislead, there is danger lurking. Something terrifying beyond your imagination. I'm not talking about an invasion of mutated evil killer something. No! It's worse. Be warned and be careful and ... continue reading anyway.
Well, I'm not a fan of such kind of movies anyway. However, what we are talking about might pose a real threat to your possibilities to wear a proper swimsuit or bikini or that sort of beach apparel this summer. That is, of course, if find time during that week or day of summer.
On the other hand ... moderation might help. Decide for yourself!
It's been some time now I last posted something about pizza. So I thought I could go for it again. I've gathered some ... eh ... photos of ... eh ... some pizza I had over the last few weeks. Strangely, they look not much different. One day I might get some lovely ideas on how to take picture of pizza in a nice way.
Basically I want to mention a few toppings I tried. The basic dough and sauce you can find in another post.
Let's get this invasion going.

We start with this meaty version with Leberkäse and onions. You might remember Leberkäse from an older post. Well, anyway, that pizza was alright, but lacked in certain burning abilities. Cannot always have that.

Speaking of burning ... chorizo and chilli might do the trick. At least it always works for me. You might need to be a bit cautious with this one. It might bring you some extra weight. Or will the fire of the chorizo and chilli help burning some undesirable ... eh ... things. We will never know.

What about some fish. Putting some tuna on a pizza ... no big deal, anyone can do that. Therefore I decided to add some salmon and and some anchovy fillets as well. That was a pizza I enjoyed, too, although it wasn't burning hot.

More to come. If I tell you were the idea came from, you might think it's fish again, but ... alright, start at the beginning. This one I topped with the leftover sauce from the Tonno di Nonna Fangitta, though, without the tonno.

It isn't over yet. This now is the overly cheesy version, not just mozzarella, but also some Gouda and French Camembert. I would have added even more cheese, but hey ... was I supposed to call it Quintuple Cheese Pizza. I guess triple cheese will do ... for now. For just the minute I mention this I feel the challenge coming up on me to really try this quintuple something. Funny what this writing is doing to my brain.

Pizza invasion, yes, some more ... this time with pieces of merguez sausages in the sauce.
Now all that talking about pizza made me hungry.
I hoped you enjoyed the invasion in some way. Now, if you would have a few slices of each of those pizzas, that would pose a real threat to your bikini figure something hopes or ... alternatively ... to your wardrobe, which would need replacement due to shortage of material at certain spots of your body. Go, figure it out for yourself.
However, what do you like to throw on your pizza?

Merguez and the Pasta Salad of Doom

नमस्ते (speak: na-mas-té) - just for starters and saying hello.

Well, it is not Sanskrit, but if I'm right (might be the case) the script is the same. Anyway, does it matter at this point? Maybe! Who knows?

As the second Indiana Jones movie was set mostly in India and at one point Indy read a few passages Sanskrit. However, my Sanskrit is not quite so good, and most of my Hindi as faded into dust.

Still, we are getting closer to were we want.

After two weeks of adventure (mostly) outside it's time to ... RETURN TO THE KITCHEN!!! (By the way, did you recognize that my last few posts were written before my holiday?)

However, before we go on whipping things up in the kitchen, I like to share a few scenes from the weeks past.

My first day was like pouring down rain - like from buckets - and wind blowing, but stupid me had to be outside and walking ... I don't know like 20 miles or so.

After that, though, the rain was gone and the sun was out for the remaining days. Was that good? Hm, the blushing colour has gone now and is being replaced by some healthier looking tone.

Looking back!

Do you know this place?

Made it up here!

Yes, had to get up there, too

At times it really was an up and down (like life itself), but always it goes forward.

Not only that, there were 'wild' animals as well.

Had to use all my cattle drover skills, but finally I got past.

Is it size that matters? When looking at the next picture, take into consideration I didn't use the zoom on my camera.

Can you guess what this little fellow did?

Yet again, there are other dangers.

Whatsoever all this is now in the past and has, of course, nothing to do with what I want to write about next. But wait ... I mentioned adventures.

So we are coming back to our intricately woven thread and whip up a pasta salad. Let's get my gear ready and put things into action. On top of it, if we are fast enough, it will make a WARM pasta salad.

Yes, this bowl looks quite empty. In fact ... it is. That is to be changed. 

There happened to be some Merguez sausages (I told you once ...) in the fridge. Get the meat out of it (I used two sausages) and fry some nice small meat balls in a splash of lovely olive oil.

That's not quite enough. What else do we have on stock. Oh, yes, of course, ther are the courgettes on the kitchen counter. One of them will suffice, although they of the rather smaller kind. After all this should be for just one person ... or maybe two.

Slices ... and fried!

As you see (or not?) there were still some other things to be found. A jar with black olives was hiding somewhere in the depths of the fridge, too. However, no matter how hard it tried, I found it anyway and a small handfull of black olives (no, I didn't asked a child to help me, but simply didn't fill my large hand completely) went in as well.

What's in the freezer section of the fridge (no I haven't stocked up the real freezer again after the sudden demise of it's content)? Well, there is a small bag with (obviously) frozen herbs. What can it be?

Ponder ... ponder ... ponder ... yes, coriander. Fine, I take it and chop it as good as possible. If you dare to replicate this later, you can of course use fresh coriander and add it later.

Satisfied? No, we need more. Ah ... how lovely (really?) my chillie plants have really ... done a lot of work. So I add one finely chopped chilli as well, not bothering about removing the seeds (could this be the above mentioned doom?).

Knucklehead, if you are not doing something about the pasta, we will not even have a pasta salad.

Oh, yes! There must be some pasta up here. Some fusilli would be nice or tagliatelle or ... eh ... even some farfalle.

OK, let's use bucatini (no, not bugattini, although a ride in a Bugatti Veyron would be nice now). Have the package (250 g) will do. After all the other half was already used at another time.

Cooked according to package instruction (good I still had the package). Otherwise you might be just clever enough to know the appropiate time for having the pasta al dente.

Did I forget something? You know, "I'm making this up as I go."

All this could be quite dry. So we are having some extra vergine olive oil and balsamic vinegar on it. I even have this mango balsamic vinegar here. That will give the whole thing a slight fruity kind of twist.

If you care (I cared) season with salt an pepper. Hopefully you manage to mix it trough well. This mixing thing, though, would have worked more advantageaously with arranging the ingredients in reverse order (I guess).

At this point, we should have it all ready to eat (if I wouldn't been taking photos, it would have been a warmer pasta salad). Then why not do it and eat.

I, though, would fancy pudding. Maybe some blackforest gateaux thingy or tiramisu or even some brownies. But once more luck was not on my side. Neither of the aforementioned was at hand nor at reach nor was there any way of getting a decent dessert to satisfy my palate. Sady, then, I went without.

Egg inside - Scotch eggs

Another beautiful day - not! Or was it? What makes a good day after all? Does it solely depend on the weather: "When the sun is shining, I'm shining, that is smiling, that is happy!" It can not be denied that the weather has a great influence on the mood.
When it's all grey outside and the sun is in hiding, there is certain kind of food that can help you to ease the pain. I'm not writing anything about this today. For some it would have to do with chocolate or ... I don't know.
Well, there are other things ... and other foods in life.

Flowers also help when everything is grey outside. It was very nice to see that the orchid finally made it and the first flower opened. Hopefully, more are to follow. I don't know too much about it, though. However, it is not good to neglect the plant, but to water it regularly.
Nevertheless I don't want to go into botanical details. If I would ask my father, he would be the better person to do it.
Let us talk about food then, about Scotch eggs in particular. I have already seen them a few times before, but never had the chance to eat one so far. Therefore during the last few weeks the desire to try one grew.
As i just read, Scotch eggs, were invented, if you can use that term in this connection, in the year 1738. Or does it rather originate from an Indian dish. Whatever the case, I wanted an egg coated with minced meat and then fried.
So I went through several cookbooks of mine, including the one with the Indian cuisine (so it might originate from there), and mixed the ideas and ingredients from those various recipes together...

First of all, we need some eggs. It would not be right to torture some hens to get them. Due to this fact, I used some eggs of free range chickens. Sometimes I even have the chance to get some eggs through my workmate, because his parents have some hens.
What I imagine, when I think of cream eggs ... oh no, I'm totally wrong here, I mean Scotch eggs (ugh, thinking of chocolate again), is that the egg yolk in the center is still a tiny bit runny (so the cream eggs fit a bit). Will this work out?
A pot with water goes onto the stove and the eggs are bound to end inside the pot. But somewhere I have this tool to put a little hole in the eggs to prevent major disaster while cooking. Where is it?
Let's have a look in my drawer, where I have all the tools loosely hanging around ... ouch ... what idiot put those sharp blades in there? Well, um, it could only have been me ... A small intermission then for treating the cuts. OK, it's not that bad, all fingers still there.
To cut things short - boil the eggs for about 7 minutes or let's say 6 minutes. I did 7, but the result was not absolutely satisfying.

Then we need meat, minced meat. Why not a bit of experimenting ...

... no just kidding. She is still fine, hopping around happily.


You might, well, call me boring, or ... things ..., but I decided to use the meat of some lovely ... have a guess ...


Merguez sausages! Sorry, couldn't help!


Here we go then for the meat:
take the meat of about 400 g of fresh sausages
one shallot
one clove of garlic
one green chili
some sea salt
a two cm piece of ginger
a tsp of ground coriander
and ... nothing else (except you have a brilliant idea - then let me know)


Cut the shallot, garlic, chili, and ginger into very small pieces, having them on the same chopping board and maybe going through the bits and pieces again and again with the knife.
Mix everything well with the meat.
Then get yourself a few plates ready: one with a whisked egg, one with flour, and one with breadcrumbs.
So, get rid of the egg shells and roll the "naked" eggs in the flour (did I mention, that I used four eggs?). The meat you have already before divided into four parts and flattened them.
Somehow you manage to "wrap" the meat around the eggs respectively.
The resulting meatballs go to the bowl with the egg and get soaked with egg, only to be coated afterwards with the breadcrumbs.
The only thing we have to do now, is to fry them in hot oil, rolling them through the pan to get all sides (of a ball?) to a nice colour.
Afterwards you can enjoy your Scotch eggs, or shall I say Indian eggs with ...

 ... a few salad leaves and some tomato wedges.

 You could also serve along a few other things. Maybe this ...

Or even a potato curry, that is of course only if you have one at hand ...

It's up to you anyway. Whatever you like, whatever you have at hand. Depends maybe also where you live.
So, when you never have tried a Scotch egg before, why not have a try. It's simple. You can maybe experiment even a bit more ...

An evening with leftovers - Kefta Burger

What a great thing! Tomorrow the weekend starts for me. Just this one more day of work and that's it (sorry, I don't want to offend those who still have to work a few more days to get a day or two off). But it gets even better and voilà I'm on holiday out of town for a few days. However, there are still some leftovers in the fridge, I need to get rid off (no, no, never, I'm not going to throw any tiny bit of it away).

Here then starts my three day mission with a Kefta Burger.

Just some day ago I made this Baba Ghanoush. To get an idea how you could prepare this, you can have a look at an even older blog post of me: Baba Ghanoush sort of thing.

I also got some Merguez sausages and a few flatbreads. Merguez is a fresh sausage made of lamb and beef popular in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe as well. It is already heavily spiced with for example chili pepper or harissa. That is why they look so red. Good thing for you (or me). So things go easy for this dish. 

Just cut open the sausages and get out the meat. Get a large pan on a high heat and add some oil. If the spice of the sausages is not enough for you, put some crushed fennel seeds, salt, and pepper into the hot oil. With the meat you make kind of small meat balls and toss them into the pan. Don't be fussy with it. They don't have to be well shaped. Your not entering a contest. Your just hungry.

Warm up the flatbreads and cut them in half. Spread thinly the baba Ghanoush on both sides. Then put some salad leaves and herbs on one side. I got some rocket and some coriander from my windowsill for it.

Next go some finely sliced onions and a few pieces of cherry tomatoes. When the meatballs are ready, they go, too - cover with the other half - finished - eat!

All that doesn't really take long. Again, even after a busy day of work, you can prepare a healthy meal. You don't have to eat junk!

What's next? After the Kefta Burger or Kefta Burgers (when you are really greedy you can maybe manage three, four or even more - but don't get too portly) is/are gone, it's time for pudding: Leftover apple'n'rhubarb crumble with leftover vanilla ice cream.

Last but not least, do you remember the Red wine cake I did yesterday? Well, I still have some leftover red wine in the bottle ... oh oh!