It's a Beautiful Life - Anniversary - Beetroot Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing

Life is beautiful ... and so is my loving wife. I am so grateful I can be married to such a wonderful woman. Yesterday we had our wedding anniversary and it was a delicious day.

For some wedding anniversary may mean to get a gift for his wife like jewellery or something along that road. As for my wife she is very happy and content when I cook something lovely and delicious for her. Now you can judge for yourself what is easier, buying a piece of jewellery or passing quite some time in the kitchen cooking up something delicious.

Did I mention I was very grateful?

Well then, let's get into the food. First of all we started off with something healthy, a beetroot salad.

Ingredients:

2 pre-cooked beetroots, finely sliced

60 g lamb's lettuce

140 g mango, cut in cubes

20 g pumpkin seeds

20 g shavings of parmesan

Red wine vinegar

Olive oil

1 tsp Mustard

1 tsp Honey

Salt, pepper

Method:

The ingredients serve for two plates. This makes sense completely. After all, it was for our anniversary that we were celebrating the two of us.

Arrange the slices of beetroot on a plate, well two plates. Build a circle if you fancy so.

Arrange the lamb's lettuce in the center of the plate.

After that toss on the pieces of mango and the pumpkin seeds.

Then shave over the parmesan, maybe with a potato peeler.

For the dressing mix one part of red wine vinegar with triple the amount of olive oil in a jam jar, for example, together with the mustard, honey and salt and pepper. Dress the salad with ... eh ... this dressing.

Enjoy! Side fact: The beetroot is supposed to be good when you want to build muscles. If not, it's good anyway.

Of course, there was more. For the main plate I cooked up a nice and gorgeously crispy pork belly. It was so awesome.

The crispy pork belly was plated up with some browned potatoes and mushrooms glazed with a good knob of butter. I say it was very delicious. Did I mention the pork belly was so crispy with an awesomely good crunch?! Well, just wanted to make sure of it.

We had a lovely glass of white wine with it, a glass of Albariño, my wife brought along from A Coruña, Spain. Wonderful!

Then we finished the meal off with an espresso or two. But there has to be something more to it ...

... yes, of course, cake. On the inside a chocolate part and a vanilla part. Very good combination. All around it was coated with a chocolate ganache.

Thank you very much for joining us on our anniversary and for taking the time to read this blog post right to the end. All in all it was a really lovely day. Yes, life is beautiful!

Long Due Vegetarian Borscht with Mushrooms

Sometimes things come together. Sometimes it takes a while until they do. As you know we are visiting Russia for our Bloggers Around the World challenge this month.
Usually what you have to do - that is if you don't have any kind of particular knowledge in that kind of cuisine - is do some research on that cuisine, in this instance, Russian cuisine. Well, as I told you, what comes to my mind in connection with Russian cuisine, is borscht or you may want to call it borshch. Anyway, I even have to do research for that. Still there are variations. Some put meat in it, some add cabbage and ...
... today we are having none of that. Since this going to be vegetarian, of course there will be no meat, but there won't be any cabbage either, although some believe that it is an essential ingredient in borscht.
But have a look ...

What do you say?

Dr Jekyll and Mr Cook - Goat's Cheese, Beetroot & Bacon Ravioli

The night wasn't that spectacular. It had been as any other night. Almost! There hadn't been any thunderstorms, but ... it must have been like that ... I was tossing and turning in bed. Something was going on and then ... suddenly ... the alarm clock was ringing!
Indeed, things were ... strange ... this morning. I couldn't quite remember what I had dreamed, but since the bed sheet wasn't soaked with sweat, I assumed it couldn't have been a nightmare.
Whatsoever, I felt the strong urge to ... cook ... bake ... cook ... bake ... bake. Accordingly I have been cooking, baking, cooking, baking and baking all day up to know. In fact, it was so much, I can't tell you all about it right now, but I have picked out one of the stranger ones.
But how did it come that far? Was it something I drank? Was it maybe this wheat beer?

We won't find out. Then let me tell you a bit of my experiments in the kitchen with the pasta dough I found in the freezer ...

German Herring Salad

I am feeling a bit tired today, but still I refuse to have a nap, although I didn't have too much sleep the last few days. For next week things should run normal and I will get enough sleep. So, no need to interfere.
I rather use the time to write a recipe down for you. Some say, you should eat more fish. Then that is what we are going to do. There are one or two items in my pantry, I could ask myself "why did I  buy them?". There has to be a reason.
Now there is this jar of beetroot. Why did I get it? No idea. However, I know what I can do with it. One thing is German Herring Salad. Then I am going for some fish at the same time. That sounds good.

Let's do it then ...