Potato-cucumber soup is a true summer classic in our family. The secret behind this savoury soup is to first stir-fry the potatoes with the onions and to add the fresh cucumbers only in the last minutes. So two irresistible flavours melt together. potato-cucumber soup 1 tablespoon olive oil or ghee 1kg potatoes, peeled and diced 1 large, fresh cucumber, peeled, seeds removed and diced 1 onion, chopped 1 spring onion, thinly sliced vegetable stock, enough […]
My international family of favourite green bean recipes (German with tomatoes, onions and vinaigrette, Spanish with fried garlic and almonds) welcomes a new brother in their midst: Asian gingered beans with hijiki. This recipe is full of flavour and makes use of the beautiful hijiki algae, and fancy yet very easy to prepare. dry and soaked hijiki gingered beans with hijiki (inspired by Alicia Silverstone) 1/2 cup dried hijiki 1 tablespoon tamari 2 tablespoons […]
Michael Simonsen, of Simonsen Freianlagen, the landscape designer and family friend, has a beautiful garden, that we were very eager to visit. Whenever we asked, “can we come see your garden this weekend?” He said “No no noooo, it needs a little more time to show the whole variety of flowers! Half of them didn’t blossom yet!” or “Just a little more patience, I am still waiting for the sunflowers!” Finally, on a sunny day […]
When Grandma cooks jam, she will make her choice of fruit dependent on what special fruits are in season, the lushest offers at the farmer’s market, and on cases of uncontrollable fruit abundance in the neighbours’ gardens. She quickly cooks 2 or 3 jars between her usual cooking, gardening and housework. The black fruit jam however is one of her true classics. The fruit/ sugar ratio is always the same: fruit to sugar, 2:1. […]
Finally outdoors…. fighting the Armada of mosquitos with a campfire. Chris salad with lettuce, beetroots, beetroot stems, cucumber and burrata cucumber flavoured prosecco my box tree nursery crabs grilled on the campfire
A clafouti is a great summer cake. It has no crumbly, greasy “floor”, but is juicy and moist and fruity and still doesn’t fall apart. Julie, originally from France, to be precise la Bretagne, makes the best clafouti I have ever tried. Of course I had to get the recipe and her permission to pass it on to my dear readers! Julie’s clafouti 150g flour 4 eggs 80-100g sugar 80g melted butter 1/2l lukewarm milk […]
… quick photo, before the last bit of delicious gazpacho disappeared in my mouth. Not only the southern part of the Península cools itself down with chilled gazpacho during the summer months, I loved to savour it under the hot sun of the Alta Meseta, in Salamanca, where I spent my student days. It’s easy to prepare if you’ve got a mortar, a blender and plenty of field grown, sun riped vegetables: tomato + cucumber […]