Sweets for my sweets... Something needed for the weekend ? ..... Galette Amandine

On Epiphany Day it is tradition in France to serve a special cake: la galette des Rois. I confess that I love this cake as I like very much almonds. And another good reason to do these cake more often then once a year is that he is quickly done... So I do these cake also on other occsasions. I modified a little bit the basic recipe by adding some chocolate chips to the "Frangipane" (= the almond filling) and call it GALETTE AMANDINE. But see yourself or try it within the next days and see what your family or your friends mean about these cake...

You need

75 g soft butter

125 g  fine ground almonds

100g sugar

40 g plain chocolate chips

1 tablespoon amaretto sirup
1 medium range egg


1 egg yolk

3 teaspoons icing sugar

1 tablespoon water
1 roll of puff pastry
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1. First you prepare the filling, the so called Frangipane: Mix the soft butter with sugar until it´s perfectly melted. Add the almonds and the amaretto sirop.

2. Mix the egg yolk with the water and the icing sugar. You will need these mix to make a perfect browning.

3. Put the puff pastry on your working table and divide it into to equal sized pieces (or smaller pieces if you want some small bite sized desert). Put the Frangipane on one of the puff pastry halves and spread the chocolate chips over this almond filling. With a kitchen brush put some of the "browning mix" around the filling.

4. Now put the other pastry piece over the filling and press with your fingers around the filling so that the two pastry pieces stick well together.

5. Cut away the exceeding puff pastry (with a knife or some cookie cutter).

6. Place the cake on a oven tray armed with parchement paper

and put it into your fridge for at least 30 minutes.

7. Place your cake in the preheated oven (180 C) for 25 minutes.

This cake stays tasty and quite as good as fresh prepared for some days. But I would wonder if you could resist for a long time...

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Fish Surprise Package: Simple - Healthy - Tasty: what more do we need?

Of course there could be a bigger surprise than a meal in a kitchen foil package.... But once you have opened the package and the fragrance of the fish with the vegetables and herbs comes up to your nares and reaches your olfactory system... you will know what I mean...
And it is one of the easiest and most reliable ways to obtain a perfect cooked fish.

You need the following ingredients, apart the kitchen foil:
- Filets of shark catfisch (about 120 g / person)
- 150 g Carrots / person
- 1 teaspoon mediterranean herbs / fish filet
- 1/2 small onion / package
- Extra vergin olive oil, salt and pepper

How to prepare:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C
2. Mix 1 Tablespoon of olive oil with 1 teaspoon herbs and marinate the fish filet in these mixture until you have finished the preparation of the vegetables
3. Wash the carrots and cut them into about 5 cm long slices. Cut the onion into small cubes ore slices and mix it with the carrots
4. Cut a piece of the kitchen foil, long enough to create later on a sort of package that can contain the vegetables and the fishfilet (about 40 - 50 cm). Interfold the foil so that it is more stable (you have now a double layered kitchen foil sheet)

5. Put a good lug of olive oil on each foil sheet and put the onion-carrots on it. Season with some salt and pepper

6. Lay the marinated fish filet on the vegetable and season also with some salt and pepper

7. Drizzle the rest of your marinade over the fish and vegetables

8. Fold the foil to create a package as shown (do not make it to tight around the content but it should be kind of airtight)

9. Put the package on a oven tray and put it into the preheated oven for about 20 - 25 min. (depending on the size of you carrots)

And now it´s time to open our package: you can smell it ?

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Madeleine is not only a womens name...

...it also means a savoury, fine, biscuit-like sweet that is really delicious to accompaign your cup of tea (or of course your cup of coffee).
It´s originary from France and I think that not so many people knows them out of France... The best way to enjoy it is really some minute after it comes out of your oven and the odour is waving all over your flat...

But to bake Madeleines theres is a rub in it : you need a special madeleines baking-tin. (You should be able to get it in a good household goods store....)
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So apart the special baking-tin you need:

130 g wheat flour (if possible self raising; if you use normal flour so you have to add 1 teaspoon baking powder)

130g soft butter

130g icing sugar

2 medium to big range eggs
1 dash of vanilla paste (I like the one from NOMU or some liquid vanilla aroma)

1. Preheat your oven to 240 C (believe me it is the right temperature!)
2. Prepare your baking tin by lining it with some butter and flour
3. Mix the eggs with icing sugar

4. Add the flour and the vanilla - blend rapidly all the ingredients together

5. Put about one tablespoon of this prepared mixture in each hole of your baking-tin

6. Put the tin in your preheated oven.

7. After 4 minutes turn down the temperature to 180 C and leave your madeleines baking for another 4 minutes.

8. Now take them out of the oven and try to wait at least some minutes before you start to eat them...with some jam..or with a glass of champagne (instead of the cup of tea...)

"Kartoffelgulasch" - my daughters all time favorite

Whenever I ask my daughter what I could cook for her to make her happier the answer is:
Kartoffelgulasch (=Potatogulasch)!!!
It is not very difficult to make and I would wonder if you would not already have some of the ingredients at home. That means that you need (for about 3 - 4 persons)

1,5 kg Potatoes (you can of course also use more or less)
2 tablespoons of ground paprika
4 Debreziner sausages ( but you can also use for example Frankfurter)
300 ml of warm vegetable stock
1 medium sized onion
3 tablespoon oil (I use sun flower oil)

1. Peel the onion and cut into small cubes

2. Give the oil in a pot and heat it up on medium heat.

3. Add the prepared onions and let them turn to light brown

4. Meanwhile peel and cut the potatoes into quarters and also cut the sausages into small pieces

5. Add the potatoes to the onion and stir from time to time for about 5 minutes until all the potatoes are well mixed with onion and oil

6.  Now add the warm stock, the ground paprika and cook for about 35 minutes (depending on your potatoes the time may vary). After 10 minutes add the sausages. Stir from time to time. The meal is ready when the potatoes are soft cooked

A cup of tea and some "Chocomandos"...

Is´nt chocolate one of the best "mind lightener"..?
If you combine it with some almond paste, puff pastry and brown sugar it gets unbeatable .. you get "Chocomando"

You need a roll of puff pastry, about 250 g almond paste, 30 g plain chocolate chips and 1 tablespoon brown sugar.
1. Preheat your oven to 180 C
2. With the rolling pin make out of the almond paste a square in the size from the puff pastry
3. Get the puff pastry out of the fridge and put the almond paste on it. Spread the chocolate chips and 1/2 of the tablespoon sugar over it.
4. Roll the so prepared puff pastry beginning on the short edge and cut it into 5 mm slíces. Now put those rolls on a oven tray (armed with some parchment paper) and disperse the rest of the sugar over those rolls.

 5. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 min.

Before you can savour your
             CHOCOMANDOS
you should let them cool down for some minutes...