the red kitchen

Sugar fingers

Sugar fingers, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

I made shortbread from the River Cottage Family Cookbook for afternoon tea and Max couldn't resist helping himself to some sugary crumbs before the first slice was eaten (note green playdough on his fingers, remnants of the T-Rex necklaces he made earlier in the afternoon).

The shortbread was good, despite having to substitute cornflour for rice flour in the recipe, and very simple, a good one to make with kids as it doesn't require much mixing or other technique, merely rubbing the dry ingredients with the butter and pressing into a cake tin (don't even have to bother greasing or lining the tin).

And, it looked super lovely, sweetly pale and sprinkled with vanilla sugar from my big glass bottle of lumpy, vanilla-soaked sugar.

Weekday lunch

weekday lunch, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

I took the time today to make myself a proper meal and actually sit down to eat it. I so often find myself eating on the run or in a rush that it's nice to eat at a leisurely pace for once. I hate being rushed to eat.

Today I found myself home alone over lunch and decided to make this roasted tomato, garlic and spinach linguine, with a glass of bubbly on the side and the latest LRB in front of me.

Schlangerbrot

We had a party for Max and Lolly on Sunday, a sausage sizzle in the park*, in the bitter cold and mud which no-one seemed to mind at all (much fun was had by all).

Above is a specimen of the (infamous) schlangerbrot (snakebread), lengths of bread dough wound around a bloody great stick and charred, err, cooked, over a fire. One of those things for which nostalgia seems to play a key part in the attraction (for Bruno, harking back to his days in the pfädi, or scouts). Most often they are rumoured to be blackened on the outside but raw on the inside, but these were surprisingly delicious and well-cooked. Or maybe they tasted so good because it was so damn frrrrr-fr-frr-freezing cold, and they were so divinely hot.

* Found a use for my 2 leftover rolls of frozen chocolate chipper dough. Chippers were a party hit with the semi-frozen, smoke-wreathed guests.

Toast - the story of a girl's hunger

Lately I've rediscovered toast.

For a while I forgot about it, indulging daily in the pleasures of fresh, soft bread. But recently I've been hauling out the toaster every morning, as much for a sense of thriftiness (thanks, Rose Prince) as for a simple delight in thick slices of slightly crunchy, hot, buttery, jam-smeared bread to accompany my morning ucp of tea.

I don't like my toast too toasty, unlike Bruno, who likes his well-browned and crunchy crunchy. I like mine with only the merest hint of colour, just enough crunch and warmth to let you know that yr not eating raw bread anymore, but something infinitely more delicious (and better suited to chilly mornings).

I whack on heaps of (unsalted) butter and smooth on some of whatever jam we've got open - at the moment we've got strawberry and vanilla, a particularly wonderful accompaniment, and some of Bruno's mum's yummy apricot jam, as well as the too-stiff cherry and vanilla jam that Sean and I made when he was here, which of course still tastes fab despite it's difficult consistency - or some honey if I'm feeling up for stickiness and mess.

I don't like too much jam or honey - I have a weird phobia about sinking my teeth into lots of sweet stuff. I always imagine my front teeth rotting away in such a concentrated sugar bath, which is why I often tear my toast into small pieces and eat those, thus avoiding biting altogether - just enough, not knifefuls.

Bread with butter and jam only really swam into view for me once we moved here and I started to make my own jam. The bread here is so fantastic that it becomes much more than just a couple of slices of cardboard or cottonwool hastily eaten before running out the door. Not only is the bread hearty and sustaining, it is, almost without exception, unsliced, so it takes a little more effort to pop it into the toaster - you gotta slice it yrself, and properly, evenly or else it won't fit into the toaster. Only after 3 years of practice can I now almost cut bread properly, and even so I still do uneven doorstops when I'm not paying attention. I think it takes a lifetime of experience : )

Buttery jam bread is about the only breakfast I can stomach during the week when I am hauled out of bed by the kiddies at an unreasonably early hour of the morning to demands of 'bix! bix!' (weetbix). I sleepily make the kiddies weetbix with hot milk (for some unknown reason they both love weetbix, Lola especially), and then set about slicing and toasting something for myself. After they've finished their weetbix the kiddies will have some bread and jam too, although I know Lola just tolerates the bread (she's not a huge bread eater, unlike Max) for the jam - one day I caught her eating spoonfuls of jam straight out of the jar with a big spoon.

On the weekends we take more time, and we'll often have eggs (soft-boiled or poached) or french toast, sometimes with the cheese box on the table as well, sometimes not. But always with bread, butter, and jam. And coffee!!

My favourite bread at the moment is a deliciously brown and malty St Galler Landbrot. It toasts fantastically - in fact, it is better as toast than fresh - and keeps well. It comes in a bumpy lump, and the crumb has a great smooth, firm texture. It's available from Migros, for the bargain price of FR2.20. Small price to pay for so much breakfasting pleasure.

failures

on wednesday i did a lot of cooking:

- a banana cake with cream cheese icing

- a flourless chocolate and hazelnut cake - i substituted hazelnut meal for almond meal(unfortunately the ganache topping failed miserably, more on that later)

- spätzle with peas and chicken

- tofu and vege green curry with rice

- rhubarb, apple and blackberry crumble

- giant pot of stewed apples (devoured by hungry toddler on same day)

that's a lot of cooking, considering i had to do the shopping, drop max off and pick him up and do various boring household chores as well.

the cakes were for bruno's birthday, which was on monday. in switzerland when it is your birthday YOU take in a cake to celebrate you birthday, not (as in australia) the office all chipping in and buying you a cake. hmm. there are so many people in bruno's office that it required two cakes to feed them all. the banana cake turned out nicely, but i was annoyed with myself for buggering up the choccy cake - i slightly over cooked it (not too much of a problem since it was a flourless cake which is very moist anyway), and made a total mess of the ganache i was planning to 'ice' it with. i knew i should have used a bowl over simmering water to melt the chocolate and cream together, instead of direct heat. but then neither nigella or stephanie alexander mentioned this necessity, so i thought i should just follow their instructions and it owuld all be fine and dandy.

but no.

my beautiful thick, smooth ganache split and curdled just before the last chocolate bit melted. that will teach me. i've never melted chocolate any way  other than over a pot over simmering water, so i didn't know the warning signs to look out for....but now i do. sigh. how annoying! i was planning to thickly slather the cake with the ganache, then top it with whole roasted hazelnuts, which makes for a very wicked, chocolate-y cake which looks amazing. i've made this cake once before, but ages ago, so i obviously didn't remember the finer points of ganache-making, considering the curdled mess i made of it on thursday.

i'm meeting some friends on tuesday morning so perhaps i will have another go at it. it does annoy me to not to make something perfectly.

stay tuned.

weekend eats

i know it's tuesday, almost wednesday, but here's some stuff we ate over the weekend:

a tarte tatin, courtesy of orangette via saucy. i have to admit it didn't turn out very aesthetically pleasing. my apple configuration was very haphazard, and the slices migrated around in the sticky caramel, but no matter. it tasted wonderful. with some thick oozing double cream from lac de la gruyere, not a flake of pastry nor a translucent piece of apple was left. i am going to try it again this friday evening, when we have some friends around for dinner. this time i want it to look perfect!

sunday kitchen sink dinner. asparagus, brie and smoked trout frittata. surprisingly good for a slapdash dinner. even the kiddies loved it - lola had 3 (small) slices! often kids like stronger tastes than grown-ups give them credit for, i find.

i also made some yummy fat buttermilk pancakes for brekkie on sunday morning (no time for pics, sorry, too busy stuffing my face). i am finding quite a few uses for the carton of buttermilk in my fridge left over from my last banana cake frenzy. we ate them with cream cheese (so evil, soooo good), a soft, rosy pink quince jam (rather than jelly) made by bruno's mother, and fresh strawberries. 

>>>

we've got a busy weekend ahead. friends for dinner on friday night (maybe vietnamese rice wraps?), easter brunch on sunday with bruno's family, and the usual trillion small meals and snacks in between. shops are closed over the holiday break so i will have to do some judicious shopping and planning - never my forte. i shall also be making a small mountain of zopf for all those we know and love - my poor arm muscles!!!

sunshine substitutes

brrrr. europe has been experiencing a cold snap this last week, and it has been utterly freezing. when i got up this morning it was minus 10 degrees. yesterday it was minus 7, with a bitterly cold wind whistling down from the alps. so the kiddies and i were happy to relive the memory of sunshine in these delicious strawberries, along with some plump, juicy peruvian mangoes.

spring, please

oh where oh where is spring? just tell me that it is coming soon. really soon. like, now.

it's at this point every year where i begin to rail against the injustices of winter and all things associated with winter, especially the food. potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, dismal winter salads (except, of course nüsslisalat, but even that is almost finished), meat dishes, soups..oh, the tedium......give me fresh, and bright, and new, and vibrant, and shockingly tasty. our winter palates are bored and restless. in the kitschenette household we have been scarfing down cherry tomatoes by the handful, just for the sharp, savoury hit of juice. and a wayward couple of packets of spanish strawberries which made their way into the kitchen were fallen upon and devoured within seconds of their arrival. thank goodness for citrus fruits in all their orange, yellow and ruby red glory. where would we be without them to brighten up the mid-winter gloom?

a few spring-time fruits and veges have begun to trickle into the shops, asparagus and the afore-mentioned strawberries. the strawberries were good, mildly sweet rather than sharply full-flavoured. but i just can't get excited about the thick, woody-looking spears of asparagus. have i whinged on this topic before on this blog? surely i have : ) here in switzerland, thick spears of asparagus are prized, whereas in australia it is the thin, slender spears which are most-sought after. i hark after the latter, only the latter, so i am cruelly disappointed every spring-time. some of the mangoes available are ok, but it's a very hit and miss operation. they have travelled so far and been picked so early it's a wonder they taste of anything at all. even the quality of the available apples is waning. fennel is good and crisp, though, so a fennel salad of thinly sliced raw fennel with finely chopped dill and a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice might be on the menu soon. i have such a craving for hot, spicy foods. and light, sour, tangy foods. <bright idea!> maybe a tom yum soup soon, with fish and rice (my favourite)....

so, what have we been eating, then, you ask. amongst other things:

- cheese tart. a swiss speciality.

- rösti and various wursts (sausages), with salad (also very swissy)

- mushroom and lemon risotto. i slathered in the butter and parmesan, just because i could.

- chilli beans (a remnant from my student days)

- a cracking good fondue, while on holiday

- cous cous salad (chickpeas, cherry toms, cucumber, coriander, lemon juice, olive oil)

- smoked local fish, boiled potatoes, and various cheeses (another swiss favourite)

- home-made breadsticks, for dipping into guacamole ( i give the kids their own ramekin of avocado, and they dip as they please)

- the last of the christmas fruitcake

- stephanie alexander's excellent banana cake, made with buttermilk (must post recipe)

- self-saucing chocolate pudding (see rainbowcake's lovey foodblog for the recipe) with vanilla ice-cream

- sticky date pudding with toffee sauce and double cream

- apple and berry crumble (for breakfast!)

- mangoes, seedless grapes, apples, bananas, strawberries, honeydew melons

- soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers (we love a good egg in the kitschenette household)

- bread, bread, and more bread. good thing no-one in our family is gluten intolerant. that would be a terrible thing in a country with so much excellent bread.

- guiltily, a jar of nutella : )

shopping, stocking, planning

the lovely rainbowcake has a couple of fascinating posts re. stocking, shopping, cooking and feeding over at her great food blog. i find this sort of information incredibly interesting and helpful, as i am always looking out for ways to make our family life more varied, and yes, perhaps even a little more efficient! it's great to read about other families' routines. i'm thus feeling inspired to divulge a little bit of our own routine (in switzerland, rather than in australia, as our routine is a bit off-kilter at the moment).

SHOPPING AND STOCKING

usually i am very haphazard about shopping and stocking and planning meals. this is something i am trying to change, as i spend an awful lot of time dashing to the shops to get that crucial ingredient for whatever i making for the evening. this is also very impractical when you have small children in tow.

when i wake up in the morning i think to myself, hmmm, what do i feel like for dinner? maybe i'll check out a few cookbooks before i decide. then i'll check the pantry and see what's there that i need and make a list for what is not. other household items that i think of during breakfast are also added. it's probably important to mention here that in switzerland everyone seems to shop more or less daily, a bit strange considering that there isn't a fresh food market, merely a supermarket as usual. i think, however, it is probably a cultural thing left over from a time before migros ruled the swiss food world. i make a point of getting out of the house at least once, if not twice a day, especially if max is at home with lola and i (he is with his grandparents one day a week and two days a week at the chinderhuus). living in an apartment, i've found out the hard way that cabin fever soon starts to descend if we don't make the effort to get out and about. so, usually we'll make a trip to the supermarket or the local volg (small local shop, via the sportplatz for playtime or bike riding) for supplies. i don't do big grocery shops with both kids, i usually just get what we need for the day. bigger shopping expeditions are done either on the weekend when bruno is home (one of us will go while the other stays home with the kids), or when max is at the chinderhuus - at the moment lola is still quite easy-going when it comes to shopping but of course this may all change! another eason why i only shop for small amounts during the week is that i just can't carry it all! i have a car, but the layout of our apartment building is such that our car is parked about 50 metres away. again, i learnt the hard way that hauling heavy shopping bags 50 metres and then up 4 flights of stairs with a baby in one arm plus the mail, a protesting 3 year old with the other, is not very much fun. especially when it is snowing. i have arm muscles like you wouldn't believe!

i try to keep a good store of staples:

- pasta: tortiglioni (easy for lola to hold), penne rigate, spirals, egg fettucine, linguine and spaghetti
- tinned tomatoes
- rice (since buying our rice cooker we LOVE rice): jasmine, basmati, a couple of diff. types of risotto rice, occasionally brown
- polenta
- cous cous
- red kidney beans
- chickpeas
- red lentils
- baked beans (of course)
- organic rolled oats
- various dried fruits and nuts (organic where possible): figs, apricots, sultanas, hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts etc
- almond butter
- tahini
- EV olive oil (bruno's parents bring it back from tuscany for us in giant tins)
- tuna
- soy sauce

in the fridge:

- organic full cream milk (in bags). most milk in CH is organic
- yoghurts: whatever is in season - faves are rhubarb and vanilla, chocolate and pear, blood orange, orange and fig, hazelnut, greek almond or fig, apricot
- unsalted butter - so fantastic!
- cheese box: usually some gruyere (rezent - strong, or the milder version), a blue, and one of those other stinky swiss cheeses i can't stomach, like tilsit, which bruno loves
- home-made jams
- frau ruckstuhl's eggs
- proscuitto or bundnerfleisch: semi-dried raw meat, in wafer thin slices

obviously, there's more stuff (condiments etc) but i can't remember them all now, it's been so long since i've seen the inside of my own fridge (3 months!). i'm a fanatic about fresh fruits and vegetables (probably more on the side of fruit), so it goes without saying that i have bowls of seasonal fruit ripening all over the house, soaking up whatever sunshine is available.

some favourite meals:

- lamb or beef casserole: i try to shove as many veges as i can in there!
- chicken soup with rice and avgolemno
- ratatouille, baked in the oven with eggs cracked into the surface, with cous cous
- rice wraps
- omelettes
- cheese tart: a great favourite of the swiss is the enormous cheese tart, like a big, very cheesy quiche. diced speck can be added for extra oomph. max looooves this.
- tuna pasta
- minestrone
- risottos of various kinds
- corn and coriander cakes with prosciutto and roasted toms
- basic tomato sauce and vege pasta
- lasagna, vege or meat
- dhal, with coriander and rice
- green vege curry
- tom yum soup with fried fish and rice
- and of course, fish fingers and home-made chips - max's (and bruno's!) favourite.

the other staple is bread (huge hunks of delicious st. galler brot or schraubenbrot), cheese, whatever meats are on hand, avocado, jam, yoghurt, cherry tomatoes, roasted tomatoes etc etc

dinner isn't always a big deal. sometimes we eat our main meal at lunchtime, and just have something light (the afore-mentioned bread and cheese) for dinner, plus a glass of wine (only for the adults : ) ). it's very common in CH for lunch to be the main meal, as a lot fo people still come home for lunch. indeed, all children come home from school for lunch (thereby putting a spanner in the works of nay mother who thinks she might be able to get her career back on track once her kiddies are in school, hrrrmph). it's kinder on yr digestion to eat this way, but it's hard to break the pattern of a life-time of conditioning. actually, it is sometimes easier for the kids, too, because early evening is such a fraught time that having conflicts and struggles over dinner is almost too much to bear. lunch time can be easier to manage and little appetites are often heartier.

as much as i love desserts, i have to restrain myself from making them too often, just a couple of times a week. i make more on weekends, and definitely if we have people over for dinner. usually it's fresh fruit, or a biscuit from the stash above the fridge (biscuits are an addiction for swissies). on the weekends i make zopf, a swiss speciality. we have that for a yummy sunday mornign brekky with eggs and cheese and other goodies. oh, but i do seem to make a lot of cakes. however, i usually give one portion to bruno's parents, one to our good friends peter and steffi, and keep the last remaining bit for us. so it doesn't actually seem like we eat cake a lot.

now that lola is eating more or less the same food as we do, i think it timely to re-think my shopping, stocking and meal planning routines. i'd like to start *eeeek!* plannign a few meals in advance, cookign up a storm on weekends and freezing batches of it all to eat during the week. i do find myself getting pretty stressed having to make something different for dinner every day, esp. if we've had a busy or difficult day. i know quite a few people who do this and it seems to work for them. it requires a degree of planning, though, that i'm still working up to! will also have to do something about our PATHETIC freezer situation - it's one of those awful shoebox size ones inside the fridge. i need a stand-alone one at least, surely!

if anyone else has any useful tips/hints/ideas on how to manage cooking/eating routines, i'd So love to hear them.

cherry baby

this week we are eating a lot of......

...frau ruckstuhl's gorgeous freshly picked black cherries .