Moving the Clunns

I just supervised two 12-year-old girls baking two chocolate cakes that somehow shall evolve into one castle-shaped cake by Friday. The kitchen was not destroyed. I call that success.

So, to celebrate my still-standing kitchen, and hopefully just in time for barbecue season, I give you:

Potato Salad

2.5kg small salad poatoes
2 medium onions
2 apples
1 jar sweet 'n' sour gherkins
salt
pepper
vinegar
oil

Mayonnaise, yoghurt, crème fraîche to taste for variations.

You can probably find more potato salad recipes in Germany than regions. This one is a very popular basic salad that can then be altered.

I usually make one big base salad and then halve it to have one oil salad (in Berlin we call it Swabian Potato Salad - Swabians are probably laughing their heads off) and one with mayonnaise/yoghurt.

The bad news: it takes about three days to make. The good news: the amount of work required each day is manageable.

Day one:

Boil potatoes in their jackets. Let cool completely over night.

Day two:

Peel potatoes, cut in slices, ad chopped onions, chopped gherkins and chopped apples (I leave the skin on to give it a bit of colour but you can also peel the apples). Add some oil, vinegar and liquid from the gherkin jar (for 2.5kg potatoes I normally end up using all of the liquid but I wouldn't add it all at once, the salad should not be soupy), season with salt and pepper. Let rest in a cool place, ideally not the fridge - I use the basement laundry room.

Day three:

Add more salt, pepper, vinegar or gherkin liquid as needed.

If desired, add mayonnaise, yoghurt or crème fraîche - if you do add any of those, let rest for another two hours or so. Be a bit stingy with the creamy sauces, don't drown the salad. In some regions, hard boiled, sliced eggs are also added. You can also try to add chives or parsley, some chopped tomatoes or sliced radiches - the variations are nearly endless :)

A little while ago, delphipsmith and I happened to be talking about German cooking and how all recipes seemed to be quite heavy on meat.

I think this is mostly the case as after WWII, eating (and being able to afford to eat) a lot of meat was seen as a status symbol and possibly even healthy. So, dishes that used to be reserved for Sundays or even once-a-month-after-payday, became a daily feature in the German diet.

Older people might also have been eager to indulge after decades of war, recession, war, rationing that seemed to go on forever...

So I thought I'd give you some German recipes that don't warrant a trip to the butcher.

I hope you guys like potatoes and eat eggs and dairy, though.



Sorry about the messy plate - Ida decided to cook with me and I was too busy to keep her from pulling the pots off the cooker or burning herself so my plating skills suffered a bit.

( Recipes under the cut )

Enjoy!

I am planning on cooking "Silesian Heaven" tomorrow, so hopefully I will post that and the recipe for Stewed Cucumbers tomorrow evening :)

Last Monday I found myself in the unique position of being

a) 20 minutes from Bath by train

b) having six hours to kill until I had to catch my train towards Gatwick airport.

What can I say?

Six hours are not enough!!

There shall be ( picspam: )

Let's see whether this works better than yesterday...

( Just a few more )

On another note, I just ate porridge for the first time and can't see the appeal, unless one is Oliver Twist. I certainly will not waste any more of my expensive maple syrup on it!

So.

I saw that Sherlock userhead and pounced on it, thinking I could switch between my witchy userhead and the Sherlock userhead as the mood strikes.

Only, I can´t find my little witch anymore.

*cries softly*

Did I kill her?

Hurry over to luciusbigbang to sign up for shaking those pom poms in front of Lucius!

Make a wish!




Note to self: No trying to improve recipes on birthdays!!




New toooooys!

It seems I have not changed since I did this last.



I am still scary.

...

Boo!

I left my laptop alone for an hour to take a nap while Ida was napping and came back to Tani sitting in front of it ("I did ask Oma!!"), telling me that a strange warning had popped up on the screen.

Yeah.

That kind.

Now I am on borrowed time on a borrowed laptop and it doesn´t look too good for fixing mine any time soon.

So, if I owe you emails or I am not commenting at all and am out of the loop on absolutely everything, this is why.

I will do all promised beta-ing! (But will have little to no time for other internet-y things. Borrowed time, borrowed laptop and all that.)

On a positive note, I now have a teeny-tiny job teaching English to a private group of pensioners :) YAY pocket money!

I broke two (!) toes yesterday.

Ow.

Owowowowow!


ETA: I'm back from the orthopedist. He couldn't tape the toes together because they are next to each other. He was so nice not to put my foot into a cast but to give me a prescription for some sort of shoe thingy that will keep my toes safe and sound.

My poor foot is all black and blue...