Cleansing Day

I'm back, I'm back. And so sorry. But at least I have a decent excuse: I've been working at a factory for the last three weeks and had trouble squeezing in a tiny bit of a social life between work and sleep so blogging really was out of the question. Also, I've practically been eating the same dish for lunch/supper for the past month so there really wasn't much of a point in writing a new post. 

Speaking of work: I've been working the night shift (10 pm to 6 am) for the past week and retained a somewhat unfortunate sleeping pattern that keeps me awake till dawn and makes me sleep till the afternoon. At least I managed going to sleep at 5am on friday/saturday and at 4am on saturday/today. I promised myself to go to sleep at no later than 2:30 am tonight. This has to stop.

Although, staying awake that long has its benefits. My window faces east and has an amazing view, so it's pretty great for watching dawn and sunrise. I even took a picture last night although it turned out a bit blurry. Mainly because of my lack of tripods. But you get the general idea.

Also, my healthy eating program came to a bit of a collapse yesterday: Had fish fingers for lunch and then an extremly unhealthy movie night with a friend and red wine, loads of crisps, chocolate and chocolate biscuits. My body’s so not pleased. Ugh. My intestines have been rumbling and grumbling all night and morning and I feel bloated and puffy and urghs.

Yoga this morning, then pre-soaked oatmeal and flax seeds for breakfast. And ginger tea. My bowel’s slowly feeling better, thank god. Looks like my body really can’t tolerate junk food anymore. I’ve decided to take this as a good sign.

So far so good. I'll go complete one of my draft posts and post it sometime soon. Today or tomorrow.

Nectarine blue cheese summer salad

All hail the queen of salads! Here comes one of my summer favourites:

Couscous sweet potato salad with halloumi

Let me just say: I adore, I love, I worship halloumi cheese. It doesn't melt when you fry or grill it, it has that wonderful squeaky feel when you chew it and an indescribable salty taste. It's just heaven.
Pair it with some couscous and sweet potato and enjoy your perfect arabian-style supper. 

Cooking in summer. An utterly philosophical essay on the idea behind this blog

Sorry for the lack of updates during the past month. It's not like I've been particularily busy, I just haven't really felt like blogging in a while. Beats me why.

Also, I haven't made anything special for a while now. Summer (or something that, apart from the temperature, very closely resembles summer) has officially arrived and neither the weather nor the stuff in the grocery store makes me particularily desirous of spending hours in the kitchen preparing a meal. And I don't mean this in a bad way: All the spring/summer veggies and fruits look and smell so amazing that all I'd like to do with them is tossing them together in a bowl and eating them right away. No frying or glazing or pureeing (is that even spelled correctly?) or drowning them in fancy cream sauces. Just steamed asparagus with an egg, a simple, fresh radish salad or nectarine with a splash of yogurt. 

Long story short: All I eat at the moment are simple, effortless, basic dishes with no cooking magic involved, and I just didn't feel like any of them was worth a blog post because they're so, well, simple. But, on second thoughts, why does simplicity make them unworthy of a blog post? Because a food blog should only consist of surprising, new stuff? Well, it got me thinking about what kind of cooking I actually want to promote with this blog. I mean, there's a hell of a lot of food blogs out on the internet and most of them have a very decided philosophy. They're about fancy cooking or unusual, creative cooking, traditional cooking, healthy, vegetarian, vegan, protein-rich, low-carb, sugary, child-friendly cooking. Whatever kind of cooking you can think of, I'm pretty damn sure there's a food blog for it.

But me? I don't know. I like fancy food, I like creative cooking, I like unusual ingredients but that doesn't mean I need or even want to use them every time I cook. In fact I don't. And the longer I thought about it, the more I became aware of the fact that the simplicity of cooking is the message I want to get across. Eating right and good and healthy doesn't mean that you have to spend all your money on groceries, fancy spices and expensive kitchen equipment. Neither does it mean that you have to spend hours in the kitchen to prepare a good meal nor that only non-standard combinations of ingredients can make a good meal.
I could write another essay about the importance of food for our bodies but I'm guessing that most of you know the gist anyway, so basically: You are what you eat. And if you are what you eat, then I only wanna eat the good stuff. (To quote Remmy from Ratatouille). With "good stuff" not referring to sugar, pizza, chocolate and beer but healthy stuff. Fruits. Veggies. Whole grains.
So, back to my basic message: I want to make this blog about healthy eating that isn't expensive, doesn't take hours of preparation and includes the occasionally sweet treat that my humble self wouldn't be able to live without.

Here's to simple cooking! (And now good night.)

What feels amazing

• running for several minutes to catch a connecting train and getting neither sweaty nor out of breath nor having trouble to keep running but instead overtaking most of the other passengers running to catch the same train
• not being winded after climbing the 6 flights of stairs to the flat
• running 5 k in one go for the first time
• cheekbones
• realising that my resting heart rate has dropped 12 beats in 2 months
• reaching a new level on Nike+

Though it may not sound like much to some people, it's a huge deal for me. Looks like 2.5 months of running are starting to pay off. Am very happy about that and just wanted to share.

Easy as Cherry Pie

A bit later than promised but here it is:
Two weeks ago on Saturday, it was the world's best flatmate's birthday. A quarter of a century old and, may I assure you, she (also affectionately known as Puschel, though only by me) doesn't look a day over 21.
And what better present to give to her than a cookbook. This one to be precise. It's the bakery-related volume of a (I think) two volume cookbook of healthy fast food recipes all wrapped up in pretty pictures and graphics and a very hipster-y layout. A few weeks ago, Puschel came home with the first volume and when she continued raving about how great it was and how great the second volume was, too, the issue of her birthday present was resolved before it had even really come up. Maybe that was her plan all the way. She must've known that I wouldn't be able to resist giving her a cookbook, especially if it was one she specifically wanted. She knows me so well. Sometimes even too well. It's spooky. And not a topic of relevance here.

The prodigal blogger returns

Sorry for not posting anything much those past two weeks. I'm on the road again and there's currently not much room for writing and photo-editing.

But I've got a few brilliant recipes waiting to be typed in, so just have a bit of patience. I'll be back home for the weekend, then my sister'll be staying for pentecost, and after pentecost, I'll have time for blogging.

Here's something to tie you over till then: My gorgeous Hibiscus plant which has been blooming like crazy for the past couple of weeks, bearing at least two blossoms at a time.

The Hungry Student's Pasta

I practically lived on this dish for more than months when I was writing my thesis last spring/summer. 14 weeks of spending 10-15 hours in the library (yes, it's open that long), 7 days a week. My whole organism ran solely on coffee, adrenalin (I have a tendency to stress the brain out of myself during exams, term papers and thesises) and this stuff: I like to call it the Hungry Student's pasta because it's very cheap, quite healthy, has a preparation time of 12 minutes at the most and all the ingredient are staples I always have on hand. Plus: you only need a knife, a chopping board, a teaspoon, a pot and a sieve, so there's little washing up to do.

Rhubarb muffins

Rhubarb. One of the three marvels of spring (the other two being asparagus and strawberries, in case you're wondering). Up until this spring, my use of rhubarb was limited to compote and meringue sponge cake. And as much as I love those two, they get a bit boring after a while. Time to find something else. Which means time to raid Tastespotting's archives for new recipes. And here's number 1: Cinnamon rhubarb muffins.

Green asparagus at its best

Long time no post. But there was a conference to be run, job applications to be written and a parent to be shown around town. All done now. And I'm back to cooking.

After an (unfortunately not so brief) period of cold, windy, wet weather, spring has finally returned. And it brought not only rhubarb and strawberries but also the most wonderful, marvellous, extraordinary spring vegetable which goes by the name asparagus. Contrary to most people, I'm not a huge fan of white asparagus. I can only stand it with plenty of sauce hollandaise but that would make me go up a couple of dress sizes, so: thanks, but no thanks. White asparagus and me won't become close friends anytime soon. It's ligneous and wobbly and watery and tastes... ...unpleasant. Not at all like its green brother which I love to oblivion. It is crisp and pretty and tasty and you don't have to peel it. Always a big plus.