Tuesday Tales: Daily Food of a Consultant

Welcome back to Tuesday Tales: Daily food of a Consultant. The last two weeks were full of work and crazy proposal preparation so I had no time to follow up on the blog, but here it is now.  Monday started out with a cold dinner including tomatoes, cheese and bought potato salad from the Kaufland store in the bottom of my hotel. I was very excited because Kaufland is not available in Frankfurt but from the hotel I stayed at to the store was only a 1.5 minute walk... I think that is the closest I have ever slept to a supermarket. I also went back to the supermarket on Tuesday, but instead of buying cold, I tried the local Chinese place and was not too disappointed. Canteen food on Wednesday: Fish with potatoes and sauce. Thursday and Friday were a combination of unhealthy food. Thursday I had my last currywurst in freedom, as well as some alcohol on Friday... why? To prepare my proposal to her on Saturday! For this reason we of course ate out several times, with friends and alone, went to the theater, a fair and celebrated (clearly her answer was yes!). What you see here are the tapas which we had after the theater. A combination of all foods available and very delicious! This was also the first meal we ever had out in Frankfurt so a perfect place to celebrate our engagement. On Sunday we were tired of eating out so she made quesadillas which were very good and reminded me on our experience in Warsaw (which we haven't had time to blog about yet).

The following week was marked by a huge work event in which I participated. The contractor of our project invited us for a huge kick-off meeting to celebrate and start a new project phase. Luckily this time I was only limited part of the planning process which meant I got to enjoy the show. Needless to say that it still was a 70 hour week... Starting with Monday, I had Cesar salad with fried potatoes which were recommended to me by my colleague - turned out to taste really awesome! If I start a restaurant and have this on the menu... I will call it Maarten style! On Tuesday we drove to Guetersloh to take part in the preparation of the kick-off Event. Pre-ordered food from the car tastes the best! Unfortunately our colleague got stopped by the police - not only that but there was also only Lasagne left when he finally arrived at the event location. The buffet on Wednesday night turned out to be very delicious... I had potato salad and Schnitzel. I have to say, this potato salad tasted nearly as good as made by my grandma and that means something... food wise, the event was prime and I think all of the 150 participants we had enjoyed it. Thursday was the second day of the event which meant lots of work, videoconferencing with 360° Cameras and lots of chaos managing. I had spaghetti... Unfortunately I don't remember where it was... might be in one of the data centres or in the canteen of the contractor... I think it was good... ;D..On Friday I got up at 4 am to fly to Zurich. Here I enjoyed this pizza and learned about media analytics and how to train systems to understand sentiment and the public buzz... perfect week to be prepared for a holiday to Africa which will come soon! Due to this holiday, there will be no update for the next two weeks, but I am sure we will have lots to say about our Kenya beach and safari vacation once we return!

Fried Apple Fritters

Very unhealthy but very tasty. Only a few will satisfy your need for something sweet.

We only made half of this recipe and had way too much. This recipe serves eight.
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 Tbs sugar
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
3/4 cups milk (whole is best)
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs melted butter (more if not using whole milk)
2 large apples (Granny Smith is recommended)
powder sugar for dusting (optional)
Oil

In one bowl beat the eggs and then add the milk, melted butter and vanilla.

In a larger bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.












Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix together.











Fold in the apples, already peeled and diced. More apples is better! You want extremely chunky batter.







Heat a few inches of oil in a pan or pot over medium heat. Once it is hot but not so hot that it will burn the batter right away (test first) drop a tablespoon of batter into the oil. We used a small pot so we could only fit about three or four drops in at a time.






Cook long enough that they are browned and then flip over so the other side cooks. In total it should take about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes to cook though fully.

Remove from the oil, place on a paper towel to drain, and dust with powdered sugar.




Serve right away so that they are hot.

We had lots of batter left over so the next day we made muffins out of it. A good use of batter but not something we would recommend without making so changes.

This recipe was adapted from The Pioneer Women Cooks.

Shrimp Scampi with a Hint of Lemon

We are headed to Kenya next week with two friends, so to prepare one night they came over to have dinner and plan the trip. Pasta is a great thing to serve when guests are over because you can make a massive amount at one time and it does not take a lot of time to cook. We served this pasta with fresh french bread. Perfect for dipping into the oil left at the bottom of the bowl!



4 servings:
6 garlic cloves
2 lemons, zest and juice
5 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3/4 lb (21-25) medium shrmip
1/4 onion (optional)
3/4 lb linguini
2 Tbs butter
salt, parsley, parsley





Cook the pasta according to directions. While the pasta cooks, combine the pressed garlic,  zest and juice of one lemon, 1 Tbs olive oil, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. Add the shrimp and set aside.




Heat the olive oil over medium. Add the diced onion  and  let cook. Separate the shrimp from the marinate, but make sure to keep the marinate! Quickly cook the shrimp and then remove them with the onions. Add the marinate and the rest of the olive oil, the rest of the lemon, butter, and the salt, pepper and parsley. Add the shrimp back with the pasta, toss to combine and serve with a small amount of fresh parsley on top.


This recipe came from Melissa d'Arabian on foodnetwork.com but we changed most of it because we thought it was too complicated!

Tuesday Tales Coming Soon!

It is already 10:30 at night and I am still in a big work event. This week's Tuesday Tales will be coming soon!

Onion Rings

It's a good thing we don't own a deep fryer or this could become a weekly addiction!

A bit time consuming but oh so worth it, these onion rings should be eaten quickly to be hot and fresh - not a problem with how good they are.


 
~ for four people:

1 onions, sliced into rings
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
3/4 cup bread crumbs
salt
oil for frying







Cut the onion into rings and separate. Mix flour, salt and baking powder.











Dip each ring into the flour mix and tap to shake off excess.







Set the onions aside and add the wet ingredients (egg and milk) and dip each onion into it so each side is well covered. Lay each onion ring on a wire rack to drip excess liquid off (for less mess, place wax paper under this).

 
Once the onions are no longer dripping, dip them into the bread crumbs.





Heat the oil (enough for deep frying) or medium-high. Once hot, add onion rings (a few at the time depending on how large your pot is) and cook for 2-3 minutes or until nicely browned.

Place on a paper towel to get rid of excess oil and then serve hot.

We recommend serving them with our meatball subs, but we are sure they also go with lots of things like Hamburgers or sausage.

Tuesday Tales: Daily Food of a Consultant

This very short work week started with a very tasty and new meal from the hotel we were staying in. Pork with cheese sauce and fried potatoes. On the next day on the menu was pizza with a little spiciness from my local Cologne pizza dealer. Wednesday, after coming home early (Thursday was a holiday in Germany), I got prepared to enjoy the our long weekend in Warsaw. To start this, I made Schnitzel which I found in the freezer. She had prepared the Schnitzel quite some time ago and I was able to put it in boiling oil to make it into a delicious crunchy awesomeness. Together with green beans a very pleasant meal. I can guarantee you it is worth it: freeze your Schnitzel and enjoy it later (especially if you weren't the one who had to do the work to coat the Schnitzel ;)

We rented a car on Thursday and visited my parents in Stuttgart (Southern Germany) and I was surprised with my favourite cake. Ta-da! Carrot cake just the way the Canadians make it. Most delicious thing ever if you ask me...
After visiting my parents, we traveled back to Frankfurt to the airport to fly off to Warsaw and visit a friend and test the food and see the different sites of Warsaw. We were not disappointed! Our friend took us for 7 hours around Warsaw and showed us many many different foods and sites... I chose just one weird meal we tried to show you: veal kidney on Challah bread. Worth a try but I will not eat it again ;). On Saturday night we enjoyed Hungarian food (yes, in Poland!) We had a mix of little noodles, filled pickles and some veal and pork mixes. A more detailed food description will follow here soon when we blog about the tastes of Warsaw. Sunday was poor mans food - our fridge was empty from being away so we made pasta with leftover sausage and tomato sauce :).

Carrot Salad

First off, please excuse the photos for this entry. Her camera skills are not very good and taking pictures of orange things in bright light just doesn't work too well!

This carrot salad is very quick and easy and a nice change from normal lettuce salad. The important thing is to make it early enough that it can sit at least 30 minutes before eating. This really does make a difference in the flavor!

Serves 2-4 depending on if it is the pain part of the starter

1 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp mustard (we used spicy but they recommend Dijon)
3 Tbs olive oil
1/2 pound carrots, peeled and shredded
1 Tbs parsley 
1/4 tsp salt
 pinch of freshly ground pepper




Peel and shred the carrots. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Set in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving so that the flavors really mix.

Enjoy! (We told you it was easy!!)

This recipe was from Rebecca Franklin

Tuesday Tales: Daily Food of a Consultant

Just before experiencing the city of Warsaw and the Polish food next week, I had an educational and international food mix week. Starting with a Hungarian meal on Monday (Goulash (Hungarian: gulyás) and followed by a Caesar salad on Tuesday which is generally attributed to restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States. So technically, Caesar salad is a kind of Tex Mex food :). Wednesday was curry day which could be interpreted as Indian. Even though it had more the standard canteen flavour to it then the spicy Indian flavor.

 

The next days were characterized by unhealthy food in form of onion rings and nacho chips which were served with tasty beans and ground beef. Further we tried a new meatball recipe (meatball subs) which you can find here. For her birthday a month ago our friends gave her a present to learn how to prepare sushi. Because our friends were awesome and bought a couple course, I was also able to learn how to roll  makis, cut sashimi and enjoy it with cucumber. We even got a private lesson because the other participants did not show up (more food for us - yey!). End of story was that we were full of tasty self made sushi and a fridge which would last for a week worth of sushi. Her colleagues were enjoying the free food this week. Perfect start for a short week which ends already on Wednesday and leads to our trip to Poland!