Flammkuchen!

Yesterday I went to a friend's house to bake Flammkuchen, and it was surprisingly easy (There is lots of Flammkuchen in Heidelberg because we're not too far from Alsace.)! We looked up a yeast-free recipe that went like this:

For dough:
250g (ca 2 cups) Flour
2.5 Tbsp Canola Oil
150ml (ca 2/3 cup) Water
Pinch of Salt

For toppings:
250g (ca. 1 cup) Crème Frâiche
1 onion (can be red or sweet onions)
1 Tbsp Butter
125g (ca. 1/4lb) Bacon
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 clove Garlic

dried basil

Combine ingredients for crust. The dough shouldn’t be sticky. Slice onions into rings and sauté in butter until clear (don’t caramelize). Cook bacon until crisp. Finely chop garlic and add it with seasonings to the cream. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. On the highest heat your oven will go (or around 400-450 degrees Fahrenheit) bake for around 10-15 minutes, or until the dough has begun to create bubbles and you see nice browning (you don’t want burnt!). Watch carefully while baking.

 We also put tomatoes on it, and it was delicious. The website also mentioned that the dough works well for pizza dough in a pinch, and I bet a whole-wheat version would work, too.

Pasta!

A while back I decided to try to make pasta from scratch, so I looked up some things online, apron-ed up, and gave it a shot.

Tea towel and twine turned into an improvised apron.

Online I found a recipe saying that one large egg and around 3/4 cup flour and a dash of salt make enough pasta for one person.

Flour! I think 3/4 cup or so...

Egg!

Mix! A lot. Also, I think I might have
sprinkled in some extra flour.

Knead! A lot. Until it the dough becomes really elastic.
Also, make sure you put down flour before you do.

Roll out the dough as thin as possible.
Then fold it in half and do it again.
This is what the internet said to do.

The internet also said adding finely chopped basil or rosemary
before the folding and re-rolling makes for tasty pasta.

ALSO: Any dough you're not working with,
or noodles you're waiting to cook,
should be kept on/under a moist towel,
otherwise they dry out REALLY FAST.

Cook in boiling water for a few minutes, and voila!

Experiment and failure

So, lately I have been making cornmeal pancakes every so often. They're quick, easy, and as long as I have cornmeal, I almost always have all the ingredients on hand. A little while back, I decided to try making chocolate cornmeal pancakes, just for funsies.

The batter never looks terribly appetizing (It usually looks like yellow barf.), but it looked even worse when brown.

Even from the batter stage, things looked ominous.

Frying did not improve things.

It made them look like flattened dog-poo.

The final result was pretty disappointing from both a flavor and aesthetic standpoint. The pancakes didn't taste terribly chocolate-y, and they looked very, VERY unappetizing. If there is a next time (which I don't think there will be) I will try adding a lot more cocoa powder, but this experiment has dampened my enthusiasm for further un-researched forays into the culinary unknown.

Suction cups with hooks are life-changing things

My kitchen is.... petit, lacks drawers, and this makes storage a problem.

The extent of my storage space. All my cutlery is in a jar behind the sink,
which is under this frighteningly bowed cupboard.

 To compensate for this, I invested two Euros in little hooks attached to suction cups.

Now my measuring spoons are always handy!

Same for other cooking stuff.

 This has made me very happy and increased the storage I have available. In addition to the stuff in the pictures, I also now have spices, seasonings, a dish washing brush, and plastic bag for recyclables hanging from my kitchen walls.

Cornmeal pancakes!

Heidelberg is a tourist town, so the grocery stores near my place are all tiny, and do not carry a lot of kitchen and baking essentials, like, say, baking powder. This makes making regular pancakes tricky. Fortunately, I found a recipe online for cornmeal pancakes. I've scaled it down to about 

1/3 cup cornmeal, equal amount of boiling water, 1/3 that much milk, a little oil, a small squirt of vanilla extract, and some nuts.

On the right, batter, on the left, pancake in pan, and pancake on plate.

 The results are tasty, but I have a hard time getting them to fry nicely. I can't tell if it's a batter problem or just that I don't have great stove burners. When I put them down, they bubble immediately, but then stop bubbling as they cook and firm up, which is exactly the opposite of what the recipe calls for. Flipping them is always a little tricky, too.

Pancake with strawberry jam!

But, even though the recipe might not be perfect, they're fast and always turn out tasty.

A finals week meal

Sometimes it is finals week, and I am busy and hungry. In trying times like these, lentils always make a good, easy, filling, and relatively quick meal. 

Take 1/3 cup lentils/person, rinse them in cold water, and put them in a pot on medium heat, covered with water. While lentils start to cook, chop some carrots, then add them (along with a little more water) to the pot.

Lentils and carrots: cooking! Garlic, onion, and yellow pepper: chopped!

While lentils and carrots cook, chop onions, garlic, and fry until  transparent. If you're jonsing for some protein, throw in an egg. If get impatient for said egg to cook sunny side up, impromptu scramble it with some chopped pepper, or mushrooms, or whatever you have on hand.

When lentils are soft (you might have to add more water while they cook, depending on how much you put in at the beginning), scoop the lentil/carrot mixture into a bowl, mix in fried onions and garlic, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Top with fried egg 'n stuff.

Yuummm.

Lentils!

Uh oh, guys.

One of my favorite candies is now apparently illegal in the US... http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2011/01/10/man-kinder-surprise-border.html

Pita Party!

Bread in Germany is tasty, but I can't eat it faster than it spoils (even when I keep it in the fridge). And while I could freeze bread, I could also just make a batch of pita dough, keep it in the fridge, and rip off a chunk to cook every time I need something bread-like.

Last night I made a batch of dough with the following recipe:

1/2 cup warm water (not hot or boiling)
1 teaspoons active dry or instant yeast
1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup white flour
1 teaspoons salt
1/1-1 teaspoons olive oil (optional)

Mix the water and yeast together and let sit for about five minutes. Add the flour, salt, and olive oil. Stir until a shaggy dough is formed.

Sprinkle a little of the extra flour onto your clean work surface and turn out the dough. Knead the dough for ~10 minutes, until it's smooth and elastic. Add more flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking, but be sparing.

Clean the bowl you used to mix the dough and film it with olive oil. Set the dough in the bowl and turn it until it's coated with oil (I forgot to do this, and it didn't matter.). Cover with a clean dishcloth and let the dough rise until it's doubled in bulk, 1 - 2 hours.

Gently deflate the dough, put it into an airtight container, and place in the fridge. The dough can keep this way for up to a week

The last few times I've made this recipe, the dough has been a little sticky, so next time I think I'll try it with an extra quarter cup of whole wheat flour. 

For a snack today I tore off some chunks of dough and rolled them into little balls. Then I cooked them:

Divide the dough into four (or just rip off a chunk) and gently flatten each piece by hand. 

Using a floured rolling pin, roll one of the pieces into a circle 8-9 (or 4) inches wide and about a quarter inch (or less) thick. 

The wooden spoon moonlights as a rolling pin,
and I make my pita significantly smaller than the recipe says to,
because I have a mini pan.

Place a greased pan (wiping the pan with a kleenex or paper towel with olive oil on it does it for me) on the stove at medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, place a rolled out pita in the pan. Cook for 30 seconds, or until the dough starts to bubble, then flip. Cook for another minute and a half, or until the pita has begun to brown and inflate slightly, then flip again. When the pita inflates, it's ready. Wrap done pita in a clean cloth while the others cook.

Fast, easy, and good for sandwiches!

Unfortunately, they're also really hot and burned my mouth a little.