hmpf

why I make Kirschmichel so rarely. It's a dish that leaves every last pot, bowl, spoon etc. in the kitchen dirty. And not just dirty in a way you can just wash, no: every last thing has to be soaked beforehand.

Arrgh.

No time to reply to comments today, but this here, I think, is much more useful anyway:

Cinnamon waffles:

125 g butter
175 g sugar
3 eggs
350 g flour
half a small spoon of baking soda
300 ml milk
2 small spoons of cinnamon

This should result in a very thick dough - thick enough to make 'ladling' it a bit of a challenge!

Put waffles on a cake grid for a moment before serving - this will make/keep them crispy.

Recipe will serve four not so hungry people, or two to three hungrier ones.


Plums in red wine:

Halve and de-pit the plums. (About fifteen plums? Depends on the intended plum-to-waffle ratio, really... You can also make some more, I suppose, and keep it for another occasion, although it won't keep all that long.) Put them in a small pot. Add red wine - enough to almost cover them. Add some cinnamon and cloves. Add sugar (to taste.) Heat; add some corn (or other) starch to bind.

How to bind a sauce with corn starch: dissolve, in this case, a small spoonful of starch in cold water and stir the mixture into your sauce. Heat to boiling for just a moment, then reduce the heat. In the case of the plums here, you don't really need to heat them much at all. (I think I had them on the stove for about five minutes total - but then, I have a gas stove, which makes for fast cooking.)


Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

For tiniago and beebee852001 who make me feel like Jamie Oliver or something.

Note: I do not know a lot of kitchen-specific English vocabulary, so bear with me if this sounds slightly strange, and don't be afraid to ask if you're not sure what I'm trying to say.

Hmpf's Legendary Tomato Sauce:

You need:

1 small onion (or half a bigger one)
1 clove of garlic
6 dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 packet of pureed tomatoes
dried basil
dried oregano
salt & pepper
olive oil

Slice your onion into little cubes - the smaller the better. Ditto for the garlic. Slice the dried tomatoes, too, but you can keep those in bigger bits than the onion and garlic.
Heat some olive oil in a pot. Throw in onions and cook till they look kinda 'glassy'. Add garlic. Add dried tomatoes. Don't forget to stir frequently all this time.
Add pureed tomatoes. Add basil, oregano, basil. Leave to cook for a while & stir occasionally.
Serve with whatever pasta you like, and freshly grated parmesan.


Hmpf's Lazy Vegetable Lasagna:

You need:

1/2 packet of pre-cooked lasagna sheets
1/2 packet of cream cheese
maybe 100 ml of cream (single cream will do), if you want less fat you can replace part of that with water
1 packet of pureed tomatoes
about 450 g of vegetables (deep-freeze spinach works best)
about 200 g of grated cheese (simple cheddar or something equally mundane will be perfectly all right)
some butter or something similar
salt, pepper, oregano, basil, nutmeg

Start by preparing your vegetables. If you use deep-freeze spinach you have to pre-cook it a bit before you can use it. Frozen peas you don't have to prepare that way, they can just go in the form as they are. Fresh vegetables can usually be put in the form without cooking, as well, unless they take a *really* long time to cook. If in doubt, slice them smaller so they'll cook faster. But really, I recommend using the spinach. Fresh spinach is okay, too, of course.
Got your vegetables ready? Okay. Now for the sauces. This is a lasagna for lazy people, so the sauces are quickly prepared:
For the tomato sauce, simply pour your pureed tomatoes into a pot/bowl/whatever, add the dried herbs (kinda difficult to tell you how much exactly - this is something you'll have to decide for yourselves). Add some salt and pepper. Careful with the salt, but not too careful, either. This may take a try or to to get the balance right.
For the other sauce (usually a bechamel sauce, but I'm too lazy for that, and I bet so are you, so you'll get a cheese sauce, which is much easier to make): Put half the packet of cream cheese into a pot, heat slowly until cheese starts to melt. Add cream. Mix until cheese has melted completely into the cream. Switch off stove. Add salt and pepper and some nutmeg to this sauce. I tend to put more salt into this one than into the tomato sauce, but that's just a matter of personal preference.
Get a form that can go in the oven and butter the inside so the lasagna won't stick. Put in a layer of spinach. Then some tomato sauce. Then a layer of pasta. Then a layer of cheese sauce. Then a new layer of spinach. Etc.
Put a layer of grated cheese on top. Put in pre-heated oven according to directions on lasagna package.

Who'd have thought I'd be back here so soon? Certainly not me. Not that I mind. Barcelona is a wonderful city - one I'm sort of beginning to feel quite at home in - and Kadira and her little family are always fun to be with. This stay is decidedly less fannish than the last, though. Language school is time consuming, and it isn't helpful either that I was not put in the course for absolute beginners. All the others in my class have already been here for a week, and it's kind of hard to keep up with them...
Got lots of homework, too. I hardly get around to watching Farscape with Kadira! And all my website work is still waiting to be tackled, as are several fanfics I brought, in the hope that I would be inspired... and inspired I am, but I haven't had much of a chance to write yet. A shame.
Still, I feel pretty good, though I did have two short bouts of depression, also. One yesterday, when - perhaps reawakened due to the change in pace that comes with travelling - the awareness that Farscape is ending, at least for the time being, rose to the surface of my mind once more. The other today, when talking about fanfic writing and the fact that nobody seems to read me. Well, nobody but a few very choice friends. (My usual coming and going writer's neurosis.)
On the whole, though, I'm quite happy. I feel very comfortable with my hosts, now that I'm here for the third time in less than three years, and I do enjoy finally learning a new language again. It's been a long time... (Latin doesn't count.)
It's difficult, though. Not really much more difficult than I expected, but definitely more time consuming. Classes from 9 in the morning to a quarter past two in the afternoon, then homework, which also takes hours, even if I do it only sloppily. The teachers are very nice, and the classes are very small. Four people in the morning - two girls, one guy, and me - and three in the afternoon - me, the guy from the morning class, and an older man who's lived in Ireland for 20 years. Unfortunately, almost everybody is German, and the only non-German is Swiss. On the other hand, it's good that there are people who speak and understand German, 'cause I'm still very, very far from being able to communicate in Spanish. Volker (that's Kadira's hubby) is planning to complement my teaching by taking us to see The Two Towers in Spanish this weekend... *g*
Well... what else to tell? Today Mike, Kadira's son, caught a mouse, so I feel right at home. ;-)
It's much less cold here than I expected, which is good. Today I got drenched in a downpour, though, and I think I'm going to buy an umbrella tomorrow! As well as a dictionary.
I'm writing Save Farscape letters even from Barcelona, and plan on sending postcards to Bonnie Hammer, Mark Stern, Tom Vitale, Kevin Levy and Gary Levine, and to Henson, too. Just to show them that Farscape fans truly are everywhere, and will be counted wherever they are. *g*
I'm also planning on taking turns with Volker preparing dinner for the four of us... I feel bad enough as it is 'imposing' myself on them like this! ;-) I made a potato and pea dish today that even Mike seemed to like. That made me so proud! *g*
Well... my brain is sort of half-asleep already, so I think I'll stop now. These two days have been kind of quiet, anyway, so there isn't that much more to tell, really, at the moment.

On edit: Just noticed I haven't mentioned this yet, since I haven't been updating my Livejournal very often recently: I think I should mention here that I was apparently accepted for the ERASMUS program after last week's short interview about my motivations. I say 'apparently' because the wording of the acceptance mail suggested there might be yet another selection process. I sent back the 'I accept' form, anyway, and we'll see what will happen. My euphoria after the decision was strangely limited - non-existent, actually. I think that is because the reality of my endeavour began to finally catch up with me, and I was finally beginning to get afraid... not afraid enough to quit now, though! So, if all goes well, I'll be in Birmingham, come October... :-)

But now I should really go to bed.