Pfannkuchen, or, A Recipe Page

For quite some now I’ve been tossing around the idea of building a recipe website. Not one of those food blogs, where you find out about the latest and greatest in cookery trends, or where I pontificate about the most, ahem, righteous way to eat – just a simple page where I can share some of the skills and recipes I’ve gathered in my many years of feeding a family. Because cooking really isn’t hard, and there are a lot of things one can do with not very many or very fancy ingredients. But above all, because good food is just a very good thing.

I’ve been learning a bit (a tiny bit – no, make that a very, very tiny bit) about web design recently, and I thought I’d try out what a recipe page could look like. I already had this German Pancake recipe written out for another purpose, and as it was Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Tuesday) this past week, it seems apt. Don’t you think?

So here we go! (I’m especially proud of the “Jump to Recipe” button…)

Pfannkuchen (German Pancakes or Crepes)

Jump to Recipe

This was a common and popular dinner at our house when I was growing up. It usually started with soup, then pancakes and a side dish of fruit such as applesauce. I made them for my own kids who called them Petzi Pancakes, after a picture book series about a small world-travelling bear named Petzi who ends every one of his trips back at his mother’s house, eating a big stack of rolled up pancakes filled with jam.

Ingredients:

250 g (1 1/2 c) Flour
2 Eggs
1 tsp Salt
3/8 l (1 1/2 c) Milk
Oil for frying

(makes enough for 2 people as a meal, or 4 as a side dish)

Instructions:

With a wire whisk or beaters, beat flour, eggs, salt, and half the milk until smooth. Gradually add the remaining milk until you have a runny batter the consistency of thick cream or gravy.

Heat a not-too-heavy frying pan on medium-high heat. Add 1 tsp. oil to coat the bottom. When the oil is very hot (the surface shimmers and you can feel the heat rising from the pan), pick up the pan and pour in a small ladleful of batter; it should hiss. Tilt the pan to make the batter coat the whole bottom of the pan (that’s why it needs to be a not-too-heavy pan; it’s the only dish I don’t use my cast iron for).

Bake until the whole surface is dry, then flip over with a spatula. Or, if you want to show off your kitchen acrobatics, shake the pan until the pancake comes loose, and with a flick of your wrist flip it in the air (I’ve never managed to do that myself).

Bake until the bottom is brown (lift one edge with the spatula to check).

Stack them on a plate with a lid on top or put in the slightly heated oven to keep warm.

To serve, sprinkle with sugar, spread with jam, or drizzle with syrup, then roll up with your fingers and take a bite! Serve with applesauce or other fruit on the side.

Alternatively, since there is no sugar in the batter, these also work for savoury dishes, for example as a side dish for cooked vegetables, filled with creamed mushrooms, etc.

The batter is very similar to the dough for homemade noodles, so leftover Pfannkuchen can even be used in soup:

Flädle Suppe

1 l (4 c) hot broth – beef, chicken, vegetable, etc
2-3 cold leftover Pfannkuchen
Optional: 1 Tbsp of finely chopped chives

Roll up the pancakes, slice into very thin strips like fettucini. Bring the broth to a boil, dump in the pancake “noodles”, give it a stir, sprinkle on some chives and serve immediately.

Guten Appetit!

#ThrowbackThursday: Borscht

I made a pot of borscht the other day. Because, winter, and beets that needed cooking, and deliciousness. And I was reminded of this blog post from eight years ago, February 6, 2014, written while the Winter Olympics were on in Sochi, Russia. It being the Winter Olympics again, I thought you might like to read it and maybe cook your own borscht.

In honour of the Russian Olympics, I thought I’d cook me a pot of borscht. Well, actually, no, it’s not in honour of the Olympics at all, it’s in honour of the fact that I found a borscht recipe I really like and I wanted some. I hadn’t really ever made borscht before that one, as the man and most of the offspring wouldn’t be into eating it; but I’m on a bit of a food emancipation kick – I want to try new stuff, particularly new vegetable dishes – so I made some. A friend who happened to come by that day ate a bowlful and declared it good borscht, and as she’s of Ukrainian extraction, I feel this soup has received the stamp of approval.

The issue with making anything that involves beets is, of course, that it requires some pre-planning. You can’t just stick your head in the fridge half an hour before you want to eat, and go “Oh, there’s some beets, let’s make something with them” – they take far too long to cook for that. However, cooking them is really easy, and they keep cooked in the fridge for quite some time, so you can pre-cook them one day, and do your spontaneous borschting later in the week. To cook, just wash them off, dump them in a big pot, cover with water, put them on to boil, and bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble for about an hour (depending on how fat they are – I don’t think you really can overcook beets, so better longer than shorter. Poke the biggest one with a sharp knife, and if the knife slides in easily, they’re done.). Drain them, let them cool (I fill up the pot again with cold water just to cool them off, because I’m too impatient to wait for them to cool on their own), and peel them. Peeling beets is funny – when they’re well-cooked, they slip right out of the skin, with sort of a sloosh kind of noise. I’d highly recommend wearing an apron and/or clothes you don’t care that much about, as your hands and the sink and everything around it will look like a bloodbath (I suppose it is, too – beet blood. Muahahahah!).

Okay, now you’ve got your beets cooked. So here’s the recipe (I got it from the More-With-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre, which was the first cookbook I bought myself after I was married. If you can get a hold of that book, I highly recommend it. No, you can’t have my copy; it’s falling apart, anyway.)

Quick Beet Borsch (they spell it without the t. Apparently you can also spell it borshch, which is closer to the Ukrainian/Russian pronunciation. But it looks weird that way.)

1 c cabbage, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 c water
cook 10 minutes. Add:
2 c stock or broth
2 medium beets, cooked and chopped
1/2 c beet juice (I leave that out)
1/2 t salt
dash pepper
1 T lemon juice.
bring to a boil, serve with sour cream.

Which is exactly what I’m going to do right now – serve it. Even if it’s just to myself.

Life, the Universe, and Borscht. Do they have cookoffs in the Olympics?

Note on the 2022 edition: these days, I don’t bother with the exact steps of this recipe. I grate/chop the vegetables, dump them in the pot with the seasonings and water or stock (whichever I have available), and simmer it for half an hour or so, until the veggies are soft. I also don’t put in lemon juice, but add some herbs (dill is good, or lovage). If you don’t have sour cream or want to make this a lighter dish, plain yogurt works really well, too. Guten Appetit!

Happy Bloggiversary to Us!

Ten years ago! Exactly ten years ago Steve and I put up our first blog post, here. Right after I’d taken a blogging course at the local college. The instructor said to be sure to post photos, so Steve offered to model, and, well, the rest is history.

Hmm, looking back at that photo of him, Steve has aged a bit in the last ten years. He’s spent a fair bit of time smooshed into travel bags and riding around in the bottom of backpacks; that’s what you get for being a world-renowned cover model. His natty necktie is looking rather more crumpled these days, and his fur is a bit matted. But he’s still the feisty small bear that he’s always been.

amovitam_Steve in the herbs — Steve, herbs, and the old watering can, Aug. 1, 2020

Speaking of herbs (we were speaking of them, weren’t we? Well, Steve was. The rosemary and green onions were tickling him in the nose), I actually put up two blog posts that first day ten years ago. The first one was the bloggy birth announcement. The second one was on – Surprise! – food.

Under the heading of “Joyful Eating”, I said this:

I’m reading Julie and Julia, which is surely required reading for any new-baked hopeful blogger (book contract, here I come? Uh… never mind).

Apart from the fact that Julie Powell is a whole lot more foul-mouthed, albeit also funnier, in her writing than Amy Adams portrays her in the movie, what strikes me about the book is the sheer pleasure Julie gets from her cooking. She cooks not from a vague sense of “shoulds”, from a desire to follow the latest tenet in the religion of “thou shalt/shalt not eat this-n-that”, but because it’s sheer, unadulterated pleasure. Well, the eating is, anyway; the cooking, not always so much (the story of her first extraction of marrow from a beef bone is rather entertaining. Even if she didn’t find it so at the moment).Here, listen to this:

“Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world. It’s not what I thought it was. … It’s joy. […] I didn’t understand for a long time, but what attracted me to MtAoFC [Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child’s book] was the deeply buried aroma of hope and discovery of fulfillment in it. I thought I was using the book to learn to cook French food, but really I was learning to sniff out the secret doors of possibility.” (page 356 in the paperback edition).

She’s talking about a cookbook here, people.

In fact, that last quote reminds me of nothing so much as my favourite un-diet book, French Women Don’t Get Fat (Mireille Guiliano). It’s all about that: eat delicious food, in portions small enough so you can enjoy it, because it’s just so dang good. Because it’s all about life. Not about calories, not about “thou shalt”. The joy of eating, eating for joy.

Hmm. Maybe it’s time I re-read Julie’s book. Or re-watched the movie. Or both. Tap back into the joy of food, the joy of eating, the let’s-not-overeat-because-it-spoils-the-pleasure. Sometimes it good to take a trip down memory lane; you might find a few things you’d inadvertantly left behind.

Steve and I are a bit more crumpled these days, the fur a little matted, the hair going grey. We’ve accomplished some pretty big things together – university degrees, book publications, trips and events. And then there were long stretches of, more or less, curling up in corners wishing the world would go away.

But as you can see, in essentials we haven’t changed much. It’s still about “amo vitam“, “I love life”. It’s good to remind myself of it, because really, that’s never changed. Even the tag line is the same. Maybe it’s time for a new one? Naaah, let’s not fix what’s working.

So I’ll sign off with the old line from ten years ago – it’s still valid.

Life, the universe, and a grilled steak with greek salad, pita bread and hummus. Oh yeah.

#WordlessWednesday: Apples

Peaches

Once again, it’s peach season – my favourite season. Well, apart from Christmas. And spring. And early fall. And… Whatever, you get the drift. And as I was thinking about how much I love peach season, I was reminded of one of my earliest blog posts, from 2010. So I looked it up, and thought it might be worth reposting. Here it is, from 22. August 2010 (excuse the rough edges; it was early days in the blogosphere for me). The picture is brand-new, though, from just now. Aren’t they gorgeous?

Peaches

On the third day, God created plants. And I’m quite sure that at the very end, when he’d made all the other stuff, he said “Now, for the crowning achievement: The Peach!” And he created it round and fuzzy, juicy, yellow-and-pink and delectably sweet. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and morning were the third day.

I didn’t make any canned peaches last year, so we were reduced to buying the ones from the grocery store. The kids weren’t impressed; it’s just not the same, they said. And they are right, of course. Now, the thing is that when I was a kid myself, back in Germany, tinned peaches were one of my favourite things, a high treat that we didn’t get very often (there’s a fun recipe called “Falsche Spiegeleier”, Fake Fried Eggs, with is half a canned peach in a flat dish with vanilla custard poured around it. It does look like a fried egg, and is quite a yummy dessert). I thought they were wonderful. But then that was before I came to Canada, and experienced the marvel of real, fully-ripe, still-warm-from-the-sun peaches picked right off the tree. In fact, perhaps it was the peaches that lured me over the Atlantic to permanently settle here? (No, don’t tell my husband. It had nothing to do with marrying him at all. I only married him for his guitar, anyway.)

One of the things I like best about summer is bringing home a box of peaches from the farmer’s market or the orchard down the street, and having them sit on the kitchen counter for a few days, getting ever more ripe and tender; and then, while leaning over to get something from one of the upper cupboards, getting a big nose-full of that incomparable scent of soft sweetness. It’s beyond me why the makers of fake foods think they can reproduce that aroma with “peach flavouring”. Hah! I scorn their attempts, I laugh in their faces – hahahah!

Now to put all that goodness into jars for winter, when the snow flies and the scent the house is filled with is cinnamon simmering in the potpourri burner on the windowsill.

Life, the universe, and Peach Season. I love it.

Rapunzel, Let Down Your … Salad?

Another “Fairy Tale Food” post by Yours Truly on Enchanted Conversation today!

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“Once upon a time, there was a pregnant woman. In her neighbour’s garden, there was a planting of beautiful rapunzels. The woman had an irresistible craving for these rapunzels and told her husband that if she could not have any, she would die…”

Of course, we all know what happens—the husband steals rapunzels for his wife; the neighbour, who happens to be a sorceress, catches him; when the child is born the sorceress takes her as payment for the rapunzels; she imprisons the girl in a tower and calls her “Rapunzel” … and so on and so forth with the long hair and the prince and the happily ever after.

I loved that story as a child. I had only one little problem: What on earth, I wondered, are rapunzels? And why are they so amazing that a mother would give up her child for a handful of them?

Back then, I didn’t let it bother me—I just skipped on ahead to the satisfying conclusion where the prince gets back his eyesight when Rapunzel cries on him, and all is well. But once I grew up and the world became so much smaller thanks to Google, I made up for my childhood ignorance. And here is what I found out: Rapunzels are a salad vegetable…

To find out more about rapunzels (rampion) and learn how I make salads (with flowers, no less), go here.

Conversing on Apples on Enchanted Conversations

Here is my first official article on Enchanted Conversations:

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FAIRY TALE FOOD: Apples & RECIPE OF THE MONTH: Fairy Tale Apple Pie by A.M. Offenwanger

Food and Fairy Tales – I bet you had no idea that I’m into those.

Enjoy!

A Day for Apple Pie: A Picture Essay

APPLE PIE

-pastry for a 9” double-crust pie, rolled out (I use this recipe – had some in the freezer still)

-6 cups peeled & sliced apples (about 6-8 large)

-2 Tbsp flour

-2 tsp cinnamon

-2/3 cup brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Put the filling ingredients together in a big bowl, toss until the apples are coated. Put into the pie shell, top with the lid, seal the edges. Slash holes in the top crust. Bake for 45-50 minutes until it’s golden brown and the juice bubbles up through the holes in the crust.

Life, the Universe, and Apple Pie. Perfect for a snowy day.

Project Unstick…

IMG_20180123_164321710

…has reached the kitchen food cupboards, forcing me to cook and eat four-year-old packets of chocolate pudding and five-year-old jars of home-canned pears. Can’t just throw it away, can I? (Well, yes, I can, and do, if it’s stale or otherwise unappetising, but this stuff still tastes good. Properly preserved food can actually last a remarkably long time. And I was raised by war-generation Germans who taught me that wasting food is a sin.) But I also don’t want to stick it back in the cupboard. So I still have a collection of food out on the counter that I’m going to either use up in the next few days or finally chuck out.

It’s actually not that big a collection, considering – especially compared to the vast total quantities of food that I had piled all over the counters. It reminded me of the Hungry Planet project, where researchers took photos in different countries of what one family eats in one week. My collection is several month’s worth of non-perishables, not just one week’s, but still, looking at it all made me feel very fortunate and thankful.

So I guess today I’ll be eating sushi (rice, seaweed, and a tube of wasabi all coming under the “past their best-by date” heading), and perhaps a pot of chicken noodle soup to get rid of that box of capellini noodles. If nothing else, this is making me eat something other than the same-old same-old.

Life, the Universe, and Everything in the Kitchen Cupboard. Project Unstick is having unforeseen side effects.

Rearview Mirror on a Summer

IMG_20170720_165323549 — Long Beach, Vancouver Island

September has come, it is hers / Whose vitality leaps in the autumn…*

Except that my vitality ain’t doing too much leaping at the moment. I’m still scrambling to catch up with the long, busy, and, above all, “away” summer – you’ve seen a few of the pictures. We left home on July 9th; spent two weeks in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island; came home; then after all of two days I hopped on a plane (or rather, a series of them), and headed for Europe for a month. A few days of sightseeing in Munich; three weeks of family stuff (helping with a move, to be precise); then to cap it off, three glorious days in London.

IMG_20170729_111301263_crop — Marienplatz, Munich, with Mary’s Column and Old Town Hall

Six weeks, 1500 photos, a wealth of experiences and memories. My house and garden, meanwhile, went to pot. As for my writing – well, I was going to say that nothing happened on that front, either. But that would actually be quite untrue. No, I didn’t really put any words to paper (or screen, as it were). But among those 1500 photos are quite a few that I took specifically as references for my WIP (that’s short for Work In Progress, for the un-artsy of you). The whole time in Germany I was soaking up atmosphere, sounds, tastes, sights – all with a mind to how that could be put to paper. My hotel in London was a converted Regency townhouse – inspiration pure (I might just have to write a Regency novel one of these days just so I can set it in that street; it was called Burton Crescent in those days).

IMG_20170820_192842281 — Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury

IMG_20170823_074633372 — I want to go back…

One street over, Tavistock Square, was where both Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens lived for a while and wrote To the Lighthouse and A Tale of Two Cities, respectively. Five minutes walk up the street was the British Library – I got to see original manuscripts by (i.e. stare in awe at the notebooks of) Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Oscar Wilde; my jaw literally dropped when in one of the gorgeous glass cases I saw the Lindisfarne Gospels, and in another the Codex Sinaiticus… But I didn’t just revel in high-brow literature – I stopped in at King’s Cross Station and took a look at the Platform 9 3/4 store with its trolley stuck into the wall, too.

IMG_20170822_171838645 — The one and only portrait of Jane Austen, by her sister Cassandra. National Portrait Gallery, London.

I drank Bavarian beer in Munich, Württemberger wine in Stuttgart, and English cider in London; I ate pork roast with dumplings in the Hofbräuhaus, lentils and spätzle in the old part of Stuttgart, and beef-and-ale pie in a pub by King’s Cross. I got claustrophobic in the Bloody Tower as one of the bloody masses of tourists and sat in silence in the Stiftskirche in Stuttgart among a few other visitors stopped in to pray. I revelled in train rides and was moved to tears by world-famous paintings. And in between, I packed boxes and unpacked boxes; walked to the grocery store, walked to public transit, walked to visit people, and on Sundays went for walks by way of recreation.

IMG_20170821_184154644 — Beef pie and Symonds cider, in honest-to-goodness London pub

And now I’m back home in the land of peaches and salsa and grapes, where one has to take the car even to buy a jug of milk. I have limitless wi-fi again, so I’m catching up with what I’ve missed on the internet (which I haven’t actually missed that much – I’m considering making this a lifestyle). And I’m bound and determined to get back to writing. I have great good intentions to regularly sit down and work on my, well, work. One can always be optimistic, no? I certainly have enough inspiration to carry me along for a while.

Life, the Universe, and a Long Busy Travelling Summer. Now to process all those impressions…

IMG_20170729_165944949 — Franz Marc, “Birds”. Lenbachhaus, Munich. So beautiful it made me cry.

*opening line from a poem by Louis McNeice, Autumn Journal