drinks #2 HOT CHERRY PUNCH

I have been quite busy lately, had my last exam a week ago and now I should be studying for the next few but first I have to finish my personal statement for my university application. It's a good thing that from time to time I just get to write something on here where I don't have to choose every word so very carefully. And where I can share my recipes with all of you.
But really I can't wait to actually get back to University and studying again, I know it's weird but it just makes me happy, just like cooking does.

So today I've had some of my best friends visiting and wanted to make something for them that would warm them up a little. It is not as cold outside as it usually is this time of the year but still cold enough to need something to warm you up.

We had this cherry juice left which I got for christmas dinner but no one ever drank it so I thought why not make this into a lovely fruity hot punch.
Just need to add some spices and there you go, really easy and something your guests and friends will definitely love. (Mine did anyway).

Hot Cherry Punch
for about 6 mugs full

1 L of cherry juice
200 mL water
1 cinnamon stick
3-4 cloves
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cointreau
2 tbsp brown rum
4-5 tbsp breandy

heat the juice and the water in a pan,
add the spices and the suger and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat and leave to simmer for about 5 minutes.
Carefully remove the spices from the juice.
Add rum, cointreau and brandy, but make sure
you do so when the juice isn't boiling anymore.

serve hot. you can also add some cherries if you like.

enjoy!

Magdalena.

#18 FRESH FRUITY PEACH CAKE-Y

As promised, here is the dessert I made for christmas dinner, but the beauty of it is that you can make it any day, any time of the year.
I decided I wanted something fruity and fresh this year, because christmas dinner is always a lot of food and no one needs a dessert that is just going to make them feel full again. 

So what I ended up with is really great and super easy to make for everyone and it looks really great and the guests will love it. Or you'll simply love it by yourself.

Peach Cakey
ingredients for 8 glasses
200 g biscuits
100 g melted butter
1 big can peaches
500 g greek yogurt
sugar
gelatine
cinnamon

crush the biscuits and melt the butter.
add cinnamon to the crushed biscuits (about 1 tsp)
add the butter and mix well.
share the mixture among the glasses equally.
press together so it sticks and forms a smooth
surface. cool the glasses with the biscuit mixture
for about 1 hour.

blend the peaches. put about 5 tbsp of the peaches
aside to mix it with the yogurt after.
warm the rest of the blended peaches.
soak the gelatine (2 leaves) in cold water while the
peaches heat up.
add the gelatine to the peaches until it liquidises.
add a little bit of sugar and cinnomon.
share the peach mixture equally among
the glasses and cool them until it sets.
(probably takes about 2 hours, leave overnight maybe)

soak another 3 leaves of gelatine in some water.
warm up the rest of the peach mixture and
add the gelatine.
leave the mixture to cool for a little bit.
while it cools, pour the yogurt into a bowl and
add some sugar (maybe even vanilla sugar).

when the peach mixture has cooled down, carefully
mix it together with the yogurt.
and again, share the yogurt mixture equally among the
glasses.

leave them to cool for another 1-2ish hours.

enjoy!

Magdalena.

#17 LEFTOVER LOVELIES

One of the best things about christmas is the day after. 
When the children get up to see if their presents are still there and to play with them early in the morning. And once you've done the dishes you're left with a lot of lovely food in the kitchen and there are so many things you can make of it.

But the best thing you can do, and surely a leftover classic are sandwiches. 
Sandwiches are wonderful because when you have a turkey like we did, all you need are some lovely fresh ingredients and great bread to make a wonderful leftover meal for yourself or the whole family. 

The beauty is that everyone can choose whatever they like to put in their sandwiches.
I wanted to give you some inspiration and show you some of the sandwiches I did.
I hope you find it usefull and like the ideas.

have a wonderful leftover lunch everyone.

The Rustic One (with a twist)

dark (rye) bread
turkey breast (or whatever your leftovers are)
fried streaky bacon
rocket salad
cranberry sauce/jam
mint leaves (about 4 for one sandwich)

The Fresh One

white sandwich bread
turkey breast
avocado
tomato
rocket salad
cranberry sauce/jam

Italian Breakfast

toasted white bread
turkey breast
(fried streaky bacon)
mozzarella
tomato
rocket salad
basil leaves (4 again)
lemon chutney

Magdalena.

#16 CHRISTMAS DINNER (KNÖDEL)

Hello everyone,

as promised, here is the wonderful christmas dinner me and my mum made yesterday for the family. So not all the credit is mine, my mum made the best red cabbage ever and we worked together making the turkey. And I want to thank everyone for coming and making it the great evening it was.

So now I will tell you what exactly we made, all together it's not even that difficult, but since we are not that experienced in making turkey me and my mum were a little nervous about it, but turns out it's really not that difficult at all.

We used the wonderful recipe by Jamie Oliver which I shared with you yesterday, it is brilliant so if you want to attempt a turkey yourself, it's great inspiration.

I want to share the recipe of the dumplings with you though, I am not sure if everyone of you even knows what these austrian dumplings are so I thought it would be a good idea to share the recipe, as it is really easy aswell.

It's so good to be back and posting again, and great to actually have time to cook properly. I hope you all are glad aswell, it's great to have people reading my posts.

thank you all.

Christmas Turkey (inspired by Jamie Oliver)

Simple (Christmas) Dumplings
for five people300 g chopped sandwich bread
4 eggs
1/4 L milk
1 onion
parsley
1 apple

chop the apple and the onion in tiny pieces
and fry them until golden. (well the onion will be).
place the chopped sandwich bread in a bowl.
mix together the eggs and the milk and pour
over the bread.
add the onions, apples and chopped parsley.
leave to rest for as long as possible
(I'd say at least 30 minutes, I left it for
about 4 hours though and it was great!)
season the mixture and form dumplings.
ideally leave them to rest for a bit
as they are aswell.
cook them over low temperature for 15 minutes
and they should be perfect!

(you can have them with a meal like this,
but they are also amazing with pretty much
any kind of meat, or just with some gravy.
yum!)

I hope all of you have a wonderful christmas meal yourselves, whether it is today or tomorrow, and maybe mine gave you some inspiration. I hope you all have wonderful holidays, and come back here to see what I'm doing the next few days.

Merry Christmas.

Magdalena.

Christmas PREPARATION II

So today is the day of christmas dinner, because we decided to do it a day earlier this year. And to be honest I am glad we did because this way I can share everything with you before your christmas dinner and maybe inspire you a little.

I myself was inspired by many things, for example by Jamie Oliver with the turkey.
Since I now have a few minutes of time because I am just in the kitchen making sure the turkey doesn't escape and watching the football I thought I'd update you with a few pictures and just let you know how my day has been so far.

So I got up quite early even though I had a late night last night because I didn't want to finish everything last minute. I had my desserts ready by 9 in the morning and the dough for the dumplings too.
Then me and my mum were invited for brunch which unfortunately we had to leave early to get this bird done.

So for now I will show you a few pictures and I will give you all the details tomorrow or maybe tonight, let's see how full I am after this meal.

the bacon rosemary skewers for the turkey

just before going into the oven

the dumplings before being cooked

Magdalena.

Christmas PREPARATION

so today was my first day off and I tried to just be lazy but in the end I ended up in the kitchen anyway. Since we have family coming over tomorrow for a christmas dinner it was good I did so I got to prepare a lot of things, less work tomorrow.

I tried making macaroons but they didn't really work out the way I wanted them to so I will try again and then share a picture with you.

But for now I am sharing my half completed dessert for tomorrow. I will share the whole things tomorrow or the day after with a recipe of course!

But for now you get a little taste of it.

It is difficult to think of a good dessert for a dinner like christmas dinner because people eat a lot and then they don't really want a dessert that is going to fill them up even more. Well maybe they do but it's not gonna make anyone feel great is it.

So I wanted to make something fruity and kinda light and this is what I came up with. 

I will not tell you what exactly it is yet, you'll have to wait for the pictures and recipe but I promise they'll be up as soon as possible.

It's really good to be back in the kitchen and blogging again.

Magdalena.

BACK AND BAKING

hello everyone,

so I thought I'd write to all of you before I properly start posting again and say sorry for not being active for a while.
as you may know I have been very busy with university and everything so I did cook and take pictures but I never hat the time to actually post my recipes.
but as of tomorrow it is my last day and my last exam for a little while so I will have time to post all the things I have been storing on my computer for this time.
and also, with christmas coming up I will tell you all about my christmas dinner and all the little sweet bits I am going to create over the next few days.

I hope that all of you who have been reading my blog when I was actually blogging will forgive me and continue reading it when I get to post again. 

oh and please people follow me on facebook to get updates about my recipes and request posts about recipes that would interest you

https://www.facebook.com/LullabyForPies

looking forward to hearing your feedback.


Magdalena

#14 QUICK MEAL: VEG'N'MINCE PAN WITH LOVELY RICE

It's me again, from cold Austria. Yes I'm back here and back in University too.
And you have guessed right, I'm busy again aswell.
As I am now in the process of studying for my chemistry exam while applying for university in the UK I won't have as much time for cooking and baking as I wish I had at this time of the year. 

But this doesn't mean that I won't be posting anything. But just like today, I will probably be posting more quick meals.
My quick meals are usually: cheap(er), healthy(er) and if possibly also do-able for vegetarians. and of course; quick to make.

I will still post all the things that I still owe you from my time in the UK and I just didn't have enough time there to post everything as soon as possible so I will be doing this in the next few days.

but for today, I have a quick meal for everyone of you who is a student too and who is maybe living on their own for the first time and just trying to get into cooking.
I will try and show you that there's more to it than pasta bolognese, microwave meals and ordering pizza or chinese. it's so easy and enjoyable to create something yourself, knowing which ingredients you use and being able to do whatever you want. so hopefully this will inspire all of you to do a little DIY cooking.

here goes my second quick meal! find my first one here: http://lullabyforpies.blogspot.co.at/2012/09/quick-meal-multi-colour-pasta.html

Veg'n'Mince Pan with lovely Rice

ingredients for one to two people

1 mug full of rice
(1 1/2 of the same mug of warm water)
little bit of butter
salt

1/2 pepper
1/2 courgette
1/2 onion
150 g mince
1 tomato
parsley

heat a bit of butter in a pan and add the rice.
leave for about two seconds and add the water.
lower the temperature to the lowest available.
leave to cook for about 10-15 minutes.

chop all the veg to the size you like.
(I do about 1cm pieces)

heat a pan with some coconut fat (or whatever
you like to use really).
fry the veg first (everything except for the tomato)
after about 3 minutes add the mince and brown it.
then add the tomato and cover it and leave to simmer
for about 5 minutes.

chop the parsley, add salt to the pan.

the rice should be done now, so you can serve it
all up, garnishing it with some lovely
green parsley!

and there you go, a lovely fresh quick meal!
enjoy! :)

Magdalena.

Eating Out: PUB FOOTBALL + PUB FOOD

Yesterday was a proper sunday with super sunday football and sunday food in the pub.

It was blue v red yesterday on super sunday, everton v liverpool and chelsea v manchester united. and what else can you do for a sunday like that than go to the pub and enjoy the football properly with the greatest atmosphere you'll get for a football game (other than at the stadium obviously). 
so we went to the Poet's Corner in Cardiff and spend quite a few hours there. and spending that amount of time in a pub, you just can't go without having at least a little bit of that lovely pub food they serve. 
you know it's not healthy but sometimes that's just the way it has to be. can't really sit in a pub with a pint and a carrot can you, so a lovely bacon and cheese burger with chips and a pint of chicken goujons was just the perfect choice. 

and not just the pub food turned out really well, the football luckily went our way too. united beat chelsea away with it being their first defeat this season. somehow this premier league table is getting back to the way it should be. 
unfortunately liverpool didn't lose, but they're still not really managing wins this season, not that they're any danger to us anyway.

all in all, a wonderful pub day, could spend every sunday like that.

Magdalena.

Away Days: BRISTOL

On Friday we went to Bristol to spend the day there and see an amazing gig in the night. 

I had never been to Bristol and I always enjoy seeing new places, one thing I love about going to the UK is that everytime I'm here I get the chance to go to places I hadn't seen before.

The weather was really british that day but I think I got used to it by now and you can't really expect it to be all nice and warm in the UK at the end of october can you. 

So after a bit of walking around in the city we ended up in with a warm cup of coffee and hot chocolate in The Commercial Rooms.

And somehow they happened to have Austrian Wafers there! I'm always surprised how you find austrian things in the UK but it's a nice surprise most of the time. Unfortunately I still haven't found proper bread or pumpkin seed oil. but I'll update you about that!

delicious austrian wafers
at the commercial rooms bristol

After walking around a bit more and some shopping and chilling we wanted to get some food before the gig because we hadn't really had anything.

It was difficult to decide where to go, as always, but we ended up in a really nice place in the shopping centre called Coal grill and bar. 

And as always it was difficult to decide what to eat but in the end we decided on a Duck Paté as a starter and the "Chicken Schnitzel" as a main course. for all of you austrians on here, it wasn't a Schnitzel like we know it. it was more a Cordon Bleu but filled with mozzarella cheese and then wrapped in parma ham and coated in breadcrumbs (like a schnitzel). it was served with spinach and mash which was really nice aswell.

With all that we had a lovely cocktail (2 for 1!).

they have Coal in other places too, so if you every find yourself there, you should check it out, even if it's just for a cocktail, they do 2 for 1 everyday from 4 until close (11).

Chicken Schnitzel
at Coal Grill + Bar Bristol

White Peach and Amaretto Sour
at Coal Grill + Bar Bristol

After this lovely meal, we went to The Exchange to see François And The Atlas Mountains, which was the main reason we came to Bristol for.

it was an amazing gig and just a very lovely day alltogether. thank you Bristol. and thank you Fraçois! it was truly incredible!

Magdalena.

Review #1 JAMIE'S SANDWICH

Back in the UK and already loving the food here,

I don't know why some people still think that british food is inedible or boring.

in a country where they show Jamie Oliver on TV and you can buy all kinds of fruit and vegatbles in the supermarket, you just can't do anything but be inspired.

I get inspired easily here anyway. and today the UK showed me again how cool they can be. we went to Boots and the first thing we saw was this poster about them selling Jamie Oliver sandwiches and then this woman came up to us and asked if we wanted to try the sandwich. and wow it was lovely!

since we were hungry anyway, we decided to try a whole one and they now have this whole section of Jamie Oliver stuff with the sandwiches. but it's not just sandwiches, it's flatbread and wraps and salads and focaccia and stuff so it's really cool.

as you can guess, it took a while to decide which sandwich to go for, but we decided to get a smoky chicken one with bbq sauce and peppers and onions and all, really lovely!

a bit spicy but sweet aswell so it was a great snack for this kinda british day.

will be making some proper food after. if it's anything exciting I'll let you know.

but for now, here's a picture of the sandwich.

Really Smoky Chicken
image by geraint
 

Magdalena.

Away Days #4: BACK IN THE UK

hello everyone,

yes it's me, I bet you can't believe it. 
I am really sorry I have been lazy blogging lately, but it's just because I haven't been lazy otherwise. I started university and it's going well but just taking up a lot of my time.

but now I am back in the UK for two weeks, I've missed Cardiff and it's just so good to be back. 
this means that I will have time to cook and go out and eat and tell you all about it!

Today was my first day here and I've been a little lazy since I only got here at around midnight yesterday. so there's not much to report today. had a lovely salad and pizza.
but there is hope! don't know what we'll be making tomorrow but on sunday we're going to make a lovely sunday lunch which I'm really looking forward to because it's something so british and it's going to be so much fun to make. 

so I will most definitely let you know about that and hopefully post a recipe aswell. 

it's just so good to be back. and I'm looking forward to some more blogging.


Magdalena.

#14 SALMON STEAK WITH COURGETTE-CHIPS

hello everyone,

first of all I have to apologise to everyone of you who has been checking my blog only to realise that I haven't posted anything for weeks. 
It's not that I stopped cooking, but I haven't really had the chance to cook anything that's worth putting on here.
I started uni two weeks ago and I'm still getting used to it so when I come home I'm tired most of the time and I cook but all I cook is some rice with some chicken breast or some pasta with some vegetables, and I know all of you can think of these things themselves.
I write this blog because I want to inspire you with things that you might not think of yourself or that you might not make everyday.

so I promise you that I will try my best to keep doing that, I need the cooking anyway to relax and just forget about everything else, so I really hope you'll keep reading it and keep giving me feedback like you did before. thank you all.


well about the salmon, I love salmon, and me and my mum usually buy a fillet but this time we decided to try the steak.
so I think it was wednesday when I came home from uni and I remembered that there was this lovely salmon in the fridge, all I had to do was figure out what to do with it.
since I had never made a steak before I figured I'd try something simple...

Salmon Steak with Courgette-Chips
(for two people)

2 salmon steaks
1 glove of garlic
1/2 lemon (juice)
coconut fat

1 courgette
olive oil

first of all, simply marinate the salmon steaks
in the lemon juice and the minced garlic.
set the salmon aside.

preheat the oven to about 180°C

cut the courgette to make equal pieces
(I just cut whole rounds but if you want
something else..be creative)
grease a baking sheet with the olive oil
and put the courgette on there aswell.
put in the oven for about 10 minutes each side
don't forget to turn them around!

(if you're making rice with it aswell you'll want
to start cooking it about now)

heat a pan with the coconut fat (or whatever you're
using).
carefully remove the garlic bits from the salmon
so they don't burn.
roast the salmon over high heat on one side
for about 3-5 minutes (depending how thick the steak is)
then turn around carefully and leave on the other side
for about 3 minutes.

the courgette chips should be done by then and if
you're making rice it should be aswell.
arrange everything on a plate and enjoy!

Magdalena.

Away Days #3: LA CUISINE FRANÇAISE

well well, I promised to post about the french food so here it goes.

all of you who read my last post about france know what I did there other than eat. so if you haven't read it and you'd like to know you can read it now or after.

well of course I ate more than those things that you will read about and see after but they're not all worth posting about or just not french. 
we had some amazing BBQ's with everyone and I really enjoyed it but I wanted to write about french food.



one day we went to this medieval town called Provins and in this little ruelle by the church we discovered a cute little shop which sells all things with honey (miel) and roses which seem to be a specialty of this region.
in this shop they let us try this thing they called honey bread, it's not really bread and to me it tasted a bit like gingerbread (which technically isn't bread either so I guess it fits) and it was really nice so we bought some.
it looks a lot like bread but it tastes sweet and there are spices and honey in it which I really enjoyed, it didn't remind me of christmas as much as gingerbread does so it was fine.

so if you find yourself in this town I recommend you having a look at this shop, they have lovely honey stuff there.

Pain d'Epice au Miel found here

on our first day in Paris we went to the Charlie Winston gig, and before that we went to Hard Rock Cafe Paris for a lovely lovely meal. I love HRC and I love their food, no matter where you go the food is always good there and the people are just amazing.

well I usually have a Burger or something like that because they are just legendary but this time I thought I'd try something else. 

they had this grilled salmon on the menu and it just sounded really nice so I got that.

and it was amazing. it came with this herb and wine butter and lovely green beans and rice. just great! and not too much either. it was a rather big piece of salmon but it wasn't too fat or anything so it was the perfect size really. I could have eaten more rice but I always eat too much rice so it probably would have been perfect for everyone else.

lovely meal and the perfect choice if you don't want to feel too full after a meal at hard rock. we had this apple cobbler as a dessert which was amazing! it was warm and served with vanilla ice cream. I forgot to take a picture because it just smelled so good and we just started eating. but it was gorgeous!

Grilled Salmon found here

the second day in Paris was the day after the gig. we didn't get to bed early and we were pretty tired in the morning.

so once we had all our stuff together and left the appartment it was probably around 10:30 or so so it was a bit too late for a proper breakfast. well we just decided we'd have something french anyway.

luckily, we found this cute patisserie right at the corner of the street we spent the night and they had a lot of stuff there. I chose this lovely little quiche which tasted amazing.

with all the ingredients it probably wasn't completely french more of a french-italian-greek thing but it just tasted amazing! we ate our things on the pont des arts, you probably know it, it's the bridge with all the locks on it. and you can see the eiffel tower too. perfect breakfast!

Quiche Feta, tomate et basilic found here

on the same day, after we got back from Paris we went to Disneyland where we met with everyone to go to this chinese place for food.

the chinese restaurant we went to was somewhere near the Val d'Europe but I don't know exactly because it wasn't exactly the place you'd expect a restaurant to be. but if I find out I'll let you know because it was really really nice there.

they had this giant buffet with all kinds of stuff, not only chinese but sushi and french stuff and ice cream and desserts and fruit and salad...

well a lot anyway. I took this picture of these mussels in white wine sauce with chips because I wanted to talk about french food didn't I? and this is something very french.

not sure if it even is typical for this region (probably not, since they don't have the sea near them) but when I was at the Côte d'Azur last year they had it everywhere and it just reminded me of that. plus I love seafood. 

and I have to say I wasn't sure whether they would be good at a chinese place but they obviously know how to cook french stuff there. I guess everyone who cooks in france knows how to cook french food. 

Moules-Frites
I hope I'll find the chinese soon so I can tell you where.

and last but definitely not least...

I tried my first macaroon this week. I know I am 20 years old and I should have had one before but they don't really make them here in Austria and whenever I'm in the UK there's just so many other things I have to eat.

plus now I can proudly say that I had my first macaroon in france which can only be a good thing because after all that's where they come from, so they have to be good, and everything sweet is good in france anyway.

so I tried my first macaroon off this plate with loads of different little sweets, it was a raspberry flavour I think and it was just really nice. so after that we just had to find more.

well first we tried to find some in Paris, but we didn't really have time so we ran around looking for them somewhere near the eiffel tower and there were just no macaroons there.

(if you know a good place to find them in Paris please let me know!)

then, the day after we went to Coulommiers which was the next town from where we stayed and of course they had patisseries everywhere (one thing I really love about france!) and they did have macaroons!

so we got a few of them there (the blue one, the green one and the light cream-y coloured one).

later that day we went to a supermarket where we found some aswell! (red, yellow, dark and light brown).

well the day we found them was our last day and I wasn't feeling too well so I didn't eat any of them that day, that's why we put them in a box so I could take them with me. I had some at the airport and they were all really nice! the supermarket ones and the patisserie ones (of course the patisserie ones were a bit better).

but the one most important thing I realised was that I had to try and make some myself.

some people seem to think that it's really difficult to make them but I really want to try it anyway because I liked them a lot and I just don't think I can get them anywhere in Austria. plus when I make them myself I can choose the flavour and everything!

so if I find the time my macaroons will be up here soon. fingers crossed!

Macarons found here and here

Magdalena.

Away Days #2: BONJOUR LA FRANCE

bonjour mes amis and everyone else,

if you're following my blog you've probably noticed that I haven't been posting anything for the past week or so and you probably know that this is because I went to France for a week.

well and I promised to bring back some impressions and some french food. and of course I did!

I'll be posting about my culinary impressions and ideas soon in another post but for now I just want to talk about my holiday in general because it was just amazing.

I'd been to France before and I've seen many beautiful places such as the Côte d'Azur last autumn. but I'd never seen Paris.
and Paris is one of those places you just have to see at least once in your life, that's what I thought, I guess now I know that I'm definitely coming back.

we stayed in a gîte not too far away from Paris and pretty close to Disneyland. it was really nice and calm, the only noise were the geese who were living there.
it was called La Ferme Des Près, you can look for it just in case you are looking for a place to spend a family holiday. 

so since we stayed not far away from Disneyland and everyone else was a Disneyland lover (not saying I'm not, I'd just never been before) of course we went there aswell. not only once or twice...but I have an annual pass now anyway so who knows when I'll be back there. I will be sooner or later anyway. 

but the past part about the holiday was Paris, I'd been looking forward to this for so long, and not just because I was going to see Paris, but also because we were going to see Charlie Winston!
we'd found a place where we could stay the night which was perfect because the gig only ended really late so we spend wednesday and thursday in Paris, not enough time for a place like this obviously, but it was amazing and I just can't wait to go back!

so the whole week was pretty much perfect, spend time with some amazing people and tried to speak french again, I'll work on that until next time.
I want to thank everyone who made this week possible and who was there with us. it was amazing and I'm hoping to see you all again soon. 

so here are some pictures for you that I took during the week, and as I said I'll be posting about the food real soon, I promise!

the geese

notre dame

Mr. Charlie Winston

tour eiffel

Magdalena.