Cooking + Eating 2022: Who’s hungry?

Dear users, dear authors,
In this thread, you can discuss anything related to cooking and baking. Tips and tricks are also welcome here. You can also post your meal plans for the week here. If you’d like, you can create separate threads for recipes, using a title that matches the recipe and makes it easier to find.

Please remember: Only upload your own photos and post your own recipes here. Links are not allowed.

What’s for dinner today?

Oh, today, as on most Mondays, we’re just having leftovers from the weekend.

Yesterday I tried muffins with olives and sheep’s cheese. We ate them hot/warm straight from the oven, with salad. Today for lunch we ate them cold, and they still tasted really delicious. 

Since February — when my husband started working from home — I’ve been cooking, or rather whipping up, a hot meal almost every day. So I can contribute quite a bit here. By now I have an Excel spreadsheet so I can remember what we could cook again because it was so good. I spend a lot of time online and get inspiration there. 

Spaghetti is planned for tomorrow — I still have half a zucchini in the fridge. Let’s see what else I can think of to go with it.

That sounds really good.
What recipe do you use for savory muffins?

I had yesterday’s stew for dinner.

So I’ll go ahead and post my savory muffin recipe here for Josefa and Monika

Olive Muffins with Sheep’s Cheese

70 g pitted black olives 
200 g sheep’s cheese
250 g flour
1 tbsp finely chopped (fresh) rosemary
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
80 ml olive oil
300 g plain yogurt

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake in 12 muffin cups for 25–30 minutes

Chop the olives into small pieces. Cut 150 grams of sheep’s cheese into 12 cubes, and crumble the remaining cheese into small pieces

Mix the flour with the olives, rosemary, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper

Whisk the egg with the olive oil and yogurt in a second bowl.

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir everything together to form a nice batter. Put one tablespoon of batter into each cup (12 in total), place a cube of cheese inside, and add another spoonful of batter on top. Sprinkle the crumbled cheese over it and place in the preheated oven.

When warm, the fresh rosemary was dominant; the next day we ate them cold, and then it was the olives that gave them their flavor. 

@Petra,
thanks for the recipe.
Can the sheep’s milk cheese be substituted?

@everyone:
Would you like to share some traditional dishes from your region here?

Maybe leave it out entirely and eat them lukewarm with herb cream cheese (homemade with rosemary and a little garlic).
Yeah, I could see that working, because the sheep’s milk cheese just sat in the muffins. It didn’t blend with the batter.

That cream cheese idea sounds good—thanks for the tip.

Today we had Kässpatzen: Spätzle, mountain cheese, and the whole thing baked in the oven with a little cream. Served with a field salad. 

Wow :-)

Petra: how do you make the spaetzle in the oven? Mine get too dry in the oven. I get them to turn out better in the pan.

Josefa: a typical Hamburg dish is Labskaus. .... I love it, my husband hates it. Labskaus is an old sailor’s dish, since it’s basically made only from shelf-stable ingredients (potatoes and corned beef)
I make it as follows, but there are certainly 1,000 variations:

500g floury potatoes 
Butter
Milk
Beets from a jar
2 cans corned beef

Make mashed potatoes from the potatoes, butter, and milk,
Cut a few beet slices into cubes, add the cubes and the corned beef to the mashed potatoes. Heat everything again and use milk and beet juice to get a nice consistency, and it’s done.

It is served with a fried egg on top, beet slices, and pickles on the side, and that’s it. 
Traditionally, a rollmop herring is added too. But that’s not my thing 

Thanks for the Labskaus recipe, Arni. Can you make it without beetroot? With rollmops on the side, that’s almost adventurous. :-) I’d replace the meat with smoked tofu, because corned beef, smoked and in gelatin, isn’t really my thing.

Do you also have Knipp / Hackgrütze in your area?

But Labskaus is only good with rollmops :-) ;-), my oldest daughter cooks it regularly, but my husband doesn’t like it, so I always have her bring me a serving. I’ve known Labskaus since I was a kid—my parents were both in the Navy, and we’d often have that delicious Labskaus.


A typical recipe from our region is Blaue Zipfel.
Mod-Edit: You can find the recipe further down in this thread.

Akela, I had to remove the recipe because it contained several URLs/links. I assume you copied at least parts of it. Please don’t do that—I’ll have to remove it anyway. Feel free to summarize it in your own words; I’m sure you have enough experience to do so.

Josefa: I’m sure it works just fine without beets. I never put much in, but for me, a little bit is part of the deal.
Knipp—I’ve never heard of it. But I just Googled it. Apparently it’s from the Hanover area… sounds interesting, too

Yesterday and today we had pea soup; I always make a big pot so it lasts for two days.

And tomorrow we’re having my favorite pasta sauce with mild chorizo, tomato sauce, and feta cheese. My husband’s cooking this weekend… let’s see what I’ll ask for. 😉

@Sandra = I had to look up “Chorrizo” online first—I’ve never heard of it or eaten it before. Sounds interesting!

I make my Kässpatzen in the oven. A layer of Kässpatzen, a bit of mountain cheese, another layer of Kässpatzen. Once everything’s in the baking dish, I pour half a cup of cream over it and mix it all together. Then I top it with another thick layer of cheese and pop it in the oven. For us, it’s crispy on top—we let it brown a bit under the broiler at the end—that’s how we like it.

I’ve never had Labskaus either. Corned beef isn’t really my thing, but I’ve come to love beets. It’s a vegetable I harvested from my own garden this year.

[Image removed]

Sorry, Josefa, I recreated it. You can completely delete the one
above. So I’ve copied my cooking instructions here again so the recipe is all together.

4–5 pairs of coarse Franconian bratwurst
3/4 l water,
0.5 l vinegar,
1/4 l white wine—Franconian wine
works best 3–4 large onions, sliced
2 bay leaves,
1 tablespoon juniper berries (about what fits
flat on a spoon) 1 small carrot, 1 small celeriac, or a quarter
of a large one Salt, pepper—I prefer ground pepper because I don’t like biting
into peppercorns 2 cloves
; the bratwursts should be blanched at most before they go into the
broth Add the water and vinegar; slice the onion into rings; dice the carrot and
celeriac into small cubes. Let everything cook until the vegetables are tender,
but still have a little bite, then add the spices and the wine and
let it simmer for a bit. Add the blanched bratwursts and let the whole thing steep for about 20
minutes. (I always use coarse bratwurst,
preferably Franconian ones from my trusted butcher.) Served with fresh
dark bread, this makes for a delicious meal.

Enjoy your meal!

OK, Akela, I’ve removed it above.

Petra: since we love Spain (the country, the people, the food), chorizo is a must for us. We have it at least once a month. As I said, simply in a pasta sauce with chopped tomatoes and feta... (the mild one makes sense here)
or what’s even tastier is:

Chorizo cut into slices, fry it, add a little honey and deglaze with about 200 ml of red wine, then let it reduce. I always use the spicy one for this.

I don’t really like corned beef either. Only in Labskaus.

Today we didn’t have pasta after all. We spontaneously decided to support a snack bar and got currywurst 😂.

Hmmm—a really delicious collection of recipes has already come together here.

Sandra, I’m familiar with Labskaus too, and I loved it. We used to have it when we lived in Bremen. Since we haven’t eaten meat in a long time, I didn’t know until now how to replace it. Josefa’s suggestion with smoked tofu might taste good, but it certainly won’t come close to the original. Maybe someone here can think of another alternative. Corned beef does have a special texture… I’d really appreciate any suggestions.

We had oatmeal pizza yesterday. It tastes absolutely delicious and is super quick to make. I’ll write down the recipe for you guys—I just need to find it. It’s also a great tip for anyone who can’t tolerate wheat flour, since it’s made entirely with oat flour.

A simple butter cake with chocolate chips inside and a chocolate glaze—that’s how my husband likes it best

We baked muffins today:

That’s great that Anton gets to help out already. That must have made the muffins taste twice as good. And he’s already helping with the cleanup, too. Awesome!

Akela, your sponge cake looks delicious, too. I’d love to try that one as well.

I could really use a hard-working helper like that in the kitchen ☺🍩

What’s there to eat?

Anton is staying overnight at my parents’ house tonight, and my husband is in the kitchen right now making steak 😋—I’m sitting on the couch watching soccer. It’s wonderful. 

Hey Arni,
that’s funny. It’s kind of like the world’s turned upside down at your place.

We had one of those ready-made “farmer’s breakfasts” straight out of the bag—with an egg added—and it tasted so good.

Tomorrow we might have pork tenderloins with homemade mashed potatoes or rice on the side; I’m not quite sure yet.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend with lots of cooking and baking ideas!