salad dinner

Have you ever looked in your fridge and been determined to use whatever is left before the next round of grocery shopping?  That was my mission for dinner tonight.  I still had a fridge half full of veggies that I picked up on my way back from Berlin that I wanted to put to good use.  It seems that every four weeks or so, I am in Dresden where I make a stop to visit my favourite organic grocery store, Konsum (the mini Whole Foods of Dresden), and stocked up on veggies, tofu, and organic chicken.  It’s not that I am unable to buy veggies, tofu and organic chicken in Prague.  Rather a) I can’t find these items in one store and b) an extension of a) it takes a lot more leg work and planning to acquire such products in one shopping trip.

I had fennel, leeks, peppers, avocado, zucchini, tofu, dill, fingerling potatoes, Czech feta cheese (extra salty), and arugula to work with.   After a failed attempt to find something inspiring on Epicurious earlier in the day, I decided to refer back to my new cookbook that I picked up before I left to Prague called Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson from blog extraordinaire, 101 Cookbooks.  Last week I tried making her Orzo Salad (again with some doctoring up to the recipe) and it was fabulous.

This evening, my fiance and I tried out her Mostly Not Potato Salad and Shaved Fennel Salad (with a couple modifications of course) and I am happy to report that both salads were quick to make and resulted in a delicious and flavourful dinner for two.  In my books, three successful recipes in one cookbook means it’s a keeper and I will continue to test more recipes and re-make all three of the salads I listed in this post.

Don’t mind my lack of food styling in the shots below; especially the red bowl my fiance chose to house the potato salad! 🙂

Berlin

I am back from Berlin and all I can say is, “What a city!”  In many ways, Berlin reminds me of New York from an architectural point of view as well, as a city burgeoning creativity.  In its neighbourhoods, the city gives off a terrific artsy/techy vibe.  It is easy to find numerous examples of art, design, street art, fashion, music, sculptures sprinkled around Berlin’s new and old streetscapes.   The other funny thing I noticed was that Berlin is teaming with hipsters, from a fashion standpoint (not a bad thing!!).  Here I thought Toronto was turning into a hipster capital downtown, but boy was I wrong!

In two and a half days of cold weather (& sunshine) we covered as much of the city as possible by foot and by hop-on-hop-off bus, however it is down right impossible to thoroughly cover every square inch of Berlin in such a short time period.  After I got back I discovered a good blog about Berlin titled “Slow Travel Berlin,” where the author rightly asks visitors to slow down the pace of their travel (think slow food movement for travelers) instead of “speeding through all the landmarks in a city in 24 or 48 hours.”  I am guilty of committing the fast travel crime however, I am motivated to return and explore upon my return at a slower pace.

Outstanding areas we loved included Mitte, a trendy residential and commercial area dotted with cafes, restaurants and boutiques and Prenzlauer Berg, like Toronto’s Leslieville, but bigger, a bit more yuppy/hipster and with ten times more restaurants/cafes/shops. Berlin’s Holocaust memorial was somber, and eerie, Checkpoint Charlie too commercial a la Disneyland, and overall, the city’s architecture brings a mix of brand spanking new/modern contrasted with rebuilt/restored ornate/grandiose structures and churches.

On the food side, we tasted the best apple strudel overflowing with apples, (better than what we tasted in Vienna), at Meierei, a bakery cafe, meets a provision store with pic nic benches outside, dined on sushi (a crunchy dudu roll) and noodles at Dudu, and discovered the most delicious chicken soup, dumplings and latkes at a Russian Jewish restaurant, Pasternak, in honour of Boris Pasternak, the Russian author who wrote Doctor Zhivago.  Creativity, art, design, excellent food, urban beaches (yes- sand on pavement, in the city with tiki bars = urban beach), street art and a lot of history, monuments and galleries.

dumplings from Pasternak

yoli berlin

I just got back from Berlin and had a terrific time touring the city in two days.  I promise to write a full post on Berlin later this week recounting the city’s food and design, but for tonight, I leave you with one thought: Yoli.  Yoli is Berlin’s answer to the global frozen yogurt craze.  While it’s not self serve, it has a choose your own topping bar, and what a selection it has!  My new favourite toppings, that I have never seen before, included lemon curd, a hazelnut creme with crunchy bits, chocolate sauce with brownies.  My Yoli concoction was a small, basic, yogurt with raspberries, creamy hazelnut and flourescent yellow, lemon curd.  It was delicious but I will admit I felt a bit sick from all the sugar (my system is not used to hazelnut cream and rich lemon curd) but it was worth it!  However the next time I go back to Yoli, I may choose something a bit more tame, like fruit and maybe a chocolate chip or two-

via sozene

via julia stelzner

Ecclectic Tea Party Table Setting

birthday cake

It’s my birthday today and I’ve been dreaming of cake all day.  Each year for my birthday, I usually request a flourless chocolate cake from Whole Foods.  Their flourless chocolate cake is small, intensely chocolate, and dense like pate.

I was thinking of baking one for myself but since moving to Prague and realizing that the size of my European oven versus the size of my North American baking pans may not cooperate together, I am not sure I will have much luck making much of anything.  However, we’ll save that experience for another blog post.  In the mean time, this cake looks pretty good to me- simple and to the point.

via sunset magazine

chocolate wedding cakes

I was craving chocolate today which made me decide to write about something chocolaty.  I was reading about Nicky Grant, a patissiere and chocolatier based in Cornwall (UK), and her unbelievable chocolate creations.   These cakes look so delicious.  They remind me of a cake my brother had for his bar mitzvah.  It was a white chocolate cake covered in white chocolate swirls and I remember the best part of his chocolate cake was picking off all the chocolate swirls and eating them.  The swirls of chocolate adorning and cascading off these wedding cakes are simply spectacular.  When you don’t feel like fondant, chocolate cakes are a great alternative.  (all cakes from Nicky Grant)