eat, drink and just be!

dinkelaugen: spelt eyes

now that i live in austria, i try to bake some austrian cookies for christmas. austria is a catholic country and people celebrate advent; the whole month of december.  every sunday in december they lit up one more of the four candles and eat cookies in the meanwhile. i'm not religious at all but in order to have some cookies for my first advent sunday, i baked dinkelaugen. i got the recipe from this austrian website. i translate it for the non german speaking readers.:-)

ingredients:

- 80 gr powdered sugar

- 2 egg yoks

- 160 gr butter

- 240 gr spelt flour

- 2 teaspoon vanille sugar

- your choice of jam

to make the dow mix everything exept the jam in a bowl with your hands until they stick together. cover the dow and put it in the fridge for two hours. preheat the oven to 170 degrees. spread the dow on a surface and cut the round cookies out of it and make a hole in half of them. bake the cookies for 12 minutes. spread jam on half of cookies and powdered sugar on the ones with the hole. enjoy the cookies.

my first nowrouz in graz

it has been crazy busy these weeks. i love my job and i'm thrilled by having such fantastic coworkers. they are so knowledgable and down to earth. (i should say this is a good part of culture shock being back to europe. it's very refreshing after seeing californian narcissism.) but there's so much to learn at the beginning that i feel i need to not sleep for months to catch up. weekends have also been packed with buying furniture, putting them together and generally putting my life together. so there has been so little time to pay attention to the change of the seasons. but as you might know from my last years posts, persians celebrate the first day of spring (march 20th or equinox ) and it's officially our first day of the year. since i don't have any family and friends in graz, it felt very lonely (not like last year.) especially when the count down happens, you should be surrounded with your close family and i was surrounded by them but over skype.:-)

but my nowrouz was not only a cyber nowrouz over internet. i had little celebrations here too. my sister visited me the weekend before nowrouz and helped me build my closet and we also cooked sabzi polo mahi and enjoyed the nowrouz meal. she also got me flowers from graz'es market and we made a little haft seen.

furthermore i had a nowrouz celebration by my dear colleage k. she invited me to her house and we celebrated with her room mates. her room mate made a nice avocado + mango salad as appetizer, k made a fantastic vegetarian quiche with potatoes, onions and gruyere cheese. i also made a small pile of persian saffron raisin cookies as dessert.

holidays' summary

first of all happy 2012 to all my friends and dear readers from all over. since we can't celebrate it together, i try to summerize some of our holiday related food activities in this post. i start from the week before christmas when i made a couple of christmas cookies. i made two persian types of cookies to share with my frineds and bloggers from the bay area bonnie, gina, and patty. of course we missed many of you who are far away especially joanna.:-) i made raisin cookies and walnut cookies and a couple of days later i missed some austrian cookies as well and i made some vanillegipferl.

this was the first year we were at home for christmas and not some where else in the world. so we bought a tiny tree and my husband made a delicious beef wellington for the evening.

we lived in vienna over a decade and as much as we disliked the cold winters we enjoyed the winter activities a lot there. although it gets so cold, people are out all the time mostly because of the great tradition of having christmas markets all over the city that not only offers kitschy little gifts but also have great home made snacks and hot drinks. drinking gluehwein and hot punsch keeps you warm and you can stay outside and talk to your friends for the whole night when it's 10 degrees below freezing temperature. although we are not austrian we miss the culture a lot and we have some austrian friends here in the bay area. we decided to celebrate the holidays with them making hot drinks and eating some austrian traditional snacks. this way those of us who feel homesick get a little bit of warmth in our stomachs. we made three different types of hot drinks:

- gluewein: hot mulled wine: red wine, combined with spices and served warm. in austria they have the spices mixed like tea bags but since we don't have that here, we made them from scratch using some cloves, cinammon stick and anis. the best way to do it is to leave them in vodka and rum over night and then use the alcohol the next day. the proportions of wine, vodka, rum, ornages and orange juice depends on how string you want your drink to get. i guess the later in the night most people prefer to increase the amount of alcohol. one thing you have to be very careful about is to keep the drink on low heat all teh time. it should never get to boil.

- wiener feuerzangenbowle (viennese flaming fire tongs punch) is a hot new year's or winter punch made with red wine and rum. one of our friends even brought the main ingredient for this drink which is a big sugar cone. the process of making this is more fun than making other hot drinks. you have to pour all teh ingredients(wine, juice, ornages) in the pot first and then leave a gitter on top of the pot and put the sugar cone there then pour some rum on the sugar cone and set it in fire. the sugar-fire caramelizes and falls into the pot.

since we had a couple of kids and pregnant ladies among our guests as well, we serve a kinderpunch too.

- kinderpunsch is an alcohol-free hot punch which is made of hot apple or orange juice with spices.

 

 

 

foodbuzz 24X24: hallowien kuerbisfest

since me and my husband lived in austria for over a decade and used to go to the pumpkin province of austria - styria - where "kuerbisfest" or "pumpkin festival" was celebrated every october, we wanted to bring a bit of the austrian autumn to san francisco. to introduce some cultural and culinary experiences to the city and combine them with halloween, we invited a couple of friends to our home for "hallowien," which, in german, means  "hello vienna." to make our event even more special, foodbuzz is featuring our "hallowien kuerbisfest" for their october 24x24 food event. the foodbuzz's 24x24 showcases food blog posts from 24 foodbuzz featured-publisher-bloggers of 24 unique meals occurring around the globe during a 24-hour period. i am thrilled to be featured this month.

for the event, i decided to have all courses somehow related to pumpkin. for that, i found several great recipes from an austrian recipe database: ichkoche.at. if you know german, this is a great collection of recipes. since i don't live there any more and have access to more variety of produce in california, i tried to make variations on the recipes and create some of my own ideas.

we started off with a kuerbissalat (pumpkin salad), steirische kuerbiscremesuppe (styrian cream of pumpkin soup), and kuerbisauflauf (pumpkin casserole.) 

ingredients for pumpkin salad:

- mixed greens

- cocktail tomatoes

- pumpkin chunks

- pumpkin seeds

- pumpkin seed oil

brush the pumpkin chunks and seeds in separate baking dishes with some olive oil and lime juice and leave them in the oven. preheat the oven to 350f.  leave the seeds for 10 - 15 minutes in the oven and the pumpkin pieces for 30 minutes. mix them with the greens and tomatoes and garnish it with the pumpkin seed oil. this oil is very common in styria. it has a very strong taste and aroma which makes it a perfect garnish for very simple salads. i prefer to have it even just with mixed greens. 

 

ingredients for the soup:

- four small pumpkins

- three shallots

- one whole garlic

- butter

- vegetable broth

- sour cream

- chives

- parsley

- marjoram

- cumin seeds

- salt and pepper

- pumpkin seeds

- pumpkin seed oil

- ginger

i baked the pumpkins for 30 minutes, then carved the insides out; this way it was much easier to carve. chop shallots and garlic and saute them in a dutch oven with butter, crushed ginger and cumin seeds. add the squash meat and saute a couple of minutes. add vegetable broth slowly. stir and let it cook on low for twenty minutes. taste and add salt and pepper. mix the soup in a food processor with chives, marjoram, and sour cream. garnish it with pumpkin seeds, parsley, and pumpkin seed oil.  guten appetit (as the austrians say)!

ingredients for pumpkin casserole:

- two layers of puff pastry

- six eggs

- bacon

- two shallots

- pumpkin chunks

- celery root 

- mozzarella cheese

- butter

chop the bacon and shallots in small pieces and saute them together until there's no fat left on the bacon. saute the celery root chunks and pumpkin chunks about ten minutes. in a bowl mix eggs, salt, pepper and the sauteed ingredients. preheat the oven to 450f and smear butter on two baking dishes. lay the puff pastry on the baking dish. pour the mix in the baking dishes and bake it for twenty to thirty minutes. add mozzarella on top and bake for another ten minutes. enjoy.

after having so much as appetizers we needed a break before starting with the main dish. we also paired most of our meal with a great dry austrian gruener ventliner. it's a very refreshing dry wine which i really enjoy with vegetarian food or lighter meals.

we recently bought a small projector and we decided to make this year's halloween a bit more scary and fun by having a movie marathon during the food feast. the only problem is that when you eat so much, you get sleepy and can't watch too many movies.:-) we should have started our party earlier but then we couldn't use the projector because it was still daylight. we have so many leftovers that we should have scary movie nights the whole next week.;-)

finally although we were so full, i served the main dish. it also took a long time to cook it. i cook rice very often but mostly persian style. this time i wanted to make a risotto, so our main dish was pumpkin risotto with baked chicken.

i salted and peppered the whole chicken with potatoes, whole carrots, onions, and rosemary and put it all in a dutch oven, in the oven. after about half hour, i added two cups of broth and let it cook for another two hours. in the meanwhile, every twenty minutes, i basted the chicken.

ingredients for pumpkin risotto:

- four small pumpkins

- six cups arborio rice

- two bottles of dry white wine

- one litre of vegetable broth 

- saffron

- three shallots

- olive oil

- nutmeg

halve the pumpkins and bake them about 40 minutes in the oven. carve the meat out and keep the skins for filling the risotto in later. peel and chop shallots and saute them with olive oil in a big dutch oven. add the pumpkin in and add salt and pepper. add one cup of rice and a cup of wine and stir. keep on adding rice and wine and broth and stiring. never let the risotto get dry. taste every now and then and adjust the amount of salt and pepper. dissolve one teaspoon of saffron in hot water and add to the mix. add a little bit of nutmeg for taste. fill the pumpkin halves with the rissoto and enjoy it with or without the chicken.

for dessert, i made some scary cupcakes and pumpkin tiramisu. i won't explain the cupcake in this post because i used the same ingredients as the cake pops i made last week.

ingredients for pumpkin tiramisu:

- six egg yolks

- one cup mascarpone cheese

- two cups espresso (cooled)

- four spoons port wine

- fourty lady fingers

- one cup heavy whipped cream

- one cup pureed pumpkin

- three spoons sugar

- one teaspoon cinammon

- one teaspoon vanilla powder

- pumpkin seeds

in a large bowl beat egg yolks and sugar until thin and pale. add mascarpone and beat until smooth. add cinammon, vanilla, whipped cream and pumpkin and mix for another two minutes. in a bowl mix port wine and espresso. dip each ladyfinger into the espresso mix for a couple of seconds and place them in small dishes for a layer. spread a layer of mascarpone mix  over ladyfingers. arrange another layer of soaked ladyfingers and top with mascarpone mix again. leave tiramisu in the fridge for a couple of hours. sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and cinammon. guten appetit!

we had so much food and our guests also brought some wonderful cupcakes that we didn't manage to eat any of the tiramisu! we need another party to eat all the leftovers! 

thanks to foodbuzz for the opportunity and looking forward to next weekends foodbuzz blogger festival.

 

 

 

 

 

kräftskiva: swedish crayfish party

we have been very fortunate to have very amazing swedish freinds in san francisco. our friendship began a couple of years ago in a very funny way when we were in costa rica on a local bus to go from one part of the country to another. we were too sleepy in the bus and this nice couple asked us where the bus is heading to and my husband was so sleepy that he said he has no idea where we are heading to ... apparently he was so sleepy that he really didn't know where we are going to! anyways during this bus ride we figured out that we all live in san francisco and since we were so sleepy we forgot to get each other's contact information. but then we were lucky enough that we went to their the place were they stayed at for dinner and we found them and that's how the friendship started. since then we have had some great get togethers for hiking, camping, skiing, eating, and just being good friends.

they have been talking about their amazing tradition of celebrating the end of the summer and crayfish season. this year they really did an amazing job and introduced this magnificent tradition to us. first of all i should say the  customary party accessories are paper hats that we had to wear, paper tablecloths, paper lanterns in crayfish shapes.:-) they look fantastic. they even printed the lyrics of traditional swedish drinking songs or snapsvisa. also as appetizer we had swedish pickled herring which is marinated very sweet but it goes very well with a savory creamy sauce on bread. as a side dish we also had a bacon quiche which swedes call it pie. it was fantastic with crayfish.

crayfish is boiled in hot water and served cold with fresh dill. its meat is a lot more tender than lobster but you have to work harder to get into it which is half of the fun. here i post an introductory video that our friends henrik and louise explain how to eat crayfish. 

every now and then you also have to have a sip of a swedish snaps. another fun part is the singing part which doesn't happen unless you have had enough snaps. the swedish schnaps reminded me a lot of the austrian ones. very herbal and dry which i really like. we also had to sing a song from the snapsvisa every now and then with our excellent swedish accent and then drink another sip. after so much eating and drinking and singing a nice princess cake was a fantastic dessert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

happy nowrouz

as i mentioned in the previous post, for the persian new year (nowrouz) we set a symbolic table called haft seen (literally seven dishes), each beginning with seen, persian letter s. the seven dishes stand for seven angelic heralds of life- rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty. the symbolic dishes consist of sabzeh, or sprouts, representing rebirth. samanu is a pudding which is made from wheat spreads that symbolizes given new life in a transformed shape. sib means apple and represents health and beauty. sensed, the sweet dry fruit of the wild olive, represents love. when the wild olive is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit makes people fall in love. sir which is garlic in persian, represents medicine. somaq, sumac berries, represents the color of sunrise. serkeh, or vinegar, represents age and patience.

other elements that start with s have been added to haft seen throughout history. books of poets represent wisdom. a few coins representing wealth. painted eggs representing fertility. an orange floating in water representing the earth floating in space. goldfish in a bowl of water represent anahita, one of the angles of water and fertility. hyacinth or narcissus, pomegranates, figs, and olives, representing time. the candles represent enlightenment and happiness. the mirror represents the images and reflections of creation as we celebrate anew the ancient persian traditions and beliefs that creation took place on the first day of spring, or nowrouz.

 

 

 

 

the traditional menu for nowrouz gathering on the day of equinox usually includes fish and herbed rice. it's believed that they bring good luck and prosperity in the year that lies ahead. i made our wn haft seen but i didn't need to cook for nowrouz since we were invites to my cousin and had a delicious norouz meal with my cousins. 

nowrouz preparations

in harmony with nature, persians celebrate the rebirth of the earth on the first two weeks of spring. on the day which may occur on march 20th or 21th the sun crosses the celestial equator. nowrouz ceremonies consist of series of symbolic rituals dating back to ancient persia (about 18th century BCE.) a  few weeks before nowrouz iranians do spring cleaning and rearrange their homes, bake pastries, and germinate seeds as symbol of renewal. i started with germinating mung beans, wheat, and lentils. mung beans and lentils grow much faster than wheat. so next year i have to start wheat earlier. i'll keep you updated on how my experiment is doing every couple of days. as you can see on the picture i first soaked them in water for a couple of days and changed the water daily that it doesn't smell. then removed the water and spread the seeds on big plates. first covered them for a couple of days with a wet towel for another two days. the moisture of the towel and the darkness helps the sprouts come out faster. then remove the towel and leave them in a warm and bright place, preferably sunny. water them daily, but not too much, only sprinkle with water till they grow. i know keeping these greens for so long is only a tradition for persians but also the sprouts are tasty and you don't have to wait long if you like to enjoy eating them or adding them in to salad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i'm also going to talk about haft seen(literally seven dishes setting, each one beginning with the persian letter seen) in a couple of days but before that i still have to talk about another ingredient i prepared for nowrouz. on the same table as haft seen, people place seven special sweets, because according to 3000 year old legend, king jamshid discovered sugar on the day of nowrouz. (even the word candy comes from the persian word for sugar, qand.) i made one of these seven sweets which is almost the persian version of marzipan. we call it tut, which literally means white mulberries.  

ingredients:

- two cups almond
- one teaspoon ground cardamom
- one cup sugar
- half a cup rosewater
- one tablespoon orange-blossom water
- one cup confectioners' sugar
- two tablespoon slivered pistachios or almonds 

in order to get the fresh taste i soak the almonds for a couple of hours in water and then peel them. then mix them with cardamom and sugar in a mixer. slowly blend in the rosewater and orange blossom water. stir until you get a soft dough. add more almonds if the dough doesn't stick together. take a small spoonfuls of dough and shape into white mulberries. roll each in sugar and insert a sliver of almond or pistachio as a stem. i also colored some of the dough with some green food coloring to make it look more springy. you could also enjoy it on st. patrick's day.:-) arrange on a serving platter and enjoy it with a cup of cardamom tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

persian barley soup

this is one of my favorite wintery soups. i loved it specially after a long day of skiing in the cold. ingredients:

- one onion

- two cloves of garlic

- one cup of barley

- two carrots

- half a celery root

- one lime

- one lemon

- salt and pepper

- one cup of chopped fresh parsley

- two tablespoons sour cream

- zest of lime to garnish

in a dutch oven brown the onion and garlic in some olive oil, then add the barley, salt and pepper and saute for a few minutes. if you want it to cook faster leave the barley in water over night.  add four cups of water and bring it to boil. add the celery root. cover and reduce heat and simmer for an hour, stirr every fifteen minutes. turn the stove off and then add carrots and sour cream. stir and add lime and lemon juice, parsley, and lemon zest to garnish. taste, add more salt and pepper or lime juice. nousheh jahn!

 

yalda the longest night of the year

happy yalda! tonight is the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. it was amazing that this great night was combined with a lunar eclipse last night. 

we persians celebrate yalda by getting together, eating fruit and nuts, and reading poems all night. we are supposed to stay up all night to feel the longest night of the year. the main fruits for yalda are the last summery fruits which are watermelon, pomegranate, and dried fruits and nuts.

yalda is has very ancient origions in persian myths. the longest darkest night that ended with the morning which is the birthday of mitra ( the goddess of light.) 

coconut cookies: nan-e nargili

i'm mixing persian culture with some austrian touch and make some american christmas cookies. every time i make cookies in the middle of it i think: what was i thinking?!!! it's so time consuming and tiring but when the cookies are ready and the whole house smells like cookies, i don't regret baking them at all. the worse part is that i don't like cookie cutters and i use my hands to make them really hand made which takes a lot of time. i guess if you are an amateur like me in order to have less regrets you'd better use a couple of cute cookie cutters to save some time and nerves.

 
ingredients:

- one egg

- two cups sugar

- one vanilla fruit

- one cup butter

- two cups dried grated coconut

- two tablespoons ground pistachios for decoration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
first clean a counter properly and dry it. mix the egg, sugar, vanilla and add the flour gradually while mixing. fold the coconut and butter in gently and keep on mixing with hands. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

take the vanilla powder out of the fruit with a knife and add it to the mix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

preheat oven to 350F. butter the baking plate and make small balls or other shapes with cookie cutter. add one piece of pistachio to each cookie to decorate. bake about twenty minutes in the center of the oven. nousheh-jahn!