You know it's fall when...

...Gina breaks out her knit work and starts trying various new things cooking- and baking-wise :-) But first things first. I tried the Vegetarian Pizza Quesadillas last time and they were a big success. This recipe - do it the vegetarian way or add some thinly sliced ham or whatever tickles your fancy - has moved up to my go-to list for quick, delicious dishes. So what else happened since the last time I posted? I gave the following new-to-me recipes a try (in no particular order):

• Healthy Pumpkin Zucchini Chocolate Chip Bread
• French Toast
• Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies 

The bread is incredible - moist, full of flavors and super delicious! French Toast suprised me with its nutrition values. I use Ja! Natürlich Mehrkorntoast, which is a whole grain toast variety that's available here, plus the classic Joy of Cooking recipe. I always thought it was a high-cal high-sugar thing - it's not! Also it's quick and easy, and my kids loved it. Definitely a weekend breakfast favorite. As for the cookies... My daughter isn't very fond of all things coconut (to put it mildly) and wolfed them down. Any questions? ;-)
What I'm planning to try next (tomorrow) is Mexican Chicken Quinoa Casserole - interesting insofar as it's a "first" in using black beans. Around here you only get them in the dried version so I'm making a very rough conversion of amount, I'm curious how it will turn out (and if my family will eat it ;-) ).

On a tangent - why does everyone seemingly shy away from recipes that have "healthy" in their name/description? I love having food that's good for my body and tastes great - healthy doesn't automatically have to mean bland or boring!?!?!? OK, end of rant...

A favorite go-to recipe when fall is in full force, showing its beautiful colors is what I dubbed the "Family Fruitbread" recipe which actually stems from my coworker Christian's grandmother if I can remember correctly. It's one of the best I've tried, a great mixture of spices, lusciously moist fruit and tasty nuts and flours. So without further ado...

Fruitbread aka Apfelbrot

500g apples, coarsely grated (about 3 medium sized ones, Gala will fit just fine)
170g dried figs, chopped up into small pieces
80g raisins
100g walnuts or pecan nuts, coarsely chopped up
160g demerara (brown) sugar
80g sour cream
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
4cl rum
170g spelt flour (whole grain)
80g rye flour
1.5 tsp baking flour
1 egg (large)
0.5 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/390°F. Prepare a loaf pan, butter the inside and lightly coat with flour. Mix the fruits with rum, cover and let soak over night. Mix flours with baking soda and spices, blend egg, sour cream and salt, put all ingredients into a big bowl and stir until evenly mixed. Pour into the loaf pan, bake for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/350°F and bake another 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Yields 14 slices - nutrition values (per slice):
Calories - 228kcal
Fat - 6.5g
Carbs - 38.3g
Protein - 4.1g

As always, if you find errors in this recipe or find that my terminology/vocabulary isn't right please feel free to mail me with suggestions for improvement!

State of the Gina

Heya people!

My craft projects have somewhat been hibernation during the summer as I focused on working out quite extensively - up to six times a week - and trying to keep my diet balanced. Now as the days are getting shorter, weather's been changing for my favorite season and I feel a little bit like cocooning at home - plus I'm starting to wear lots of my knitwork - my focus is again shifting. And as a cold has me knocked out at home at the moment I even find time to blog again...

Where did I leave off? I'm still working on the mid-calf length black coat for myself. I started another beaded shawl with a pattern off Boo Knits for my Mom which should have been done by Mother's Day (oooooops) and I have some small things going like a simple cowl which I took with me on the plane as I spent a few days in Berlin for LinuxConf Europe last week, or like some socks for my son.

Speaking of Berlin I met a whole lot of amazing people and one of them (hi Carol!) commented on how she liked my Dragonfly Shawl and if I would make something like this on commission? I was kind of surprised as nobody had asked me such a thing before... We're now in the process of figuring out the pattern and colorways and then I'm off into my first project like this! I'm so much used to making things for myself and my loved ones that I rarely get to think outside the box aka colorways I love - this should be fun!

So, what else... I have advanced into the "don't eat crap" territory enough that I've started to swap ingredients for recipes on the fly and am making up new recipes on the go that fit my needs. A book that has helped me tremendously with understanding nutrition and changing diet accordingly for me was Jillian Michaels' "Master Your Metabolism" - I heartily recommend it if you want to understand how your body works when it comes to hormones and nutrition and how you can best influence your body food-wise.

I have further ventured into US-ian cooking, finally caved in and ordered some proper measuring cups which make life a lot easier. I also acquired "The Joy Of Cooking" and will try to make good use of it - I'm thinking of doing a Thanksgiving menu this year with a few of the usual dishes that go with it - wish me luck! :-)

Last but not least I'm leaving you with a recipe for some muffins I whipped up last night. I had a craving for the typical spices of fall, wanted something a little sweet yet savory and not too unhealthy. It's a recipe heavily modified from one of the muffin cook-books I have so I have no qualms posting it...

Oh, and as I'm no English native speaker and my kitchen vocabulary is still a little sketchy please feel free to send me corrections/hints for improvement - the various ways to contact me can be found here. Thank you!

Healthy Breakfast Muffins

100g dried fruits (dates, figs, apricots)
200g + 1 tbsp flour
100g bran flakes
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg (organic)
100g demerara sugar or maple syrup
80ml neutral oil (e.g. sunflower seed)
250g buttermilk

Caveat - I use wholegrain spelt flour for almost anything these days, as it soaks up fluids roughly as much as regular flour. If you want to use wholegrain wheat flour you might want to reduce the amount to 10% less as the muffins will probably get too dense/dry.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C/360°F (160°C/320°F if you have a convection oven), prepare muffin baking pan accordingly.

Blend the dried fruits and the 1 tbsp of flour and set aside (this went pretty badly at my first try but I managed to save the recipe in the end, see below ;-) ). Lightly crush the bran flakes, mix with flour, baking powder and ground cinnamon in one bowl.

In another bowl combine egg, maple syrup, oil and buttermilk and mix until well blended. Add the dry fruit mixture (this had formed a hard lump so I tossed the fruit into the liquid mixture and used my hand blender to make this work) and then add the flour mixture. Stir until all ingredients are properly mixed and wet but don't over-stir, fill into the muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

 

Yields 12 - nutritional values per piece:

- 200kcal
- 7,7g fat
- 27g carbs
- 4,9g protein

Food - Gluten-free you don't notice & variable muffins

What do you do if your kids (like my twins) can't decide if they want either chocolate or strawberry muffins? Right, you make choc/strawberry ones ;-)

Thanks to my favorite muffin recipe book there's a very easy to alternate basic recipe which allows catering to many different tastes. Like I wrote two days ago I made gluten-free raspberry muffins for my friends who were visiting - they turned out exceptionally delicious and you couldn't tell they were gluten-free!

Today's version was made with spelt flour, just because, and turned out great as well, if I may say so myself...

About Friday's other meal? The gluten-free pasta I used was different in taste insofar as it gave the impression of being fresh made "pasta all'uovo" which was just as nice. The white sauce (aka sauce bèchamel) - worked out like a charm with the flour mix I'd gotten (Alnavit Helle Mehlmischung). The rest was "business as usual" - the veggie sauce, the mozzarella and parmigiano... So, making gluten-free meals isn't as hard as it might sound, which surprised me a lot! Sadly, no pictures as we all went om-nom-nom-gone... :-D

While I'm at it I have a recommendation for a restaurant, if you have restrictions to your diet, be it lactose or gluten. We checked out Zum Wohl, which just recently opened its doors for the first time. Excellent (local) food and drinks, very friendly personnel, beautiful interior which invites families as well as the young hip people. Serves vegetarian as well as flexitarian food. I remember the place being a kind of shady, dark, smelly restaurant before when I lived around the corner and boy has that changed. Highly recommended - kudos to the people who run it! Oh, and also highly recommended if you DON'T have dietary restrictions ;-) I wouldn't necessarily order the Eiernockerl as they are quite different to what you might be used to - but that's just my 2ȼ...