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!

Food - US-ian cooking

Heya peeps! I continue my endeavors of trying various dishes of the US-ian cuisine and make them in a clean eating and healthier version where possible. For one because I do love and miss the US and secondly because I like to broaden my horizon and choice of menus for the family. So - what could be more American than oven baked Mac & Cheese? Querying Pinterest yielded a couple of recipes and I went with one that promised a "healthy low-cal version that doesn't taste like cardboard". Sadly the nutritional values and calories didn't add up (meaning they cheated or left out some crucial ingredients in their calculations) AND it didn't come out right as the proportions didn't work out the way they should. Too late I consulted "The Joy Of Cooking", which I bought during my summer vacation - including a set of proper measuring cups - and didn't trust my experience and gut feeling. While the dish didn't come out bad per se it was kind of bland and not worth the effort. Next time I'll try a different recipe/approach as this is a dish I really Want To Get Right :-)

As to a successful result - when searching for American family dish recipes, Pinterest came up with a suggestion for quick teriyaki chicken which sounded too good to be true. I'd given a few sweet & sour chicken recipes a try over the years but it never came out quite right so I thought "well, why not". Know what? This thing is perfect. And quick. And easy. And "clean eating". And low cal. Color me impressed and my belly full - I sadly didn't take any pictures as it was made and eaten way too fast. Sorry! :-)

Several American friends of mine suggested various dishes upon my inquiry for recipes and one that has popped up often is meat loaf. I did check with JOC and io behold, it's very similar to the Austrian/German "Faschierter Braten" which I have made a couple of times and my family loves. Guess what's for dinner tomorrow evening? Side dishes will be an US/Austrian mix I guess, thinking of something along the lines of mashed sweet potato and peas... Lunch will have me try vegetarian pizza quesadillas filled with lots of delicious veggies - I used whole wheat tortillas for my lunch wraps in summer and my kids have been begging me to try them as well. Whole grains + veggies + fun for the kids filling the things for themselves = WIN! (or so I hope, wish me luck)

Seriously - healthy food is so much fun and so much better than pre-processed crap. And if you stock your pantry right, it doesn't take much extra time. Give it a try, it's worth it. Your body will thank you for it, too...

Food - Experiments in (healthy) carbs

Throughout the last couple of months I found that eating low-carb works out great for me. The amount of carbs I do eat I try to make "healthy" ones, as in whole grain and substituting wheat for other kinds of grain. Spelt has become rather popular around here so here go (in no particular order) my "experiments":

Whole grain spelt flour pancakes

Pancakes for a weekend's delicious breakfast. I've got this recipe from Celia Brooks Brown's book "International Vegetarisch". I substituted the flour for whole grain spelt flour on a 1:1 basis and it worked like a charm. The whole family loved the pancakes, each of them with their own favorite topping - be it blueberries (mine) or maple syrup or even Nutella *shudder* (out of a various number of reasons).

Whole grain spelt flour pancakes & blueberries

Whole grain wheat & spelt flour burger buns

The recipe for those buns comes from Hannah Frey's "Clean Eating" cookbook.  Again, substitute (parts of) the flour and maybe add some more liquid and you're off fine! For the beef patties I used one of Jamie Oliver's recipes, which turned out great for the adults but sadly were somewhat heavy on the pepper and too spicy for the kids. I sadly did not notice as I had lots of Jalapeños on my burger (I love love love hot/spicy food!) and will try to make better next time.

Whole grain wheat pizza dough

The ultimate family test/recipe? Pizza dough... I love the recipe I found on chefkoch.de a while back. It's pretty simple and straight forward and as my experience taught me only needs minor adjustments to work with whole grain flour. The original recipe asks for 450gr of flour which you can reduce by up to 1/10th and add a little bit more water to get a smooth texture. The rest? Just as noted, 200°C and 20-25mins in the oven. For my personal taste it worked like a charm. If you like your pizza what I call American style - use the indicated amounts and roll out the dough to the size of one big baking pan. If you like it Italiano - divide into two equal parts, roll out thin and make two pizzas (which I will try next time as my kids prefer the latter version).

Healthy breakfast

Last but not least - I found my favorite breakfast in the shape of Overnight Oats. Again inspired by Hannah Frey the perfect mixture for my taste consists of:

• 50gr of Muesli (Ja Natürlich! Basis Müesli)
• 10gr of chia seeds
• 200gr of low-fat plain yoghurt (Ja Natürlich! 1%)
• 60gr of frozen berries

On the evening before mix müesli, seeds and yoghurt together, top with frozen berries, close container and store in the fridge. In the morning - take container, mix it all through and enjoy. Easy as that! <3

Spelt oat porridge

My son in particular loves this recipe for breakfast on the weekends. Again it's one of Celia Brown Brooks' recipes from the "Clean Eating" cookbook which I changed to my taste. Instead of the blueberries she mentions I coarse-grate half of an apple into the porridge and add some cinnamon - instant healthy warm cozy comfort food!

There's more to come, so stay tuned :-)

Side-note - I'm trying not to push those dietary changes/restrictions onto my family as I'm aware that kids do need different nutrients than an adult, particularly an aerobic-nut who tries to melt the last pieces of unhealthy/uncomfortable body fat... What I'm happy about, though, is that my kids ask to try all the things I make/cook for myself and even have declared some of it to be their kind of comfort and/or favorite food, e.g. the spelt porridge for my son <3