This is my fourth year I am sharing the foods of the year. I have no idea how it started but it sure is interesting … at least for me – how things change or what doesn’t much. It is a different kind of journaling maybe. Some meals trigger memories and happy outings looking back at the photos.
A little note because you may wonder. I usually don’t eat in the morning. I even rarely have a cup of coffee these days as I still try the this intermittent fasting thing. So at times it is black coffee, sometimes tea and others just glass of water. Then I head into my office (I work from home most days) with a jug of tea. Around 1pm is usually the time I eat a breakfast/lunch.
Breakfast Options
Usually my breakfast is bread with cheese and some sort of (vegan) meat cuts. Mainly when the husband is in the home office (Mo & Fr) and when we have some bread left that needs to be eaten. If I am totally free in eating what I prefer it is often porridge with fruit. Here you see the blueberry version with coconut for summer. In winter I tend to do them with apples and cinnamon. Or I do a load of fruits, grains, nuts and greek yoghurt. Every once in a while it gets fancy and I serve myself some avocado bread with poached eggs, a grilled cheese sandwich or eggs sunny side up.
Dinner Options
Home cooked meals
Most days I cook. Do I like it? Not so much. It is more a chore than a time to relaxe and enjoy it to be honest. But at least the days I am on my own I can eat things the husband would not.
Top left is a simple but yummy dish – black salsify with mashed potatoes. You can buy them pre-cooked in a jar. I just put some butter in a pan, heat them and add salt and pepper. Black salsify is also called the asparagus of the poor.
On the right hand I tried some new dish. Since I can’t quite remember what is was – I think some cottage cheese tortilla version – it must have not been very good. Won’t do it again I think.
Can you see the red onions on my hot dog? These are some pickled onions I made for Easter and I loved them. The hot dog tastes amazing … I am not a huge fan but the husband loves them and they are quickly made – and I am sad I don’t have these pickled onions available at all times. I should make some more.
The bottom row shows some staples in our household and will be cooked on weekends mainly.
Left some sort of meat and potatoes and for me added asparagus. The middle is our vegan schnitzel with potatoes and pea and carrots. The gravy is an instant gravy though. I can’t for the life of it not do gravy. It’s a kitchen fear because it either tastes terrible or its lumpy. The right side is the regular fish fingers with mashed potatoes which usually are served with some cucumber salad but in this photo it’s carrots that need to be used. I rarely eat the fish fingers but have a piece of salmon.
And then another regular thing is pasta. This year I made the effort to try new pasta dishes since we cannot eat spaghetti with pesto every week.
Top left Käsespätzle “cheese spaetzle” with side salad. The middle shows a different kind of spaetzle with meat loaf. That was really tasty. The top right shows a typical migraine dish. Spaghetti with tuna, onions and here added some peppers so it’s fancy.
On the bottom left you see a pasta dish with peas I had never done before. It was only okays so won’t be showing up much in the future. The bottom right is also a staple specially when I want to serve dinner quickly tortellini with tomato basil sauce (store bough) or usually some sort of cream cheese/pesto sauce.
And the this summer there was the cool bloggers summer salad challenge. I had some really fun new to me salads. I won’t get into detail today since I had a big recap but I think one salad that really was outspending was the third row their age from the left – avocado grapefruit salad. I think I got the recipe from Julie… maybe it was Melissa. Either way it was amazing and I will definitely make next summer. The worst salad I had was right next to it on the right an brokkoli blueberry salad. Raw broccoli is just utterly disgusting and very American. I know no German (European?!) who eats broccoli raw.
After a challenge is before the next challenge and so we are right into the cool bloggers soup challenge. I have had some soup already but just getting stared. My go to quick tomato soup got spruced up with fried tofu in the bottom left. The top middle was a left over veggie soup with broccoli stems from the freezer and I added some potatoes and carrots and season with tarragon. Top right hand a smash up of three soup recipes I had saved on Pinterest – a spicy chickpea veggie soup that is very yummy. And which I will have eaten three days in a row when this post goes up. I think I share the recipe.
The bottom left is an asparagus soup. I tried something new and added wild rice but think I prefer it plain. Can you tell that I am not very good in doing a roux? Same struggle I have with gravy… Bottom middle is another version of my tomato soup with mozzarella and here added some home grown sorrel leaves. And of course the famous German Potatoe Soup.
Ordering In & Eating Out
All these foods. I mainly order in sushi or a sushi bowl when I am alone. With the husband it’s burgers or a pizza. But we rarely ordered in this year. The bottom left was my mom’s birthday dinner Zander with chanterelles, a schnitzel on one of our date days.
The bottom right may be the best dish I had this year. It was a fish soup from the hospital canteen. I am not joking! I work for a hospital that has a very interesting nutritious concept and focuses on food as part of medicine. For that they only serve meat twice a week and try to buy as much local and organic foods. This dish I needed to shoot for the website and when we were done they said we could eat it or they would have to throw it out. I gobbled it up. The recipe is on the hospital website but in German. If I ever make this soup (it needs three sorts of fish) I share it. Top right is another hospital dish – I eat there when I am on site and make it an event because the food is so good and health! Here you see some grains with root veggies and sour cream.
Alright you turn: What is the most delicious looking dish you can find in the images? Is there something you would never touch? One dish you would love to try? Did you ever eat black salsify? Do you eat a dish every week? What’s your favorite pasta recipe? Should we do a Cool Bloggers Pasta challenge next?
