Birthday Bonanza

We're well into birthday season here in the Expatemma household.  It runs from late August through til the beginning of November - but October is the real bonanza month - I think there are eight this month.  Now of course, birthdays mean lots of things - but here, there's a lot of importance placed on cake.....  yup you guessed it, more baking fun!!

Well celebrating a 65th birthday this year, you do really need to pull out all the stops - and this included a surprise weekend away for the birthday boy who was lucky enough to share this milestone with his family all together in Deutschland.

Cake wise, I'd been inspired by tinnedtomatoes when I saw this fantastic After Eight cake on her blog - and it was yummy....  a moist, tower of a concoction with peppermint buttercream, chocolate buttercream - and topped off with after eights..... yummy!

You can find the recipe here it's very easy to do and you get a fantastically light and moist cake from the very runny batter you end up with - it does work so although it looks far too runny to be a cake keep with it!

I split the said batter into three tins and we went from this:

to this:

The buttercream is my usual 1:2 recipe - 250g butter well whipped on its own with 500g icing sugar - followed by whatever flavourings you fancy - in this case a few drops of peppermint essence in the white icing and a very generous shake or three of cocoa powder for the chocolate.

The resulting cake was a tower of lusciousness, very moist yet light and airy - and lots and lots of icing - just right to celebrate with some well chilled Sekt!

More cake to be constructed later in the week too as we are finally (only about 6 weeks after the event - well I suppose we can't be accused of binging bad luck on him by doing it early...) holding Son#1's birthday party - his requested 'sinking of the Titanic' might be a bit beyond me but no doubt something suitably nautical will be produced..... fingers crossed it meets with approval!  Watch this space....

Leftover Lunches #1

I'm not really a recipe cook - not by a longshot.  Yes I may have many, many well-thumbed cookbooks - but they're more for food porn -lusting over the lovely glossies - and general inspiration.

A, on the other hand is a confirmed recipe cook (he can't abide Nigel Slater for his vagueness of recipe for example) and whilst he does enjoy cooking, it is very much to the letter.

I am often left therefore with a random assortment of half-used items in the fridge - think half-tins of random ingredients (artichokes/roasted peppers/exotic spice mixes) or half used vegetables etc.  This is where the inspiration for today's post has come from - and I hope for it to become an ongoing theme on my blog.

Leftover Lunches.  Pretty much what it says - I only need to cook for me at lunchtime as the Kindling and A are taken care of elsewhere - so here's today's offering:

I found - two marinated artichoke hearts, a couple of spoonfuls of creme fraiche (at the bottom of a pot!), some small strips of filo pastry and half a pack of feta.

Added to that with some store cupboard faithfuls (frozen spinach* and oregano - my most favouritist herb) and we have: Feta, artichoke and spinach parcels.

What I did: mix a small bowl of chopped defrosted spinach with the artichoke and creme fraiche, place a generous spoonful (or 2) in the middle of a cross of filo (4 strips in total 2 on top of the other) and then add some crumbed feta on top and a good sprinkle of oregano.  Fold the strips in to make parcels, then brush with olive oil and baked till golden.

*Frozen spinach as it's generally quite difficult to source fresh spinach here. No popping to the supermarket and being certain of there being a bag of baby spinach in the salad section - oh no - it's a real buy it when you see it type of thing here as you can never be sure when the fresh stuff will be next available.  

Oops - what have I let myself in for?

Now, I'm fairly generous with my time and have a habit of volunteering.  I don't work (well - not for money in a real job or anything....am a stay-at-home mummy which in itself is a full time occupation and then some) so don't mind signing up or things, joining things or generally helping out when I can or when someone asks.

One of my expat friends here - Kettwigefrau - had this idea (not sure if it was inspired or completely crazy but that's another debate) that we expat ladies should gather a team together to enter the Dragonboat racing section of our local regatta which is held in the middle of October.  Well, swept along by a wave of  (quite probably drunken) enthusiasm, we've a team - and a boat - and are entered to take part.... yikes!

Now of course, this isn't being taken tooooo seriously, we're out to have a good time, winning of course preferred too!  And as you would expect, a great deal (and I mean GREAT deal) of debate and planning has gone into our team name (Puff's Power Girls - from 'Puff the Magic Dragon' - geddit?) and of course our team strip (no we're not stripping.....but have a fabulous outfit dahhlings) so we're dayglo pink wigs, tutus over thermal leggings (well this is water, in October, in Germany) and a logo'd hoodie - we will be some sight to behold I imagine - never ones to blend into the background.

Whilst we're not taking this as seriously as we are probably expected to, it has been suggested to us that we ought really to do at least some training - given that none of us have actually Dragon-boated before it's probably a very valid point.  This brings us to today and at 2pm, Puff's Power Girls (and associated spouses, children, animals and various other hangers-on) will convene somewhere on the Ruhr near Mulheim to have a trial.  Now there are some slight issues here - of course not everyone can make it (par for the course) and we're training in a 20man boat whereas we'll be racing as a 10(wo)man crew - so we've had to borrow some extra rowers (think Husbands) so who knows how it will translate into the real thing..... but at least we'll vaguely know what we're meant to be doing - in theory anyway!

Very generously, another fellow rower has opened her house for us to convene at afterwards for the post-training debrief.....I mean drinks/food/chat on the understanding that we all bring something for the Tisch. 

Oh - look the blog's, morphed into food again....

My contribution for this is a Peach and Marsala Meringue Pie.  Loosely based on Delia's pile-it-high-orange-and-rhubarb-meringue-pie (from her Summer Collection recipe book) - I had some peaches left over and thought it would be a lovely end of summer dish.... let's hope the weather holds for us today.

I took Delia's recipe but made the following alterations:

Crust: - I used wholemeal flour, all butter and added a tablespoon of sugar.

Filling: peaches with a couple of tablespoons of Marsala and a shake of icing sugar.  No oranges - and made the custard from the peach/Marsala juice with some extra apple juice for volume.  Only used about 3tsps of cornflour and used 4egg yolks.

And the proof is in the eating as they say - so we'll find out later!

Can you ever have too many books?

I often think that when you go into a house and you can't see any books that there's something wrong with those that live there - how can there be no books?  In my experience, you just need to let a couple into your life and before you know it, you're over-run with books, on shelves, windowsills, the stairs, in piles all over.

Now I admit - I'm an incurable bookworm.  That coupled with my hoarding instincts mean that I (almost) never get rid of a book - I frequently reread my collection - I love those familiar friends that favourite books become - almost like a member of the family.  I often feel quite bereft when I come to the end of a good book and wait with baited breath for the next instalment.

My book collection is fairly eclectic and all encompassing, from Kipling to Jilly Cooper, Homer to Jeffrey Deaver - there's something for everyone and every occasion there.  But my two big passions book-wise are trashy thrillers (think Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs and Jeffrey Deaver) and Cookbooks (of which I must have over 150 - possibly too many if you can indeed have too many books....).

Living in Germany, it's not quite as easy to pick up good reads as in the UK.  Yes, the big bookstores do all have a selection of English books -in English, and of course you can order online.  But books bought here in Germany are a lot more expensive than in the UK - and of course when ordered online you have to wait for delivery.  I'm not a very patient person and whilst delivery times are generally not too bad you can guarantee the one time you want something like yesterday it takes eons to arrive!

The Kindle has come to Germany too.  We've had ours for a few years now and I have to admit to not being it's biggest fan.  First off we had trouble linking accounts and couldn't buy from Amazon.co.uk due to our geographical location - so have to buy via the states which meant paying in dollars which meant paying commission etc.  Now we're linked to Amazon.de as that's our 'local shop' so to speak which is fine, but again the price differential between the UK and here is quite surprising.  Whilst I am using the Kindle more, it won't ever take over from the real thing for me - something about the way a book sits in your hand, how an old book smells - or it's pages and spine are worn speaks to me so much more than a machine does - and quite frankly the page size on the Kindle is not big enough so I seem to  be forever turning pages..... it does not make for a happy reading experience.  And I daren't take it into the bath with me - and as that's where I do a fair amount of reading - well a real book is still the one I want.

Now, what I have found here in Germany is a great little English language book-exchange site where you can list your unwanted books, and earn tokens to swap for other books on the same site (they don't have to be listed by the person who wanted your old books.)  This site - Bookswapper - is worth a look for those readers living in Germany and wanting English books.  I just love the idea of a book that I no longer want (which I'll admit are not many) going to another good home, rather than just cluttering up my limited bookshelves.

The other great thing about books is reading something so completely outside of your comfort zone -  and enjoying it, thus opening up a whole new section of literature that you'd never come across before.  I belong to an English Book Club (well it's more of a wine club but that's a whole other post....) and through them I've found Ken Follett who's Pillars of the Earth series I  loved (his next series is on my Christmas wish-list!) and even tried (and failed with) Terry Pratchett - someone who I'd never have spontaneously read at all.   Talking about our recent reads and hearing how other people have visualised and interpreted a book just broadens the enjoyment of the book for me - it's a shame we only meet once a month!

So can you ever have too many books?  I think not (even if you only use them as doorstops....!).  Passing on my love of reading to my children is I think one of the greatest gifts I can give them and I do hope they inherit the bookworm gene (otherwise goodness only knows what will happen to all the books we have here....)