Happy Halloween

I wish you all a very Happy Halloween! May it be a scary one! :)

Our carved pumpkins - yes, I'm very proud of them!

Have a good time everyone!

january cupcake cooks: Super Special Awesome Pumpkin Soup

Well, just in case you don't like pumpkins please skip this post! :)

Eh? Hallo? Where did you all go?

So, this is a recipe I absolutely love and often cook during pumpkin season. My family always asks me to make it once more so I suppose it can't be that bad! :)

You need

4 kg pumpkin
2 roughly chopped onions (medium sized)
125 g good butter
2 cinnamon sticks
1 star anise
1 clove
1 finely chopped jalapeno pepper (without seeds)
chopped, fresh ginger (optional)
grounded black pepper
~ 1,7 l vegetable broth

Note: If you don't like spicy food leave the ginger and the jalapeno pepper out!

Yes, I know, the ginger is missing and that isn't a jalapeno pepper but my stomach has been a bit skittish lately so I skipped them this time.

1. Melt butter in pan and add onions, cinnamon sticks, star anise, cloves and jalapeno.
2. Close pot with lid and cook gently for about fifteen minutes.
3. Add pumpkin and simmer for another fifteen minutes.
4. Add chicken broth and let cook for another hour (until the pumpkin is soft boiled).
5. Remove cinnamon sticks, star anise and clove.
6. Use a hand-held blender or if available a kitchen aid - YAY - and homogenise everything.
7. Use black pepper, nutmeg and salt to season to taste.
8. Add cream sherry to taste and serve with sprinkles of pumpkin seed oil on top and a few roasted pumpkin seeds (not the one you removed from your pumpkin! :)).

Do you know "Vom Fass"? I love this shop, you can find it in almost every city here in Germany and they are always really well stocked. I bought my Cream Sherry there. :)
On a side note: You can imagine my suprise when I walked through Harrods and they had a little "Vom Fass" shop. I think it was on the ground floor ...

Bon Appétit! <3

See you all very soon!

Shakespeare within one's reach

I'm still not well again and mostly sleep my days away but I thought I could share some impressions of my visit to Stratford-upon-Avon last April with you that I found accidentally in my unstructured picture folder. It was a beautiful day and really warm and sunny.

Welcome to Stratford-Upon-Avon

The Avon

Holy Trintiy Church

The beautiful cemetery

Inside Holy Trinity Church

To clear things up, we didn't just stomp inside and disturbed the baptism, we asked first if we were allowed to visit Shakespear's grave and were encouraged to do so. Although I'm not the most religious person ever I do have some respect.

Shakespeare's birth house

Fascinating

 

I can't remember how those sweets are called but what I do remember is that they tasted like soap. Although I can't help the feeling that's how they're supposed to taste. Nevertheless the shop we bought them at was very nostalgic and pretty. :)


What can I say? I miss this time!


Have a great weekend!

Shakespeare, Emma Thompson & Kenneth Branagh

All three can only mean one thing - I'm sick. So I settle down for another horrible night and trust in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing and Bad Heilbrunner's Fennel-Anise-Caraway-Tea to cheer me up.
The day Emma Thompson as Beatrice and Kenneth Branagh as Benedikt fail to lift my mood the world must come to an end! *says in theatrical voice*

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I hope your week is better than mine!

Schubiduu

Well, it was raining all day long and I was bored. So I did a little online shopping and yesterday my goodies arrived. :) I'm quite proud of myself since I was so well behaved and only ordered the two things that I really needed! *cough*

So here we go!

* MAC Hue Lipstick - I solely got that because of Kelly of kelanjo and I'm already in love with it. Really nice colour and I think it'll match my skin tone in autumn perfectly.
* ANNY Mystic Rouge nailpolish - I wanted a very dark red and I'm not disappointed. It's opaque in two coats and almost looks like black but you can see the red tone in the light.


BUT now the weather is "perfect" again, cold and sunny! :)

Since I had to travel 7 hours down from the North to the South last weekend I got a little treat to cheer me up during the long train journey. It's a chocolate bat lollipop! It's perfection - well, it was until I ate it! My inner child was really happy! <3

Have a nice evening and a great week!

Good times

Last Saturday some of my closest friends (of course this includes my sisters) and I went to a wine tasting with a five-course meal. It took place in a stock of wine under the earth and everybody stood around cases of wine that served as tables. It was really cold down there but the food was brilliant and the wine fantastic.

I'd like to apologize for the poor pictures but I was forced to use my BlackBerry camera since the rechargeable battery of my digicam died within seconds.

Some people tried to save their glasses up on a storage rack. I don't know how they placed them there since it's about three metres high!?

It was a really casual location and freezing down there so I call this a perfect outfit.

A flannel shirt and a cashmere cardigan - you can do no wrong with that! But so many ladies were horribly dressed, short dresses, thin tights and high heels. Don't get me wrong - besides I can't walk in them - high heels dress up almost every outfit but you just don't need them in an icecold cellar and none of the women I met were able to walk in them straightforward after having tried a few different wines.

These pictures show a mob of people who just couldn't get enough. It's been so embarassing, they nearly ran down the dégustation table hence you are not able to see the table.

The catering was provided by a restaurant in Nuremberg called Sebald since it is located near a church called St. Sebaldus. I've walked past this restaurant a several times but now I'm convinced to pay them a visit as soon as possible. The head cook is a very pleasant man and during the whole evening he was in an exuberant mood and really charming.

The delicious food; I remembered to use my BlackBerry after the third course, my apologies, but be assured, no speck remained! :)

Oxtail with celery purée and glazed red onion chutney

Topfenstrudel (Austrian quark strudel) with marinated plums

We finished the evening at my parents' house with a bottle of Champagne Deutz Rosé 1985. So all together you can call it a perfect weekend! :)

How is it my BlackBerry camera takes so bad pictures in light and in the dark with flash the pictures are quite good? I have absloutely no clue!


Here's to a fabulous weekend!