Hi friends! It has been a week again since I updated my blog … Time just flies by, and as always when I am busy, I feel somewhat detached from real life and not being able to catch up with the things going on around me.

On Tuesday, I had my birthday (), and while I am waiting for my friend to send me the pictures she has taken, I will just show you some of the things that have happened here during the past weeks.

The trees have staged fireworks of colors …

… and then, everything in nature turned inwards and became tranquil and mellow.

For some time, there was a free place in my friend’s office at the institute, and I had the possibility to work there. It was the first time that I had this kind of office experience, and although I was a little concerned in the beginning how I would sustain several hours a day there and still have everything at hand I need eating-wise (not a problem when I work from home with my fridge, stove, and blender just a few steps away), but it went very well. It was nice to experience this separation of working and living space, and of course to have chat and food breaks with my friend.

~ office meals ~

I very quickly got into the habit of preparing meals in advance when I came home in the evening, so I would have something I could take the next day. Several of those recipes I want to post in the time to come because they were really nice, and I am actually quite surprised that I still come up with so many recipe ideas … But the more I cook, the more creative I get.

~ fresh boxes with bean stew ~

One thing that makes me happy is that my tummy is still improving, and after successfully reincorporating legumes again, I now tried brown rice for the first time in months, and this time I could eat it without getting the dagger-in-my-tummy feeling immediately afterwards – what is nice because brown rice is pretty much the only gluten-free grain I really like so far. So it seems that, due to cutting out gluten, casein, and soy protein, my body is gradually recovering, and I can eat things again that would have always been followed by heavy pain before. This does not only refer to legumes and brown rice, but also to vegetables such as kale and savoy cabbage.

Therefore, I will just go on with this kind of diet, and leave you with a couple of pictures of meals enjoyed recently.

~ roasted chicken with onions and kale ~

~ adzuki and green bean stew with winter squash and basil ~

~ lemony fish with spinach and cilantro ~

~ chicken, broccoli, and Chinese cabbage with gingered miso sauce ~

~ steamed fish with fresh tomatoes and cilantro ~

~ adzuki bean and carrot stew with cherry tomatoes and parsley ~

~ turkey and celery in herbed tomato sauce ~

~ roasted chicken, onions, and lamb’s lettuce on tomato salad ~

Do you feel that your cooking and eating has gotten much more creative since you started blogging?

I have realized that there was no food post in a while! So, it is high time to change that, and share both one of my favorite blogs and a yummy and original recipe.

~ and an awesome piece of music that sounds like high time as well ~

The blog I picked for today’s episode of the series is long overdue because Jerry is not only one of my earliest and most loyal readers and commenters, but also eats according to the Paleo diet – and unlike many Paleo or Primal eaters who follow this diet with a heavy emphasis on fatty red meat and animal fats including heavy dairy products, Jos eats a very clean Paleo diet free of dairy, rich in vegetables and healthy fats like coconut oil and avocado, and rather light animal foods such as chicken, lean beef, fish, and eggs. You can imagine that all her recipes somewhat touch a familiar ground with me.

And this is, ironically, the reason why I have not made any of her recipes so far: I went to her recipe page, opening all the recipes that seemed appealing to me in new tabs, and ended up with over 30 tabs. The amazing spectrum of seducing possibilities simply paralyzed my decision making skills.

The cruelty about decision making is that when you opt for one thing, you dismiss an array of other things at the same time. With the recipes, this was particularly hard. So there.

But finally – by applying the trick of convincing myself that there will be enough remaining lifetime to try out all her other recipes – I managed to pick a dish. The reason for my choice are threefold (without hierarchy).

First, thanks to the blog I have discovered and became a lover of coconut oil. This should not be at all underestimated, because coconut oil is one of the healthiest and most stable fats available that does not shy high temperatures and is therefore the perfect all rounder. Now, hes also is very fond of eggs, and since I still plan to incorporate more eggs into my diet, I thought this one would made a good starting point.

Second, the recipe is an adaptation of a traditional Indonesian dish she knows from her childhood, and I am a sucker for childhood dishes, especially when they can be adapted in a healthy manner.

Third, I know that I have a couple of vegetarian readers and I wanted to post a recipe that is interesting for you as well. For these reasons, I chose hardboiled egg stew to be the first recipe from her blog to try. The original dish looked like this.

This dish was a real delight. It combines the flavors of tomatoes, orange, curry, and eggs, and it is satisfying and healthy. I followed the recipe quite thoroughly this time, but put in more tomatoes. Here is my version.

ORANGE AND CURRY FLAVORED TOMATO AND EGG STEW

3 servings

Ingredients

6 eggs
1 tbsp curry powder
butter or oil
4 onions, peeled and chopped
6 tomatoes, chopped
2 oranges, juiced
1 splash of lemon juice
1/2 tsp chili flakes
salt to taste

Directions

In a pot, bring sufficient water to boil and cook the eggs until hard (about 8 minutes). During cooking, the eggs should be completely covered with water. Rinse the cooked eggs with cold water immediately – to make them easier to peel – and let cool. When the eggs have cooled down, peel them and coat them evenly with curry powder. I used about 1/2 tablespoon of curry powder for that, which I put into a bowl for the eggs to take a curry bath in. Then heat some fat in a pan and roast the curried eggs from all sides. This is for the curry spice to stick to them better.

Heat some more fat in a sufficiently large pot and sauté the onions. Add the chopped tomatoes, orange juice, lemon juice, chili, another 1/2 tablespoon of curry powder, and a little salt. Cook covered for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are done, then continue cooking openly until the liquid has reduced to the wished degree. Put in the eggs and carefully mix everything, then serve and enjoy.

Are there any blogs that make you want to cook your way through the whole recipe list? Please share!

I have done this a few times before – you can find those posts in my Blog category if you are interested – so I was thinking what more things to tell you did not know yet. Anyway, a while ago, my friend had made a post about her favorite foods and since then, I had been thinking about making a post like that myself (and did not do yet for whatever reason). This, friends, is the chance! So, curtain up for my top seven foods – just in alphabetical order because I cannot say which one I like best, and it also depends on appetite.

And since you already now that I love music, this little piece should go with it. Also, the music video has the most lovely and happy singing and dancing fruit.

* * * * *

ALMONDS

My absolute favorite nut, and also the most versatile one because almonds are not only yummy on their own, great for baking, and awesome as almond butter, but also make the most delicious nut milk, while milk from other nuts or seeds (I have made and tried hazelnut, walnut, and sesame milk by now) tends to be rather bitter. They also contain a large proportion of healthy monounsaturated fatty acids.

~ freshly made, super creamy almond milk ~

My day usually starts with making fresh almond milk from almonds I have soaked in water overnight, and then I finish off a big pot (half a liter at least) of it with black tea throughout the day.

APPLES

Apples are my favorite fruit, and if I had to pick just one fruit to eat for the rest of my life, it would be apples. I like apples that are juicy and not too sweet, and my favorite variety is Elstar which is very aromatic and does not get mealy.

But I also like other kinds such as Gloster (which is rather non-commercial and quite hard to find), Jonagored, Boskoop, Granny Smith, and Pink Crisp. Just Braeburn is not so much my cup of tea.

CARROTS

Dear carrot, you probably are my favorite vegetable, despite the rivals below. Once, I ate so many of you every day that I turned orange, and people told me that I was finally not looking so pale anymore …

For some variety, I have different cutting techniques for carrots, and which one I use depends on mood and shape of the carrots I have. My favorite is carrot tagliatelle which are a perfect substitute for pasta. For making tagliatelle, long carrots of rather even thickness along their whole length are perfect.

Short and rather thick or knobbly carrots I like to cut into slices lengthwise, like this.

Big, thick carrots are also great for making diagonal slices.

And if you have a little time and nice, not too large steel cookie cutters, it is worth the fun to make flowers or animals from them … For this, you need preferably thick carrots as well to have sufficient cut surface.

Carrots that do not come with a suitable shape for those cutting practices usually end up in smoothies or soups. So you see, we have quite the carrot science on here.

CHICKEN

Surprise, surprise! Well, I just love chicken, and I eat it once at least almost every day. I eat those skinless, boneless chicken breast filets (I do not like the skin, and since I have some washing issues, grabbing a drumstick with my bare hands and having that oily feeling and smell on my fingertips afterwards frightens me a little) that I roast in coconut oil or ghee with spices, or I marinate them to make them more flavorful. Give me chicken, and I am perfectly happy!

My love for chicken has a very old history. When I was small, I sometimes ate at a place with my parents and grandparents where they had a half roasted chicken on the menu, and I always ordered that. I did not care for the fries, I just wanted the chicken with a lot of ketchup. So, apparently I did not have washing issues back then already. Maybe I should just have that again?

RED ONIONS

Red onions are my favorite onions because they have such a wonderful, slightly sweet flavor, and they do not make me cry while cutting them like the white or brown ones do. I love to cut them into slices and roast them in the pan together with some chicken, and then have that with a sliced apple or fresh tomatoes. The best dish is one that is buried under a pile of roasted onions.

And every time I find really big red onions at a store, I am very happy. I think the organic supermarket around the corner has by far the biggest ones.

~ does anybody still believe organic vegetables were small and wrinkly? ~

TOMATOES

When I have an appetite for something fresh and savory, tomatoes are always the first choice. Cooled tomato slices with a little salt or soy sauce are umami heaven! And they are also my favorite ingredient for a quick meal when I do not have time or am in the mood for cooking: Some freshly sliced tomatoes with leftover chicken make up a bowl of yumminess in less than three minutes.

And look what I recently found at the supermarket: smiley tomatoes!

Of course I had to buy those. The package says, “I am red and sweet”, and so they were!

WINTER SQUASH

This vegetable is the one I am looking for to being season throughout the whole year! My favorite one is hokkaido squash (red kuri squash in English) which is a medium-size and very orange squash that is sold at stores over here during autumn and winter. It is very starchy and perfect for baking or in soups and stir-fries.

Thank goodness my favorite Asian food store offers kabocha and butternut squash during the whole year, so I am not squash-less in spring and summer!

* * * * *

So, there are my seven favorite foods. This was quite a hard task, and many foods I love as well – kale which is so hard to get here, adzuki beans which I have come to love recently, fish and seafood, and all those lovely herbs and spices I use for cooking a lot – remain unmentioned. Maybe I should do a post like this for just herbs and spices if I am tagged again.

So now, please tell me your seven favorite foods! Or make a post yourself and link back here so I can find it. I am excited to learn what you love!

Thanks to the richness of this year’s harvest, I am still in apple heaven. By now, I have eaten my way through almost three bowls of apples – I mean my large red spotted bowl – and there is still no end in sight.

Every now and then, I find some more apples on my door sill my neighbors have put there for me because they are happy that somebody is eating all these apples.

A surprisingly large amount of apples is finished off with smoothies or as a little afternoon meal.

~ spinach and apple smoothie ~

~ chopped apples with cinnamon and hemp seeds ~

And the rest is used for cooking. I had thought about making some kind of chicken or goulash dish with apples, but was not sure about which meat to use and how to season it. But then the Chef had the great idea to make something with pork and apples, and I immediately knew that this was going to be it and had ideas for the seasoning.

I do not eat a lot of pork, so I had not thought about that option, but it went incredibly well with the apples – the dish turned out as a wonderful combination of sweet and savory flavors, and the meat got wonderfully tender due to the rather long stewing time.

STEWED PORK AND APPLES WITH CHINESE FIVE SPICES AND CARDAMOM

4 servings

Ingredients

butter or oil
4 onions, peeled and chopped
500 g (1 lb) pork cutlets, cut into bite-sized pieces
4 apples, seeds removed and cut into pieces
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1/2 tbsp ground Chinese five spices
1 pinch of ground cardamom
1 handful of fresh basil

Directions

In a large pot, heat some fat an sauté the onions. Add the pork and roast the meat from all sides while stirring carefully, then add the apples. Fill the pot with water so everything is just covered, and bring to boil, then reduce the heat to low. Season with salt, pepper, five spices, and cardamom, and stew covered for about an hour. Serve with fresh basil and enjoy.

Do you like sweet-and-savory dishes? If yes, which one is your favorite?

Okay, so here is the first beyond-habitual dish I made with some of the apples I recently got. Since my tummy is nice these days, I thought legumes would be in order once again (and I was right – no tummy ache! ), and I opted for beluga lentils because they look so funny and I never cooked them before. These little black lentils almost look like caviar, and this is why they are called that way. (I am happy they do not taste like caviar. ) However, other lentils will work as well.

~ looks a little muddy, but this was a 100 % success ~

To make it more autumn-like, I added leek and winter squash. I used hokkaido squash which is the kind that is sold at the food stores in autumn and winter over here. It is very yummy and quite starchy, almost like sweet potato, and one of my favorite vegetables. The apples then contribute a nice crunch and freshness.

When I thought about the spices – to keep it autumn-style, it was clear that warm spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg had to go into it – I suddenly spotted the box with cocoa powder on my kitchen shelf, and I knew I had to give it a try. I now officially declare cocoa powder a new member of the favorite-spices family.

AUTUMN-STYLE BELUGA LENTILS

3-4 servings

Ingredients

butter or oil
1 big stalk of leek, cut into thin slices
400 g (14) winter squash, seeds removed and cut into pieces
1 red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed and cut into small cubes
2 cups readily cooked or canned beluga lentils (from 125 g raw lentils)
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1-2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch of ground nutmeg
1 pinch of ground cloves
2 apples, seeds removed and cut into pieces

Directions

Prepare the lentils by soaking them for a couple of hours, then draining and rinsing them thoroughly, setting them up with fresh water, and cooking them for about 40 minutes. Or use canned lentils you drain and rinse well.

In a large pot, heat some fat and sauté leek, pumpkin, and bell pepper. Cook covered on low to medium heat for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are soft (eventually add a little bit of water). Add the lentils and season with salt, pepper, cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Mix everything well. Directly before serving, add the fresh apples, then serve and enjoy.

You know that I do not eat a lot of red meat, but every now and then, I really enjoy it. Red meat used to be one the foods I did not cook for myself and only enjoyed on special occasions such as eating out (I am still not able to make a good steak, so there) or when I am cooked for by my mom. This has to do with the fact that red meat is more expensive than chicken or turkey and, in my opinion, affords superior cooking skills to turn out well.

Well, I am able to cook it, but too often it has had the texture of a shoe sole then.

~ yeah, this really looks like a challenge! ~

Anyway, my mom makes a very good goulash – so good that the meat almost melts on the tongue. Even better, she told me that it is not even difficult to make a goulash like that! The key to success is simply slow cooking for quite a long time, and the goulash gets even better every time you heat it up again.

The basic recipe is very simple: Just heat some fat, roast the meat from all sides, fill in some water until everything is covered, and let it cook down on small heat, up to three times. The longer you cook it, the better it gets. I tried this, but could not resist to add some onions, spices, and herbs – my-style, you know. And since I cannot advocate to devote such a long cooking time to just a single serving, I made several servings at once. It turned out so well! And the leftovers can be kept in the fridge or frozen for further enjoyment.

SPICY BEEF GOULASH

4 servings

Ingredients

butter or oil
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
4 onions, peeled and chopped
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp black cumin seeds
500 g (1 lb) beef goulash, cut into bite-sized pieces
salt to taste
1 tsp dried chili flakes
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

Directions

In a large pot, heat some fat and roast garlic, onions, coriander, and black cumin seeds until fragrant.

Add the goulash meat and roast it from all sides while stirring constantly. Then fill the pot with water until everything is just covered. Season with salt, chili, turmeric, and thyme.

Cover the pot and cook the goulash at low to medium heat for about one and a half hours. If the water is used up during the cooking process, refill some. In the end, the liquid should be reduced so that there is just a little sauce, but the dish is not soupy anymore. Add the parsley, serve with a nice vegetable side dish or a salad, and enjoy.

Is there a dish you have learned from your mom?

Autumn is my favorite season – not only because it brings a relief from the heat of summer (however, this year, summer was a sequence of rain days and heavy temperature swings, often in the downward direction), as well as the most wonderful colors in nature and this gentle, golden sunlight, but also because it yields the most wonderful fruit and vegetables. During the rest of the year, I usually long for all that wonderful produce that is out of season then, and look forward to autumn.

The transition from summer to autumn is marked by the beginning of the apple season. This is wonderful because apples are my favorite fruit.

In August there are the first new apples which we call “Augustäpfel” in German – those rather pale, greenish apples that want to be eaten quickly because they do not last very long.

Due to the warm spring we had this year, a rich harvest can be expected: There was an abundance of grapes, and the fruit trees bow from the amounts of plums, pears, and apples on their branches. Meanwhile, other apple varieties have ripened as well, and by the beginning of the week, my landlady has placed a big basket of windfall apples from her garden in the courtyard for everybody to take. I snatched quite an amount which I carried away in my spotted red (and favorite) bowl.

These apples are wonderful because they come with a refreshing sourness, totally unlike the little sugar bombs that are sold at the supermarkets nowadays. Admittedly, from time to time, I enjoy the sweetness of a Pink Crisp apple, but overall, I very much prefer the sour and juicy kinds. So now, I am sitting on this big bowl of apples, trying to eat my way through it. This was done in the following regards so far …

First of all, these apples make a wonderful snack.

However, they do contain some worms … This is natural, organic produce, friends! And since I am not so hardcore that I would take the risk to bite into a worm, I rather cut them into pieces before eating them.

~ naturally, lots of cinnamon have to go with it ~

And – surprise, surprise! – I also like to enjoy them in a combination with roasted chicken.

Finally, I love to add an apple to a green smoothie. (This love goes on and on and on …) Here is a recently enjoyed combo of spinach, carrots, apple, and plum.

~ looks muddy, tasted delicious ~

I already have some more (and more fancy!) ideas what to do with all those apples, but I would love to hear yours as well! So, if you were sitting on a big bowl of apples, what would you do with them?

Hi friends! I hope you all are well! You may have noticed that I was a little absent lately, not blogging as much as I used to do, but I was never away – in fact, I was here and still am, being stuck to my laptop most of the times. I am just very busy.

The past weeks looked about like this: During the weeks, I taught a couple of tutorials on multivariate statistics and latent variable modeling, some piano lessons, and worked on my thesis as much as possible, until late at night on most days, and also on the weekends. Some piano playing, cooking, taking walks, and mindfulness practices were interspersed throughout that, and every now and then, I met a friend or sat with my lovely neighbors in the courtyard for an hour or two in the evening, talking over a glass of wine.

It will always be like this from now on, but I like it. And I do not plan to abandon my blog or my lovely blogging friends, I just have to limit the time I spend on the blogsphere. However, I will not go away, and try to follow your blogs as good as I can.

Many important things are going on currently, because I am almost at the end of my studies now (maybe half a year to go still, with finishing my thesis and doing my last exams) and plan to make a PhD in social psychology afterwards. I am very serious with academia, and I feel that I belong there, but at the same time I know that it is a tricky battlefield: It is not enough to be good with what you do, but you have to be brilliant and have a good portion of luck as well as good connections if you want to hold your ground there, especially if you are a fair player. So, I am mentally preparing and upgrading my skills by reading scientific literature and gathering information. I know that I have the potential to be very good, that I can sustain hard times, and that I will have to.

Two weeks ago, I met my supervisor who was in Europe for some time and also in Heidelberg for a weekend. (He is back in New Zealand for another six months now.) He made some time for sitting down and talking extensively with me about the things I am going to face and I should be prepared for (so I will “run into disaster with open eyes at least”), my plans and my motivation behind an academic career, and how I should go on from where I am now. And he asked me whether I had written my thesis in English, which would be beneficial for publication reasons. I had not, because I was not too secure about my English skills when I started writing the first parts a couple of months ago, but this has changed thanks to blogging, so I have translated all 40 pages I had written so far into English by now.

My supervisor also recommended a few alternatives to Heidelberg for making a PhD which I should check out, and I thoroughly did and finally excluded them. I think it will be very demanding to make the PhD in Heidelberg, but the university has a very good recommendation internationally, I know the people and they know me, and I will have the possibility to work quite independently which suits me a lot – but which also means that there will be no guiding hand too much. However, this is exactly what my supervisor has prepared me for during the past year, and in retrospective, I am very thankful that he did, although it was not easy sometimes. So you see, the course for the time to come is quite set by now.

Nutrition also plays an important role in this whole picture, because I tend to react so sensitively to many foods, and there is little more having such a potential to make me feel bad, put stress on me, and weaken me, than these foods. What suffers the most when I have allergy symptoms or take a ride on the blood sugar roller coaster, next to overall well-being, are my energy levels and my ability to concentrate. So you see, figuring out my eating and sticking with that so thoroughly is not only motivated by the wish to feel better, but also by the plan to achieve and maintain my maximal performance level to sustain the work load that comes with an academic career. I see food mostly as fuel now, but this does not mean that enjoyment has to go short, as these pictures may show …

~ carrot tagliatelle and kale with scrambled eggs ~

~ carrot, plum, and almond protein smoothie ~

~ roasted chicken and pumpkin with parsley and almond butter ~

~ fresh raspberries (a very rare treat) ~

~ roasted chicken with carrots, onions, and lamb’s lettuce ~

And I also enjoy my beloved green protein smoothies on an almost daily basis. These are just the best to fuel yourself with vitamins and energy, and they are so easy and quick to prepare! I already have a vision of me being the nerd who has a blender in her office … And as you can see, I have also started to drink from jars, so I belong to the cool folks now. (It is not a Mason jar, though, so there is still room for improvement in coolness, but I may order one some day.)

~ spinach and nectarine protein smoothie ~

The next thing to do now is to finish my thesis until the end of September, because once a year, the best works are awarded with a price, and the deadline for submission is October 31th. Until then, however, it has to be corrected by both my supervisor and my second corrector, probably re-edited by me, and finally reviewed already … So there is still a lot of work to do. Please wish me luck!

Are you currently at a point in your life that calls for setting the course, or have you been lately?

Do you remember that we got a lot of grape juice from the grapes in the courtyard recently? Harvesting, pounding, and juicing the grapes is always a peculiar mixture of fun, mess, and labor. My neighbor family owns a big juice extractor, and all the good grapes go into there.

You see, this one is not at all like a convenient, electrified juice extractor, where you can just throw in whatever you want to juice, push a button, and it does all the work for you. Instead, the squeezing mechanism is activated by throwing all your body weight against the green lever that is fixed to the wheel on top of the juice extractor, and move it around horizontally. Then, the juice pours out of the tube at the bottom.

You see, it is quite the work! (And none for me, because with my messed-up elbow joint, I cannot do things like these anymore.)

After an afternoon of work, you will receive this: fresh grape juice!

And not just a small pot like this! There were so many grapes this year that we were finally sitting on more than 60 liters of grape juice that wanted to be finished off as soon as possible, because on the second or third day after extraction, it already starts to become alcoholic. (This might actually be nice, but the vine that grows in the courtyard is not appropriate for making wine – vinegar maybe – so this is not what you would want.)

So, what to do with all that juice? Of course, you could drink it, but it was so sweet that I rather wanted to stay away from that sugar-overload. Instead, I made jam.

Jamming is a great way to quickly finish off big amounts of fruit or juice, and although I do not actually eat jam, I know several people who do, and who are happy about a jar of home-made jam.

Actually, it rather became a kind of jelly because the basis of it was fruit juice, not chopped fruit. To make it more interesting, I made two different kinds: one with lemon juice and fresh mint, and one with chopped plums and nectarines. If you want to make this but cannot find any grape juice, you could also make this with other kinds of juice. I imagine blackcurrant juice would be awesome as well!

HOMEMADE GRAPE JELLY

makes a lot of jelly

Grape, Lemon, and Mint Jelly Ingredients

3/4 l (3 cups) grape juice
1 lemon, juiced (or 2 tbsp lemon juice)
500 g (1 lb) canning sugar
1 handful of fresh mint, finely chopped

Grape, Plum, and Nectarine Jelly Ingredients

350 ml (1 1/2 cups) grape juice
2 large plums, pitted and finely chopped
2 nectarines, pitted and finely chopped
500 g (1 lb) canning sugar

Equipment

jars for filling in the jelly
jelly funnel (optional, but makes things easier a lot)

Directions

In a large pot, bring all ingredients to boil – grape juice, lemon juice, and canning sugar, or grape juice, canning sugar, and chopped fruit, respectively – and cook for about 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Eventually, add the mint, then fill the hot jelly into jars immediately.

With this, a funnel helps to prevent spilling. Try to fill the jars to the brim, then close them firmly. Let them sit for a few minutes before turning them upside down.

Keep the jelly in a dark, cool place, then it lasts for about a year.

Have you ever made jam or jelly yourself?

Once a year, we have a garden party in the courtyard.

Some of you may know that I live in a kind of courtyard community: The house that hosts my apartment belongs to a complex of buildings which are arranged around a courtyard and served as a coaching inn in ancient times. Now the houses are departed into several housing units and hired out. There are 13 or 14 apartments now (some have been put together recently, so I am not absolutely sure) and about 30 people who live here, me included. The age range goes from 11 months to over 70 years, and the community consists of families with children, students, young working adults, and elder ladies and gentlemen.

The annual garden party starts in the afternoon with harvesting the grapes from the vine that grows along the main building. The vine is an old variety that cannot be used for making wine, but my neighbors have a big juice extractor and make grape juice from it. This year, we had a very warm spring (and a cold and wet summer), and there were so many grapes that we got more than 60 liters of grape juice from them although we did not even harvest them all.

~ and you can also eat the grapes just right away ~

In the evening, we put up tables and benches and enjoy food and talking together.

Everybody brings something to eat or drink, so we have a nice variety of dishes and differents kinds of white and red wine.

One of my neighbors had set up his barbecue and grilled sausages for everybody and also some chicken for me.

And while my chicken was getting ready, I sneaked around and pictured some of the delicacies for you that the others had brought.

~ the neighbors’ son had baked countless trays of pizza ~

~ this one had tomatoes, mushrooms, capers, and mozzarella ~

~ roasted oregano tomatoes with feta ~

~ zucchini and feta skewers (so pretty!) ~

~ yoghurt and cucumber dipping sauce ~

~ fresh bread ~

~ mixed salad with marigold blossoms (I loved that) ~

I was happy about that wonderful salad and quite dug into it. Because all other things were centered around wheat and dairy, I had brought the chicken for me and also made a bowl of salad.

~ my plate: roasted chicken and salad (duh ) ~

The cucumber salad on the right side of my plate is the one I had brought. Instead of making my usual tomato salad with parsley or basil, I wanted for something fancier and a more unusual combination of ingredients this time, so I added in bell peppers, plums, and Thai basil, and made a lemony dressing to go with it.

LEMONY CUCUMBER, BELL PEPPER, AND PLUM SALAD WITH THAI BASIL

6 servings

Salad Ingredients

2 cucumbers, peeled and cut into thin slices
2 red bell peppers, cut into small cubes
6 plums, pitted and cut into slices
2 handfuls of Thai basil, chopped (retain a few leaves for decoration)

Dressing Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 pinch of ground cloves
1/2 tsp lemon cest (optional)

Directions

Mix the cucumber and plum slices, bell pepper cubes, and chopped Thai basil in a large bowl.

If you use freshly made lemon juice for the dressing, scrape off the lemon cest with a cest cutter before you juice the lemon.

Mix all dressing ingredients and pour the dressing over the salad. Let the salad sit in the fridge for about half an hour before serving so all the flavors can combine nicely. Add some Thai basil leaves for decoration, then serve and enjoy.

What do you like to bring when you attend a barbecue or a garden party?