Quince Bake

Yeah, I know, another baked dish... but hey, faced with giant quinces, what's a girl to do? This one is incredibly easy, and took advantage of the leftover Quittenmus (pureed quince) that I made last week by using it in the cakey layer above the fruit. I sprinkled it with some spelt oats, because spelt oats are a good friend of mine. Also because it looks prettier, but eh, whatever.

As you can see above, one of the quinces had been in a couple of fights. They're a pretty tough fruit, best handled with a small, sharp knife. The skin tends to be a little fuzzy, like a peach, and they're totally inedible raw. I've never had the gumption to try one raw, actually, so that could be an old wives' tour created by those who despise sour fruit. The smell of the quince, as you cut into it, is so much better than the appearance of the fruit; light and floral, sweetsour, and fresh. Apple, my young padawan, you have absolutely nothing on your older friend, here.

You want to cut your quince into small chunks, ready to simmer in some water (with sugar added, if you need) as if it were an apple. Except, thankfully, it's not an apple - it's better. Yeah, I know, you're probably not as enthralled with quinces as I am, to which I say: suck it up, princess. This is my blog, and if I want to wax lyrical about fruit, then sure, I'm going to do so. Just be thankful that it's not another post about pumpkins! ;)

The stewed fruit it put into a small casserole dish, covered with the batter, and slowly cooked. I know it's not a friendly thing to do, but I pierce the middle of the batter after about half an hour - it releases a little moisture. If you have one of those flutes used to vent pies, then that too would be absolutely brilliant. The level of moisture here means that the bottom layer of the cake will be mushy and slightly battery in places, which is completely awesome if you were the kind of child who would fight tooth and nail to lick the spoon when your mother baked. If you don't like that sort of pudding-like consistency, then halve the fruit amount and double the cake batter, and bake it as though it were a quince cake or clafoutis. See, quince is for everyone!

Quince Bake

2 ripe quinces, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
sugar (to taste)

pinch cinnamon (optional)

1 & 1/2 cups wholemeal flour*

1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder*

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

1 & 1/2 cups quince puree (applesauce is fine)

soymilk/milk, as required

small handful oats, if desired

Simmer your quinces in water, adding sugar and cinnamon if you like (I don't bother - I like tart fruit) until the quince is completely tender. Drain thoroughly. I like to let them sit to cool, so that they release less liquid when they're baked. It improves the texture of the cake.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla and quince puree, adding soymilk or milk if required, to make it into a thick batter. Whether you need to add extra liquid depends entirely on the consistency of your fruit puree.

Pour the batter over the quince pieces and bake, about 50-60 minutes in my slow oven, which was set to 180 degrees C. I cut a vent in the top when the batter was thick enough to stay apart, so about 30-40 minutes into the baking time. Just put a knife into the batter and pull it back to the sides, so that the fruit in the middle is exposed. It doesn't need to be too big.

Eat straight from the dish with some kind of icecream or custard, if you can. Mush it up as you eat it, then realise that you never took a photo of how it looks inside, and realise that you've made it completely un-presentable to anyone who would want to see it. Eat a quarter for morning tea, and then half for afternoon tea (after a huge lunch), and then regret your lack of self-restraint when you get a stomach ache from eating too much food in one sitting. ;)

*If you have access to SR flour, use it instead of flour + baking powder. I'm using wholemeal flour because that's what I have in my pantry - white flour is perfectly acceptable, too.

Semolina Tutorial.

This old friend, my bag-of-semolina, has been sitting in my pantry for ages. Ok, not ages exactly, but a couple of months. Unopened. I know, it seems phenomenal. But I only crave semolina in cold weather, or times like now, when I have an upset stomach from too much quince bake (more on that later)... I still get hungry when I'm feeling sick, unfortunately, and semolina is the ultimate in comfort food. It's soft and creamy, mild in flavour but substantial enough to leave you satisfied. I ate semolina almost every morning last Winter, sitting on the cold tiles of the kitchen bench, back pressed against the window to catch and stray sunlight. I mentioned it in passing to Tash recently, and she said I should put up a recipe here so that she, too, can share in the goodness. It's incredibly simple, so I'm going to make it look much more complicated by including step-by-step photos. Apologies for the quality; I had to have the stove lamp on because it's late at night and our kitchen light isn't very bright. Bear with me, here.

Into a small saucepan or pot, place 1/3 cup semolina, 3/4 cup soymilk/milk and 3/4 cup water. I cheat and boil the kettle so that it cooks faster. If you're making a cup of tea in the morning, then really it's the most effective way of having both tea and semolina in the table at the same time. Turn the heat up - the higher it is, the faster it cooks, but you'll need to be a little careful later on.

After a few minutes, the semolina is thickening nicely. Some people choose to stop the cooking here and eat it soupy, as though it were a congee. Needless to say, I'm not one of those people. Semolina, like it's hip cousin Polenta or my darling favourite Custard, should be eaten thick. ('Pouring' custard is a travesty and should be outlawed.) If it falls off my spoon, then it's too thin. I wait until after the mixture has reached boiling point. You might not want to do that if you use real milk, but I use soy, so I can cook it to as hot as I like. Be careful, though, because if it's really thick then it will spit a little. Remember that it will thicken as it cools, so really you can stop the cooking process a little earlier than your 'perfect' consistency.

This is how I like my semolina: if I can draw a spoon through it and actually see the bottom of the pot for a second before it closes over, then I can take it from the heat. I'm actually very quick about the spoon-action here, contrary to the photography. (I had to take a photo like 4 times to get one that captured the exact moment the pot was showing.)

When in doubt, this is how you know it's good. The semolina is thick and falls into a pile before slowly oozing back into the rest of the pot, instead of streaming off of the spoon as it did only a few minutes earlier.

When my semolina holds its shape like the photo above, I generally move it into a bowl. Some people like to drizzle it with a little more milk and a sprinkling of sugar. I'll confess that on occasion, I've eaten semolina as a dessert, cooked exactly as above except drizzled with a touch of maple syrup. (We all know that maple syrup is far superior to every other sugar in existence, though I think palm sugar deserves an honourable mention too.) Generally I just eat it straight - and some nights, when I have an upset stomach and a strong case of laziness, I just eat it straight from the pot.

Capsicum

Sorry, no recipe here. These are just photos that I wanted to share because the last post was so ugly that I thought I needed to post something beautiful. And really, capsicum is a beautiful vegetable. I know, technically that's a whole lot of Banana Chillies also, but hey, they all contain capsaicin in the tiniest possible amount, so hey, let me generalise. These got sauteed in a hot pan with a generous splash of olive oil until they were caramelised and delicious, then blended and poured over al dente spaghetti. Quick and easy dinner in 15 minutes? Check.

Spaghetti Squash.

The above spaghetti squash was one that I picked up at the Dom Markt, unlabelled, with no ideas what it is. A closer inspection of the fine-grained flesh gave away its identity. And the coffee cup is for size comparison, of course. It has absolutely nothing to do with me constantly drinking coffee when I sit in the kitchen.

Roasted in the oven, cut-side down and rubbed with olive oil, for the better part of an hour. The flesh flakes into very short strands, which I discover to be utterly flavourless, until the slightly-bitter aftertaste hits. I'm definitely sticking to the other variety of Spaghetti Squash from now on. Oh, and above is the sort of natural light I usually get in my kitchen... until, miracle of miracles, the sun comes out. Then everything gets overexposed, which I don't mind, because it takes the attention away from that ugly tablecloth.

There's a lolly shop here that has one of these sitting in the window, carved into a Jack-O-Lantern. I think next time I'll follow the unspoken advice of the locals, and just make it into something decorative.

Vegetable Burgers.

I have a theory that the ugliest batter makes the best looking burgers. See above and below for proof. These vege burgers were made simply because I needed to get rid of that flavourless spaghetti squash sitting in my fridge, so I won't post a recipe for them. They're just the usual grated-veg burgers, good with rich tomato sauce or even some mayo. Can't wait to eat dinner...!

Sweetcorn Soup

Dear Farmers of Paderborn, I have a slight complaint. Every time I leave the centre of the city I see fields of corn, tall and lush, often dominating the landscape. However, Summer has passed, and your corn would have well and truly ripened by now. So, why is it that only one market stall has had corn for sale? So they could charge exorbitant prices for it? Or is it that you're feeding all the rest to factory-farmed animals, hmm? And when I go to the markets and see that that one stall has corn again (it's a sporadic thing), and I buy five cobs for three Euro, you'd better count on my being disappointed when they're starchy and dry and not fully formed. This cries out to me that corn season is over, and I feel completely ripped off. And if any German dares to suggest that I should buy the pre-cooked, shrink-wrapped, long-life corn in the supermarket, made by the same company responsible for the inedible beets, then I'm probably going to punch them.

So, what's a girl to do with disappointing corn? The last time I found it, I just ate it straight from the cob. Without salt, pepper, or any slather of hydrogenated fats. This time, I did that with one cob, and felt too bitter about the starchy taste in my mouth to bother with the others. So I did the most reasonable thing for a person to do: I made sweetcorn soup. (I also resolved never to buy from that stall again - a resolution that I've made once, and broken simply because of the availability of corn. But this time, I mean it.) The corn kernels were sliced from the cob, mixed into some sauteed onion and chilli, and blended to make a thick soup. I know everyone (including me) sings the praises of using the best-quality fresh ingredients, but sometimes, we have to compromise. And, I assure you, this was a delicious compromise.

My first taste of sweetcorn soup was of the chicken-and-corn variety, when I was in New Zealand as a twelve-year-old. Dad had been to a conference, and it was something of a family holiday. It was my first time overseas, including my first time on a plane, and it wasn't very different to Australia, except that I saw a chestnut for the first time. And I tried corn in soup at the house of some family friends. When I was told we were having corn soup for lunch, I remember saying to my mother that I didn't want to eat it. (I wasn't very good with trying new foods sometimes.) She told me that I couldn't be rude, and that I had to eat at least some. I think I was pleasantly suprised at how edible it was. And in my older years, I became a fan of the version served at Chinese restaurants. Now I'm a fan of my own version, sans chicken and MSG, which is blended just a little. Sometimes I add a spoonful of peanut butter for some satay-goodness, but not today. When I do that, I like to add a swirl of coconut cream, or use coriander instead of parsley. However, sometimes simplicity is the best answer to complicated questions.

Sweetcorn Soup
4 ears of corn, kernels shaved
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 small (brutal) thai chilli, finely chopped
1 tbsp thyme leaves (if using dried, halve the quantity)
fresh parsley (optional)
1 litre vegetable stock
salt and pepper
chilli powder (optional)
olive oil

Pour a small splash of olive oil into the bottom of your pot, and sautee the onion until softened and transparent. Don't be afraid to let it colour a little. Add the garlic and chilli, frying about a minute longer, until fragrant. If you're not coughing from the chilli fumes, add a little more!
Throw in your corn kernels and thyme, sautee for a minute, before adding the vegetable stock.
Simmer until the corn has brightened in colour - it really only takes a minute or two.
Add chilli powder, salt and pepper, and fresh parsley to taste.
Blend, in batches as necessary - I like to blend maybe 3/4 of the mix, so that I still have some chunks of corn in the finished soup. Don't worry if it froths up a lot - it's just because the corn is so high in natural sugar. The bubbles will subside by themselves.
Scatter with parsley and pepper. Best served with crusty bread.

Pumpkin and Cinnamon Muffins

As much as I love eating normal, dinner-and-lunch food for breakfast, sometimes it's nice to have something a little more 'breakfasty' as well. Baked goods seem to be the heart of breakfast here, whether it be bread rolls with ham and cheese or croissants or 'toast bread' with marmelade. And who am I to reject one of the few traditions that I like here? Baked goods strike me as about the only good thing that German food has going for it, because nothing else has impressed me. So, ever so occasionally, I bow down to the god of baked goods, and make some breakfast muffins.

I had a lovely container with some remnant dry-roasted hokkaido, which is very tense with a creamy, almost chalky texture. I like to roast a whole squash or pumpkin and just keep the pieces in the fridge for snacking. It's useful to have a pre-cooked vegetable in my fridge when I'm starvingly hungry, and it gets included in other meals as well. It's like the Autumn tradition of what my mother used to do in Summer, which was keeping a huge tub of sliced watermelon in the fridge for snacking.

I decided that I wanted to make some autumnal muffins, nothing too sweet, to eat with a little slather of marg in the morning. They're almost-savoury, cinnamony, and hold up well to being held on the toasting rack over your toaster - that appendage that only appears on European toasters for the ubiquitous bread rolls. They're probably a little too cakey to actually sit in your toaster in slices, but warm them by whatever means necessary, before you slice and slather. I promise you, it's worth the wait. If you're feeling lazy, or have a craving for sugar, drizzle one with a little maple syrup. Delicious, I promise.

I decided that it was time to try out my new baking pans, because really, everyone knows that pumpkin and pirates are a natural combination. Ahem. Either that or everyone knows that I'm a child at heart, that I like ridiculously decorated bakeware, and that I'm well on my way to becoming a crazy cat lady. As it turned out, these muffin pans were a great idea. A certain housemate had occupied the freezer space that I was intending to stuff with breakfasty treats, so I took half of the batch with me when I went to visit some friends in Muenster. And, as luck would have it, their kids have an especial interest in pirates. They ate healthy food without even caring what was in it, simply because it was wrapped in shark-and-pirate papers. They didn't even ask what flavour they were! After seeing the way that kids can be picky eaters, even with flavours that they do like, I was astonished. And amused.

I only had a 6-hole muffin tray (ok, it's a bit small, so it's more of a cupcake tray) so I used my ridiculously-long loaf pan to bake the other half of the mix. These were quite large, and owing to space restrictions, they ended up being quite cute and square when they were baked. I'm definitely going to do this again in the future. I'll definitely be making this again, but I'm probably using more pumpkin next time. I think that this recipe is good, but I like my muffins to be so loaded down with fruit (or vegetable, as the case may be) that they struggle to rise. So, really, what I'm admitting to here is that I'm going to make a recipe that definitely won't be blog-friendly, but that will be perfectly suited to my tastebuds. I'm excited already.

Yes, that is a Paderborn Student Union mug that you can see in the background, and no, it's not mine. I think all student-sharehouses just grow one or two mysteriously in the kitchen shelves.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

2 cups wholemeal flour

2 tsp baking powder*

1/3 cup neutral-flavoured oil

1 cup applesauce or apple syrup or maple syrup, depending on how extravagent you feel, and how sweet you want your muffins to be.*

3/4cup or more of milk (I use soy)

1 firmly-packed cup finely diced cooked pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla extract or powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Mix all ingredients together, adding more liquid if needed, and bake in muffin tins in a 180 degree C oven for 20-25 minutes. Alternately, bake as a loaf for 40ish minutes, until your skewer comes out clean.

*If you have access to self-raising wholemeal flour, simply use that instead of the plain flour and baking powder. The amount of milk needed depends entirely on whether you use syrup or applesauce for this recipe - just add more if you need. I used the syrup that is left when I make apfelmus, so that these muffins don't have any added sugar.