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I am not posting so often meaty recipes, but lately, I've fall in love with lamb and its rich texture and tastes, therefore, it was a great experiment to test a couple of delicious spicy matches. As usual, the mixture between sweet and savory is one of my favorite combinations, therefore, expect a lot of unusual matches in this recipe. Unfortunatelly, for various - very serious reasons - I did not keep any picture of the ready meal...As for now, you should believe my genuine words. Ingredients 450 gr. lamb 100 ml. lime juice 50 gr. grated ginger 150 ml. honey 2 tablespoon Ras el Hanout spices from Spice Kitchen UK , part of the Brand Ambassador Programme 50 ml. walnut oil 9 medium-sized walnut cloves 150 ml. red wine Directions Rub the lime and the ginger on both side of the meat. It will help to diminish the unpleasant lamb smell which is obvious especially when the meat was deeply frosten before being used. Rub the honey on both sides and the Ras el Hanout spices.  In a pan, add ...

I've finally convinced myself to cook this Hanukkah, although in a completely diet-mood. However, once I ordered my first sufganyot from Benedict Berlin , I instantly switched to the holidays mood and succeeded to create even a new latkes recipe that I am happy to share it now. Although the holidays are long over, you can eat those latkes on other occasions too, as it makes it a good companion to regular meals all round the year.  Ingredients 18 small potatoes peeled 2 small onions shredded 3 medium-size eggs beaten 1 cup matzo flour 1 cup shredded Emmentaler or yellow Cheddar shredded cheese 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon Ras El Hanout, from Spice Kitchen UK , received as their Brand Ambassador 1 big cup of oil for frying 1 small carrot to keep it in the frying pan in order to avoid the sticky burning of latkes (it is a traditional tip among Jewish food bloggers and it works) 5 tablespoons of plain yogurt for serving Directions Mix the potatoes with the spices, eggs, cheese and m...

Cauliflower is such an easy match for a variety of flavors, especially spices, allowing the culinary imagination to easily fly away. My experience - although limited - is that you rarely can get it wrong with cauliflower, such a versatile vegetable which keeps a good and healthy company to heavy meals. I've tried this recipe during the Hanukka holidays, when everything is filled with oil and was in desperate need of some healthy side dish.  Ingredients 1 medium-sized cauliflower, with separated florets 1 teaspoon za'atar 1 teaspoon Berbere spices, received part of Spice Kitchen UK Brand Ambassador Program 1 teaspoon black sesame 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 teaspoon salt Directions Warm the oven at 250C, at least 10 minutes before starting the baking. On a sheet pan, smear the florets with olive oil - preferably on both sides, then add the various spices and the salt, also on both sides. Let it bake while turning from a part to another every 10 minutes. When ready, add the black...

I am so bad with soups. I hardly have any favourite myself and I haven't cooked too many in my life. Time for a challenge! My plan is to make the next days and weeks, until mid-December, the latest, the days of soup, putting my imagination and modest cooking skills at work, while preparing at least once the week a nourishing soup for me and my lovely little family. The first installment in the series, a nourishing pumpkin cream soup as you never ever tasted before (be aware, there are many spices involved - as usual). Ingredients - 1 medium sized pumpkin, without seeds, sliced into quarters - 50 gr. unsalted cashews, turned into powder in the food processor - 1 tablespoon salt - 1/2 tableespoon Aleppo Pepper from Spice Kitchen UK , part of their Brand Ambassador Program - 1 teaspoon grated ginger - 1 teasopoon turmeric - 2 tablespoon olive oil Directions In one lukewarm liter of salty water at 250C, add the pumpkin and let it boil until very soft. When ready, add it to the food pro...

My and eggplant ...we have a very complicated story between us, but I keep doing it as much as I can, especially when my hungry imagination is ready to add some spices that may challenge my first (bad) impression about it.  This time, I wanted to test my new Zwilling , a present from a dear friend, and decided that, among other things that I am planning to prepare, eggplant is the easiest, affordable one. Especially when some spices, courtesy of Spice Kitchen UK , part of their Brand Ambassador Program are added. The result was surprisingly tasty, rich in flavors and made it into a good side dish for a milky-/cheese-based meal. I will only add some fresh cucumber and tomato salad, for a touch of freshness and call it a good meal!  Ingredients - 1 medium-sized eggplant - 3 cloves garlic, finelly minced - 1 pinch salt - 1/2 teaspoon Fenugreek - 1/2 teaspoon Berbere which are a combination of many spices, such as red chilli, garlic, black peppercorns, cardamom, onion. It also ha...

When I don't travel in the Middle East, I am trying to bring the Middle East to my home - or to my plate, to be more precise. With my bag full of spices from Spice Kitchen UK , part of their Brand Ambassador Programme , I am bringing the rich world of flavour of the East to my West-Berlin kitchen.  And there are many opportunities coming to my door, almost begging me to take them, prepare them and further share them with my readers. A couple of weeks ago, I've purchased from a local store Kofu , produced in Berlin, using the culinary wisdom of Israel. It is a special kind of tofu, using chickpeas flour. Available in different variants, including simple, mine was the falafel-one, which means that it has the usual spices used for the preparation of this special Oriental dish. I am generally very skeptical when it comes to the non-Asian attempts of producing tofu - I've tried way too much from the Bio sortiment and none was really satisfactory compared to the usual original r...

It started as an experiment: I was trying to match my heavily spicy hamburgers . Although an easy tomatoes and cucumber salad would have been enough, I was ready for some more spices. This time, added to my plate of veggies. Ingredients - 3 big sweet potatoes, peeled - 3 scallions, chopped - 1 big zucchini, cut into rounds - 1 medim-size white onion, finelly chopped - 1 teaspoon salt - 1/2 teaspoon black pepper - 1/2 teaspoon Ras el-Hanout from Spice Kitchen UK , part of their Brand Ambassador Program - 2 tablespoon cooking oil Directions Preheat the oven at 250C, at least 10 minutes before starting the baking. Add the baking paper to the pan. Add one by one the veggies, and mix them well. Sprinkle the oil, the salt, pepper and the spices. Let it cook until ready, turning the veggies on all sides every 20 minutes or so. Preparation time : 15 minutes Cooking time : 1h30 I've personally found this mix as a great addition to my meaty plate, but it can also be served as an individual d...

Hot days ask for spices. Lots of them. And long meals eaten outdoors. Grills and barbecues and cold beers and white wines. All the good things in life. For me, a delicious summer meal should involve meat. And my newly discovered love for spices. A burger, preferably, with a glass of sparkling white wine and some roasted veggies on the side. As simple as that. Let's start with the meat part, for now. I am a big fan of meat, but consumed moderately - once the week, and only kosher. Which means that sometimes I depend on the available supermarket offer. I am not living in America after all, where the range of kosher meat is amazing and you only need ideas to make all those meaty dish to happen. Before the Jewish High Holidays, I wanted to offer myself a meat overload, in preparation of what was supposed to come. Just to be sure that my stomach is getting ready.  As a busy mom, frozen burgers are the answer to many serious foodie problems. All you need is to defrost them and add the ri...

Many autumns ago, corn used to be my main meal for the final weeks of August and mid-September. Mostly eaten as corn on the cob, it only involved salt, and a lot of time spent in the boiling temperature of the kitchen while boiling corn after corn. It was all what I was eating for lunch and dinner and the natural sweetness of the corn was what I needed for that part of the year.  Meanwhile I grew up and my tastes become more complex. Many years I just avoided corn on the cob, because too proletarian for my newly acquired preferences. Also, it was not so easy to find that countryside corn sold in the farmer's markets in the old country. A new world was opening to me and it was no place for that past any more. However, once I settled up and diversified my life and food experiences, the old recipes and life stories were just another opportunity to share an unique story. My story. Therefore, why not using them as a basic for just another spicy experience? Ingredients - 2 normal size co...

I love to cook with mushrooms, from the usual white/brown sortiment available on the market to the chaterelles/Pfifferlinge. As a child, I used to go often foraging and even became for a while accustomed with the edible wild types available in the old country. Nowadays, I can find a wild variety of mushrooms availble in the German supermarkets and my curiosity to try something new every autumn wins over my reluctance that I might reignite old allergies. Until it happens - hopefully never again -, I would keep experimenting and every time I am more than happier with the results. For the opening of this autumn season, I played a bit with the oyster/Austern mushrooms mix, foraged from Poland and sold in a 200 gr. plastic box at the Edeka superstore. The mild pastel colours of yellow and pink are delicious and they look like wild and bizarre creatures of the nature. Preferably, you have to prepare them at least 24 hours upon purchase, even if you keep them in the fridge, as they are delica...

I cannot figure out how my gourmet life was before I started discovering spices. Most probably it was undernourished, bland, unattractive and tasteless. For someone like me, with a complicated personal history to foods, that pinch of spice added to a plate dramatically changed the taste for good. Spices create unforgettable taste memories that stay with you at least until the next spicy experiment. The more I explore this world of flavors and fragrances, the more I realize how infinite the possibilities of matching and combining are. As this year I was selected as one of the brand ambassador for the multi-awarded Spice Kitchen UK , my newly discovered passion for spices got a professional direction, as I have to work hard to combine the flavors with usual foods I am using regularly in my kitchen. The experiences are unique, as it gives a completely new life to foods that I was very reluctant to try and prepare before. For instance, red beet. My Eastern European heritage didn't cha...

If you are having a tasty visit to any of the genuine Middle Eastern - especially Persian - restaurants, you may find on the table in addition to salt and pepper, also a reddish powder. It is sumac, made of red berries and sprinkled over a variety of foods, from salads to lamb, chicken and fish. It has a fruity salty taste, which may create a good balance by the marinade and add a fresh note to the hummus or fattoush.  Part of my mission of brand ambassador for the multi-awarded  Spice Kitchen UK , I included sumac as part of my list of favorite spices. Exciting adventure, as before that, I only shyly tried sumac in restaurants but never experienced its texture and flavor on my own. Therefore, my first encouter involved learning how to use it in some easy, classical combinations, but as soon as I got a strong foot on the spicy ground, I moved forward creating one unique - and unusual - recipe.  Here are my three ways to use sumac in the kitchen. And it is just the beginni...

Asparagus - or spargel, in German - is one of those foods that I can easily live without, but once the year, when the season is in full bloom - mid-May and end of June - I want to try it, for creating at least one new recipe. In most cases, I consider it a relatively bland food, without any special features and no taste to long about for the rest of the year. This year, I tried to use my treasure of spices from the multi-awarded Spice Kitchen UK, part of their Brand Ambassador Program . Not an easy choice given their exquisite collection of top spices, but in the end I decided to add to my hard boiled - 25 minutes at 250C - asparagus the Urfa Biber (Isot Pepper). Part of the red pepper family, this spice adds a mild flavor to the dish, not too salty, not too hot, just that pinch that bring taste to the otherwise neutral asparagus. I usually add salt - especially when matchen with boiled potatoes, but this time it was just enough to bring the healthy life - read it taste - to my dish. ...

I have such a bad and toxic relationship with soups...I either don't like them so much or very successful in preparing them. However, for the healthy sake of the baby I am doing one once in a while - with the promise to do it more and better the next time. Also, given my big dental problems in the last weeks - that kept me mostly hungry and badly fed - I had to reconsider my options and challenge my cooking skills, by introducing new soups into the menu. Especially after trying the available ready-made options - vegan - on the market, that unfortunatelly I've found completely unattractive flavor-wise. For a long time I wanted to try some coconut soups and even kept for weeks a can of coconut milk but wasn't brave enough to open it and start adding ingredients. This Friday though, I was hungry enough to make that spectacular change. As usual in such cases, it worked out very well and I promise myself to try again at least every week.  In this case of a very eclectic combinat...

Since I tried for the first time Aleppo Pepper , a spice I've heard so many good things about and which did not disappoint me at all, I was thinking how I can use this versatile pepper in a new combination. And it seems that my mind needed at least two months until I finally took a decision. What about a cold tomatoes spicy summer cocktail, now when the weather finally looks much friendlier than a couple of weeks ago? The results were more than satisfying and with a very special spicy result. By adding Aleppo Pepper to your tomatoes you can create an unique juice, healthy and energizing with an unique taste. The preparation takes minutes and unless you want your drink a bit more cold, you can drink it immediately. Accompanied by a meal or just as a refreshment, this non-alcoholic cocktail brings exotic tastes and impressions into your life. For yourself, a party or for a tasty date. Ingredients 25 small heart-shaped small tomatoes, halved 1/4 teaspoon Aleppo Pepper from Spice Kitch...

Let's talk about the most hateful children foods. For me, the top of the list was liver, any kind of liver, followed by spinach and lamb too. However, I am trying little by little to come along with those foods simply through the act of cooking them. Spinach is getting better, lamb I can accept once in a while, but the liver...it is a very hard job. I still remember how desperate my poor mother was when once while cleaning the house discovered on the back of the coach small pieces from the very expensive and much praised liver she fought hard to get it on our table. Times changed and I am living now in a place where I can much easier find some kosher liver, but my relationship with this food was never better. Only the sight of the bloody liver - and the memory of the metallic taste (after all, liver operates as a sponge where all the toxines in the body are filtered and it is also that part of the body with the highest concentration of blood, which does not go away even though kash...

A staple food for the Shabbat table, the potato kugel can be also a good comfort food during the week, especially during the winter when you need a piece of hot fat rich everything. I am usually a big fan of a very classical recipe, that require a minimum of ingredients, usually the classical combination. What may differ from a recipe to another are the quantities and the quality of the ingredients (especially when it comes to the kind of potato used). I personally have nothing against a bit of more oil once in a while, as long as it is part of a tasty meal. For the first time on my blog, I am sharing my potato kugel recipe, which this time has a secret ingredient, replacing the usual black pepper I am regularly using. Ingredients 12 medium-size potatoes 1 tablespoon kosher salt 1/4 tablespoon Urfa Biber black pepper that I previously learned how to use a couple of days ago, part of my assignment as Brand Ambassador for Spice Kitchen UK 3 medium-size eggs, beaten 125 ml. sunflower oil...

This is less a post about recipes and cooking ideas, but has as main character a very special kind of pepper: Urfa Biber or Isot Pepper. Part of my selection from the Spice Kitchen UK collection, with whom I've entered a partnership part of their Brand Ambassador program , I've received a couple of spices to test in the next weeks and months, starting with the very special Aleppo pepper. The inspiration of Monday's lunch was something a bit different: a very black looking powder called Urfa Biber. Biber means pepper in Turkish, the country of origin of this special kind of pepper. Practically, it is part of the red pepper family, produced through a process of 'sweating': drying of the seeds during the day, followed by wrapping them tied during the day. Compared to other peppers, they are less spicy, with a warm note which creates a pleasant balance of flavors.  I used it twice for my lunch: spread modestly on my fresh tomatoes, and as one pinch used for by very spec...

When your mail box smells of fresh spices, you know that you just received something too good to be true! The multi-awarded Birmingham-based company Spice Kitchen UK selected my blog for their Brand Ambassador program and my selection of spices that I want to try for the next weeks and months was sent super fast, with a very responsive and friendly customer service that I rarely experienced, sending updates about the products I've selected and the stages of the delivery. I've worked previously with this family run company, back in 2013 , but since then they grew up and I - hopefully - got more experience in terms of both cooking and understanding flavors, so I am very excited about my next cooking adventures. Stay tunned for a lot of interesting recipes, original or adapted from my very rich collection of cookbooks. Besides the hand-made spices, they also create award winning teas, which ranges from Earl Grey to Strawberries&Cream. Spice Kitchen UK is also involved in sup...

Spices at the Grüne Woche, Berlin, 2018 I promised this year to be bold and successful , and for me it means also being surrounded, virtually or in my everyday real life, by positive highly motivated people. I always admire small creative companies writing their own story of success. Spice Kitchen  was one of my first collaborations as a foodie blogger, back in 2013 . I was quite a beginner in the world of kitchen and tastes, but they entrusted me with a precious bag with their newly launched spices that I intensively learn how to use in my recipes.  A couple of years back, they are a multi-awarded company, spreading their love for quality spices all over the world, with an over increasing catalogue of products created to accomodate even the most sophisticated tastes. It makes sense to be sucessful, when you 'put your heart and soul' and each and every one of the product you share.  Besides the traditional collection of spices, they offer exquisite unique mix such as the ...