……my own (in case you are brave enough to try them) and tried and tested ones from several of the cookbooks I have gathered…..
The other day I thought: Why not share some recipes on Midlife Motions?
It’s not because I am such a great cook in the usual sense. I like cooking…sometimes.
However, I don’t do it every day. That takes a lot of planning and organizing which both are not my strongest suits.
I have tried the meal-planning thing before. That was a rather fruitless undertaking but I will give it another try eventually.
In that case, why do I even bother writing about it?
Actually, there is more than one reason:
Use them or lose them…
I love books and yummy food. These two loves combined result in the pile of cookbooks you see in the featured image above. As you know already, cooking is not exactly my wildest passion……by far.
It’s not that I particularly mind it. No, not at all. At times, I even like cooking. That’s as long as it is not expected of me. As soon as I feel I “have to cook” the fun is gone in one quick unceremonious puff.
Maybe you have already guessed where I am going with this: I have only tried a fraction of the recipes of all the cookbooks you see above. And even that seems like an overstatement.
At least three of them I have never done anything else with other than flipping through the pages thinking, I could do this, I could do that. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
So, I thought that I will go through all the cookbooks, pick some recipes and try them. Those I really like will be shared. Of course including the info from which book it is and where you can get it.
I will do this until the end of Q 2 2019. The books I will not have used for actually preparing a meal will go to charity.
German food
There is a lot of very tasty German food out there. Some or most of it is not what you would call lean cuisine though. But that’s probably why it is so tasty.
But why not treat ourselves every now and then. I eat chocolate, for crying out loud. So how can it be wrong to have some Dampfnudeln, Kartoffelpuffer or Krautwickel?
Yes, there is other German food than Schnitzel and Bratwurst. Hard to believe, I know.
I love to experiment. Experimenting can be fun.
Sometimes I will experiment out of pure desperation because I didn’t go shopping and only have a few things to play with. This sometimes results in a somewhat unconventional mix of ingredients, which surprisingly or not, usually tastes at least kinda nice.
Or it is one of those times when, out of the blue, I have this image of a dish before my mind’s eye and want to try it.
I think the most out-there creation was a marinated chicken breast. I don’t recall the marinate 100% but some of the ingredients were OJ, yogurt, rum…
It was quite nice but didn’t knock me out of my socks. And, considering the price of spirits in this country, I never thought twice about a second go.
Sharing a Mixture of Recipes
What I want to share here with you is a mix of the above:
- The tastiest results of my own cooking experiments – only those I really liked myself and also the hubby went for seconds. I’ll spare you the OK ones. Believe me, there are loads of them.
- Some German cuisine.
- And those I loved and found in one of the cookbooks, magazines or on the net.
I will start with my recent success a tomato-bell/sweet pepper sauce. It is super easy, yummy, versatile, fits every budget and is also suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
The one regret I have: not having asked my mom to teach me how to cook. She was an artist in that field until dementia struck. And now, it’s too late to ask.
So, if your lucky enough to still have your mom, dad or whoever else it is who’s cooking you love, don’t make my mistake. Ask them now before it’s too late.
This is about sharing ideas.
It will not teach you how to cook. But a lot of you probably know how to do that a good deal better than myself anyway.
Meaning, I am not getting into too much detail. If you have any questions, just give me a shout in the comments or by email.
Now, go ahead and check out the first contribution to what may or may not become the new in-cookbook 😉 – my tomato-bell/sweet-pepper sauce.
Have fun and Bon Appetite! xx
