Cranberry-apple upside-down cake

Fruity upside-down cakes are probably my favorite kind of cake to make...

This one, I did with a mix of cranberries, grated apple, cinnamon, and some ground hazelnuts, with some brown sugar (doesn't need much, with the nice fruit, and I like to leave it a bit tart) and some oil as the bottom fruity mix, and the usual egg-mixture cake batter, beating the whites separately with some salt and the sugar, the yolks with a spoon of oil and some citrus zest, and folding those together,then folding in the small quantity of flour with the baking powder.

This time, I was just missing having some fresh whipped cream on top as a perfect dessert...

The apple-cranberry bottom:

Eggs all whipped up and ready for folding:

Folding egg yolk mix into egg-white mix:

Then folding in the flour mix in 3 parts until all incorporated like this: (important to use folding motions, to not lose its volume and bubbliness)

Fill the batter over the fruit:

Bakes about 30 min till set and a bit spongy in the middle bounces back when gently pressed:

Invert:

Voila!

Just would have loved freshly whipped cream with vanilla!

TAMALES! YEAAHHH!!

I'd probably sound nuts to inarticulately express how much I like tamales--the concept, the excitement of making them, the taste, texture, everything, so I'll skip the attempt.

In any case, I made them today! BIG batch just for ME!
I invested in a bag of the prepared masa flour from the Mexican foods store downtown Zurich (El Maiz), (check out the receipt total: 16.00! Indeed, it's that expensive here--hence any guests visiting me from the US/mexico are enthusiastically welcomed to bring me a housewarming present of either corn husks or masa flour for the purpose of making this dish in the future.) I remember buying the equivalent in Texas for $1.50... (and mind you the swiss franc is stronger than the dollar now)
So, I prepped two fillings-- pulled chicken/turkey and BEANS. I do the meat one by heating a pot, pouring in some oil, slamming in the chicken breasts and turkey fillets (1.2 kg in total), and covering it to slightly brown and simmer them down for a good while. In the meantime I chop some onions (about 4), then toss those in, as well as a serious load of spices: garlic, paprika, onion powder, oregano, basil, cayenne pepper, CUMIN, salt, and black pepper. I use a similar spice mix for the beans filling (~1.2 kg beans), also adding some sauteed chopped onions (~5-6), and tomatoes (~400 g), and olive oil.
I prepared the masa not using lard, but a vegetarian version that also does not use vegetable shortening--a product of hydrogenated (hence solidified) unsaturated oils which leaves me suspicious. I've done this before, and it worked fine--so again this time-- a mix of butter and olive oil, giving a decent mixture or the saturated and unsaturated fats that can get the masa dough to a nice texture-- I prefer what's probably considered a bit firm... Don't freak out over the quantities, since this makes a LOT of tamales-- so with the 2 kilograms (4.4 lb) masa flour, I added also over 2 kg water (2+ Liters), 350g olive oil, and 350g butter. Hence I have about 5 kilograms (ll lbs) of masa dough in that bowl there.
In any case, I also season the masa flour with paprika (gives a nice golden-orange texture and I like the flavor, too), a "little" cumin, pepper, onion powder and veggie boullion. Then bring that up with water.

Then when the meat's cooked, let it cool down, and then get all in there with your hands to pull it apart into nice tendrils, mixing all those spices and chopped cooked onions into it.
Okay! Assembly time!!! Best with company.... but allright, with some good music, still fun alone.

I prefer pretty large tamales with lots of filling (opposed to ones with lots of the masa dough), so this is how I like to do mine:

Great! Assembled 28 large chicken/turkey ones, and 21 bean tamales:

So here's my big pot for steaming:

I learned long ago from my friend's mom Yolanda, that it helps for steaming to put extra corn husks to make a sort of cone in the middle of the pot, then the open end of the tamales can angle upwards for the steaming process:

All packed in, so ready to steam! About 2 hours does it...

A finished chicken-turkey tamale, with homemade salsa and sour cream for dinner:

And many more to enjoy later:

And with tamales this large, just 1-2 is a good-sized meal :-)

Soybean hummus

Delightful.... I had pre-soaked for 1.5 days some soybeans which I needed to then cook and use that night, so searched "soybean" on epicurious.com and saw a recipe for soybean hummus-- in essence replacing chickpeas for soybeans. Liked the idea! So, I boiled the soybeans, and in my food processor, blended those with some garlic, a pile of spring onions, fresh juice of one lemon, salt, chopped HOT red peppers and impulsive quantities of the following spices: onion powder, paprika, cumin, ground black pepper, oregano, thyme... and I think that was it. Blended, adding olive oil and water to achieve the right smoothness texture, and presto!
I made some "garlic butter" to make some garlic bread to spread it on-- the garlic butter including half butter and half olive oil for the fat content, then lots of garlic, and basil, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper, also blended, spread onto the bread and baked in the oven (wrapped in foil). Yum!

First attempt *FAILED*

:-D Here's the result of my first attempt at making corn tortillas (with none of the right ingredients, since I didn't have any of the right ones in stock!) hahah No doubt... it failed, awefully! ...both in terms of flavor and more importantly in texture, giving tortillas far too brittle, and too thick (to even keep them remotely intact)
BUT the concept of the meal I do love: homemade "corn" tortillas with fresh-sauteed peppered fish, sliced cabbage, a sort of herbed cream sauce made with quark and a onion-tomato-cilantro pico de gallo....
Just need to work on the corn tortillas, and next time for an honest re-do first attempt at them, should use the right ingredients and perhaps even *gasp* follow a recipe hahah ... sometime... or go back to making flour tortillas which are really easy.

Tuna-Pasta

Fast and delicious pasta with tomato sauce and tunafish... Learned this combination from my housemate years ago, which he makes quickly and easily (and still very tastily) with just some jarred pasta sauce and a can of tuna tossed with the pasta. But instead of using canned tuna, it's definitely a step up in deliciousness to use a fresh tunasteak!
So this time, I sauteed the tunasteak which was peppered and garlic-ed on one side with some red onions (and randomly also included the more crisp chopped stems from some fresh basil), then poured in the tomato sauce, seasoned it with oregano and basil, more garlic, more fresh ground pepper, and some of my seasoning salt (which I throw together on occasion to contain usually 1/3 salt and 2/3 whatever dried herbs I have with some paprika, and onion or garlic powder), then let that simmer until the tunasteak is cooked just enough to let it start flaking apart when prodded with a spoon. Then I layered that over some pasta, with some mushrooms that were sauteed in olive oil with some more fresh garlic (haha, yes this is getting garlicy, but I like that!), and best topped with more fresh basil, and some grated sharp cheese if desired!

Grilled vegetable focaccia sandwiches

... then came dinnertime, and I was aching to make again some grilled vegetable sandwiches! Made an onion whole wheat foccacia with rosemary--pretty good when it was still hot out of the oven, but really quite a heavy focaccia with being 100% whole wheat flour, but still good! Grilled up slices of carrot, eggplant and zucchini, which then I like paired to some rehydrated sundried tomatos, fresh basil leaves, and some sort of mild or creamy cheese... and maybe some slices of boiled egg... :-)

Surprisingly delicious spontanous combination

I needed to throw together a quick pre-meal to dinner, which was going to be at least 2-hours out due to making some whole wheat focaccia, and I had this pre-made squash gnocci I could use, but needed to 'fix that up' somehow special. So here's what I spontaneously threw together based on some interesting ingredients I had on hand. I had bought out of curiosity this bag of dehydrates soy-protein clusters at an organic shop, so quickly reconstituted those in some hot water infused with garlic and paprika and some salt(instead of boullion which I'm out of still...), and then simultaneously reconstituted some dried seaweed in some lightly salted water,too. Once those were rehydrated 15 min later, drained the soy-protein-clusters, then sauteed the gnocci with those in some olive oil, then tossed in some tomato sauce, spiced with garlic, onion powder, fresh ground pepper, oregano, then tossed in the drained seaweed, and topped with a bit of fresh chopped basil. I was surprised how good this combination tasted, haha, next time I'd really intentionally recreate this!

Hungry People!

Hahaha, I really enjoy cooking for people who eat a lot. Like these three snowboarders up in Lenzerheide... where this whole table full of food (and the back-up plates of more polenta in the kitchen) all got eaten! This included a roasted large chicken, with my latest favorite spice-mix which I was working on to be able to duplicate the flavorful taste of the pre-baked chicken legs that are sold at the local grocery store, Coop, BUT without using MSG, which I was annoyed to notice on the ingredient label once I finally read it for the first time. Besides that, they were using "Spices, salt, yeast, sugar"... so I found a fairly decently balanced combination of those, with he 'spices' being hefty quantities of paprika, onion powder, and oregano. And the secret being, to first marinate it in just the salt, which kind of dehydrates to create the same effect of how the chicken-legs have that firmer texture after roasting, then wash off the salt well, then marinate it many hours longer with just the spices, then remove excess spices and roast at a medium-high temp, rotating a few times if you don't have a rotisserie. Anyway, tastes really quite great in the end! Then after roasting a chicken,I highly recommend using that the 'gravy' juices from the chicken for something, which here was tossed with sauteed leeks and whole wheat pasta. Also on the table is a salad, a pot of orzo-grains for the spicy pangasius-fish and broccoli red curry, and a few slices of a red onion-garlic-herb polenta :-)

Salad mix

I'm trying to incorporate more salads into my nightly meal plans, and it's a lot easier to feel motivated and excited about a salad for dinner when it's one that tastes as good as this one did. Included what here is called "Nüsslisalat", with boiled soybeans, a cut-up veggie Schnitzel, chopped raw beetroot, and some ricotta cheese, with a black-sesame salad dressing... yum! I highly recommend "busy" salads... I think they're very exciting!

Salmon basil asparagus curry

Another delightful salmon curry which I attempted to photograph in a more appealing way... not sure that was successful, but the dish was delicious, with my favorite curry spice-mix of the moment (same as before), onions, garlic, asparagus, cabbage, chili peppers, green onions, and salmon with some coconut milk and water as the base for the juiciness. :-)

A Great Veggie Burger!

A Tofu-Curry burger grilled, on a grainy bun, topped with thin-sliced raw beetroot, onion sprouts, and avocado slices.

Great flavor and texture mix, with the warm and flavorful curry tofu-burger, the crunch of the fresh sweet beetroot, tang crispness of the onion sprouts, and delicious softness of the avocado.
Next time I should try making my own curry-burgers though, as these were pre-prepared fresh ones from an organic shop in Zurich. I'd be also that making ground-chicken or ground-turkey curry burgers in this context would be amazing, too...I'll try that at some point, but at the moment I'm eating mostly vegetarian, or fish. Maybe also a curried tunasteak would be an awesome substitute! Mmmm...

With in this picture a blended green-swiss-chards soup, which contained the whole head of swiss chards and two onions cooked/steamed down till soft, then blended up with some milk, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper... healthy meal overall! :-)

Salmon carrot spinach curry

Been eating a LOT of curry recently... especially fish-vegetable combo curries, either over boiled potatos or rice, or another grain.

Here's one of them, which I made by starting with sauteeing some onions, sliced carrots and yellow bell peppers, then adding coconut milk, and a bunch of spices (curry powder, onion powder, paprika, garlic powder, cumin, pepper, cayenne pepper, and a garam-masala spice mix, and 2 boullion cubes for the salt), added some water and let that simmer for a bit, then added the chunks of salmon, until they were cooked through, then added a bit more milk to bring up the juiciness volume some more, and then finally the fresh spinach leaves which cook in the heat of the sauces very quickly.

haha not the most photogenic dishes to capture, unless you do a good job with the plating... but hopefully the wok-pic still gives insight to it being tasty!

Herbed 'Lachsforelle" with Fettucini in Creamy Vegetable "carbonera" sauce

I believe the translation of Lachsforelle is "salmon trout", which makes sense since the flesh is salmon-colored, and John bought it thinking it was salmon :-) ...

Herb-ed that fish with oregano, basil, paprika, onion powder, salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil, then baked it top shelf in the oven with high heat for 5-10 minutes,

And meanwhile, in a saucepan I sauteed some onions and red bell pepper with olive oil, oregano, fresh garlic cloves, salt, pepper until the onions were translucent, then stirred in some flour, and brought up the volume with some milk and blended the whole thing to make a slightly thickened veggie-flavored creamy sauce.... and then whisked 3 eggs, which I tossed over the freshly boiled pasta (essentially making pasta carbonera), then also adding the veggie sauce over that, which combined nicely to make a rich juicy protein-rich sauce all-together. Pretty tasty meal in the end--I recommend it, and will definitely make it again!

..would have garnished with some fresh parsley if I had it ;-)