Thirsty for Summer!

I haven't posted in a while. I just didn't cook a lot in the heat of the summer. I rather enjoy a cold and fruity drink. So I figured I can share my favorite summer drink with y'all! It is very easy to prepare (as always) and soooo delicious! :-) It only needs some time to prepare as you have to make some ice cubes, not the regular ones!

You Need:
- Sparkling Water
- Pasion Fruit Juice
- Cherry Juice

you can see the ice cube dissolving

How To:
At first you need to prepare the ice cubes. For this drink I make them out of the cherry juice. I use special ice cube bags, They are available in all kind of shapes: regular cubes, spheres, sticks, bottles, ... They look pretty neat once they're ready. I recommend to put them into the freezer for at least 12 - 24 hrs.

Once the ice cubes are "done" we can start to mix the drink. Put 6 - 8 ice cubes in a glass. Fill it up with the passion fruit juice until the glass ist half full. Finally pour it up with the sparkling water. 

This is definitely my favorite drink this summer. Try it and tell me how you liked it! :-)

Just Another Soup

Not sure if you already regonized it, but I am crazy about soups. Because they are so easy to make and still so mucho delicioso! 

Zucchini Soup with Blue Cheese and Shrimps

When I went to the grocery store at the weekend I spent much more money than I intended. (never ending storry, everybody knows that...) But I noticed that I spent half of my money on fresh fruits and vegetables and the other half on fresh shrimps and wine. Just writing about it makes me feel better as I did not spend it on some crab. :-) I also bought fresh zucchinis, because I was thinking about cooking a Ratatouille. Ratatouille is perfect for the summer, it is full with fresh vegetables and easy to make and does not have lot of calories. For some reason I just didn't want to cook it. Still, I was lusting for some zucchini. I decided to look through my cooking magazines and found a recipe which sounded pretty interesting to me. A Zucchini Soup with Blue Cheese. Perfect! I love zucchini and I love blue cheese and I had all the needed ingeredients in my fridge. Needless to say that I went straight into the kitchen and started to cook. Originally, I intended to cook the soup and a pasta meal afterwards like a little menu. I planned to use the fresh shrimp in the second course...but just cleaning them, made me want to eat it right at this moment. So I thought it can't be bad to have shrimps in both courses, can it? That turned the soup into a Zucchini Soup with Blue Cheese and Champagne Shrimps. (yes, I really cooked the shrimps in champagne cause I am just that flashy!)

And here is the recipe, you need:

1 small Zucchini

1/2 Onion

some water

250 ml Vegetable Broth

200 ml Cream

100 g of Blue Cheese

10 Shrimps

150 ml Champagne

some leaves of fresh Sage

some leaves of Thyme

Pepper, Salt

How to:

1. Slice the onions in thin slices and put them into the pot. Add the water and sweat the onions. Already add the pepper and salt. Let the onions and the seasonings boil down. Meanwhile, cut the zucchini in little pieces. Add the pieces to the onions. Fill up the vegetable mixture with the broth and cream and let it boil until the vegetables are cooked.

2. While cooking the veggies. Heat some oil in a pan. Add the shrimps to the pan when it is hot enough. Make sure to season them with freshly grounded pepper, salt, and the sage leaves. Roast the shrimps in the pan until they got their lovely red color. By then, the pan should be pretty hot and the sage leaves should be kind of frying in the oil. Make sure you fry them, but don't burn it! Before letting it get too hot add the champagne. Cook it on the highest heat until the fluid boild away. You will then have a champagne-sage-glaze that is totally delicious and you can kind of marinade the shrimps in it.

3. Add the thyme to the soup. Blend the soup with the immersion blender. Finally add some more seasoning if needed.

4. Cut the blue cheese in pieces (not too big and not too small).

5. Give the well blended soup onto the plate. Add the blue cheese in the middle and put the shrimps on top. Now you are done! 

You do not have to add the blue cheese to the soup if you don't like it. The soup alone is fine or just with the shrimps. That is actually the good thing about cooking: you can prepare it whichever way you like it the most. Enjoy!

soup without the shrimps

Apple Muffins

I haven't posted anything for some days now. Simply because I only want to post recipes which I really like and can recommend to you 100 % ! But no worries, I still have so many recipes on my mind which I will post here. :-) 

Today I baked Apple Muffins. They are so easy and fast to prepare. You will only need 15 minutes to prepare them and then 20 minutes to bake them. And those 20 minutes are perfect to clean up your kitchen :-)

The recipe is good for twelve big Muffins.

You need: 
280 g Flour
3 tsp of Baking Powder
2 tsp of Cinnamon
1/8 tsp of Salt
120g of Brwon Sugar
2 Apples in small pieces
2 large Eggs
200 ml of Cream
50 ml of water
6 tbsp of Almond Oil

How to:
Heat the oven to 200°C. Measure all the ingredients. Put them in a bowl and mix it with a big spoon. DO NOT USE the handmixer! Because the hand mixer will mix it too thoroughly and the muffins tend to get dry and hard this way. So just use the a spoon, which is also easier to clean afterwards. Put the liners in the baking pan and fill them with the dough. Bake it in the oven for 20 minutes.

Hafe fun baking and eating it! 

Basil Quiche with Goat Cheese

I just have to share my quiche recipe with y'all. It is so delicious. And I bake quiches all the time, because they are easy to make and you can eat it when it is cold, too. And last but not least it is also a yummy vegetarian dish. 

4 different quiches

Today I prepared four different quiches. I will give you the recipe for the basil quiche with goat cheese. I used homemade pesto which can be substituted with any other ingredient like asparagus, spinach, zucchini, salmon, tomato, ... 

You need:
- 1 sheet of Puff Pastry
- 4 Eggs

baked basil quiche

- 100 g (1/2 cup) Cream Cheese with Herbs
- 1 stick of Goat Cheese
- 200g (1 cup) Grating Cheese 
- 50g (1/4 cup) Parmesan
- Pepper, Salt, Paprika
for the Pesto:
- 1 bunch of Fresh Basil
- 75 ml (1/3 cup) Olive Oil
- 50 g (1/4 cup) Pine Nuts


How to:
Prepare the pesto first. Just put the fresh basil, olive oil and the pine nuts in the blender and mix it. 

Spread the sheet of puff pastry in the quiche pan (don't forget to grease the pan) and pour the pesto over the puff pastry. Cut the goat cheese into slices and put it over the pesto. Stir the eggs with the cream cheese and the spices and put the egg mixture on top of the pesto and goat cheese. Scatter the grating cheese and parmesan on top. Now bake the quiche in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes at 180°C to 200°C (350°F - 400°F). 

Et voilà le quiche!

Cucumber Pineapple Salad

Here's the first receipe I promised y'all! It is the Cucumber Salad with Pineapples. Some of you may thing these two will not go together, but it is a love story... Once you tried it you will never ever want to miss this taste again. At least that is how I feel about it. The good thing is that it is very easy to prepare.

You need:
1/2 Cucmber
1/4 of a Pineapple
Dill
1 Spring Onion
1/2 cup or 100ml of Buttermilk
Pepper, Salt, Stevia, Hot Sauce

How to:
Cut the cucumber and the spring onion into small cubes. Peel off the skin of the pineapple (you only need a quarter of a pineapple). Remove the stem in the middle and cut the pineapple into cubes as well. Put everything in a bowl and mix it with the buttermilk, some dill and the seasonings. And that's it! Very easy.

Delicious Weekend

Y'all, I had such a delicious weekend! 

On Saturday I put together a delicious summer dish. Very light and full with fresh vegetables and fruits. I call it Lemon-Mint-Risotto with a Cucumber-Pineapple-Salad and steamed Salmon. Finger licking good!


On Sunday I prepared the last fresh asperagus for this year and made whole-grain pasta with green asperagus in a hazelnut sauce and fresh salsa. 

Recipes will follow later on this week!

For now I just wanted to tell ya that I sent out my profile for a new cooking show in Germany! Now, I am feeling kind of hyped and we'll see how it turns out! *excited*

Wish you all a fresh start into the upcoming week!

More Cucumber Soup

Fore some reason I just wanted to eat this cucumber soup every evening this week. Maybe because it is so refreshing. But I also liked the idea of preparing the same dish every night but still giving it another flavor everytime. The first soup on Monday was very creamy and full of calories so on Tuesday I wanted to go for less calories. It turned out to be a good idea.

Soup #1

So for the second recipe forget about the cream. Still, I wanted to add a little bit of dairy. I ended up with this recipe:

1 Cucumber
2 Spring Onions
1 cup of Natural Yoghurt (low fat)
5 fl oz (150ml) of Milk 
2 teaspoons of Stevia
Dill

Soup #2

Parsley
Seasonings: Pepper, Paprika, Garlic Powder, Salt, some hot sauce, lemon juice

Again, it's very easy to prepare. Just put everything in a blender and mix it up. I put some stevia in it because I like it when it is a bit sweeter. And I added some hot sauce for some fire :-)

Soup #3

I must admit the third recipe wasn't so different from the second. I just used buttermilk instead of the yoghurt and milk. But that made it taste even better. In the end, I cannot say what I like the most but I liked reciped #2 and #3 more than the first one. Maybe you can try one of the recipes and tell me what you liked the most? 

On the pictures you can see that they even look differently.