Today's recipe: Butternut Squash Lasagna

Today is the official launch of my new unofficial blog section, “A cook on the grumpy side”. This new category will cover all my bloopers and maybe even my bad moods, which of course are few and far between…unless you believe my husband. And needless to say, he is still in the naughty corner where he will remain until he learns to behave better, or my mood changes.

This is a really easy tomato salad recipe, but it is fantastic. As you (should) know, we have a lot of tomatoes each year and I have come up with loads of ways of using them, but this is our favorite and quickest tomato salad. Being a very creative cook, I sometimes go overboard on spices and “ooh, I’ll just roll this and tuck that, brown it, flip it and stack it” so this is a surprising none-of-all-of-that dish. As always, the recipe is at the end, but first it’s time for more holiday stories!

Although I have been promising to catch up from January 2nd, I just have to tell you about the Hasselback potatoes I had in the month of August first. August is party month. August is the busiest month of the year after July which was actually also very busy… But anyway, stop interrupting yourself woman, and tell your stories!!

The nice thing about being part of a European family is the tradition. I was going through my photo archive and found a photo of New Years Eve two years ago which we spent with my German in-laws. Part of the family tradition is that we have wonderful Smoked Trout homemade by the equally nice Herr down the road and Potato Salad.

Tomato season is well under way so it’s about time I sat down and penned the most fantastic tomato coulis (thick tomato sauce) recipe in the world. I make bottles and bottles of it every year as it is so good and so easy to make. Today I am also featuring some of the friends who asked me to post this recipe…here are their stories. (This is not a copyright, it’s a right copy!! Sigh, “Here are their stories” is the line they use on CSI, silly.)

As I have mentioned in several posts, I spent a couple of weeks in the States at the beginning of the year and my great friend Peg and I made a Standing Rib Roast for New Years Eve dinner which was superb. As there are no photos of this great meal, you are getting recipes for a Beef Filet dinner I made in May which was also superb and for which I do have photographs! We had Beef Filet, blue cheese Endives and Mash Potato with carrots and pumpkin and here are all the recipes. But first the stories…

Today's recipes are: Potato Curry Soup; and Compressed Ginger Rice

As promised yesterday, here are more of my curry recipes. Today you get the Potato Curry Soup recipe and then the Compressed Ginger Rice recipe. You can serve both of them on any occasion – they don’t have to be part of an Indian evening. The soup is velvety smooth and delicately spiced – everyone asked for the recipe – and the Ginger rice is great because you can prepare it ahead of time and warm it in the oven at your leisure. But first the stories…

Today's recipes are: Meatball Curry; and Lentil Curry

How about a Curry Extravaganza for your next dinner party? My menu included: Potato Curry Soup – a total winner that even non-curry people love as it is velvety smooth and delicately spiced – as a Starter, then for the main course a Prawn Curry, Meatball Curry, Lentil Curry, Compressed ginger rice, and Green beans with sesame oil. You can prepare them the day before if you like, as curries definitely improve if you let them sit a bit. But first some stories…

Die Tomatoes, Die!!

As you may remember, I mentioned in my “Asparagus time” post what a good gardener Joerg is. Our tomato production is no exception to this rule and is something that has to be seen to be believed. Currently there are only little green bullets on the bushes, but soon I’ll be up to my eyeballs in tomatoes so I thought I’d start giving you some tomato recipes so that you to will be ready when the season really gets going. Last year was the weather year from hell as it rained almost non-stop and always at the wrong times and this was disastrous for the tomatoes. With tomato blight ravaging the country, there was not a single person in our state/department with tomatoes. We had hundreds.

Today’s recipe: Maltese carrots

We were recently invited to Anna’s for a meal and were treated to a really super supper. Gaynor and Chris, and Eli and Pierre were there too. Anna has led (and is still leading) a very exciting life, a life that includes safaris to Africa. She has lived in Paris, Malta, Morocco, to name but a few, and always has interesting stories to tell. She went on a safari in Botswana recently with “his gorgeousness” (the “slightly younger” tour guide) and tells of going to the open air bathroom in the rain – you try and finish the paperwork with wet toilet paper!!