I cash in my Deutsche Bahn points regularly for the GU cookbooks on offer. I figure I pay a lot for train rides each month anyway so might as well get a cookbook out of it! 1 Nudel – 50 Saucen by Martin Kintrup is my favourite so far. It’s levelled up my pasta game, basically. Before I mostly made Carbonara or pasta with different pesto. All very delicious, no doubt! A clever fusion recipe like shown above changes things up, though: It’s penne with feta, mint, and a mix of eggplant, red onion and garlic fried in oil, honey and white vinegar.

In: Kintrup, Martin, 1 Nudel – 50 Saucen, p. 24.

My Dad had his birthday at the end of February. I ask him every year if he wants me to bake his favourite cake, cheesecake, for him, and he always said he’d rather I studied for university etc. This year I was smart and just baked the cake as a surprise! My parents came over to visit on the weekend, and we all had two slices, then my Dad asked if he could take the rest of the cake home. I think he loved it, haha! Here’s the recipe (in German).

After the cheesecake, I think I got my cake and pie baking madness out of my system. (Although I’d still like to try the gingerbread cake again, so maybe not.) I’ve been mainly baking bread again. This is a new recipe by German celebrity chef Lea Linster. It’s actually for buns, buuuuuut … oh man. I realized I didn’t have enough flour for the dough after I had already prepared the starter dough and let it rise for 24 hours. I couldn’t buy more because it was Sunday. Even though I used less water, the dough still ended up being incredibly sticky. I couldn’t be bothered to form buns (I hate the feeling of sticky dough on my fingers) so I unceremoniously dumped the dough into my loaf pan and baked it all in one piece. The recipe gets incredibly delicious results. It tastes slightly salty because you put in sea salt, and that makes it the perfect companion to boiled eggs, or honey.
Here’s the recipe (in German).

It’s been getting warmer, and consequently I’ve been craving salads and other light meals. If you know me you know I’m obsessed with mango, so this chicken papaya salad with a mango dressing was a no-brainer. While I loved the mango dressing, I didn’t love the salad so much. You are supposed to put in 6-7 celery stalks, which is way too much celery in my humble opinion. (I won’t jump on the celery juice bandwagon, as you may have guessed already.) Next time I make this, I’ll definitely change the ratio of celery to rucola.

In: Pfannebecker, Inga, Expresskochen Low Carb. Schlank auf die Schnelle, p. 16.