What's the Greek word for "yum"?

Have you tried fat free Greek yogurt yet? I actually haven't found it in the fat free variety in Vienna, but the low fat I found has less than half a gram for the whole container, so I'm calling it good. It's so much richer and creamier than normal yogurt. And when I read that you can substitute it in baking for butter, I knew I had to give it a try.



I tried this recipe from Finny Knits (warning, she uses naughty words, so scroll down to the recipe if you want to spare your eyes) and was really pleased with the results. Brian and I like gooey brownies and it was obvious from the batter that these brownies would be more cakey. So I only cooked them for about 18 minutes and they came out with a "melting cake" consistency. I know my family will know what I mean by that because we went on a cruise years ago and every night we ordered the chocolate melting cake for dessert. But in case "melting cake" doesn't mean anything to you, I imagine this recipe for baked fudge from the Pioneer Woman would be similar in texture. So not really brownies, but very good. When Brian tried them he said, "Yep, these can kill a man." And he meant it in the best possible way. I left the house shortly after taking them out of the oven and the pan was almost half way empty when I returned home a few hours later.

I think I will try the fat-free-greek-yogurt-for-butter substitution in something other than brownies -- maybe a coffee cake or pound cake. I'd love to hear if you give it a try in your recipes.

You can't handle the proof

I spend an embarrassing amount of time coming up with funny/corny/creative titles for my posts. And what's really sad about this particular title is that I went over it about a dozen times before I realized the line is actually "You can't handle the TRUTH". And it's probably also a little sad that I've gone over it so many times.

So, anyway, I'm writing about proof today. Well, actually about proofing. I love baking bread. And just about everyone I know loves homemade bread, but sometimes people tell me that they can't bake with yeast. And here's the secret I always share: Proof the yeast first.

I learned this lesson the hard way. One of the first times I made bread it came out hard, dense and tasted (and smelled) very yeasty. And not the good yeasty -- it smelled fermented. So I scoured the internet to figure what was wrong and I realized I had probably killed the yeast. I also learned that by proofing the yeast, I could easily prevent this problem from occurring again. And I've never had a problem since. Well, not with baking bread.


Tasty buns. These are great for sandwiches. Especially chicken salad with almonds and grapes. Yum.
So now you're probably wondering how to do it. It's simple. Always change the first step of a recipe to combine a warm liquid, sugar and yeast and let it sit for about 10 to 15 minutes. It should become foamy and smell yeasty. If it doesn't, either your yeast is bad or you killed the yeast because the liquid was too hot. Just throw it out and try again. Once you've let the yeast mixture sit for at least 10 minutes, continue with your recipe.


Sweet dinner rolls rising. I used a garlic and herbs butter on some of these, which is why there are green specks on a few of them.
I normally heat the water and milk (if the recipe calls for milk) in the microwave, stir in the sugar, then add the yeast. I heat one cup of liquid for about 1 minute and 15 seconds on high and this is just the right temperature. If you have a thermometer, you can test to make sure the liquid is about 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

So now that I'm sure you're ready to go out there and conquer yeast, here are some of my favorite recipes:

Tasty Buns - I've substituted up to 3 of the 5 cups of flour with wheat flour without a problem. I prefer the all-white flour, but Brian prefers the wheat flour substitution.
Sweet Dinner Rolls - Sometimes I make these as crescents as instructed and sometimes I make them as rolls.
Bread Bowls - I've only made these once, but they were really good. It's fun to eat soup from a bread bowl.
Light Oat Bread - I found this recipe when I wanted to make bread but didn't have any eggs. I really liked it and will make it again, possibly increasing the oats and decreasing the flour.
PW Dinner Rolls - I don't get all of my recipes from All Recipes. :) I love that you don't have to knead this dough (much) and that you bake them in a muffin tin, but the recipe makes at least 36 rolls and I don't have that many muffin tins.

And finally, just in case you're working up the nerves to attempt baking bread for the first time (or to try again after a disappointing foray into the world of bread baking), here are some other tips I've collected along the way.

* Yeast needs heat to work its magic , so if your kitchen isn't warm enough, put the bread in the oven at the lowest temperature to help it rise. Or you can preheat your oven a bit, turn it off and then put the dough in the still-warm-but-not-currently-on oven. Cover with a clean towel even though it's in the oven. (Some websites recommend adding a dish of water on a rack below the bread while it's rising to keep the dough from drying out. I don't go to the trouble and have never had a problem with dry dough.)

* I've found that buns and rolls work a lot better for me than loaves, especially for sandwiches.

* I never use a bread machine, but I almost always let my stand mixer do the first kneading. After the first rise, I generally knead by hand before shaping the buns/rolls. Even if a recipe is written for a bread machine, you can always make it the old-fashioned way.

* If you don't knead enough or don't let the dough rise enough, the rolls will end up being dense rather than light and fluffy. Sometimes I want dense bread, like when I'm making it to go along with soup or for most sandwiches, so I intentionally under-knead so the rolls end up dense.

Little 'Lisha Snack Cakes

I've really been trying to cut back on sweets this year. I've only had dessert once since the second week of January. (Brian's sister visited during the first week of January and for some reason I think having a guest is a good reason to make and consume a lot of sweets.) A week or so ago I made chocolate chip cookies for a function and I didn't eat a single one. Even when I was baking them and needed a taste test, I had Brian give them a try. I was quite proud of myself.

But today I fell off the wagon. I was looking through my bookmarks to see how many recipes I had for red velvet cake. Now I know it sounds like I was looking for trouble, but I wasn't. I only eat red velvet cake on my birthday and since I'm planning on making my own cake for the first time this year, I've kept my eye out for recipes. And I thought it might be time to look over them and narrow it down to one recipe. That way the next time I need to make a cake or cupcakes (for other people of course, I'm cutting back on sweets, remember?) I can give the recipe a test run. What? You don't plan your birthday cake 2 months in advance? It doesn't matter in any case because I've only bookmarked one red velvet cake recipe.

But while I was looking through my bookmarks, I found another recipe. A Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie copy cat recipe. And wouldn't you know it, I just bought oatmeal today. And I had one jar of homemade marshmallow cream in the fridge. (Marshmallow cream is one of those food items we hardly ever ate in the U.S., but now that it's not readily available sometimes we really want it. Little Debbie snacks fall into that same category.) So it was like all of the stars had aligned and I was destined to make these treats today. And I don't fool with destiny.


The recipe came together nicely. The cream filling didn't taste quite right, but I'm guessing it's because of the homemade marshmallow cream. The filling was also not as firm as I would have liked, but the homemade marshmallow cream doesn't hold it's fluffiness like the store-bought stuff. I'm storing them in the freezer, so that should make them a little less messy. And even though the filling isn't exactly right, overall the cream pies really hit the spot.

The recipe said to use a tablespoon of cookie dough per cookie. But often when I want something sweet, a small something will do just fine. So I made some regular-sized oatmeal cream pies (pictured above) for Brian and some mini cream pies where I used a teaspoon of cookie dough instead of a tablespoon (pictured below) for myself.


Okay, so I realize now that you can't really tell the difference in size when they're not side-by-side. But the mini cream pies are much smaller. In fact, I'd say they're one-third smaller (since there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon). I also used less filling on the smaller pies.

The hardest part was preparing the snack cakes for storage. I wrapped about half of them individually in parchment paper and then foil. But that was taking way too long so I ended up placing the rest in plastic containers and popping them in the freezer. We'll see how that works out. I hope they last a while in the freezer because there are about 12 to 15 large cream pies and well over 20 mini cream pies.

Conquering marshmallows

Christmas really sneaked up on me this year. I haven't decorated the Christlampe or made any of the traditional goodies like sausage balls or peanut butter balls. And Christmas is only three days away! But I did manage to get most of the Christmas gifts made and some of them actually in the mail. And today I finished making some goodies for neighbors.


This year I wanted to make marshmallows. I've had a recipe from Martha tucked away for years -- probably at least 4 years -- but I've never attempted them. This year I've seen several bloggers showing off their lovely marshmallows and I wanted to join in the fun. But conquering the marshmallow wasn't as easy as I had hoped.

I decided to use this recipe, but referenced a few others. Since I don't have a candy thermometer, I figured I could just let the liquids boil for one minute as Chef Keller recommended. But other recipes recommended boiling up to three minutes, so I wasn't very confident in this method. I really believe this was the source of my problems. Problems which could have been resolved simply by purchasing a candy thermometer.


Nevertheless, I persevered.

The first batch turned out way too gooey on the bottom side. I couldn't salvage them. The second batch turned out just a little gooey, so I had the bright idea to let them sit out overnight again. That seemed to do the trick. Unfortunately, what had been the gooey side didn't look too pretty.

But I was thinking about dipping them in chocolate anyway, so I wasn't concerned. In yet another unfortunate turn of events, I discovered I'm not a very good chocolate dipper. But I'm a decent chocolate spreader, so this is what I ended up with: the Christmas S'more. It's a graham cracker-like cookie, with a layer of melted chocolate, marshmallow, more melted chocolate and topped with cookie crumbs (to hide the imperfections in my chocolate spreading).


I also just added chocolate to some of the marshmallows. I think they'll be quite tasty in hot chocolate. I hope to try making marshmallows again next week when I have a candy thermometer. Despite my difficulties, it's a pretty easy recipe.

Nothing terribly interesting

It's been pretty quiet on the blog for the past week, but things are still hoppin' here in Vienna.

Last weekend I baked lots of little loaves of banana bread and sweet potato bread and brownies and cake for a Christmas bazaar organzed by the American Women's Association. I volunteer with this organization, so I wanted to help with the largest fundraising event for the charaties we support. And in the end, I won two prizes in the raffle. The first was a box of chocolates and a gift pass to a fitness center for women. And the second prize was a really fancy necklace and pair of earrings. When I opened the box I thought, surely these aren't real diamonds and pearls. And, of course, they weren't. But apparently they're the highest quality fake stuff around. I told Brian we might have to go to a ball next year so I'll have a chance to wear them. I don't think it will happen.

This week I'm preparing several dishes for a Thanksgiving meal. I'm going to tackle a turkey, ham, rolls, mashed potatoes, carrots, and a pecan pie. That sounds like a whole lot when I write it all out! Since Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here, we will celebrate on Saturday instead of Thursday. There are about 25 of us, include co-workers, other American friends who live in Vienna, two American families from Dresden, and some friends visiting from the U.S. Hopefully everything will come off without a hitch. And I'm sure I'll have more to say about it next week.

Oh, and today we had our first snow. I know that has nothing to do with Christmas bazaars and Thanksgiving meals, but it was pretty exciting. Sharkdog and I went to IKEA and on our way home it really started coming down. Fortunately, I was pretty well bundled up and Sharkdog was wearing his coat. And I must say, Sharkdog was quite the attraction at IKEA. But then again, he's quite an attraction everywhere he goes. Everybody loves the Sharkdog. But who can blame them? I know I can't. That dog is irresistible.

An alternative disposal method

It happened again. I found a moth in my bag of flour. I'm convinced that the moth was in the bag when I bought it, but I guess there's no way to be sure. I used to keep my flour in the freezer, but there's just no room. And just for the record, this is a different brand of flour from a different store than the last time this happened. But instead of throwing the flour out, I decided to use it. And now I'm going to share the recipe, PW style.

Homemade Playdough, or How to Use Moth-Infested Flour

This is a fun and simple recipe. Let's take a look at the cast of characters: Flour, salt, cream of tartar, water, vegetable oil, and food coloring.

Oops! There should be some food coloring there as well. Unless you want to make beige playdough.

Toss 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar, 1 cup of water and 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil into a pot.


Stir and then place pot on the stove over low heat.


Keep stirring. I stirred for about 10 minutes. Eventually it went from this:


... to this:


You want to heat it a little more. It shouldn't stick to your fingers when it's done.

Now set the dough aside to cool. Once cool, divide the dough and add food coloring. The food coloring may get all over your hands when you're first working it into the dough, but it shouldn't be messy once it's all worked into the dough.


Now play to your hearts content. Store in an airtight container.




Homemade Playdough

• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• ½ cup of salt
• 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar
• 1 cup of water
  
• 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
• food coloring

1. Mix all ingredients except food color in a pot over low heat. Continuing stirring until a dough forms.

2. Remove dough from the pot and set aside to cool. Once cool, divide and add food coloring.

3. Store playdough in an airtight container.

Worth the wait

There's just something about living in Vienna that makes me want to bake chocolate chip cookies. Maybe it's because it's like biting into a little piece of America. Or maybe it's because the only time I get chocolate chip cookies is when I bake them myself. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because I really like chocolate chip cookies. Whatever the reason, I seem to get the urge to bake them every couple of months.

So last month when I read a rave review of a chocolate chip cookie recipe over at Orangette, I marked it and decided I would have to give it a try. There are a couple of interesting things about this recipe. First, you're supposed to let the dough chill for 24 to 36 hours before you start your baking. It's hard, I know! But I could really tell a difference between the cookies I baked a few hours after making the dough and the ones I baked on the following days. And second, you sprinkle a little sea salt on top before baking. I tried baking cookies with and without the salt and I preferred the salty ones. I love the sweet and salty mixture, but Brian said he couldn't taste the salt.

Don't be intimidated by the recipe. It calls for cake flour and bread flour, neither of which are available in Vienna. Well, maybe they're available. But I can't really tell the difference. So I used what I think is an all-purpose flour and cornstarch instead and the cookies turned out delicious. If you want to give his a try, substitute 3.5 cups flour and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch for both types of flour. (In other words, instead of using 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour and 1 2/3 cups bread flour as the recipe states, use 3.5 cups all-purpose flour and 2 tablespoons cornstarch. You can also throw in a tablespoon of wheat gluten if you have it, but I didn't.)

So head on over to the recipe and give it a try.

Jammen

For those of you trying to keep up, here's something else to add to your list of things to learn in order to be like Alisha: how to make jam. In all fairness, I think it's significantly easier in Austria because they have this lovely sugar that contains pectin, so that takes a lot of the scariness out of canning.

Let's start at the beginning. Last week, one of Amanda's neighbors invited her over to show her how to make jam. Now, this woman called it marmalade, but when I looked up the difference between "marmalade" and "jam", I realized what they made was actually jam. After a little more research, I discovered that the English word "marmalade" is translated to "Orangenmarmelade" in German. And the German word "Marmelade" is translated to "jam" in English. I also learned that "jammen" is the German verb "to jam". That's not really related to the food jam, but I found it amusing.

So, Amanda learned to make jam from her neighbor last week and she taught me how to make jam this week. Now I must teach someone how to make the jam within the next week. It's the David Watson method of jam-making. (I know that only a handful of people are going to get that joke, so don't worry if the last sentence didn't make any sense.)

Here goes... How to make strawberry jam.

Start with fresh strawberries. I bought some of these from the Naschmarkt and the rest from the grocery store. The ones from the Naschmarkt were definitely better (looking and tasting), so next time I'll make sure to get enough from there. And while I was at the Naschmarkt, I took a few photos for Almost Daily Vienna. They'll show up over the next few days.

Let's get started. (Have I said that already?) Wash the berries.


Next, hull and slice the strawberries.


Then, add a little water to a large pot (enough to cover the bottom) and toss in the strawberries. Bring to a boil over a medium high heat while occasionally stirring and mashing the fruit. The juices will be released as it heats up. When it becomes juicy, add gelling sugar.

I had never heard of gelling sugar before and I don't know if it's available in the U.S. It's sugar that contains pectin (to gel) and citric acid (to preserve). When I googled it, the first site returned was a store in the U.S. (German Deli) selling the imported German brand, so it may be hard to come by in the U.S.


After it cooks a bit more, pour the hot jam into sterilized jars. I washed my jars in the dishwasher and then popped them in the oven for a few minutes to sterilize them. Put the lid on, then let them set overnight. Amanda's neighbor's grandmother used to always wrap her warm jars in a blanket so they would take longer to cool down. Neither Amanda nor I knew the reason for this, but we did it anyways.


My 7 cups of sliced strawberries made 5 jars of jam. I think I may try to make jam with other fruits

Hamburger weather

Last week in German class we were reading through a text about Hamburg, Germany. The text mentioned something about the weather and referred to it as "Hamburger Wetter" (Wetter = weather). One girl -- who is very smart, mind you -- asked the teacher, "What is Hamburger weather?" The teacher looked at her to see if she was serious, then answered, "The weather in Hamburg." Everyone got a big kick out of it.

I wonder if she was imagining hamburgers falling from the sky.

When I hear "hamburger weather" I think about grilling. And I've been thinking about grilling a lot lately. Good hamburgers are really hard to come by in Vienna. We have a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant that has good burgers, but with the current exchange rate, the cheapest burger on the menu is about $15. Yes, you read that correctly. Fifteen dollars for a burger from Friday's.

So I've decided that I'm going to learn how to make excellent burgers. And I'm hoping you'll help me. Do you have any tricks or unusual ingredients you use when making burgers at home? I'm not looking for anything extravagant, just a simple burger that taste great.

What about toppings? Is there anything in particular that you like to add to your burger? I'm dreaming of topping a burger with cheddar, barbecue sauce and some of these. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Baking + Bag

I can't believe how quickly the month is passing. I thought the month would be a little slow since I'm not in class, but I've been keeping myself quite busy. I even had to buy a pocket calendar to keep up with all of my appointments!

I finally had a mostly free day and spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. I baked cookies, bread and granola. In the spirit of full disclosure, I prepared the cookie dough last week and was just baking the last few cookies today. And I know what some of you are thinking. Granola? Did I go out and hug a tree afterwards?

No. No, I did not.

And the granola is delicious. I used the recipe on Orangette with a few tweaks. I didn't add the sesame seeds or ginger because I didn't have them. And I replaced the brown rice syrup with maple syrup because I didn't know where to find the brown rice syrup. It taste great and the apartment smelled lovely for hours and hours after I had finished cooking.

I also finally cut into my hippo fabric. Not today -- sometime last week. I made this cute reversible shoulder bag. The other fabric came from the crazy textile shop outside of town.




It seems springy/summery to me, so I probably won't use it much for a while. But I definitely plan on taking it to the zoo. I mean, come on, a hippo bag! At the zoo! I'd be crazy not to take it.

I used this tutorial from Lula Louise, in case you're interested in making your own. I really like the shape and the feel of the bag, but since it doesn't have any closures I'm not sure that I would use it for my daily bag. I think I will make a pouch for it and keep it in my regular bag so it's handy when I stop by the grocery store. If I ever make another one, I'll try to stick with fabric with a vertical pattern because the seams are on the front and back instead of the sides. I tried to line up the stripped fabric, but I'm just not that talented. Still, I'm pretty pleased with how the bag turned out.

Christmas eve hijinks

It looks like Sharkdog has found someone who enjoys looking out the window just about as much as he does.

Around Christmas, my family always has sausage balls in the house. Despite my struggle with making peanut butter balls in Austria, I decided to continue with the tradition of making sausage balls. In the U.S., it's quite a simple recipe -- breakfast sausage, Bisquick and sharp cheddar. But everything is a bit more difficult here. First, I've never seen breakfast sausage. Second, I've never seen Bisquick or other biscuit baking mixes. (Or biscuits for that matter. Even KFC doesn't have biscuits!) And finally, I've never seen sharp cheddar -- though I have heard it's available.

So what's a girl to do? I imagine you can guess -- I went over to All Recipes. I used this recipe to transform ground pork (which is readily available and quite inexpensive) into breakfast sausage and this recipe to make biscuit mix. As for the sharp cheddar, I replaced it with mild cheddar, which (gasp) I had to shred myself.


The sausage balls turned out pretty tasty, though not exactly like the ones from the U.S. All in all, I'd call it a success.

The big disappointment

I've been so disappointed with Christmas baking this year. Mainly because I haven't done any yet.

I had big plans of making sausage balls and peppermint brownies. And I wanted to try some new recipes like this Raspberry and Almond Shortbread Thumbprint recipe. Or possibly (in my more ambitious moments), this recipe for Brown Butter Spoon Cookies with Jam.

I had good intentions. Really, I did.

But it just hasn't happened. I actually tried to make peanut butter balls. But something went awry. I must have converted some of the measurements incorrectly. It's a little tricky to convert "1 package of graham crackers" into grams of graham-cracker-substitute. (For those in Europe looking for a graham cracker substitute, I used Leibniz Vollkornkekes.) So the peanut butter mixture turned out very sticky and not as firm as it should be. Even after refrigerating it, it was still softer than I'd like.

And I'm not going to start with the troubles I had melting the chocolate. After two failed attempts, I switched over to the melting chocolate you can buy in a little plastic cup. It was a sad day.

After all that trouble, I didn't have the heart to dip a hundred peanut butter balls into chocolate. So I decided to make peanut butter bars instead. I put some foil in a baking dish, added a layer of melted chocolate, stuck it in the freezer to harden the chocolate, added the peanut butter mixture, then added another layer or melted chocolate and stuck it all back into the fridge. It turned out ok, but not as good as I had hoped. Not good enough for a photo.

But here's the recipe if you want to try it. As you can see, the measurements are based on American packaging, so perhaps I'll have to find a recipe with actual measurements for next year. However, I've successfully made this recipe many times in the U.S.

Peanut Butter Balls

• 1 package graham crackers (this isn't 1 box, but one of the packages within a box), crushed
• 1 lb box powdered sugar
• 2 sticks margarine or butter, softened
• 1 lb peanut butter
• 1/2 pack chocolate chips
• 2/3 block paraffin wax

1. Mix crushed graham crackers, powdered sugar, softened margarine and peanut butter. Roll peanut butter mixture into small balls (about 1 inch) and refrigerate.
2. Melt paraffin wax and chocolate chips in double boiler, sauce pan or microwave. Stir until smooth.
3. Use a toothpick to dip peanut butter balls into chocolate.
4. Place dipped peanut butter balls on waxed paper and refrigerate.

I couldn't sell the cookies either*

I know, I know. I promised some tales of Christmas goodies. But then I got caught up in this little thing called sewing. About two weeks ago, I had a crazy idea to make some Christmas presents. Then I decided to return my sewing machine because I wasn't pleased with it. And when I failed to buy a new one on Saturday as planned, I was left sewing machineless for the entire weekend since EVERYTHING IS CLOSED on Sunday.

Alisha, you're probably thinking, since you didn't have your sewing machine, why didn't you spend the time making those Christmas goodies? Well, it's because I also forgot to buy the powdered sugar and graham cracker-like cookies when I went to the store on Saturday. And the grocery store was closed on Sunday. Weren't you listening when I mentioned that before? I was practically yelling.

Okay, to be perfectly honest there is one grocery store open on Sundays. And it's not terribly far away. If you consider a 10 minutes walk and 20 minutes on public transportation each way "not terribly far away." Which, by the way, I don't anymore. Consider it far away, that is. But an hour to get powdered sugar and graham cracker-like cookies is a bit much. Especially when I have other things, like church, going on the same day. That leaves hardly anytime for candy-making.

But I will go ahead and tell you about a failed cookie making experiment. A while back, someone mentioned Girl Scout cookies on their blog. And that reminded me of a recipe on Top Secret Recipes. (I would link directly to the recipe, but I'm not sure whether that would violate the User Agreement I accepted which includes not distributing the recipe. It's a free recipe -- most on the site are not -- so just search for "thin mints" and you'll find it.) Peppermint is Christmas-y, so I thought I would give the recipe a try and possibly throw them into the Christmas goody mix.

Well, they didn't really work out. I don't blame the recipe. I probably should have added just a touch more water. The dough was very dry and impossible to roll out. So I decided to roll it into a log and slice the cookies rather than rolling out the dough and using a cookie cutter. The cookie dough log was less than appealing.


But I continued. I think the big problem was that I didn't slice the cookies thin enough. After I baked them, they weren't crispy like the middle of a Girl's Scout Thin Mint. They were tasty, just not what I was going for. So in the end I decided to not dip them in chocolate and Brian and I just ate them plain.

I think I may still make some thin-mint type "cookies" for Christmas, but I'm going to stick with the Ritz dipped in chocolate method. I know, it doesn't sound good -- but they really do taste similar to Thin Mints.

* By the way, I never made it past the Brownies, so I didn't have the chance to try to sell the cookies. I'm sure I would have been a success because, really, who can resist the Girl Scout cookies?

Our feast

Yesterday Brian and I got together with the Haskews, Hensals, and Lockwoods for a Thanksgiving meal. A girl Kari met in language class also joined us. So there were 9 adults and 5 kids -- a pretty big crowd in my opinion.

The Lockwoods hosted our celebration. I took this during the calm before everyone arrived.
I was really looking forward to this meal not only because I like typical Thanksgiving food, but also because this was the first time I had a big role in preparing a Thanksgiving meal. Our menu consisted of turkey, corn, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, dressing, bread and pies.

I'm always overly picky about the foods I prepare, but everything came out acceptable. The macaroni and cheese wasn't creamy because I wasn't paying enough attention to the recipe and used about twice as many noodles as I should have. But it was still good. I thought the dressing was a little dry, but after eating some leftovers today I think the problem was that the cornbread was a too dense. And I went a little overboard with the bread. I made crescent rolls -- which had been specifically requested for this meal -- as well as cornbread and biscuits. Originally I was making cornbread only for the dressing, but it was so tasty I decided to make a second pan. The second pan was a bit denser and that's the one that ended up in the dressing. If you try the recipe, I recommend that you switch the measurements for the flour and cornmeal (2 cups cornmeal and 1.5 cups flour). I switched the measurements on the first pan, but only had 1.5 cups of cornmeal for the second pan. Also, make you sure mix the batter at least 5 minutes. I should have mixed the second batch longer. Kari and Ira made three pies: pecan, pumpkin and a reduced-sugar apple. I sampled all three and they were delicious.

Okay, enough with the words, here are some pictures.

The feast. This was after everyone had filled their plates. We had enough leftovers for another full meal (and then some.)

Meal time. Click on the links to see the photos in Flickr: 1. Dinner, 2. Kids, 3. conversation, 4. Kari and Zaden

Carli is really growing up. She loves holding Zaden.

Zaden loves to play with the doors on the dog crates. He's growing up too -- look at all his teeth!
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family and friends!

Move over Allrecipes

If you've read this blog much, you've probably figured out that I really like Allrecipes. You can find practically anything and the reviews are a great help in deciding which recipe to try. But lately I've run across some food blogs that I really enjoy. It's not just the recipes, but the writing. Like the Gluten-Free Girl blog. I'll probably never make any of the recipes on this blog, but I love reading it. And I love what Oliva at Anything But Spaghetti is doing -- you'll just have to check it out. And I haven't even mentioned the photos yet! Even if you don't like to cook, you'll love the photos. So lovely.

Another one of my new favorites is Organette. Like Gluten-Free Girl, Organette is a good read whether you're going to make the dishes or not. But I'll actually make some of these dishes -- and already have.

Last night I tried the Touch-of-Grace Biscuits recipe. At first, I wasn't sure I would be able to make them because Molly goes on and on about the importance of using Southern self-rising flour and I was sure I wouldn't be able to find it here. Then I read that Southern flours are milled from a soft wheat -- same as European flour. So I decided to give it a try.


And I'm oh-so-glad that I did.

They were so easy and I love that you don't have to roll them out. The whole biscuit-making process is much faster that way. I just used the flour I use for all of my baking and added some baking powder and baking soda since it's not self-rising. (But as I said earlier, the flour here is milled from soft wheat like the Southern brands. If anyone tries this with your run-of-the-mill all-purpose flour, I'd like to know how the biscuits turn out.) I substituted butter for shortening since I haven't quite figured out where to find shortening. And I used a big ice cream scoop to scoop the wet dough into the flour. I also had to use a square baking dish because my round ones are out on loan. I think a round would have given a little extra room, which would have been nice.

So, there you have it. My new favorite biscuit recipe. I have a feeling I'll be making them quite often this winter.

In the kitchen

I've always been a box-mix-brownie kind of a girl. The brownies from a box are so easy and they always come out delicious. When you start fooling around with ingredients and trying to come up a brownie from scratch -- well, you're asking for trouble. From-scratch brownies are okay if you're wanting cake. But if you want a brownie, only the box will do.

You can find brownie mix here in Vienna. But there's only one brand. And forget about options -- double chocolate, chocolate chip, cheesecake brownies -- no way! You're not going to find them. The one brand I've seen looks awfully cakey. I'm pretty sure there's an American flag somewhere on the box, but this isn't the type of brownie you eat in the U.S.

But, don't fret, I have found a recipe I like. And I like it a lot. Best Brownies from (of course) allrecipes.com. These are ooey-gooey chocolaty goodness -- and they're almost as easy as making brownies from a box. I usually double the recipe and bake in a 9x13 pan.

I don't know -- if I had the box mixes available, I might stick with them. But if you ever find yourself someplace that doesn't have box mixes (perhaps your kitchen late Friday night when you have a hankering for some chocolate), you should check out the recipe because you probably have all of the ingredients on hand.

I'm really looking forward to holiday baking -- I have lots of recipes I want to try. So expect to see a lot of food over the next month and a half. And lots of talk about Christmas. Consider yourself warned.

Getting it done

We get home from school around 3:15. Within the hour, it's pretty much dark outside. Usually when it gets dark so early it makes the days feel really short. But right now it's having the opposite affect on me. And I'm rather enjoying it. It makes me feel like I have a lot more time to get stuff done.

It's a bit past 8:00 right now. Since I got home from school I have...

...figured out how to use my new sewing machine. The manual is in at least 4 languages, none of which are English. While I couldn't find the manual in English online, I was able to find a manual for an older model that seems to be almost identical. I got as far as I could without any fabric to work with -- but that should be remedied tomorrow after Amanda and I visit a textile shop.

...prepared and eaten dinner. Curried Honey Mustard Chicken. So easy and so delicious. I've been thinking about it every since I tried the recipe a month or so ago. I forgot to decrease the amount of butter like reviewers suggested, so it turned out a little saucy. But the sauce is great over rice. And who doesn't like it a little saucy sometimes?

...cleaned the kitchen. Not just washed the dishes, but put away the cartons for recycling and cleaned the counters. I love it when there's nothing on the counter except the things that are supposed to be there -- the bread board, coffee maker and canisters. And in case you're wondering about the towel laying on the counter, I also...

...started on some bread. I love baking bread. This is the Sweet Dinner Rolls recipes. I made them half-size because the last time I made them they were huge. Good for sandwiches, but too big for dinner rolls. You want them to be small enough that you can eat two. :) I used Kräuter Butter (butter with herbs) instead of regular butter on half of these. (You can see the flecks of herbs on some of the rolls in the photo.) I'm excited to see how they turn out.

... completed my German homework. Well, it's almost complete. We have to translate a recipe from our home country into German. I translated the recipe yesterday, but I need to write it out today.

Now I'm off to bake the bread and finish my homework.

No photos, please

I try to take my camera with me everywhere because you never know when you're going to see something cute or interesting or just down-right funny. But sometimes I take the camera out of my bag to take pictures of Sharkdog and I end up leaving the apartment without it. That's what happened today. So I'll have to tell you what I saw instead of just showing you a picture.

Brian and I normally head home after class, but today we decided to go to KFC for lunch. After eating my fried chicken, I went to the ladies' room to wash my hands. And this is what I saw:

[Okay, this is where I would have inserted the picture, but as I said earlier, I didn't have my camera. Above the sink there was a sign that said (in German and in English): Out of order. Please use the sink in the gentlemen's room or the one downstairs to wash your hands.]

Uh, what was that? The sink in the girl's room isn't working, so go into the guy's bathroom to wash your hands? Apparently so. In case you're wondering, I just used the sink downstairs. For a brief moment, I was tempted to go into the guy's room -- after all, I had permission -- but after a second thought I decided that I would be really embarrassed if there was anyone in there.

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In other news, I made biscuits and gravy today using this biscuit recipe from All Recipes. And they were delicious! I highly recommend it. But be careful -- you may not be able to go back to the canned biscuits after trying this recipe.

Let's try this again

You may remember that I tried to bake chocolate chip cookies about a week ago. That was such a disappointment (and so disgusting) it has taken me a while to recover and try again. But after buying the molasses yesterday, I decided I needed to give the homemade brown sugar a try. And what better way than with chocolate chip cookies.

I was a little leery at first because the molasses and sugar where not mixing well. But once I threw the butter into the mix, things started shaping up. When I was finished with the dough, I could taste the molasses in it. However, after refrigerating the dough for a couple of hours the molasses taste was gone and it just tasted like good ol' chocolate chip cookie dough. This is the recipe I used, in case you want to give it a try.

Here's the finished product (on a lovely piece of Polish pottery). They turned out crisp around the edges and soft in the middle -- just like from the bakery.

And while we're in the kitchen, I'd like to show off these air-tight canisters I bought to store flour and sugar and such. Aren't they so cute!

And the colors go so well with the tiles in my kitchen! I may just have to leave them sitting on the counter.

Alisha goes to the market

Vienna has a lot of open-air markets, the most famous of which is called the Naschmarkt. Brian had plans today that didn't involve me, so I decided it would be a good time for a thorough exploration of the Naschmarkt. The Naschmarkt is open daily -- except Sundays when everything is closed -- but on Saturday a lot of local farmers bring in their crops so the options are more varied. And occasionally (maybe once a month), there is also a flea market where you can find anything and everything you can imagine. Today happened to be the flea market day.

I arrived at the Naschmarkt fairly late in the day -- around 3:30 -- but everything was still open. I decided to hit the food section first and then go back to the flea market if there was time. Here are a few photos of the produce stalls.

I was on a mission to find brown sugar, vanilla and coconut flakes (for Amanda). I've read that both brown sugar and vanilla can be found at some Asian shops and there are several shops located in or around Naschmarkt. In the end, the only thing I found from my list was the coconut flakes. However, I did find some Arm & Hammer baking soda and molasses. I mentioned in an earlier post that I couldn't find baking soda here, but later I found it at my usual grocery store. And later that day I found it again in my kitchen cabinet. I guess I did have baking soda when I wanted to make the cookies after all. I bought the A&H anyways because it was less expensive than what's in grocery store. I plan on using the molasses to make brown sugar, so maybe I was successful in my brown sugar mission after all.

By the time I was finished with all of the food stalls, everything was starting to close down. The vendors were calling out "Corn, 3 for 1 euro; radishes, 1 euro" -- except, of course, in German -- so I stopped and picked up some corn and pears. I would have loved to buy more fruit, but we already had apples and peaches at home and we just don't go through that much fruit. So here are my purchases.




I went ahead and walked through the flea market even though most of the people were starting to pack up their things. I don't think I can describe the flea market accurately. There were three rows with vendors on each side. They were selling everything: clothes, records, crystal (or glass), framed art, bike wheels, old pots and pans. Here are a few photos I snapped.



This was actually a nice looking stall, compared to most. The shoes are in decent condition and they all appear to have a match. Plus, they're on a table. A lot of the stalls were just a blanket spread on the ground with everything thrown out on it.


You can't really tell what is being sold here, but you get an idea of how much stuff is out there. And the quality, or lack of -- see the stack of old magazines in the bottom center of this photo?

I didn't take any close up photos at the flea market because 1) it was awkward taking photos and 2) I wanted to show the chaotic nature of the place.

The only thing I was really interested in was old photos and postcards. Preferably ones with writing (and a date) on the back. I found two great old black and white postcards from Vienna, but I ended up not getting them. One of the things the phrase books don't tell you -- when you learn how to ask "how much is this" in German, you should hold off on using it until you're able to understand the response. The guy was putting away stuff and wasn't interested in me and the price that I think he gave me was way more than I wanted to pay. Later, I was looking through some more cards and asked the price (in English, this time) and the guy gave the typical European street vendor answer: "For you, I give you a good price." Despite his answer, I continued to look. I only found one photo I wanted and when I asked the price he shrugged and said I could take it. That is a good price! I'm not sure what I'll use it for, but something crafty.

I love this man's short pants! And the mother fixing her daughter's hair. It's great.

P.S. Somehow I managed to publish this post when I was only half-way through. So if you started reading before everything was published, sorry about that.

P.P.S. Does anyone have any experience with molasses? When I got the bottle home, it was leaking. I cleaned it up and then later found it leaking again. I removed the lid and it was kind of foamy. I decided to look online to see if that was normal. About half an hour later (I got distracted while online), I returned to the kitchen to find this --

I found online that "some foam" is normal. But this is a lot of foam! When I bought it, I thought it seemed awfully thick, even for molasses. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have kept shaking the bottle in the store. I ended up pouring some of it into another jar and it looks like it has stopped growing now. But still, this doesn't seem normal.