Summer Appetizer

It's been a while since I last favoured you with a recipe of mine.

To be honest: I didn't really cook at all in the last two months. No, making a salad doesn't count! As for baking - I was introduced to the art of making "real American chocolate chip cookies" by my uncle (or whatever you call your mother's cousin). Now I know the secret about making the perfect gooey cookies... but more of that another time.

The thing I wanted to show you today is a super simple and very delicious creation me and my friend did a few months ago: a summer appetizer!

You'll need:
some dark whole wheat bread
arugula
a plum
feta cheese
cured ham
salt and pepper
balsamic cream

How to:
Cut the bread into mouth-friendly bites and toast them until crisp. Put some arugula on each piece of bread and add a slice of the plum. Then add some cured ham and the chopped feta cheese. Season with salt and pepper and add the balsamic cream. Now serve! 

Technically, this recipe doesn't include any cooking too.... but who cares!? It's delicious! And easy! Preparation time isn't more than 5min. 
The perfect food for lazy people like me ;)

love and kisses,
linskaya

safari knives

Let's talk about knives today! 

Now that's something I have never done before... but I think it's justified. Every avid cook knows that his/her life can be much easier with the right equipment. And I definitively have the right knives.

This Safari-Set from Kuhn Rikon with three blades is just amazing. It was a present for my birthday from one of my dearest friends and I think her idea was just splendid! I use those knives every single time I have to cut some fruit, vegetables, meat... whatever. They cut through tomatoes without squashing them! I thinks that's what fascinates me most ;) apart from the great animal prints!

I never knew I could be that ravished for knives but apparently I am. So if you still lack a present for a friend who loves to cook or if you're need in of great knives yourself, those should be your choice!

hugs and xo
linskaya

Breakfast Bread Boats

Ah, now where I am back and my fingers hover over the keyboard once more I thought I'd share another crazy breakfast recipe with you :) haha, gotya! I kind of start to annoy myself with this habit of bizzare breakfast recipes but sunday seem to be the only time when do not forget about taking pictures of my food...

So now to these beauties: they are so-called breakfast bread boats! And like most of my recipes this one is above all thing easy... you can use any kind of bread rolls or buns as long as you can hollow them out (ah how I loved to eat the inner parts of bread rolls as a kid!).

Fill them with an egg (or two if your bun is big enough) and all the spices of your choice.

We used paprika, scallions, salt, pepper, and chives.

If you want the yolk to stay intact just separate the egg whites and the yolks first and only season the egg whites with your spices. Fill the egg whites in your bun and top them with the yolks. Ta-da!

Now put them into your oven at 150° C for at least 20min and keep checking them from time to time. Every oven is different and you don't want your breakfast burned, right?!

 
yummy yummy!

xoxo linskaya

I love [Babu's Bakery & Coffeehouse]

This is going to be a post unlike the ones I've done before. I am going to recommend you a super cute coffeehouse in the very heart of Zurich. As I fell for this place when I first went there and still am absolutely in love with, I thought I have to share it with you. Should you ever be in Zurich (if you're one of my readers that do not live here), you need to visit Babu's Bakery and Coffeehouse.

Everything about this coffeehouse is adorable: the mix and match furniture, the beautiful gold-rimmed and polka-dotted tableware, the yummy breakfast assortment (waffles, pancakes, yoghurt with berries, muffins, bagels, eggs...) and the super tasty coffee variations. I simply love to go there for an ample brunch or a coffee and cake in the afternoon. 

Having started today with the aforementioned ample brunch I feel like nothing can cloud my day. And even if the sun isn't shining: I'm in a state of bliss!

xoxo linskaya

salad, oh salad!

Ah, it's spring again... and spring always means that I love to have salad again. In the bleak and cold winter months I am not much of a salad eater. And to be honest - who is?! If you tell me that on a freezing cold, dark, desolate and dreary winter day the only thing you crave is a healthy little salad I won't believe you. I simply won't! And I might call you names behind your back... who knows?! ;)

The only thing normal people (and yeah I am defining normal based on me which might be rather risky but I'll do it anyway) crave on dark winter evenings are things like hot chocolate, savoury pies, stew, delicious heavy soups etc. Warm things... I'm sure you get it...

But now it's spring again and before I get carried away by talking about savoury food, annoying people and cold winter days I will simply show you the salads that make me so happy lately. One of them is a simple caprese salad with basil (I love how my mom calls it "TomMoz" for tomato and mozzarella) in a not so simple way and the other one is my favourite mixed salad with corn, cucumber, tomato, avocado, shrimp, sesame and balsamico cream. 

I really love to eat salad again. I even might try one or two recipes for salads with berries, melon and other sweet fruit in them soon. *excited*

xoxo linskaya 

hot quinoa breakfast

It's been quite a while since I last shared a recipe with you, so I thought it's high time I did!

I used to be a breakfast-hater... a breakfast-skipper indeed. Most studies say that it's unhealthy to skip breakfast and that you are likely to gain weight if you do. I'm still not convinced that this is true but anyway... I do think it's unhealthy to eat breakfast if it makes you feel you have to throw up. My stomach just wasn't ready to eat anything so early in the morning...

But that changed: with my routine of eating breakfast during the holidays (as I told you here), I started to like breakfast. And my stomach started to like it too. So now I usually do eat breakfast... although I'm still not a cereal or hot cereal kind of person.

Last week, however, our fridge was completely empty... apart from a tiny bit of milk and some blueberries that had to be eaten. So what did I do? Yeah, I decided to try this hot quinoa recipe. I wanted to try quinoa anyway and as it is said to be a high protein seed, I think it's pretty healthy too.

It's pretty easy to prepare... and won't take more than 20minutes. Just follow the instructions on your quinoa package (if there's one) and use milk instead of water. Add as much brown sugar and cinnamon as you like and sprinkle with blueberries for serving.

Quinoa doesn't have much of a flavour of its own... so it's hard to say what it tasted like (apart from sugar, cinnamon and blueberries). It's rather mushy and you'll feel full faster than you think...

To be honest, it's not my favourite kind of breakfast (never will be), but it was good nonetheless. Next time, I'd probabely try it with apple instead of blueberries... or without cinnamon and with rasperries.

xoxo linskaya

be my valentine

Tomorrow is February 14th... Valentine's day! 

I used to be one of the persons who don't like this special day of lovers. It's kitschy and pink... and a day of the flower industry. Yeah, as I said: I didn't like it!

But that changed: it changed on February 14th in 2008 when I met a guy who would turn out to be the love of my life, the one and only, the man to spend my life with. Sounds kitschy? Yeah, I know, but it's true. Me and my boyfriend met for the first time on a Valentine's day...

So there's no way around celebrating Valentine's day for me! and I love it! 
This year, I feel like treating my bf with a nice dinner and some sweets.
And we all know that the way to man's heart is through his stomach ;) 

love, hugs and kisses
linskaya


Heart-shaped Patatoes, Marbled Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies, Heart-shaped Pancakes and Fudgy Brownie Hearts with Fresh Raspberry Buttercream. 

christmas time is cookie time

Just one more night... and it's Christmas! I am really looking forward to all the family celebrations... the only thing that's missing is snow (but I'm still crossing my thumbs!). 

Within all the Christmas preparations, the last minute shopping, and the wrapping of all the presents I still found some free minutes for cookie baking. I usually try to do the 'classics', which for Switzerland would be Mailänderli (THE Swiss cookie if you like), Zimtsterne (star-shaped cinnamon cookies) and Brunsli (Basel chocolate balls). But this year, I wanted to try something new... So I just opened my cookie recipe book on a random page and went for that recipe: walnut chocolate cookies.

Challenge accepted!

This is what you need for the walnut chocolate cookies:

150 gr walnut kernels

100 gr flour

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

50 gr cold butter

50 gr sugar

1 sachet of vanilla sugar

100 gr chocolate (dark or whole milk or mixed)

Cookie cutters (I only used my snowman, moose and penguin cutters)

Step 1
Reduce the walnut kernels to small pieces, mix with flour and heap on your work surface with a small depression in the middle. Add egg and salt. Spread sugar, vanilla sugar and flakes of butter on the margin. 

Okay, now it's time to admit it: I didn't read the instructions properly! I thought the chocolate belonged into the dough... whereas the chocolate in this recipe was actually thought to be used for the decoration. Well, I had already melted the chocolate and added it to the batter when I realised my mistake. So I had to improvise! But let's continue with the instructions now slightly changed by my humble self.

 

Mix everything and knead it together to a smooth dough. Cover in cling film and store in fridge for min. 2 hours.

Step 2

Preheat oven to 160°C (air circulation), cover cookie sheet with parchment. Roll out dough to 5mm on a floury surface. Cut out the cookies and put on the tray. Bake for 10-12 minutes in the middle. 

(This is where I had to improvise... I had no idea how long these cookies would take in the oven having changed the original recipe. Seems like I left them in the oven for a minute or two too long...). Then, let cool!

 

Step 3

Now it's time for decoration (to make up for the taste - in my case only of course!). Melt white chocolate cake glaze. Cut off a tiny edge and start beautifying :) You can obviously add all kinds of toppings. 

 

 

So hey, everyone makes mistakes... it just depends on what you can make out of it! And sometimes, look is more important than taste :) although all my friends assured me that they tasted great... and the fact that they were all gone in 3 days seems to accentuate that. 

 

 

Now off off to bed! Santa Clause is coming to town :) 

 

xoxo linskaya

red curry coconut thai soup

I realized that it's time for a recipe that is not weird in any sense at all! I know, I've been pretty experimental where my cooking is concerned... breakfast pizzas, baked eggs, chocolate dipped pretzels... well, today I'm going for something different. And guess what? It's even healthy! 

What I am talking about is a red curry coconut thai soup. and what a delicious soup it is!!! When I first tried this recipe, I was astonished not only by its great taste but also by the utter simplicity to make it. Believe me: I'm not a hell of a cook and I certainly don't like complicated menues (which is probably because I'm a tiny bit too structured when cooking and I'm always following the instructions of a recipe meticulously). So the less instructions the better!

And in times like these, where its grey and cold outside and the temperate crawls under 10°C... nothing warms you up better than a nice spicey soup.

Ingredients – serves about 4 to 6 as a soup course or light entrée

• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 2 heaping tbsp red curry paste (I’d suggest this one)
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups coconut cream
• 1 lime, halved
• 10 large button mushrooms, sliced
• a handful of baby corn, cut into halves or chunks
• a handful of snow pea pods, ends trimmed
• 2 chicken breasts, sliced
• 1 cup loosely packed cilantro, washed and dried
• Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions
In a medium pot, heat up the oil on medium heat for a minute or two. Add the red curry paste and stir until it starts to melt (1 or 2 minutes). Add the vegetable stock, coconut cream, lime halves and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.

Some extra advice for those of you who really like it healthy: Remove the pot from heat and allow to cool slightly (10 to 15 minutes). This will allow some of the oil to gather at the top so you can skim it of if you want to.

Put the broth back on the heat and bring back to a simmer over medium heat. You can remove the lime halves at this point. In a separate pan, gently roast the sliced chicken and add to the soup. Also add the snow peas, baby corn and mushrooms and cook for 5 to 7 minutes or just until tender.  Give it a taste and adjust salt and pepper to your liking (I usually like it very spicy, so I added a lot of pepper and some more red curry paste).

Now spoon into serving bowls (you best use preheated ones) and top with sprigs of fresh cilantro. And you’re done! Nothing left to do but to spoon out and wait for the soup to warm you from the inside…

Until my soup is ready, I'll snuggle up in a blanket and read a bit!

xo linskaya

baked caprese eggs

It's been 36 days since my last recipe post! Obviously, I had to do something to change that immediately. So hat's the answer? of course! writing this post about another breakfast recipe, which I tried a few weeks ago! Nothing too complicated (who wants to spend 2 hours in the kitchen on a sunday morning?!) and nothing too bizarre (maybe the breakfast-pizza was a little adventurous).

This recipe (which I got here) is so simple that you can count the ingredients on one hand: tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, eggs, basil and a tiny bit of milk. You may add some salt and pepper if you like... everything has got to go into a ramekin and wander into the oven. Delicious and simple! And for those of you, who really like to have an egg on sunday mornings... try this recipe and you'll have one more great variation of that classic!

Enjoy your sunday!

xo xo xo linskaya

herbs, marinades and sauces

Ok, I know it is almost (or rather already) autumn... but I still have to post this: this is a tiny recap of a summery event that took place in June, namely my dad's 50th birthday!

Aaaaand for his fiftieth birthday, my dad finally got himself a grill! *drum roll*
Obviously our birthday present had to have something to do with this huge change in his life, so we got him a Weber cookbook with numerous great and delicious recipes. We (meaning me and my boyfriend) decided to try some of these recipes and thus made two herb marinades and a BBQ sauce.

The process of making these led to a kitchen full of delicious scents. As technology hasn't yet advanced that far as to me being able to send you these scents, my words will have to suffice. Just imagine the scent of freshly chopped herbes (thyme, oregano and majoram), traditionally ground coffee and pepper, roasted chilis, and a mix of sea salt, paprika, garlic, onion and cayenne... mmmmhhhhh. And if that's not enough, maybe these pictures will help.
  
xo linskaya

breakfast pizza

It's unbelievable but I've been baking/cooking again. This time, however, it's a "breakfast" recipe. 

Everybody likes pizza, right?! I haven't met a soul who doesn't until now... and most people like an egg for a good sundays breakfast, right again?! Well, then why not combine the two things!? 

I slightly adapted this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and it turned out to have been a great idea. We made a simple whole wheat dough, covered it with mozzarella and gruyère cheese, sprinkled some bacon/salami and green onions on it, and cracked some (in our case 4) eggs over everything. 

Yeah, I know... this isn't what you would call conventional but sometimes you have to try something new. And alltogether it was a great and rich breakfast. Should any of you ever be invited to our home for a sundays breakfast or brunch you might have the pleasure to taste from this yummy pizza!

xoxo linskaya

a very social garlic-parmesan-herb bread

I've been looking for excuses to try this recipe lately. Fortunately, my grandparents invited me and my boyfriend for dinner last weekend. I was bold enough to tell my grandma (who is an absolutely amazing cook) that we would bring something for starter/aperitif; namely a garlic-parmesan-herb bread.

This bread is very yummy and it's very social - meaning that everybody has to grab a piece and pull ;) at first, this seems pretty akward (especially for my grandparents) but after a while you'll just enjoy. whereas the bread was my part, my boyfriend's part consisted of conjuring a delicious salsa to dip the bread-pieces in. and delicious it was! I actually can't give you the recipe for that salsa, because my boyfriend pretty much did it instinctively... (he's very good at that!)

so we just pulled, dipped, ate, pulled, dipped, ate... and enjoyed a lot!

xoxo linskaya

triple-chip-"thank-you"-cookies

I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks. - William Shakespeare

 

---------------

Saying thank you to someone is very important to me. It's a sign that you are grateful for something somebody did for you. And it also shows that you not taking everything for granted.

I needed to say thank you to a friend who helped me out a great deal lately. What better way to say thank you than with a handful of homemade cookies?! Exactly. None!

Inspired by this recipe from Bakerella, I flew (...well, not exactly, but that doesn't matter, right?! it sounds so much more dramatic than "went". and so much more fun, too! but anyway... where were we? ahhh..) ...I flew into the kitchen without further ado. 20 minutes later these super delicious cookies with three kinds of chips were ready to be served. And to be given away!

They were sooooo extraordinarily and dangerously yummy, I could have eaten all of them in one night... Luckily I didn't! Otherwise my shorts wouldn't be my friends anymore.

xoxo linskaya

chocolate covered pretzel sticks

Desperately in need of a birthday present and with a serious lack of time, I combed through the internet the other day. Before I found anything inspiring, a friend of mine recommended me this link. I fell head over heels in love with the idea of chocolate covered or rather dipped pretzels (soooo very american!). Thus, I decided to venture on unknown territory and just try my luck with these funny treats.

The idea is simple and the implementation even more so. Melt some chocolate, dip pretzels or in my case pretzel sticks into it, cover it with all sorts of sugary decoration and then put in a glass and let cool (in the fridge). And you are done!

Decorated with a cute ribbon, a mason jar full of these pretzels makes a very cute center piece on a table and of course a very nice present too. All I can say is that they were gone in a blink of an eye, so well were they received at the party!

And for those who still wonder whether salty and sweet is that good a mix or not - be told that it is actually very tasty. Trust me! You'll love it!

xoxo linskaya



obsessed with pinterest

 
I'll be honest with you... actually, I always am. Quite scarry, now that I think of it ;) the thing I'm gonna be honest about today is an obsession, an addiction. Yes, I'm addicted - addicted to Pinterest.
 
I haven't spent a day lately (meaning the last 3 days) without being on Pinterest. This website/social network/internet service is just amazing. It's actually just a huge virtual pinboard, where you can collect things you love/like and follow friends that like the same things.
 
Pinterest is full of inspirations! Every day, I find like hundreds of things I like, ideas for a future home, diy and crafty stuff, travel inspirations, fashion pictures, great recipes and deco ideas... I could already do like fifty posts with thingsI found on Pinterest and which I would love to have/do!

But I'd better stopp swarming and drooling. Should you ever need an idea for anything: go there! And try not to spend to much time there... because I'm sure you'll get addicted just as quickly as I was. Very dangerous!

So back to my inspiration hunt - repin, repin repin!!!
xoxo linskaya


P.S. Luckly, I'll be in Germany for the next four days and won't have a chance to go to the internet. Maybe that will help to break my pinterest-obsession.

P.P.S. Should you want to follow my obsession, you can do that here.

natural flavoured ice tea

I made a new discovery last weekend: tea bags for ice tea. I've never seen anything like that before... well except normal tea bags of course! special about it is that you can use this tea bag with cold water, ice cold water. yeah, really! just pour water in a glass, add the tea bag and your ice tea is finished. Can't get more easier than that!

It comes in three different flavours - forest fruits, fresh mint and juicy lemon. I went for the first one and I was pretty impressed how perfectly it worked. wouldn't have expected it... I mean, try pouring cold water over any other tea bag and all you get is a bitter tasting kind of water... iehh!

So this is really worth it and a perfect treat for hot summer days. Best thing about it: all the ingredients are completely natural. And the box looks cute...

I am off for a tea,
xoxo linskaya


ps: the tea is from the Silber shop in Zürich, Switzerland. You can have a look at the other stuff of the brand here.

long time no see!

First of all an apology: I haven't been around much in the last few days.. almost one week no see! that's not so good, I know. I could come up with a lenghty excuse about two summerparties on one weekend, too much summer-punch, a lazy rainy sunday doing nothing at all, catching a cold, two days of work and planned evenings and a day off for sales shopping - but I won't *grin* Let's just say, I had other things in mind...

Second: I'm back *wuhuu, clap clap* and I will have to come with some posts in the next few days to make amends for the last few days. Obviously, this is the first post after my absence and hence I will start with the first thing that happened in this absence: the summerparty of our agency.

You might remember last friday night... I do! Although the weather didn't want to play along, it was fun. Good conversations, yummie food, nice atmosphere, great view over the lake and some childish moments with fits of laughter. All in all a very pleasant evening.

I tried to capture some of it in my pictures. Sadly, I didn't take my camera along so all the photos were made with my iPhone (sorry for the quality).

xoxo linskaya