For the Love of Food

I figured since it's Thanksgiving week, it's a good week to talk about food! It's been an interesting experience cooking in Germany. I've been cooking dinner once a week for about a month. And while I've cooked pretty simple things so far, I've had to change a lot of the way that they are cooked since it's pretty impossible to find some ingredients. Everything has for the most part turned out just as good, though. So far, I've made enchiladas with spanish rice, barbecue chicken with homemade mashed potatoes and green beans, chili with cornbread, hamburgers with french fries, beef stew, snickerdoodles, rice krispie treats, banana bread... and some other things. The cornbread had to be made with polenta instead of corn meal, and it was actually my favorite cornbread I've ever made. It was a pretty fine-grain polenta, and I soaked it in the milk for about 30 minutes before using it, so that helped. They don't have canned/jarred enchilada sauce (that I could find), so I made it from scratch. Which was super easy and yummy. The ingredients for beef stew also changed, but it tasted almost the exact same. All in all, it's kind of fun to have to change around the recipes a bit. Sometimes you find something works better than you've grown up with, and it makes it a little bit of a challenge.


I've been trying to think of other things I can cook that are kind of "american". Although, Americans don't really have their own food, I don't think. We just have americanized versions of other cultures' food. So I've been thinking maybe chicken and dumplings, a breakfast dinner with biscuits and gravy/eggs/bacon, dirty rice... and I would LOVE some other suggestions if you want to comment below!!! :)

Chili & Cornbread

This weekend, I am attempting to make Thanksgiving dinner. I've never done a Turkey before, so that will be a first. But I've made sure to get lots of advice, so I'm going to be optimistic. I just keep thinking of that turkey on Christmas Vacation. And then that makes me think of the squirrel running across the table and all the other things that happen, and I'm pretty sure that's all going to happen to me. Someone's going to bring me a cat in a box. Although if someone says the Pledge of Allegiance at the table, I guess that'd have to be me, since I'm sure they don't teach that in German schools. Anyways, so here is what I'm planning on cooking... I'm trying to keep it simple because it's just me (although I'm sure they will help) and the ovens here are small...Turkey (of course), macaroni & cheese, green bean Casserole, mashed potatoes (wanted to make sweet potato soufflé, but don't have enough oven-time), corn, gravy, Derby Pie, and I'm going to TRY to find canned pumpkin so that I can make pumpkin pie. I don't have much faith in that, though. And I would LOVE some stuffing, but I'll just have to wait until next year. Anyone else have any suggestions???? I know there is a ton more that I could make and that I will miss, but that's okay. Having mac and cheese and derby pie will be good enough for me!


SO, I hope that everyone has a wonderful Turkey Day! I will miss all of my family and friends that are home for the break!

The Week of Murphy's Law

My birthday was last Thursday -- I turned 23. That's when my "Murphy's Law Week", as I'm now referring to it, began. As most of you are probably aware, Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And wrong it went.


Thursday, my friend Jordan arrived. She is an au-pair about 2 hours away from me. About 5 minutes after she got here, we opened a letter in the mail stating that I apparently broke a German law, obviously unaware. So now I have to pay a large fine. That was my birthday present from Germany. After we steamed about that for a few minutes, I decided to shake it off since it was my birthday, and we still had a great weekend, despite (or maybe in spite of?) Germany's birthday present. That didn't stop things from going wrong all weekend, though. And when something would go wrong, we did the only thing we could -- we got a good laugh out of it.


On Friday, we went to Duesseldorf. Everything went well and we had a lot of fun shopping and exploring the Altstadt (even though we accidentally ate a really expensive Fajita). Duesseldorf has some of the cutest little buildings and restaurants. I love walking around there. It also has the most well-dressed people that I've ever seen in one city. Then on the way home, we accidentally forgot to pay attention on the train and ended up in The Netherlands at midnight. Whoops. No problem, we just got back on the next train and remembered to pay attention this time.

Adorable Restaurant in Duesseldorf

The next day, Saturday, we went to Koeln. There is a train to Koeln every hour at :44. We got to the train station to go to Koeln and missed it by 1 minute. So we decided to go on ahead and eat brunch somewhere since we had to wait an hour. So we went to the closest cafe, which turned out to be mediterranean food. We ordered hummus and a little bit later, the waitress returned with a plate of pommes (french fries). This is where our American accent gets us in trouble sometimes. So we tried to explain we ordered hummus, not pommes, and they brought us hummus with no bread. So we ate hummus with pommes. I do not recommend it. But we laughed about that for a while. Could we have looked more American to the other patrons eating hummus mit pommes? After eating, we walked back to the train station to go to Koeln and missed our train AGAIN by literally 1 minute. So we looked and another train was actually coming at :26. So we sat down to wait. After that passed by, we looked at the schedule again, and of course, that train doesn't come on Saturdays. So we sat down to wait again for the :44, refusing to miss it for the 3rd time. After we finally got to Koeln, we went to the Dom, climbed the 533 steps to the top of the tower, went down the 533 steps, then accidentally went shopping. After running away from the shops before we spent any more money, we went to the Altstadt and had really good Thai soups and salads before returning back home. We had to take a taxi from the train station because it was too late for the bus, and I gave the cab driver 25 euros for a 9 euros taxis ride. Whoops. He probably wants to move to America now since we apparently give giant tips.

Pommes mit Hummus

Yummy Wanton Soup in Koeln

All in all, it was a really great weekend. Sometimes when things go wrong, it ends up making things more fun. Gives you something to laugh about. Although I do really wish I could exchange Germany's present.