New Year's Day Pasta with Winter Truffles

Good morning !

Good Morning everyone!

A new year has begun!

Welcome 2015 !

What will this year bring? Where will we head with doubledipping ? What will we come up with to inspire you and keep you cooking and enjoying? Who knows, please stay with us through this new year 2015 !

We have some champagne left over from last ... year and it is the best pairing for this dish and will lift some of those yesterday sins. It is a "healing" dish and will bring you back onto your feet.

Promise!

We celebrate not on big scale. I kind of find New Years Eve a bit challenging. One must eat late and long we use to play games like cards or other bord games then we go outside make a little fire in an iron bowl and music and dance into the new year. We stay away from fireworks or crackers. There is a lot of deer in the woods around us and we do not want to scare them. We feed them and love to watch them come real close so fireworks is a no go around our house. They said that on New Years fireworks are responsible for a year's amount of pollution by cars. WOW that really is a reason to stay away from it.

My New Year's day pasta is a simple and heart warming dish and we eat it out of one bowl with lots of laughter and extra cheese.

My mom gave me this wonderful truffle for Christmas and Julian wanted to make lunch for us. In no time I could convince him to enhance his plain noodles with a little bit of truffle oil, cream and parmesan!

You Need

500 grams fresh pasta
400 ml heavy cream
200 gr grated parmesan
salt, grey pepper
2 tbsp truffle oil
a winter truffle thinly sliced

Pour the heavy cream into a saucepan and bring to boil, as soon as the bubbles rise pour in 150 grams of your grated parmesan and let it rise one short time, then turn off the heat. The Cheese will melt while you stir on the stove that is still giving off enough heat. Season to your liking and add the truffle oil last. let sit there while you cook your pasta, drain the pasta and transfer it to a bowl pour the cream mixture evenly over it, sprinkle the rest of the parmesan over the pasta and finally add the truffles.

So easy - so quick - so heavenly!

What will pick you up today ?

Sunday Snapshots - this year's last

Out and about to new shores, as this year draws to an end and we look back and reflect on what made this year special.
Was it things learned or new territories explored.

Friendships we lost or new ones we found. The moment we were able to enjoy as it happened or the moment we discovered by looking back on it's value.

It is a magical time of year after Christmas and before New Year's Eve.
Peace and rest settles in and the mind can reflect upon what was and what will come to pass.

Have we been able to to set our foot on paths not explored or do we hope to do that next time with more energy and courage?
That is the tricky thing about those new paths, they look inviting but what will come out if it after the next turn?

His eyes are fixed on the shore ahead, his mind is set on things to explore, his heart is at ease. With God's help everything is possible.

These photos were taken on a recent adventure to Königssee in Bavaria.

Brooklyn Heights Snapshots

As you guys read this, I'll be up in the air somewhere high above the Atlantic Ocean, on my way home for the holidays. I'm really going to miss New York, but I'm excited for my time in Europe and Asia over the next couple weeks and I hope you guys will follow along on my adventures. Have a wonderful and restful weekend preparing for the holidays.

Power Cookies Truly Vegan

Friday, 5th of December

Are you searching for inspiration? I am always , and I look for it in the internet, in my cookbooks on the menus of all the restaurants and through the windows of creative food stores and caterers.

Do you know that we cannot just see something and not be influenced by it? When it comes to food, that is only partially true because we do not gain weight as long as we just admire it and I am so thankful it does not end up on the hips for all the cookbooks and magazines I read all the time. But when it comes to movies, let alone the news, we feel strong emotions looking at the pictures. They can lift us up, or pull us down, they can motivate us and manipulate us and we have so little control over it. 

Looking at food however like the photos of this recipe, shall make you happy and lift you up and eating them will give you power as well. Gluten-free and free of guilt.

Another recipe by my friend Claudia !

You Need

Chocolate chips homemade:

120 gr/ 1 cup cashews, soaked for two hours
60gr/ 1/2 cup maple sirup
60gr/ 1/2 cup Cocoa powder
1 tsp Vanilla-powder
pinch of salt

Mix all the above ingredients except the cocoa powder. Add the sifted Cocoapowder and mix until smooth. Squeeze small drops with the help of an icing bag on a parchment paper and let dry at maximum 42° in a dehydrator. They are really worth the effort, much better than the bought version with milk and sugar and chewy, yes chewy! I love them and would eat it any time on its own as a treat!

If you are not allergic you can use the store bought ones look at the label to make sure you get those without sugar.

Cookies:

300gr / 2 1/2 cups fine cashew flour
210gr / 1 3/4 cups Gluten-free oatmeal flour
60gr / 1/2 cup maple sirup
1 tbsp coconut flower sugar
1 tbsp vanilla powder
1/2 tbsp sea salt
1 cup of the above chocolate chips, you can also use real raw cocoa nips, then add a little more sweetness

Mix all except the chips they must be added last and form cookies of your preferred size, mine are 5 cm in diameter and let them dry in the dyhadrator for 1/2 a day/over night if you like them on the chewy side.

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Vanillekipferl -Traditional Austrian Christmas Cookies

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The stage is set at the Steiereck

Some sights are better than anything else. Watching a magician pull out a white rabbit from his top hat is a well known one and still we cannot understand where the rabbit came from.
I've been an adult for a long time now, but I still love illusions and each time I watch the quick hands of a magician, I try to figure out how they could trick me so easily and turn a simple trick into a miracle. It is a game of the mind and takes long hours of practice. That's how I feel about the process of Vanillekipferl, a traditional Austrian christmas cookie. They're incredibly delicate, but have to be quickly dusted in powdered vanilla sugar.

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Vanillekipferl can be made with almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts or a mix of any of them. After they are baked, before they cool off all together, you should roll them in vanilla sugar. The tool is an artist's brush and this is a cart full of icing sugar.

First the cookies are dropped into the icing sugar then they are hidden completely and the brush will find it again and recover it.

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On a warm plate the Vanillekipferl are served and the whole trick is not an illusion but a sensation. Serving is a devotion. Telling a story so your imagination comes to life is a gift. 

The Steirereck tells a sweet story by serving Vanillekipferl bathed in a cart full of icing sugar.

Trace the tracks 

Rainy Daze in New York City

Sometimes it's really hard to find clarity and peace during the holiday season, between buying presents and the holiday rush. I know for myself I haven't had more than a few minutes to process that Christmas is in less than two weeks between finals and working on photography and packing up my life to leave the city during winter break. I've actually secretly enjoyed the quiet rainy days by myself in my apartment studying. (The last picture is the view from the living room of my apartment) Even when I get exceedingly busy, I make sure to be thankful for all the positive things in my life right now.

What do you do to alleviate stress?