Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form

Autumn Leaves

autumn leaf against fuzzy background with other leaves and sky

We played Wir sind das Volk! for the second time on Sunday as a learning round (this time two decades). I am still enthusiastic, Juliana is still a bit hesitant, but she likes it too. The second time went much better for the East, the economy there was struggling but functioning and sustainable for the two decades - whether it would have survived the next decade is rather doubtful, because Juliana was able to drastically boost the economy in the West and I couldn't keep a federal state at a low economic level this time. It's exciting when you see the board with all the economic connections and the clear difference between East and West becomes apparent - for example, in my case a socialist stronghold in Mecklenburg-Pomerania because mass unrest kept breaking out there, central economic concentrations in Brandenburg, Berlin, and Saxony. The West is definitely easier to play, as you can primarily focus on economic development there and only occasionally throw a spanner in the works (economically) with suitable events, while the East constantly has to fight against collapse and scrap together its economy from the strangest corners, fighting growing unrest in the population with ideology and suppression. We probably only made minor mistakes in the first decade with the republic flight (there, it is alternately decided which economy disappears), otherwise the two decades ran very smoothly - which speaks for a clear rule system. The decade-end phase also went more smoothly, even though this part really seems a bit fiddly - but since you go through a checklist there, you can hardly forget anything. However, it is a small lull in the flow of the game, especially because you go through the checklist according to the instructions at the beginning (there are practical graphic checklists on BGG, which are - if you know the whole thing quite well - probably much faster than going through the text).

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Schloss Nordkirchen

Sewage Fields

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Corvey Castle

Small trip today to Höxter to Corvey Castle and the Weser. Along the way, stumbled upon the grave of Hoffmann von Fallersleben.

Lock, Dyckburg and Handorf

Walk from the lock to Handorf. Very nice forest area, even I still discover corners of Münster whose existence I was only vaguely aware of.

Market Visit

Just took the camera along to the market. It was quite nice, even though there were a bit too many clouds in between.

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Hiltenfingen and Landsberg

Visiting friends in Bavaria. Yep, just boring vacation photos again! We're turning into total tourists!

print("Hello, World!")

Vacation on Madeira

We wanted some more sun and warmth - and landscape. Lots of it. Well, we got the landscape, the rain was warm too, but the sun was a bit of a letdown. Well, here are the results, just thrown together and presented in a very unceremonious manner (thanks to the smoking of the Koken publishing service, as written in the previous rant). Enjoy!

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I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. And correction of the last message: that was summer 2012. Oops!

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I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white version. And ouch, there are old things in there. Apparently not updated since summer.

Recently on the Internet (Black and White Edition)

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white version.

Recently on the Internet

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented.

Recently on the Internet (Black and White Edition)

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white version.

Recently on the Internet

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented.

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I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white edition.

Berlin Again

Juliana's friend Natascha was visiting from Russia in Berlin, so we went there too so that the two could meet again. We visited Potsdamer Platz (and the area where the Berlinale takes place), the Reichstag and the Holocaust Memorial, the East Side Gallery and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the Kurfürstendamm. And in between, we spent a nice evening at El Burriquito. Cold, but beautiful. The fact that the titles are a mess is due to these stupid WordPress programmers, who have once again designed the media interface in such a confusing way that it now takes a bunch of individual edits to enter all the titles - and the idiots are also too good to use the titles from the images. And the RPC upload nonsense is also completely irrelevant. WordPress is slowly becoming no fun anymore.

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I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white version.

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I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. And presumably mostly from last year.

Coblenz and Stolzenfels Castle

Juliana and I took a day trip to Koblenz by train. There we mainly visited Schloss Stolzenfels and of course the German Corner. And otherwise just felt like tourists. It was nice, a bit cold, but lots of sun.

Aachen Cathedral

Spontaneously decided while dropping off my mother-in-law at the airport, if we had already driven half the way to Aachen, we might as well go all the way there and finally take a look at Aachen. Took pictures of Aachen Cathedral. Wow. It's really quite different from what we usually see in Münster (perhaps with the exception of the Klemenskirche).

Sweet Potato Lentil Coconut Milk Soup

Today we were in the mood for soup again. Yesterday I was looking for something and came across this Asian lentil/potato soup, and we decided to try it. It wasn't that difficult and was very delicious. Here's what goes into it (you can also see this in the first picture):

Sweet potatoes (we had about 750g)
Regular potatoes (we had 5 small ones, that had to suffice)
Two carrots
One mango
Fresh ginger (we had two small pieces, could have been more)
Lentils (we had brown lentils, about 200g)
Vegetable broth (about 1.5 liters)
One can of coconut milk (400ml)
Spices (pepper, salt, turmeric, cumin, chili flakes, nutmeg, cloves)

Preparation is also quite simple, it's just a soup:

Cube both types of potatoes, the sweet potatoes about twice as large as the regular potatoes (sweet potatoes cook faster and otherwise become mushy)
Chop the carrots
Chop the onions
Peel the ginger
Sauté the onions in oil until translucent
Add both types of potatoes and sweat them (let them sit for a while until they release moisture)
Pour the vegetable broth over
Stir in the coconut milk (don't be surprised, it's partly quite solid)
Add the carrots
Add the lentils (if they are very hard and need to cook for a long time - pre-cook the lentils, ours were still quite hard)
Grate the ginger over the soup (a cheese grater works well for this)
Add all the spices to taste
Let the whole thing simmer for about 20-25 minutes
Remove some of the soup (especially sweet potatoes and regular potatoes) - about 1/2 liter - and puree and mix back in. This makes it nicely creamy.
Peel the mango, cut it into small pieces, and add it to the soup
Sprinkle nutmeg over the soup
Let it simmer for another 5 minutes
Serve (we had Scottish spiced bread with it)

The whole thing was very filling and very delicious. Quite spicy for our standards because of the chili flakes. But a very interesting flavor combination.

Pumpkin Soup

Somehow we came up with the idea for pumpkin. Pumpkin - that fits the season. And why not make a proper pumpkin soup? So off to the market to get what we needed (especially the pumpkin) and off we went. What goes in:

a small Hokkaido pumpkin. Ok, in our case it was 3/4 of a small one, so with medium-sized pumpkins probably about half will suffice. Ours weighed about 1.6 kg.
3-4 potatoes
half an orange (squeeze out the juice, that goes in)
cooking cream
2-3 cloves of garlic
olive oil to sauté the pumpkin
1 liter of vegetable broth
spices (ginger, coriander, cayenne pepper, hot paprika powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, the turmeric from the picture was not used)
pine nuts (toasted later over the soup)

The most labor-intensive part of the whole dish was butchering the pumpkin. They are hard! That's work! Nevertheless, you have to get through it. This was the procedure:

cut the pumpkin into columns. Caution, this is really work, they are hard. I also peeled the pumpkin. Yes, I know, with Hokkaido you can eat the skin. But you can - you don't have to. And with a vegetable peeler it goes quickly.
then empty the columns - remove all the core.
then cut the columns into cubes
sauté the cubes with garlic together in oil
cook potatoes in cubes together with the pumpkin and the vegetable broth (20-25 minutes)
blend the whole thing with the hand blender.
add the first round of spices (generous amount of ginger and coriander, be a bit careful with hot paprika and cayenne pepper, of course pepper and salt and a little cinnamon) and stir in
stir in the cooking cream and the orange juice
add nutmeg and stir in and let it simmer lightly
toast pine nuts in the pan, when the pine nuts are done, the soup is also ready

We had a delicious French country bread with paprika and wine spritzer to go with it. It was absolutely delicious, the whole thing! By the way, the quantity was rather for 4 people, we like to cook a little more than just for one meal when it comes to soup.

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I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white edition.

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Rainbow Trout with Parsnips

... and without the baked potatoes (they didn't turn out right and were demoted to salad). Somehow, Juliana and I got the idea to make fish, and I thought, a nice trout, that would be something. So, we bought it at the market and got trout and parsnips. These were the ingredients:

two trout (each 400g)
parsnips for two servings
garlic (6-8 cloves)
parsley
lemon (for the juice)
green onion
olive oil, pepper, salt

Preparation wasn't really complicated, and it didn't take very long until everything was ready.

Juliana chopped the garlic, green onion, and parsley
I cut the parsnips into sticks
then we rubbed the trout inside and out with pepper and salt (don't be stingy)
then squeeze the lemon (half was enough for us) and mix the juice with the garlic, parsley, and green onion
fill the two trout generously and drizzle the remaining lemon juice in.
place the trout in an oven-safe dish wrapped in aluminum foil. So, line the dish with aluminum foil, put in the trout, and wrap it up.
wrap the parsnip sticks in aluminum foil as well (thin layer of sticks so they all cook nicely)
preheat the oven to 200 degrees and then put the trout and parsnips in the oven
bake for 25 minutes
arrange on the plate and serve

The whole thing was super delicious. As indicated above, baked potatoes were actually supposed to be included, and then a dip, but neither turned out quite right for us - the dip was too thin, more like a salad dressing, and the baked potatoes weren't done in time. But with the amount of fish, it was enough as it was.

From Coesfeld to Billerbeck

Today, Juliana and I took the train to Coesfeld and then hiked to Billerbeck, and then took the train back home. A very beautiful autumn hike, with many colorful impressions. We stopped at Kloster Gerleve for coffee and cake. We planned the tour using Komoot - created it there and then used the voice navigation. Amazingly practical, such a pedestrian navigation. And it really led us on hiking trails, field paths, and side roads, only the last stretch to Billerbeck was along a country road, but at least one with a footpath. If you want to check out the tour, I made it public on Komoot. The colors - it really had something of an Indian Summer.

Jerusalem Artichoke Salad and Lentil Salad

Today we had two rather exotic salads for our standards. Actually, it was just by chance because I got the idea for one salad (the lentil salad) while shopping for tomorrow and accidentally saw the ingredients for the other salad (Jerusalem artichoke) and got curious. Both salads are easy to prepare. Both require some cooking, but nothing complicated.

For the Jerusalem artichoke salad you need the following:

Jerusalem artichokes of course
Cherry tomatoes
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Pepper, salt
Basil, oregano

For the preparation, simply bring the Jerusalem artichokes to a boil covered with salted water and cook for 15 minutes until they are nice and soft. It's better not to take pieces of very different thicknesses like we did, but rather pay attention to the sizes of all roots being similar, just like with potatoes, then it works better. While the Jerusalem artichokes are cooking, chop the tomatoes. After cooking, rinse the Jerusalem artichokes with cold water. Chop and mix with the tomatoes. Add lemon juice, pepper, salt, basil, and oregano for seasoning. Mix well, add olive oil, and mix briefly again, then simply let it stand. It should marinate for a while (in our case it was about 2-3 hours).

For the lentil salad you need the following:

Brown lentils
Cherry tomatoes
Green onions
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Vegetable broth
Pepper, salt
Turmeric, coriander, cumin, ginger, hot paprika powder

For the preparation, simply bring the lentils to a boil in vegetable broth and then cook for 30 minutes. We just used half a vegetable broth cube. While the lentils are cooking, chop the tomatoes and green onions. Make a vinaigrette from oil, vinegar, lemon juice, and spices. Additionally, add spices to the tomatoes and green onions. Our vinaigrette also contained regular onions. Mix the cooked lentils with the tomatoes and mix well. Then add the vinaigrette and mix again. Let it stand, here too it was 2-3 hours. Before eating, chop and distribute fresh coriander on the lentil salad.

Then serve with baguette. Juliana liked the Jerusalem artichoke salad better, I liked the lentil salad better, but both tasted good. Bon appétit!

Mushroom Salad with Chicken Strips

Another episode of "Cooking with rfc1437" - this time Juliana was the cook and I was just the photographer and assistant. And there was a salad with wild mushrooms, in our case porcini mushrooms, after all it is the right season for it. Our ingredients:

about 250g wild mushrooms (we actually had 500g porcini mushrooms, but only used half of them for the salad)
lettuce (we forgot to check how much we had beforehand, so there was definitely not enough)
one bell pepper (which we added because otherwise there would have been too little salad)
cherry tomatoes or dwarf tomatoes (8-9 pieces)
180g chicken breast fillet
a bit of parsley
2-3 cloves of garlic
half a lemon
hot paprika powder and ginger to marinate the chicken
vinegar, oil and apricot-mustard sauce to make the salad dressing
pepper and salt for the mushrooms

For the preparation, we took a lot of pictures again, so the points here are based on the pictures above.

We used the recipe as a basis, but changed it significantly. It comes from a book that we received as a wedding gift and has already served us well several times.
We had already cut the chicken into strips in the morning and marinated it with hot paprika powder and ginger.
Cut the porcini mushrooms into small pieces and fry them with olive oil. They need about 15 minutes to be done.
Then fry the chicken strips thoroughly.
Squeeze the lemon
optionally eat the lemon zest
Mix the mushrooms with the finely chopped parsley and the briefly fried garlic
Pour the squeezed lemon over the mushrooms and mix everything well
In between, ask the husband to mix a salad dressing from vinegar, oil and apricot-mustard sauce (the apricot-mustard sauce is actually something like jam or chutney, we just had it in the fridge, of course any other variant would work too)
Cut the lettuce and put it in the bowl. And yes, that was really all we had, it was a bit little.
Therefore, quickly chop a bell pepper
Mix lettuce, bell pepper and the dwarf tomatoes with the salad dressing
Put the mushrooms on the salad (do not mix anymore, it looks prettier)
Arrange the chicken strips on the salad
Once again the spices we used for chicken strips and salad dressing, the oil was already in the picture. The vinegar was simply balsamic vinegar.
serve the whole thing with bread
and then eat!

The result was very tasty, but for next time we plan to have a larger amount of lettuce and I think making the salad dressing with part of the lemon juice instead of vinegar would also be a good idea. But it was a very tasty salad that also fits perfectly with the season.

Beef Roulades with Parsnips

Something new - cooking with documentation! Juliana wanted to have the whole thing documented to show it off, so we took turns waving around the cooking utensils and the camera. And surprisingly, it all worked out - and it tasted great too!

So the ingredients for today's menu:

four beef roulades (about 850g of meat)
3 parsnips
one carrot
some celery
green onions
spices (pepper, salt, ginger, hot paprika)
250g bacon
a few cucumbers
a few cloves of garlic (feel free to use a few more)

Preparation came in sections, as this is quite time-consuming, especially with the time. So here is the preparation including the breaks (the steps are oriented towards the pictures, so just look at the appropriate picture above for each step):

Chop celery, carrots, and green onions finely and prepare them for the broth in which the roulades are braised
Mix bacon, diced cucumbers, and finely chopped garlic and prepare them for the filling of the roulades
You need sharp mustard to spread on the roulades. Also in the picture are the cucumbers - they were with chili on them, which are great for roulades.
Spread the mustard on the roulades, don't be too stingy.
Distribute the filling on the roulades.
Repeat the whole process with each roulade. Also visible are the roulade rings with which I hold the roulades together.
Then all roulades are filled and rolled up.
Sear the roulades
Until they are nicely browned all around.
Remove the roulades from the pot
And add the vegetables for the broth
Sear and braise the vegetables thoroughly (for a few minutes)
Put the roulades back in the pot and fill with water and red wine so that the roulades are about 3/4 covered.
Bring the broth to a boil and then braise the roulades for 2 hours at 190 degrees in the oven. The pot is hopefully oven-safe?
Start with the parsnips about 1 hour before the end. (Well, it was more like 45 minutes before the end for us, but it was enough)
Cut the parsnips into sticks
Fry the parsnip sticks in the pan, season them with ginger, hot paprika, and pepper, braise them thoroughly until they are soft, then add some salt
The broth must be pureed and turned into a sauce with cream and sauce thickener
When the roulades are done braising, remove them from the pot and puree the broth
Mix the pureed broth with cream and then add the sauce thickener
Prepare the sauce back in the pot, bring to a boil, and add the roulades again so they lie nicely in the sauce. It just tastes better.
Look forward to the meal
And bon appétit!

It was fun to cook and even more fun to eat. Very delicious. Parsnips are a bit like a mix of potatoes and carrots with a slight cinnamon note in the taste. It was the first time for us that we prepared and ate them, it was very delicious. And the roulades were absolutely the highlight this time.

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