Monday, March 19, 2012

Going on Vacation.

I will be taking a three week vacation and don't believe I will post in that three week period.

I will be going three weeks on an Europa-tour with my Rotary Club. We will start on 23.03.2012 in Prague, and then go to Budapest, Vienna, Padua, Venice, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Nizza, Monaco, Avignon, Geneva, Paris, and finally back in Muenster on 13.04.2012. I don't think any other spring break will be as good as this one.

Schnelle Küche: Tortellini Surprise

Cook time: 25 min.   Servings: 4-6

Ingredients:

500 g. (1 lb.) Tortellini (meat, cheese, or whatever you prefer)
2-4 Tbsp. Tomato Paste
2 c. Heavy Creme
1 Tbsp. Salt (plus for pasta water)
200g. (~3/4 c.) Ham, diced

Directions:

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and add a little salt to the water.

Cook the Tortellini according to the packaged directions. When the tortellini are cooked, then drain the water from the pot. Slice the ham in a small dice. Add the tomato paste, cream, salt, and ham in the pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and let cook for 15 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced into a thick consistency, like mac and cheese.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Kind of a Nerd

This week I went to CeBit, twice. CeBit is like CES but with more software and less hardware technology.  CES is the annual Consumers Eletronics Show in Las Vegas. CeBit is the Consumer Electronics Trade Fair in Hannover. Both hold the record for World's Largest thanks to the fancy name play.

CeBit was huge. There were 26 different halls to go in, on a 5 acre campus. Tobit was there with the best Booth. They were next to google. They set up a bar that looked like Offsite, Tobit's bar in Ahaus. The bar/booth even included a robot DJ with pole dancers.

To continue with the nerd theme. Albert this week tried telling me that the 6th star wars movie was the best. Everyone knows the 4th (1st) movie was the best. The Fifth had Luke's ugly face when he finds out that Darthvader is his father, The first three were too computerized, and the last had weird tiny animals. I am not a stars wars fanatic, but everyone knows the 6th movie was the worst.

My Observation of this week is that Germans will only go through one door of a double door way. At my school kids will wait to go through one door for two way traffic, when there are two doors available. At CeBit everyone would file in through one door instead of opening the second. It's a little weird, but it's whatever.

Schelle Küche: Pasta with Mushroom Creme Sauce

Servings: 6   Cook Time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:
500 g. Mushrooms (Simple white button Mushrooms or Champions)
1 Tbsp. Butter
1 Tbsp. Oil
200 g. Sour Cream
220 g. Heavy Cream
100 ml. Water
1 1/2 Tbsp. Steinpilz-hefebrühe (I couldn't find anything similar in English except Porcini Powder and Yeast flakes mixed)
1 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1 Tbsp. Salt
1 tsp. Pepper
500g. Pasta (Short, Curly Pasta works best.)

Directions:

In a pot of boiling salted water, add the noodles and cook following packaged directions.

Slice the mushrooms about a half inch (2 cm.) thick. In a warm pan add the oil and butter. When the oil and butter start to simmer add in the Mushrooms and sauté until golden brown, and the mushrooms have reduced by half, about 5-8 minutes. Add in the Sour Cream, Heavy Cream, Water, Steinpilz-Hefebrühe, Salt, and Pepper. Let the mixture reduce by half, about ten minutes. When the sauce has reduced, add in the cornstarch and let thicken, about 2 minutes.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Mild Temperatures are Killing Me

This week I was curious to find out which US State had the most exchange kids in Germany, as of Today, Illinois has the most with 10 kids. I believe it would be fair to say that district 6440 has the most kids per district with 4, Impressive for a tiny district in northern Chicagoland.

This up-coming week, I have 2 finals Bio and Geography. I wish my Geography class was as easy as Lakes, where the kids just learned where the countries were and then made food from that country. Now I need to learn economics of developing countries and how tourism effects a country's development/ deteriorates the culture.

I am going to die when I get back to the US. I am not saying it's super cold here because we actually had a warmer winter than Chicago, and we never received snow. Today is 14℃ (mid 40's), and to me that was T-shirt weather. I am going to die in the summer heat.

The US needs to use the metric system. It would make my life a lot easier. When everyone else in the world uses the metric system, doesn't it make sense to adopt a system that everyone uses, so that we are globally compatible. I understand the creator of "Fahrenheit based it off the human body temperature, but even he was wrong, and the human body temperature is 98.6 and not 100 like originally stated, making the Fahrenheit system invalid. But we are Amuricans, and we are the ass of everyones jokes because we are as stubborn as one.

Schnelle Küche Recipe this week: Peasant Lentil Soup

150 g. Lentils
4-5 Medium Potatoes
4-6 Strips Bacon
1/2 Medium Onion
1 Carrot
1/2 Leek
1-1 1/2 L. Chicken Broth
1/2 Tbsp. Pepper and Salt
1/4 c. Sugar
1/4 c. White Wine Vinegar
1 c. Chopped Bologna like sausage.

2 Tbsp Curry*

Dice the bacon, onion, carrot, leek, and potatoes, and then cook them in a medium pot until the bacon is crispy, and the onions are translucent. After that pour in the Chicken broth(and curry, if using), scraping any brown bits off the bottom of the pot. They add flavor. Add the lentils, potatoes, and leeks and bring to boil. Turn down heat and let reduce until the lentils are plump, and the potatoes are fork tender. After add the sugar and vinegar. They are added in equal portions, so that you can play around with the combo until you find one you like. Let cook for one hour. Before serving add sliced bologna and enjoy.

*I add curry but the wasn't part of Petra's original recipe. Also this recipe is made by eyeball measurements. These are not exact but a suggestion.