Potato Challenge - Potato Filled Spring Rolls

The theme for this Monday will be "Spring" - as in "light, healthy and/or indicative of a new start" (Brad, 2016).

My dish will be neither, but it will be a potato dish!  Instead of making a healthy dish, I will interpret the theme literally, because - according to Google - there is such a thing as a potato filled spring roll. Who knew?

You don't believe me? Check this out: Grand Lux Cafe Copy Cat Spring Rolls and Loaded Baked Potato Spring Rolls.  The latter was apparently inspired by the same restaurant as the former. Maybe this spring roll is more of an outlier than it is a "thing".

Either way, this sounds like something I need to try, especially because I have never made a spring roll before - also, because it involves potatoes.

Monday night dinner - the potato challenge

On Monday nights I usually join a group of friends for a pot-luck dinner at a friend's house.  In August of last year I happened to bring a potato dish 2 weeks in a row.  The first dish was German potato salad, which I deemed appropriate for an evening where the group was grilling. I didn't keep track of what I was bringing at the time, but the second time was likely a cheesy hashbrown potato for the crock pot recipe that I found on the Internet after enjoying the recipe at a party.

One of my friends, Brad, commented on the fact that people rarely brought potatoes to a potluck any more.  He really enjoyed that I brought potatoes, because he had almost forgotten how much he liked them.  (I am paraphrasing here.  He said something along those lines over 6 months ago... ) 

'Til it happens to you...

'Til it happens to you, you won't know how I feel.....

That's all I have to say tonight.

Thank you, Lady Gaga.

A wedding cake and Tiramisu

This happened a while back, but it's definitely a story that should be preserved for posterity. 

It was Christmas 2009, my stepdaughter Maya was in town with her family.  She had been talking about getting married to her long-time fiancé that year, but as far as I knew no date had been set - and we were quickly running out of year to make the event happen. 

It was during during an informal family Christmas celebration on 12/28/09 (Monday) that she told the family about the small wedding she was planning for that Thursday (12/31/09).  The wedding was going to take place at her cousin Ryan's house and Maya's best friend was going to perform the ceremony.  She was inviting close family only, so she was expecting about 20 people. As I heard it the first time that night, that plans sounded good. 

After the Christmas party the I took the grand kids home with me, because they wanted to spend the night at Oma's house (i.e. my place).  We had a busy evening.  

My own wedding had been a small affair: justice of the peace, bride, groom, two witnesses and a red rose... so I didn't really think much more about the upcoming wedding that night.  

It wasn’t until the next day (Tuesday) I that I started thinking about the actual details of that little wedding get-together Maya was planning.  There were going to be 20 people at that house.  They were going to need something to eat or drink....

I decided that I'd buy some snacks, maybe some champagne, but then – as I was standing in front of a Black Forest cake at the bakery section of Sam’s club with my granddaughter - I suddenly realized that the traditional food for a wedding was actually – a cake….  Why had I not thought of that earlier? 

Taste of Home: Käsekuchen (German cheesecake)

I'm actually not a fan of sweets in general, but growing up in Germany, I made an exception for cheesecake.  After I moved to the States, I discovered that American cheesecake is quite different from the stuff I grew up with.

American cheesecake is dense - brick-like.  You could probably hurt someone by hitting them with a New York style cheesecake.  It's also rich; I don't even want to know how many calories are in a slice of American cheesecake. 

German cheesecake is light and fluffy.  It's got a crust that's to die for and a creamy melt-on your tongue filling.  It's great stuff - and almost low cal.  (OK, that last one may be an exaggeration, but it's good stuff, if I may say so myself.)

Unfortunately, as many German cheesecake lovers discover when they get to the States, one of the necessary ingredients is not available for purchase in many parts of the United States.  Making cheesecake requires "quark" - a white cheese that has the consistency of sour cream, but the flavor of a cottage cheese or ricotta.  Here in Kentucky, I can purchase quark in Cincinnati at Jungle Jim's for about $7 per 1/2 lb or so. If I ignore the cost of the road trip to Cincinnati, that amounts to a $30 cheesecake, and that's just a bit much for an everyday cheesecake. 

Taste of Home: Kartoffelsalat (German potato salad) UPDATED!

At my house making potato salad used to require planning, because the recipe I blogged about before  called for an overnight stay in the fridge.  In addition, I would always cook potatoes specifically for the salad, because I was convinced that refrigerated potatoes would not work.

But then, during a trip to Germany, my son asked my mother to make potato salad for dinner - about 30 minutes before dinner was to take place.  I figured that it could not be done.

Apparently, my mother disagreed.  She pulled out some boiled potatoes from the day before from the fridge and fixed German potato salad in about 10 minutes flat. At dinner, my son remarked: "Mom, Oma's potato salad is still better than yours!" Back in the US I worked on improving my recipe - and I do think it's much better now, if I do say so myself.

So, without further ado, here is the recipe I use now:

Taste of Home: Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars)

It's that time of the year again - I am baking.

Cinnamon stars (Zimtsterne) may just be my favorite cookies - ever! They also don't last long when I share an assortment of Christmas cookies with my colleagues at work.  Turns out, they're not hard to make - and they're even gluten free!