Have you ever heard about black cardamom? I hadn’t until recently. It’s used for Ethiopian spice mixes and makes them smokier.

This weekend my husband and I made Doro Wat (Ethiopian chicken stew) again and because I had mostly run out of my ordered Berbere spice blend I had to make some more from scratch.

I used a recipe from the web and compared what I got with the original one. Somehow they were not similar enough. The bought one was smokier and also something else was missing, a hint of what I would describe as German curry spice - which turned out to be ground fenugreek. The lack of smokiness was explained by the fact that the recipe said green cardamom. Luckily I had recently bought the black stuff for another spice blend (mekelesha) and realised that this was the missing element, so I think the person who created the recipe probably didn’t know about black cardamom. I added a teaspoon of ground down black coriander and there we were, a really good Berbere spice blend had been created.

The tomato and green chilli salad added a nice tangy and hot kick, only the lentils were a bit boring but that was fine. We ate everything with the homemade injera style bread (it’s not the real deal but it works for us).

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いただきます！We had okonomiyaki with bacon, mushrooms, bonito flakes and they were sooooo good.

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There was still some leftovers of that lovely sweet and sour white cabbage from Monday and it went perfectly with Bratwurst and mashed potatoes with fried onions. 😋

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I made vegan Mapo tofu and it was VERY close to the meaty version we all loved so much. OK, I had forgotten that the recipe I’m using requires oyster sauce so I simply omitted that. It was still perfectly fine. (I have an untried recipe for vegan oyster sauce but completely forgot.) Soon I’ll also try a vegan Mapo naso (with aubergine instead of tofu), I think that will be a winner too. 😋

I bought some new Japanese style rectangular serving plates and a few more small bowls. Can’t wait to start using them.

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My son requested German pizza, so we made two tarte flambés together. The dough was excellent, he did a great job at kneading it. And I finally figured out the right settings for my oven so the dough gets crisper faster. I think this was the best one so far. 😁

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I recreated my cabbage dish that was such a hit with my guys some weeks back but somehow it didn’t have quite the same impact today. This often happens despite carefully noting down what I did. I think it’s that “eating something new”-effect, and then the next time we know it already. But it was still good and I will keep it in my repertoire. 😋

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My son and I prepared today’s meal together. 👌🏻

We had pan seared tuna steaks, two types of spinach, and salad with some more of the carrot and ginger dressing.

The spinach on the left was wilted in oil with onions and shaved garlic. The one on the right was blanched, washed in soy sauce and seasoned with miso, mirin and vinegar.

The tuna was a bit neglected by us and I realised too late that the recipe actually asked for miso and sesame coating. I ended up putting gomasio on the yet unfried side in the pan which was fine. I could have fried the steaks a little bit less but they were still quite juicy. Both of us enjoyed our food!

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Another day of easy and fast food: homemade tomato soup with shop bought Maultaschen (a kind of German ravioli).

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Easy food today: pasta in a lemon cream sauce with a piece of hot smoked pepper salmon accompanied by a very simple salad with a carrot/ginger/miso dressing.

The greatest fuss was to create the dressing in the blender (took all but 10 minutes 😆) but it was absolutely worth it. I had found this on the Justonecookbook website a while ago and had been wanting to try it for quite some time. I should have made it earlier, it’s really refreshing.

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Another well working vegan adaptation of a dish that would normally feature meat: soy mince in a tomato and spinach sauce. Homely and easy with loads of nice spices like coriander seeds, paprika, cinnamon and turmeric. There’s also a green chilli in it, yum yum!

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