The Westmonster Daily

I’ve made it a goal in my life to find yummy vegetarian alternatives to meat-containing classics. In this spirit, I have thought long and hard about spaghetti carbonara today, a dish I have always loved and don’t usually dare to order in a restaurant with the addendum “but please make it vegetarian”. In very high-end Italian restaurants they might come up with a tasty alternative to the bacon, but usually, there would be only the eggs and sometimes *gasp* cream (heresy, I say! Heresy!!), which is money and calories right out the window. No, wait, the calories would go to the hips,of course, but without a tasty experience! That’s just wasteful. Wasteful of calories.

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So, yeah, I decided to come up with my own yummy, vegetarian version. Today was the first test run with garlic (always good) and sundried tomatoes (also always good and one of Hubby’s faves; also, they kinda look like bacon). It went over really well! I don’t envy my colleagues, though, because I had no parsley to fight the garlic-stench…

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Easter is over, I do realize that. But I cannot blog about my making easter eggs myself before the fact, now can I? There you go.

The Saturday before Easter Sunday was spent in my tiny kitchen with the unfathomable carpet in it, spreading melted chocolate over half of my kitchen equipment as well as some dark chocolate, white chocolate lemon, and coconut easter eggs. The latter taste a lot like those Bounty (in the US: Mounds) candy bars, which is not bad at all.

I may or may not post a plethora of pictures of the easter eggs later but I will tell you that I am eating another one of those delicious coconut candies right from the fridge this very moment.

In the meantime, one may follow my chocolatey endeavors on Tasty Kitchen, where I got (and reviewed) two of the recipes and posted the third.

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Look!…

Lemon Truffle “Eggs”

Coconut Eggs (see my Review for the changes I made). Here is a picture of them still naked and awaiting their chocolate coats:

Chocolate Truffle Eggs (again, see my review; I also added honey which was hardly traceable in the finished candy)

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For this time of year, I think the dark chocolate truffles are a bit heavy, but the lemon truffles are really dreamy and so fluffy and light… Yum!

This is my sister-in-law’s mother’s recipe, and the former passed it on to me during the time the two of us shared an apartment with my brother. That sentence sounds weird but I’m pretty sure it’s grammatically and factually correct.

Anyway, this is tasty stuff and very easy to whip up. When I made the batch pictured here, I was going to “soften” the butter in the microwave and ended up liquefying it completely. Turns out the only thing hurt by this was my nuke-timer-setting-pride. And I’m sure she’ll be okay.

So anyway, here’s what you do if you want a change from all those herbs and garlic in your rad bread spread:

Get…

1 Onion
2 cloves Garlic, or more to taste
Fresh Basil – to taste
½ cups Tomato Paste, more to taste
4 sticks Butter, softened (NOT necessarily liquefied, but, you know, whatever floods your boot)
Salt And Pepper, to taste

The other day I was feeling peckish. Like I usually do when I get that feeling, I opened the fridge to see what I could see. What I saw was a whole lot of things not fit to fight my peckishness, eggs, no milk, sparkling wine, butter, tomatoes (next to the fridge <– valuable piece of information… no?) and a toastable pita pocket. So I made a scrambled-eggs-stuffed-pita pocket. End of story, hope you liked it.

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Actually, wait – there’s more! (more…)

So I have this pie dish. I ordered it online after a month-long obsession with owning a pie dish (I blame that on having previously vacationed in the US) and a few futile searches for one in local (in)convenience stores.

You see, Germany has never really gotten the hang of pies. We make cakes and tortes, we build cars and highraise buildings, we don’t bake pies. So yeah, I got it online, eventually. It’s deep dish, light green on the outside, cream colored on the inside, and has this lovely rippled border (yes, I could just take a picture and show it to you, like I did with the hasselback potatoes, but seriously: where’s the fun in that?).

So it’s just delicious in itself. My mouth waters whenever I look at it. Or think of it, for that matter. Right now, for example, I’m practically drooling all over my keyboard, which is mildly upsetting because it’s not even actually mine. (more…)

Hasselback Potatoes are one of those dishes I’ve been meaning to try out for a while now, but never got around to it because it always seemed easier to just boil and mash the potatoes I had. And I adore mashed potaoes. They’re my favorite food at the moment. Especially with some roast garlic and cream cheese in them. And nutmeg. I love nutmeg. It’s important.

Anywho, I finally made Hasselback Potatoes last week, and since they were a success and are bound to be made again by me, I thought I’d share. Because sharing is nice. And being nice is important. Like nutmeg.

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The title of this post may be an exaggeration, but that’s actually what this way of preparing a mango always reminds me of.

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On Sunday, I stumbled upon the recipe for these yummy-lookin’ cookies which go by the delightful name of “Fluffernutter”, and they had me at “three ingredients”.

I hadn’t consciously heard of the famous Fluffernutter Sandwich that seems to be relatively popular in the US until I went to buy the ingredients for these cookies and read about the sandwich on the jar of marshmallow fluff. Now that I’ve tasted the cookies, I’m beginning to understand the sandwich’s popularity and I shall embark on a journey to bring this sticky delight to the breakfast, lunch, and dinner tables of Germany. (more…)

… even if the sauce does not consist of anthropophile’s delight (in case you don’t know the movie, I’m not gonna spoil it for you by naming it) but of another very special ingredient. Introducing

Beurre Noisette

The best one-ingredient-sauce you’ll ever meet. (more…)

You know those days when you wake up thinking ‘Today is the first day of the rest of my life, man. I am going to start it with a healthy breakfast’. And then you walk to the fridge, open it and remember why you never actually eat anything healthy: It’s just too much darn work. (more…)