Veggie Love Story: Tomato Avocado Salad

Hello you lovely people,

I apologize for making myself so scare for the last few days, but it's been season opening week at the theatre and my last work week there in general (I decided to go back to university! :) ). Therefore everything has been a little bit stressful...
In compensation I am going to share a really good, quick and easy recipe for a tomato-avocado salad. I served it last week at my birthday brunch and it was eaten up almost immediately. I figure that's a good sign. ;)

Every Month Birthday Present

Hello you darling people,

last Sunday it was time to celebrate another birthday - mine in this case... ;)
I invited some friend over for brunch (which lasted for about 12 hours ;) ) and really had a fabulous day. For those of my guests who read this: THANK YOU again for joining me! It was a blast!
Of course I got some presents too and although all of them were pretty cool one stuck out especially for me. My oldest (and one of my best) friend Karin gave me an "Every Month Birthday"-present and as I liked the idea so much and guessed you might find it inspiring too I decided to share it here on the blog.

Chocolate Peach Crumble Cake

Hello you darling people,

today I wanna share another recipe for a delicious cake: a late summer chocolate peach crumble cake. Yummy!

Italian Dress meets French Hat in Vienna

Hi folks,

last week we had two lovely visitors from Canada - Mark and Ashley. We met them two years ago in London, where we stayed in the same hostel room and this year they found time for another trip to Europe.
Luckily, summer made a small comeback last weekend (just a short one unfortunately) and so David and I were able to show them all the beautiful Viennese sights in sunshine weather. A good opportunity for me to finally put on my new white dress and my favourite new straw hat and make some nice pictures using the fountains in front of the Hofburg as backdrop. Just later on I realised that the whole outfit was actually a subconcious hommage to our guests. How so? Well, the pants are from Ralph Lauren, hence North American, the hat is from France and Mark and Ashley are actually French Canadians and the dress comes from Italy and guess what, both have Italian families. I am delighted! :)

Spinach Cake with Peanuts

Hello everybody,

today I wanna share a recipe with you which works as well for breakfast, lunch and dinner and is quite easy to make: spinach cake with peanuts. What may seem unusual at first is actually one of the greatest combinations I've recently tried!

What you'll need

• ca. 75g spinach
• 2 spring onions
• 100g flour
• 1,5 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• salt and pepper
• 50g peanuts

How it works

Roast the peanuts in a dry pan for a few minutes and preheat the oven to 160°C. Chop the spring onions and the spinach.

Mix the flour and the baking powder in a bowl. Stir in the eggs, the sour cream, the olive oil, the mustard as well as salt and pepper. Then slowly incorporate the spinach, the spring onions and the roasted peanuts into the mixture.

Pour the batter into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake the cake for about 40 minutes.

Take the spinach cake out of the oven and let it cool down for about 5 minutes before you carefully separate it from the pan.

Enjoy!

Have a great day!

Yours,
Steffi 

All images by Steffi Reichl

Wishlist: Go Green Into Fall

Hello everybody,

as summer is almost over I thought it was time to take a (online) look at the current fall fashion. :) For me this year it's going to be a special autumn as I will go back to university to start a new master program in "Environmental and Sustainability Management". I'm already really looking forward to it! Fitting to the study program I decided to challenge myself a bit for this wishlist and only checked out online stores that offered environmentally friendly or "ethical" clothing. I put together two outfits - one a little bit more girly and the other one a little bit more sporty and I'm actually pretty pleased with the results... :)

1, 2 and 4: People Tree | 3: hessnatur | 5: Beyond Skin | 

1 and 3: People Tree | 2: hessnatur | 4 and 5: Veja | 

6: Kuyichi (over Greenality) 

 

Have a great day!

 

Yours,

Steffi

 

PS: All these sets were made with Polyvore and can also be found here.

Happy Birthday Tulip and Lily (plus Giveaway!)

Hello everybody,

I almost can't believe it but today it's this little blog's first birthday! :)
What started out as a little "I wanna try that"-sort of thing in the meantime became one of my most favourite pastimes and most important outlet for little creative projects and culinary experiments. Katja aka Lily found out, that instead of writing, she prefers to work behind the camera and now makes most of the outfit pictures in which I try to pose... ;)

GIVEAWAY!! To celebrate the day we need cake of course, which is why I'm going to share a recipe for heavenly chocolate-espresso-muffins today! In addition - because what would be a birthday without presents - I decided to put together three little, birthday-themed surprise packages for you, lovely readers, each including three recipes and ideas for a colour-themed birthday dinner and a little DIY. If you want to win, just leave a comment under this post until October 3rd (open for EU-citizens only. Sorry everybody else!). Winners will then be announced October 4th. :) 

But first things first - let's start with the muffins!

What you'll need

• 1 egg
• 90g sugar
• 125g butter
• 150ml butter milk
• 130ml espresso (cold)
• 100g dark chocolate (chopped)
• 240g spelt flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 package chocolate blancmange powder
• 100g dark chocolate with pistachios 

How it works

Preheat the oven to 180°C and prepare some muffin paper liners.

In a bowl cream together the egg and the sugar. Stir in the butter, the buttermilk and the espresso, then add the chopped chocolate. In another bowl whisk together the spelt flour, the baking powder and the chocolate blancmange powder. Then slowly incorporate the dry mixture into the creamy mixture.

Fill the paper liners, each 2/3 full with batter and bake them in the oven for about 20 minutes.

For the final touch melt the dark pistachios chocolate over a pot with boiling water and coat the muffins' top sides with it.

Blow the candle and enjoy! 

Have a great day!

Yours,
Steffi

All images by Steffi Reichl

First Glimpse of Autumn

Hello everybody,

this year we had a really short summer in Austria. The whole weather feels like autumn a little bit already and it could as well be the end of September instead of the end of August. However, although I would have loved the summer to last a little bit longer, the current weather gives me the perfect opportunity to get out my new coat and my new sweater I bought in Strasbourg and show them to the world... ;)

coat: Chattawak (Strasbourg) | sweater: Somewhere (Strasbourg) | jeans: American Apparel | 

socks: Happy Socks (old) | sneakers: New Yorker | bag: Hallhuber | bracelet: Bijou Brigitte |
flower brooch: H&M (old)

Have a great weekend!

Steffi

All images by Katja Borlein

Hello Mushroom Season: King Oyster Mushrooms with Polenta Sticks

Hi folks,

I love this time of the year - I love the mushroom season. Besides chanterelles my absolute favourites are king oyster mushrooms. Some days ago I bought some for dinner and David and I made the most delicious and really simple mushroom dish with polenta sticks and green salad. Here comes the recipe. :)

What you'll need (for 2 persons)

• 250g polenta
• 1 l vegetable stock
• salt
• nutmeg
• pepper
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 20 g butter
• olive oil
• 200g king oyster mushrooms
• 3 garlic gloves
• 2 spring onions
• (tamari) soy sauce 
• green salad
• salad dressing of your choice

How it works

We start out with the polenta. Pour the vegetable stock into a pot, add the salt, some grated nutmeg, pepper and the butter and bring everything to boil. Stir in the polenta with an eggbeater and cook it up. Then add the Parmesan, turn down the heat, and let the polenta expand for about 10 minutes. Stir regularly to prevent the polenta from scorching.

Put the polenta into a rectangular pan (we used our baking dish) and let it cool down completely. This will take about an hour. Now you can go and watch an episode of your favourite TV show or something or bake a cake like I did (more on this soon)... ;)

Cut the mushrooms and the garlic gloves into thin slices and chop the spring onions. Heat up some olive oil in a pan and gently roast the mushrooms for a few minutes. Add the garlic gloves and spring onions for two more minutes and deglaze everything with soy sauce. Salt and pepper to taste and put the pan aside.

Turn the baking dish upside down and cut the now cold and stiff polenta into sticks. Heat up some olive oil in a pan and roast the polenta sticks for a few minutes until they are warm and a little crispy on the outside.

Conclusively dress the green salad with a dressing of your choice (we made a simple dressing with cider vinegar, salt, pepper and olive oil) and you are ready to serve.

Bon appétit!
Tulip

All images by Steffi Reichl

Delicious and Healthy: Minestrone

Hi there,

my mother's vegetable garden is exploding right now. Green beans, tomatoes, celery... everythings ready to be harvested. Good for me, as I'm therefore currently getting the best organically grown vegetables directly from the garden. I decided to use them to make a really tasty and substantial vegetable soup: Italian minestrone. 

What you'll need (for 4 persons)

• 3 garlic gloves
• 2 spring onions
• 1/2 handful celery leaves
• 2 big carrots
• 2 potatoes
• 1 handful green beans
• 1/2 zucchini
• 60g butter
• olive oil
• 1 1/2 l vegetable stock
• 100g tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 handful fresh basil 
• grated parmesan
• salt and pepper
• 85g spaghetti (broken into small pieces)

How it works

Chop the garlic, spring onions, celery leaves, carrotts, potatoes, green beans and zucchinis. Heat the butter and the olive oil in a big pot and brown the garlic and the onions for two minutes. Add the celery leaves, the carrots and potatoes and continue roasting for another two minutes. Add the green beans and the zucchini and...what do you think?... brown for two minutes.

Cover the pot and cook the vegetables stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes. Then add the vegetable stock, the tomatoes, the tomato paste and the basil and add salt and peeper to taste.

Cook the soup on a low heat for about an hour. Then add the spaghetti pieces and cook for another 10 minutes.
Put the soup into bowls, sprinkle grated parmesan over it and enjoy! :)

Have a great weekend!

Yours,
Tulip

All images by Stefanie Reichl

Strasbourg in Pictures

Hello everybody,

last week I spent some lovely days in Strasbourg, France together with my mum for a little mother-daughter-vacation. :) Here are some impressions from our trip to the beautiful Alsation capital.

We took the train to Strasbourg and arrived at its very cool train station, which in my opinion is a great combination of old and new architectural elements.

Strasbourg's major sight is its famous cathedral - the Münster - which is really an impressive building from the outside as well as from the inside.

I don't know if you have seen Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris". It's one of my favourite movies and there is this wonderful scene when Adriana (Marion Cotillard) shows Gil (Owen Wilson) this beautiful carrousel from the Belle Epoque. Well, you can imagine my joy when we found a very similar one in the middle of Strasbourg... :)

La Petite France is a small and lovely Strasbourg district, where the Ill river splits up into a number of canals and you can watch the boats come by.

If you prefer the modern to the medieval architecture you should check out the Museum of Modern Art, a very cool and colourful building next to the river.

 The European Parliament is also worth a visit.

To relax a bit after our sightseeing tour to the "European district" we went to L'Orangerie. This is Strasbourg's biggest park, where you cannot only find the most beautiful flowers, buts also two small lakes and a stork breeding station. Beautiful!

  
But the Orangerie is not the only green spot in the city. Opposite the Palais du Rhin at the Place de la Republique you can also find a lovely small park with beautiful flowerbeds.

  
A fire flower for the "Fire Street".

Strasbourg is the perfect place for food lovers and fans of meat in particular. One national dish is choucrote, which is basically a plate full of sourcrout combined with differents sorts of bacon, sausages and potatoes. It's actually really tasty, altough I wouldn't recommend it on a daily basis (unless you want to get a heart attack at a young age)... ;) A great alternative to  choucrote is the tarte flambeé, a kind of very thin pizza with sour cream, onions, bacon and/or vegetables. Yummy!

If you have a sweet tooth, Strasbourg will serve you too.

Have a wonderful day!

Yours,
Tulip

All images by Stefanie Reichl/Veronika Reichl