Real American heritage, baby

Hey folks, today I wanna tell you the one or other thing about my girl. She's a real beaut, smart and funny but damn, sometimes she can get really demanding.
Don't get me wrong, she's a awesome girl. I really love her, exact the way she is but lord, sometimes she drives me crazy.
Tbh I'm not the easiest character out there and she has her own cross to bear with me. I know that, too.
And I love her funny lively way and while having a major affection for make-up (she has her own beauty blog) she also has some nerdish perks you'd never guess. And that's really cool, I think.
Also one awesome thing about her is her descent. You have to know, she's a real American girl, born in San Francisco, USA, unlike me.
And because today's her birthday, this post is dedicated to my gorgeous lovely lady.
So today's recipe is about a real American breakfast.
Today it's gonna be pancakes en masse.
The first time I ate pancakes was merely a few months ago when my girlfriend came up with that idea for Sunday's breakfast.
And it was one of the best breakfasts I've ever had in my life.
So if you or your girl never had pancakes before, now's the perfect time to consider them your next breakfast.

The ingredients are for about 12 medium sized (~ 12 cm in diameter) pancakes

• 2 medium sized eggs
• 400 gram of plain flour
• 1 small packet of baking powder (or 1 tbsp.)
• about 300 ml milk
• maple syrup
• butter
• some fresh fruits (I went with blueberries)
• some bacon strips (if desired)

So now all you have to do is put all the ingredients together in a bowl, stir them and maybe you can add some extra milk to get the mixture smooth but not too runny.

Put a frying pan on medium to high heat, put some oil (or whatever you use instead) in it and wait for it to get temperature.
Now take a ladle and pour the dough into the pan, creating the desired small cakes.
I generally make a stack containing three pancakes. You are free to make even bigger stacks, but you probably don't want to make them smaller. When you pile them up, spread some butter between each
layer and finally on the top too. Then drown that tower in syrup. Seriously you can't get enough syrup. Pour the blueberries on top and if you like you can add a side of baconstrips (As for me, what goes for syrup goes for bacon, too. There is never enough bacon.)

 If you wonder, yeah that's blood orange juice again. I do love it.

It's not awkward if we both stink ♥

Just admit it, you love garlic. And so does she. Everyone
loves garlic. (OK, nearly everyone)
Why should you give up on garlic, just because you want to cook a romantic dinner?
Simply, you don't have to.
So today's lesson in love is:
'Don't be ashamed of garlic breath. It doesn't matter if both of you smell.'
My girlfriend and I totally love garlic. It's healthy and tasty and you can put it in nearly every main course and it magically improves in taste.
It goes with all sorts of meat, with fish and vegetables. And it goes nicely with today's recipe, pasta with eggplant/minced meat ragout (or for you veggies out there, this recipe also tastes great without the meat)

You'll need (for the two of you):

• 1 eggplant
• 2 tomatoes
• a package sieved tomatoes
• 250 gr. minced meat (fifty-fifty pork and beef)
• 3 brown champignon mushrooms
  (or more if you don't use the meat)
• 1 onion
• 3-5 cloves of garlic
• 1 bottle of medium-dry or dry red wine
  (if you don't plan on drinking the wine later on you can cook with a cheap one)
• 250 gr. pasta (today I'll use spaghetti) 

Put a small saucepan on the oven and heat up some oil. I generally use a blended olive oil, because native oil doesn't stand the heat very good. Mince the onion and the garlic and brown them in the saucepan. Then, if you want some meat in your ragout, it's the perfect moment to put it into the saucepan and let it brown as well. It really needs to get some colour, because as with the colour so comes the flavour.
Deglaze the whole thing with the sieved tomatoes and put down the heat to medium. Then cut the other vegetables to bite-sized bits and put them in the saucepan.
Season with salt, pepper, oregano, marjoram, basil, thyme and rosemary (A tsp. each will do fine) and pour a good glass red wine in it.
Let the ragout simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes and taste it. You'll probably have to spice up the whole ragout again, because the eggplant and the tomatoes realy need a lot of salt and spices.
Now it's time you cook your pasta. I'm not gonna explain how you do that. And tbh I hope I don't need to either.
When your pasta is al dente you're practically ready to eat. You could arrange the whole thing with some Parmesan cheese on top of it, but you don't have to.

You can light up a candle, pour two glasses of wine and - voilà! - you have a romantic dinner.
(And after dinner you'd probably be too busy to notice your garlic breath, anyway)

Damn, I'm out of Club Mate again

So I went to the groceries to buy some Club Mate. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a ice tea made from Yerba mate. It's refreshing, a little bit on the bitter side and has a natural caffeine level twice as coke.
But my local store was out of Club Mate, so I decided on making my own ice tea.

As a passionate tea drinker I always have some loose Yerba mate tea around. If you don't have one, you can easily buy some loose Yerba mate tea in your local tea shop.

For 1 liter of ice tea you'll need:

• 2-3 limes or lemons
• 1 Tbsp loose Yerba mate

So first of all, rinse the loose tea under cold water. I used a small sieve for that. Then boil some water, about a glass full will suffice. Put the rinsed tea in a great tumbler and brew it with the hot water.
Let it steep for 5 minutes. Meanwhile you can squash the limes or lemons and pour the fresh juice in a pitcher. After the tea infusion is ready, add it to the pitcher and fill with cold water.

Before you drink the ice tea I recommend you to put it in the fridge and allow it to cool down.
And if you're still thirsty you can also use the loose leaves for a second infusion.

Me no speak Italiano!?

No really I don't speak Italian. But nevertheless I do enjoy some self made pizza.
So on today's menu is a little something my girlfriend asked me to cook with her for some time.
Here we go, it's flaky pastry pizza! - and wow, it's got a nice catchy ring to it.

The faboost thing with pizza are the vast possibilities it offers. The endless variety of toppings or cheese turns every piece into a unique pizza slice snowflake kind of a thing?
Yeah I guess that sounds stupid enough.

For the one I made you'll need:

• flaky pastry dough
• brown champignon mushrooms
• feta cheese (I used feta made from sheep milk)
• a tomato or two
• canned black olives (I prefer the black ones, you're free to use whichever you prefer)
• canned artichoke hearts
• bacon bits (as always optional)
• and finally sieved tomatoes

Take the dough and cut it to your desired pizza slice size. Take all the other ingredients and slice them to small bits. Then pour some sieved tomatoes on the pizza slice but be careful that you don't overdo with the sieved tomatoes, otherwise the dough won't get the desired crispness.
You can also use crème fresh instead to give it that sexy tarte flambée touch.

When you use the tomatoes, season it with basil and marjoram and maybe some oregano and finally put the other ingredients on top of it.
Than put the pizza slices in the oven and bake them till they look like the one I made.
(For those of you who don't have much oven experience, I guess 20-25 minutes at 200 °C will do a fine work)

You can also offer your girlfriend to make the pizza together, half the work means double the fun.
Put the fresh pizza right on the table, open a bottle of wine and I think there's nothing more to add than bon appétit.