Caribbean Rooftop BBQ

Our apartment building has an amazing rooftop view over Portland with nice BBQ grills. A good thing to invite friends over for a BBQ :) We did not care about Portland's weather and luckily the clouds lifted and it stopped raining that day and we had a beautiful evening.

My boyfriend decided for a Caribbean theme and everything was accompanied by exotic drinks containing Coconut Pineapple Rum and Brazilian Rum (Pitu - good for Caipirinias). We chose the following menu options:

Appetizers:

• Shrimp skewers
• Filled Jalapenos wrapped in Bacon

Entree and Sides

• Caribbean Black Bean and Rice salad
• Caribbean spiced Turkey burgers
• Veggie skewers
• Exotic Fruitsalad with Walnuts and Raisins (not on the picture)

Dessert

• With Honey and Brown Sugar glazed Pineapple skewers (see picture above)
• Fresh Picked Berries Pies

Picking Berries

It was a sunny day, almost the end of the strawberry season... So, I kinda had to go and pick some of the delicious berries at Sauvie Island :)

I actually ended up picking all the different kinds of berries, strawberries, rasberries, marionberries and blueberries...

These are so much more flavorful than the ones at the store. Here are some examples what I ended up doing with them:

• Pies (used for our Caribbean BBQ)
• Joghurt-Berry Parfait
• German Waffles with Strawberries
• Berry Crepes (or German "Eierkuchen")

Beach Picnic & Awesome friends

This post is about a fun beach visit with my amazing friends from Portland/New York :)

A few weeks ago we decided to enjoy the nice weather at Cannon Beach and have a nice picnic. We were well prepared with:

• freshly bought Crab-cocktails and Smoked Salmon
• French baguette and Salami
• Assortment of fruits
• Veggie-Chips with dips
• German potato salad 
• Spinach-Cheese Swirls
• Cookies

Food was delicious despite the "random" sand kernels that were all over it :)

We enjoyed the time like little kids and were building an enormous sand castle (my part was more the watching and observing part) that inspired lots of people who walked by to take pictures.

That's how it started... 

And that's the end :)

Attack of the kite :)

Blogger or WordPress?

How to start a food blog? Well, my biggest challenge was to decide what hosting side to use... I did a quick google search, asked a few friends what they are using and I ended up with the top 2 favorites:

Blogger (from Google) or WordPress?

So, now I had to decide... and everyone who knows me will understand how tough that was for me as the most indecisive person ever. I actually ended up not making a decision for a long time. I spent weeks creating basically two identical food blogs with both hosting sides in order to figure out which one I prefer.

Here is what I came up with:

• Neither of these free hosting sides actually fulfilled all of my highflying requests (such as having categories showing in sub-menues with a thumbnail image, being able to turn pictures in posts, etc.)

• Blogger advantages:
• Easy access through Google Account and nice email that is linked to blog
• Shows up when you google blog
• Feeling that it might last longer than the foreign UK WordPress as free blogsites have the danger to vanish with the hosting webside... 
• Ability to change fonts and colors on almost everything which is not possible at WordPress  (blog header, post header, etc)
• Can change picture size to extra large

• WordPress advantages: 
• Way more themes than Blogger
• Ability to create sub-menues
• Looks nice and professional (I was told they they are using fonts that are supposed to be easy and best to read and that's the reason why you cannot change the fonts at will)

Well, it was a difficult decision but you can see where I ended up with :)

Welcome

Welcome to my new food blog. As I love going through recipes, cook and also go out and try new food, why not start a food blog? For a long time I thought that is too complicated. However, thanks to some of my friends who have a blog I got interested in trying...

And here it is....

Pudica's Food Corner - Inspired by family and friends

This blog will mainly be about food and my recipes, and to be honest, most of them are altered versions (or sometimes exact versions) of other people's recipes that I cook with - family and friends :) So, let's talk food...

Enjoy!

Watercress Soup ("Brunnenkresse Suppe")

This is my first official "food" post and I would like to dedicate it to my dear friend T. who helped me through my college time and inspried me to start a food blog. Her delicious wedding feast had two dishes, that I had not eaten before and that left a huge impression: veal saltimbocca (veal topped with proscuitto and a sage leaf) and a watercress soup. 

Here is my take on recreating the watercress soup. This is an amazing light soup, especially good for the summer that is hopefully coming soon.

INGREDIENTS (for about 2-3 servings):

• 1 tablespoon butter/margarine
• 1 small onion
• Salt
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 potato
• 1 cup white wine (brut = a dry wine, citrus is good, no vanilla/ almond/ chocolate flavor)
• 1 1/2 cup vegetable stock (best made with Knorr or Maggi instant vegetable bouillon)
• 1 package/ bunch watercress
• 100 g Creme fraiche
• Salt, Pepper, Paprika to taste
• Chives or watercress leaves as garnish

Croutons:

• 3-4 slices of toast bread, cut into cubes
• 1 tablespoon butter/margerine
• 1 garlic clove
• herbs de provence, paprika or other spices

PREPARATION:

1. Heat the butter/margarine. Peel the onion and potato and cut in cubes. Here I got the chance to try out my new Onion chopper and it works great, especially good for working out some aggressive tendencies :) When the butter/margarine is hot, add the onion and cook till soft and translucent. Add salt and 1 tablespoon of flour, stir immediately. Now add the potatoes, cook with the onions for 1-2 minutes. Be careful not to burn onions, stir. Flour and potatos will thicken the soup later.

2. Boil 1 1/2 cup of water in a separate pot and stir in the instant KNORR vegetable bouillon (instead you can also use the ready to use vegetable stock). Add the bouillon and white wine to the onion/potato mix. Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are soft.

3. Prepare the croutons: Heat the butter/margerine in a frying pan on low heat and add the cut toast bread cubes. Add the pressed (or finely chopped) garlic and stir the bread cubes. Spice with either herbs de provence or paprika. Roast the bread cubes on low heat till they are crunchy and golden brown.

4. In the meantime, remove long stems from watercress and chop (not too finely). Keep some of the watercress leaves for garnish (instead you can also use chives for garnish). When potatoes are soft, add creme fraiche and stir. Use creme fraiche as it will not separate with heat. If you use sour cream or heavy cream instead, make sure that the soup is not boiling anymore. Now puree soup until blended (in blender or with immersion blender).

5. Add salt, pepper, red pepper and/or parika to taste. Fill in warmed soup bowls and garnish with watercress leaves (or chives). Serve with croutons.

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