Red beets salad with caramelized pecans and dill

After travelling and extreme floods, here is finally a new blog post with a fantastic summer salad.

This red beets salad is super refreshing and a perfect way of getting all the raw vegetables and nuts you need.
It's a nice addition to all that meat at your barbecue party and can also be served as a nice and healthy appetizer or as a light lunch or dinner.

I cannot wait to use the beets from our garden for it! Still have to wait a little on those ones...

What you need:

4-5 red beets (fresh)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 spring onions, chopped into fine rings
300-350 g (approx.) 1-1.5 cups of yogurt (around 3.2-3.5% fat)
150-200ml (approx 0,25-0.5 cup) heavy cream
150g pecans chopped
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped
1 bunch of chives, roughly chopped
salt, pepper, honey/sugar
olive or carmelina oil

Directions:

Peel the red beets.
You may want to use gloves for that because of the red dye. I didn't and it washed off my hands quite easily.
With the grating attachement on a food processor (ideally) roughly grate the beets.

In a pan slowly roast the chopped pecans.
When browned, add some honey or sugar and caramelize the pecans with it.
Remove from heat and set aside to cool down.

In a pan heat up some olive/carmelina oil at medium heat.
Add the garlic and spring onions and sautée for a few minutes, until soft (do not fry them!).
Set aside and let cool down.

In a big salad bowl mix together grated red beets, yoghurt and cream.
Add dill and chive, as well as garlic, spring onions and roasted pecans.

Mix well.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny bit of sugar.

The salad tastes even better a day later, after it has been sitting in the fridge for a while.

Notes:

All the measurements especially for the yogurt and cream are pretty much measured by eye.
I don't follow a recipe when doing it.
It always depends on how big the beets are. The beets should be nicely coated with the yoghurt-cream mix.
And regarding the dill and chive: Be generous! You cannot really screw anything up by adding 'too many' fresh herbs.

You could use sour cream instead of yoghurt, as well.

Beans, Pears and Bacon

Just a quick post because me and my husband are currently busy getting everything ready for moving across the world. Between painting, packing and bureaucracy stuff there is almost no time and motivation to cook. Therefore we mainly eat pizza and asian food these days.

This Northern German speciality I made a couple of days ago. It's a quick meal or a nice side dish.
Just cut off the ends of about 500g of beans cut them in 3-4cm sized pieces and boil them in salted water for about 12 minutes. You can add some dried savory, as well, for more flavor.

In the meantime fry bacon cubes (approx. 200-250g) in a big pan. Once they are nicely browned and crispy, take one or two pears, remove the cores and cut the pears in cubes as well. Add them to the bacon. Spice with salt pepper and a dash of brown sugar, maple syrup or honey. If you like you can douse with a bit of whisky or brandy.

Throw in the beans, mix everything and serve.

I know it's not the original recipe for Pears, beans and bacon. It's just a quick alternative.
But it tastes great!

Artichoke with sour cream-mustard-balsamico dip

For everyone who thought my diet only consists of meat and chocolate, here is the proof that every so often even I consume green stuff with vitamins in it...

One of my favorite vegetables are artichokes.

They are a good side dish and perfect finger food.

I usually buy the big ones. I remove the stem and cut off the tips of the petals with a scissor. 

After that I throw them into a big pot of boiling water with a dash of lemon juice.

It depends on how big they are but usually artichokes need to cook for around 30-45 minutes.

You know the artichoke is ready to eat when you can easily pull off the outermost petals.

Unfortunately you usually cannot eat all parts of an artichoke. 

Especially the big ones are often hard and spiky.

Here are some instructions on how to eat them properly:

1. Start at the base of the artichoke, pull off one of the outermost petals. 
2. Dip the base of the petal into your sauce/vinaigrette. 
3. Pull the petal through your slightly clenched teeth to remove the soft, tender flesh at the bottom of the petal. As you progress upward from the base, the leaves become more tender, with larger edible portions until you reach the choke (the undeveloped flower).
4. Remove and discard the "hairy" choke using a teaspoon.
5. Cut the remaining Artichoke Heart into bite-sized pieces, dip and enjoy!

PS: For the dip mix sour cream, mustard, honey and balsamico vinegar and season with salt and pepper.