Health Day!

Fall is approaching and with the constant change from warm and humid to cold and dry and back to warm and humid, Wil and I have been feeling quite a bit under the weather lately.

Our diet also hasn't been the lightest and healthiest, either. 

Therefore we decided to add a little bit unbearable lightness to our being (oh, how I hate this book!) and eat more fruits and veggies.

So my Sunday started with herbal tea and grapefruits, sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar and cinnamon and ended with a refreshing cucumber salad. 

All I did was cutting the cucumber in really thin slices, adding some sherry vinegar, hibiscus salt, dried dill from our garden, olive oil and again, a tiny little bit of sugar.

Wil brought me the grapefruit to bed! It is sunday after all...

the little red things are from the hibiscus salt..dried hibiscus...

What you don't see is the giant bowl of pasta I ate for lunch. 

But that was totally reasonable!

Pork ribs and the very best barbecue sauce of the universe!

Today was the first real warm day of spring in Berlin. 

Me and Wil bought plants and seeds and prepared our balcony for spring and summer. 

Tomatos, basil, chive, thyme, radish and even soybeans...we've been busy planting and cannot wait for everything to sprout! Hopefully this year we will be luckier with our ras-, black- and strawberries as well.

Anyway, first warm day also means 

FIRST POTENTIAL BARBECUE DAY!

Therefore we cleaned our hibachi, got the coal ready, bought 2 kilos of pork ribs and I dug out my:

VERY BEST AND MOST FAVORITE 

(not existing) recipe for 

BARBECUE SAUCE (!) 

which is simply made by mixing ketchup, worcester sauce, maple syrup, orange juice, soy sauce, vinegar, beer, hot sauce, smoked and fried bacon bits, chopped onion, salt and pepper, and some brown sugar.

Just start with the ketchup and slowly add all the other ingredients until the taste makes sense and it's not too sour, not too salty and not too sweet, but still thick enough to stick on the meat.
You can add some starch dissolved in water to the boiling barbecue sauce to thicken it.
No, you don't necessarily have to boil it. I just did it in order to reduce and thicken the sauce...

I marinated the meat in the barbecue sauce for at least 1 hour (4 hours are better, overnight is perfect) then cooked it in our gas oven at its lowest (150 degrees celsius) for about 90 minutes  or until the meat almost comes off the bones.
In between I drizzled some of the barbecue sauce over the meat.
After that we threw it on the barbecue.

Don't panic if the meat turns black. 

That's just the burning sugar in the sauce.

It's definitely not healthy but it tastes sooo incredibly good!

Me and my partner Wil  both came to the conclusion that burned barbecue sauce is one of the best tasting things in the world.

Seriously.

We served the ribs with more  (reduced) barbecue sauce, drank cold beer and ate until we felt slightly nauseous.

Guess that's the price you
have to pay for good hearty food...

German Sweet&Sour Eggs

Sweet&Sour Eggs ("Süß-Saure Eier") or "Mustard Eggs" ("Senfeier") is a typical East German dish. 

I remember mentioning it to people from the West who just cringed because the name suggests something rather gross than tasty.

But it is delicious!

The description "sweet&sour" refers to the sauce with which the eggs are served.

It's a roux-based sauce containing vinegar and mustard for a sour note and sugar that adds the 

sweetness to it.

What you need:
6-8 large eggs
60-80g butter 
approx. 3-4 Tbsp all-purpose flour
¾-1 ltr. cold water and milk (e.g. ¼ milk, ¾water)
white wine vinegar
white sugar
1-2 tsp mustard
150-200g smoked bacon cubes
salt, pepper
chopped chive or parsley for decoration

Directions:

Fry smoked bacon cubes in a pan until brown.
Prepare a roux; melt butter in a saucepan. Whisk in flour until crumbly.
Now slowly pour in the water-milk mix and continue to whisk.
If the sauce gets too thick add a bit more water or milk.
If it is too thin just mix some flour with water in a small bowl and pour this mixture into the sauce.
Now season with whit wine vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar and mustard.
Start with 1tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, one tsp salt and one tsp mustard.
You will probably have to add more.
But you rather start with small amounts and try in between before adding more.
Your goal is to have a sauce that is sweet and sour at the same time.
You can taste the mustard such as the vinegar, the salt and the sugar without having one ingredient covering up the others.
Now add the bacon cubes and chive or parsley.
In the meantime boil the eggs for 6½-7 minutes (depends on the size of each egg).
The egg yolk should still be soft inside.
Chill them in cold water for a moment.
Then peel off the eggshell and add the eggs to the sauce.

Serve with potatoes.