Winter moments

The last couple of weeks I took pictures for my blog posts. Having various topics to blog about in my mind I just find myself assembling pictures and typing text only now. So here are some winter moments:
This is what it looked like two weeks ago when looking out of my office window. Snow, snow, snow

 

Then a few day later: Even more snow!

While we in the North were under a heavy blanket of snow, the western part where my sister lives had no snow at all. At times the temperature gap was 16 degrees Celsius and we are only 330 km apart. Fortunately the snow melted away after a week. As I am dependent on using my car I was very happy about that.
Here are the colours of our winter walk in the forest: grey skies, green conifers and and brownish soil. I am actually more an indoor type of person, especially when it's cold and grey outside.



And so are the ragdoll cats of my sister, indoor cats! I helped her moving places. Her cats found it all very exciting and adventurous. They are so gorgeous, their fur is very fine and soft and winter coloured - and is sticking to all of your clothes too ;-)

To bring some bright colours in here is a curry dish I cooked together with dear friends of mine:
chicken curry with coconut milk and coriander, cucumber salad in a joghurt-ginger dressing and some chapati bread.

So this were my winter moments of the last weeks. As you can see, it all ends with something to eat :-)

Chestnut bounty

One of my favourite winter snacks are roasted chestnuts. I usually buy them from a little stall at the Christmas market where they are roasted on a charcoal grill. They come in a brown paper bag and keep your hands nice and warm. But that's still one month to go.
Last week I got a huge bag of chestnuts from my mother collected in the forest. They are much smaller than the one you can buy in the supermarket and smaller than the non-edible type of chestnut.
In the picture below you see the so called horse chestnut (left) and the edible sweet chestnut (right). I like the pointy end with the taft at its tip. It looks like a little pouch or teepee or fig.

To roast them without grill I just used a frying pan. I cut some of them crosswise with a knife. But it was difficult as these chestnuts are so small and the outer skin hard. So most of them went into the pan as they were. On full power heat without anything added, just turned around with a wooden spoon.

When the outer skin, the brown husk breaks open (the ones cut crosswise) the chestnuts are "done". With a sharp knife it is easy to get rid of the husk and the inner skin. Then you get to the sweet tasting creamy white fruit. The texture of the fruit reminds me of a potato, maybe because the chestnut contains a lot of starch. A great snack for the evening!

Apple and pears

We have a small apple tree on the office grounds full of golden-red apples. The apples are smaller than the one in the supermarket although with great flavour. I picked some of them to make apple-pear puree (Unfortunatelay I cannot eat them raw due to an allergie. I always have to cook or bake them first.) You simply peel and cut the apples and pears and cook them in a pot with a little bit of water and lemon juice to prevent the apples to get a brownish colour. I also added some peeled and cut pears and some sugar. If you like add 3 -4 cloves and cinnamon. Cook until tender and make a puree using a blender. If you used cloves take them out before using the blender!!! (I usually wrap them into filter paper which makes it easier to get them out).
My favourite dish with apple-pear puree is potato pancake.
For the potato pancake grate potatoes, add some onions and flour and 1 - 2 eggs. Fry in a pan with oil until golden brown and crispy. Eat while still hot with apple-pear puree on top. Delicious!