Category Archives: Food

Our Christmas in Berlin

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After worrying about my first Christmas as a host last week, today I can tell you that it was a success….YAY!!! I’m so happy that everything went well, thank God! Of course there was a little a stress in the kitchen the day before Christmas eve (minor disagreement about lemon curd), but in spite of that, the food was delicious and the people were pleased. This was the first Christmas that I spent away from my family or anybody’s family, it was a special Christmas with friends that are also a long way from home. Our Italian friends Maurizio and Ivan came, and also I had the pleasure to meet Gabriel and Ana, a couple from Brazil, he studied in College with Rafael and they were here in Berlin as tourists, so we invited them of course. We had so much fun, Italians and Brazilians have so much in common, the language is very similar, sometimes it’s easier to speak in our native language than english, or german….of course…hahahha.

We sure did have a great time, we laughed and ate a lot! I get so happy when I see other people eating my food and enjoying it. I’m so grateful and thankful, it could not have been better 😀

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Christmas Feast

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For the first time in my life, I’m going to cook a whole christmas meal. Rafael and I spent all day running around after the ingredients, and we still do not have all of them. We just came back from Ikea, because we just have one good roasting pan, now there’s three…and four more wine glasses, two spatulas and an appetizer set 😀 it was impossible to buy just the roasting pans…hahaha

Anyway, I’m finding this dinner a bit of a challenge, because I was thinking of roasting a big chicken, with at least 2 kilos…but it’s impossible to find it here, you only find little small ones. I found out that the famous birds for christmas here are turkey, duck and goose. I almost changed the recipe to turkey, but instead I’m going with two small chickens…no problem 😉

So, here is my ideia for dinner on Thursday night:

Appetizers:

  • 3 different types of pâtés, that we will buy from a turkish supermarket, with bread;
  • Camembert cheese with apricot jam;
  • Jamón serrano;
  • Olives (that I love).

Main course:

  • Rice with almonds;
  • Roast Chicken;
  • Roast Vegetables;
  • Honeyed Ham with Pears and Cranberries;
  • Stuffed Conchiglioni with Spinach and Feta;

Dessert:

  • Fruit Tart (that I’m really nervous to make).

I hope that everything goes as smoothly as possible, and of course I’ll have my special helper, Rafael of course…ha! I’m going to start preparing tomorrow, so wish me luck! And of course I’m gonna share the results of this game, Christmas Dinner x Bruna, later this week or the next one.

I hope that you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas with your loved ones! We are going to miss our family for sure this year, but at least we have one another and dear friends close by 🙂

Merry Christmas!

xoxo and hohoho!

 

Stuffed Conchiglioni with Spinach and Feta

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If there is one thing that I love in this world, is pasta! Any type, any kind…no prejudice here! I love cooking pasta at home, and for my luck, so does Rafael….we make an awesome pasta duo! hahahaha. I already told before that when I was a teenager I used to spend my Saturdays helping my beloved aunt to cook pasta. She would mix the ingredients in a bowl and I worked the dough, then she opened the dough using a pasta maker and cut it in the right size to make lasagna, cannelloni and rondelli, and after that I would cook the dough and sometimes help to make the dish. But with conchiglioni it was different, it’s not an easy type of pasta to make, so my cousin would buy it ready and you just needed to cook it and then stuff it. I usually did the stuffing part, with a delicious combination of three cheeses, that I never resisted to…so I would stuff a little and eat a little…hahhahahha

Let’s get on with this recipe!

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Cocolo Ramen

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I find it quite difficult to write about my favourites places to eat here in Berlin, there are so many options of restaurants here…some very good, some, not so much. As a food lover, a good home cook (at least I think I am…ha!) and raised by a family who works in the business,  I am not so easy to be impressed. Usually in Brazil, the best places are the most expensive, but since I came to Berlin, I have learned that is not a rule. You can find amazing places, with amazing food with very affordable prices.

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Breakfast Market

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Rainy days here in Berlin, but yesterday that did not stop us from waking up early to go have brunch at the Breakfast Market. We discovered this event a few months ago, it happens every third Sunday of each month at the Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg. But yesterday was our first time there, we always forgot the right date, once we went there and found out it was closed…. sadly, we returned with our bellies empty…to our luck, the opposite happened yesterday! 😀

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Couscous Salad with Lamb Chops

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A few days ago, I posted on Instagram (follow me @brunaiglezias) our Sunday dinner. Rafael loves dishes with couscous, basically because he loves arabic food, on the other hand I am not quite used to it. So I began my search on the internet to find a meal that would please us both. I came across this recipe that had everything I liked, roasted vegetables, chickpeas and arugula…plus couscous! That  was a winner, I thought! But Rafa usually isn’t very fond os dishes without a protein, he always says that after eating only salad, 15 minutes later he is hungry again…hahaha

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Minestrone Soup

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Now that Autumn is officially here (yay! I love this season!), it’s time to bring back that good ol’ big pot and cook delicious soups for dinner 🙂 Before Rafael and I moved in together (3 years ago), I didn’t even now how to make soup, in my head it was a difficult thing to do. I was so wrong….hehehhe. I learned how to do it with the help of cookbooks and with some tips of my aunt, who is an amazing cook. When I used to live with her, she and my cousin would make some delicious soups in the winter, my favourite was bean soup…yummy!

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4 Years

Posted in Life, Places to Eat by

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This past week was a really important week for us, on September 16th we celebrated 4 years together! Hooray 😀 We celebrated with two date nights: in and out. On Wednesday, Rafael made this incredible bruschetta with prosciutto, figs and camembert cheese, the most perfect combination if you ask me! And of course we opened a bottle of red wine and enjoyed the company of Dexter Morgan while we were at it! We started watching Dexter on Netflix three weeks ago, and we are so hooked up, we just finished the third season. It’s amazing how his character is so well built, you get so involved in his life that you start cheering for him, although he is a serial killer…it only happens in fiction! hahahaha

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Easy Meals

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I’m always searching the web for new recipes, I left my cookbooks in Brazil and I still don’t master the german language enough to buy german cookbooks, but that is on my list, of what I’ve seen in the bookstores here, there are a lot of interesting choices.

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Summer Peach Galette

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If there is one thing I can’t enough of is stone-fruits, I love peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums and cherries. These fruits here in Berlin are really cheap in the summer, you can find packages of 1kg for €0.99 or less, and they are really tasty and delicious! This is very different in Brazil, these fruits can be very expensive and not that tasty, but the same can happen here with tropical fruits.

It has been a little while that I wanted to bake a peach pie, but since our kitchen here is not fully equipped, I needed a recipe that didn’t involve a baking pan, blender or mixer. So I went to look online and came across this recipe, which was easy to bake. I felt so happy while I was making it, I really enjoy making the dough from scratch and work with fresh ingredients, a good playlist also helps to set a good mood 🙂

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