Baked Pears with Caramel Sauce

- 2 pears

- 8-10 teaspoon sugar (brown or white, whatever is preferred)

- 1/4 stick of butter (I use Imperial)

- few tablespoon of Marsala

Peel pears, cut in half and remove core. Put cut side down into a spray coated baking pan.

Add 2-3 thin slices of butter on top of each pear, as well as 2 -3 teaspoon of sugar. Top with a little Marsala, maybe 2 shotglasses. If desired you can also add a few tablespoon og whipping cream, it will make the sauce a bit thicker. I left it out in the picture above.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and bake 40 minutes for a firm pear (recommended) or 20 minutes for a ripe pear. I loosely covered mine with foil for half the baking time.

Sprinkle with a little cinnamon if desired

Zigeunerschnitzel

A german favorite ....

- 2 Pork or Veal Schnitzel (the store didnt have them so I bought pork chops and hit them flat)

- 4 red peppers

- 1 small or medium onion (chopped)

- 1 pack sliced mushrooms (I used Portabella)

- 1 Tblspoon tomatoe paste

- Salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika powder

- flour

- 200ml wine (1 glass)

Cut two of the peppers in half, remove seeds and put cut side down on a spray coated baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees until tender and skin looks wrinkled. Let cool and peel of skin, it should come off easily. Chop pepper meat into small pieces and set aside (will almost look like Salsa)

- Dip meat into flour and pat off over sink so it is only slightly coated, spice with paprika, salt and pepper.

- Fry with a little oil, take out and put it into a oven safe dish and keep it warm in the oven

- In the meantime add chopped onions to the pan, together with the mushrooms and the rest of the peppers (sliced). Fry on medium heat for a couple of minutes and then add the wine. Season with salt, pepper, garlic and paprika and let cook over medium heat until the pepper is just tender. Add roasted pepper "salsa" and stir.

- Put Porkschnitzel on a plate and serve sauce over it.

Usually this is served with french fries on the side, I made homefries instead.

Enchiladas

For 3 servings I use:

- 3 pieces of boiled skinless, boneless chicken breast (I boiled it sometimes during the day for about 30 minutes and then set it aside until I start cooking, but you can also boil it and keep working with it right away

- 1 can corn

- 1 pack tacco seasoning

- 1/4 cup sour cream (fat free is fine)

- grated cheddar or mexican cheese

- 1 can enchilada sauce (I use mild and then add hot sauce in dh's portion as he likes it spicy)

- For the side one pack of spanish rice and if you want guacamole and/or refried or black beans.

Pull boiled chicken into little pieces. Put into a heated frying pan, add tacco seasoning and fill the seasoning bag with water and add that (gives it just the right amount of water).

Mix it well and then add 1/3 to 1/2 a can of enchilada sauce,the sourcream and 1/2 can of corn.

Let it all cook together for a couple of minutes while stirring, turn off stove and stir in some cheddar cheese (however much you like)

Spoon filling onto soft tacco sized tortillas. Roll and arrange seam side down in spray coated baking dish (I prefer to use individual dishes and arrange it to the side of each to leave room to serve the rice in it)

Pour rest of the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas. Top with grated cheese.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake enchiladas while preparing the rice (add rest of the corn to the rice when its just done).

The enchiladas will be done when your rice is done, all you basicly do is slowly heating them and melting the cheese.

Serve with your rice. Bon Appetit :)

Chinese Stir Fry

-1 pack of firm or extra firm tofu (or use chicken instead)

- 1/4 pack of frozen sliced carrots

- 1 head of broccoli (or one small frozen bag)

- 1 cup of frozen peas

- 1/2 jar of sprouts (or fresh)

- 1 pack of shitaki mushrooms.

- 1 cube of chicken broth

- soy sauce

- 2 teasp. corn starch

- 2 teasp. sugar

- 4 teasp. orange juice

- 2 tablespoon rice vinegar

- 1 large or 2 small packs of chinese noodles (or desired amount .. just wing the amount of veggies then)

- a little hot sauce

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Slice Tofu Horizontally, put on a cutting board with kitchen towels underneath and on top and put another cutting board on top to press all fluid out. Leave it like that while you lay out all other ingredients.

Cut Tofu into cubes (or chicken), spice with some salt and pepper and garlic powder and fry with oil in a wok until Tofu starts turning slightly brown (dont stirr too often)

Meanwhile cook or soak chinese noodles according to directions, then drain.

Take Tofu out and add broccoli, carrots and peas to Wok, together with 1 cup of water, the cube of chicken broth and a bit of soy sauce. Cover and let cook for a few minutes, add mushrooms and sprouts and finish cooking until JUST tender.

While this is cooking, mix cornstarch, juice, sugar and a couple of tablespoon of soy sauce and rice vinegar. Add to the veggies when they are just cooked. Spice with some more garlic powder and pepper (there is enough salt from the soy sauce. Add hot sauce to your taste.

Now add pasta, toss until well mixed and add tofu and carefully mix it all up.

It was so yummy!

German Cheesecake

For the Crust:

- 1 Egg

- 60 gramms sugar

- 65 gramms softened butter (about 3/4 stick)

- 200 gramms flour

- 1 pack vanilla sugar (if you cant get that, substitute with a few drops of vanilla extract)

- 2 teasp. Baking Powder

Mix all ingredients together, it may appear too dry at first, but keep working it and eventually the doug will come together.

Push evenly into a well greased sprinform, pulling the dough about 3/4 way up the sides (in the pics I pulled it too high, all the way up)

Poke a few holes into crust with a fork

Preheat oven to 355 degrees

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For the Filling:

- 3 eggs

- 250 gramms sugar

- 200 ml cream

- 1 pack vanilla sugar or a few drops of vanilla extract

- 2 packs of vanilla pudding powder (the COOKING kind, NOT mix and serve)

- 1kg containers of Quark (which you cant really get here, so use 2 containers of sour cream... they have about 454 gramms each in it, thats fine. Dont use the fat free in this case, its too thin, with sour crwam use regular)

Mix ingedients together in the order as listed above. Filling will be pretty thin.

Pour filling into crust, bake for 85 minutes.

Do NOT open the oven within the first hour of baking, your cake will deflate and become dry.

When done, the cake will appear like it has yello inside, a bit wobbely. Let it sit for a couple of hours, it will sink down and stiffen.

When cool remove sides of the springform. You can get it off the bottom of the form by turning it onto a plate and back, but if you havent seen it before I wouldnt recommend trying or the whole inside of the cake might be breaking out. Just leave it on and serve off of it.

Chicken Marsala

Tip up front: If you like enough sauce to use it on the pasta too instead of marina sauce, then double the ingredients for the sauce, that's what I did here

For 4 Servings:

-1/8 tsp black pepper
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/4 C flour
-4 chicken breasts, boned, skinless (5 ounces)
-1 Tbsp olive oil
-1/2 C Marsala wine
-1/2 C chicken stock, skim fat from top
-juice from 1/2 lemon

-1 pack sliced mushrooms ( I used Shitaky)
-1 Tbsp parsley, chopped

-Pasta of your choice

Mix together pepper, salt, and flour. Coat chicken with seasoned flour and slightly pat over the sink to get rid of excess flour.
In a heavy-bottomed skillet, heat oil. Place chicken breasts (if you want you can flatten them first... I did.. but keep in mind it will shorten cooking time) in skillet and brown on both sides. Then remove chicken from skillet and set aside.
To the skillet, add wine and stir until the wine is heated. Add juice, stock, and mushrooms. Stir to toss, reduce heat, and cook for about 10 minutes until the sauce is partially reduced.
Return browned chicken breasts to skillet. Spoon sauce over the chicken.
Cover and cook for about 5-10 minutes or until chicken is done.

Take out chicken, add some sauce and mushrooms to it and put the pasta into the pan with the remaining sauce and mushrooms, mix and serve