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Spicy Beef and Chickpea Shakshuka Recipe

Bavarian Potato Salad Recipe

Spicy Peach Peanut Sauce Recipe

Healthy Crispy Vegan Falafel Recipe

Hello!

Hello my name is Juli and I am the person who keeps this place full of food, stories and bad jokes. Just kidding, my jokes are the bomb! I am a thirty-two (still cannot believe it) year old 'girl' living in the south of Germany and I refuse to see myself as a grown-up! In fact I think I never

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I feel like there are two types of people right now. Those who cope by being active and productive and those who cope by focusing on slowing down.

I think I would fall in the second category as I am definitely in self-evaluation mode, yet I do this by being very active and productive. I think I finally have the time and energy to tackle at the things I always wanted to do. One of the things I absolutely love doing more than anything else in the world is exploring. In fact I chose this as my main focus for 2020 back in the days when we all had high hopes for the new year ahead.

While I initially had other things in mind (traveling to new places, trying new restaurants…) I now focus on exploring what is within my reach. Sometimes there are a lot of interesting things basically at your fingertips if you have a look.

One thing I have mentioned already is cooking more from cookbooks and exploring new recipes. And I am really really TRYING hard to follow the recipes exactly. Why again is that so hard??? So yesterday I made three new dishes I have never tried before. Well, I have to confess that technically I only followed one recipe. Two of them where more a combination of changing up and combining different recipes and also some good old winging it. I said I would try. And I guess 1 of 3 is not too bad, right?

In addition to our 90 min daily walks I am now also working out about 30 min a day - let’s call it exploring muscles I didn’t have before.

Another thing I have already mentioned was that I wanted to make videos. But I didn’t know what to film and so I kinda put that idea on hold to focus on another creative project. Well, looks like I will have a lot of opportunities to film and edit as classes in the upcoming semester will be online based and I will record video lectures instead of writing it all out. Next stop, YouTube fame… just kidding. I am trying to figure out a way that I can share the videos with my students yet no one else can access them.

So exploring is still definitely on yet I cannot deny I would rather explore an exotic beach with my friends.

How do you mainly spend your time at home? Active & productive, slowing down or a combination?

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Let’s have a Rhubarb Mimose and catch up a bit even though it’s day 29 of my self-quarantine and nothing ever happens. If I ever found caption writing really hard, this time right now will teach me a lesson.

The internet and TV connection was down for an inconvenient 14 hours BUT about 5 min ago all my devices that are connected to my WIFI woke up with a promising ping which makes me believe we’re back in the game

That means unfortunately I don’t have a reason not to grade the remaining term papers I have procrastinated to tackle for the past two weeks

My husband and I go on excessive walks pretty much every day. We have found the best roundtrip in the woods by now. And with the best I mean the one where you meet little to no other people for the most part. I am way too good at social distancing

We cook a lot! It’s amazing because life has never been that delicious yet horrible because too much good food and literally living in stretchy pants slowly becoming a whale is kinda problematic. Hence the excessive walks btw.

I also tried to order a set of dumbbells so that I could do some strength exercises from home. But 10kg dumbbells are currently at 250 Euro on Amazon. So it seems more reasonable to get new car tires (about the same price) and lift them instead

They tear up the road right under my living room window now. It’s an ongoing joke that wherever I start working there will be a construction area within 3 months. Well, it took 3 days working from home

My favorite part of the week is now going to the supermarket. It’s amazing how the little things can become so exciting. I am wearing jeans there though. You know, as a reminder not to get too excited.

Actually all is well here. We consider ourselves lucky that the biggest problem we have is whether there will be butter available today and if not, whether we prefer salted or unsalted margarine

Oh, and of course my husband’s biggest problem is to distract me enough so that I won’t come up with another home improvement project he would have to get involved with.

I hope you guys are doing as well as we do. What’s your current favorite activity? The more mundane the better...

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Let’s talk a little bit about cookbooks. Do you buy cookbooks or do you mainly find new recipes to try online nowadays?

I have a weird relationship with cookbooks. On the one hand I am literally unable to follow a recipe exactly. I just always have to change something or don’t really measure out ingredients or add different spices aka chili… And sometimes I even end up cooking something completely different and only use the initial recipe to spark some inspiration (and here we probably have the answer to all my baking fails)

On the other hand though, I LOVE cookbooks. There is something so beautiful in a whole printed and tangible book filled with brilliant food photography and exciting new recipes. I love the promising weight of a heavy book, how the paper feels and smells… it’s just so exciting to me. So it’s probably not surprising that the cookbook aisle of a good bookstore is in my top 5 favorite places ever! Bonus points if this bookshop is abroad and sells coffee as well!

Don’t get me wrong, I look up recipe ideas online all the time, yet I cannot deny the fact that a recipe collection on a screen doesn’t hold the excitement for me, a printed book does.
So why do I even bother you with telling you all this? First, because I thought I would let you know that I have decided to try to get over my weird quirk of not being able to follow a recipe. And I do this by challenging myself to cook a new to me recipe, from a cookbook in exactly the way it was intended, once a week from now on. I have already marked bout 50 I want to try so I really have no excuse anymore.

Secondly, I would really love to know your favorite cookbooks if you have any. I am always ready to expand my collection and I find online cookbook shopping really hard if you don’t know what you are looking for exactly.

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Last week I made myself a cupcake, lit a candle, blew it out and made a wish.

Well actually I made 30 cupcakes because I am shit at estimating measures. And actually I blew out 3 candles for at least 10 times… I had some of these magic candles that relight themselves. In the end I had to kill the flame with water.

And it wasn’t even for any purpose but to take cupcake pictures. But I made a wish anyway because it can’t hurt, right?

Isn’t it scary how our whole world can be turned upside down just like this? I feel like living in a dystopian movie right now - torn between disbelieve and fatalism. But as the only thing we can do right now is literally backing off (and the introvert in me can wholeheartedly resonate with this strategy) we are staying in and roll with the punches.

The one thing I do not hate about the situation right now is that I have about 2 more hours every day at my own disposal as my 1 hour commute to and back from work has become a two meter walk from my couch to my table. So I spend my time with things that make me feel more in control. Like cooking a lot. Spring cleaning the apartment and throwing out stuff I don’t need anymore. Working on my personal projects. Sleeping, watching TV, recharging.

I would love to hear what you would wish for if you made a wish right now but I don’t ask because we all know if you can’t keep it a secret it’s not coming true.

So instead you can maybe share with me what you do with your extra time right now?

Do you try to stay busy and productive or do you mainly rest and do things you usually don’t find the time for?

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Spring is coming!!!!! How I know? No, it’s not that I woke up to a sunny day - in fact it’s super grey and rainy outside!

No, it’s not that you see the first little specks of color in form of spring flowers popping up in the otherwise pretty brownish meadows. The leafs on the trees are not sprouting either.

It’s not even the fact, that our calendar marks the first day of spring in less than 2 weeks or that berry prices have dropped from „is that for the whole cooling counter?“ to „funny how they set the comma in the wrong spot“

It’s in fact the look on my husband’s face. Because it’s the time of the year where I make him do shit he has zero interest in participating. The stuff that can be declared as a 100% guarantee for a chill, argument free couple’s bonding experience. Also known as SPRING CLEANING!
Every year when March rolls around I am dying to roll up my sleeves, order a giant container and declutter our apartment. This year it’s particularly bad as I feel like I am suffocating in stuff and want to get rid of EVERYTHING.

So in the next few weeks my husband and I will have many many bonding experiences (I am sure we will fondly look back on one day) over cleaning out shoe racks and closets, old paperwork, bookshelves and kitchen cabinets and every little crammed corner of our apartment there is. And believe me, there are many.

While I cannot wait to get started, I am pretty sure he already silently plots a few escape plans. I have yet to bring up that we also have to paint the kitchen. He’ll be so thrilled!
Do you also feel that compulsive need to do a good old clean out when spring is coming?

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