Workshop week!

Apparently Switzerland has a whole new (to me) set of rhinoviruses, since I've come down with my second severe cold in as many months. In related news, I've now been here for two months!! Where does the time go? Craziness...

Despite being sick, however, I have been able to take advantage of Workshop Week by the American Women's Club of Zurich (henceforth known as AWCZ), of which I am a proud card-carrying member. Ok, they don't really have cards, but I do have a nifty laminated name tag that I get to wear whenever I am in the clubhouse (if they have a secret handshake, I haven't learned it yet - but how cool would that be?). They also have the largest English library in the city, and it's FREE! This is important, as the five boxes of books I shipped over may only last me another six months or so, judging by my current consumption of books (which I now obsessively track on Goodreads).

Anyway - Workshop Week is eight days' worth of classes that range from cooking to self-help to card readings. It's quite the dizzying array - I was amazed when the email first arrived. I signed up for three classes total, and was disappointed I couldn't sign up for more due to conflicting times with German class.

Cupcake with sugarpaste topping.

On Saturday morning, I attended a cupcake decorating class that was run by two lovely women from Ribizli. Over the course of two hours, we learned to roll out and play with fondant and also tried our hand at piping buttercream frosting; I was much more successful at the former. I've seen a good friend (unfortunately the blog is abandoned, but it's worth checking out!) produce some amazing cake creations from fondant that she makes from scratch, and I always was intrigued by the concept - unfortunately her recipe involves marshmallows, which are scarce and absurdly expensive here. So I was pleased to find out that a pre-made form of fondant can be purchased in Switzerland. The woman actually called it "sugarpaste" and I was unclear if this was simply the British terminology, or if it is actually a different item (this confusion actually arises more often than one would expect - I spent wayy too long on the internet last week attempting to compare molasses and treacle).

Sugarpaste items, most from stamps (not the rather sad looking blue rose - first attempt, oh well). I can't wait to try out some freeform rabbits/carrots for Easter. Coz I am excited by such ideas.

Buttercream + sugarpaste shapes on the left (the shapes are hiding where I went too fast and messed up the piping), finished sugarpaste-only on the right.

The class felt a tad basic - the women mentioned that it was an abridged version of their normal 4 hour decorating class, which I would've loved to have done - but I had a great time. They said bring an apron, so - obviously - I showed up with my Star Wars one, although it hadn't made it into the 7 laundry loads over 2 days last week, so it was embarrassingly flour-y (that makes me look authentic, right?). But I did learn several useful tidbits that I would not have known if I had attempted this on my own (including: use cornstarch, not powdered sugar, if the sugarpaste starts to get sticky).

The table, hard at work! The array of supplies was quite impressive, and we each got 3 cupcakes to decorate as we saw fit.

They had an impressive selection of stamps and cookie cutters for playing with the fondant, which they had in every color imaginable (some purchased, some made). I would have liked to learn more about playing with the icing as free-form, but they did teach us how to make a rose by hand, as well as many interesting suggestions for making stamps/cutouts more three-dimensional. I admit, as soon as my fever broke yesterday, I ran out and bought both white and colored fondant from the store, although I need to visit a kitchen specialty store (probably Sibler) for the recommended cutters, rolling pin, and plastic tools.

Finished products, including the cute spotted dog that didn't really fit any of my cupcakes, but I took him home and ate him anyway.

This morning I attended a "Road Rules" workshop led by a Zurich police officer. It was very helpful - for most of the 90 minutes, she fielded questions that we all had, and she had a brilliant setup with Google Earth on an overhead projector that allowed her to show us actual examples of intersections, signs, etc. I'm still nervous about renting a car and having my first driving experience here, but I feel a bit more prepared now.

Kitchen experiments

I've decided not to post any more step-by-step recipes here, since I am having to re-explore a lot of baking/cooking techniques and basics in my new (Swiss) environment. Also, I would imagine that reading about learning to use the uniquely Swiss ingredients isn't terribly interesting for friends and family back in the US. I'd prefer to use the time/space here to tell you more about what's happening in our lives (PS - I love and miss all you guys!).

That being said, I definitely have been cooking/baking a lot over the past few weeks, and I will continue to post occasional finished products and links to recipes that I felt were particularly successful (as well as any changes I made to said recipes). And I'll definitely keep you updated on my attempts for homemade macarons.

I bought a book in my Kindle a few weeks ago that made my baking heart flutter. It's called Ratios and it talks about the underlying ratios present in many dishes, from breads to sauces. I've only tried one ratio from it thus far - I made 3 loaves of bread using different mixes of flour, since I am still unsure about the flours here (they have neither the same naming system as the US, nor the number systems that France and Germany have). They were all very basic loaves, and I was impatient about the rising, so they weren't perhaps the best tasting. But it was interesting to see the difference:

Identical loaves except for the flour used. The one in the foreground used 100% Weissmehl (white), the loaf in back used 50/50 white/Bauernmehl (Fr: rustique) flour, and the far left loaf used a 50/50 mixture of white/Zopfmehl flour. Bauernmehl translates to "farmer's flour," and apparently contains 12% rye flour. Zopfmehl translates to "braid flour" (I think it is often used to make a challah-like braided bread) and contains 10% spelt flour. I am still figuring out how exactly these percentages influence the baking process. Definitely Zopfmehl leads to a lighter dough that requires less kneading and rises faster (makes sense, since spelt flour is gluten-free). And I've only begun to explore the flours available in the baking section.

Mostly I've been just sticking to Weissmehl (Fr: farine blé) in my baking, since it appears to be the all-purpose equivalent. Which is fine for cookies and brownies (eg, I made these Nutella brownies with an extra scoop of Nutella in them - still not much hazelnut taste, but wonderfully fudgy), but I am still trying to work out the equivalent of bread, cake, or whole wheat flour.

Aside from baking, I have been trying to branch out in my cooking. I have phobias about trying to cook meat cuts (out of simple ignorance, not because I think the animals will take their revenge upon me at some point in the future), so I usually avoid them like the plague and before Zurich, I'd stick with ground turkey or some easy boneless chicken. However, B is a big meat eater, so I made a marinated pork loin for Valentine's day dinner (using this marinade as a base - I used brown sugar and added generous amounts of pepper, ginger, and garlic), along with some braised red cabbage and smashed potatoes (add parmesan cheese on top for super tastiness).

Not a great picture, but it was very tasty - and I didn't overcook the pork, yay! (well...not too much. I have issues when meat is still 'too' pink. Yep, I order steak medium well.)

I also made this couscous recipe, replaced the lemon with lime, added more seasonings/herbs, and threw in some extra veggies (onion and bell pepper) and some kielbasa-like sausage for a super quick, easy one-pot meal (Disclaimer: Switzerland doesn't seem to have liquid broths; I've only found boullion cubes, and I'm not sure I'm using them correctly. But it still tasted very good).

I've already made this a second time - with bell peppers. One of the quickest meals that I've discovered - and minimal dishes after!

This pear/dark chocolate tart wasn't actually my cup of tea (B loved it, the chocolate filling was almost bitter, but to me it was too strong and the pear flavor was lost), but there was a ton of leftover chocolate crust, so I made an extra tart with one of my favorite lime tart filling recipes (I use about 3x the amount of lime juice called for) and stuck some fresh raspberries on top. Delicious. I used the leftover egg whites to make some mini cupcakes and topped them with chocolate icing.

Dark chocolate pear tart with some vanilla ice cream on the side.

One of my favorite tart fillings, although it is better with graham cracker crust than the chocolate one, imo. Sadly, Switzerland does not have graham crackers - learning how to make homemade ones is on my to-do list, but of course one should use graham flour to make graham crackers...see my above words re: flour types. It's a vicious circle.

Mini cupcakes! Super cute, and they disappeared quickly at B's work, but they felt a little spongy and not quite right to me. I may have overcooked them (I had no toothpicks, so couldn't test the center). I am also struggling to get my usually-reliable icing taste here - it's odd, but the powdered sugar is almost...sweeter than the powdered sugar in the US, so I haven't been able to make a strong chocolate frosting yet. And it can taste grainy. Works in progress.

I did love the pear component of the tart, though, and we had a leftover one, so I made this single-serving size of pear crisp, and it was so good that I went out and bought three more pears, threw some raspberries in, and made a much larger version. B and I consumed half of it in one evening.

Super tasty, easy, and not even that unhealthy (well, compared to many other links on this post).  I have an allergy to raw apple and pear skins, so I may be a wee biased; this is the first time I was able to eat pears in well over a year.

One of my favorite recipes I've made so far are these lime-cardamom sweet rolls. Yum! I added some cinnamon into the filling for a more robust, rounded flavor. Amazing.

So good. Cannot recommend this recipe enough.

I've made other dishes, but I slacked off in taking pictures. If you are super interested, I keep most recipes that I try (and that work) on my Pinterest board Tried and True, along with notes about what I changed. Pinterest is a pretty huge time suck and probably my favorite form of procrastination, but I've found that keeping all the online recipes that I might want to revisit (because they were just that good) in one place is actually very useful. Recipes that aren't there I probably have stored on my supercook.com account, a totally AWESOME website (it suggests recipes based on the ingredients you say you have), but I am trying to slowly switch saved/favorite recipes to Pinterest, as they are easier to find there.

Exploring Zurich West

On Saturday, B and I had two apartment viewings in the morning (both a bust, unfortunately. I am flexible about many things, but I will not live in a place with a dorm-sized refrigerator) and then a few errands to run. After that, we headed off on an exploratory date to Zurich West, the hottest upcoming area of town, according to Newly Swissed.

I was glad I had read the article and double checked the addresses, because otherwise I would've walked right by the first set of "designer shops" and dismissed them as vacant buildings given over to graffiti. Even after reading that the Freitag store was made from former shipping containers, the reality was stranger than I expected.

The Freitag store, as viewed from its front steps.

Freitag makes its bags from old truck tarps, seat belts, and bike tires, making each one unique. I certainly applaud their ingenuity and some of the bags were quite attractive. I just wasn't fond of the rather large price tag that went along with them (to be fair, there were some wallets and small bags that were under $100).

Had to switch to camera phone, apologies for the blurriness. Lovely bag, I believe it was around 400 CHF (~$440).

Looking down on the ground floor from the first. It did feel a bit like being in a cage.

There were also several other high-end shops in the area, although both B and I found ourselves hesitant to enter stores that looked, at least on the outside, convincingly abandoned.

Does this say "designer shops" to you? It didn't to us. I suppose, in some ways, that was the point. The disconnect between environment and product. They succeeded extremely well.

There was even a shop in a bus.

They actually had a lot of cute items (in my opinion), although no place to try them on, and the lighting was quite poor. This made more sense when, as we were leaving, the salesman asked if we lived in Switzerland. It turns out that they have an online shop with free shipping anywhere in Switzerland - I'm inclined to believe that the "bus boutique" is more of a novelty than profitable venture.

We then headed off to a new shopping district nearby called Im Viaduct. On the way, we discovered more (overly) expensive, upcycled stores, including a furniture store selling items such as file cabinets that already have rust and scrapes (Ok, ok - I know this is a style and I've seen it done attractively in magazine layouts, but to me the concept is similar to buying jeans that already have holes in them. I fix or throw out my jeans when they get holes in them - why would I purchase ones that are pre-damaged!?).

On the front stoop of the furniture store. It made about as much sense as the rest of the store to me.

One interesting observation I found was that about half or more of the books sold in these stores were in English - the highest percentage I've seen anywhere in Zurich (well, outside of the English bookstore). I'm not sure if this is because there are many native English-speaking tourists that come to this area, or if English is just the most likely language that any tourist will speak (Salespeople in these shops spoke at least four languages, probably more - we were not in the shops for long).

Im Viadukt had a wider array of shops - some stores, whether clothing or furniture (or of unknown goods) were open by appointment only, while others were brands I had seen around Zurich and were fairly middle-range (well, for Switzerland. I am still in off-the-boat shock at all prices in this country).

The start of Im Viadukt. There were at least 60 shops in total. 

We didn't spent too much time browsing in the shops, though, since by this point I was starving. At the far end of Im Viadukt is an indoor market (called Markthalle), with lots of little stands selling produce, wine, cheese, and pasta. There is also a restaurant there that has daily specials and (if google translate is correct), uses items from the stands in the market to make many of its dishes. B wisely steered me away from the food stands and we sat down for lunch immediately. The menu turned out to be rather indecipherable (even google translate on our phones often didn't know what to do with the words - perhaps it was in Swiss German?), so we each opted for a daily special that we felt confident we knew what we were ordering. I ordered pasta carbonara, which was tasty if nothing special, while B ordered a cordon bleu that was decidedly delicious, and I thought the potatoes that accompanied it were possibly even better.

The best part of the meal was by far the dessert. We ordered a chocolate creme brulee with cardamom. The cardamom was very strong, the chocolate was almost bitter, and the real sweetness in the dish came from the caramelized sugar on top. It was unbelievably good - the sole problem was that we only ordered one and had to share it.

We did share this - you can only see one spoon because B had his poised to steal more as soon as I took the picture.

We returned home after, tired and fully satiated. 

Overall, I was glad to get to explore a region of the city that neither B nor I had seen before. Fundamentally, we're just not trendy (or rich) enough to participate in the area, but it was certainly lovely to walk around and observe. And I'll definitely return, even if only to order dessert over and over (and over) again.

Dinner and a chocolate berry tart

Last night I managed to produce both a main dish and a dessert before B got home - the first time ever I've accomplished such a feat (I even did a round of dishes as well!). Perhaps it wasn't a huge fait accompli in the larger picture, but it made for a lovely, relaxing evening - and both dishes turned out quite tasty. And yes, the week's theme of lime made an appearance in both!

For the main dish, I served up basically this shrimp dish over rice. I've made it several times before (it's on my tried and true board on Pinterest, where I stash my favorite recipes), and it always turns out well.

Since I am a bit gun shy around meat of any type (including seafood), I wimped out and bought tiny frozen shrimp that had been pre-cooked, making the preparation a total breeze (although to be fair, I do like the small shrimp - you get some in every bite and don't have to worry about the tails). I love this dish because it's so wonderfully flavorful - both the lime and the cumin are highlighted.

Yum, shrimp.

I won't take you step by step through the recipe, but safe to say that I encourage anyone to try it out - the marinade has a lot of flexibility in how to prep it. I use much less olive oil than it calls for (maybe 1-2 tablespoons) and usually a bit more garlic. Really, I can't recommend the recipe enough - it's quick, easy, tasty, and probably uses ingredients that you already have in your kitchen.

So tasty. This was originally meant to be a serving bowl, but I ate the whole thing. B joined his gym at work this week - I definitely need to start finding my own work out motivation.

For dessert, I made a chocolate berry tart. I started with this recipe for a rustic raspberry tart, but my finished product bore little resemblance to it by the end. Also, I still don't have my rolling pin (I have an extremely nice silicone one that I shipped from the US, but it's in one of the boxes being held hostage by the Post), so things got a little dicey with the crust part. Apologies, I didn't get pictures of the early steps, nor did I remember to weigh anything other than the butter.

This slice was way too small. I had thirds - and I'm not even sorry :)

Combine the flour and sugar, then cut in the butter until it looks like very coarse crumbs. I used a pastry cutter (brought from the US) for this step, since I don't have a food processor or blender, but I'm sure those would work just as well (or better). If you don't have any of the above, I've made do in the past by cutting the butter into small chunks before adding it to the flour, then using a fork to smash it into small pieces. Unlike cookies, you really want the butter to be cold, so that it can be cut in and not just mush together.

Add the milk and vinegar until you can form a dough. Now, the original recipe called for  only 3 TB of milk, but I swear that the "all purpose" flour here is more absorbent or something - I often find myself having to add more liquid to get doughs the consistency I need. But definitely get some vinegar in there - it causes a nice flaky texture to the crust. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and flatten. Put in the refrigerator for an hour or so until it's nice and firm.

While the dough is refrigerating, mix together the zest, sugar, and flour in a bowl. Add the berries and toss to coat. I added a small squeeze of lime juice at this point as well - just because.

Frozen/fresh raspberries/blackberries, which are my two favorites.

After your dough is firm, take it out of the fridge but keep it either in the plastic wrap or on some parchment paper - if you add more flour at this point you'll end up with a drier, not so nice crust. Roll out the dough in a circle-ish shape until it's around 1/4" (<1cm) thick and 12" (30 cm) in diameter (preferably with a rolling pin, but you know - whatevs).

Not a rolling pin.

Place the crust into a pie or tart pan and even it out around the edges as best you can.

The nice thing about the plastic wrap or parchment paper is that you can keep  it attached to one side of the crust when you place it in the pan, then just peel it off and voila! Crust in the pan.

With some re-allocation of resources, the lack of rolling pin wasn't too noticeable.

Add the filling in - at this point, I decided to throw some what-passes-for-chocolate-chips-here (small chocolate chunks) on top, just to fill in the cracks. This turned out to be a wise move.

Bake for 35 minutes at 400F (205C). Take out, let cool. If you'd like, you can dust the top with some powdered sugar (I did this. Do this).

Fresh out of the oven.

The berries evened out well, and the filling was wonderful - not as runny as I feared. The lime taste does come through (B couldn't taste it, of course, but for normal people, it was there), but my favorite part was definitely the chocolate + berries, one of my favorite flavor combinations.

PS - This is a discussion I've had before with friends and coworkers (actually several times - is that weird?), but what exactly is the difference between a pie and a tart? Discuss.

Ingredients:
Crust:
1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup (114g) cold butter
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vinegar

Filling:
5 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons flour
zest from one lime
400g (or thereabouts) berries
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Powdered sugar (optional)

Directions:
Mix flour and sugar. Cut in butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add in milk and vinegar, form the dough into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, flatten, and put in the refrigerator for around one hour until firm. For filling, mix together sugar, flour, and zest, then add berries and toss gently to coat. When the dough is chilled, roll out the crust to around 12" (30cm) in diameter (try not to use extra flour at this step). Place the crust into a greased pie or tart pan. Spread filling in the crust, sprinkle chocolate chips over the top. Bake at 400F (205C) for 35 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes, then dust with powdered sugar if desired. Dig in.