Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

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Today was my grandma's 90th birthday and the whole family got together to celebrate. Instead of going to a restaurant we celebrated at my parents' house and had a local chef do the catering.
What can I tell you...the food was amazing.
We had made pumpkin soup as a starter - I'm not going to tell  you that much about the soup because my mum and I agree that we've had way better soup. We managed to save it in the end but I think we should have gone for a different type of pumpkin.
Anyhow, the reason I'm telling you about the soup is that we topped the soup with some roasted pumpkin seeds.
And those were rather amazing.
What we did was roast them in a dry pan and just before taking them out, we sprinkled some salt and sugar on top. The sugar ends up caramelising, making the salt stick to the seeds. Together the sugar brings out the saltiness and the salt brings out the sweetness. I think the end result is super nice and saves even a distinctly mediocre soup.
I can only imagine what it would do with a great soup.
In case you want to make pumpkin seeds for your next pumpkin soup (or for snacking), here is what we did:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
60g Pumpkin Seeds (the kind without the hard shell)
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt

Heat a heavy bottomed frying pan and add the seeds. Keep the seeds moving so they don't burn. I like flipping them in the pan, but that doesn't work in all pans. That or I'm too stupid to work all pans. I blame the pans. When the pumpkin seeds are fragrant sprinkle the sugar and salt over the seeds, making sure they are all covered evenly. Transfer the pumpkin seeds onto a piece of baking parchment and let them cool down. Don't try them before they are properly cooled. They get super hot when you roast them.

I hope your weekend was a awesome as mine. Now that I have a proper kitchen again, you'll get more recipes from me from now on :)

Moving and Banana Muffins

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I'm leaving Berlin in three weeks. This is partly why I have been so quiet lately - I've had way too much to do.

This is the current situation in my living-room.

Up to this morning it looked so much worse but my parents helped me pack lots of stuff this weekend. And I sold my washing machine. After carrying a the beast down four flights of stairs I am convinced I'll never do crossfit - seriously...why would I want to lift crazy-heavy stuff or my own crazy heavy body for fun (and yes, before today I was totally toying with the idea of giving it a go)?!?!?

Anyhow...on the up side - three weeks to go till the rest of my stuff descends upon my parents' house and three weeks to go till I don't have to wear the stupid ankle brace from stupid land anymore. Wanna bet I'll fall down the same set of stairs with yet another box the second it comes off? 

Before I packed up the muffin tins (they're getting a tour of East Germany right now) I made banana muffins. The original recipe was from Felix Olschewski's Urgeschmack Dessertbuch which you should have a look at irrespective of whether you have allergies, are following a Paleo diet or eat pretty much everything. Also, if you don't speak German, buy it anyway and use Google translate. The first half of the book is about ingredients and he discusses their pros and cons in a way I really liked (in two sentences he pretty much convinced me to use honey rather than agave syrup). 

Anyhow, a few changes and 20 minutes (18 of which were baking time) after deciding to make muffins I was staring at these beauties

There are a few caveats though:

If you are looking for super airy muffin-top heavy muffins, make something different, they're quite dense and I doubt you'd manage to get them to overflow properly even if you filled them to the brim.

If you don't like coconut -  don't make them because they do taste of coconut.

If you are baking for a nut-free event - there are some almonds in there.

I'm sure there are lots of other things I could warn you about, the most important one is probably:

These are some of the nicest muffins I've made in a while!

 They are super moist from the banana, they don't have that baking soda taste to them most other muffins have (because the eggs and banana are used as raising agents), and last but not least, since I really like coconuts and bananas they are pretty much my personal version of the ideal food.

All right, you can preheat your oven now :)

Banana Muffins (adapted from Oschlewski)

4 Eggs

2 medium Bananas

50g Chopped Almonds

125g Desiccated Coconut 

40g Coconut Oil (melted)

Vanilla Extract (optional)

Pinch of Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 180˚C.

Mash the bananas with a fork, then whisk the mush with the eggs until the mixture is frothy.

Add all the other ingredients and stir until things are just combined. I don't actually know whether that makes a difference for this recipe because I was worried I had combined them for too long and they didn't turn all solid and leathery or however you want to describe the weird state lots of other muffins go into if you over-mix the wet and dry ingredients.

Fill 12 lined muffin tins with the batter and bake for 18 minutes or until they start to brown.

Wait until they are cooled before you eat them. Trust me. It's worth waiting.