This ain't a Lasagna

I am just back from my trip to Sicily visiting my family; trying to get used again to Germany with its gloomy and cold weather, I got in a terrible lousy mood. Totally lacking energy, sprint, inspiration. Thankfully it was that time of the month when the Daring Cooks challenge comes to its deadline, so the dinner was fixed. And what a yummy dinner!

Barbara of Barbara Bakes has chosen for us Mexican Enchiladas. First time I try my hand at Mexican food, though I always wanted to start fiddling with this cuisine. The bold flavors, spiciness and freshness always attracted me, probably reminded me of Southern Italian cuisine.
Tonight then I was more than happy to jump on the Daring train and start fixing my dinner.
The recipe we have been asked to follow was taken from finecooking and here it is.

Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchiladas

It’s a Chickpea Affair

This was Carnival l week in old Europe and here in Nord Rhine Westphalia were I live, this is a deeply felt festivity. It all goes by the number 11, they start planning it the 11th of November and the party this year started the 11th of February at 11am (Carnival takes place always the week-end before the start of Lent period). In other words, do you like beer not only in October? Come by this region around February to get loaded up and see Germans through new eyes.
I am not a big beer fun and decided to stay home enjoying the falling snow and doing some cooking. Lucky enough, the monthly Daring Cooks challenge http://thedaringkitchen.com/ involved Lebanese Mezze; namely Pita bread and Hummus and few other optional dishes (thanks to Michele of Veggie Num Nums for the choice).

Let’s cover it up, it is cold outside.

Another month, another challenge; for the month of December the Daring Cooks challenge was host by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking who chose the Salmon en Croute from Good Food Online.
Even if a bit in delay, I managed to join the caravan also this time. Tonight’s dinner was easily set, does not matter if I ended up eating at 10pm; fish is easy on your stomach.
The recipe was quite simple actually and the result very tasty! Here you are the instruction to follow if you want to reproduce this tasty parcel for your family, why not for Christmas lunch.

Salmon en croute:

Daring Sushi

This is my first attempt at tackling another of the monthly daring challenges; this time we talk about Daring Cooks and Sushi!As with the Daring Bakers, the Daring Cooks virtually meet once a month to share their results on a chosen dish to realize following a specific recipe. This month it was the turn of sushi.
It was not the first time for me, since I already had a go at it when I was in Florence 5-6 years ago. As with Macarons, this recipe is a lot about skills and technique.
It is always said, at good reason, that the heart of a good piece of sushi is the rice. The short grained Japanese rice has to be slightly sticky so to keep its shape but loose enough to crumble once in your mouth. The rice itself doesn’t leak much starch when cooked, even because it is carefully rinsed beforehand; so to supplement it with taste and stickiness, a syrup made with water, rice vinegar, sugar and salt, is added to the rice during the cooling process. The rice keeps its loose identity, each grain recognizable and not smashed into a pulp but still quite sticky to give you trouble in laying it out on the sheet of nori seaweed (to avoid this you keep on wetting your hands when you handle the rice).