A gingery beef stir-fry and the lovely Sciacca

This time a new month means also a new year. I am still on holiday mode and probably not ready yet to commit the year past to paper. Quite frequently my thoughts need a noticeable amount of time to crystallize into a concrete expression of words and metaphoric images. It will come the time when my ode to 2012 will be ready for publishing but for the moment it is Secret Recipe Club time (not without a brief account of my holidays so far)!

The past two weeks have been quite unusual for me and my family; spending the holidays far from home but still in a home with a family, a large family not yet formally ours, have made these festivities something to remember.

The decision has been made

Here we go, also for this month the PaperChef challenge has gone by and, judging from the submissions, surely not unnoticed; the hosts (Ilva and Mikey) have received in total 10 submissions.
As monthly co-host my duty was to choose a winner among them. Let me first remind you the ingredients you were supposed to use in your creative efforts: Dried cranberries, dates, candied orange peel and flour.
It was very interesting to see what these magic four have inspired in you. The entries may be divided in roughly 3 groups: leavened goodies, savories and baked desserts.
Let's start with the breads and rolls.

To Karen from Prospect in the Pantry, the monthly ingredients were simply speaking tea-times with her siblings in Scotland. She wanted to share with us the relaxed and elegant atmosphere of these occasions with a Date-Nut Bread with Cranberry Orange Cream Cheese.

Sun bathed Sardines

Oh the sun... I came to Sicily with the hope to see more sun than I would staying in Germany but, I was wrong. At least so far... On almost 8 days that I arrived in my home town, we have had only 3 days of sun; at least one was Easter. 
Tonight I was in the mood for some sun, the day has been gloomy all the way through and rainy. A look in the fridge and I realized we still had few fresh sardines that my father had bought at the fish market; we never run out of oranges around here and this is the period of blood oranges so bride and groom ready, time for the wedding to take place.

Sun bathed Sardines

It’s ShowTime: Alexander’s birthday dinner.

Last Saturday, the 12th of September, I was asked to prepare the birthday dinner for a friend of mine, Alexander. The location was the same as the last times and only one of the guests was new to me. This time I felt the menu preparation a bit differently, probably for laziness I pushed it almost to the last minute. That did not feel right while cooking at all... Still having doubts about the interplay of the different dishes featured in the dinner can feel like a weight and impede you in the movements. Anyhow, I managed to deliver the dinner and the guests seemed pleased with the food, which is what counts.

As inspiration this time, I opted for going in Asia and be influenced by the Chinese culture. In my usual potpourri, I even added a Mexican and Italian touch to some dishes. Long story short, the menu read like this:
• Spicy pineapple salsa over whole-grain crackers;