I have watched my mother-in-law prepare Auflauf (German potato casserole) twice when I and my son were staying with them in Germany. However, it took me awhile to get the courage to cook this.

Well, my courage paid off. I was able to capture the taste (with a slight variation) of my MIL's auflauf. My MIL doesn't put cheese in her Auflauf since my father-in-law hates all kinds of cheese.  My husband, on the other hand, likes cheese so much we had cheese fondue a lot of times over the winter (think closed windows and smelly cheese).  After seeing me share this recipe with a highschool friend, he encouraged me to put this on my blog. And so here it is.

I should warn though that the measurement of the ingredients was not exact. I sort of just estimated the quantity based on the size of my casserole dish (15x22 cm), which is for one (kung matakaw) to two persons.

Ingredients:

5 or 6 medium sized potatoes

butter

sour cream

50 g smoked bacon bits

75 g schinkenknacker, chopped (it's a german sausage, the literal translation is ham cracker...i think you can substitute it with a spicy sausages or ham)

1 medium white onion, chopped

grated cheese

bread crumbs

salt and pepper

1. Boil the potatoes with skin on until almost cooked (around 20 minutes)

2. Pre-heat oven at 200°C

3. grease the dish with butter

4. Peal the potatoes, slice them horizontally (around 2-3 mm thick) and line them on the dish, overlapping each slice until the dish is fully covered

5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper

6. Scatter the onion, bacon and sausages over the potatoes

7. Cover with sour cream

8. Repeat steps 4 and 5

9. Pour a little amount of melted butter

10. Top with grated cheese

11. Sprinkle with bread crumbs

12. Bake for around 40 minutes at 200°C 

Mother's Day

I wanted to write something about my mother and about being a mother myself BUT I am too tired tonight.  I also miss the hubby who is currently out of the country.

I, however, intend to post an entry about the subject soon (hopefully before the next Mother's Day celebration).

Surviving Challenges through Laughter

Ask any new parents and they will all agree that raising a baby is truly challenging and frustrating. More so in our case since Michael and I have no support from anyone.  Both our parents live so far away - his around 600 km away while mine are in another continent all together.

The earlier months were really very bad. We did not know anything about raising babies except those that we read from books and the internet and as well as suggestions from our parents and friends. We had no one to help us with Colin (unlike in the Philippines where there is a battalion of relatives who are too willing to babysit your baby). On top of our inexperience and lack of (physical) support, Colin also happened to be a colicky baby (he could cry for hours during an attack). So there we were - tired, sleep-deprived, and constantly worried that we may be doing something wrong with our baby because he wouldn't stop crying. It is a wonder how we made it this far.

I think however, that one of  the major factors that helped Michael and I during the early days was the fact that we were still able to find laughter amid the frustration and exhaustion.  Laughter has become our way of releasing pressure. We believed (still do) that if we can still laugh then things were not that bad. The smallest thing could actually set us laughing.

Thus, we suddenly found ourselves laughing when, after Colin had a bad period of crying that left us so exhausted, I asked from out of nowhere, if Michael would like to make love.  We (try to) find something funny even in the darkest times.

At the moment, Michael and I are more relaxed now that our son is not crying that much anymore. This does not mean however, that things will be easier now.  Far from it. We know that parenting is a lifetime challenge. We go through different stages that have their own set of challenges.  For example, Colin may have been done with colic but he will go through teething next. Then there will be the toddler years, then the teenage years. I could go on and on...

However, I am confident that Michael and I will be able to overcome anything. Through laughter.

When I first came to Switzerland about eight months ago, i didn't know how to cook anything except fried dishes and instant noodles. Imagine the panic I felt when it dawned on me that I had to learn to cook or else Michael and I would either starve or spend so much on instant food or restaurant meals. The former was not an option while the latter was not sustainable (plus I wanted home-cooked meals).

And so I scoured the internet for easy to follow (Filipino) recipes and tried my hand at cooking. I found this food blog (www.pinoycook.net) in August and I have been a follower ever since.  

I was fortunate enough to have a husband who is willing to eat what I cooked even if these are mostly Filipino dishes, which are sometimes very different from the European palate. My early attempts were okay but it was only recently that I gained enough confidence not only to try other recipes aside from the usual adobo, pansit canton and stir fry but more importantly to cook something from scratch using ingredients that I have available in my pantry.

One example is the chicken pineapple dish that you see in the picture.   I have chicken bits in the freezer, fresh young corn, a jar of pineapple tidbits and a pack of coconut milk in the pantry.  Michael and I also bought a small jar of Sambal Oelek from the supermarket's Asian section. And so, I cooked this for lunch a few weeks ago and Michael loved it.

Breaking the Writer's Block (a.k.a. laziness)

I have been a blogger since 2003 but I haven't written anything on my old blog for more than a year now.  I just couldn't write. At first I attributed it to writer's block because despite the many ideas for a blog entry running through my mind, nothing came out whenever I sit in front of the computer. The mind (and the monitor) remained blank.  Later on, I didn't have time for writing as I had to undergo a lot of adjustments in my life as a new wife and mother living in a continent far from where I was born.

After that long introduction, I just wanted to say that I am trying my hand again at blogging...in the hope of breaking this writer's block.  What better way to do that than creating a new blog where I can chronicle my new life with my beloved husband and adorable son.  The old blog will always be special because it contained a big part of me but I somehow don't feel that it can still accurately define me. That was volume 1 and I am now on the second volume of my life. 

Here's to the new chapters in my life. Cheers.