When you travel in Germany, one thing you get used to quickly is how well the train stations are supplied with food for the hungry traveler. Most major stations have at least one excellent restaurant (often called a Bahnbuffet or Bahnhofbuffet even if it's not at all a buffet in the normal serve-yourself or food-in-bulk mode). Some stations have several restaurants: the biggest have many. And quite a few stations, large and small, have supermarkets or mini-markets attached.

Even those that already have these facilities will often feature something extra. Often you'll see catering trucks pulled up outside the main entry of the station: and at least one of these trucks will routinely be featuring lots of rotisserie spits with chickens roasting on them. There are always ready-bagged chickens hot off the spit, waiting for hurrying commuters to grab one, pay for it, and hurry off to catch their train.

There are a surprising number of recipes out there tailored to these ready-roast chickens -- the idea being that you don't have to do much to them when you get home. This is one of our favorites.

(And just a note in passing: it doesn't hurt to make extra gravy by doubling or even tripling the ingredients. There never seems to be enough of it. Anyway, making extra and freezing some means that after getting home from a long day at work, you can simply thaw out the gravy in a pot (or the microwave) and shred the chicken straight into it.)

Click on "read more" for the recipe.

Contrary to popular belief, Germany is not a vegetable-free zone.

In fact, unless you find yourself buried in some tiny backwater in the Black Forest or someplace similar, Germany is much kinder to both vegetable-lover and vegetarian than a lot of other places. It will be rare to find a menu that doesn't have at least a few vegetarian or at least mostly-vegetable options on it, often far more creative than you might expect. But leaving aside for the moment the issue of vegetarianism per se, Germans really do like vegetables ¹ -- especially seasonal ones that are in their prime. And mushrooms (all right, not as true veggies, but at least as fungi) turn up as stars in many entreés, especially in dishes meant to be served in the autumn, when the good little creatures are coming up all over in the woods (and the supermarkets).

This recipe calls for the mushrooms to be sautéed with onions in bacon fat (the bacon is added later). The pan is then deglazed with white wine, and various spices are added, one of them being paprika (which instantly suggests that this recipe probably sneaked over the border from Hungary, possibly via the Czech Republic). Finally the cream and bacon go in. The result is substantial, surprisingly elegant, and yummy.

This is definitely a recipe for a high-end Hobbit menu: an entrée for anyone who doesn't want their mushrooms upstaged by overly large amounts of meat.

Click on "read more" for the full recipe.

EuroCuisineLady had the good luck to be passing through Munich on business last week when the weather was particularly fine. Her schedule left her just enough time to make a fast pass through the Viktualienmarkt or Grocery Market, probably Munich's most famous open-air food market.

The place is a feast for the eye and nose any time of the year, but in the summertime, the market and the beer garden at its heart come into their own. There are something like a hundred and forty stalls and shops (the butchers tend for the most part to be located in a block of regular buildings near the west side of the market). Every kind of fresh food you can imagine is to be found here, as well as spices, flowers and plants, woodwork, knives, kitchen utensils, you name it. At the heart of it all is a small handsome beer garden shaded by the traditional chestnut trees, so that after your shopping's done you can sit down and have a beer or a coffee and a good gossip with your neighbors.

Click on "read more" for more pictures. (If you're a Flickr user, you can also click here for the whole photoset, where you can get at the full-size images and read the stalls' signs.)

Pasulj is Serbian for "bean": the word seems to have come into the language from the Greek φασόλι (fasóli), "'bean'"), and earlier, from the Ancient Greek φάσηλος (phásēlos), "'kidney bean'"). In modern usage the bean in question is usually a white bean of the cannellini type.

This might not qualify as the Serbian national dish, but it's certainly much loved. Pasulj has a slight reputation as "poor people's food", something you can make a lot of for very little money. But it also carries with it some of the slightly nostalgic overtones of a comfort food.

However you think of it, pasulj is one of those seriously stick-to-your-ribs soups that's easy to make. There are a number of variations on the basic theme, which normally involves the white beans (either canned or dried), onions, tomatoes or tomato paste, and then paprika and pepper to flavor the broth. Most versions add some vegetable besides the onion: these can include bell peppers / capsicums, carrots, potatoes (or other root vegetables), or celery.

Meat is normally part of pasulj as well -- ideally smoked meat. This can be smoked bacon or a good smoked sausage. In this version of the recipe, we're using both, the sausage being a good smoky kielbasa.

Click on "read more" for the full recipe and method.