Welcome to Recipes for Disaster, a blog about nurturing body and soul through troubled times

butterfly painted on white brick wall with broken window
Photo by Kristel Hayes on Unsplash

This blog was born when I went through a difficult time in my life. Here I share the lessons I learned, in the hope that they may help you navigate your own storms and remind you that you’re not alone. Recipes for Disaster features two types of posts:

Recipes for when we’re exhausted or brokenhearted and tempted to drown our sorrows in pints of ice cream or bottles of wine. Never are comforting, simple, nourishing meals more important than when we’re going through difficult times.

Disasters happen to us all throughout life. This section includes musings on how to tame fear, regret, self-criticism, vindictiveness and other demons. How to ask for help. How to grow (it’s never too late!). Simplicity and abundance. Self-compassion and forgiveness (of self and others).

So go make a cup of tea, put on your reading glasses and stay a while—you’re among friends.

Cold Cucumber SoupRecipes

On a hot summer’s day, the mere thought of this smooth, pale-green soup will a cooling wave rippling through you. What’s more, you won’t work up a sweat in the kitchen as this is ready in a matter of minutes – with minimal cooking! Although this dish looks light, generous amounts of protein (from yogurt, […]

Very Berry Summer Pudding (Rote Grütze)Recipes

I grew up eating this luscious summer dessert and love it to this day. It’s not only delicious, but also super-quick-and-easy to make, beautiful to look at and highly nutritious. In German — my mother tongue — this dish is called rote Grütze (literally translated as “red grits”) as it was traditionally prepared with grain […]

Cheat’s BouillabaisseRecipes

There are as many Mediterranean fish soup recipes as there are fish in the sea, but the most famous is probably bouillabaisse, a Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille. When I lived in the south-west of France, I decided to teach myself how to make the classic bouillabaisse comme a Marseille. […]

Gazpacho with garlicky shrimpRecipes

Gazpacho, a raw summer vegetable soup that hails from the south of Spain, is one of the simplest and most delicious summer dishes in my repertoire. When I lived with my family in the south of France, we would buy cartons of ready-made gazpacho at our local country supermarket and my children loved it so […]

Store-Cupboard Special: Tuna, Bean & Red Pepper SaladRecipes

This delicious Mediterranean salad can be rustled up in less than 20 minutes using mostly canned or jarred pantry ingredients. The most time-consuming part is boiling the eggs, so if you want to speed it up further, buy ready-cooked, peeled eggs. And if you already have a jar of olive oil dressing, just add a […]

Turbo Thai Chicken CurryRecipes

This is the perfect meal for a busy weeknight. All you need are vegetables (use whatever’s in season or in your fridge/freezer; mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, etc. – they all work great here), a few pantry items like Thai curry paste, coconut milk and frozen chicken (or other protein foods like shrimp, extra-firm tofu, […]