Anne's cooking blog

Cheese cookies

2012-02-12T16:43:00.000+01:00

An easy savoury snack, perfect with a glass of red wine. You can use any kind of cheese you like, but make sure it is good cheese. If the cheese isn't nice, the cookies will not be nice either, the cheese is the main flavour. The recipe states paprika as herb, but you can vary with cayenne pepper, freshly ground black pepper, Provençal herbs, anything you like and suits the cheese.

Cheese biscuits

125 g cold butter

100 g cheese

salt, paprika

150 g flour

Throw everything in a food processor and mix until just forming a ball. Or rub the flour with the butter till coarse breadcrumb consistency, mix in the rest and form a ball. Make a sausage of it, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 190C. Cut not too thin slices from the sausage and arrange on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. You want the cookies slightly golden on the edges, don't let them brown or they will get bitter. Let the cookies cool on a wire rack before serving.

Green bean salad two ways

2012-02-09T17:54:00.000+01:00

I think salads are very versatile dishes, that are healthy too. And most of the time they are also very fast to prepare. Quite often they are a meal on their own, or they become a meal when adding a little bread, or a dessert.

Green bean potato salad (2 mains)
500 gram potato (large: peeled and cubed; small: scrubbed and halved)
400 gram green beans (fresh or jarred/tinned)
1 apple, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons yoghurt
splash of lemon juice
splash of Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper, garlic powder
150 gram cooked ham, chicken or bacon, cubed
2 eggs

Cook the potatoes. When using fresh green beans, cook them. Cook the eggs (medium/hard). Mix the mayonnaise, yoghurt, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and garlic powder to a dressing. Add the cooked potatoes, green beans, apple and meat, mix. Serve immediately or leave to cool. Serve with quartered cooked eggs.

Green bean salad (2 side dishes)
Adapted from Guy Savoy
400 gram fresh green beans, halved and cooked
100 ml creme fraiche
1 shallot, minced finely
few sprigs of chives, chopped
splash of lemon juice
salt, pepper
Optional: feta or fresh goats cheese

Mix everything.Stores very well, so can be prepared early. It is suggested to serve the salad cold, but I like it better when lukewarm.

Updated food links

2012-02-08T20:59:00.001+01:00

I updated my favourite food links. Check them out for new inspirational websites!

Whole grain not so chocolate chip cookies

2012-02-07T14:13:00.001+01:00

A while ago I wrote about incredible whole grain chocolate chip cookies. And I still think they are the most incredible, fantastic cookies ever. I even think that I have not been so obsessed with a recipe like this before, and I have been obsessed with food a lot, so that says something. Recently, when I wanted these cookies but did not have any chocolate, I decided to make them without chocolate. And they still turned out very delicious, the basic cookie dough is just that good! Really, make these cookies!
I also would like to try out some new variations, I bet these cookies would also be nice with other types of chocolate (maybe white), and nuts.

Brussel sprouts with garlic oil

2012-02-06T17:44:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned before, I don't like plain boiled vegetables. But I need to eat them, because vegetables are healthy and I cannot eat the same 4 kinds of vegetables all the time. So I am always thinking about ways to make vegetables more fancy. And this is one of them.
Many people detest Brussel sprouts. I also did not like them for a very long time. Until I found this recipe. Important with Brussel sprouts is that you really don't want to overcook them. They will get mushy and even more bitter than they are already are, and they loose their taste. So cook until just tender. And then the best part: you fry them in garlic oil. In this way they get nice scorchy bits on the outside and the garlic makes them taste much better. It will get even better if you add in some carrots for added sweetness and some bacon, because bacon will make anything better.
I usually prepare garlic oil myself, because it is incredibly easy, I can make it super strength and it is cheaper than buying it. It is a great addition to dressings and it is an easy way to give a dish a hint of garlic. If you are not garlic-proof as I am, reduce the amount of garlic, or roast it first for a milder flavour.

Garlic oil (150 ml)
150 ml of oil (I use olive oil)
1 bulb of raw garlic

Peel the garlic. Use a garlic press to mush the garlic. Put it in a clean bottle or jar and add the oil. Let stand for at least a day before using.
Because of the antimicrobial properties of garlic, I don't expect this to spoil fast.

Potato salad and broccoli with feta

2012-02-03T17:43:00.003+01:00

Potato salad is one of my favourite fast meals, especially in summer, because there is not much cooking involved and it is very nice to eat lukewarm. And if you use cubed cooked potato instead of the fancy small potatoes in their skins, it is even a very budget dish. I usually eat it as a main dish, but you can also serve it as a side-salad at a barbecue or take it to a potluck.
The dressing for the potatoes is basically the mayonnaise-yoghurt dressing that I also use in other salads and as a dipping sauce, it is a very versatile dressing because it works with almost anything, and because of the addition of yoghurt it is more light and fresh than most of the mayonnaise based dressings.
The feta crumbled over the plain cooked broccoli is a way to make the broccoli nicer. I don't like plain vegetables very much, they are just plain and boring if I don't have anything to combine them with. So a bit of feta fixes this.

Potato salad (2 main courses)
500 gram potato (big: peeled and cubed; small: scrubbed and halved)
100 gram bacon
2 eggs
3 medium sized gherkins, finely diced
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons yoghurt
splash of lemon juice
splash of Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper, garlic powder
Optional: onion, finely diced (raw or cooked); mustard

Cook the potatoes. Fry the bacon. Cook the eggs (not too soft). Mix the other ingredients into a dressing. Add the bacon (and if you like, the bacon fat) and the potatoes when they are still warm. In this way they will absorb the dressing, which is very nice. Peel and chop up the eggs, mix in with the rest. Serve immediately or leave to cool.

Coconut-chocolate "milk"

2012-02-01T19:22:00.000+01:00

Did you know that high fat (25%) coconut milk will get frothy if you heat it? Well, I didn't, until I prepared chocolate "milk" with coconut milk instead of ordinary milk. I melted about 30 gram chocolate, added the coconut milk and put it in the microwave to heat it, and then it got all foamy. It is really nice! The chocolate milk is really rich and chocolaty and the foam gives it a mochaccino (cappucino with chocolate milk instead of ordinary milk) effect. I think it would also really be lovely to add some espresso to it, to get a real mochaccino. The coconut milk gives it a slight coconutty flavour, but it is definitely not overwhelming. But take care, it is really filling! It took the two of us to finish the mug on the picture, for me alone it was just to much.

Sandwich

2012-01-31T19:14:00.000+01:00

I am Dutch, so I eat a lot of bread. Where it is normal to eat a hot meal twice a day in many cultures, in the Netherlands almost everyone lunches with bread. When I take lunch to the university, I usually take simple whole grain bread with cheese and with almond butter, because it is easy and it stays tasty in my lunch box. But in the weekends, or when I lunch at home during the week, sometimes I make my sandwiches a bit more elaborate.
I love the fact that sandwiches are so versatile! You can make them hot or cold, with any type of bread, any topping/filling you like, savoury and sweet. But remind 1 thing: on hot savoury sandwiches cheese of course is essential :-) Hot sandwiches you can make in a frying pan, but for this you need quite a bit of fat (butter, olive oil, garlic oil, bacon fat) to prevent it from burning. An alternative is a tosti-iron (tosti is the Dutch word for hot sandwich) or an electric grill/panini-maker/something like that. Below I will give some suggestions for good combinations.

Hot:
- ham and cheese
- bacon and cheese
- salami and cheese (especially nice on Turkish or other Arabic flat bread)
- sambal, houmous, lemon juice and a little bit of cheese, molten under the grill

Cold:
- smoked meat (rookvlees) and egg
- bacon, lettuce and tomato
- ham, mustard and lettuce
- smoked salmon, herbed cream cheese and rucola

Sweet:
- nutella and banana (hot)
- croissant/brioche, real butter and real chocolate (thin sheets especially to put on bread)

Open sandwich (toasted plain whole grain bread) with garlic mayo, salt, pepper, cucumber, tomato and canned tuna.

Grilled sandwich (white artisan bread) baked in garlic oil with salami and gouda cheese.

Whole grain chocolate chip cookies

2012-01-27T08:58:00.004+01:00

These are the best chocolate cookies ever! They have very healthy ingredients, but don't taste healthy at all. They taste like very, very nice chocolate cookies. And the best thing: do you know the feeling that you get when you eat to much cookies? That stuffed, slightly dizzy and nauseated feeling? And still be hungry/get hungry again after half an hour? Not with this cookie. They are very satisfying to eat, fill you up nicely and you will stay full for quite some time. No feeling of guilt after eating cookies any more, because this is about as healthy as you can get for healthy, tasty indulgence!
The cookies are best if you rest the batter as long as you can, at least 1 hour and up to 24. In this way the flavours can work in to each other and the moisture can be absorbed by the grains. But if you are short on time or just impatient, you can also bake them immediately, they still taste very good. The original recipe suggests to bake them ever so slightly underdone, so that they are nice and chewy. I prefer to bake them a little longer, so that they are nice and crisp. It just depends on whether you like chewy or crisp cookies.
The cookies store quite well in an airtight container. I found that the longer baked cookies were nicer the next day than the shorter baked ones, but again I think it depends on what you like. So try it out for yourself!

Whole grain chocolate chip cookies (9-12 cookies, depending on size)
Slightly adapted from Cookie and Kate

1 1/6 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon and/or vanilla
75 gram butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup raw sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup rolled oats
135 gram chocolate chips (I use a mix of chopped dark and milk chocolate bars, if you want to be really healthy use the darkest chocolate you can get/like)

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon/vanilla in a bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the butter with the two sugars. Mix in the egg and scoop the dry ingredients from the other bowl trough. Take care not to overwork! It will be a very stiff dough. Then mix in the oats and chocolate. Cover and leave to rest (put it in the fridge if you leave it for a longer period).
Preheat the oven at 190C. Line a baking tray with baking paper (or a silicon mat). Scoop generous tablespoons of the batter on, and flatten them a bit. They will spread, so don't put them to close to each other. I find that the amount of dough that this recipe makes produces 9-12 cookies (depends on how generous your tablespoons are) and that they will fit precisely on 1 baking tray.
Bake the cookies for 12-16 minutes (time depends on your oven and the amount of chew/crisp you like). Leave them rest on the baking tray for 5-10 minutes to firm up, then transport to a rack to cool further. This is really important! If you try to take them from the baking tray immediately, they will fall apart. And if you don't let them cool on a rack (or something else that lets the air circulate around) the bottom of the cookies will be very soggy.
Eat when cooled.

Tandoori and butter chicken

2012-01-21T11:44:00.005+01:00

As I wrote before, I like Indian food a lot and Butter Chicken is one of my favourite curries. But, the recipe that I posted before, wasn't the one. So I tried another one, and served it with rice, raita and home-made naan.
For this recipe you need two days. The first day you prepare the tandoori chicken, the second day the butter chicken. I made a double batch of tandoori and ate half of it as diner at the first day, and stored the other half in the fridge for the butter chicken. The tandoori is very easy to make, but marinating it takes quite some time. The butter chicken is very fast to make, because the sauce is very fast and the chicken is already cooked.
I liked the taste of both dishes very much, so much that I already prepared it 2 times again since the first time I tried. I think that there is some room for improvement, but that will be the change from a very good to an excellent dish. So do give it a try!
I used chicken thighs with the bone in for this dish, because they are cheap and have a good flavour. But you can also use breasts, legs, drumsticks, or even a whole chicken chopped in pieces.

Tandoori Chicken (2 persons + for 2 persons butter chicken)
Adapted from Seasaltwithfood
1 kilo of bone-in chicken thighs
1 1/2 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup thick yogurt
1 tbsp garlic, minced very fine
1 tbsp ginger, minced very fine
½ tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp dried fenugreek leaf powder (these are also known as dried curry leaves)

Coat the chicken with the lime juice, red chili powder and salt (first one in the list). Let marinate for 1 hour.
Mix yoghurt, garlic, ginger, salt (second one in the list), garam masala and fenugreek, coat the chicken with this mixture, marinate for at least 3 hours.
Heat up the grill, sear the outside of the chicken, then scoop the marinade over that was still in the bowl, let cook on lower heat until cooked through while occasionally turning the pieces. Serve hot. Additional serving tips: lime wedges, thinly sliced red onion and chopped coriander.

Butter chicken (2 persons)
Adapted from Seasaltwithfood
the remaining tandoori chicken
2 tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
1 can of (chopped) tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp garlic, minced very fine
1 1/2 tsp ginger, minced very fine
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin powder
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup cream (or a mix of cream and yoghurt, or crème fraiche)

Sauté the onion in the oil until soft. Add the tomatoes, sea salt, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the oil floats to the surface (about 5-10 min). Mix in the garlic, ginger, and all the spice powders. Give it a quick stir and add in the chicken. Cook the chicken for about 3 to 4 minutes, to coat the chicken evenly with the sauce. Then add the butter and stir until it melts. Pour in the cream, give it a quick stir and remove the pan from the heat (to prevent splitting).

Custard meringue pie

2012-01-18T22:59:00.001+01:00

I always see this nice meringue tarts and pies on television when watching Masterchef or other cooking shows, and I always wanted to make something like this myself. And I have to say, it is harder than it looks. I can make a good Italian meringue, it did brown very nicely under the grill, but the crust did not work out that well and my pastry cream was too runny (with 10 gram of flour). But still, it was a very nice tart and next time I make it, I am sure it will be better.

Custart meringue pie (12 cm form)
1/4 recipe sweet shortcrust pastry (I made 1/2 a recipe and froze 1/2 of that)
1 recipe pastry cream
1 recipe Italian meringue

Prepare the pastry, line the tin and blind bake as specified in the recipe. Let cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the pastry cream and let cool in the fridge (in this way it sets better/faster).
When ready to prepare the pie, let the pastry cream come to room temperature and prepare the Italian meringue.
Preheat the grill.
Scoop the pastry cream into the pastry shell, pipe the Italian meringue on top and bake it in the oven. Make sure that you watch it at all times! The meringue can go from pale to burned very quickly, and this usually happens when you think that you can do something else in the same time and therefore just look away for 3 seconds from the oven. It would be a pity to burn the meringue after all this work, so just keep looking into the oven!
Serve immediately.

Poached pears

2012-01-15T22:33:00.004+01:00

A very simple way to eat more fruit. I think that they are a perfect refreshing side dish, but also serve very well as a simple dessert after an indulgent meal. I made a big batch this time, because it is pear season, and froze 3/4 of it for later use. I used a variety that needs to be stewed for quite a while before tender and keeps its form well, Gieser Wilderman. You can off course use another variety, but take care to adjust the cooking time!

Poached pears
Family recipe
1 kg pears
piece of cinnamon and/or bit of lemon peel (I never add these, I like my pears plain)
50 gram sugar

Peel the pears, quarter them, remove the core and cut in pieces. Put them in a pan with a little water, add the cinnamon and/or lemon peel and sugar, bring to the boil and put a lid on the pan. Cook for 30-45 minutes (or until soft), or in the case of stewing pears that will turn red, cook for 3-4 hours until red. I always use the shorter cooking time, I think that you cook to much flavour and texture away if you cook them for longer. Don't throw away the cooking liquid! I like it as it is, but you can also reduce it to make a syruppy sauce, or bind it with a little potato starch or maizena.

Variations:
- add in a bit of berry juice or wine to achieve "artificial" red colour
- cook in red wine with some cloves instead of cinnamon/lemon
- add chai or gluhwein spices to the poaching liquid.
- use apple instead of pear. When using cooking apples you will get apple sauce (stir well to get smooth), when using eating apples you will get poached apples (that you can mash up a bit for chunky apple sauce). You can also add some raisins.

Salmon with beurre noisette, pilav rice and raita

2012-01-12T08:39:00.002+01:00

A very simple meal of a piece of baked salmon, beurre noisette, pilav rice and raita. The salmon was pan-fried and seasoned with some salt and pepper, and placed between two plates to keep warm. Butter was molten in the same pan that was used for frying the fish, and was cooked until slightly brown. Take care not to burn it! Then some lemon juice and ketoembar was added, and the sauce was poured over the fish.

Apricot baked oatmeal

2012-01-09T08:40:00.002+01:00

A while ago I wrote about baked oatmeal for breakfast. Since I liked it a lot back then, I tried a new variation. The recipe is basically the same, except that I swapped the pumpkin for apricot puree (store bought), the brown sugar for white and the pumpkin spice for vanilla. I also took a slightly smaller baking dish (20x25 cm). It worked out really well, but the next time when using store-bought puree I will reduce the sugar, because it became quite sweet. Other fruits/combinations I want to try in the future:
- mashed poached pears or apples with cinnamon, cane sugar and nuts
- pureed can of pineapple with vanilla, coconut milk and grated coconut

Peach, apple and blueberry cobbler

2012-01-06T20:49:00.001+01:00

I love my two apple crumble recipes, and I can make many variations by adding other things (pears, blueberries, raisins, nuts), but sometimes you just want something different. So I tried this cobbler. A cobbler is basically biscuit dough dolloped on top of the same kind of fruit fillings you would use for a crumble. The recipe I used makes a very, very, very sticky dough and with all the butter and cream in it, it is not very healthy. But it is very tasty!

Peach, apple and blueberry cobbler (oven dish of 22 cm)
From The Professional Pastry Chef - Bo Friberg
210 gram bread flour
1/3 tsp salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
40 gram butter
260 ml cream

1 can of peaches, drained (if in season, use fresh)
1 apple, peeled, cored and cubed
1/2 cup blueberries
2 tbsp sugar

Mix the fruits with the sugar and put in the oven dish.
Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until the size of small peas. Pour in the cream and mix (the original recipe suggests to do this by hand, but when I tried I had all the dough stuck to my hand, so it might work better to use a spatula). Dollop roughly (it is a rustic dish!) on top of the fruit mixture.
Bake 30-40 minutes at 210C. Serve hot, with some whipped cream with a little sugar and vanilla.

Shaksuka

2012-01-03T08:36:00.001+01:00

Shaksuka (different spellings occur) is an Arabic dish consisting of eggs cooked in tomato sauce, with cubes of cheese added on top. The spices use vary greatly between different countries and regions, which makes it a very versatile dish to adapt to your flavours. It doesn't have to be arabic, you could even make an Italian version with oregano and parmesan, or French with herbes de Provence and brie. It is also very easy and fast to cook and is fantastic comfort food. It warms you up during the winter and cools you down in summer.
I like to serve it with bread, usually some kind of arabic flatbread or pitabread, but as on the picture it can be everything you have available. You could leave the dish vegetarian, but sometimes I add some minced meat to make it a more substantial dish.

Shaksuka (2 servings)
Inspired on Smitten Kitchen
vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1/2 tsp garam masala curry paste (or replace by garam masala powder)
1/2 tsp sambal (badjak or oelek)
1/8 tsp cumin seeds
1 stock cube
1 can of tomatoes
4 eggs
100 g feta, cubed

Heat the oil in a pan. Fry the curry pasta and sambal, add the onion, garlic and cumin, fry until translucent and soft. Add the tomatoes and stock cube, let bubble away for a while to remove sourness from the tomatoes. Taste and season if necessary. Break the eggs into the pan, keep them whole. Place a lid on top, cook for a few minutes, add the feta, and cook for a few minutes more. The egg white should be firm, the yolks still runny.
Serve hot, with bread and a salad.

Cream and fat content

2012-01-02T11:30:00.004+01:00

You might think that cream is a very simple thing. Well, it isn't. All countries name their creams differently, sometimes things with the same name are something completely different, and in some countries some kinds of cream aren't even available. So it can be quite tricky to find out which cream you need for which recipe, or how to substitute the cream called for in the recipe. I sorted the creams on fat content.

Diet/light cream
There is a light version available from many of the creams I describe below. Personally I don't use these, if I eat cream, I want to eat something that is the real deal, tastes like the real deal and doesn't contain al sorts of additives that try to make a light product taste like the real deal. I am a firm believer to eat balanced, to once in a while splurge on cream or cookies, and eat less fat things the rest of the time. But if you like to use a light product, take into account that even though the producers tried to make its properties similar to the original product, they not always are. This can cause recipes to fail.

Half cream/half and half
Half cream is the British name, half and half the American. It has a fat percentage of 12%. It can be prepared by combining 1/2 cup of milk with a 1/2 cup of single cream.
Half cream (halfroom) is also a Dutch type of cream with a fat content of 10-20%, but I have never actually seen it in the shop.

Coffee cream (koffieroom or schenkroom)
A Dutch cream variant with a fat content of 15-20%. It is most often used as coffee creamer.

Cooking cream(kookroom)
Has a fat content of 18-20% and contains binding agents and sometimes flavouring agents as well. Can be used in hot dishes safely, because of the binding agents it will not split. A light alternative to whipping cream.

Single cream
A British cream variant with 18-20% fat. It can be substituted with cooking cream, coffee cream or sour cream, depending on the recipe. I often use whipping cream without problems.

Sour cream (zure room)
Has a fat content of 20%. It is slightly acidic because lactic acid bacteria are added. It is most often used in cold sauces, in hot sauces it can be added when the sauce is taken of the heat (and not boiled any more afterwards) to prefend splitting. Splitting can also be prefented by stirring (1 tablespoon of) flour or maizena through (250 ml) of sour cream.

Whipping cream (slagroom)
The most often used cream in the Netherlands. It should have a fat content of 35-40%, just as it's foreign counterparts, but quite often it doesn't. The sterilized whipping cream you can keep for a long time out of the fridge has a fat content of 30%, which causes difficulties to whip it stiffly, and it will get watery much faster than creams with a higher fat content. The more expensive brands of whipping cream that you can find in the dairy cooler of the supermarket, sometimes have a fat content of 35%.
It is suitable to use in hot dishes due to the high fat content, but when boiling it for a longer time, or when the dish is quite acidic, it can still split.
It is sometimes called pouring cream (don't confuse with Dutch pouring cream).

Personally, I always keep some of the cartons of sterilized whipping cream in my pantry, because they store so well. Usually, when I need cream, I use these cartons. It works fine in hot dishes, and to pour over things, and for whipped cream. But when I want stiff cream, when the fat content of the cream is really important in a recipe, or just when I fancy it, I use the higher fat content cream from the cooler.

Crème fraiche
Has a fat content of 35%. Comparable to sour cream, because lactic acid bacteria are added ad well. It has a slighly fresh and sour taste and can be used in sweet and savoury dishes. It can be used in hot dishes, although there is still a risk of splitting.

Double cream
A British cream variant that has a fat content of at least 48% (which can still be poured), but can be much higher (can be scooped). It is not available in the Netherlands, and I haven't found a good substitute either. It is sometimes suggested that a mixture of mascarpone (60-80% fat) and whipping cream in a 1:2 ratio.
It is sometimes called pure cream (the highest fat percentage and therefore the most pure).

Heavy cream
An American cream variant with a fat content of at least 36%. Usually it is possible to substitue with whipping cream with the highest possible fat content that you can find, or crème fraiche.

Clotted cream
A British cream variant containing 55% fat. It is very thick and fat and is THE accompaniment of scones. It is prepared by simmering full-fat milk softly for hours. The thick clots of cream that will float on top are scooped of. It is possible to prepare this yourself (google for recipe), but is quite labour intensive and the yield is low. It is available in some supermarkets (Jumbo), cheese mongers and deli-shops, but is is quite expensive. You can substitute clotted cream by folding 125 g crème fraiche/whipped cream into 100 g mascarpone.

Simple detox food (Tomato soup, salad and fruit)

2012-01-01T18:16:00.004+01:00

Christmas and new year are a time of food. Lots of food. Food that is fat, unhealthy and sugary. Some people have healthy eating and loosing weight as their new years resolution, but even if you don't, it is good for you to take some time to eat healthy as a counterbalance to all the unhealthy stuff. And probably you are hungering for something healthy at the moment anyway, so make use of it and loose the extra Christmas pounds fast and detox your body. Bonus: these dishes are very simple to prepare.

Tomato soup (2 bowls)
500 ml passata (pureed and sieved tomato, from a can/carton)
water
stock cube
curry powder

Pour the passata in a pan. Add some water to thin it to the preferred consistency. Crumble in the stock cube and let the soup bubble away for a while. This will remove some of the sourness that tomatoes from a can often have. Mix the curry powder with some of the soup (to prevent lumps), add to the soup, taste and season if necessary.

Simple lettuce, cucumber, chicory, walnut and cheese salad (2 servings)
100 gram mixed lettuce leaves
1 head of chicory
1/2 cucumber
50 gram walnuts
100 gram fresh goats cheese
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Wash the lettuce leaves if necessary. Throw in a big bowl. Slice the bottom of the chicory, discard the ugly leaves, pluck the leaves of, add to the bowl, discard the chicory heart (it is bitter). Slice the cucumber thinly, throw in the bowl as well. Crumble the goats cheese and the walnuts over, dress with the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix with your hands and serve.

Fruit salad
Mixed fruit (I used pear, frozen summer berries and frozen mango)
Lemon or lime juice
Cane sugar

Mix the fruits, dress with a little lime juice and sprinkle a small amount of cane sugar over. Serve immediately, or leave to marinate for a while. The juices of the fruit, combined with the lime juice and the sugar will form a nice dressing for the fruit.

Cheese board

2011-12-31T17:59:00.000+01:00

I love cheese. Especially since we don't buy our cheese in the supermarket any more. We go to a good cheese monger. You pay a bit more, but you get good advice, and the cheese tastes a lot better. So we think it is worth it.
For a festive diner I prepared a cheese board with four different cheeses and many side dishes. It is advised to serve 200-300 gram of cheese per person as a main course (less if it is a dessert), but I had many side dishes so it was a bit much. Luckily, I don't mind to eat more cheese for another dinner :-)
Commonly you serve a white mould cheese, a red mould cheese, a blue mould cheese and a hard cheese that range from mild to strong. Off course you can choose other cheese, but keep in mind that you start with the mild cheese and end with the strong, otherwise you won't taste anything from your mild cheese. I used bouquet des mornes, rode fryslan, very old farmhouse gouda and dorset blue vinny and I was very happy with it.
You cannot have a cheeseboard without bread and butter. Since you already invested in good cheese, don't skimp on the bread and butter. I bought my sea salted farmhouse butter as well at the cheese monger, and planned to make the bread myself. Unfortunately I had a bad batch of yeast causing my bread not to rise and did not have time to make new bread, so I used some store bought bread. It is also very nice to serve some kind of cracker with it, I like Italian ciappe. Other classical accompaniments are nuts (I used the walnuts and pistachios that I had in my pantry), dried fruits (I used prunes), fresh fruit (I used pear), olives (again, buy good ones), some pickles and some good, dry salami.
Serve with a good red wine, port or sherry.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, they all horribly failed.

Dried prunes soaked in chai and rum
250 gram dried prunes (stones removed)
1/2 cup (125 ml) chai concentrate
35 ml dark rum (or other booze)
1/2 cup boiling water

Combine everything, leave to soak for a few hours, drain and serve.

Chai concentrate

2011-12-30T17:34:00.004+01:00

Chai is a kind of spiced strong tea syrup, often mixed with milk to form a chai latte. Chai is also commonly used as a flavouring for cookies and other baked goodies. You can buy chai syrup, but I think it is overly, sickly sweet and since I had all the spices necessary already on hand, I just made my own.

Chai concentrate (makes about 500 ml)
From munchin with munchkin

2,5 cups water
5 bags of black tea (I used a mixture of Earl Grey and Indian)
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 vanilla bean (I used 1/4 tsp ground vanilla bean)
1/4 cup brown sugar
6 whole cloves
5 cardamon pods
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 star anise pods
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 tsp ground coriander seed
1/4 tsp allspice seeds
pinch of saffron (can be omitted)
1/2 tbsp orange zest
2 cm piece of ginger, sliced into discs (don't bother to peel, there is much flavour in the skin)
1 tbsp honey

Bring the water to a boil. Add tea bags, spices, orange zest and ginger. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in honey and let stand 10 minutes. Line a sieve with cheesecloth or clean teatowel and strain concentrate. Discard spices. Store concentrate in a sealable container in the fridge for up to two weeks. To make Chai tea combine 1/3 cup of concentrate with warm milk (or soy/nut milk).

Flour types

2011-12-30T15:24:00.002+01:00

Recipes call for different kinds of flours. The most used are all purpose, bread and cake flour. The difference between these three is the gluten content. For some recipes it does not matter that much, they will work out quite fine if you use another flour than specified, but for some recipes it is really important to use the specified flour.
Bread flour has a gluten content of about 12%, because the gluten are necessary to develop the structure of the bread. Bread that is made with flour that has a lower gluten content is often quite dense. Ordinary flour in the Netherlands has a gluten content of about 12% and therefore is most similar to bread flour, which explains why some of my recipes have been failing.
All purpose flour has a gluten content of about 10%. This can be used if a mixture of bread and cake flour is asked for. Also, most of the recipes that are around ask for this kind of flour.
And the third is cake flour, which has a gluten content of about 8%. This makes cakes etc fluffy and crumbly. At first, I could not find this in the Netherlands, but I found out that I could buy it at the Asian supermarket.
Then there is also high gluten flour, with a gluten content of about 14%. Flour from hard wheat also has a higher gluten content, which is important for the structure of pasta. And whole wheat flour also has a higher gluten content since the whole wheat is used. And of course there all sorts of flour that are not from wheat, for example corn, rye, spelt and so on.
It can be difficult to know which flour you should use, especially since names and gluten contents seem to vary between brands and countries. In the end it comes down to just try and see if it works...

And if you have an Asian supermarket nearby, it is really worthwhile to take a look. They often have the most incredible stuff, for example all my food colourings come from there, cream of tartar, shortening, cake flour... Things that I cannot buy anywhere else. They also sell spices and condiments for much cheaper than the ordinary supermarket, and sell many savoury things that you cannot buy anywhere else. Sometimes it is a bit of an adventure, because the packages are not always in Dutch/English, but it is fun to try all sorts of new things!

Microwave chocolate cake in a mug

2011-12-24T21:15:00.003+01:00

For the fast sweet cravings. Just mix everything together and microwave. Or mix together multiple portions of the dry ingredients and keep in your pantry for an instant cake mix. If you put it in a nice jar, with the recipe attached, it is also a very nice gift.
I tested different recipes, some of them make a very spongy and rubbery cake, but this one definitely not. It is almost as good as an oven baked cake with traditional mixing, but much, much faster.
Important: take a BIG mug. Otherwise the mixture will cook over and your microwave will be a mess. Also this stuff is incredibly difficult to get of your mugs, so after finishing it, directly soak the mug in water... then it will clean much more easy.
And also very important: the cake is HOT after it comes from the microwave. You will burn yourself on it, so be careful.

Microwave chocolate cake in a mug (For 1 big mug or 2 smaller ones)
3 tbsp self-raising flour
4 tbsp sugar
vanilla
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
3 tbsp molten butter (or oil)
chocolate bits (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients in the mug with a fork. Then mix in the egg. At last mix in all the fluids. Microwave 3 minutes on maximum power.

Variations:
- swap the cocoa powder for more self-raising flour to make vanilla cake
- add some raisins to the vanilla cake
- add spices for a spicy cake

Gluhwein

2011-12-23T14:02:00.002+01:00

Gluhwein (mulled wine) is a drink very suitable for this season. Nothing better than a cup of warm, spiced wine with your friends and family, while it is raining and storming outside. Or after a nice walk in the freshly fallen snow. Or on a Christmas market. Or just by yourself, under a blanket on the sofa, reading a good book.
You will need a reasonable red wine for this recipe. I always think that using a good wine is a bit of a waste, since you will alter the flavour by adding spices & sugar and by heating. But using a very bad wine will not work either, you will taste that even trough the spicing and the sugar, and you shouldn't bother to make it yourself, the supermarket has cheap ready made that tastes like bad wine with to much sugar. So a mediocre wine is fine, but it should be a wine with oomph. Otherwise your gluhwein will mainly taste like gluh, and not like wine. I used a Berberana Red Dragon Tempranillo 2009 that was priced down at my supermarket and I was very happy with the result.
For people that can't or don't drink wine, you can do the same thing with apple juice. Buy a good apple juice for this (I use "flevosap") that is unfiltered.
I like to make the spice mix myself in stead of buying ready made, because I can choose what I put in there and it is more cheap as well.

Gluhwein (0,5 L)
0,5 L red wine
1 strip of orange or lemon peel
2 whole star anises
5 whole cloves
5 whole cardamom pods
a piece of mace
1 small stick of cinnamon
2 tbsp brown sugar (for medium sweetness)
Optional: raisins (for an extra kick, soak them in rum)

Combine everything in a pan, put a lid on and simmer on very low heat for 15-30 min. Drink hot. Take care not to let the mixture cook, not only will you loose the alcohol, it will also make the mixture bitter.

Burgers

2011-12-20T15:43:00.003+01:00

I could make my own buns, my own burgers, my own pickles and my own sauces, but I won't. The thing I like about burgers is that it is fast food, it literally takes only 15 minutes to cook a filling and satisfying meal, with products that are always available in the supermarket, even if you do your groceries very late. And you can adapt them to your taste any way you like. I also like that it is quite messy food that you can eat with your hands, which is very satisfying as well.

Burger (For one burger bun)
1 bun (I use par-baked dark multi-grain buns and bake them off in the oven)
1 hamburger (bake them in a hot, dry pan, season with salt and pepper and finish cooking in the oven that you already use for the buns)
a few slices tomato
a few slices cucumber
1 gherkin, thinly sliced
dollop of mayonnaise
dollop of ketchup
optional: some slices of cheese, some baked bits of bacon, a baked egg

Pile everything on the bun and enjoy!

Chocolate fondant cake

2011-12-16T20:48:00.005+01:00

A very tasty and elegant dessert, a chocolate cake with an oozy centre. It seems difficult, but actually it is quite easy to achieve. Especially when you serve them in individual ramekins instead of turning them out. But: do a test run before you make them for guests! It really, really depends on your oven how long it takes to have the cake cooked at the outside, but oozy in the middle. Most recipes state 6-8 minutes, but in my oven it takes about 15 minutes...
Also, small portions are enough, since the cakes are very filling. You can serve them as they are, or with biscuits, cream or fruit.

Chocolate fondant cake (2 portions)
50 gram dark chocolate
50 gram butter
25 gram sugar
1 egg
45 gram flour

Melt the chocolate with the butter, au bain marie. Add the sugar and the egg. Fold in the flour, mix until well combined, but not too much. Pour in ramekin (greased and floured if you want to turn them out). Cook in a preheated oven at 180C for the amount of time you found in the test run. Serve warm.

Under construction

2011-12-15T08:27:00.003+01:00

At the moment, my blog is a bit under construction. Many recipes lack a good, clear recipe and references. Also I am working on putting more photo's online, since a blog without pictures is a very boring one. I cannot photograph very well, and with the darkness of winter it is also quite difficult to make nice pictures, but it is always nice to have at least some pictures. I hope you all will like the improvements!

Pastry cream and italian meringue (buttercream)

2011-12-12T19:45:00.005+01:00

Some basics for pastry work. Italian meringue, a very fluffy and soft, white, sticky meringue is very nice as frosting, and you can put it under the grill or use a burner to cook the outside. You don't have to cook it, it is food-safe since the egg whites are cooked by the syrup. By adding butter to it you get a very nice buttercream, that is less heavy than ordinary buttercream, and more stable. You can fill cakes with it, frost them with it and pipe all sorts of things. Pastry cream is most often used as filling for tarts and choux.

Italian meringue (buttercream)
Adapted from The Professional Pastry Chef- Bo Friberg
1 egg white
60 gram sugar
20 gram water
(60 gram soft butter)

Heat the sugar with the water slowly until hard ball stage. You can either check this by thermometer, or dip a teaspoon in the mixture and then in a cup of cold water. If the sugar is completely firm, it is hard ball. Don't stir the syrup, since this could cause crystallisation and thereby failure of your syrup. Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks. In this way your syrup and eggs are ready at almost the same time. When you do this for the first time, it can be handy to ask someone for help. Pour in the sugar syrup slowly while mixing, and keep mixing until the mixture is cooled to room temperature. This takes about 5-10 minutes, so if you have a standing mixer, use it. You need at least an electrical mixer.
Spread the meringue over the desired object, or pipe it on (you can make very nice peaks with it).
For the buttercream: add in the soft butter slowly and mix until soft and fluffy. Don't worry if it seems to split at first, just keep on whisking and it will come together.

Pastry Cream
Adapted from 2000 recettes de la cuisine francaise
170 ml full fat milk
vanilla
25 gram sugar
10 gram flour
1 egg yolk

Heat the milk with the vanilla, until just boiling. Whisk the egg yolk with the sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix the flour trough. Pour the hot milk on the egg yolk mixture, while whisking. Pour the mixture back in the pan and whisk on low heat until it thickens. Keep stirring! Otherwise you will have scrambled eggs. Pour in a container and let cool in the fridge. To prevent a skin from forming, put cling film on top, spread a little butter on top or dust with icing sugar.
The amount of flour in the recipe can be varied, this amount is enough for the pastry cream to be just a little runny. For some/most recipes it is desired that the cream is more stiff, then add some more flour.

Blueberry (streusel) muffins

2011-12-10T19:38:00.004+01:00

I adore this recipe! A long time ago, the albert heijn (a supermarket in the Netherlands) used to sell blueberry muffins. Those were my favourite. But all of the sudden, they did not have these muffins any more. Instead they would have vanilla muffins with fake chocolate in them... Since then I have been looking for a good recipe to make these muffins myself, and I think that with this recipe, I have found it. The muffins are very light and fluffy and packed with blueberries. And the streusel topping (something I nicked from German streuselkuchen, another pastry I like a lot) gives it a nice crunch.

Blueberry streusel muffins (for about 8 muffins)
Adapted from The professional Pastry Chef - Bo Friberg and Advanced Bread and Pastry - Michel Suas

45 gram vegetable oil
45 gram molten butter
180 gram sugar
2 eggs
140 gram milk
vanilla
240 gram flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
150 blueberries (don't defrost frozen ones!)

Streusel topping
40 gram brown sugar
40 gram sugar
60 gram butter
salt
vanilla
100 gram flour

Prepare the streusel topping first. Cream the sugars, butter, salt and vanilla together. Mix in the flour, the mixture should be crumbly. If not, add some more flour. It is a bit more than you need, but you can freeze this mixture very well! I use it as a fast topping for fruit crumbles, for example. You can use it directly from the freezer.

Sift together the salt, baking powder and flour.
Mix the oil, butter, sugar, egg, milk and vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients, don't over mix! Fold in the berries. Scoop in a lined muffin tin, sprinkle some streusel on top and bake for 20-30 minutes on 190C. Let cool for 10 min in the tin, then take out to prevent sogginess and let them cool until room temperature. You can also grease and flour the muffin tin, but I found the muffins quite hard to get out without breaking them.

Muffins are best eaten fresh. So bake them, let them cool and eat them. If you leave them overnight, the streusel will get soggy and the muffin itself will get dry. I read that the batter actually can be frozen very well (pre-divided in muffin liners) but I did not try that yet, I think it is easy enough for me to make the batter fresh when I want.

Sweet shortcrust pastry

2011-12-08T19:33:00.003+01:00

A good recipe for tart bases and cookies, that is not to sweet. You can freeze this dough very well. Keep a log in the freezer to cut 3 mm cookies from for unexpected visitors (or cookie cravings). You can cut and bake the cookies frozen, just add a few minutes to the baking time. Update: you cannot cut this dough completely frozen, it crumbles and it is very hard to cut. Therefore let it defrost for about 30 minutes in the fridge before cutting.
To make a pastry shell from frozen pastry, let the dough defrost in the fridge overnight.

For a tart form of 25 cm
From New Classics - Gary Rhodes
225 gram flour
salt
150 g cold butter
75 g sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk

Rub the flour with the salt and the butter. Mix in the sugar. Work to a smooth dough with the egg and egg yolk, but take care not to overmix since this will make the finished product less crisp. Cool for at least 30 minutes.
Roll till 3 mm thickness, put in a baking tin, rest/cool for 20 minutes and blind bake for 20-25 minutes. A good trick is to leave the overhanging dough on, since sometimes the dough shrinks a bit. If you take it off after baking, you will have a perfect pastry shell.
Or cut cookies from the rolled out dough, cool and bake for 10-15 min until the edges are nice and golden.

Pumpkin pancakes

2011-12-06T19:30:00.007+01:00

A not to sweet pancake recipe. The pumpkin will help to retain moisture in the batter, and it is also a good way to eat extra veggies without noticing. And it is off course a very easy recipe to make in the morning.

Pumpkin pancakes (about 10)
From Raspberri Cupcakes
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk with 1 tsp lemon juice)
2 cup pumpkin puree
1 3/4 cup flour
3 tbsp sugar
salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Mix the eggs with the buttermilk until frothy. Then whisk in the pumpkin puree and sugar. Then mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
Heat some vegetable oil in a pan, bake small heaps of the batter on medium heat. Turn over when bubbles start to appear.
Very tasty with maple syrup, butterscotch sauce, whipped cream or butter and powdered sugar.

Chocolate birthday cake

2011-11-03T20:06:00.004+01:00

An easy cake that looks very pretty and impressive and is easy to make in advance, since it will stay tasty for 3 days, even outside the fridge. Just cover the cake well! It is definitely a cake for chocaholics, it is a dense and moist, almost browney-like cake filled with chocolate and glazed with chocolate ganache.

Chocolate birthday cake (serves 12)
From The Pastry Affair
1 3/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup strong black coffee

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 tbsp lemon juice/vinegar and 1 cup milk)

1/2 neutral tasting vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

For filling (2 tier cake):

200 g dark chocolate

60 gram butter

For glaze (2 tier cake):

75 gram milk chocolate

1/4 cup cream

For a three tier cake use 3 18 cm baking tins (weight to make sure that all three contain an even amount of batter), or use 1 18 cm tin and cut the cake in 3 tiers after baking. For a 2 tier cake, use 2 24 cm baking tins, or use 1 24 cm tin and cut the cake in 2 tiers after baking. This recipe will yield a very thin batter, so when using springforms, test for leakage first (with water). To fix leakage, cover bottom of springform with baking paper and then clamp in springform side. The baking paper fills up the room between the bottom and the edge, so the batter will not leak out while baking.

Preheat the oven at 180C. Mix all the dry ingredients. Mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Combine the both and whisk. Pour the batter in the tin or tins. Bake 40-50 min in the preheated oven. Let them cool a bit, take out of the tin and then let cool further on a wire rack. The cake needs to be completely cool to decorate.

When less tins than preferred tiers were used, cut the cakes. This is easiest with a special cake cutter (cheap to buy at Ikea), but can also be done with a long, serrated knife. Try to make layers of the same thickness.

If the tops of the cakes are domed, cut the dome of as well (or not, but then your finish will be less "professional" and not perfectly level).

If you're making a three tier cake you need more filling and glaze. Also, if you like to frost the cake first completely with the filling before pouring over the glaze, you will need more. You can easily multiply the recipe.

Melt the butter with the dark chocolate (au bain marie). Let cool for 15 minutes. Then spread on bottom layer of cake. Carefully place top layer of cake on top.

Melt the chocolate with the cream (au bain marie). Let cool for 10 minutes. Pour over the cake, let it drip over the sides. If you want a completely covered cake with glaze, you will need multiple layers. Then you need more glaze as well.

Let the cake set for 30 minutes and serve. Or cover and serve at a later moment.

Elegant apple crumble

2011-11-03T19:03:00.001+01:00

I wrote about apple crumble before. That apple crumble was quite a rustic, wintery dish. This apple crumble isn't. It is much more elegant and light. And also very easy and delicious! It can be eaten warm or cold, on it's own or with cream or ice-cream. A nice variation is to use pear in stead of apple, or a mixture of the both. Mixing in some berries will work very nice as well.

Apple crumble (4-6 portions)

Adapted from New Classics - Gary Rhodes
4 apples (use a variety you like), peeled, cored and in cubes

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

175 gram flour

100 gram butter

75 gram sugar

50-75 gram chopped hazelnuts or almonds (can be omitted)

Preheat the oven at 200C. Mix the apples with the sugar and the lemon juice in a baking tin. In a separate bowl, rub the butter with the flour until the texture of fine breadcrumbs. Then add in the sugar and chopped nuts (if using) and rerub to coarse crumbs. If you omit the nuts the crumble can be a bit wet and sticky, it will help to put the dough in the freezer for a while and then make crumbs of it, or add a little more flour. Pour the crumbs on top of the apples and cook for 35-45 minutes in the preheated oven. The top should be pale golden, not too dark.

Leek and mushroom pots

2011-10-31T14:03:00.003+01:00

I saw Gary Rhodes cook this recipe on television in his cooking programme already many years ago. But I like this recipe still as much as I did then. It is a very simple and fast recipe, but also very elegant. If you serve it at a dinner party, people will not be disappointed. It is paleo friendly and easy to make it vegetarian without loosing much of the taste. Also, if you want to make it even more elegant you can use mixed mushrooms in stead of normal mushrooms.
For this recipe you will need individual ramekins.

Leek and mushroom pots (2 servings)
Inspired on a TV show of Gary Rhodes
1 medium leek, washed and sliced thinly
5 mushrooms, sliced thinly
100 gram bacon, diced
salt and pepper
herbes de provence (or use thyme or rosemary)
2 eggs
50 ml cream

Preheat the oven on 200C. Saute the bacon. Add in the leek and the mushrooms, bake until soft and slinked. If necessary, drain off excess moisture. Season with pepper and herbes de provence. Scoop into the ramekins, take care not to overfill because they will puff up a bit and the egg needs to fit in as well. Break an egg on top, pour the cream over and season with a little salt and pepper. Bake in the oven until the egg white is set and the yolk is still runny. Serve hot.

Home made granola

2011-10-27T15:18:00.003+02:00

Another try to have a more healthy breakfast. Home-made granola is healthier, it fills you up better and you can completely ajust it to your own taste. And it is very easy and fast to prepare! This recipe will yield quite a big batch and it is not very sweet, so if you like sweet, use more sugar/honey.
If you cannot find coconut flakes (I could only find grated coconut) you can make your own. Buy a coconut (it should be heavy and you should hear the water slosh when shaking it). Use a screwdriver and a hammer to open the three holes in the top. Pour out the coconut water and drink it or throw it away. Smash the coconut with the hammer until a crack forms, then smash at the edge of the crack. This way you can open up the coconut. Scoop out the coconut flesh, if this does not come out very easy, put them flesh side up in the oven for ~ 15 min. Sometimes you have luck and the dark skin on the outside of the flesh comes of easy, otherwise you have to cut it of. Cut the flesh in thin flakes, but on baking paper on a baking sheet and put in the oven (~125C) until golden and dry.

Granola
500 gram rolled oats
500 gram 4-grain flakes (4-koren vlokken)
3 tbsp coconut oil (or santen)
2 cups apple juice (natural, non filtered)
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp brown sugar
250 g mixed nuts and dried fruits (cheap on the market: markt-mix)
125 g dried cranberries
65 gram coconut flakes
100 gram spelt flakes

Preheat the oven at 200C. Melt the coconut oil in the microwave. Combine with apple juice, honey and brown sugar. Pour over the rolled oats and 4-grain flakes and mix well. Put on baking paper on a baking tray and cook in the oven for about 45 minutes. Give it an occasional stir. When it is crisp and golden let it cool. Mix it with the nuts, dried fruits, cranberries, coconut flakes and spelt flakes and store it in an air-tight container.
Serve with milk, yoghurt or quark, and some fresh fruit.

Coconut, broccoli and chicken soup

2011-10-26T14:22:00.005+02:00

An easy and healthy soup with many possible variations. For example use prawns in stead of chicken, or cauliflower in stead of broccoli, or use different spices. It is also a great recipe to use uop leftover meat. Serve as starter or main course on it's own (paleo/low carb friendly) or with some bread.

Coconut, broccoli and chicken soup (3 generous servings)
Inspired on a recipe from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook - Mark Sisson
1 liter water
1 can coconut milk (400 ml)
2 stock cubes (chicken or vegetable)
1 tsp oil
2 chicken breasts, diced
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 cm fresh ginger, finely diced
1/2 tsp sambal (or more if you like spicy)
1 leek, in small rings
1 head of broccoli, in small florets
juice of half a lemon/a whole lime
spices: salt & black pepper (to taste), cayenne pepper/paprika, ketoembar, lemon grass, cumin, curry (about 1/4 tsp of all, exept cumin only 1/8 tsp and curry 1 tsp or more (depending on kind of curry powder)).

Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and sambal until translucent. Add the chicken, brown a little. Add the leeks and a few spoons of the coconut milk, cook gently for a while. Add spices. Add water, stock cubes, coconut milk and broccoli. Let simmer for a while, taste and add some more spices if necessary. Check if broccoli is cooked, add the lemon or lime and serve hot.

Banana milkshake/ice

2011-10-20T22:05:00.003+02:00

Delicious, fast, easy, healthy and filling!

Banana milkshake/ice
Inspired on the BBC show Saturday Kitchen
frozen banana
milk (full fat, half fat, skimmed, soy, rice... what you prefer)
vanilla (optional)
sugar/honey/other sweetener (optional)

Blend the frozen banana with the milk. With a small amount of milk you will get a soft ice-cream, with more milk you will get a milkshake. You can also add cream, yoghurt and other fruits as variations.

Pumpkin pie baked oatmeal

2011-10-17T12:53:00.003+02:00

At the moment I am trying to improve my eating habits. The first thing I started with is my breakfast. With store bought cruesli and full fat yoghurt, it is just not that healthy. So I am looking at alternatives and this pumpkin pie baked oatmeal is the first thing I tried. And I love it. It is very easy to prepare (just prepare a whole pan, store in the fridge and scoop out what you need every day), it is healthy (not too fat, not too sweet, lots of fibres and it contains a vegetable) and.... it is very filling. I don't like eating in the morning, so a dish that fills me up with only a small volume of food is fantastic. I serve this dish with low fat quark (much more healthy than full fat yoghurt) and a sprinkle of sugar on top (you can also use honey or maple syrup) to just make it a little sweeter.
I think it would be nice to make something like this, but then with apple or pear puree. Or with some nuts and seeds. Or with some coconut flakes. Or with different grains than oats... The possibilities are unlimited.

The only problem with this dish is that it contains pumpkin puree. And in the Netherlands they don't sell pumpkin puree in cans (at least, I never saw it). So I had to make my own. It is very easy, but it takes a while. Buy a pumpkin (look around for cheap offers, I bought 2 small ones for 1,20 at the market while I pay 2,50 for 1 at the supermarket), cut it in big chunks, take out the seeds (don't throw away!) and roast until tender. Then remove the skin and puree the flesh. You can clean the seeds, toss them with a little oil and some salt, and roast them too. Pumpkin seeds are a very tasty snack (or put them on a salad) and they are very healthy too.

Pumpkin pie baked oatmeal
from Budget Bytes
2 cups pumpkin puree (I only had 1 cup, still turned out great)
1/2 cup yoghurt (I used quark)
1/2 cup brown sugar (this makes the dish barely sweet, so if you like it sweeter, use more)
2 eggs
1 tsp pumpkin spice (in the Netherlands: speculaas kruiden)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 cup oats

Mix everything except the oats together. Then mix in the oats. Pour in an oven dish (mine was 20x30 cm). Bake for ~45 min at 175C. Serve hot or cold with milk, yoghurt or quark, some sugar or maple syrup or even whipped cream.

Cheesecake

2011-10-14T22:17:00.002+02:00

Another just throw stuff together recipe, but this time for a nice and easy dessert. The fun thing of this recipe is that you can completely tweak it any way you like. Start with cookies of the kind you like. Melt some butter, then crush the cookies and mix with the butter. I use only a small amount of butter and I leave some large bits from the cookies (I like the crunch), so my cheesecake base is not very firm. If you want a firmer base, use more butter and crumble all the cookies finely. Put the butter-coated crumbles in a tin. I use a square baking tin, but you can use any tin you want. Push the crumbles to a firm base, then put in the freezer to cool (and stabilize) quickly. Meanwhile, put 1 tub (200 gram) of cream cheese in a bowl. Split 1 egg, add the yolk to the cream cheese and whip the egg white till soft peaks form. Add some vanilla (you can also use other tastes like lemon peel) and sugar (as much as you prefer) to the cream cheese and mix well. I usually don't add that much sugar, because I like the contrast with the sweet bottom and fruit, so just taste and add as much as you like. Fold in the whipped whites in the cream cheese mixture, and pour it on top of the firmed cookie base. Put in the freezer again. Then, prepare your fruit. Jam or tinned "vlaai" fruit (pie filling fruit) is the most easy. But you can also use fresh fruit, fruit from the freezer, or fruit that you cooked for a while first. Anything you like. Put this on top of your cheesecake, let it firm up a bit in the freezer, and enjoy.
Important: don't forget to take out your cake from the freezer. Frozen cheesecake is not very nice I discovered.
Nice flavour combinations:
butterscotch cookies (or other butter cookies) with blueberries
chocolate chip cookies and cherries

Sweet 'n spicy ribs and corn on the cob

2011-10-13T18:52:00.002+02:00

An American inspired diner. I wanted to make something tex-mex like, it turned out a little different, but it was certainly very nice.
Ordering spare-ribs is very easy, but making them yourself is almost as easy (and much cheaper). And they are much more tasty, meaty and tender than the ordered variant!
Corn on the cob is available all autumn, and is much more nice than corn from a can. The cobs should look fresh, not dried out.

Sweet 'n spicy ribs
Spare ribs
honey
ketchup
ketjap
lemon juice
sambal
salt

This marinade is something you make by tasting, and making it like you like. I usually use about 1 spoon of honey, 1 spoon of ketchup, a splash of ketjap, a splash of lemon juice, some sambal and a little salt, but it really depends on how spicy or sweet you want them. You can also add some garlic, or ginger, or paprika powder, or whatever you want... just make them with what you like.
Spread half of the marinade over the meat, then put it in the oven (on low/~160C). After half an hour, add the other half of the marinade. Cook the ribs for another half an hour, but the last 10 minutes turn the oven hotter, then the ribs will be more crisp and the marinade will get nice and sticky.

Corn on the cob
Corn
Butter
Salt and pepper

Take off the outside of the corn (the leaves and silk). Boil for 10 minutes, don't add salt to the water (the corn will get tough then). Then put the corn on the grill for a while, to get a nice grilled taste. On a plate, slather some butter over the corn, and some salt and pepper.
I like my corn very plain, but off course you can add any kind of herb you want. For example lime and chilli, or Provençal herbs.

Chocolate cookies

2011-09-08T22:01:00.005+02:00

One of my favourite kind of cookies are chocolate cookies. It is kind of logical, since I both like cookies and chocolate a lot. So I already bookmarked about 20 different recipes for chocolate cookies. But I usually buy my cookies. I almost never bake cookies. I think it is to much fuss, with the dough and the kneading and the resting and the rolling and the freezing and the baking and then ending up with ugly cookies. I am just not very good in baking cookies. So I never tried to bake chocolate cookies. Stupid me. Baking chocolate cookies is just as easy as baking a cake!

I liked the recipe I picked out from all the recipes I gathered, but probably I will also experiment with other recipes. This recipe makes a simple cookie, but with a nice, strong flavour. It is crisp around the edges and nice and pillowy in the middle. The only thing I will do different the next time is make them a bit flatter (I didn't flatten them as stated in the recipe) and a little smaller (I did big spoons...). The cookies work best with a not to sweet chocolate. I made it with semi-sweet chocolate (puur for the Dutch), next time I will use bitter (extra puur for the Dutch).

Chocolate cookies (about 12)
From Un gamine dans la Cuisine
55 g butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 + 1/8 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
vanilla
salt
3/4 cup chocolate bits (don't make them too small, they will dissapear)

Preheat an oven at 150C. Prepare a baking sheet with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg, mix well. Add the vanilla, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Mix well again. Spoon trough flour and chocolate bits.
Spoon heaps of batter on baking sheet, use 2 tablespoons for this. Flatten the heaps a bit. Bake for 15-20 minutes, maybe a bit longer if you like your cookies very crisp, in the preheated oven. Let them cool on a wire rack and then enjoy (or just eat when they are still warm). But don't leave them out to long, then they get soggy.

Leek pie and shortcrust pastry

2011-09-03T16:04:00.005+02:00

When I was little, this was one of my favourite dishes. Unfortunately we did not eat it that much, since rinsing and cutting all the leeks is a bit labour intensive. So, for a long time, at my birthday, leek pie was my chosen dish to eat.
I like everything of it, the way the bottom layer of puff pastry goes a bit soggy from the moist of the leeks, the sweet leeks in contrast to the salty bacon, the crispy top... just delicious! The pie as I know it is made with puff pastry, but I think it will work very well with shortcrust pastry. I will include a recipe for this too, but I never tried it myself yet.

Leek pie (2 big servings)
Family recipe
1 pack of puff pastry (it depends on your oven dish how much you will use)
3 big leeks, rinsed, cleaned and sliced
1 packet of bacon bits
1 onion, in cubes
2 eggs
salt (not to much, bacon is already salt!)
pepper
dried italian/french herbs
some grease (oil, margarine, butter... what you like)

Preheat the oven at 180C. Let the puff pastry defrost (if you use frozen).
Grease your oven dish. Line the dish with puff pastry.
Bake the bacon and onion for a while, then add the leeks. Cook until most moisture is disappeared and the leeks are cooked. Mix the egg whites and yellows. Stir in most of the eggs into the leeks, and season with salt, pepper and herbs. Dump everything in the oven dish. Cover with remaining puff pastry. Brush with remaining egg (for a nice brown finish). Put in the oven for about 30 minutes.

NB. The bottom of this pie can be a bit soggy. Since I like soggy puff pastry (yes, I know, I am weird) I don't mind. To prevent sogginess you can try and pre-bake the pie bottom without the filling.

Shortcrust pastry (1 pastry case)
From New Classics - Gary Rhodes
125 g flour
pinch of salt
55 g butter
2-3 tbsp cold water

Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and add the cubes of butter.
Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs with no large lumps of butter remaining. Try to work quickly so that it does not become greasy.
Using a knife, stir in just enough of the cold water to bind the dough together.
Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 10-15 minutes before using.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Roll out the shortcrust pastry until it is slightly larger than a 25cm/10in loose-bottomed cake tin. Prick the pastry all over with a fork, line the pastry case with greaseproof paper and fill it with rice or dried beans. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove the greaseproof paper and rice or beans. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg, then return the tart to the oven and bake for a further five minutes, or until golden-brown.
Then fill and bake again until the filling is cooked.

Ham and cheese quiche

2011-09-03T03:49:00.003+02:00

The recipe of this ham and cheese quiche is from my mum. She makes this quiche on every appropriate occasion (parties, potlucks, etc) and it is always very appreciated. It is a really versatile dish, you can eat it warm or cold, as appetizer, main dish, on a picnic, as party food, etc. And everyone always loves it, me included. No one can make it as well as my mum, but we can at least try to recreate this amazing dish!

Ham and cheese quiche (10-12 pieces)
Family recipe
1 tin croissant dough
200 gram grated cheese (Gouda)
200 gram ham, cubes
150 ml cream
3 eggs
pepper
italian dried herbs

Preheat the oven at 160C. Grease a round or square oven dish. Open the tin croissant dough, cover the oven dish with it. If your dish is to big, you can roll the dough a bit thinner. Spread out the ham in the dish over the dough. Then sprinkle over the cheese.
Mix the cream, eggs, pepper and herbs (no salt, the cheese and ham makes it salty already!), pour evenly over the ham and cheese in the dish.
Cook in the oven for 35 minutes. Take it out and let it cool. Or, for an even better quiche: let it cool inside the oven (turned off, off course).

Variations:
- use puff pastry in stead of croissant dough
- use different kinds of cheeses, like emmentaler, parmesan, cheddar, brie or even a blue cheese
- use bacon in stead of ham
- add some sautéed onion and mushroom
- swap the meat for something else (f.e. sun-dried tomatoes) for a vegetarian variant
- use other herbs, like provencial dried herbs, or fresh herbs (thyme/rosemary, parsley/chives, etc)
- make mini quiches by using a muffin or mini-muffin baking tin

New labels

2011-08-31T18:09:00.003+02:00

Today I sorted out the old and not so complete labels of my blog, and replaced them with new ones. So when my blog grows, everyone will still be able to find back all the nice recipes.

Lentil soup

2011-08-30T22:30:00.007+02:00

I have been a very lazy cook for a while... Usually that involves the less healthy choices, since not thinking about what you will eat for diner the whole day and than shopping for groceries while you still don't know what to eat while you are already hungry is just not a very good plan. But, today I decided to cook and eat something healthy, and it was very easy and tasty as well. So plans for the future: plan diner when not hungry, then shop with grocery list and only buy what's on the list. See how long I can stick to this...

Then, the dish. I combined the many recipes (Arabic/Moroccan) I found online for lentil soup into something I liked. It is very important to use quite strong and spicy flavours, since lentils tend to be a bit bland. The spice mix I used succeeded in this, but was still very delicate.
I like my soups nice and smooth, so I blended everything after cooking and then sieved it, pushing every bit of moisture and taste from the sieve, but preventing all the tough bits to be in my soup. This step is not necessary, you can just blend everything, or even let it chunky or mush it a bit with a masher. To give the whole a bit texture, I added some cooked quinoa to the soup.
I also added some leftover chicken from yesterday, but leaving the soup vegetarian is a very good possibility (then switch the chicken stock cube for a vegetable stock cube).
I also served some raita and naan (but mine came from the shop) with the soup.

Lentil soup (2 big bowls)
1 cup yellow lentils (use a coffee mug if you don't have cup measuring cups)
2 tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cm fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 tomato, chopped
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp nigella seeds
1/4 tsp ground coriander (ketoembar)
1/4 tsp kurkuma
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chili powder
3-4 cups chicken stock (depending on the preferred consistency)
juice of half a lemon
salt
fresh coriander (optional)

Rinse the lentils, then soak them. The longer you soak them, the more moisture they take up and the thinner your soup will be. I soaked my lentils for about an hour, since I did not have much time.
Slowly cook the onion, carrot and celery, until translucent. Add the ginger and garlic, cook for a bit more. Add the tomato, bay leaves, lentils and stock, bring to the boil. Meanwhile, roast the seeds in a dry frying pan and add them with the other spices to the soup. Cook the soup for about 30 minutes, till the lentils are tender. Blend (don't forget to take out the bay leaves!), and if you want, sieve. Taste, add the lemon juice, salt if necessary and pepper/chilli powder if necessary. Garnish with fresh coriander (if using).

Aloo gobi

2011-07-30T22:14:00.004+02:00

This is a very nice, slightly spicy vegetarian curry with cauliflower and potato. I hate cauliflower, but by preparing it this way, I love it. The preparation is very simple, but the result is superb.

Aloo gobi
From the Hairy Bikers
vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
4 cm fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp mustard seeds
5 curry leaves
1/2 tsp kurkuma
1/2 tsp fenugriek
2 green chilies, whole
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
250 gram tomatoes, diced (or use from a tin)
1/2 small cauliflower
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp water

Fry the onion in the vegetable oil until soft.
Add the ginger, mustard seeds, curry leaves, kurkuma, fenugriek, green chilies, chili powder and salt, fry for a while. Then add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 25-30 minutes. Serve with basmati rice, naan and raita.

Salt baked fish

2011-07-29T22:04:00.005+02:00

Cooking a whole fish in a salt crust is a very easy way to ensure that your fish keeps moist and succulent. And also it is very spectacular to break the crust at the table. You can use all fishes and you can season them with anything you like (just put it in the belly of the fish). If you use a smaller fish, bake for 25 minutes.

Salt baked fish
From Saturday Kitchen
1,5 kg whole fish
seasoning (a bunch of thyme, some slices lemon, whatever you want)
4 egg whites
300 gram salt

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Put your seasoning inside the fish.
Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then fold in the salt.
Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper (important! you will not get the salt mixture out otherwise) and spread one third of the egg white mixture over the tray. Lay the fish on top and spoon over the remaining egg white mixture. Ensure that the fish is completely covered, but leave the head and tail fin sticking out (you can cover them, but this way I like the looks). Bake the fish 30-35 minutes in the oven. The salt crust should be crisp, but in my case it was not while the fish was already cooked.
Carefully crack the salt crust, fold open and discard. It is important that the skin of the fish is whole, otherwise all the salt will go inside the fish, making the flesh very salty.

Cups

2011-07-28T22:01:00.003+02:00

By now you probably have noted that I use cup measurements in my recipes. Why? I was fed up with translating it each time, so I bought a set of measure cups. You can find these all over the internet, cookshops and Dille & Kamille. I think they are very convenient!

Strawberry cake with lemon mascarpone cheese frosting and fondant roses

2011-07-27T22:00:00.005+02:00

Actually, this was a bit of a failure. It was my first effort to make a frosted cake, and my first effort to make a 3-layer cake, which went horribly wrong. I don't own 3 baking tins of the same size, and I did not want to have a humongous cake so I ended up baking my cake in 2 tins, one a bit bigger and the other did not have straight edged. Which off course is a very bad idea when you want to make a 3-layer cake. So I ended up with a cake that was kinda crooked...
The second disaster was the cake itself. It called for cake flour, which does not exist here in the Netherlands. It is flour with a lower protein content, so your cakes would be more light and fluffy. So I substituted with flour and corn starch, what was suggested. And my cake turned out very dense... It was still edible, but it was not much of a success.
The third disaster was the frosting. It was not thick enough so it kept dripping down and it was not possible to get a smooth finish.
The only thing that worked out the way I wanted to were the fondant roses...
But I did have lots of fun trying, and I give you the recipes anyway. A good thing to know: the cake can be freezed very well for a few days and then it will be tastier as well.

Strawberry cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Not So Humble Pie
2 cups flour
4 tbsp corn starch
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 + 1/8 tsp baking powder
salt
170 gram butter
3/4 cup pureed strawberries (frozen strawberries are fine)
4 egg whites
1/3 cup milk
red food colouring (otherwise the cake will not be pink)
vanilla

Preheat the oven at 190 degrees Celcius
Prepare the baking tins.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla.
Add the butter and pureed strawberries, mix until light and fluffy. Important: this is a very thick mixture, you will need a heavy duty mixer, otherwise it will not survive this batter.
Mix the egg whites, milk and food colouring. Add it in 2 or 3 times to the mixture, folding it in.
Bake 30-35 minutes. Let it cool 10-15 minutes, then remove the tin and let the cake further cool on a wire rack. After the cake is completely cooled, you can decorate it. For example fill the layers with the lemon mascarpone cheese frosting and then frost the outside with the same mixture. First put a thin layer on the outside, then cool for 5 minutes in a freezer or 30 minutes in the fridge. Then add another layer. In this way there will be no crumbs in the final layer.

Lemon mascarpone cheese frosting (generous amount for a 3 layer cake)

500 gram mascarpone
625 ml cream
1/2 cup sugar
Option 1: 2/3 cup lemon curd
Option 2: zest and juice of 1 lemon

Whip the sugar and cream together to soft peaks. Mix the mascarpone and lemon curd/zest and juice of a lemon. Fold in some of the cream in the mascarpone. Then carefully fold in the rest of the whipped cream.

Fondant roses

Marshmallows
Icing sugar
Food colouring (when necessary, the mixture of my marshmallows gave a nice pinkish colour)

Put some marshmellows in a bowl, with a few drops of water. Microwave 30 seconds. Using a fork, add icing sugar a little at a time until you have a stiff ball of fondant. It will dry out very fast, so keep it covered when not using.
To make a rose, take a bit of the fondant, form a flat oval and roll it. This will be the centre of the rose. Then make more thin flat ovals, and fold these around the centre. Keep in mind that it should look like a rose in the end :-)
They won't taste nice, they get very hard and taste like dusty marshmallows, but some nice big roses on top of a cake certainly look nice.

Brownies

2011-07-26T22:00:00.002+02:00

These are very boring plain brownies. The good thing: you can make them very fast and without any effort. Good for any choco-addict desperately in need of a fix :-)
I make this recipe in a cake tin, because I don't own a nice square baking tin :-(

Brownies (for a cake tin, double if using a square tin)
Cannot find back where I got the original recipe :-(
75 gram extra pure chocolate
85 gram butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
vanilla
salt
1/2 cup flour
coffee powder or extract (optional, it brings out the flavour of the chocolate)

Preheat the oven at 190 degrees Celcius.
Melt the butter and the chocolate together in the microwave. Microwave until half of it is molten, then stir to melt the rest. Add in the sugar, egg, vanilla and salt, mix well. Add the flour, mix until combined. Put in the baking tin. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Blueberry crumb bars

2011-07-25T22:08:00.002+02:00

These bars are the best ever! Run to the shop, buy everything you need and make them. They are very easy to make, easy to make different variants and they are just very delicious.

Blueberry crumb bars (enough for a cake tin, double if using a square tin)
Adapted from My baking addiction
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup flour
115 gram butter
1 egg
vanilla
salt
lemon zest (optional)
filling (see note below)

Preheat the oven at 190 degrees Celcius. Prepare a baking tin. Crumb all ingredients together, either by hand or in a kitchen machine. Put half of the mixture in the bottom of the tin, press down to a firm base. Spread the filling over it. Then put the rest of the dough on top, in crumbles. Bake 45 minutes. Let it cool for a bit, then slice in cubes.

Note: the recipe suggested to use 2 cups of blueberries with 1/4 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tsp corn starch. Although the effect was very delicious, it was something to put in a bowl and use a spoon for, it did not result in nice square crumb bars. So I suggest to use less fruit or more corn starch (but not too much, then it gets starchy). You can use any kind of fruit you like. Another option is using jam, like I did the second time I baked this. It worked out very well, by using jam I did end up with the nice squares.

Pilav rice

2011-07-24T22:00:00.003+02:00

Cooking your rice pilav style is an easy way to make plain rice a bit more interesting, more like a dish on itself. You can prepare this dish very well in advance and reheat it when needed.

Pilav rice
Inspired on the Conran Cookbook
1 cube butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
basmati rice
1.5 times the volume of the rice in fluids; 1/3 milk, 2/3 water
1 chicken stock cube
1 bay leave
Optional:
- raisins (add with fluids)
- nuts (sprinkle over after cooking)
- cardamom pods and cinnamon stick (add with bay leave)

Fry the onion in the butter until soft and translucent, then add the mustard and nigella seeds. Fry some more. Add the rice and garlic, fry until the rice gets a bit translucent. Add the fluids, stock cube and bay leave. Put a lit on the pan, cook on a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the rice absorbed all the fluids and is cooked. If not cooked, add a little more water and cook for a little longer.

Butter chicken and raita

2011-07-23T20:04:00.008+02:00

I like Indian food a lot. One of my favourite curries is butter chicken, a very nice and mild curry. I am still looking for a good recipe and although this is not the one it is still a very nice curry. Serve with rice, naan and a simple raita (below). It is also very nice with pilav rice.

Butter chicken
Unfortunately I cannot find back the original recipe :-(
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 shallot, diced
1/4 white onion, diced (I used a small whole normal onion)
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tbsp fresh ginger, puréed
1/2 tbsp garlic, puréed
1 tsp garam massala
1/4 tsp fenugriek
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 bay leave
1/4 cup yoghurt
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
tomato puree (small tin, 70 gram)
salt and pepper

1 tbsp oil
chicken breast, in cubes
sambal oelek
salt

1/4 cup cashew nuts, ground
1/4 cup water

Bake the shallot and onion slowly in the oil, until translucent. Add the ginger, garlic, garam massala, fenugriek, chili powder, cumin and the bay leave. Fry. Add the tomato puree and a little water, fry some more. Then add the lemon juice, butter, yoghurt, cream and milk. Let it cook for about 10 minutes on low heat. Season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile fry the chicken in the oil until brown. Add sambal oelek and salt to taste. Then add some of the sauce, fry until the sauce is dry and the chicken cooked. Mix the cashew puree and the water, add to the sauce. Add the chicken also to the sauce. Cook for 5-10 min till the sauce has thickened.

Raita
My own creation inspired on traditional raita and tzatziki
cucumber
yoghurt
salt
pepper
Optional:
puréed raw garlic
garlic powder
lemon or lime juice
Worcestershire sauce
Other vegetables, like carrot and paprika

Dice the cucumber. Drown in yoghurt. Season with salt and pepper. Add none, some or all of the optional seasoning to taste. Keep in mind that it takes a while before the garlic gives its taste to the sauce, a small amount already gives a nice garlicky taste, when you use more the sauce will be very sharp. Serve with all curry type foods, as a nice refreshment.

Banana waffles

2011-07-22T19:16:00.004+02:00

Originally this recipe was for american style pancakes. But since my previous pancake disasters, I figured that it might work out to put the batter in the waffle maker. And indeed, it worked very well! These waffles are very hearty and sturdy, but fluffy as well. Take them out earlier from your waffle maker than you would do with normal waffles, these will not really crisp up and you want them not overcooked. Best served with some butter and powdered sugar, but I figure they will also be very nice with maple syrup.

Banana waffles (2 batches for my waffle maker, making 4 waffles)

2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 tsp baking powder
salt
1/12 cup sugar
cinnamon
2/9 cup milk
vanilla
1 mashed banana
1 tbsp butter

Mix the dry stuff together, mix the wet stuff together and then mix everything together. Bake as pancakes or in a waffle maker.

Sugar cookies and royal icing

2011-07-21T19:07:00.005+02:00

The following cookie recipe is the best simple cookie recipe I found until now. You can make these cookies in any shape you like and they are perfect for decorating. Usually royal icing is used for decorating, so I included a recipe for this as well. The most recipes I found ask for meringue powder, which I cannot buy over here, so I have a recipe without.

Sugar cookies (24)

4 cups flour (440 gram)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter (225 gram)
2 cups sugar (450 gram)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, vanilla, salt and baking powder and mix. Gradually add in flour at low speed. Mix until it is a coherent dough. Divide in 4 disks, refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celcius.
Warm one disk to room temperature (takes about 10 min), it should be just warm enough to roll. Roll out to 0,5 cm, cut cookies. Freeze for 15 minutes. Place on a baking tray lined with a baking sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, until the edges are golden. Let them cool on a wire rack.

Royal icing (a lot)

250 gram icing sugar
1 egg white
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Add sugar to egg white one spoon at a time. Beat well. Then add the lemon juice. If desired, colour with food-colouring.
Nb: it dries out very quickly, so cover when not using!

Paella

2011-07-20T18:40:00.006+02:00

Paella is my comfort food. I expect that the paella how I make it is not like real paella, but then there are many varieties of paella, depending on the location. But I do know that my version is very jummy! It is also a very easy dish to scale up and make for many people.

Paella (2 persons)
Inspired on the Conran Cookbook
sausages*
chicken pieces*
Olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
150 gram risotto rice
1 red paprika, diced
1 can of tomatoes (diced or whole, 400 g)
1 glass of white wine (you can omit this)
1 stock cube
2 bay leaves
some saffron soaked in hot water (you can omit this)
pepper
sea fruit*

Brown the sausages and chicken pieces. Set aside on a plate.
Fry the onion and garlic gently in some olive oil. When translucent, add the rice. Fry for a bit longer, until the rice is translucent as well. Then add the paprika, fry again for a while. Then add everything else, also the sausages and chicken pieces that were set aside (except the sea fruit), stir well, put a lid on the pan and cook until the rice is tender. Stir often to prevent sticking. If the rice gets dry but it is not cooked yet, add some water. Add the sea fruit (cooked) a few minutes before finishing, so that it can warm trough

*Note: you can use any mixture of sausages, chicken pieces and sea fruit you want. Usually I use a package of "Catalaanse braadworst" from AH, and some sea fruit from the freezer. When I want to be decadent, I also add in some chicken pieces (drumsticks, thighs) and prepare all my sea fruit myself. Again, you can use anything you want. I like squid, prawns and clams, so I use them. I cook the clams separately and add them together with the cooking liquid to the paella.

Waffles

2011-07-19T14:14:00.005+02:00

The best investment ever is my combined tosti (grilled sandwich) and waffle machine. Usually my bread goes stale quite fast, which is not a problem if you make a tosti of it. And waffles are the best thing to have for breakfast in the weekends! Crisp on the outside and nice and fluffy in the inside.
I usually serve them with butter and powdered sugar, or jam. And if you want to be decadent, prepare a chocolate sauce (for example some chocolate molten in evaporated milk).

Usually I make the waffles with ordinary milk, but a good alternative is coconut milk. I always have some cans in the pantry, since you can keep them for a long time. Then I always have backup when my milk is gone sour again. By using coconut milk the waffles are very nice and fluffy (even more than normal) and even golden brown.

Waffles (enough to fill my waffle maker once, making 2 waffles)
From the Margriet Kookboek
65 g self rising flour
salt
cinnamon (or vanilla)
10 g sugar
1 egg
50 milk (or coconut milk)
25 g butter

Combine the butter and the milk. Microwave for a while, then mix with a whisk until the butter is molten. Add the salt, cinnamon, sugar and egg. Whisk well, until a little frothy. Add the flour. Mix with a big spoon. At first the mixture will be lumpy, but after mixing vigorously it will be fine. Spoon the batter in the waffle machine, bake until golden.

Scones with mascarpone spread

2011-07-18T13:33:00.006+02:00

This ultimately British speciality, one of the most popular afternoon and high tea cakes and part of the cream tea, originates actually in the Netherlands. Traditionally they are served warm from the oven, spread with jam and clotted cream and they are very, very delicious. Since clotted cream is quite hard to find in the Netherlands (and very expensive), I usually serve my scones with butter or mascarpone spread instead.

Scones (8-10)
From New Classics - Gary Rhodes
225 g self rising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
25 g sugar
50 g butter (50 g extra for a richer scone)
150 ml milk (or cream for a richer and more crumbly scone)

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celcius.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Rub in butter, till a crumbly texture. Add the milk a little at a time, creating a smooth dough. Let the mixture rest 10-15 min before rolling.
Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface until 2 cm thick. Use a 5 cm pastry cutter to cut the dough. Use one sharp tap and do not twist the dough while cutting, to prevent uneven rising. Or use a knife to slice squares or triangles. Bake any trimmings as they are, or re-role and cut in circles.
Brush with beaten egg for a shiny finish, dust with flour for a matt finish or just leave them as they are.
Place the scones on a silicon baking sheet and bake them for 10-12 min in the preheated oven until golden brown. Leave to cool slightly.

Variations:
- 50 gram raisins can be added for fruity scones
- the sugar can be omitted for plain savoury scones
- 50 gram of cheddar (or other cheese) can be added for cheese scones
- herbs/paprika can be added for herby/paprika scones

Mascarpone spread
Very easy to prepare. Beat some mascarpone with a splosh of cream and some sugar and optionally some vanilla until light and fluffy. The cream helps to make it a bit lighter and more spreadable than mascarpone normally is.

Indonesian sateh (fast and extensive versions) and sateh sauce

2011-07-17T18:25:00.004+02:00

I don't like packages. You know, the ones you buy with a ready made mixture of spices. Therefore I usually season stuff myself. For example sateh. It is really easy to make it yourself. Although I usually don't put my sateh on sticks, it just complicates things and does not add much to the dish.

Easy sateh

Chicken breast
Vegetable oil
Sambal (oelek, badjak, djeroek)
Ketjap manis
Salt

Cut the chicken in pieces. Heat the oil, add the sambal, give it a stir. Then put the chicken cubes in the hot pan, let it fry for a while to brown the chicken. Lower the heat, add some ketjap and a little salt, fry until cooked.

Spicy Indonesian sateh

600 g pork
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 kemirienuts (you van buy these as nuts or as a paste at the toko. Otherwise grate some almonds or cashews. It makes the dish more creamy and thickens it. Also nice in curries)
1 red pepper (I used 2 small rawits)
1/4 tsp trassi
1/2 tsp ketoembar
1/2 tsp koenjit
1/4 tsp laos
salt
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp ketjap manis
1 tbsp (palm) sugar
1 tbsp boiling water
1/4 cm of a cube of santen
juice of half a lemon

Cut the meat in long strips.
Chop the onion and garlic finely, mince further in a mortar of in a kitchen machine.
Add to that the kemirienuts, sliced red pepper, trassi, ketoembar, koenjit, laos, salt, oil, sugar and lemon juice. Mix it up and put in a bowl.
Dissolve the santen in the boiling water, add to the rest.
Marinate the meat in the bowl with the rest, for at least 2 hours.
Grill the sateh.

Sateh sauce

Peanut butter
Lemon juice
Ginger (fresh or powder)
Ketjap Manis

Put everything in a saucepan, with some water. Put it on low heat and stir regularly to prevent sticking. After a while your sauce will be warm and homogeneous.

Cheesecake-marbled brownies

2010-09-25T17:39:00.005+02:00

Everybody loves chocolate. Therefore I made a batch of cheesecake-marbled brownies as a present. I made them before and I just love them, the contrast between the sweet chocolate and the slightly sour topping is delicious.

Cheesecake-marbled brownies
adapted from smitten kitchen
115 gram butter, cut into pieces
100 gram dark chocolate, chopped
225 gram sugar
2 eggs
vanilla
75 gram flour
225 gram cream cheese, well softened
75 gram sugar
1 large egg yolk
vanilla
90 gram semisweet chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Butter a baking pan. Heat butter and chocolate au bain marie until just melted. Remove from the heat and whisk in sugar, eggs, vanilla and a pinch of salt until well combined. Whisk in flour until just combined and spread in baking pan.
Whisk together the cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla. Spread on top of the brownie batter, swirl with a knife or spatula. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.Bake until the edges are slightly puffed and the centre is just set, about 35 minutes.

Coconut cake with lime curd and buttercream frosting

2010-09-25T17:25:00.006+02:00

For my dinner party yesterday I made quite a fancy dessert. The coconut cake and the lime curd combined really well, but I think I will use something else then buttercream as frosting the next time. It was the first time I made it and I found it just to heavy and sweet. But it has one great feature, it is quite stiff, so it is really easy to pipe with a piping bag.
The cake turned out quite dry because of the added coconut, so it definitely needs something moist as an accompaniment.

Coconut cake with lime curd and buttercream frosting
(serves 4, generously)

cake
100 gram butter
100 gram sugar
2 eggs
vanilla
100 gram self-raising flour
50 gram shredded coconut

Cream the butter with the sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beat until absorbed and then add the next one. Beat until light and fluffy. Fold in the flour and coconut. Put in a (greased) baking tin. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celcius for about 40 minutes.

Lime curd
3 tbsp lime juice
3/4 tsp lime zest
3 tbsp sugar
1 egg
30 gram butter, in cubes

Whisk the lime juice, lime zest, sugar and egg together. Add the butter, melt on low heat while continuous stirring. Keep stirring on low heat until the curd binds. It will take about 5 minutes.

Buttercream
(this will probably yield to much, but I did not measure my ingredients)
330-440 gram powdered sugar
115 gram butter
3-4 tbsp milk

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar, a little at the time, until the mixture has bind. Then add the milk slowly.

Assembly
Cut the cake in appropriate pieces. Cut these in half. Smear them generous with lime curd. Put the other half on top. Spoon a little lime curd on top. Pipe a nice dollop of butter cream on top. Serve immediately.

Mocha chocolate chip cookies

2010-09-25T17:09:00.004+02:00

Yesterday I made mocha chocolate chip cookies to share with some friends. They were quite a success, only the amount of instant coffee powder I used was probably a bit to much, because the coffee taste was very strong. It is best to eat them fast, otherwise they get a bit soggy. When I make this recipe again, I will use less coffee powder (mine is quite strong I think) and I will tweak the baking time. I guess that when I bake the cookies a bit longer, they will be more crispy. I used a mixture of milk and dark chocolate chips, I think next time I will use only dark chocolate.

Mocha chocolate chip cookies (about 20)
125 g flour
1,5 tbsp instant coffee
1 tsp baking soda
salt
115 g butter
155 gram sugar
1 egg
vanilla
200 gram chocolate chips

Cream the butter with the sugar, salt and vanilla. Add the egg, beat until fluffy. Spoon the flour, baking soda and instant coffee gently trough. Fold in the chocolate chips. Cool for at least 1 hour. Spoon tablespoons of the batter on a baking sheet. The cookies spread quite a bit, so give them enough room. Bake them for 10-12 minutes at 175 degrees Celcius.

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

2010-09-12T17:47:00.003+02:00

As promised the recipe for the cinnamon raisin bagels I made. They did not really work out as I would like, they were quite dense, I'm not sure why. It is probably because I did do something not quite right :-) But still, these were very good, especially with a generous dollop of cream cheese.

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels (4-6 bagels)
adapted from Best Bytes (check for additional instructions and pictures)

270 gram flour (I used half ordinary, half multi-grain)
145 gram water
1 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 tsp yeast
1 tsp cinnamon
35 gram raisins

Mix the sugar, yeast and water, wait until it foams. Add the flour, stir with a fork to combine, then knead by hand. You need a quite stiff dough. Kneed for about 8 minutes. Then add in the cinnamon and raisins.
Leave the dough to rise until it has doubled in size (about 45 minutes). Then gently flatten the dough, form 4-6 even balls from the dough and make a hole in them. The holes need to be quite big, because the dough will rise further.
Lay the bagels on a baking sheet with parchment paper. Make sure they won't stick (with some oil or flour), because they will deflate if you take them off. Cover them and let them rise for another 45 minutes.
Heat water to boiling. Boil the bagels for 1 minute at each side. Let them drain and place them onto the baking sheet. Then bake them for 30 minutes at 190 degrees Celcius.

Serve with cream cheese. Toast leftovers the following day.

Home-made Naan

2010-09-11T10:00:00.002+02:00

I love naan. The soft, pillowy bread is perfect as a side dish with all sorts of curries and Indian food. But unfortunately, buying it in the shop is very expensive, so I don't eat it as much as I would like to. I really like to make bread, but all the recipes I found thus far were quite complicated and therefore don't fit in my busy life. So when I found this recipe, I was really happy. It is just so easy and fast, and the naan tastes like store bought/ordered at the Indian restaurant, but is much, much cheaper. So now I can eat naan whenever I want.

I served the naan with tandoori chicken, tandoori chicken sauce (with onion, raisins and cashew nuts inside), rice, tomato chutney and a fruit salad.

I converted the recipe from cups to grams and I suspect something isn't quite right, because I ended up using much more flour than the recipe stated. So don't worry when it happens to you, just keep adding flour until you have a nice dough.
Because I only made 4 breads, I was left with the remaining amount of yeast from the package, so I also made cinnamon-raisin bagels. I will post the recipe for that soon!

Naan (4 breads)
adapted from Budget Bytes

1 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
60 gram water
150-200 gram flour
1/4 tsp salt
30 gram vegetable oil
40 gram yoghurt (I used full fat greek yoghurt)
1 egg
seasoning (see the note on the bottom of the post)

Mix the yeast, sugar, water and wait until foamy. Add the oil, yoghurt and egg, mix well.
Add the flour (start with the lowest amount) and the salt, stir with a fork until quite mixed, then kneed with your hands. Keep adding flour until you have a smooth and soft dough that doesn't stick. This is the time to add your seasoning to the dough.
Let it rise in a bowl covered with cling film or a towel until doubled in size (about 45 minutes).
Flatten the dough, divide in 4 pieces, form a ball of them. Roll one of the balls out (or flatten/stretch it with your hands) until it is about 3-5 mm thick (the thinner, the easier to cook, but to thin will not work). It is best to do this just before frying the naan.
Heat a skillet, put the naan in, wait until bubbly on the top and golden on the bottom, then fry the other side to golden. You can brush them with melted butter and add seasoning if you want.
Serve directly, or let cool, wrap well and freeze. When using again, defrost and grill shortly. I stored mine for a few days in the freezer and I will experiment with storing them longer.

* seasoning: You can add seasoning to the dough, or put it on after frying. I added cumin seeds to my dough and the next time I will certainly try adding garlic and coriander. But you can add really anything you want.

Sticky Chicken

2010-09-10T21:28:00.003+02:00

I've been seeing sticky chicken and ribs recipes on foodgawker coming by for weeks now, so I wanted something like that for myself. Unfortunately most of the recipes called for ingredients I didn't have at hand and I also couldn't buy them easily, so I made up my own recipe. It worked out really good! The only thing I missed was a crispy skin on the chicken, but I guess you just don't have that with sticky chicken.

I used pre-seasoned drumsticks for the recipe, I guess you can add some salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika powder to the marinade if you use plain chicken.
I also didn't let the drumsticks marinate, so letting them soak for a while in their sticky sauce could be beneficial.

I served the chicken simple, with roasted vegetables (onion, garlic, mushroom, paprika, courgette) roasted under the chicken, and some basmati rice.

Sticky Chicken

5 chicken drumsticks (pre-seasoned)
splash of Japanese soy sauce (I used the less salty one, otherwise it probably would be to salty)
juice of half a lemon
juice of half a lime
generous teaspoon of sambal (I used sambal djeroek, but oelek or badjak will be fine too)
generous teaspoon of kemirienut paste*
2 tablespoons ketchup (plain ketchup, no additives, no sugar)
teaspoon ginger powder (you can also use fresh ginger)
1/2 teaspoon dried coriander leaves

*Kemirienut paste you can buy at a toko or an asian supermarket. It gives the flavour more depth and makes the sauce a little more creamy and substantial

Mix all the ingredients. If you have time, let them marinate for a while.
Heat a skillet, brown the chicken. Some black bits is ok, but not to much. Then put the chicken in the oven (with the access marinade) heated at 200 degrees Celcius and bake until ready (about half an hour).

Braided Lemon Bread

2010-08-03T12:00:00.003+02:00

A few weeks ago I was given a rolling pin. I didn't have one before, so I didn't make things that needed rolling very often. When I did make stuff like that, I used an empty wine bottle or a glass as rolling pin. But it was not ideal, so I am very happy now that I have a rolling pin.

Off course I wanted to make something to try my new gadget on, and I also wanted something to be healthy. Or sort of healthy at least.... So again I sought my inspiration on foodgawker, where I stumbled upon a braided lemon bread. It turned out to be a repost from smitten kitchen, and I suddenly remembered that I wanted to make the bread when it was originally posted, but didn't have the right utensils (like a good oven...). So the choice to make this was easily made.

You can find the instructions on how to make the bread on smitten kitchen, over here I translated the amounts to metric. It is not the easiest dough to work with, it is a little sticky and it is very soft. My braiding skills are apparently not very good, so the braid didn't turn out as on the smitten kitchen photo's. But the important part of the braiding is that you cover the filling, so when your braid is not perfect, the bread tastes still very good.

I like lemon a lot, so I used almost all of the lemon curd made with the recipe below. It worked out really good, the bread is nice and soft and the lemon gives it a good flavour and some moist. I liked to eat the bread just plain, but I can imagine that a dab of butter is nice to. I think I will try and tweak a bit the recipe in the future, because I think that the cream cheese does not give the moist creamyness I hoped it would give. So I might try it with something more creamy.

Braided Lemon Bread
(from smitten kitchen)
Sponge
6 tablespoons warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
30 gram unbleached all-purpose flour

Dough
Sponge (above)
6 tablespoons yogurt
55 gram unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
50 gram sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
300 gram unbleached all-purpose flour

Lemon cream cheese filling
70 gram cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup homemade or prepared lemon curd

Lemon Curd
Makes a little shy of 1/2 cup
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon fresh lemon zest, finely grated
3 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
30 gram unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Whisk together juice, zest, sugar, and egg in a 1-quart heavy saucepan. Stir in butter and cook over moderately low heat, whisking frequently, until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubble appears on surface, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer lemon curd to a bowl and chill, its surface covered with plastic wrap, until cold, at least 1 hour.

New title

2010-08-03T11:50:00.003+02:00

I've done thinking, more thinking and even more thinking about the name of the blog. I thought that magically I would eventually get a hunch for a good name for the blog. Well, I didn't. So I just changed the name in something very simple and boring: Anne's cooking blog.

Hasselback potatoes with creme fraiche dip

2010-07-29T22:45:00.005+02:00

Since I saw these on foodgawker I wanted to make them. I just love crispy potatoes and these seemed to become very crispy. So tonight I gave them a try. I'll warn you beforehand, they are addicting and very easy to make! We ate them with grilled salmon and courgette, and a crème fraiche dipping sauce.

Hasselback potatoes
medium sized oval potatoes
garlic/garlic oil
salt and pepper
olive oil

Slice the potatoes, but leave a little part still attached in the bottom, so that you get sort of a harmonica. Put slices of garlic in between the slices of potato (4-5 per potato is enough). Brush them with olive or garlic oil. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Put them in the oven at 220 degrees Celsius for 45-60 minutes. Serve them with a dipping sauce.

Crème fraiche dipping sauce
Crème fraiche ( or sour cream/yoghurt)
Lemon juice
Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper
Fresh parsley and chives, chopped

Season the crème fraiche with the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Add the parsley and chives.

Chicken risotto, stock, salad and onion soup

2010-07-29T09:30:00.007+02:00

The weekend dinner: chicken risotto.

Chicken stock (about 2 liters)
2 chicken legs (the ones with part of the backbone still attached)
1 leek
1 onion
3 carrots
2 stalks of celery
about 25 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
a sprig of thyme, some parsley

Clean the vegetables. Because they are only for flavour, throw away only the very ugly parts, wash and chop them in rough chunks. Keep the skin of the onion, it gives your stock a nice golden colour.
Put everything in a large cooking pan, cover with 2 liters of cold water. Put on the smallest stovepit you have, on the lowest fire. The stock has to simmer very, very gently, as gently as possible.
After 2 hours the stock is ready. But the longer you leave everything, the tastier it gets. I let mine simmer for 5-6 hours and got a very tasty stock.
Take out the chicken legs and let them cool. Put the rest of the stock trough a sieve and push the liquid out of the veggies. If you want a more lean broth, try to scoop some of the fat from the top of the stock. You can also let the stock cool and then scoop it of, but you need it warm for the risotto so it's more efficient to leave it warm.

Chicken risotto (2 servings)
2 cooked chicken legs (the ones you used for the stock)
1 onion, dices
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 glass white wine
warm chicken stock (the one you made above)
200 gram risotto rice
150 gram peas (I used frozen)
salt and pepper
parmezan cheese

Clean the chicken: remove the skin, fat, bones and other pieces you don't want to eat. Pull the meat into pieces.
Sauté the onion till soft in some olive oil. Add the garlic and the risotto. Fry the rice until it is shiny and translucent. Then add the glass of wine. Stir regularly. When the wine is absorbed, you can add the stock, a ladle at the time, waiting after each ladle until it is absorbed. You won't need all the stock made above, so taste after a few ladles if you need to add more stock.
When the rice is soft, add the chicken meat and the peas, let it warm for a bit. Add some grated parmesan cheese and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, with some extra parmezan cheese.

Simple salad (2 servings)
to serve with the risotto
1 cucumber, sliced
150 gram cherry tomatoes
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt
pepper

You can either half the cherry tomatoes or splash them a bit with your hands (it gives a mess, but it is nice for the dressing). Put the veggies in a bowl, dress with balsamico and oil, season with salt and pepper.

Onion soup (2 bowls)
to use up the leftover stock
2 onions
bay leave
stock
salt and pepper

Slice the onions thinly. Put them in a very hot pan with some olive oil. Stir around till softened, then put the fire low. Let them cook until they are golden. Make sure you stir often, otherwise they burn. When they are almost burning you can add a little water. Add the stock and the bay leave when the onions are golden. Let simmer for a while, loosen all the sticky bits from the bottom of the pan. Season with salt and pepper.
Nice with bread and cheese.

Easy diner (Pancake and sausage oven dish)

2010-07-29T09:19:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was again one of those days that you only want to be over. Logically, I didn't want to spend hours in the kitchen, so I came up with a plan. I wanted to have pancake with sausages, but of course baking enough pancakes for diner was to time consuming. So I just made at an oven dish. And it worked very well, I didn't expect that! The only thing was that the sausage made the dish quite salty. I put an extra egg in the pancake batter to make it a bit more airy. I expect this dish to work well also with no pancake batter, but just egg.

Pancake and sausage oven dish (2 big servings)

200 gram sausage (like cervelaat or salami)
1 onion, diced
1/2 courgette, sliced
150 grams mushrooms, sliced
1 spring onion, sliced
200 gram multi-grain pancake mix
2 eggs
milk
grated cheese

Sauté the onion till soft. Divide the sausage and all the vegetables in a large, shallow oven dish. Make the batter by stirring in the eggs into the pancake mix. Then add milk till you have quite a thick batter (not as thin as for normal pancakes/crepes). Season the batter with pepper, no salt because of the sausage. Pour it over the veggies. Top the dish with grated cheese and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

An easy summer meal (beetroot salad, fruit soup)

2010-07-13T17:11:00.005+02:00

The weather here in the Netherlands is very hot. I'm not a person who likes weather like this, it is much to warm. The warmth makes also that you don't really feel like eating, so the last few days we ate mostly salads. I'll share one of these salads with you, it is a cold potato salad with beetroot and tuna (from a can). Very easy to make and light to eat. I'll also share a nice summer dessert, even more easy to make.

Beetroot salad (2 servings)
400-500 gram baby potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half (or diced normal sized potatoes)
1 jar of cooked and sliced beetroot (300 gram)
1 can tuna
1 apple, diced
1 small onion, diced
3 tablespoons yoghurt
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
pepper and salt to taste
2 cooked eggs, quartered (can be omitted)

Cook the potatoes. Drain them and let them cool. Add the beetroot, apple, onion, yoghurt, mayonnaise, pepper and salt. Mix well and check for seasoning. Put on 2 plates, spread the tuna on top and garnish with the egg. Eat directly.

The salad can also be prepared in advanced, make it and store in a sealed container in the fridge.

Fruit soup
coconut milk
soft fruit, 1 kind or a mixture (mango, banana, strawberry, melon, etc)
sugar
lime

Mash part of the fruit (1/3 to 1/2 of the portion you use). Add coconut milk until you have a soup (or use less coconut milk, just as you like). Add a little sugar when your fruit is not really sweet. Add the rest of the fruit, sliced, to the mixture. Serve chilled, add some lime juice for extra freshness. Nice refreshing and coconutty.

Cinnamon roll cookies

2010-06-08T19:19:00.003+02:00

For a while I see all those gorgeous cinnamon rolls come by on foodgawker. I always think, "oeh, I wanna make that!" but it takes some time and effort. Last week I stumbled upon cinnamon rolls in another form, namely in the form of cookies. I like cookies, but I think they are (also) a bit of an effort. But when I read the recipe, it was so easy, I wanted to make it.

So today was the day. And I have to say, I am a bit disappointed. It's just not a very good recipe. I tweaked it a bit before baking, but it was still not what I wanted. Luckily, I made a small batch. The cookies are very brittle, I wanted to take them with me, but I am not going to do that. They crumble already when you take them up to your mouth, so imagine what a small trip by bike would do. They also spread really a lot, probably because I didn't refrigerate the dough. And I thought the cinnamon flavour was not really noticeable. Also in the original recipe some amounts are just to strange, they are way to much.

Cinnamon roll cookies (about 10)
adapted from "What's Cookin' Italian Style Cuisine"
for the cookie dough:
110 gram flour
pinch of salt
115 gram butter
55 gram sugar + 1 sachet vanilla sugar

Combine all ingredients until a smooth dough. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Divide into even balls and roll them into ropes. Roll the ropes trough the cinnamon sugar (recipe below). Roll the ropes into circles. Bake in an oven at 200 degrees Celcius for 10-15 minutes or until brown. Glaze the cookies with the frosting mentioned below.

for the cinnamon sugar:
the original recipe stated that you would need 225 gram sugar and 3 teaspoons sugar. I used 50 grams of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. I had about half of it left and I also thought the cookies didn't really taste like cinnamon so this definitely needs some tweaking.

for the glaze:
Again, the original recipe stated that you need much, much (110 gram powdered sugar) than you really need. I used a teaspoon of butter and 50 gram powdered sugar and had a little glaze excess. You mix the powdered sugar with the soft butter and add drops of milk until the desired thickness. Be careful! Just a few drops of milk can be the difference between a paste and very thin frosting, so add one drop at a time.

Focacia and roasted tomato and pepper soup

2010-06-07T16:26:00.005+02:00

I love making my own bread. It takes a while, but I think kneading the dough works really therapeutic and in the time the bread is rising you can do lots of other things. Also the smell of rising dough and fresh baked bread is wonderful.

So last weekend I made focaccia. It is really easy, even for bread. To make it more like a meal I topped the foccacia with mozzarella and prosciutto, and served it with a wonderful roasted veggie soup.

Focaccia (1 loaf)
adapted from "De ultieme keuken - Michelle Cranston"
450 gram flour
pinch of salt
7 gram instant yeast (1 sachet)
250 ml lukewarm water
3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sea salt

Mix all the ingredients, knead well until you have an elastic dough. Put in a bowl, cover with cling film. Let it rise for 1 hour or until the dough is doubled in size.
Push the dough out in a baking tin (34x24 cm), make indentations with your fingers. Rub the dough with 2 tablespoons olive oil, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt.
Let it rise for another 20 minutes.
Add fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme) or other toppings (mozzarella, prosciutto, olives, sundried tomatoes) and bake for 20 minutes.

Roasted tomato and pepper soup (2 big bowls)
2 red peppers
3 big plum tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
water
1 stock cube
Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Roast the peppers, tomatoes and garlic in the oven until the skins are black. Turn and bake until the other side is blackened also.
Peal the skins of the veggies. Be careful, they are very hot! Try to get as much of the black skins of as possible, but don't rinse the veggies, because you rinse away all the nice flavour too.
Put the veggies and the garlic in a blender, blend until smooth. Put in a pan, add as much water necessary to achieve a nice consistency. Add the stock cube and season to taste with the Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Serve very hot.

Crumble, new variations

2010-06-07T16:20:00.003+02:00

A while ago I posted this about apple crumble. Since then I tried some new versions. I always use the same topping, but I swapped the filling.
The first new variation was blueberry-raspberry crumble. I wanted something sweet and (sort of) healthy and the only fruit I had left was some frozen blueberries and raspberries. It worked really well, the combination of sweet and tart.
The second new variation was apple-banana-blueberry-raspberry. The banana and the apple were really on the edge of spoiled, so I really needed to use them. I added the blueberries and raspberries because I could. I also wanted to add some orange parts, but the cup I bake my crumble in was already full, so I skipped it. It worked really well, the banana made it very sweet, but it was balanced with the sourness of the raspberry.

Pasta salad

2010-06-07T16:12:00.004+02:00

It has been a while, but I'm back! Back with a fantastic pasta salad, perfect for the hot weather last days.

Pasta salad (2 servings)
200 gram pasta (I used farfalle)
200 gram bettine blanc (fresh goats cheese)
1 yellow pepper
1/2 courgette
1/2 cucumber
2 sticks of celery
5 small tomatoes
juice of half a lemon
pepper
salt
fresh parsley and chives, chopped

Chop all the vegetables, make sure you de-tread the celery. Roast the courgette and pepper in a grillpan or in the oven for a while (without oil). Cook the pasta. Mix everything together. Season to taste.

As you see, it is a very easy and fast salad. With the warm weather it is nice to not be in the kitchen for too long. I actually wanted to have small pieces of the cheese in the salad, but the cheese was so soft (I forgot to put it in the fridge after being to the shop) that I just stirred it in. And it worked really well!! It forms a really creamy, unctuous layer around the pasta and veggies, so you don't need any oil for dressing.

Banana-blueberrie smoothie

2010-04-14T11:55:00.005+02:00

Another nice drink. I wanted to have something sweet, but I didn't want something to un-healthy. So I used one of the much to ripe banana's from the fruit bowl to make a nice drink. I added some milk, to give a nice consistency, and frozen blueberries. It tastes very good, actually like I added some ice-cream. I like that! Things tasting more like delicious food but being actually kinda healthy.

This isn't really a recipe, because I just combined 1 banana, some milk and some blueberries in a blender. I wasn't happy with the result so I added some more blueberries and blended again. So just throw some fruit together, taste and add some more things if you don't like the taste.

A perfect refreshment for hot weather

2010-04-12T17:20:00.007+02:00

This recipe is a perfect refreshment for hot days. Here in the Netherlands, the sun is shining, nice and hot, so a cool drink is a nice accompaniment when your sitting on your balcony, studying. It also makes a great, simple dessert.

I like coffee, I like ice-cream, I like sweet things, I like whipped cream, so I mixed it all together. It gives a very nice milkshake. I also tried to make home-made hazelnut ice-cream, which went horribly wrong. It tasted ok, but it really needs some tweaking.

For this recipe I was inspired by one of my favourite coffee bars. They make milkshakes like these in the summer. But I think mine are better, because I don't put chocolate syrup (It makes the milkshake overly sweet and tastes as to much) and ice cubes (I don't want to dilute all those nice flavours!) in mine.

Hazelnut-coffee milkshake (2 big glasses)
4 scoops of hazelnut ice-cream
2 shots espresso
4 shots milk
whipped cream

Put the ice-cream, espresso and milk in a blender. Blend. Pour in two big glasses. Garnish with whipped cream (and some chocolate sprinkles). Drink immediately.

Easter breakfast (blueberry streusel muffins, chocolate pancakes, brioche, oven egg dish)

2010-04-10T16:20:00.004+02:00

I don't think Easter is a very important holiday. I always have lots to do because it's in the middle of the year, and I have to study very hard for some deadlines. But this year, I wanted to do something special. So I made an Easter breakfast. We had: freshly pressed grapefruit juice, coffee, Easter chocolate eggs, jam and butter, blueberry streusel muffins, chocolate American pancakes, brioche and a boiled egg. I wanted to make an oven-egg thingy too, but we had already to much to eat, so I made them a few days later.

The blueberry streusel muffins were very good, it were the best muffins I ever had, warm and cold. They are incredible airy, but not dry. And the crumbles on top (that's why they are called streusel) give them a nice bite. I forgot to buy blueberries, but without worked very good too. We ate them with blueberry jam.

Something went wrong with the pancakes. I am used to baking Dutch pancakes, thin ones, with a rather runny batter. But American pancakes have a more solid batter, so you get those nice puffy small pancakes. I really don't know what the right consistency of such a batter has to be. I believe I did something wrong, either with conversing the cups to metric, or with making the mixture. So the baking was rather difficult. But when ready, the pancakes tasted really very good. I think I'll make the recipe again and try to make a better batter, the taste is worthy of making these. We ate them with ready bought chocolate sauce, because that was a leftover from an earlier dessert. You can also make your own, spread them with some butter or serve them with some fruit. They definitely need something moist to serve with.

Making the brioche went very well. Because it takes some time, I made this the afternoon/evening before. It's an easy process, but not very quick, and it's rather messy. So if your lazy, don't like mess or don't have much time, just buy brioche. I think this brioche is less sweet and less sticky than the bought variant, so making it yourself is worth the time and effort. I love to have a slice plain, with just some butter.

Blueberry streusel muffins (12 normal sized muffins)
from Once upon a plate

60 gram butter, softened
70 gram sugar
1 egg, whisked
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
375 gram flower
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
250 ml milk
350 ml blueberries (1,5 cup; frozen or fresh)

For the crumbs:
100 gram sugar
55 gram flower
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (you can omit this, or use vanilla instead)
60 gram cold butter

Cream the butter with the sugar. Whisk in the egg and vanilla. Add the flower, baking powder and the milk. Fold in the blueberries. Fill the muffin cups (grease and flower them, or use a paper liner) for 2/3. Crumble the ingredients for the crumble together, it should be crumbly. Put the crumbles on the muffin batter. Bake in a preheated oven for 25-30 minutes on 200 degrees Celsius.

Chocolate pancakes (15-18 silver dollar sized pancakes)
from Desserts for breakfast

225 ml full-fat milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
225 gram flower
60 gram cocoa-powder (dutch processed)
60 gram sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
115 gram butter

Mix 170 ml of the milk with the egg and the vanilla extract. Add the flower, cocoa powder, sugar, salt and baking powder, mix. Heat the remaining milk and the butter until just simmering, add to the mixture, mix until just combined. Bake small pancakes in a non-stick frying pan.

Brioche (2 loaves, or one big braid)
adapted from "The Conran Cookbook"

30 gram fresh yeast (or 15 gram dried yeast)
2 tablespoons sugar
4 eggs
5 tablespoons tepid milk
2 teaspoons salt
565 gram strong white breadflower (I used all purpose flower, worked just fine)
115 gram butter, softened
beaten egg with some milk to glaze

Cream the yeast with 5 tablespoons pf tepid water and add 1/2 teaspoon of the sugar. Leave in a warm place to start working and become frothy (or follow the directions on the package of dry yeast). Beat the eggs with the milk, salt and the rest of the sugar in another bowl and leave in a warm place.
Warm a large mixing bowl and put the flower in it. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast and egg mixtures. Mix thoroughly to a rough dough. Turn the dough on to a clean work surface and knead unitl smooth, sprinkling on a little more flour if the dough feels too sticky and unmanageable. When you have a smooth ball of dough, cover loosely with cling film and let is rest for a few minutes before you start incorporating the butter.
This is a messy business, but al the butter wil be absorbed eventually. Flatten the dough and put a few dabs of butter over the surface (about 15 gram or a bit more). Then fold up the dough and knead it well until the butter is smoothly worked in. Let the dough rest for a minute, covered with cling film, then repeat. Keep on adding the butter, kneading and resting the dough as before, until all the butter had been mixed in. Let the dough rest again, then knead in to a smooth ball and put into a buttered bowl. Cover with a sheet of cling film and a cloth and leace to rise in a warm place for 1,5 hours.
Knock back the dough and knead it for a minute, then re-form it inro a ball. Return it to the bowl, cover with oiled cling film and a cloth as before and leace to rise a second time for 1-1,5 hours.
Prepare a baking tray, line it with baking paper or use a silicon sheet. Divide the dough in three pieces, form them in long "sausages" and make a braid with them(on the baking tray). Tuck the ends underneath. Cover again and leave to prove until well risen and rounded. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Glaze the top of the loaf with the egg-milk mixture for a nice crust. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until it sound hollow when tapped on the base. Leave to cool on a rack, eat warm or cold.

Oven egg thingy (4)

3 eggs
a splosh of milk
8 slices bacon (or as much to cover 4 holes of your muffin tin)
1 small onion, diced
some mushrooms, diced
fresh herbs (I used rosemary, thyme and oregano)
salt and pepper
a little grated cheese

Sauté the onion and mushroom a little, otherwise they wont cook fully in the oven. Meanwhile cover your pans with the bacon. Whisk the egg with the milk (like making an omelet). Add the onion, mushrooms, chopped herbs, a little salt and some pepper. Pour this mixture in the tins. Grate a little cheese on top. Put in the oven (200 degrees Celsius) for about 15-20 minutes, or until puffed and golden.

Never-failing cake recipe

2010-04-09T13:39:00.003+02:00

I like cakes. Cakes are simple to bake and good for any occasion. You can keep it very simple, or make a chique version. When I make a cake, I always use this recipe. It never fails me and works for cupcakes and bigger cakes. It is a nice, moist cake who keeps well.

Add-ons to the batter:
- vanilla or vanilla sugar
- lime/lemon/orange zest
- raisins or other dried fruit (apricot is very nice!)
- fruit (apple, pear, banana, pineapple, blueberries, etc)
- nuts (mixed nuts or one sort like almonds or walnuts)
- a mixture of dried fruits and nuts
- swap 30 gram flower for 30 gram cocoa powder

Add-ons afterwards:
- frosting
- whipped cream
- jam or marmelade
- chocolate ganache

Basic recipe (1 cake or lots of cupcakes)
200 gram butter (soft)
200 gram sugar
pinch of salt
4 medium sized eggs (or 3 large ones)
200 gram self-raising flower

Use an electrical mixer. You can make cake batter by hand, but I think the results are better when you use an electrical mixer.
Cream the butter, salt and sugar, until pale and fluffy. Don't overhaste, this stage is essential for a good, light cake. Add an egg, mix until the batter absorbes it. Add another egg, let it absorb, do the same with the last two eggs. The mixture can split in this stage, I found it doesn't have effect on the final result. Make sure you mix the batter very well after adding the last egg. You have to have a pale, very very airy mixture. This is very important for the final result. Fold the self-raising flower in, very careful not to loose any of the air in the batter. Put the butter in a greased and flowered mold, bake for about an hour/hour and a half on 180 degrees Celcius. Don't open the door of the oven while baking, the cake will collaps. When you insert a skewer and it comes out clean, your cake is done. Cupcakes need 20-30 minutes on the same temperature.

Use the same ratio (50-50-50 sugar/butter/flower and one egg) to make more or less batter.
You can switch the butter for margarine, but the butter gives the cake lots of flavour.

What to do with my leftover celery? (waldorf salad, celery and tomato salad)

2010-04-01T15:10:00.006+02:00

You'll probably know this situation: you see a recipe, want to make it, buy the ingredients, make the dish, look in your refrigerator and see that you have lots of leftover ingredients. This happened to me last weekend. I bought a head of celery and used one stalk for my stock. So I had almost a whole head celery as a left-over...

I'm not the type of person who eats her veggies plain boiled, I think that's boring and not very tasty. So here are two recipes for nice salads with celery. A third one will follow in a few days.

The waldorf salad is almost like a classic waldorf, but I made the dressing a bit lighter by adding yoghurt. You can leave the yoghurt or change the amount of yoghurt you use to make a dressing you like. I used lemon pepper, it gives a nice zing to the dish.

Waldorf salad (2 big servings)
3 stalks of celery
1 apple (firm, sweet/sour)
handful of walnuts
some lemon juice
about 2 tablespoons plain yoghurt
about 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
salt and pepper

Remove the strings from the outside of the celery stalks. Slice the celery thin. Clean the apple and cut in small cubes. Chop the walnuts. Mix together, add some lemon juice and the yoghurt&mayo. Mix. Season with salt and pepper, maybe add some more lemon juice. Serve immediately.

Celery and tomato salad
celery
tomato
dressing (olive oil and balsamic vinegar, make it in a way you like)
salt and pepper

Remove the strings from the outside of the celery stalks. Slice the celery and tomatoes (about even quantities are ok, use as much of each you like). Mix with the dressing, season with salt and pepper. To give it an Asian flavour, add some curry powder.

Crèpes with spinach, button mushrooms and Gruyère

2010-03-30T15:04:00.009+02:00

Another perfect dish for the weekend. I ate this Sunday, but kept the post till now because on workdays my food is rather boring, but with this I still have something to blog about.

This is a dish from one of my cookbooks, from Raymond Blanc. I really adore Raymond Blanc, he makes such wonderful food and on his series on BBC you can see that he is a very nice person. I think it is very impressive that he became a Michelin star chef, because in the series he is very clumsy and forgets things all the time. It makes it more fun to watch and it's nice to see that Michelin star chefs do make blunders too.

The dish consists of nice thin crèpes, a mixture of spinach, button mushrooms and gruyere, and a creamy, cheesy sauce. I like to think of this recipe as a healthy one, because of all the spinach, but I know I fool myself with that. But it is a really nice dish, it has lots of flavour and the scent of it will make your house smell very nice. Because of the enormous amount of cream this is not the most healthy dish, but it sure gives your food a very nice flavour. And because it is such a rich dish, you only eat a little. I suggest you serve it with a nice salad, as a counterbalance for all the richness.

As always I didn't follow the recipe, I will write down the original recipe and the way I made the dish, so you can choose which you like best. They taste both very good. The recipe is easy to make, but time-consuming.

From "Echt Frans Koken - De grote chefs: Raymond Blanc"
Ingredients (4 persons)
For the crèpes:
50 g butter
2 eggs
2 dl fullfat milk
100 g flower
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon neutral oil
seasalt and freshly grind pepper

For the filling:
40 g butter
300 g spinach, big storks removed and washed and drained
200 g firm small button mushrooms in slices of 3 mm
50 g Gruyère, finely grated
seasalt and freshly grind pepper

For the cream-cheese sauce:
4 dl cream
freshly grated nutmeg
50 g Gruyère, finely grated
seasalt and freshly grind pepper

Step 1. Making the batter. Heat the butter in a small pan until it's foamy and nutbrown. Leave to cool for 2 minutes. My way: I forgot my butter because I directly went along with the nex step, but when I looked at it again it was foamy and nutbrown so I guess I was lucky.

Step 2. Mix the eggs, milk, flower, 4 pinches of salt and a pinch of black pepper in a kitchen machine in 1 minute to a smooth batter. Pour the butter in and let the kitchen machine mix for 30 seconds. The butter gives taste and helps to prevent that the crèpes stick during baking. Add the chives and the parsley, put in a bowl, cover with clean film and set aside.
My way: I don't have a kitchen machine, only a electrical hand mixer. But making a pancake batter, especially this little, can be done very easy by hand, with a whisk. So I first mixed the flower, salt and pepper, then added the eggs, whisked until a kinda smooth batter (don't worry about some small lumps) and added milk until I had a constancy I liked. I don't know how much milk it was. Also, I'm not sure what to make of "4 pinches of salt" so I added the amount salt and pepper that seemed right to me.

Step 3. Baking the spinach. Heat half of the butter in a medium-sized frying pan. Wok the spinach for 2 minutes on high heat until it's boiled down. Season with a pinch of salt and a pinch of white pepper. Push with the backside of a spoon the excess water out of the spinach. Set aside.
My way: I didn't use butter, you throw most of it away after baking anyway. I used a wok and a little water to boil down the spinach. Also I seasoned after getting rid of the excess fluids, because otherwise you throw most of your seasoning away with the excess water. I also didn't remove the storks.

Step 4. Baking the mushrooms and making the filling. Heat the remaining butter in a medium frying pan on high heat and fry the mushrooms for 2 minutes. Season with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper. Mix with the spinach and grated gruyère and set aside.
My way: I used a little oil to bake the mushrooms in the same pan as I used for the spinach. I also didn't use gruyère because it wasn't available in the supermarket, so I used old gouda. I had premade slices, so I chopped them in fine pieces in stead of grating the cheese. I also just used the mushrooms I had available and didn't fuss about the exact size of the slices.

Step 5. Baking the crèpes. Preheat the oven on 200 degrees Celcius. Set out a baking tray. Preheat a small frying pan or crèpepan on medium heat. Add a teaspoon of oil, turn the pan. The oil has to be hot enough to sear the crèpes and cook them, but not too hot because you will burn your crèpes. Also not too cool because then your crèpes will be pale and chewy. Practise will help! Scoop just enough batter in the pan that it is covered when you turn the pan. Bake 15-20 seconds until the underside is brown. Put a metal spatula under it and flip. Bake the other side for 15-20 seconds. Put on the baking tray. Bake more crèpes until there is no batter left, add more oil when necessary. Try to make them as thin as possible. You need 8 crèpes, but you have probably a few in excess. Trow away when they are failed, otherwise freeze them (in clean film) for later use.
My way: Your crèpes need to be very very very thin to get more than 8 of them. I used as much batter as the recipe describes and a rather small frying pan, but I only got 6 thin crèpes. I used a wooden spatula, it's better for your pans. And I put my crèpes just on a plate, not on a baking tray.

Step 6. Filling the crèpes. Put some stuffing on each crèpe and roll them tight. Put them in a gratin dish of 25-30 cm long. My way: I used a smaller gratin dish, worked out fine.

Step 7. Making the sauce and finishing the dish. Bring the cream powerful to the boil, add 8 pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, 2 pinches salt and 1 pinch white pepper. Pour the cream on the crèpes and grate the gruyère over it. Put 20 minutes in the oven. The cheese will melt and form a golden brown crust. Serve in the gratin dish.
My way: Again, I don't know for sure what they really mean by 8 pinches or 2 pinches, so I seasoned to taste. I also used 2 dl in stead of 4 dl cream, because I think 4 dl is really a lot of cream. It worked out fine, but I'm sure that using the prescribed amount will result in a more creamy dish. Mine didn't have a lot of sauce. I also boiled the cream down a little, because I noticed the last time that it keeps runny when you put it directly in the oven. Maybe something went wrong in the translation of the book, I think it probably has to be double cream (a little more thick) but you can't buy that in the Netherlands. I also used black pepper everywhere.

NB. I'm not sure you can feed 4 people with this as a main dish. I only used less cream and it still was a perfect meal for 2 persons. So when you serve it for more people I recommend some side dishes, or make a starter and a dessert, or something like that.

Mascarpone cream and cat-tongue biscuits

2010-03-28T22:27:00.006+02:00

After a nice dinner, you need a nice dessert. So after a really nice risotto I yesterday made this nice dessert. I am a real sweet tooth so I really like desserts. I don't eat them to often, because most desserts are rather high in calories, but once in a while you need to make an exception. I had the perfect excuse to make a very delicious, decadent dessert: I had mascarpone left from dinner.

The dessert

I just adore mascarpone, but on it's one it's rather heavy to eat. I love to eat a whole bowl but after one or two spoons my tummy bursts. So I tried a recipe for mascarpone cream. I really liked it. You get a very light cream, because you add whipped egg white and the added egg yolk adds even more richness. But you keep the lovely taste of that very luxurious mascarpone.

To serve with the cream I made some cat-tongue biscuits. They are very easy to make but look very posh. So it is a perfect cookie to give after a dinner party with some coffee to impress your friends or family even more with your cooking skills. The cookies taste crispy but still airy and lightly sweet, with a little vanilla, nice on it's own, but also good as an accompaniment with a cream like this, or other desserts.

Cat-tongue biscuits, just from the oven (on my nice yellow silicon baking sheet)

Mascarpone cream (2 persons)
adapted from "The silver spoon"

Ingredients
100 gram mascarpone
1 egg
1 tablespoon sugar

Split the egg. Whip the egg whites. Whip the egg yolk with the sugar until the colour has changed to light yellowish and foamy. Add the mascarpone, stir in gently (I whisked it in, when I folded it in, I got lumps). Fold the stiff egg whites very gently in the mixture. Cool until you serve it (or eat immediately).

Cat-tongue biscuits in the oven (a little too close to each other)

Cat-tongue biscuits

Ingredients
50 gram butter
1 sachet vanilla sugar (8 gram)
42 gram sugar (you can omit the vanilla sugar, then use 50 gram sugar)
1 egg
50 gram self-raising flour

Mix the butter and the sugar (with an electrical mixer) until pale and creamy. Add the egg, mix until the egg has absorbed and the mixture becomes very airy. Gentle fold in the flour.
Preheat your oven on 220 degrees Celcius. Spoon your batter in a piping bag (or use the tip below), pipe small stripes on a baking tray covered with parchment paper (or use a silicon sheet). Make sure you leave enough room between them, the cookies will expand. This amount of batter is a little to much for one baking tray. Put the baking tray in the oven and pay a close watch, they take very short (about 10 min.) and go instantly from to pale to black.

Piping bag made from a sandwich bag

Tip to make your own piping bag:
Use a sandwich bag, ziploc bag or other plastic bag to put your batter in. Cut of the tip, the bigger the cut, the bigger your stripes will be, and you are ready to pipe your cookies.

Smoked salmon risotto

2010-03-27T23:05:00.008+01:00

I like to try new recipes and new things. I have lots of cookbooks and I look around on the internet for inspiration. Other people blogging about things are very helpful, it helps me to think of something nice to eat too. Or sometimes I just make the recipe I found somewhere. This was the case tonight. I made the Smoked salmon risotto I found a while ago.

Off course I didn't totally follow the recipe, I almost never follow a recipe. So with this recipe, I used cold-smoked salmon, more then the recipe asked for; I used chicken stock instead of vegetable (I think chicken is more tasty); I'm not sure I used dry white wine, I just used the wine I still had left; I used less lemon and no arugula; I used more garlic. And the way I made it, I really liked it. But when I make it the next time, I probably will use even less lemon, I think it was still quite lemony, a bit to much for my taste. But I still think this is a really really nice risotto and I'm sure I will make this dish again. It was a good use for my home-made stock.

Starting the risotto

Some tips for risotto making:
- keep stirring, otherwise it will burn
- make sure you prepare all the ingredients on the beforehand and don't do anything else than focussing on the risotto. It is possible to make risotto and something else on the same time, but when I try, I burn one of them. So the easiest way is to do one thing at the time.
- when you used up almost all stock, taste your rice. When it's done (soft but with a little bite), stop adding stock. Sometimes it takes some more stock then other times.
- you HAVE to use risotto rice for making risotto. Arborio and carnaroli are the most common to find in the shops. This is the only kind of rice that absorbs this much liquid.
- risotto is comfort food, it's meant to make a nice splosh on your plate. When you can mount it and it doesn't collaps, you did something wrong. Risotto has to be smooth and unctuous.

I served the risotto with a simple cucumber salad, that matched very well.

Ingredients (2 people)
1 cucumber
splosh of white wine vinegar
splosh of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a little dried thyme

Cut the cucumber in thin slices. Add the other ingredients, mix and serve immediately.

Chicken stock

2010-03-27T16:15:00.008+01:00

It has been a while since my last post. I had to go to the dentist, who pulled one of my wisdom tooth. So I had to eat stuff I didn't have to chew. For a day or two I don't mind eating only stuff like yoghurt and soup, but after that it becomes very annoying. And I have also been very busy with school.

Today I eat risotto, but I'll keep that for a later post. An essential ingredient for risotto is stock, because it determines the taste of your risotto. Off course you can make risotto with stock from a stock cube, but much much more tasty is home-made stock. And it is a very easy process.

I make stock with the leftover bones from a roast chicken. We eat roast chicken, keep the bones and store them (not too long!) in the freezer. You can also make the stock and store that in the freezer.

Very important with stock is to start in time. The longer you cook it, the more tasty it will become, you need to simmer it at least two hours. Most of the time I try to let it simmer for the whole afternoon. The nice thing is, you put the ingredients in a pan and after that you only have to stir it a few times, so you can do other things while your stock is getting more tasty.

This time I used less water then I used before and I really liked it. This way you get an even more flavoursome and tasty broth.

Ingredients
bones of 1 chicken
1 onion, in quarters (with skin, gives a nice color)
1 leek, washed and in rough chunks
1 stick celery, washed and in rough chunks
2-3 bay leaves
15 peppercorns
salt to taste
you can also add 1 carrot, in rough chunks
1 liter cold water

Put everything in a pan. Let it barely simmer for at least 2 hours. Barely simmering keeps your broth clear, but it will tast still as good when it isn't clear. Season with salt.
When it is ready, put everything trough a sieve.

Home-made falafel

2010-03-17T21:00:00.006+01:00

Tonight I made falafel. It went okay, until I wanted to shallow-fry them. The little falafel balls just dissolved in the oil. Luckily I got them out quickly, so I ended up with half of the mixture in globs, that I grilled, and the other halve dissolved in the oil. Too bad, because the taste was very good.
I'll go and make them another time, but first I'll research other recipes, maybe I can find out what went wrong.

Tomato soup

2010-03-15T20:40:00.008+01:00

Tonight I ate tomato soup. Not just ordinary tomato soup, no, this is THE tomato soup. My dad makes this soup in the summer, when there are plenty tomatoes available. Because it's not a very rapid recipe, he usually makes it only once a summer. In my youth, it was a real party to have this. And since then, I think this is just the best tomato soup in the world. Other recipes are ok, but this one is just better. It is a smooth velvety soup, with the taste and color of tomato and just a little bit spice because of the use of curry powder as seasoning.

You can make this on two different ways. The hard way, or the little bit less hard way. When you do it the hard way, you use fresh tomatoes. Because you eventually want to end up with a smooth soup, you have to sieve all the pips and skins and bits out of it. And because lots of tastiness is in those pips and skins and bits, you have to push as much liquid out of it as you can. That's hard work. When you do it the little bit less hard way you only have to make a roux...

Roux (I added already some passata, that explains the red color)

A roux is used as a thickening agent for lots of soups and sauces. Its made of equal parts of butter and flower, to which the fluid you want to thicken is added. There are people who are very afraid to make a roux because its doomed to get lumps, but actually its very easy. Just keep stirring and stirring and stirring and add you fluids very very very slowly, especially when you just start adding. Add a little and wait until it's absorbed before you add more fluid. And just keep stirring. Then it should be fine and wont split or get lumpy.

Tomato soup (2 persons)

Ingredients
1 kilo tomatoes (or 500 ml passata)
water
1 stock cube (or use stock instead of water)
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flower
curry powder
cream or coffee cream

Cut the tomatoes in quarters. Put them in a pan, barely cover them with water (or stock), add the stockcube. Simmer until soft. Put in a strainer, push as much fluid/tomato purée out as you can.
(start here when you use passata) Make a roux by melting the butter, adding the flower and stir. Make sure you stir out all lumps. Add a little tomato fluid (or passata), stir, add again some tomato fluid, keep doing this. When you are about halfway, you can add a little more fluid at each time. When you are done, you have a nice soup. (add the stockcube now when you use passata) Season with curry powder and serve with a little cream on top.
Shortcut: use a package of sieved tomato (passata) in stead of fresh tomato.

Apple muffins

2010-03-14T16:26:00.010+01:00

This morning I woke up with the plan to make something for breakfast other than the usual. These apple muffins directly came to my mind. But early as it was, I couldn't get myself to converting all the cups to grams. So I used a muffin recipe from one of my cookbooks and swapped the blueberries it asked for with apple and used whole wheat flower in stead of all purpose flower.

But unfortunately, it didn't work as I hoped it would. The muffins were nice, but really not sweet and a little dry. I ended up eating them with a little sweetened whipped cream. If I make these I'll use some more sugar or honey and I definitely will give the recipe of Smitten Kitchen a go.

Apple muffins (6 big ones)
adapted from "De Ultieme Keuken - Michelle Cranston"

Ingredients
2 eggs
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
1 apple, in small dices
180 ml milk
250 gram whole wheat flower
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon baking powder

Preheat the oven on 180 degrees Celcius. Mix the eggs, honey, sugar and oil slightly, add the apple and milk, stir. Add the flower, cinnamon and baking powder, stir until just mixed. Overworking your batter will make the muffins tough. Put the batter in a muffin tin and bake for 30-35 minutes. Eat immediately.

Ravioli with spinach-parmazan and ricotta-prosciutto filling

2010-03-06T22:45:00.011+01:00

Ravioli are perfect for a diner party. They look posh, but if you have a little experience, you can make them in a matter of time. Especially when you make them for a small amount of people, or when you use them as a starter. You can make them and keep them for a while in the fridge, but make sure they don't dry out.
The recipe for the dough is always the same, but you can stuff it with everything you want. Just keep in mind that a very wet filling causes problems sometimes, because these are likely to burst in the boiling water.
It is important to use flower meant to make pasta with. This is the Italian grade 00 flower, made from hard durum wheat. If you use ordinary flower, you get noodles, not pasta.

The recipe sound very complicated, but just give it a try. The first time probably will be a horror, you'll probably have problems with rolling your dough. But after the first time, it gets more easy. You get to know what works and what doesn't, you can experiment with different fillings. The ravioli you buy at the supermarket won't be as tasty as yours, and the ones of the delicacy shop will be much more expensive (and probably also not as tasty as yours).

The following recipes give about 12 big ravioli, but it really depends on their form and how big they are.

Ravioli
You can also use the pasta recipe to make other kinds of pasta.
200 gram pasta flower
2 eggs
a little pinch of salt
a little splash of olive oil (not classic Italian, but it helps to form a good dough)
NB: you need a pasta machine for this

Put the flower in a bowl, make a small hole in the middle, put in the eggs, salt and olive oil. Mix in the flower and knead until you have a smooth dough. The right consistency is really important, otherwise you get problems with rolling out the dough and your ravioli will burst while cooking. So keep kneading until you have a very smooth, elastic dough. Cover it in clean film and put it for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
You can also use a food processor to do the mixing part, but you still have to knead the dough well.

For the rolling stage it helps to be in a humid environment. So close the doors and windows of your kitchen and put a pan of boiling water on the stove. Take the dough from the fridge, cut in half, put one piece back in the fridge. The other one you have to roll.
Put your machine on the widest setting. Roll the dough a few times trough, then fold it in two and put it trough again. If you have big trouble with this, your dough is to dry (it flakes, no nice edges) -> knead a little water trough, or it is to wet (it sticks to the machine) -> add a little flower. It is important to work fast, because the dough will dry out very fast and you don't want to keep adding water. Roll the dough trough the machine and put the setting each time thinner. When you are at the thinnest setting, you want to have a nice big sheet of pasta with sort of straight edges. Fold the sheet together (if you have a good dough, it won't stick, otherwise use some flower) and wrap it in clean film so it won't dry out. Roll the second ball of pasta as well.

Now is the time to fill your ravioli. There are several ways to do this.
1. Cut rectangles from your dough (with a knive or ravioli/pastry wheel). Spoon a dollop of filling on one side. Smear the edge with a little bit of water. Put the other half of the rectangle over it. Make sure you don't trap any air inside (keep one side open and push the air out) and seal the edges well, otherwise your ravioli will burst when cooking. You can make a half moon of it by cutting the edges with a round cutter (or cut around the edge of a glass). Or you can leave them rectangular.
2. Put dollops of filling on one sheet of pasta. Make sure you keep enough distance between them. Brush the edges with some water. Put the other sheet of pasta on top. Seal the ravioli. Make sure you don't trap any air inside (keep one side open and push the air out) and seal the edges well, otherwise your ravioli will burst when cooking. Cut the ravioli with a round cutter, or cut around the edges of a glass.

Boil the ravioli for a few minutes (1-4 min, depending on size and filling) in a BIG pan of boiling water with some salt. Don't put to many at once in the pan. Remove the ravioli from the pan with a slotted spoon. Set aside and keep warm until you cooked all the ravioli.

Sage or parsley butter
some butter
some parsley or sage
some lemon juice
a pinch of salt and pepper

Melt the butter, put in the sage or parsley, some lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper. This is a very good sauce to toss your ravioli in. It covers the ravioli a little bit, but it is not to heavy and it doesn't overpower the filling of the ravioli.
Off course you can serve your ravioli with any sauce you like.

Spinach-parmezan filling
100 gram spinach
100 gram mushrooms
1 shallot
50 gram parmezan
some butter
some nutmeg
pepper

Wash the spinach, put it in a wok and wait till it slinks. Put it in a sieve, push as much water out as you can. Chop finely. Sauté the mushrooms and the shallot in a little bit of butter, drain as well. Put the spinach, mushrooms and shallot in a bowl, grate the parmezan above, season with nutmeg and pepper. Mix and use as filling for ravioli.

Ricotta-prosciutto filling
200 g Ricotta
200 g Prosciutto
100 g brown mushroom
a little pepper

Cut the prosciutto in small cubes. Cut the musrooms in small cubes and fry them slightly. Mix with the ricotta. Season with a little pepper. Use as filling for ravioli.

Rice pudding

2010-03-06T22:14:00.006+01:00

One of my other favourite desserts is rice pudding. Again, a very easy recipe, you just throw everything in a pan, stir a bit and after a little waiting you have a very delicious dish.
I've been experimenting a little bit with the recipe and I found that using half milk and half coconut milk works very well. You can use only coconut milk, but I think it gets a little bit watery from that. You just miss the smooth and creamy taste of the milk. If you don't have or don't like coconut milk, just use only ordinary milk. It works just as fine, and there are lots of other flavours you can use to bring your rice pudding to taste.
A classic flavour is off course vanilla. If you have true vanilla pods, use some of those. But vanilla essence or vanilla sugar works just as fine. You can but a bit of shredded coconut in your pudding, or a spoon full of jam. All kinds of (stewed) fruit are also a good accompaniment. Or put some cocoa powder or chocolate trough.

Rice pudding (2 people)

80 gram dessert rice (I think it might also work with risotto or sushi rice, it has to be rice that gets sticky and can take up huge amounts of fluids)
200 ml milk
200 ml coconut milk
sugar

Bring the milk with the rice to the boil. Boil it for 12 minutes (it depends on the kind of rice you use). Stir often, it gets sticky. Add sugar to taste.
You can serve it warm or cold. Cold it gets rather firm.

Rice pudding served with apple sauce

Apple Crumble

2010-03-01T19:17:00.008+01:00

One of my favourite desserts is apple crumble. It's easy and very versatile. Most of the time I just throw the ingredients in a baking tin and put it in the oven, but with a little more effort you can make a very classy dish of this recipe. This recipe just can't go wrong.
The basic recipe has a filling of apple and raisins. The little splash of lemon juice gives it a nice bit of zing and the oats in the crumble mixture lead to a very crunchy topping. But all sorts of adaptations are possible. In stead of the apples you can use pears, a mixture of both, or you can add some blueberries. You can add some nuts to the filling, and also to the crust. And some grated lemon or orange skin provides for a more fresh taste. To make a more luxurious variant you can add some chopped dried apricots. And I like to give the crust a more spicy taste by adding "koekkruiden" a Dutch mixture of spices used for baking a certain kind of cookies (speculaas). In the Netherlands (and maybe some other country's) you can buy it in the supermarket. Otherwise you can use the recipe below. The variations on the crumble are only limited by your own imagination.
You can eat it just like it is, but whipped cream, sour cream, creme fraiche, greek yoghurt (or other thick yoghurt) or ice cream are perfect accompaniments. Just use whatever you have in your fridge.

Apple crumble (4 persons)

For the crust:
75 gram Oats
75 gram all-purpose flower (you can also use wholegrain flower)
150 gram cane sugar (brown sugar or ordinary sugar will do fine)
100 gram butter
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (or more if you like)
1 pinch of salt

For the apple mixture:
6 apples
50 gram cane sugar (again, brown or ordinary will do fine)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
a hand full of raisins

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Mix the ingredients for the crust together. It should be crumbly. Peel and core the apples and cut them into cubes. Mix it with the other ingredients for the apple mixture. Put the apple mixture in a baking tin and put the crumble mixture on top (spread evenly). Bake this for 35-40 minutes.

Note: Be careful! The crumble is very, very, very hot when it comes straight from the oven. I burnt my tongue lots of times because I couldn't wait....

Spice mixture (koekkruiden/speculaaskruiden)

30 gram cinnamon
15 gram ginger powder
10 gram grated nutmeg
5 gram white pepper
5 gram Anise seeds
5 gram ground coriander seeds
10 gram cloves
10 cardamom pods (use the inner seeds)

Put all the spices in a food processor and blend. Sieve and push as much of the spice trough the sieve. Store in an airtight container. If you don't have a food processor, use a pestle and mortar.

My first blog!

2010-03-01T19:12:00.005+01:00

Wow, this is my first blog! Now my blog isn't as empty as it was before.

I'll give you a little warning. My English is not very good. I chose to write my blog in English anyway, because then people from all over the world can read my recipes. And especially the people whose blog I read, maybe they like mine too.