Yesterday I found myself without bread for sandwiches on a national holiday. Of course, all the shops were closed so I couldn't run to the supermarket to fetch me something to eat either. I didn't starve to death because I did have a few things left in the fridge, but no Hollandse broodjes kaas for me.
Basically, old farmer's wisedom says children grow strong and tall on Dutch cheese sandwiches {Hollandse broodjes kaas} ;). Dutch cheeses are certainly the most delicious kinds of cheeses in the world in my humble opinion. They taste fine on every hour of the day {and night, if you fancy a midnight snack}. The opposite is true for French cheeses. Somehow I can only eat those after 12 in the afternoon, but that's another story.
Now and then I get very nostalgic, and it is at that time that I want to eat cheese sandwiches. But yesterday I didn't have any sandwiches {or cheese, lol} at the crucial moment. So instead I made myself a salad. I do all my grocery shopping for the rest of the week on Monday. The reason I do this is a very pragmatic one, it is to prevent myself from going over budget. I write down what ingredients I have left in my cabinets, and then see what I can make out of it for the rest of the week. Usually, I don't pay more than 20-25 Euros for five days worth of food (that is breakfast, lunch, fruits and dinner, I almost never eat snacks). I thought I might as well eat a salad for dinner on Wednesday, but I had left overs to eat from Tuesday that evening, so all the ingredients of the salad were awaiting me in my fridge.
First I baked out some chopped mushrooms in melted butter in oil with some thime. I cooked 2 eggs {remember the eggs? I have to finish them before May 25th!} for ten minutes in boiling water. I then sliched the eggs, washed out the greens for the salad en mixed the eggs and mushrooms with it. To finish I used some red port dressing I bought at Oil & Vinegar. It was a great lunch, I tell you that! And then to think the mushrooms and eggs were actually left overs {remember my miserable omelet? yeah, that one, yeah}! I made a picture I might post later to show you. Nothing wrong with a luke warm salad. I'd suggest you try it!
vrijdag 22 mei 2009
woensdag 20 mei 2009
Omelet
I hate to admit it, but even though I think I am pretty good at cooking, I suck at making omelets. I had this great idea to make myself an omelet yesterday since I had about six eggs left which I could only use until the 25th. I am not a big egg eater so I thought I might as well give it a try. Well, the project utterly failed.
I found a recipe in one of the few books I own myself, I guess you could roughly translate it as farmer's omelet. You were supposed to cook some chopped potatoes, then bake out some bacon, leave the grease in the pan, then bake the potatoes in it, throw the bacon back in with some peas and herbs and pepper and bake it just a little further before adding the egg. (Which you had to, by the way, mix with some milk beforehand) Piece of cake, right? Well, not for me. Perhaps I am a little too impatient. The recipe mentioned baking the egg at low temperature so I did. But the egg never got firm enough and I was hungry so I just grated the whole shebang out of the pan and ate it like that. I have a picture somewhere of the 'omelet' still in the pan (I took it when I still believed I could actually make this omelet thing work) so I might post it later so you can see that it actually did look like it would work (and taste nicely!) . Sigh*.
Maybe a cooking course would do the trick?
I found a recipe in one of the few books I own myself, I guess you could roughly translate it as farmer's omelet. You were supposed to cook some chopped potatoes, then bake out some bacon, leave the grease in the pan, then bake the potatoes in it, throw the bacon back in with some peas and herbs and pepper and bake it just a little further before adding the egg. (Which you had to, by the way, mix with some milk beforehand) Piece of cake, right? Well, not for me. Perhaps I am a little too impatient. The recipe mentioned baking the egg at low temperature so I did. But the egg never got firm enough and I was hungry so I just grated the whole shebang out of the pan and ate it like that. I have a picture somewhere of the 'omelet' still in the pan (I took it when I still believed I could actually make this omelet thing work) so I might post it later so you can see that it actually did look like it would work (and taste nicely!) . Sigh*.
Maybe a cooking course would do the trick?
donderdag 14 mei 2009
7-up
I've learned something today: if you are nervous, do not drink 7-up, because it will make you burp. The burping was probably not the reason why I didn't end up being accepted into a new house {searching for a new place to live here} but it more or less points at the kind of state I was in. I don't like being confronted with five or six people shooting questions at me. Especially not when I constantly feel like I need to repress the burps. :D
So now I feel a little down. The only thing that keeps me from becoming really moody is the thought of cheesecakes. Yum. I really feel like making myself {ok, and my friends} one. Here's the deal: my birthday was a good 6 weeks ago, but I still haven't celebrated it properly, while it was my 21st. Important number! A few days ago one of my friends proposed to celebrate it together. She turned 21 about three weeks after me. We have a few common friends so it could work. If we would do this, I would be making a cheesecake, and she a carrot cake. Dreamy! It would probably be the best birthday party ever.
Ever since I turned 18, I've prepared all the food for birthdays myself. It sometimes involves cooking five course meals for 25 people. With cakes. The strange thing is: I actually enjoy it. I actually enjoy standing in the kitchen from two days in advance, and to stress out over really trivial things like burned chocolate. It's a big relieve from everyday stress.
So, I wonder, would it be a good idea for me to start making a cake right now? It's more likely I won't {it's 23:28 here} but tomorrow is another day. Without the 7-up, of course.
So now I feel a little down. The only thing that keeps me from becoming really moody is the thought of cheesecakes. Yum. I really feel like making myself {ok, and my friends} one. Here's the deal: my birthday was a good 6 weeks ago, but I still haven't celebrated it properly, while it was my 21st. Important number! A few days ago one of my friends proposed to celebrate it together. She turned 21 about three weeks after me. We have a few common friends so it could work. If we would do this, I would be making a cheesecake, and she a carrot cake. Dreamy! It would probably be the best birthday party ever.
Ever since I turned 18, I've prepared all the food for birthdays myself. It sometimes involves cooking five course meals for 25 people. With cakes. The strange thing is: I actually enjoy it. I actually enjoy standing in the kitchen from two days in advance, and to stress out over really trivial things like burned chocolate. It's a big relieve from everyday stress.
So, I wonder, would it be a good idea for me to start making a cake right now? It's more likely I won't {it's 23:28 here} but tomorrow is another day. Without the 7-up, of course.
maandag 11 mei 2009
The queen & her sateh
A few years ago, my mother nicknamed my grandmother 'the queen'. With good reason, of course: my gran gran doesn't have a very royal appearance, but she is the queen of her kitchen. She celebrated her 78th birthday last Saturday, in style of course, with an old fashioned barbecue. My cousin had organised the entire party. There was beer, Russian salad, lontong and... sateh.
For those of you with no immediate knowledge of the Indonesian kitchen: sateh {pronounced SAH-tay, the Dutch usually pronounce it sah-TAY but they're wrong, trust me} are pork skewers {or chicken, or shrimp, or goat, but pork has my preference}.
The pork is cut in pieces of about two by one centimeter, and then marinated according to my gran's recipe, in a mixture of ketjap manis {the Indonesian version of soy sauce, a little thicker than say Chinese soy sauce}, chopped garlic, a slice of lemon, some black pepper and a snif of vetsin. After about two hours, the meat is ready to be skewered. In my family we use bamboo sticks to do this. The sticks are quickly put into ice cold water, after which they're good to use!
Since the weather was rather nice past Saturday, we were able to roast the sateh on charcoal, which definitely improves the taste. Sateh can also be prepared in the oven but nothing beats charcoal. Lovely, lovely.
To do it right, though, the sateh needs to be served with peanut sauce, lontong {= sticky rice} and some veggies. Delicious. It immediately reminds me of home, of sunny days, and of course, of the queen. :D
For those of you with no immediate knowledge of the Indonesian kitchen: sateh {pronounced SAH-tay, the Dutch usually pronounce it sah-TAY but they're wrong, trust me} are pork skewers {or chicken, or shrimp, or goat, but pork has my preference}.
The pork is cut in pieces of about two by one centimeter, and then marinated according to my gran's recipe, in a mixture of ketjap manis {the Indonesian version of soy sauce, a little thicker than say Chinese soy sauce}, chopped garlic, a slice of lemon, some black pepper and a snif of vetsin. After about two hours, the meat is ready to be skewered. In my family we use bamboo sticks to do this. The sticks are quickly put into ice cold water, after which they're good to use!
Since the weather was rather nice past Saturday, we were able to roast the sateh on charcoal, which definitely improves the taste. Sateh can also be prepared in the oven but nothing beats charcoal. Lovely, lovely.
To do it right, though, the sateh needs to be served with peanut sauce, lontong {= sticky rice} and some veggies. Delicious. It immediately reminds me of home, of sunny days, and of course, of the queen. :D
vrijdag 8 mei 2009
Experiment
Since I'll be off for the weekend, I decided to make a little something to strengthen my spirit for the long journey home {it involves a train ride of about 70 minutes, but it's the most boring in human history, I promise}. I personally don't have a lot of cooking books but I grew up among about sixty titles my parents had collected through 18 years of marriage. Most of them had Italian food as its subject which explains my great love for Italian cooking. What I learned first and foremost from these books is that a little experimenting is never wrong. You can be a total cook book purist and do everything according to the recipe, but to be honest, it's a little boring.
Now go out into the world and start cooking!
Take the recipe I chose to prepare for myself today. It's an oven dish based on leek, and the original recipe involves coffee cream and cheddar.
Now, I do like coffee at certain times, but I know for sure that if I'd buy a bottle of coffee cream I'll never ever finish it. It's typically one of those ingredients you buy to make one dish and then forget to ever take out of your kitchen cabinets ever again (well at least, it is for me). So instead of buying myself a useless gimmick I went with crème fraîche. Great in almost all oven dishes, and also very tasty in combination with homemade rice porridge. Money well spent, I'd say.
Then the cheddar. I absolutely love cheddar but helas, I couldn't get my hands on it. So instead I chose to go with Kernhem.
Kernhem wouldn't be the most obvious choice to use instead of cheddar in a dish like this one. The texture of both cheeses differs greatly. Usually, if you'd have a firmer cheese like cheddar, you would want to replace it by a similar cheese. Gouda would be an option. But then again, I really love Kernhem and experiments, so what the heck...
Kernhem is a so-called 'modern' Dutch cheese: it has no significant history whatsoever. In fact, it was created by an official food research institute. Glamour? Nah. If you forget about its history a few seconds, and just focus on its appearance and taste, Kernhem wins a few points. It's a crusted cheese with a soft yellow colour and a subtle taste with a bit of spice to it. Have a look for yourself: *now look at picture at the top*.
The point of the recipe was to cook the chopped leek in melted butter, some olive oil and wíth some chopped garlic and thime until steaming. Then I put the leek into a bowl, spread the crème fraîche over it and grated some of the Kernhem over it all. It took another 20 minutes in the oven (180 degrees Celcius) for it to be done. The result: *see picture under picture of Kernhem cheese*. Voila!
Of course, you are now super hungry and want to try the recipe for yourself. No problemo. For just me I used:
2 leek
125 ml crème fraîche
some thime
olive oil
butter
about 50 gr of cheese
Now go out into the world and start cooking!
donderdag 7 mei 2009
Lazy days
So Thursday is usually the kind of day I just want to sit back and relax and enjoy my dinner without standing on my feet for extended periods of time. Then again, I love myself a little too much to just go with fries or any other 'easy' meals. The solution: cooking in advance. Most stuff definitely tastes better if it's been prepared the day before. The flavours get time to mingle and it's easy enough to just reheat it. In most cases, the food tends to get a little dry though. To prevent this from happening, I usually add a drop of olive oil or butter {depends on what's being prepared}. You do not want to use too much since the food will get greasy and well, less tasty. {BTW, I almost never use a micro wave. Micro wave and I are not friends.}
My success recipe for the kind of situation I've described above is ribollita. It's an Italian vegetable stew and delicious if prepared well. You can serve it in combination with pretty much everything. I prefer just a little bread and parmezan cheese, but pasta is also good. I might just try it out with some gnocchi. Jummie!
So what you're going to need first and foremost are beans. I am personally a fan of fava beans, though I can imagine any Tuscan to immediately feel insulted by the mere suggestion of using it in this dish. The rule with Italians and beans usually is: the more colourful the bean, the better they like it. {over generalisation on my part, scusame!} I am usually lazy, so I'll just get myself a jar and use my biceps to open it - enough effort if it were up to me. Then I'll put the beans in salted boiling water together with a few leafs of laurel, a potato {love Eigenheimers!} and a tomato. You have to make sure the potato is really mushy {takes about 20-25 minutes} before you take the tomato, potato, and laurel leafs out and throw them away. Yeah, no more need for them. You keep the beans, and about 20 cl of the bouillon. While your tomato, potato and laurel leafs have been so gently cooking with your (fava) beans you prepare a so-called soffrito.
A soffrito is the base of, well, all Italian food, but in particular for tomato based sauces. You heat some olive oil {not the premium quality one, just keep it behind for salads please!}, and then add chopped garlic, chopped onions, chopped celery or celeriac, and chopped carrots. Of course, in the South of Italy, they do it very differently, and insist it's the only possible way to do it.
When the veggies in the pan have softened you add some canned tomatoes and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. It's around this time that I get impatient and throw my beans and bouillon in the pan. At this point, you're supposed to add bread {not too fresh} and cavalo nero.
So far, however, I've had absolutely NO luck finding cavalo nero. I live near five supermarkets, a market, and about three greengrocers. No cavalo nero. I know exactly what I am talking about, but my greengrocers seems to have no clue. Too bad. The only solution for now is to do without this specific kind of cabbage and just get on with it.
I'll let the stew cook for about 30-40 minutes and then just put it aside to cool down. I've even been known to just leave it in the pan on the furnace overnight because I don't feel like scraping it out into some bowl to put it in the fridge. The next day I'll just add some salt and pepper, olive oil and reheat it.
Usually I just throw it all into a deep bowl, put lots of parmezan cheese on it and make myself comfortable on the couch. Nothing's better, I swear!
For those of you who wish to start cooking right now, here's the ingredient list:
300-400 gr. of beans
laurel
1 tomato
1 potato {I prefer Eigenheimer, but that's just me}
1 or 2 red onions
1 carrot
some celery or celeriac {it should be in ratio with the onions and carrots}
3 garlic {come on, be brave!}
olive oil
1 can of canned tomatoes
300-400 gr. of cavalo nero {if you can find it, good luck!}
white bread
salt & pepper
Enjoy!
My success recipe for the kind of situation I've described above is ribollita. It's an Italian vegetable stew and delicious if prepared well. You can serve it in combination with pretty much everything. I prefer just a little bread and parmezan cheese, but pasta is also good. I might just try it out with some gnocchi. Jummie!
So what you're going to need first and foremost are beans. I am personally a fan of fava beans, though I can imagine any Tuscan to immediately feel insulted by the mere suggestion of using it in this dish. The rule with Italians and beans usually is: the more colourful the bean, the better they like it. {over generalisation on my part, scusame!} I am usually lazy, so I'll just get myself a jar and use my biceps to open it - enough effort if it were up to me. Then I'll put the beans in salted boiling water together with a few leafs of laurel, a potato {love Eigenheimers!} and a tomato. You have to make sure the potato is really mushy {takes about 20-25 minutes} before you take the tomato, potato, and laurel leafs out and throw them away. Yeah, no more need for them. You keep the beans, and about 20 cl of the bouillon. While your tomato, potato and laurel leafs have been so gently cooking with your (fava) beans you prepare a so-called soffrito.
A soffrito is the base of, well, all Italian food, but in particular for tomato based sauces. You heat some olive oil {not the premium quality one, just keep it behind for salads please!}, and then add chopped garlic, chopped onions, chopped celery or celeriac, and chopped carrots. Of course, in the South of Italy, they do it very differently, and insist it's the only possible way to do it.
When the veggies in the pan have softened you add some canned tomatoes and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. It's around this time that I get impatient and throw my beans and bouillon in the pan. At this point, you're supposed to add bread {not too fresh} and cavalo nero.
So far, however, I've had absolutely NO luck finding cavalo nero. I live near five supermarkets, a market, and about three greengrocers. No cavalo nero. I know exactly what I am talking about, but my greengrocers seems to have no clue. Too bad. The only solution for now is to do without this specific kind of cabbage and just get on with it.
I'll let the stew cook for about 30-40 minutes and then just put it aside to cool down. I've even been known to just leave it in the pan on the furnace overnight because I don't feel like scraping it out into some bowl to put it in the fridge. The next day I'll just add some salt and pepper, olive oil and reheat it.
Usually I just throw it all into a deep bowl, put lots of parmezan cheese on it and make myself comfortable on the couch. Nothing's better, I swear!
For those of you who wish to start cooking right now, here's the ingredient list:
300-400 gr. of beans
laurel
1 tomato
1 potato {I prefer Eigenheimer, but that's just me}
1 or 2 red onions
1 carrot
some celery or celeriac {it should be in ratio with the onions and carrots}
3 garlic {come on, be brave!}
olive oil
1 can of canned tomatoes
300-400 gr. of cavalo nero {if you can find it, good luck!}
white bread
salt & pepper
Enjoy!
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