Archive for the ‘Food and Stuff’ Category

A simple romantic dinner

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

When Marion and I did our shopping today we had planned to make us a nice dinner tonight. We suddenly wondered why an nice romantic dinner always has to be about special and expensive food. We tried to it different this time… and with success to my idea.

We decided to go for dinner with “Shoarma” (often wrongly translated to Kebab).

Often for Shoarma over here in The Netherlands is pork used. But we did go for lamb, which is originally is used for Shoarma. We marinaded the fine cut lamb meat with mixture of cinnamon, garlic, turmeric, union, coriander, sea salt, paprika and cumin. And this all as fine powder (Miranda, thanks for the advices on this).

We baked the marinaded lamb meat in a hot skillet without oil or butter. At same time we baked potatoes slices with parsley.
We served two salads. One based on cucumber with olive oil, the other of a mixtures of different kinds of lettuce with a garlic dressing. Both with herbs as parsley, chive, red unions, black pepper and paprika.

Of course there we also some hot baked pita breads. There were three sauces: A garlic sauce, a whiskey cocktail sauce and a chilli sauce.

Serve out the table nicely. Add candles and a rose…. And there, a romantic dinner for two

It was delicious…

“De Bazaar”

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Not far away from where I live, in the city of Beverwijk, there is every weekend a black market. This black market is called “De Bazaar”. I heard many nice things about and it was one the things that I wanted to visit.

Today the weather was not too bad and I had all afternoon to spare, so I took my bicycle and went to “De Bazaar”.

It was very busy, but not in a way that it was bothering me. There are a number of big halls filled with more or less small stores selling the most various things. Clothes, toys, gadgets, make-up, antiques (real or not), herbs, tea, coffee, mobile phones and a lot more.

There was an interesting mixture of scents caused by all the shop that were selling food from very different origins. But as I was not that hungry I skipped that challenge.

Part from some herbs and tea, I bought some rice bowls and chopsticks…

Why?

Every time I go out with Marion (and Sanne for that matter) for dinner and eat Chinese, Japanese or Indonesian food Marion eats with chopsticks and I as the barbarian am condemned to use fork and spoon :) .

But above all, I think it fun to learn it.

My balcony..

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

People who know me a bit, know that I like plants. And yes, in my new apartment there are already rather some plants. But also on my balcony I have already rather a nice collection of plants…

But new is that I have there some plants that are useful for cooking (another hobby of mine)…

So there is now a red pepper-plant. There red peppers are really good. I used yesterday one with the dinner I was making and it tasted really well. Nicely sharp, but not that sharp that it destroys your throat.

There is also a plant that we over here in The Netherlands call “Paprika’, but if I am informed well enough this plant is often called “Pepper” in English en Paprika when it is processed to powder. Very confusing….
Anyway the Paprika’s (or Pepper) on this plant need to mature a bit more.

An Strawberry-plant is already there as well, but this plant still has to bloom. So I may happy if there will be one strawberry there this year. But I am patient :) .

The plan is also to raise some herbs that I use often in the kitchen. Herbs as parsley, thyme, dill and basil.

And all these useful plants are standing between very good looking plants and Fuchsia’s and Lupine. Hmm, I must have to get some Lavender as well. I love the smell of Lavender.

Who said that a balcony is useless and that you cannot do anything with it?

Get ready to move….

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

Slowly but surely I am getting ready to move. Most important things are ready to move. When you are packing all the things that needs to come along, you find many things of which you didn’t know you still had them. A very nice side effect. And to be honest, I cannot wait for the day.

Currently in my new house the walls and ceilings are done so I will move into a house that is ready to be decorated.

It is so good to see that so many people are helping. People who will help to transport all to my new house, which is on the other side of the country. People who gave me useful things that I will be needing very badly.
Or people like Sanne, who is already helping me for some weekends to get everything packed.

And because she is helping me so much, I wanted to do something special for lunch without making something very complicated and something that would take a lot of time.

A quick look showed me that there was enough available to make something nice….

I made some scrambled eggs with champions, ham, cheese, tomatoes and cooked chicken (all in small pieces). Added some pepper, salt, dill and parsley. The result of all that I placed on some home made kaiser-breads.

It was very tasteful… and two of them where enough to take every feeling of hunger away for a long time.

Rib-eye with a Cognac Pepper sauce

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Today it was my turn to cook something again. And this it would be an extra challenge, because Miranda would join us for dinner… and Miranda is a cook by profession. And she promised to be honest about I made.

Earlier today I bought 3 rib-eyes. Good ones, not from a supermarket, but from a real butcher. A bit more expensive, but with this kind of things you really will notice the difference.

The rib-eyes with softly rubbed in with some spices and herbs (paprika, coriander, laurel, clove, pepper and a little salt). A pepper-sauce with cognac was served with the rib-eye.
What made the preparing of the rib-eye a bit harder was that Sanne and I wanted the rib-eye medium done and Miranda wanted it raw. And taking one earlier from the fire was not an option according Miranda :) .

Oven-baked potatoes that were dipped in a dressing that was based on olive oil and parsley. A salad made of cabbage, radish, leek, cocktail onions and paprika (thank you for the help with chopping this all, Miranda… you do it on amazing speed and precision).

As extra some asperges and baked portabellas (a rather big mushroom kind) were added.

Miranda said she really enjoyed it and that is was well made. Only remark was that the portabellas were baked a bit too fast and too long. But for the rest she like it. And as she said it was fun to see someone cooking for her once.
Anytime soon she will invited us to her place and then she will make something for us.

Pork tenderloin in ham

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Today our last dinner together again before Marion travels back to the US. So we decided to make something special for the three of us again.

Recently I have seen something in a supermarket that looked very nice. So now we made it of our own and added a bit of our imagination to it. We made marinaded pork tenderloin (in Dutch this called “Varkenshaas”) in ham.

We made a marinade based on red wine, port, juniper, salt, pepper and laurel. The marinaded pork tenderloin we wrapped up ham with between the pork tenderloin and the ham very fine cut paprika, garlic, leek and celery. While we baked this all in the oven we placed garlic butter on top of it, so it melted all over.

As salad we used paprika, union, leek, pineapple and courgette. On of the salad a honey/mustard sauce. The baked potato slices were covered with pesto (basil, pine tree pits, pecorino, garlic, salt & olive oil).

I have to say, it really tasted wonderful. This cooking together is really fun!

Christmas day

Friday, December 25th, 2009

This is one of those moments of rest during a busy day of Christmas day. Marion is taking a nap. The time difference is still hard on her. Sanne is laying lazy on the couch watching a bit tv. And I? I checked my mail and read some forums. And wrote this message about today.

This morning started good. For once I was the one who was the last out of bed. When I went down after a quick shower I was welcomed by the smell of warm bread and fresh coffee. The was warm croissants with ham and cheese… warm kaisers-beards with herb cheese… current… boiled eggs… orange juice…. coffee and tea. A very nice way to start the day.

During the morning we made a long walk. Even though the weather was not the best, it was good and pleasant. And a great opportunity to talk about al that happened since Marion travelled to the US.

The afternoon was for visiting the family, but we stayed nowhere long. We had told this on forehand. Somewhere during the next week we go for longer to the people we want to be with.

When the evening started to come near, it was really time to go home and start to work on our own Christmas dinner. Although we had chosen for very good food, we decided to make not a big thing about. No overly decorated table or things like that. We all just wanted to enjoy and relax

So we worked together on making our dinner. And it was fun and we all laughed a lot. Specially none of us had ever before prepared rabbit.
Sanne was happy that the rabbit was already chopped into pieces. She didn’t like the idea of having there a complete animal that we were going to baked. She called herself foolish because of that, but still she had those emotions about it. But I kinda can understand, so it was all okay.
All three of took a part of those 1.5 kg unions that needed to chopped. The red ones where so sharp that even the trick of floating water from a tap didn’t help any more.

Anyhow we all were satisfied about the result and we really enjoyed the dinner.

As appetiser we a Beef Carpaccio with flakes of cheese and pine-tree pits. To that a dressing based on olive oil, vinegar, salt and herbs

De main dish was rabbit. For the recipe were the next ingredients used: 1 wild rabbit, dried plums, 1.5 kg (1) red and white unions, 2 bottle of old dark beer, 1 bottle of “kriek” beer, 1 spoon of honey, 1 spoon of mustard, pepper, salt, aromat, thyme, laurel leaves, olive oil and flour.
The potato slices where prepared in the oven. Before the went into oven we added olive oil, rosemary, garlic and on top it fine cut old cheese.
The small carrots were normally cooked and over them some parsley.

Desert was the only thing we did buy all prepared. These Praline Icecup with chocolate and hazelnut ice are just too delicious

Tonight we will take it easy. I will wake up Marion in a bit. We have some snacks, some good wine and bockbeer. Most likely we will watch a movie together, chat a bit and enjoy the evening….

A good Christmas day I would say!

Evert Boar steak

Friday, December 25th, 2009

We had here a wonderful Christmas Eve. The first part with Marion’s parents and later on with three of us.
Marion just went to bed. She was still tired of the travelling and the time difference. And Sanne also went to bed.
And I am still here pondering a bit about the evening. We had a great time. I really enjoyed it.

Anyway, I promised to tell about the dinner I prepared. Marion really loves a good steak. Soooo…..

The steak I did go for was a Evert Boar steak, which is in my opinion even more gentle as a normal steak. The steak itself did get nothing more as a bit of salt and pepper. The steaks were medium done. I know that is way Marion likes it and I prefer it that way as well.

A nice sauce based on flour, corn meal, a meat fond, garlic, paprika, curry, pepper, parsley and laurel. This sauce was enriched with all kind rough sliced mushrooms.

There were mashed potato mashed with small pieces of almond and hazelnut. Also a beef based hash was added. Do I normally like larger piece of beef in my hash. Now I did go for very small pieces.

As extra mushrooms filled with sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil and some herbs as dill.

I am happy dat Marion really liked it. And so did Sanne and I. But tomorrow Marion has to work in the kitchen as well :)

Grilled Gamba’s with green pepper and garlic

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Tonight Sanne really surprised me. It is not even weekend and she came up with something nice to cook. I am happy to see that she enjoys this cooking just as I do. And I am sure when Marion is back in The Netherlands she will love it as well.
I agree fully with Sanne that cooking for someone else is great fun.

Today she made grilled gamba’s with a marinade that has base ingredients green pepper and garlic. But there was also some salt, coriander, parsley, leek and paprika.

A fresh salad with a dressing based on basillicum, vinegar and a little salt. All this was served with Canton rice.

It may become interesting holidays with all this cooking :)

Chicken thighs with cranberries

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Today it was my turn to cook something. We (for now Sanne and I) decided that each weekend when I am in Haaksbergen we will make something nice to eat for each other. It is has not to be something very expensive, but something you will not eat every day. Marion will join happily into this when she is back in The Netherlands again.

Today I made chicken thighs with cranberries (the chicken is coming from a biologic dynamic farm, meaning the chickens had a good as possible life). Also I added baked potato slices. The slices were covered with cajun. The salad was made of coal, leek, union, cucumber paprika and raisins. The dish was decorated with apricot and dried cranberries.

I had a wonderful dinner and was happy to hear that Sanne enjoyed it as well.