"What I Cooked Today" Day 188

Today my family and I went to a Chinese restaurant. My Spanish family loves Chinese food, and since they claim that there aren't any good Chinese restaurants in Spain, we always go to one when they visit. Now, I never really liked Chinese food. I used to avoid it much the same way that I used to avoid things like spicy food, bell peppers and broccoli. But now that I've grown to not only appreciate, but to actually love, spicy food, bell peppers and broccoli, I refuse to believe that I am capable of dismissing one particular country's entire cuisine, especially when it concerns a big country with such a varied food culture. But, I am glad to announce that I had Chinese food today, and enjoyed all of it!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 187

Today I quickly rushed to Almelo to see my family again, but not before having some great homemade pizza, made in my new Magimix, with Jochem. He made me that great pork pizza again that we love so much!

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 186

Today was my graduation. It was my final graduation in a row of three. I now have one Bachelor of Arts in Humanities, one Bachelor of Arts in English, one Minor in American Studies, one Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and one teaching certificate. It was the end of an era and I celebrated in a big way. Family and friends were kind enough to attend the ceremony, including my grandmother and aunt, who came all the way from Spain. Besides receiving my diploma, I also received a lot of other things: postcards, flowers, earrings, one Magimix, and many kind words. Who can repay such kindness? I tried, though. With food, of course. By making everyone homemade brownies. With a lot of help from the kindest one of all. Thank you all, for a truly memorable day.

Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

"What I Cooked Today" Day 185

Today we cooked another rerun: Nigella Lawson's pumpkin pasta with pine nuts, fresh goat's cheese and sage. I bought a pumpkin on Saturday and we had so much of it left that we had to use it again, and since this pasta was such a success, we decided to give it another go. Jochem made this by himself while I was at work, and he used much more chili which I thought was great. He somehow also managed to make the dish smell like meat, which was interesting. Either way he did improve on the dish since Saturday!

Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

"What I Cooked Today" Day 184

Since we had most of the ingredients at home anyway and because we loved it so much, we decided to do a rerun of last Friday's couscous dish with caramelized red onion and grilled shrimp, only this time we used much more cucumber. Jam!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 183

You can always tell apart the days that Jochem and I spent cooking together (fresh food and beautiful pictures made by someone obviously much more patient with modern technology than me) and the days that we spent apart (great food which is heated in the oven before a quick picture is taken underneath my fluorescent desk lamp). I'm sure you'll be able to see the difference in today's apple pancakes with lavender honey!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 182

Tonight Jochem and I made three dishes for dinner. I picked the first two dishes from Nigella Lawson's latest cookbook and both were inspired by Indian cuisine (quite appropriate I thought, since we'll be going to India in less than two months). First, we made potatoes from the oven with lots of herbs and spices as well as some red onion with lime juice. We also made lamb chops rubbed with the same herbs and spices.

Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson



For dessert we made something called 5-minute chocolate cake. Last week Anna sent me a YouTube video by the instructables about making a chocolate cake in a mug in a microwave. Since I love having pastry with tea for dessert I thought: this I have to try! It is indeed easy (I had all of the ingredients in my kitchen cupboards, minus the chocolate chips) and fast (2,5 minutes in the microwave), but it does not stand up to the real thing. It was quite dry and you really need the chocolate chips to give the cake that moist texture. So, although I enjoyed this experiment a lot, in the future I will probably opt for making a batch of brownies during the weekend which will last me all week. Check out the clip for your 5-minute chocolate cake here.

Source: www.instructables.com

"What I Cooked Today" Day 181

Y'all know how much I adore Jamie Oliver, but when I was given a beautiful new cookbook written by Nigella Lawson for my birthday, I knew that I had to give her a try. I spent quite a long time studying her recipes and admiring the pretty pictures before deciding on two dishes to make this weekend. Tonight Jochem and I made a wonderful fall pasta dish with pumpkin, pine nuts, fresh goat's cheese and sage. I must admit that I tweaked the recipe a little bit according to personal taste and convenience, but since I do that all the time with Jamie Oliver's recipes, you don't have to be alarmed. It was a very lovely meal.

Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

"What I Cooked Today" Day 180

Today Jochem and I had absolutely no idea what we were doing, but somehow managed to make a great dish. First, we marinated some shrimp with sea salt, black pepper, dried chilis, olive oil and garlic. Second, we caramelized some red onion. Third, we made a cold sauce with creme fraiche, sea salt, black pepper, dried chilis, lemon zest and cucumber. Then we cooked some couscous and grilled the shrimp. Finally, we mixed in the couscous with the cold sauce, added the caramelized red onion, placed the grillled shrimp on top, and squirted some lemon juice on top of it. Fantastic!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 179

While Jochem worked his fourth late shift of the week, I was left to really scrape the barrel when it came down to preparing my dinner. When money's tight (which it often is), we have to be very creative in order to whip up a decent meal, especially now that we've developed such high standards over the years. Today I was left with nothing more than 100 grams of spaghetti, 1 garlic clove, 1/2 onion, half a can of tinned tomatoes and some ingredients that we (luckily) always have in stock, like extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, dried chilis, Parmesan cheese (thank GOD for Parmesan cheese!) and spicy olive oil. With these ingredients I made a lovely pasta dish that was simple but nice. I only wish that I'd have had some fresh basil, but I didn't. I didn't even have dried basil, but that's probably because we never buy it, because let's face it: dried basil SUCKS. So I used dried parsley instead.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 178

Today was another day that I spent home alone. Like every Wednesday I had to work the long shift today and the weather was just horrible: it changed from sunlight and blue skies to pouring rain and back again more times than I care to remember, especially since I ended up soaking wet twice because of it. So, after work I decided to make a quick stop at the deli down the street and bought myself a small portion of sauerkraut with potatoes, salmon and bacon. The salmon seemed a little weird, but overall I really enjoyed this warm, wintery dish. It made me yearn for Brussel sprouts!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 177

For tonight's humble dinner, and after a LONG day with lots of work and even more rain, I had another batch of pasta carbonara (but with tagliatelle this time!), two birthday cupcakes for dessert, and one cup of blackcurrant tea.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 176

Today Jochem won't be home till past midnight, so it was really up to me to make dinner tonight. Luckily, I don't need much to make a great meal. With some leftover ingredients I managed to create a simple pasta carbonara with pancetta and Parmesan cheese.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 175

You probably think that there's just no way that I could have any more mac 'n' cheese in my freezer? Well, you were wrong!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 174

I love to cook, but for my birthday this year I decided to indulge in a little luxury. Luckily, I have some wonderful (and enabling!) friends who agreed to accompany me to my favorite restaurant: Fifteen in Amsterdam. Contrary to what you might think, I do not just like it because it is based on one of Jamie Oliver's concepts. It is a beautiful space, the staff goes beyond the call of duty (I mean, I received a free bottle of white wine as a birthday gift!) and the food is just... Mouth-watering perfection is what it is. I can't even begin to describe the food that I had for dinner - soup, gnocchi, fish, the most delicious chocolate cake, all accompanied by great glasses of wine and a few too many shots of limoncello. And I don't want to explain. Go there and judge for yourself. Happy birthday to 27-year-old me!!!

About that...

This week I seem to cook mostly from Jamie's America. Last week it was Jamie's Italy.

Mmm.

I'm not sure what it means, but it just caught my eye.

It's 6 PM on a Friday night at the office and I'm basically alone here by myself, so you'll have to forgive me if this is random.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 173

Today I had a quick bite of leftover mac ‘n’ cheese before heading downtown to see Eat, Pray, Love with Anna for my birthday. Sadly, I actually forgot to bring Jochem's meringue with me to the movies! Yesterday Jochem had tons of leftover egg whites from the pasta carbonara and decided to make meringues. He made one plain one, one with date honey and one with lavender syrup. Crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside – delish!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 172

Today Jochem and I made dinner for my cousin Nicole. She was in town for a workshop and decided to stop by afterwards. It was nice – it made me feel like part of a family, which shouldn’t be so hard considering that I have 9 aunts and uncles and countless cousins. I had asked Jochem to buy supplies for a simple pasta carbonara with pancetta, but he mistakingly bought supplies for another pasta carbonara with zucchini. Just as well – there’s nothing wrong with more vegetables, especially when they’re made well. Jochem did a great job preparing it, because the zucchini almost tasted like it had been grilled. Turns out that it was the smokiness in the pancetta that did this. I love cooking!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 171

Today Jochem and I had mac 'n' cheese part III and more left-over birthday cake for dinner!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 170

It's my birthday! I turned 27 today. Jochem made me breakfast and gave me a beautiful cookbook by Nigella Lawson. I received a bunch of text messages, e-mails and postcards. My colleagues loved my cakes and gave me a travel book, which was a real surprise. And when I came home after work Jochem had made me gumbo. I still don't know what the hell gumbo is besides the fact that it's food from the southern USA and that it features the holy trinity of onion, green bell pepper and celery. Jochem made a kind of surf & turf gumbo with sausage and shrimp and served it with rice. I want to say that it was kind of like a stew...? And for dessert we had left-over birthday cake. Happy birthday to me!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 169

Today Jochem and I had mac 'n' cheese again, so we didn't cook dinner. We did, however, make something (although, I must admit, having been at work all day and Jochem having the day off, he did the bulk of the work): birthday cakes! Tomorrow's my 27th birthday and to honor Dutch tradition I'm bringing homemade cakes to work. One's a mole chocolate cake with caramel and hazelnuts and the other's a cheesecake with lime and coconut. I'm actually kind of nervous for tomorrow because I was kind of cocky at work today about making homemade cakes, while the actual making of the cakes is quite the science (and making mole chocolate cake is more of a leap of faith than anything else since the damn. thing. won't. set). Let's just hope that my colleagues will like the end result tomorrow!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 168

Jochem and I used to have a great routine. On Saturdays I would make a grocery list for the entire week and afterwards we'd go shopping. On Saturdays and Sundays we'd often make something new and special, while weekdays were reserved for more simple home cooking. However, now that our work schedules completely conflict each other in absolutely every respect, we often end up grocery shopping alone for just that day. What used to be a fun weekend outing has now become another chore. I'd gotten so tired of this that I decided to make the entire mac 'n' cheese recipe based on 10 people, so that Jochem and I wouldn't have to think about what to cook for this week. So that's what I cooked and ate today: mac 'n' cheese.

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 167

Today Jochem and I traveled to Amersfoort for Mag's 28th birthday party and, of course, we offered our services for dinner. I actually had a pretty hard time coming up with a good recipe for this evening when Mag told me to just think of something myself since she couldn't figure out what she wanted. Naturally, I wanted to make something really good for her, so I quickly thought of Italian food since Mag really loves the simplicity and the great flavors that you often find in Italian cooking. However, I did want to make something new, because I wanted it to be a challenge for us and a surprise for her. But, would I choose a really difficult recipe, it might not work out because we would be making it for the first time. Also, I wanted to use vegetables that are in season to give her that autumn feel, and either use pasta or risotto because there would be a party later so our stomaches had to be set for all the alcohol that would surely come later. Mag's mom would also be joining us for dinner and I wasn't sure just how crazy her food palet was. And, last but not least, I wanted to make something simple and fast, preferably from the oven, so we would have enough time to mingle and not make a huge mess in Mag's beautiful red kitchen. In the end, we decided on spaghetti tetrazzini: spaghetti from the oven with chicken, mushrooms, cream, white wine and Parmesan cheese. Happy birthday Mag!

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 166

Today Jochem and I made pizza again. We had some left-over pizza dough and wanted to keep it simple on this Friday night (by the way, may I just say that I think that it's pretty friggin' awesome that we now consider making our own pizzas from scratch simple?!) Although the idea was to make vegetarian pizzas, I could no longer resist the urge to make this particular one with pork (pork is fantastic by the way! It seems like the Dutch either totally abuse this beautiful meat or don't like it very much and thus not eat it at all, but you've heard it here: it's fabulous!). So, I bought one pork chop at the organic butcher's shop and we braised the pork (something I've picked up from Top Chef) and then put it on a simple pizza with homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, chili, olive oil and lemon juice. It was absolutely delicious and I've bombarded this as my favorite pizza ever (now that I think of it, some red onion would be perfect for this dish, I must remember that next time!).



Our second pizza was very simple: just some tomato sauce, a tomato, mozzarella, homemade green pesto, chili, olive oil and that was it. The texture was, granted, a little bit on the wet side, but all the flavors were good. What a great Friday night meal!



Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 165

Today I didn't cook because Jochem had to work a late shift and my colleagues from marketing organized their annual drink. They prepared typical Dutch 'poffertjes,' which are basically tiny pancakes served with butter and icing sugar (and some cheese in this case). November 23rd is the day that my colleagues and I are responsible for organizing the office drink, so stay tuned!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 164

Today Jochem had a late shift, so he cooked in the afternoon, took half of the dish with him to work, and I ate the rest when I came home. It's one of our favorite dishes: stroganoff! According to the recipe we were supposed to use meat, but meat is a luxury I'm trying to avoid for a while, so we made a vegetarian version with lots of mushrooms, red onion, pickle, parsley and a little lemon zest. Still good!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 163

PIZZA FEST PART II. Today was our second day eating homemade vegetarian pizzas. Today Jochem made another pizza with homemade tomato sauce, potatoes, fresh herbs and garlic chips and one pizza with zuccini. And of course there was also mozzarella and spicy olive oil.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 162

PIZZA FEST PART I. In order to save some of our budget, I asked Jochem to prepare vegetarian pizzas for the next couple of days. Jochem loves to do it and homemade pizzas are hella nice! Today he made one pizza with homemade tomato sauce, potatoes, fresh herbs and garlic chips and one pizza with shiitake mushrooms. Both pizzas had mozzarella and spicy olive oil.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 161

Today Jochem and I cooked the same dish as on day 129: warm tortillas with creme fraiche, a spicy mixture of chicken, garlic, onion, tomatoes and charred bell peppers, and fried chorizo sausages. However, we were so ravenous by the time we finally finished making dinner, that we actually forgot to take a picture, even though the camera was sitting right next to us on the couch. It's a shame too, because it looked delicious. Guess you'll have to make due with the old snapshot then.

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 12 August/September 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 160

Today I cooked something quite strange. Jochem spent the evening with Eyal so I was left to my own devices and, BOY, I should NOT be left to my own devices! It all started with a bunch of left-over mushrooms. I figured that I'd better not waste them and might as well make something with those for dinner. While thinking of potential recipes, I suddenly remembered that there was another recipe that I'd been meaning to try in an older Jamie Magazine, but I couldn't remember what exactly. I looked it up and found a recipe for shrimp burgers. "That's what I'll make," is what I think. After spending a ridiculous amount of money on a huge piece of Parmesan cheese (which, you know, we really need and use a lot) I decided not to buy fresh shrimp but frozen shrimp from the Asian store downtown. At said Asian store downtown, however, I suddenly notice frozen crab, and I buy that instead. This is not the good kind of crab (although, according to my good friends at Top Chef, nothing good ever came from a freezer), but the kind that has been pushed into a rectangular shape and is awfully pink, but I figure, "I know how to make this taste good." At home I get to work and the thought that has been in the back of my mind all day and is painfully resurfacing itself at this exact moment, is the fact that I don't think that dry crab meat (or shrimp meat for that matter) + salt + pepper = something that makes hamburger-like shapes. As in: it won't stick together to make an actual burger. Fine, Jamie had to disappoint me at some point, but this is where my lack of actual culinary skills becomes apparent and without a Jochem around I decide to make it all go together with mayonaise. After adding said mayonaise and desperately trying to make burgers I realize: "This is not gonna work." I now have a cold crab salad. For a moment I consider to put this cold crab salad on my bread, but then I decide that "no, I don't want cold crab salad, I want warm food in between my two pieces of warm bread", and I decide to just stir-fry all the little pieces of cold crab meat (this is after I decided to pimp my crab with coconut and curry powder, but found out that the curry powder had fungi because of all the rain in France, and then used dille and cayenne instead). I added some Dijon mustard and more mayonaise to my bread, slid on some tomato and cheddar and made myself a weird sandwich which was actually quite good and filling. I didn't even finish the potato chips on the picture. The wine however, I did finish of course.

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 10 June 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 159

Today I did no cooking. When I finished work at 6.30 PM I immediately rushed to the Hague for Eyal and Marieke's farewell party, who are leaving for Israel and Australia. Indefinitely, for heaven's sake.