"What I Cooked Today" Day 219

Today I came home to a lovely dinner. I really needed it (got yelled at on the phone, landed a snow ball in the neck courtesy to some punk kid and continually suffered from ice blocks for feet all day today), so I was very grateful. Jochem had prepared some leftover chicken in the oven with garlic, shallots and red wine plus Nigella's Indian potatoes. We used some leftover creme fraiche, tomatoes, chilis and parsley to make wraps with some of the chicken as well. Boy was I happy after that (and a little tipsy from the red wine, though I imagine my sickness and overall tired nature probably didn't help matters much).

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

"What I Cooked Today" Day 218

Today was like a hard slap in the face! I had to leave the warm comfort of my childhood home to spend 2 hours traveling in the freezing cold, taking care of 2 very high-maintenance cats, before coming home to a very cold apartment. I then spend the entire night sleeping restlessly, waking up in cold sweats, and having nightmares about maneating bears and plane crases (I have GOT to stop watching National Geographic!). I then spend a very long and busy day at work before having to bike back in the snow, because YES, ladies and gentlemen, the first real snow has fallen and doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon. And to top it off I discovered that NO, my hands are not red from the cold, but from that mysterious rash that I get a couple of times each year. Of course I don't get colds and flus like normal people, I get hot, throbbing, itchy rash on every inch of my body that lasts a week. And alas, since I didn't recognize it as said rash this morning, I just let it get worse for 12 hours without any medicine, which should guarantee me at least a week and a half of fun.

But enough with the self-pity. For dinner Jochem made me a lovely pasta dish from the oven with cream, cheese, mushrooms and lots of fresh herbs and spices. Thank you for you!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 217

Officially, it's still fall, but winter has come. All of a sudden it turned from cold to freezing over the course of one weekend. I spent this Sunday with my family in Almelo, where I tried to enjoy the rare occurence of cold weather + sunshine + day off + a boyfriend not working, to the best of my abilities. Before dinner Jochem and I took a long walk along the canal. Almelo is not an exciting place to live, which is of course the reason why I left it 8 years ago in the first place, but, in my mind, the well-organized parks of Utrecht do not compare to the rugged beauty of Twente's backyard. I love to walk through it every chance I get. Jochem managed to take some beautiful pictures of our winter scenery. The Dutch seasons never fail to surprise and delight me - after a long winter, one day you look up, and there are green buds all over the trees, and you wonder: how did they get there so suddenly? Or you start noticing the leaves turning all sorts of colors and then, before you know it, they're all gone. Or when it keeps getting colder and colder until one day it is actually below freezing. It all happens so gradually yet so suddenly. Like my life right now. I started planning a world trip more than 2 years ago and for so long it seemed so far away that it just wasn't really real, until suddenly I have bought a ticket and there's no way back (or so it seems). Life is always going by too slowly yet so quickly. It's weird.









And after all that, Jochem made Astoria soup and dad made Spanish tapas and my family and I had ourselves a little Sunday dinner. And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the weekend was over.



Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 216

Today my father took out his co-workers for their annual dinner and, as family, I could come with. Dad took us to a restaurant called Rib House Texas, which serves American-style grilled dinners and can best be described as a cowboy theme park turned restaurant. The portions are outrageous, the pieces of meat are humongous and the peanut shells are on the floor while the customers (mostly men in their twenties on bachelor parties) sing country songs. You gotta love the atmosphere though, and I must say that I quite enjoyed my dinner (all 15 parts of it), but who needs that much extravagance on a daily basis?

"What I Cooked Today" Day 215

Aaahhh...!!! It's the weekend! Although it was a bit sad coming home to a dark and COLD apartment (it just started freezing last night, brrr), I have enjoyed sitting in my chair in my pajamas while watching Dawson's Creek episodes on my laptop while Jochem is out socializing below the rivers. The only thing missing is a bottle of beer, but I'm afraid it might floor me despite my hearty dinner of leftover spicy pumpkin soup with leftover puff pastry (which was surprisingly delicous in its randomness). I'll do with some tea and chocolate then.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 214

Today was my day off and it was a GREAt day! I slept in, had breakfast in my pajamas, played on the internet, had lunch in my pajamas, and then headed downtown with Jochem to do some shopping (in my regular clothes, though). After that we had lunch at a department store overlooking downtown Utrecht. Jochem had the beef. I had the chicken. We both had massive amounts of potatoes and mayonaise. Then I remembered two things: (1) Anna wrote about having seen The Social Network, which reminded me of the fact that I really wanted to see it as well and (2) that I still had two gift certificates for the movie theater provided by my dear aunt in Almelo for my gaduation, so we went to see an early show. Loved it! The dialogue is like a Patrick Marber satire play (yes, I too can throw terms around). See it!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 213

Today Jochem and I had leftover Astoria soup with tortillas. Tip: save your homemade soup for a couple of days before eating the last portions, because it'll be much more rich in flavor.

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 212

I started my not-so-new-anymore-but-definitely-first-real-grown-up job exactly 3 months ago today, and you might be pleased to read that I still enjoy it very much. There are, in fact, a lot of things that I like about it besides my daily duties. Like the fact that I can wear the same pair of jeans to work every day without judgement. And how everyone, and I do mean absolutely everyone, bonds over peanut butter sandwiches over lunch. Or how about the fact that my boss refers to my boyfriend as 'Mr Nuria'? And the fact that 'customers' is considered a dirty word. Plus, of course, the fact that we are all passionate about offering the best educational services to our students. Yes, there are many things to be enjoyed at my particular office job. An additional one I experienced today at our quarterly office drink. My colleagues and I from the secretarial department were in charge of organizing it, and, lucky for me, they enjoy cooking as much as I do. While one colleague made pumpkin soup and another made a quiche, I made a spinach tart. I was quite nervous about it since it is not 'my' recipe but a friend's, but it turned out just fine since my colleagues finished it all. I was just a little sorry that I didn't have anything to spare for Mr Nuria, who actually helped me a lot yesterday while making it.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 211

Today was leftover day, but probably one of the best ones yet. We used the leftover lasagna sheets to make pappardelle. We mixed the leftover béchamel sauce with some creme fraiche to thicken it as a sauce. We sautéed the onions and herbs, which we had originally used to flavor the béchamel sauce, and served it with some leftover chicken, garlic and lemon over the pasta. Great stuff for a Monday evening!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 210

Today Jochem and I made lunch for my parents who came to visit. We made that oriental soup that I had planned to cook on Friday. It had tomatoes, red, yellow and green bell pepper, red onion, loads of garlic, couscous, coriander and two essential spices: sumak (which is made from a sweet and citrusy red berry) and zahtar (a mixture of sumak, thyme and sesame seeds). We served it with tortillas that we had roasted in the oven with some olive oil, sumak and zahtar. Jamie Oliver calls this his Astoria soup, after the neighborhood Astoria in New York, which apparently has a lot of Egyptian restaurants (I always thought that it was renowned for its Greek restaurants, hence the surprise). Sumak and zahtar may seem pretty random, but come in quite handy once you get into oriental cuisine. They're hard to come by though, at least here, because we bought our sumak in Istanbul and were given our zahtar by a dear friend from Israel. The soup was delicious by the way - rich in every sense!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

PS: For dinner Jochem and I finally made it to Badhu - an old hammam turned restaurant/hotel on the other side of the Griftpark with lots of oriental mezzes. Great atmosphere, great food!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 209

Today Jochem and I finally hosted the much-anticipated dinner date at our apartment. We started the meal with Michiel and Marije's dish, which was an oriental couscous dish with squash and halloumi cheese.



Jochem and I had made quite the ambitious lasagna with homemade tomato sauce, homemade béchemel sauce and homemade pasta.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver



As a side dish we had also made roasted pumpkin, served in its own shell.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver



For dessert Erik and Marjolein gave us chocolate mousse with Grand Marnier.



Thank you all for another great dinner date!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 208

Today did not exactly go as planned. I had planned to make an oriental soup with tortillas together with Jochem, however, I had to work overtime and Jochem was stuck in public transport due to a fire at Utrecht Central Station. So I came home to a cold, dark and empty house to a massive load of dishes from yesterday and I decided to change plans, call Bic, get some take-out, and watch reruns of the Dog Whisperer. Silly me, though, also brought a bottle of rosé which I finished all by myself. Top that off with a glass of port and you've got on sick me on your hands. Barfje.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 207

Today I decided to make something that I thought would be simple, but which was anything but. It was a dish with cod, mushrooms and bread, but included a couple of very dificult procedures, like sieving the brown butter and puréeing the mushroom sauce. It was way too fussy in my opinion, more like something you'd eat at a fancy restaurant, but, I must say, the flavors were wonderful. I used to never really like cod, but this tells me that with the right ingredients, anything can be tasty (or, you know, just by using loads of butter).

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 13 September/October 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 206

We had quite a bit of beef and gravy leftover from yesterday, so we decided to make another favorite Dutch staple meal of mine: mashed potatoes with mashed red beets! I would like to dedicate this post to my mother, who is Spanish by the way, because she has helped Jochem and me over the phone countless times over the last couple of days to help us recreate some of my favorite childhood dishes. Plus: she was the one who told us to put sautéed onion with the red beets, which was just brilliant!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 205

The Dutch may not be known for their cuisine (probably justifiably so), but there are some dishes that even I can appreciate. Now, there were a lot of things that I didn't care for when I was young. Sauerkraut. Red cabbage. Bell pepper. Chinese food. Anything spicy. But what I have always loved (and I do mean: LOVED) are Brussel sprouts! I never get those people who don't like Brussel sprouts - what's not to like?! You can do a million things to them and they always keep that signature taste. But today we made them the way my mom used to make it: with potatoes, mushed to a pulp, with braised beef and lots and lots of gravy. It was awesome, but of course not as good a mom's.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 204

Today Jochem and I had leftover stew for dinner since we made a little bit too much over the weekend. Jochem had chicken stew and I had lamb stew. Plus: we ate it at the kitchen table, which is worth mentioning, since despite all of our snobbery, we usually eat dinner in front of the tv.

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 13 September/October 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 203

Today Jochem and I made stew again! Partly because I really wanted to make Jochem happy on his Sunday off (which was quite the unexpected luxury), partly because I was too lazy to think of a different dish to cook today, and also because I already had all of the ingredients at home due to yesterday's stew and figured: might as well. This stew, however, was made with red wine and lamb.

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 13 September/October 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 202

Today I decided to make a stew for Jochem, whose poor body, mind and soul were probably exhausted beyond recognition after getting up at 6 AM to work 8 hours after last night's get-together. Jochem loves stew. I don't care for stew. But Jochem has been nagging me about making a stew for quite some time now, so I decided to make one. This one had chicken and white wine and was surprisingly delicious, even though it took a couple of hours to make.

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 13 September/October 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 201

My college friends and I are really close, but ever since we started living our Real Lives we don't spend as much time together as we used to. Bic and I still in Utrecht, around the block from each other in fact, but Mag has moved to Amersfoort while Mar has moved to Amstelveen. We now have Real Jobs and Real Boyfriends (or a Real Husband in Mag's case) and Real Grown-Up Houses (including one Mortgage for Mag). At some point we decided that this is BS and we set a date for a good old-fashioned night of eating and drinking. Bic, Jochem and I even spent the night in Amersfoort so we wouldn't have to worry about anything. The division of tasks during this night was clearly set:

Bic brought her huge bottle of aged cava.



Rien and Mar prepared a delicious mushroom soup for starters.



Jochem and I made homestyle potatoes from the oven with pork chops, lots of herbs and spices, lemon zest, lemon juice and bread to finish off the juices in the baking tray.

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



Mag prepared semifreddo with nougat, nuts and chocolate.



And Roland ate and drank it all.

To us!!!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 200

It seems like only yesterday when I prepared the 100th edition of this weblog in Brussels with Anna and Danielle. Today's 200th edition is, sadly, not so much about food, believe it or not (which I hope to make up for tomorrow and which you'll hear more about, well, tomorrow), because a lot of other things happened today that kind of took over.

It was another gruelling day today by all means, even though I was quite grateful to be able to spend so much time with my mans. Jochem and I got up pretty early, biked to Utrecht Central Station, took an overloaded train from sunny Utrecht to grey The Hague, and took a tram to the rich and beautiful embassy neighborhood of town. We arrived at the Indian embassy quite early to avoid lines. However, there was a line. Luckily, the nice people at the embassy let us in to protect us from the cold. I had been dreading this day for a long time, pretty much ever since I started this visa application, partly because I had to go to the embassy myself to apply and collect my visa. Although the overall ignorance and rudeness of my fellow countrymen was very annoying, we were quickly able to leave again with an appointment for 4 PM to pick up our visas.

So far, so good. We then tried to make the best of our day by revisiting some of our favorite places in the city. We took a long walk to Scheveningen, although we skipped our walk on the beach since it looked like there were pipes being drilled there (?) and by then it had started raining. Then we had lunch at Toff, where we shared Thai noodle soup, naan with yogurt dip and a Thai hambuger for lunch. After that we took a tram to the Omniversum to see a show called The Greatest Places, which took us on a one-hour trip around the world.

After some drinks it was time to head back to the embassy, where we arrived drenched. We proceeded to stand in line again, outside, in the wind and rain, until we were let in again. After being annoyed by my countrymen again for a considerable amount of time, we finally got it: our Indian visas!

Jochem, poor thing, had to rush to Amsterdam to work (seriously), and I went back home to a windy, rainy and, overall, stormy Utrecht where I had pizza and chocolate cookies in bed. No, not the homemade ones, the ones from the supermarket. I was just too tired to even care enough to boil some rice for our leftover Thai curry.

Which is why I am finally ending this long post and am going to do some yoga, read some Twilight, and then sleep. But YAY!!!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 199

Today Jochem cooked me a Thai curry with a few shrimp and lots of peas, which were kind of overwhelming. I wished I could have helped him cook, but of course he had to work late and since he keeps insisting on bringing homemade food to work instead of eating what the normal people eat there, he made my portion in advance.

I was really glad about that because I had a BUSY day at work. The kind of busy that makes you suddenly sit up, look around, and wonder: where the [peep] did my afternoon go?! But also the kind of busy that makes you look haggard after 8 hours. You see, my colleague was sick. And my other colleague always has the day off on Wednesday. And when I walked into that office at 10 AM a lot of other co-workers were sick that I needed to arrange substitute colleagues for. And then there were a billion other errands to run and one mailbox that just never seemed to grow smaller. Oh, and I had to answer the phone. And get the mail. And go grocery shopping. And prepare lunch. And clean up after lunch.

Actually, I always have to do all of these things every single day, but not by myself. I just never got around to doing my usual duties and I may have made some mistakes here and there, which is just so friggin' scary. I just hope that my colleagues won't have to spend all day tomorrow cleaning all my messes.

And now I get to go to bed early and stress about applying for an Indian visa (no comment) and spend all day tomorrow trying to get it from the embassy in the Hague (sigh, still no comment), so that Jochem and I can spend a romantic, tropical Christmas holiday together in Goa. More on that tomorrow!



Source: Cooking Know-How by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarborough

"What I Cooked Today" Day 198

Well. Today Jochem WAS home for dinner and I must have been so dazed from pure abstinence (never mind the drama) that both he and I forgot to take a picture of our dinner. Alas. Lucky for you we only cooked a simple pasta dish with homemade tomato sauce and goat's cheese. Simple but good food, you know? More culinary adventures tomorrow, I promise!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 197

Today I had leftover pumpkin risotto again, because today I was home alone again. The worst days are when I have to start work at 9 AM, work for 8 hours, and then tutor for another hour, after which I bike back home in the cold and dark night (which luckily only takes 5 minutes), before coming home to a cold and dark house. On those days Jochem and I only have 15 minutes together during breakfast. So sick of this. Am watching Dawson's Creek in protest.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 196

Today I had a pretty good day. I slept in a little, had coffee while browsing through my new world trip travel book (courtesy to my awesome in-laws), had eggs for breakfast with Jochem while watching Bones (always a pleasure), planned our world trip a little, ran some errands, and read a lot in my Twilight saga (so sue me). Unfortunately, Jochem had to leave in the afternoon for work, so I was by myself for dinner. I was therefore very grateful to have left-over pumpkin risotto. Now I think I'll go and watch The Holiday in bed to end the weekend.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 195

Today Jochem's older brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner. Whenever we cook for Jochem's family I always get a little bit nervous, because they like to eat meat, potatoes and vegetables, which is something we make for ourselves, well, almost never. Not because we don't like it, but because we're far too scatter-brained to stick to these three ingredients and like to make food that tends to be a bit more exotic. Then again, when they like it, it is a huge pay-off. We made a couple of things: roasted potatoes from the oven (Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson) and pork chops with a dried apricot, prosciutto and sage butter filling (Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver).

We also made our favorite carrots from the oven with white wine, butter, thyme and cumin (Source: The Return of the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver).

For desssert we made what Nigella likes to call a devil's food cake, which basically translates to a chocolate cake oozing in dark chocolate frosting (Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson).



And to top it all off: limoncello!

Panic

You might be interested to know that my post-world-ticket-purchase glow lasted for about a couple of hours before I had an axiety attack. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I was actually panicking, but I definitely took the time to think: OH MY GOD!!! In less than a year I'll be traveling out of a backpack for 9 months! I won't have my own place! I'm homeless (or living with my parents in Almelo, which could be even worse)! I won't be able to see my cats for almost a year! Will they remember us? Will my fish still be alive (since I think it to be a distinct possibility that my mom 'forgets' to feed them or clean their bowl)? Am I am even the kind of person who likes to travel for so long? The last time that I was away for a long period of time was when I was studying at UCLA, and this was only for 6 months, where I had a room of my own, friends nearby and was operating in a society where everyone speaks English. I like to be at home with my pets. I like to cook. I won't have a homebase at the hostels we'll visit and the only cooking we'll be doing will be on little gas burners in the Australian outback. I was suddenly very afraid of the finality of it all, and it remains scary. Scary in a good way, I hope.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 194

Today Jochem made pizza again! We still had so much leftover pumpkin that we used it to top the pizza. We also used homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella and bacon. It was fall on a pizza!

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 193

Today Jochem had a day off. This is worth mentioning because Thursday is my weekly day off and we could therefore spend the entire day together. Of course there were errands to be run, but still, it was a nice change of pace. After booking our world ticket we were so excited that we decided to head into down and shop some more things for our trip. We got home pretty late and decided to leave the homemade pizza till tomorrow and just get food today. We bought some fries, some sandwiches and some cookies and just slummed on the couch.

World Ticket

You guys must be surprised to see a post of mine that does not feature food! I have to admit that lately I have either been too busy or too lazy to write anything substantial besides my daily "What I Cooked Today" posts, and the only reason that I am forcing myself out of this lame yet surprisingly comfortable stupor, is that I have BIG NEWS: Jochem and I booked a world ticket!!! It is kind of a loose term, because so far we have only paid a small deposit and, since you can generally only book flights about 11 months ahead of time, we have only actually booked the first flight. But we have our very own travel agent at Travel Nation (a British company that I can highly recommend if you are planning a big trip from Europe since they offer world tickets at amazing prices) called Jackie Jones (whom you've just gotta love if only for her awesome name) and she has made us reservations on all of the other flights and will book the actual tickets over the next couple of months free of charge. So, after a long week of e-mailing with Jackie back and forth and over 2 years of planning, and researching, and then planning some more, I am proud to show you our final route:

London - Bangkok, overland to Bali - Darwin - Cairns, overland to Sydney - Christchurch, overland to Auckland - Santiago de Chile - Easter Island - Santiago de Chile, overland to Lima - Madrid - London

[PAUSE FOR REACTION]

"What I Cooked Today" Day 192

Today was another exhaustive day. Life is so much harder when you are trying to get used to the fall and the dark, rainy and windy afternoons that accompany it. Not seeing Jochem on a regular basis makes everything even harder. One of the upsides of him working in the hospitality industry while I work a 9-to-5 kind of job (and it may be the only one) is that he usually makes me dinner these days, and today when I came home there was big pan filled with pumkin risotto waiting for me. You'll probably keep seeing pumpkin on this blog for a while - it's the season!

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 191

Today was an EXHAUSTIVE day! Luckily, we had leftover ruined stroganoff for dinner. And Jochem brought home a white chocolate chip cookie. Now I simply must sleep before I am unable to even finish this sentence.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 190

One of the things that I almost never get to do anymore (because I almost never have time to visit my family in Almelo anymore), is come home from home with a bag filled with leftover groceries. It usually lasts me through the whole week, which is both convenient (no thinking about doing groceries) and cheap (no buying of the groceries). Today I had leftover pumpkin soup. Sadly, I had to eat it alone in front of my computer, but the soup was still good.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 189

Today was Halloween. I love Halloween, although not so much for the overall atmosphere or even the trick-or-treat-ing, but for the food. Jochem and I always try to make some special fall dishes for Halloween and today we made three. First, we made these amazing fried zuccini flowers with a ricotta filling.

Then we made our simple oriental pumpkin (of course) soup.

Finally, we made one of our favorite dishes: stroganoff. Unfortunately, we kind of ruined the wild deer. We'd never used this kind of meat before and it turned out too dry. Luckily the other flavors came out great, but damn, what a shame on such fine meat!

Last but not least, Jochem made me a scary pumpkin. We named him Harry. Happy Halloween!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver