"What I Cooked Today" Day 339

Of course we made a big batch of Spanish spagetti yesterday so we could eat it again today.

In other news: I feel pretty great! I have been feeling pretty great lately (car accidents aside).

Mag gave me a bunch of Psychology Magazines to borrow that feature articles about stress and perfectionism. In one article, the author describes a theory by two psychologists (I don't remember the specifics - sorry) that explains a difference between hard time, soft time and flow.

Soft time is time spent doing what you love. In my case that would be things like cooking, writing, reading books, biking and doing yoga. If pursued long enough, soft time will eventually turn into flow. We can't stay in flow forever, though, which I believe is considerd to be not only impossible but also unhealthy (though I'm not sure why).

Hard time is time spent doing what you must. Of course this includes such obligations as work, grocery shopping and cleaning. However, it often happens that the things that you love to do, gradually turn into the things that you must do. You say to yourself: I HAVE TO ride this bike because I want to be in shape before my world trip. I HAVE TO do yoga or else my back will hurt. I HAVE TO cook and blog about cooking every day because I started this endeavor and now I want to finish it or else I'm a quitter. I HAVE TO read these books and magazines because my loving friends gave them to me in an act of support and friendship. When you're in hard time, you are very conscious about time - you are always painfully aware that time is moving, slipping by, and that you can't do anything to gain more hours in one day.

Does this sound like anyone you know?

I know I recognize myself as the kind of person who seems to always be spending her time hard. And of course the conclusion is that you shouldn't do this - just stop and start spending your time more softly. Right. But how do you go about that when your whole life is a never-ending to-do list?

Well, I don't know how to answer that question, but I do know that when I got on my bike yesterday for the umpteenth time, I didn't mind breaking into a sweat, my back did not hurt and my ass was only sore for a few minutes. I also know that when I was given the choice tonight, I chose to get up from behind the TV and bike again. Truthfully, watching Pride and Prejudice while doing it makes everything easier. But I finally feel like all the biking, and all the yoga, and all the vitamin pills, and all the healthy food, and all the determination to feel better, has made me feel exactly that: better.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 338

Today we tried to prepare a dish that was conceptualized by my Spanish grandmother when she was out of food one day and scrambled a few ingredients together. This is a simple pasta dish, which we made even simpler by substracting the pork, in which you first make the sauce, and then cook the spagetti in the sauce (as opposed to cooking the pasta in boiling salted water and then adding it to the sauce after draining it). It's really amazing - the spaghetti soaks up the sauce as it's cooking in it, so it's kind of like risotto in that way. My family has been cooking this meal for decades and have become masters of it. I have made the dish twice now and obviously have a lot to catch up. It was still tasty, but not as it should be.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 337

Where to begin? After an, arguably, good night's sleep, I worked 8 long hours before racing downtown to meet one of my students early, who didn't show up, then raced back to Wittevrouwen to take my stressed-out cat Manchego to the vet, who, luckily, does not seem to have a chronic heart condition, but who did scare us for a second there (perhaps he's starting to look like his mom). Oh, and in between the racing back and fro, a car hit me. It came out of nowhere and hit me on my left knee. The man was nice enough about it and told me "not to look at the car, look at YOU!" So yeah. That was my day. More patties for dinner.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 336

Today was an insanely busy day at work. Not the "Oh WOW look how fast the day goes by" kind of day, but the "I CANNOT believe it took me all morning to process these documents and I haven't even started on the REAL work" kind of day. It's not the best way to be ripped out of your post-Antwerp bliss. So I am cranky and do not want to write anymore. For dinner we had the same patties as yesterday, which were luckily just as delicious as yesterday. I'm off to do yoga to get some zen into my battered self.

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

"What I Cooked Today" Day 335

After Jochem and I came back from Antwerp, we went grocery shopping, spent a good amount of time in the sun on our teeny, tiny balcony, and then proceeded to make this lovely dish of spicy sausage patties in lettuce wraps with homemade peanut butter hummus.

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

"What I Cooked Today" Day 333 + Day 334

Antwerp, I find, is a really nice city to visit. It oozes you into its arms like a warm bubble bath. It is easy yet cosmpolitan, touristy yet classy. Yes, I think that I would say that Antwerp and I liked each other instantly.

But what is there to say, really? I went to the Diamant Museum. I saw Chinatown, the old Jewish neighborhood and the Cogels-Osylei. I explored the historic city center and discovered an old folktale about a wicked giant who lost his hand to the Schelde. Mostly, though, I walked around and ate. The sun was warm, the Kriek was cold, and the chicken knees, alas, were nowhere to be found.

A weekend in Antwerp in pictures:

"What I Cooked Today" Day 332

Life is a bit hectic here today. On Sunday Jochem's grandmother turns 82. Like every year, she takes her whole family away for the weekend to celebrate her birthday. Last year it was the Cruise Hotel in Rotterdam, the year before that we went to a spa hotel in Germany, and this year we are going to Antwerp. I've never been to Antwerp, but am very excited to be going now that Anna has borrowed me her guidebook. Our hotel is between Chinatown and the old Jewish neighborhood, so I am in search of dim sum for lunch tomorrow. The weather here has been pretty great for a couple of days and is supposed to be pretty great this weekend as well, so I hope to catch a place in the sunshine somewhere and have some Kriek. But anyway, I switched my weekly day off from Thursday to Friday so I had to work today, and I'm also trying to get in all of my biking and yoga before leaving tomorrow, plus I want to catch up on my blogs and leave carefully written messages behind with friends, and pack my spring dresses et cetera et cetera. You catch my drift. Good thing we still had mac 'n' cheese for dinner then. I'm off - see you again after the weekend!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 331

Today we had mac 'n' cheese for dinner. And now I'm off again - I have to bike and do yoga! Busy, busy, busy!!!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 330

The Gods of Meat must be furious at me for calling Friday's dinner 'chicken tandoori,' because we didn't use any chicken at all - we used tofu. Jochem always gets a little annoyed with me for accidentally doing this. It's as if he's already kind of pissed for being forced to eat tofu in the first place, so the least I can do is call it what it is. We had some leftover tofu from Friday, so we made tandoori again. At least I really liked it, as I always do.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 329

It's officially spring and the country brought another warm and sunny day, as witnessed from my office window. It was a good work day, though - busy, without any annoying parents. For dinner, Jochem and I did our best to scrape our fridge as much as possible and we came up with a simple salad of rocket and ice berg, added some dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, fried a piece of goat's cheese wrapped in bacon, toasted some bread, added salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and called it a day.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 328

It's almost spring. To celebrate the fair weather, Jochem and I biked to Rhijnauwen to take a walk around the city's little forest. I insist on hiking more, since I am quite determined to hike the Inca Trail to Maccu Picchu without (1) being sent back due to altitude sickness or (2) dying. The nice people at Peru Treks recommend hiking a 15-kilometer hike in order to prepare yourself, but we haven't gotten past 5 kilometers. Even if we do end up hiking 15-kilometer hikes, however, I doubt that the flatness of the Dutch landscape will prepare us much. But you do what you can. Since we obviously didn't have any money to visit the pancake house, we brought a bottle of herbal tea, one homemade cookie and a few raisins and had a little picnic on a sun-drenched bench. Back home we prepared this sandwich with fries. The meat is a small piece of beef that had been soaked in red wine and garlic for a couple of hours. On top is sautéed leek. As some of you may know already, in the world of vegetables, there is nothing that this girl likes more than leek. It has a richness to it that does it for me every time. It's like the butter of vegetables!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011

"What I Cooked Today" Day 327

Money has been tight around here this weekend. By no means do we lack money, except that we prefer to live in the apartment that we live in right now and that we prefer to put most of our money in our savings account (you know, to see the ruins of Angkor Wat, to take a tour to Uluru and to hike the Inca Trail to Maccu Picchu). Plus, we've been giving and having a lot of dinner parties lately. This weekend we literally had less than €20,00 left to do groceries for the whole week if we didn't want to take money out of our savings account. It was no easy feat, but we managed to pull it off, while still buying only organic meat (yes, I am quite proud of this typically Dutch trait of being thrifty, but I am Dutch, after all). Today we made some roast potatoes from the oven with a few slices of toast with homemade guacamole and some sautéed chipolata sausage. You should try sautéed chipolata sausage sometime - it has great flavor and adds a special something to lots of dishes like pasta, pizza or even wraps. Use it like you would grated cheese - it's delicious!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011

"What I Cooked Today" Day 326

Today I had a sudden craving for chicken tandoori. And because Jochem is an awesome boyfriend, he went outside, into the rain, to get it for me. He also cooked the meal while I was passed out from fatigue on the couch, trying to watch the news. For the rest of the evening we watched TV together. Nice.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 325

Today was Saint Patrick's Day! My friends and I decided to skip cooking and just grab some food downtown so that we could be at the Mick O' Connells early to secure bar stools. We ended up at this grungy, fluorescent-lit little Greek place that serves these amazing massive sandwiches. They make their own bread, which looks a little bit like an American pancake but tastes more like Indian naan, add homemade tzachiki, raw onions and loads of marinated meat. I was full beyond the brim, which was probably a good thing, what with all the Guinness, Strongbow Cider and green-flavored beer that we simply had to try! Has anyone ever noticed that Guinness tastes like licorice? It was really fun to be out on a 'school night' - all of us had to get up early the next day so we felt like quite the little rebels against the work ethos. We ran into our old British lit. Professor and my old James Joyce Professor. We were home quite early, but because we got there so early, we were there for several hours just drinking and talking away. I think that maybe we realized that we weren't so old and boring, after all. You may think this to be an absurd notion, for us 27-year olds (and 24-year-old, in Jochem's case) to think of ourselves as old and boring. But if you'd heard how Bic described herself that night, you would understand.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 324

This is my ode to the Italian flag.

Jochem had to work late tonight, so when I got home I had myself a nice Kriek (cherry-flavored beer from Belgium, guys). Then I proceeded to make this sandwich for dinner. Toasted ciabatta + homemade pesto + fresh mozzarella + fried chili tomatoes = goooood. Even just for dinner.

Did I mention these fried tomatoes yet? I think I may have discovered something here without the aid of a cookbook. Like, I was cooking one day and just, you know, had an ORIGINAL THOUGHT. Now I can REALLY call myself a food snob! Here's what you do: you heat a pan, add some extra virgin olive oil, add some sea salt and fresh black pepper (yes, these adjectives in front of olive oil, salt and pepper DO matter, don't you know?) and then place thin slices of tomatoes in the pan. Wait for the tomatoes to suck up the oil and then turn them over. Add more sea salt, black pepper and dried chili for some extra punch. Serve HOT!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 323

Today Jochem and I made ourselves a red bell pepper omelet with potato skins (leftover from making gnocchi on Saturday) for dinner. Simple, but very good!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011

"What I Cooked Today" Day 322

Just before spring, right before going out of season, we had us some Brussel sprouts! I'm afraid that the picture doesn't do the meal justice, though.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 321

I felt pretty crappy today, so while Jochem traveled south to visit family, I spent most of the day home alone doing my usual biking, yoga and Lonely Planet-reading activities in order to make myself feel better. I also had some time to watch the news, catch up on Wie is de MOL?! and read Committed. It was nice. Food-wise, though, today was bit of a mess. I didn't use any recipes or had any preconceived notions of dinner whatsoever, but instead ended up scrambling bits and pieces of leftover ingredients together in order have, you know, something to eat. Nothing worth writing home about. I did, however, experience the pleasure of fresh tomato fried in garlic and olive oil, so at least there was one highlight.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 320

Today we had one of our notorious dinner dates! This time we went to Amersfoort, where our hosts Erik and Marjolein prepared the most amazing fish curry (I swear to God, Jochem almost died from pleasure!). Note to self: from now on, ALWAYS add sugar snaps to my curries!



Michiel and Marije made a wonderful nutty dessert that was both crunchy and smooth.



We ourselves had another go at gnocchi. It was quite a nerve-racking experience for me and it was still not as light as I think it should have been (how do those Italian mammas do it?!), but overall I thought that it turned out well. We served it with a simple pesto, a little Parmesan and basil and some lemon juice. By the way, doesn't 'gnocchi' start to sound like an awesome name for a pet?

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 12 August/September 2010

"What I Cooked Today" Day 319

Today our friends came over to our place for dinner. We served them fresh pappardelle with a creamy bell pepper sauce along with some leftover chicken from yesterday that we had prepared in the oven. For dessert we had more grasshopper pie.

Source: The Silver Spoon / Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

"What I Cooked Today" Day 318

The longer I keep this blog, the more my posts become collages of nights spent with friends. Aren't food and friends intertwined, after all? On my day off I went to Amersfoort to have dinner with my friends. The meal was centered around a grasshopper pie, around which we quickly materialized an oven dish with potatoes, red onion, chicken and sausage as well as three different dips for our doritos. These dishes were either inspired by Laura Zavan's My Little Italy (in the case of the dips) or Nigella Lawson's Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home (in the case of the oven dish and the grasshopper pie). Enjoy!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 317

Today Jochem's mother came over for dinner. Both of us had to work late and neither of us had time to do groceries, so we served her some leftover soup with toasted bread, plus our last slice of chocolate cake for dessert. Luckily, she liked it!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011 / Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

"What I Cooked Today" Day 316

The other day I realized that those lovely winter vegetables that I actually adore but never seem to use very often are almost out of season in the Netherlands. The next time that they will be in season I will be somewhere in South East Asia, probably not eating potatoes. So we got some red beets for dinner today: pretty AND delicious!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 315

Today Jochem and I made a simple pasta and lentil soup from southern Italy accompanied by plain crostinis and some Parmesan cheese. So simple, so good.

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011

"What I Cooked Today" Day 314

An impression of today (after the much-needed sleeping in, having breakfast, updating the internet, cleaning, doing laundry, biking, doing yoga and taking a shower (what else are Sundays for if not to run errands?)):

It was sunny, so we took a long walk around our beautiful neighborhood.



We made a quick stop at De Bakkerswinkel where we sat outside in the sunshine and read our books (The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, respectively).



We had a quick snack (black coffee with French chocolate cake for Jochem and latte machiato with a coconut brownie for me).



After another long walk we ate way too much at De Kust. A shrimp 'kroket' for me (for those non-Dutch readers (if any): I'm sorry, but there's just no translation for this weird yet delicious staple dish of the Dutch culinary world).



Gnocchi for Jochem (told you he was mad for it!).



Pappardelle for me.



Sardines for Jochem.



Finally, we all went to bed early where Manchego and I passed out during Oliver's Twist.



Great day.