"What I Cooked Today" Day 6

Today Jochem and I took over my mom's kitchen and cooked goulash from spicy pork with red, yellow and green peppers, tomatoes, red onions and chilies. We served it with white rice and creme fraiche with lemon zest and parsley. It took the pork 3 hours to cook in the oven!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 5

Today I did not cook. My dad came to Utrecht this afternoon to pick up Jochem, Bicho, Manchego and me (naturally, we left Pasta and Pesto at home) for a long weekend with the family in Almelo. Instead of cooking ourselves, Jochem and I enjoyed my mom's cooking. She had prepared a couple of dishes: for starters, we had carpaccio. Then we had my Spanish family's famous spaghetti, which I should really start mastering soon, since my little brother is swiftly surpassing me in this task. The main course was accompanied by a Spanish salad, bread and cheese. For dessert I had tea with a slice of left-over cheesecake, while mom, dad and Jochem had coffee. Even though we did not cook dinner today, we did put together something special for breakfast. We used left-overs to prepare an omelet with garlic, mushrooms, red onion, cheddar and coriander. Bicho liked the look of it too!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 4

Today was Jochem's 24th birthday, and like with most major celebrations, we leaped at the opportunity to try out some new recipes. Usually we pick recipes that are even more special than the recipes we make daily, except today I had nothing to do with the picking of the recipes - it being Jochem's birthday, he picked out all of the following:

For starters, we cooked crostini with red and yellow peppers, red tomatoes, black olives, capers, chilies, garlic, basil and mozzarella.



Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

For our main course, we cooked köfte kebabs made from lamb, including roasted tortillas, pistachio nuts and creme fraiche and a spicy salad with red onion, parsley and mint.



Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

For dessert, we made cheesecake with lime and coconut.



Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

Happy Birthday Jochem!!!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 3

Today Jochem and I cooked a stew with chicken filets, onions, mushrooms, cream, garlic, nutmeg, lemon zest and parsley. We made the stew with chicken broth and homemade dumplings. It was quite a task to make this dish after a very long day at work, but it was well worth the trouble - it was delicious!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 2

Today Jochem and I cooked apple pancakes with caramelized honey and cinnamon. I chose this recipe because both Jochem and I had to work late; Jochem didn't get home from the Hague until 7 PM and I had a 3-hour class on Educational Psychology till 6 PM. Pancakes are always quick and easy to make and always tasty - a real comfort food. We used one entire apple and grated it into the pancake batter, including the core, which is supposedly very nutritional. These pancakes are also fantastic with other kinds of fruit, like banana or blueberries, or with nuts, like macademia nuts. You could also add a simple twist by adding grated lemon zest or, my favorite, grated coconut to the pancake batter. Delish!

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 1

Today Jochem and I cooked a Gordon Bennett omelet with spring onions, chives, lemon, Parmesan cheese and smoked mackerel. I chose this recipe because it's Monday and on Mondays I don't like to go through too much trouble when preparing dinner whilst getting back into work mode, but I still like to eat good food.

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver on Food

For an inspirational speech by one of my favorite people in the world, look here to hear Jamie Oliver talk about his wish to teach every child about food.

Mini Food Blog

I have decided to start a mini food blog within this blog. As with most of my ideas, I was inspired by others. BFF Anna often posts blogs called "What I Wore Today," which I think is really cute. Said BFF also introduced me to the blog Bread and Honey, which is a blog about food written by Alicia Lynn Carrier interspersed with beautiful pictures. I believe that I already mentioned the movie Julie and Julia in which a woman blogs about cooking French recipes every single day. I often wish that I would have had such great blog ideas myself, but as they say in Dutch, it is better to steal well than to make crappy yourself (loosely translated), so I decided to grab all of these ideas, mix them up, and make it my own.

Reason for before-mentioned mini food blog is the below-pictured new digital photo camera that Jochem and I purchased, namely the Olympus STYLUS TOUGH-8010. Jochem enjoys taking pictures and is really good at it too, but we didn't feel really comfortable buying an expensive digital photo camera to bring on our world trip. This thing, as the name implicates, is tough. It is:

- waterproof (33 ft.);
- shockproof (6.6 ft.);
- crushproof (220 lbf.);
- freezeproof (14 degrees f.).

Now, I don't really know what any of those numbers mean, but it sounds good.

But anyway, after finally having a digital photo camera again, I thought it'd be nice to put it to good use. That is why I am going to try, starting next week when it will hopefully finally be delivered, to post a picture every single day about what I made for dinner. You know I love to cook and this would be my way of sharing it with you. A kind of "What I Cooked Today" mini food blog. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Impromptu Part II

Apparently, I have already written about "Impromptu" once before, but I have to do it again.

I remember living with my all of my friends on one tiny campus. After that, all of my friends lived near downtown Utrecht. It's not like that anymore. We were kicked off campus after three years and my friends have moved on. I remember being able to walk out of my room, set one step and knock on Anna's door. I remember having dinner with Bic, Mag and Mar every week. Things have changed.

Danielle has always been far away in California. Of course I will see her again during our trip to France, but the last time I saw her was on Sunday, October 19, 2008 - exactly one year and six months ago today. Anna moved to Brussels one year ago and is being quite the succesful artsy busy bee there, which makes it difficult to see her regularly. Mag moved to Amersfoort in August 2009 and is also extremely busy at her teaching job which often makes it too straining to meet up during the week, while Mar usually visits her boyfriend Rien during the weekends which makes it hard for her to meet up then. Of course these changes are far from welcome, but I must admit, you get used to it. As you get older, your world slowly but surely becomes very small - I spend most of my time at home with Jochem, the cats and the fish when I'm not either working or studying. Family has become more important lately than it was a couple of years ago.

This trend is something that you detest yet also eventually become accustomed to, until one week you are suddenly able to spontaneously spend a lot of time with your friends and you can't imagine how you were able to be apart from them for so long.

Like last week. On Wednesday afternoon I met Bic downtown for cold Coronas and bitterballen on a not so sunny terrace. On Saturday night Jochem had friends over so I suggested cooking at Bic's place. We made mac 'n' cheese and salad and had chocolate ice cream for dessert. We also watched two movies and drank way too much, including some very strong Italian limoncello with Jochem, but that is besides the point. I didn't get to bed until 5 AM and I didn't know I still had it in me! The next day we were somehow all able to rearrange our schedules and all seven of us, Bic, Mag, Roland, Mar, Rien, Jochem and I, spent the sunny afternoon in the park. Jochem and I made Thai curry afterwards.

It was quite the perfect little impromptu weekend.

Dental Ego

You know how some people are afraid of the dentist or otherwise really dread going there? I display quite the opposite sentiment. I mean, it's not that I actually like waking up early, biking 15 minutes in the cold and waiting for my turn, but a visit to the dentist is always a kind of weird ego boost for me. My dentist starts off by asking me whether I floss, at which I answer that since I still have braces residue in my mouth, I use toothpicks. "Very good," is what he says. After a quick scan (I'm always in and out of the dentist's office within 5 minutes, which is never enough time to read the gossip magazines in the waiting room that you would never buy yourself), he tells me, his assistant and everyone else who's listening that if all of his patients were like me he'd be out of work. He leaves me with a "Perfect!" for dessert. Not bad for an ordinary blah Tuesday morning.