"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.