"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