"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