"What I Cooked Today" Day 349

Today was another great day - I have been having a really good weekend (no offense, honey, plus: you were there in the afternoon, after all). I woke up at 9 AM with a massive headache, so I decided to make a quick break to the bathroom and go right back to sleep. This is significant, since I almost never sleep in because as much as I love to sleep, I hate losing half of my day to being unconscious. I woke up at 11 AM, got up, had a cup of coffee, and browsed the internet for a little while. Then I made myself this breakfast. When I studied at UCLA (7 years ago now!), I had this exact breakfast every single morning for the first 3 months. I say 3 months, because that's how long it took me to realize that perhaps this wasn't very good for my health (and I gained the appropriate pounds accordingly). But boy: I liked it! So I made it again today. I toasted a bagel in butter and added cheddar and scrambled eggs. I also had some mango juice and I watched a new tv show that I have discovered about summer romances. Bliss!

In the afternoon my friends and I met in the park for a bbq. Mag had her mind set on a bbq and once that redhead has put her mind on something, you can't stop her (and why would you?). In the neighborhood where I live, houses are always heavily overpriced because of their location (quiet neighborhood, but close to the city center), and gardens, roof terraces and balconies are a real luxury. So most people just sit out on the street or in the park, which is what we did. I guess that I should've biked today (although I did meet this week's quota of doing yoga 5 times because of the pains in my neck, shoulders and back, I only biked once as opposed to 3), but you know what? Sometimes you just gotta let go and enjoy life as it comes. So what if I decided weeks ago to bike 3 times a week? Does that mean that I MUST bike 3 times every week for as long as I have the thing in my living room? Of course not. So I didn't. And if guilt does overcome me on Monday morning, I can always decide to bike 5 times next week.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 348

Today was a good day! I did have to work in Amsterdam for 7 hours while the rest of the country enjoyed the sun, but I made it home in time to catch a few sun rays myself on our teeny, tiny balcony. I had asked Bic to come over for a girls' night of good food, wine and movies, since I didn't want to spend another evening by myself and she lives just around the block anyway. We had some Coronas on the balcony and then I made a pasta dish with not 4 but 5 different kinds of cheese (I embellished). I am not a big fan myself of any dish that has so many melted cheeses, but I knew that Bic would like it, so I went all out at one of those cute little cheese shops in the neighborhood. It turns out that I actually did like it very much - probably because everything was so fresh and homemade. (I think that I won't be able to enjoy any food now if it's not been homemade - when Bic asked me on Wednesday what I wanted to eat, I said that I didn't care as long as it didn't come from a can or jar!) I used buffalo mozzarella, Emmenthaler, taleggio, fresh goat's cheese and Parmesan.

Source: The Silver Spoon: Pasta

Then something funny happened. It turned out that Mag did have the evening off after all and she promptly graced us with a visit. So then I also invited Marije to join us, since she also lives close by. We watched PS I Love You on my couch while drinking these babies: beautifully pink rhubarb bellinis to welcome the coming of spring. Great night, ladies!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 347

(pre-oven)

(post-oven)

Today, after work, Jochem left for Brussels to spend time with his family and I stayed home alone. I believe that it is important for everyone to spend some time alone sometimes and I relished the opportunity with both hands (although I'm pretty sure that this is not a correct English sentence). I put on Becoming Jane and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to watch, poured myself a glass of white wine (which I needed for my dinner, so it was totally justifiable to buy a whole bottle for myself), got into my old leather chair and had this dinner. This dinner was amazing. What was perhaps even more amazing, was that I didn't even like the little leftover sliver of chicken the most (and I LOVE chicken, especially now that it has become as rare as diamonds in this household). I had to work till 6.30 PM today, so I picked a recipe that I could make on Thursday, which is my day off. I used one of Jamie Oliver's bag recipes, where you make a little bag of tin foil, put in your ingredients, and steam it in the oven. I had already assembled my bag with the chicken, lima beans, leek, oregano, salt and pepper. I also added these beautiful potatoes that I found at the green grocer's (since I could only afford the one little sliver of chicken and was afraid that my carb-craving self would be hungry with just the vegetables) - I don't remember the name of the potatoes, but they had the most beautiful red skin. The people let me buy two of them for a mere 25 cents. So, when I came home after work, I added some white wine, some cream, and lots of butter and put it in the oven for half an hour and enjoyed the most beautiful symphony of flavors with hardly any trouble. Happy weekend to you too!

Source: Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 346

Today Jochem and I cooked from Jochem's men's book again. We stuffed some pita bread with salad, feta cheese, spicy olive oil and Parmesan cheese and then added chicken (!) that had been marinated and grilled in a spicy yogurt sauce. It is a great dish, but I think that we were so distracted by the presence of chicken that we forgot to take a picture!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 345

Today my friends wanted to come over for dinner. I was glad to see them, because I hadn't seen them in a while and was in need of some friendly company (especially after the downright brutal day that I had at work - I actually had to skip lunch because it was so busy). While Mag and I enjoyed white wine and Coronas on our balcony, Bic prepared an amazing mushroom risotto with goat's cheese on a bed of rocket. For dessert we had mascarpone ice cream. Bliss!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 344

Today we had fresh pasta again! We made a lot of sauce yesterday and Jochem made more spagetti. I could probably cook my way through this whole book and be perfectly content.

Source: The Silver Spoon: Pasta

"What I Cooked Today" Day 343

Linda and Henric's graduation gift may be the best gift ever, because I have eaten fresh pasta three days in a row! Tonight we had spagetti with onion, garlic, eggplant, mushrooms and cream.

Source: The Silver Spoon: Pasta

"What I Cooked Today" Day 342

Today was a really great day. I tried to spend my time as softly as possible, although a few hours were spent doing the obligatory e-mailing, blogging and researching the world trip (like booking a boat trip to London and a plane ticket from Singapore to Denpasar). The rest of the day, however, was spent in leisure - watching TV and eating. For lunch we made these beautiful American pancakes with mandarin and almonds.

Source: Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

For dinner we made homemade pasta with tomatoes from the oven.

Source: The Silver Spoon: Pasta

"What I Cooked Today" Day 341

Jochem received an amazing gift for his graduation from his mother and stepfather: a special edition from The Silver Spoon about pasta. They had already given us the original version of The Silver Spoon, which is the Italian food bible, and now we have another book that is only about pasta. Jochem immediately put it to the test by preparing homemade pasta with a lemon and cream sauce. Jochem used semola flower for the first time and it made all the difference in the world. It was delicious!

Source: The Silver Spoon: Pasta

"What I Cooked Today" Day 340

For breakfast Jochem and I made this little beauty:

This is a spin off of a Jamie Oliver recipe. Jochem loves avocado, so I thought that he would appreciate this dish for breakfast today. We used leftover pita bread instead of tortillas and we didn't have any coriander, but the flavors were amazing nonetheless. It's basically scrambled egss with spring onion, grated cheese, tomatoes and homemade guacamole.

Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver

Then, after my parents had picked us up, we drove to the Hague for Jochem's graduation ceremony:

He is now the proud owner of one Bachelor of Business Administration in Hospitality Management. Plus: he did it in just 3,5 years! Afterwards, all of us went to one of our favorite restaurants: Bacco Perbacco, also known as an old living room run by two Italian brothers and one daughter where they serve the best (the BEST!) Italian food in the country. The other day my colleague said that I use any celebration as an excuse to eat, so I guess she knows me quite well by now. The food was an amazing rythmic melody of textures and flavors: antipasti, pasta, meat, dessert, wine and, of course, homemade limoncello. I don't really recall the specifics, however, because I think that my mom and I had just a little bit too much of the celebratory prosecco. Congratulations Jochem!!!