"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

"What I Cooked Today" Day 196

Today I had a pretty good day. I slept in a little, had coffee while browsing through my new world trip travel book (courtesy to my awesome in-laws), had eggs for breakfast with Jochem while watching Bones (always a pleasure), planned our world trip a little, ran some errands, and read a lot in my Twilight saga (so sue me). Unfortunately, Jochem had to leave in the afternoon for work, so I was by myself for dinner. I was therefore very grateful to have left-over pumpkin risotto. Now I think I'll go and watch The Holiday in bed to end the weekend.

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 195

Today Jochem's older brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner. Whenever we cook for Jochem's family I always get a little bit nervous, because they like to eat meat, potatoes and vegetables, which is something we make for ourselves, well, almost never. Not because we don't like it, but because we're far too scatter-brained to stick to these three ingredients and like to make food that tends to be a bit more exotic. Then again, when they like it, it is a huge pay-off. We made a couple of things: roasted potatoes from the oven (Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson) and pork chops with a dried apricot, prosciutto and sage butter filling (Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver).

We also made our favorite carrots from the oven with white wine, butter, thyme and cumin (Source: The Return of the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver).

For desssert we made what Nigella likes to call a devil's food cake, which basically translates to a chocolate cake oozing in dark chocolate frosting (Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson).



And to top it all off: limoncello!

Panic

You might be interested to know that my post-world-ticket-purchase glow lasted for about a couple of hours before I had an axiety attack. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I was actually panicking, but I definitely took the time to think: OH MY GOD!!! In less than a year I'll be traveling out of a backpack for 9 months! I won't have my own place! I'm homeless (or living with my parents in Almelo, which could be even worse)! I won't be able to see my cats for almost a year! Will they remember us? Will my fish still be alive (since I think it to be a distinct possibility that my mom 'forgets' to feed them or clean their bowl)? Am I am even the kind of person who likes to travel for so long? The last time that I was away for a long period of time was when I was studying at UCLA, and this was only for 6 months, where I had a room of my own, friends nearby and was operating in a society where everyone speaks English. I like to be at home with my pets. I like to cook. I won't have a homebase at the hostels we'll visit and the only cooking we'll be doing will be on little gas burners in the Australian outback. I was suddenly very afraid of the finality of it all, and it remains scary. Scary in a good way, I hope.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 194

Today Jochem made pizza again! We still had so much leftover pumpkin that we used it to top the pizza. We also used homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella and bacon. It was fall on a pizza!

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver