"What I Cooked Today" Day 313

Today Jochem's ex-stepmother, Joke, and her partner, Kees, come over for dinner. We don't see them very often, but when we do, it's always nice to catch up. We made three new dishes for the occasion, including one of our favorite things in the culinary world: gnocchi! Jochem is a particular fan of gnocchi, but I, especially, was always a little intimidated by the daunting task of actually making it ourselves. Turns out that it's not that hard (as Jamie Oliver says: kids can do it)! We served our gnocchi with a simple tomato sauce made with fresh roma tomatoes, garlic, dried chili, basil and rocket. We also made a lovely broad bean salad with ham, parsley and rocket to accompany the dish, but we forgot to take a picture of it - sorry Nigella!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 12 August/September 2010



For dessert we made a flowerless chocolate and lime cake with marguerita cream, which I believe was a huge hit. It was pretty good: rich with chocolate but light because of the lime, so it's easy to have a lot of without feeling full. Jochem had two pieces!

Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

"What I Cooked Today" Day 312

These past couple of weeks I have been feeling very restless come Friday night. It's the weekend after a long week of work - I don't want to sit at home, I want to DO things! Go out! Have dinner downtown! Have drinks at a hip bar! Finally see those Oscar-winning movies! Unfortunately, being close to broke all the time makes any of this nearly impossible. The least you can do then is prepare good food and have the people you love around. So Jochem and I invited Bic over for our favorite pizza with braised pork and Love and Other Drugs. At least that's something, right?

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 311

Today Jochem and I cooked a Greek tomato soup with rice and one special ingredient: tahini (sesame seed paste) that we had bought at the Moroccan store downtown on Saturday. We mixed the tahini with lemon juice, salt and pepper before adding it to the soup. We served the soup with feta and parsley and also prepared some garlic crostinis. It left the most wonderful aftertaste!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011

"What I Cooked Today" Day 310

Today Bic and Mag came over to cook for us. Instead of writing about it, let me show you what they did:

















Thank you, my sweet friends, for a wonderful dinner!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 309

Today we made one of our favorites: broccoli and cauliflower stuffed cannelloni with homemade tomato and béchamel sauce with lots of grated cheese, mozzarella and basil. I can never get enough of this dish!

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 308

Sometimes a girl is broke and has to work with what she has. Which is why today we used leftover coconut rice and and a couple of onions to make dinner. We tried to fry the rice with some egg, but forgot to use salt. Again. The onions were a success, though. After cooking the onions for 15 minutes you remove the inside part, sautée it with some garlic and rosemary, add cream and Parmesan cheese, put all that back inside the onion, wrap around some pancetta, and put it in the oven. Always a winner.

Source: Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson / Happy Days with the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

PS: That's me in the background - reading Lonely Planet's South America on a Shoestring and taking notes. Our world trip is only 6 months away!

"What I Cooked Today" Day 307

Today we made köfte. I love köfte because it has so many different levels of flavors. These köfte were made with lamb, pistachios, chili, cumin and a spice that we brought from Istanbul, sumak, which is made from red berries. We also made a salad with mint and red onion soaked in lemon juice, which takes off the sting from the onion and at the same time sweetens it. We added some creme fraiche and parsley and voila: a delicious and surprisingly fast dinner is made! After cooking we ate while watching Part III of The Godfather: the end to this weekend.

Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

"What I Cooked Today" Day 306

This weekend has been very quiet so far. Jochem and I have not arranged to meet up with anyone or to do anything, besides doing the weekly groceries. Of course, you can also find me at least once a day on a bike and in various yoga poses, but those activities do not count as plans to me. It's strange how I always want more time to do nothing, but when I have the time, I feel bored. I must be extremely spoiled.

Anyway, as far as cooking goes, Jochem and I decided to make a simple yet delicious pasta dish. You cook some rigatoni, make your own tomato sauce, grab some basil, Parmesan and mozzarella and start filling up an oven dish, lasagna-style. I accidentally used two dried chilis instead of one, so it was way too spicy, but really good nonetheless.



Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

For dessert we made cookies with twice the required amount of cranberries and white chocolate. I also added some leftover dark chocolate for good measure.



Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 14 November/December 2010

Then we proceeded to watch The Godfather Part I and half of Part II. We didn't get our couch potato asses into bed till 4 AM.

"What I Cooked Today" Day 305

Today Jochem and I had our last pieces of moussaka for dinner and carrot cake for dessert, which is nothing worth blogging about at this point. We did, however, stay up till the wee hours of the morning to watch TV and decided to make ourselves a little midnight snack. Jamie calls this sandwich a roast chip butty and it is basically, in our interpretation, a sandwich toasted in butter with mayonaise and French fries tossed in sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika and chili. So bad but so good!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011

"What I Cooked Today" Day 304

More moussaka! More carrot cake!

Source: Jamie Magazine Issue 15 January 2011 / Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson