Today was my last day at work for the next two weeks, which always means a long list of stuff to finish and leaving as little work as possible for the colleague who will cover for me. When I walked in to the office it turned out that all our systems were down. When this happened the last time (only last month, grrr) it took all morning for them to bring everything back online.
Cue short panic to think of how I was able to finish all that work - not a good start of the day.
The whole day has gone differently than expected. By the end of the working day my plans for tomorrow had disappeared and later my dinner company had to leave unexpectedly.
The good part? More dessert for me! I'm never a huge fan of desserts, but for tonight I made marinated strawberries (in a French liquor which has been in my cupboard mostly unused for much too long) with lime-flavoured mascarpone. Leave both in the fridge for an hour or so.
Yumm. Really really nice.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
July 29, 2011
November 24, 2009
Vegetable Overload
One of the things I started doing when I moved into my new house was take a 'subscription' on a weekly vegetablebag from the local eco-supermarket (unrelated to the No Impact Week, even!).
I'm really enjoying it. Although I don't mind cooking, I'm not very creative in my kitchen and usually make something standard with mushrooms/leek/zucchini/bell pepper.
For the past month or so I haven't been able to cook with that combination at all - I can't remember when I had my foolproof, unimaginative pasta-with-veggies-and-sauce for dinner last. Because at the moment I'm forced to cook with parsnips, brussel sprouts, endive, winter purslane (winterpostelein in Dutch, no idea what this is in English), cabbage, beets etc etc.
This means that most nights when I eat at home I need to find a recipe and work with that. And it is actually working!
Or rather, it would really work if I'd eat at home more often. I realized today that I really have an overdosis of vegetables at home right now. If anyone has any bright ideas on what to make with all this food that can freeze? I'd love to hear! (and yes, I down-graded to a smaller selection as of next week)
Still, fun though!
I'm really enjoying it. Although I don't mind cooking, I'm not very creative in my kitchen and usually make something standard with mushrooms/leek/zucchini/bell pepper.
For the past month or so I haven't been able to cook with that combination at all - I can't remember when I had my foolproof, unimaginative pasta-with-veggies-and-sauce for dinner last. Because at the moment I'm forced to cook with parsnips, brussel sprouts, endive, winter purslane (winterpostelein in Dutch, no idea what this is in English), cabbage, beets etc etc.
This means that most nights when I eat at home I need to find a recipe and work with that. And it is actually working!
Or rather, it would really work if I'd eat at home more often. I realized today that I really have an overdosis of vegetables at home right now. If anyone has any bright ideas on what to make with all this food that can freeze? I'd love to hear! (and yes, I down-graded to a smaller selection as of next week)
Still, fun though!
April 12, 2009
Easter
Despite the Easter holidays I'm having a very relaxed and quiet Sunday. This holiday doesn't mean anything special to me personally other than an extra day off. I had considered going to see my parents but as I had been there only two weeks ago, and I've had a really busy couple of weeks, I decided to stay at home and just relax.
That has worked perfectly. I spent the morning sleeping (after two long but very fun nights at Motel Mozaique), and the afternoon wandering through the city taking pictures and reading a book in the sun at a cafe.
My evening was spent making myself a yummy Easter dinner: chicoree/salmon lasagne. In preparation here:
And I know the end result looks like a big plate of mush, but it was actually pretty good!
Tomorrow will be more of the same. Yay.
That has worked perfectly. I spent the morning sleeping (after two long but very fun nights at Motel Mozaique), and the afternoon wandering through the city taking pictures and reading a book in the sun at a cafe.
My evening was spent making myself a yummy Easter dinner: chicoree/salmon lasagne. In preparation here:
And I know the end result looks like a big plate of mush, but it was actually pretty good!
Tomorrow will be more of the same. Yay.
November 30, 2008
Kitchen experiments
One of the things I've wanted to be able to cook for a long time has been pumpkin soup. Pumpkin has only become more popular to cook with here over the last few years but I love it. But somehow, doing something with pumpkin myself was very daunting.
(I don't know why this last picture is on its side, but I'll figure that out later)
It turned out quite well though, so I'm very happy :) On to the next cooking challenge!
(I don't know why this last picture is on its side, but I'll figure that out later)
It turned out quite well though, so I'm very happy :) On to the next cooking challenge!
October 20, 2008
More food
Yesterday's dinner
Yummm.
Although looking now at the last picture I don't think any Japanese person would guess that is Japanese curry but it does taste the way it should.
Yummm.
Although looking now at the last picture I don't think any Japanese person would guess that is Japanese curry but it does taste the way it should.
October 19, 2008
A new career: restaurant reviewing
On Friday a friend and I started the weekend with reservations at an apparently well-known Japanese restaurant in The Hague, Oni.
Armed with a notebook and an empty stomach, I was very much looking forward to some fabulous Japanese food. And in case you are wondering, 'why the notebook?', we were going to review the restaurant for a newsletter of a small club.
It really was a lot of fun - 'legitimately' commenting on every tiny detail: from lighting to tempura to toiletseats.
On the other hand, looking back there was hardly any food that we really liked. If we would have been there just to eat and chat I don't think we'd have noticed so much.
The restaurant is very highly listed in several rankings, but apart from the interior and the presentation of the food I fail to see why. It seems the restaurant sees itself as 'modern style Japanese' except that about 80% of their menu is very traditional. The traditional Japanese dishes are nice, not exceptional (although we didn't have any sushi or sashimi so maybe that is better and the bento-boxes did look amazing from a distance). And we didn't like any of the more experimental dishes. E50 becomes a lot for a dinner like that....
Luckily the dessert made up for much of it. Very yummy ginger cheesecake with chocolate icecream. Mmmmmm. And surprisingly good tempura icecream for my friend.
Armed with a notebook and an empty stomach, I was very much looking forward to some fabulous Japanese food. And in case you are wondering, 'why the notebook?', we were going to review the restaurant for a newsletter of a small club.
It really was a lot of fun - 'legitimately' commenting on every tiny detail: from lighting to tempura to toiletseats.
On the other hand, looking back there was hardly any food that we really liked. If we would have been there just to eat and chat I don't think we'd have noticed so much.
The restaurant is very highly listed in several rankings, but apart from the interior and the presentation of the food I fail to see why. It seems the restaurant sees itself as 'modern style Japanese' except that about 80% of their menu is very traditional. The traditional Japanese dishes are nice, not exceptional (although we didn't have any sushi or sashimi so maybe that is better and the bento-boxes did look amazing from a distance). And we didn't like any of the more experimental dishes. E50 becomes a lot for a dinner like that....
Luckily the dessert made up for much of it. Very yummy ginger cheesecake with chocolate icecream. Mmmmmm. And surprisingly good tempura icecream for my friend.
July 27, 2008
Food obsessed
Well, obsessed might be a big word. But I seem to be very preoccupied with the need to be able to bake and cook properly.
Is this me re-lapsing into the '50s and thinking I will never get hold of a man if I can't use my kitchen properly?
Or is it the influence of Ms. Cookie?
Or is it my genes playing up? I am after all the daughter of a kitchen chef.
Whichever it may be I seem to be obsessed about gaining the ability to bake proper pastry/dessert/cake/etc. After a few failed attempts, I seem to have made a successful dessert last Friday. Yumm.
And I can't seem to cook just by putting some ingredients together, and always have to pull out a recipe from somewhere if friends come over.
Well, luckily this weekend all of the above did work well. But that doesn't happen much. But why do I bother? Why is it so important to be able to just whisk up this magnificent meal in the kitchen? Highly frustrating!
Oh, and for inspiration of this post I had a look at my food challenges from a few years ago:
* bake desserts and cakes;
* grow my own herbs;
* use more non-standard kitchen utensils;
* take better care of cut-out recipes;
* use more seasonal foods;
* cook more Japanese.
Well, except for #2 & #5 I'm improving so I'll stop complaining!
Is this me re-lapsing into the '50s and thinking I will never get hold of a man if I can't use my kitchen properly?
Or is it the influence of Ms. Cookie?
Or is it my genes playing up? I am after all the daughter of a kitchen chef.
Whichever it may be I seem to be obsessed about gaining the ability to bake proper pastry/dessert/cake/etc. After a few failed attempts, I seem to have made a successful dessert last Friday. Yumm.
And I can't seem to cook just by putting some ingredients together, and always have to pull out a recipe from somewhere if friends come over.
Well, luckily this weekend all of the above did work well. But that doesn't happen much. But why do I bother? Why is it so important to be able to just whisk up this magnificent meal in the kitchen? Highly frustrating!
Oh, and for inspiration of this post I had a look at my food challenges from a few years ago:
* bake desserts and cakes;
* grow my own herbs;
* use more non-standard kitchen utensils;
* take better care of cut-out recipes;
* use more seasonal foods;
* cook more Japanese.
Well, except for #2 & #5 I'm improving so I'll stop complaining!
February 18, 2008
New discoveries
It's a Monday night and I'm slowly trying to catch up after an action packed weekend. This has been such a good one, really full but luckily only with good stuff, lots of different people, gorgeous weather - what more do I want?
On top of that, I spoiled myself with a fabulous new cookbook!
Not just on Russian food, but also on food from Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and... Azerbaidjan.
I'm SO excited. Can't wait to try it out. But, in case that doesn't happen (fairly likely actually), at least it will look good on my shelf of other cookbooks with food from various places of the world. Yay!
On top of that, I spoiled myself with a fabulous new cookbook!
Not just on Russian food, but also on food from Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and... Azerbaidjan.
I'm SO excited. Can't wait to try it out. But, in case that doesn't happen (fairly likely actually), at least it will look good on my shelf of other cookbooks with food from various places of the world. Yay!
November 22, 2007
Good food!
Have been trying out some new restaurants lately, very very good:
- last week was lunch at the Zijlstroom, a newly renovated restaurant on the outskirts of the city. Would love to try out the dinner menu there once too....
- dinner this weekend at Scheltema, another new place which doubles as a theatre complex. Much more posh than expected but good!
- today was an unexpectedly good lunch at Shirasagi, what was supposed to be a casual lunch with Koreans turned into a visit to a place where I've wanted to go for ages - great sushi and sashimi followed with nabeyaki udon. Yumm!
-----
In other (bad) news, the airline switched our flights which means that instead of flying home from Madrid at 7pm in January, we now have to get up ridiculously early to leave with the rescheduled flight at 7am. Argh! Guess I'll have to wait a bit more to see Madrid....
- last week was lunch at the Zijlstroom, a newly renovated restaurant on the outskirts of the city. Would love to try out the dinner menu there once too....
- dinner this weekend at Scheltema, another new place which doubles as a theatre complex. Much more posh than expected but good!
- today was an unexpectedly good lunch at Shirasagi, what was supposed to be a casual lunch with Koreans turned into a visit to a place where I've wanted to go for ages - great sushi and sashimi followed with nabeyaki udon. Yumm!
-----
In other (bad) news, the airline switched our flights which means that instead of flying home from Madrid at 7pm in January, we now have to get up ridiculously early to leave with the rescheduled flight at 7am. Argh! Guess I'll have to wait a bit more to see Madrid....
October 07, 2007
Moroccan cuisine
I currently have a big Moroccan tajine on loan from a friend who's off to Uganda for a few months to see gorilla's and more.
It's been sitting in my house for months though, without having anything to do. Saturday, though, was spent shopping for ingredients for the following dish. It turned out quite well luckily!
Now.... off to Morocco to buy one for myself?
Moroccan fish tagine with coriander couscous
(from here)
It's been sitting in my house for months though, without having anything to do. Saturday, though, was spent shopping for ingredients for the following dish. It turned out quite well luckily!
Now.... off to Morocco to buy one for myself?
Moroccan fish tagine with coriander couscous
Ingredients
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tbsp ground nut oil
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 tsp ginger
1 cinnamon stick
1 preserved lemon or normal lemon, chopped
12 green olives, stoned and roughly chopped
1 tbsp home-made harrissa (see below)
125ml/4fl oz white wine
200ml/7fl oz fish stock
1 pinch of saffron
500g/1lb 2oz mixed firm fish, such as monkfish, gurnard, mackerel
200g/7oz mussels
100g/3½oz cherry tomatoes
couscous and coriander to serve
For the home-made harrissa
3 fresh red chillies, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1-2 lemons, juice only
4 tbsp olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
Method
1. Heat the ground nut oil in a tagine and gently cook the onion and garlic until soft.
2. Add the cumin, ginger, cinnamon stick, preserved lemon and green olives and cook for two minutes.
3. To make the harrissa put the chillies, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil into a food processor and blend into a rough paste.
4. Stir in the harrissa and cook for one minute.
5. Add the wine and fish stock and the saffron and bring to a gentle simmer.
6. Add the fish and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the mussels and cherry tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and cover. Cook gently for 6-7 minutes.
7. Serve on a bed of steamed couscous and sprinkle with freshly chopped coriander.
(from here)
September 09, 2007
Coriander
Another highlight of the last weekend was Friday night - a delicious dinner with four good friends.
Originally, the plan was a pretty decadent night out. Well, okay. It still kind of was. We just had dinner at a restaurant with only one Michelin-star instead of three.
We walked into Koriander at 7:30pm. We walked out again at 1am. Great evening of amazing food (we had a surprise-menu: the best parts for me were the white bean soup with sole (I think?), the main course of duck breast (sp?), lots of cheese, and so on....), good conversation, lovely atmosphere - good stuff.
So, now we'll have to start thinking of what restaurant to try out next year....
Originally, the plan was a pretty decadent night out. Well, okay. It still kind of was. We just had dinner at a restaurant with only one Michelin-star instead of three.
We walked into Koriander at 7:30pm. We walked out again at 1am. Great evening of amazing food (we had a surprise-menu: the best parts for me were the white bean soup with sole (I think?), the main course of duck breast (sp?), lots of cheese, and so on....), good conversation, lovely atmosphere - good stuff.
So, now we'll have to start thinking of what restaurant to try out next year....
March 04, 2007
Sushi - but different
Midnight/noise (whose work I love btw, if you are ever wondering what kind of present you should get me...) links to Koo-ki Sushi
Gorgeous looking chocolate sushi for those people who don't like raw fish. Or for those who do, but love chocolate too (that'd be me).
Gorgeous looking chocolate sushi for those people who don't like raw fish. Or for those who do, but love chocolate too (that'd be me).
February 28, 2007
Haring!!
Haring!!
Originally uploaded by Liiisa_foto.
One of the things we did on our international weekend with visiting friends from all over (well, Germany, the US & the UK) was to give them an introduction to Dutch streetfood.
Strangely enough, I never really think of the Netherlands as having streetfood (except for maybe Belgian fries with big blobs of mayonaise) but wandering the market with DutchCookie changed my mind.
The herring that we tried was very good, and later on we had coffee with a freshly baked stroopwafel while touring some scenic alleyways of Leiden. In the rain though. Ah well, I suppose that is the Dutch way to do it.
February 24, 2006
Food tagged!
Well, I could've seen this one coming, Y has tagged me to list five food things, challenges. Right.
1) Learn to bake cakes and dessert-like stuff. Although that also means that I need to have more people over for dinner and so on because I won't be able to eat it all myself.
2) Grow my own herbs. I have a little patio thing with my apartment but it doesn't get any direct sunlight so I'm not sure if I can do it there. Friends of mine always use fresh herbs and it's so nice. Even if it's not for the taste, the idea of growing stuff yourself (but being in the city) sort of sounds good :)
3) Use my not-so-standard kitchen stuff more often: steam basket, grill pan, etc. I should be able to make loads of yummy food with it, I just need to make an effort to find some good recipes for it.
4) Take better care of randomly printed and cut-out recipes.
5) Use more seasonal foods. That probably means that I need to get my dad to teach me how to cook some of the less common vegetables. It's somewhat unclear to me how I can be the daughter of a chef, but not know some basic kitchen stuff.
Hmm, who to tag next? Who else but Cookie? This is definitely her kind of tag. Plus: Bonny, Kanakana (once she's back from the US of course) and Pompelmoes. Yoroshiku ne ;)
[Update @ 25/2]
I actually thought of another challenge that I should have included:
6) Cook more Japanese!
I made the best gyoza and okonomiyaki a few weeks ago, so will have to do that more often. But tonight I think I might dive into my Wagamama cookbook (okay, not completely authentic Japanese) for a good ramen-recipe. Yummm.
1) Learn to bake cakes and dessert-like stuff. Although that also means that I need to have more people over for dinner and so on because I won't be able to eat it all myself.
2) Grow my own herbs. I have a little patio thing with my apartment but it doesn't get any direct sunlight so I'm not sure if I can do it there. Friends of mine always use fresh herbs and it's so nice. Even if it's not for the taste, the idea of growing stuff yourself (but being in the city) sort of sounds good :)
3) Use my not-so-standard kitchen stuff more often: steam basket, grill pan, etc. I should be able to make loads of yummy food with it, I just need to make an effort to find some good recipes for it.
4) Take better care of randomly printed and cut-out recipes.
5) Use more seasonal foods. That probably means that I need to get my dad to teach me how to cook some of the less common vegetables. It's somewhat unclear to me how I can be the daughter of a chef, but not know some basic kitchen stuff.
Hmm, who to tag next? Who else but Cookie? This is definitely her kind of tag. Plus: Bonny, Kanakana (once she's back from the US of course) and Pompelmoes. Yoroshiku ne ;)
[Update @ 25/2]
I actually thought of another challenge that I should have included:
6) Cook more Japanese!
I made the best gyoza and okonomiyaki a few weeks ago, so will have to do that more often. But tonight I think I might dive into my Wagamama cookbook (okay, not completely authentic Japanese) for a good ramen-recipe. Yummm.
July 09, 2005
宇治抹茶 - KitKat adventures
Update: I realized I hadn't told you yet what I thought of this new KitKat. Not bad at all! Surprisingly... You hardly taste the azuki-bean-stuff (which is a good thing) and the rest just mostly tastes like green tea chocolate. So, what else is new... Fact of life in Japan. If you live here, you need to be able to eat anything with green tea flavour!
Speaking of which, I have never really tried the green tea soft icecream. Nor the green tea Haagen Dasz (sp?). The other day I came across a very weird flavour though: soba-flavour soft ice! Bizarre.
Original (02/07)
Another foodpost. KitKat has been trying to be inventive in Japan this year. So far I've seen green-tea-KitKat, white-chocolate-KitKat, cafe-latte-KitKat, and this is the latest: kakikoori-KitKat. KitKat with the taste of kakikori (crushed ice, I think) with green tea, azuki red beans and milk... Without the KitKat, it's a popular summer treat. Haven't tried it yet. I'm a bit hesitant about this particular flavour but will get back to you!
Speaking of which, I have never really tried the green tea soft icecream. Nor the green tea Haagen Dasz (sp?). The other day I came across a very weird flavour though: soba-flavour soft ice! Bizarre.
Original (02/07)
Another foodpost. KitKat has been trying to be inventive in Japan this year. So far I've seen green-tea-KitKat, white-chocolate-KitKat, cafe-latte-KitKat, and this is the latest: kakikoori-KitKat. KitKat with the taste of kakikori (crushed ice, I think) with green tea, azuki red beans and milk... Without the KitKat, it's a popular summer treat. Haven't tried it yet. I'm a bit hesitant about this particular flavour but will get back to you!
July 02, 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)