Abóbora gostosa

Cake with pears in syrup

2012-01-05T00:00:00.003+01:00

While staying at my mum's I was leafing through The Silver Spoon cookbook (Il cucchiaio d'argento). Since we had guests coming to dinner I decided to make the Corona alle Pere for dessert. Another opportunity to sample the great St-Rémy pears from my mother's garden, a special variety that needs to be stewed.

Serves 6-8

4-6 pears, depending on the size (I used 4 huge pears)

juice of 1 lemon

250 g sugar

500 ml red wine

50 g butter

3 eggs

3 tbsp milk

120 g flour

pinch of baking powder

Peel the pears, remove the core and cut them in 4-8. Put them in a bowl with the lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

Move them to a saucepan, add 100 g sugar and the wine. The pears should just be covered in wine.

Bring to the boil over a low heat and simmer gently until the pears are cooked. Cooking time depends on the variety of pear used.

Leave the pears to cool in their syrup.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Grease a cake tin with butter and dust it with flour.

Beat the egg yolks with 150 g sugar until pale and creamy.

Mix baking powder with flour and stir it in.

Melt butter and add milk and stir this in.

Wisk egg whites and fold them in.

Pour the mixture in the cake tin and bake for about 30 min.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

Meanwhile remove the pears from the syrup.

Put the cake in a serving dish.

Reheat the syrup, then sprinkle some of it on to the cake, a little at a time, to allow absorption.

Pour the reminder of the syrup over the pears again.

Serve the cake with the pears.

Note: The original recipe tells you to bake the cake as a crown and place the pears in the middle of it. The pears are cored and left whole. A lot more wine is used. Baking powder is only added completely at the end when making the cake.

Note: Another great recipe using stewed pears was blogged by Leafy Cooking.

Chick pea casserole

2011-07-22T19:53:00.003+02:00

Our favourite vegetarian dish at the moment also stems from Sarah Brown's Vegetarian Cookbook. It's quick and easy to prepare and you can use any vegetables that are lying around.

Serves 2

1 can of boiled chick peas
some olive or sunflower oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
a few celery sprigs, chopped
some fennel, chopped
some green beans, chopped
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp fennel or cumin seeds

Fry onion and seeds in oil for a few minutes, then add garlic and vegetables. Fry for a few more minutes. Drain chick peas and rinse them. Add them to the vegetables and fry for a few more minutes. Add some boiling water so everything is just covered. Add bay leaf and pepper and salt. Bring to the boil, then let it simmer on low heat for 15-20 min., until the vegetables are cooked.

We serve this with couscous and chilli paste (sambal or harissa). Sometimes I add chilli pepper while cooking the dish. You can vary endlessly with vegetables and spices.

Chicken or pork marinade

2011-07-22T19:42:00.003+02:00

Someone in my household refuses to eat chicken breast or pork chops, unless they have been marinated, especially when they are going to be cooked on the barbecue. I use a marinade meant for tofu from Sarah Brown's Vegetarian Cookbook, a vegetarian classic that was a favourite in my student days.

For 2 chicken breasts or pork chops

1 small onion, chopped very finely
4 tbsp peanut or sunflower oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp dry sherry
2 tsp honey
1 tbsp grated ginger
3 garlic cloves, crushed

Mix all ingredients, then add the meat and let it marinate for 2-3 hours. Take the meat out for cooking. Pour the marinade trough a sieve and let the juice boil for a few min. if you would like a tasty sauce.
No pic in these extremely busy times.

London again

2011-04-03T12:43:00.002+02:00

Spent a few days in London again. My main activity was: letting two little cousins meet. As one of the cousins was travelling with us, we couldn't go out for dinner at night. So we spread out a towel on the floor of our hotel room and had delicious Korean take away from Han Kang in Hanway Street. We had grilled seaweed of course, a very spicy soup, gyoza (grilled dumplings), 3 types of kimchi...

Boeuf bourguignon

2010-12-30T18:57:00.005+01:00

For New Year's Eve we are making boeuf bourguignon, based on a recipe by Alice B. Toklas. It's been prepared one day in advance.

Serves 4

1 kg beef, special meat for stews, in cubes
butter
150 g bacon, in cubes
2 dl red wine
12 small onions, cut in quarters
2 cloves garlic, cut finely
2 carrots, cut in thin vertical slices
a few mushrooms, cut in slices
1 bay leaf
a few thyme sprigs
a piece of nutmeg
salt & pepper
1 slice of bread, without crusts

Put a big cooking pan on very low heat and add a little wine.
Fry beef in butter, seal it well on all sides, add pepper and salt generously, transfer to cooking pan. Fry one half of the meat first and then the remainder.
Fry bacon in the same pan used for frying the meat, then transfer to the big pan.
Fry onion for a few minutes in the same pan, then add carrots and garlic. Fry for a few more minutes, then remove from the pan and set aside.
Fry mushrooms in the same pan, then remove and set aside.
Cover beef and bacon with red wine and some hot water if necessary. The meat should just be covered. Add bay leaf, thyme and nutmeg. Put the slice of bread on top.
Let this simmer on very low heat for 3 hours.
Then add onions and carrots and let it simmer for another 30 min.
Add mushrooms and let it simmer for 5 min.
Remove bay leaf, thyme and nutmeg.
Serve with parsley.

Note: I'm not sure about when to add the garlic. It's probably better not to add it together with the carrots. Then you can fry onions and garlic at medium heat without fearing to burn the garlic. I need to consult with master cook P on this.

London

2010-09-03T14:12:00.003+02:00

Spent a few days in London this Summer and we did have time for an English tea on the top floor of Waterstone's on Piccadilly. However one of us had to make many rounds of the bar to calm down our over-excited little one before we were able to enjoy our tea.

Kousmine breakfast

2010-05-13T16:59:00.005+02:00

When I was pregnant, my aunt told me to eat this for breakfast so I would have a very intelligent baby ;-) Not sure if he is, but in any case it's very healthy and helps preventing constipation during pregnancy and after giving birth. It's rich in fiber, vitamins and mineral elements.
This breakfast is actually called crème Budwig and is advised to eat by dr. Kousmine.

Here's the recipe which my aunt gave me:

1 tbsp lineseed (flax?) oil
1 tbsp organic maple syrup grade C
4 tbsp fresh white cheese (plattekaas)
fresh fruit
2 tbsp ground nuts
4 tbsp ground wheat/oat/... flakes or muesli

Add lineseed oil and maple syrup to white cheese and mix well until oil is absorbed.
Add other ingredients.

I developed this version:

1 tbsp lineseed oil
1 tbsp organic maple syrup grade C
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp white cheese
2 tbsp yoghurt with active bifidus
1 tsp of walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seed and pumpkin seed each (raw, not roasted or salted)
4 tsp oat flakes
1 dried fig
1 dried apricot
1 piece of dried mango
1/2 banana
1/2 apple
+ any other fruit (pear, grapes, fresh mango, ...)

Sometimes I left out the banana and the lemon juice, depending on how my stomach felt.
Banana has magnesium and is supposed to help with leg cramps.

I used to grind nuts, oat flakes and dried fruit but my blender got broken because of the dried fruit, so then I just ate these things as they were.

I really felt the benefits of eating this.

Apart from that, I have a few other pregnancy tips:
- drink loads of water
- start rubbing your bottom, belly and breasts twice a day as soon as possible (I loved the pregnancy oil by Weleda)
- hydrate your skin: use extra rich moisturizer and body lotion, and plenty of lip balm
- buy a pregnancy cushion (sausage)

Thanks cousin I. for stimulating me to make another post here and good luck!

Beef stew

2010-04-28T13:03:00.005+02:00

Now that we live in a new home with more space, it's easier to invite our friends and family for dinner. And we've had lots of visitors who came to see our little one.

Most of the time we cook them this traditional Flemish dish. The recipe is my mother's. It tends to meet with success.

Serves 4

1 kg beef, in cubes (carbonaden, special meat for stew)
2 big onions, peeled and cut in half slices
1 bottle Palm beer (or another beer, preferably dark)
butter
1 slice of bread
mustard

Heat butter in frying pan until golden brown.
Add part of the meat and fry on fairly high heat until it's sealed and has a crust.
Transfer the meat to another pan on very low heat, add pepper and salt and cover the pan.
Repeat this until all the meat is fried.
Fry the onion in the same pan, add salt and pepper, and add to the meat.
Pour some beer in the pan, then add to the meat, and repeat with all of the beer.
If necessary, add a little water to the pan; the meat should just be covered.
Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat.
Add a slice of bread without crust, covered with mustard.
Cover the pan and let it simmer on very low heat for 2-3 hours.

We usually serve this with apple sauce, oven-baked fries (Lutosa) and home-made mayonaise.

Note 1: for big eaters, take some more meat.
Note 2: you can add half a box of dried prunes. Soak them for 30 min in lukewarm water and add them to the stew for the last 30 min of cooking.

Brussels waffles

2010-03-08T13:03:00.008+01:00

A new life

whose arrival took up all my time and left nothing for blogging.

A Valentine present
what you put inside

like this:
and the result: delicious!

The recipe comes from the Farmers' Wives' Association Cookbook (Boerinnenbond).

For 16 waffles

500 g flour
40 g yeast
200 g molten butter
500 ml milk
500 ml water
4 eggs
pinch of salt

Mix yeast in 125 ml lukewarm water.
Put the flour in a big bowl, make a hole in the middle, add yeast and then lukewarm milk and egg yolks.
After this add in turn the rest of the water, molten butter, whisked egg whites and salt.
Let the dough rise in a warm spot for half an hour.
Stir it gently and let it rise again until it has doubled in volume (about an hour).

The waffle iron does not need to be greased.
Serve with powder sugar or whipped cream or butter and brown sugar.

Caponata di melanzane

2009-05-10T22:27:00.003+02:00

Today I cooked a big family dinner. Yesterday we did our shopping at the special chicken shop, butchers, organic shop and market at St-Gilles.

For starters we had raw vegetables, toasts with shrimp salad and blinis with smoked salmon and fish eggs.
After that another chicken broth.
Main course was meat loaf, served with baked potatoes, tomato sauce and caponata.
The potatoes were grenailles from the market. I didn't peel them but washed them, then cut them in 2-3 pieces if necessary, steamed them for 7 min, then baked them at 200° C with olive oil, rosemary, pepper and a lot of salt.
The tomato sauce was just tomato, dried basil, pepper and salt. It simmered for a long time and then we passed it through a sieve.

The caponata is from Lorenza de' Medici's 'ITALY The beautiful cookbook'.

Serves 6-8

6 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and sliced in rings
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
3 peppers, yellow and red, sliced in rings
500 g aubergines, peeled and diced
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp oregano
2 tbsp capers
100 g black olives
3 anchovy fillets, chopped

Heat olive oil, add onion and garlic and fry for a while. Add peppers and aubergines and fry for 15 min on medium heat. Add tomatoes and oregano and let this simmer until peppers and aubergines are cooked. Stir regularly.
Add capers, olives and anchovy and remove from the heat. Add pepper and salt and let the caponata stand for a few hours.

As usual, I'll add photos later if I find the time ;-)

Chocolate mousse

2009-04-26T17:48:00.003+02:00

For another biologists' dinner, I brought dessert. As there were lots of kids, I made chocolate mousse, a suggestion of D. I don't eat chocolate myself so I also made an apple tart.
I found a recipe in the series 'La cuisine de A à Z' from 1970, belonging to my mother and before that to my grandparents I guess. When I started cooking as a kid, I often looked to these books.

Serves 4-5

200 g cooking chocolate
30 g butter
4 eggs
50 g sugar
1 packet vanilla sugar

Heat chocolate and butter at very low heat until the mixture is molten.
Add egg yolks to sugar and vanilla sugar and whisk until creamy.
Take chocolate off heat and add egg yolk mixture. Stir well.
Beat egg whites until very stiff, then add them gently to the chocolate.
Keep in the fridge for a few hours.

Note: if there are no children you might add a bit of cognac

A photograph might follow, if I remember to take one of the few spoons that are left.

Easter at the seaside

2009-04-17T23:16:00.004+02:00

We went to collect Easter eggs

at the seaside

Present

2009-04-17T23:13:00.003+02:00

I received a present which meant a lot to me.
It tasted delicious! Thanks D and Y!

Baie de Somme

2009-04-17T23:02:00.004+02:00

Went to Baie de Somme in northern France for a weekend. Weather was misty at the beginning so we couldn't even see the spectacular landscape, but the last day made everything ok.

We saw seals when we went on a boat tour

we had delicious mussels on the beach behind St-Valéry-sur-Somme

and across the bay you could see le Crotoy where we had stayed.

Rice pudding

2009-04-17T22:49:00.005+02:00

Someone in my household loves rice pudding, so I've started making this again.

It's a very easy recipe from the Farmer's Wives' Association cookbook (Boerinnebond), which taught generations of Flemish to cook.

Serves 2-4

1/2 l milk
50 gr rice (special rice for dessert or for risotto)
25 gr sugar
1 cinnamon stick

Add rice and cinnamon to milk and bring to the boil. Stir regularly.
When it boils, cover the pan and turn down the heat. Let it simmer on very low heat for 40 min, again stirring regularly. Add sugar 5 min before the end of cooking. Pour into a bowl or different small bowls.

Note: Last time the taste of cinnamon was very strong, so now I only used half a stick and took it out after 5 min of boiling.

Tiramisu

2009-04-17T22:32:00.005+02:00

I cooked another lunch at my new appartment, for starters we had another beef broth and as a main course chicken couscous according to Claudia Roden, served with raisins and chick peas in separate dishes.

For dessert I made tiramisu, a special version without eggs. I got the recipe from Annabel at PicNik, a great place for tasty vegetarian lunches.

Tiramisu, version 1 - serves 10

1 packet of boudoir biscuits (Delhaize)
1 packet of Lotus speculoos
1 small pot of coffee
500 gr mascarpone
400 ml whipping cream
10 tbsp sugar
1,5 tbsp spirit e.g. grappa, rum
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Whisk cream until stiff, mix it delicately with mascarpone, sugar and spirit.
Pour coffee in a deep plate, quickly turn over the boudoir biscuits in it and fill the bottom of a dish with the biscuits.
Add cream mixture.
Dip only 1 side of speculoos biscuits in the plate with coffee and put them on top of the cream.
Add another cream layer.
Sprinkle with cocoa powder just before serving.

Note: I used apricot pálinka as spirit, which I brought from Hungary. It went very well in this dish.
For my own reference: I used my largest oven dish.

Before I always used a Tuscan recipe which my mother got in Italy.

Tira Missou, version 2 - serves 10

3 packets of cuiller biscuits (3 x 100 gr = 300 gr)
1 small pot of coffee
500 gr mascarpone
5 eggs
10 tbsp sugar
1,5 tbsp spirit
cocoa powder

Add egg yolks and sugar to mascarpone. Whisk egg whites and add them to the mixture, then add spirit.
Turn cuiller biscuits over in coffee, put them in dish. Cover with mascarpone mixture. Alternate more layers of biscuits and mixture, ending with mixture.
Sprinkle cocoa powder over dish before serving.

I'll add a picture if I can find it. As a nomad between appartments, I guess it must be on another computer.

Baked apples version 2

2009-03-24T21:08:00.004+01:00

I made baked apples before, but this time I used a recipe from Claudia Roden's book of Jewish food.

Serves 6

6 sweet or sour apples
3 tbsp butter
1,5 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp sugar
50 g walnuts, chopped finely
50 g dried raisins

Wash apples and remove the core. Make the opening inside big enough.
Place them in an oven dish.
Mix all other ingredients and fill the openings with the mixture.
Add a tiny bit of water to the dish (1-2 mm).
Bake them in the oven at 160 - 180°C for 45 min - 1,5 hr, until they are completely soft but have not fallen apart.

Note: 180°C was too hot in my oven, next time I will bake them at 160 °C.
I served them with vanilla ice cream.

Lamb stew with Jerusalem artichoke and peas

2009-03-24T20:43:00.005+01:00

I celebrated the start of Spring with the first dinner party in my new appartment.

It was a beautiful day and I went to butcher Frank in St-Gillis by bike. The friend who had tipped us on this butcher was there and gave me good purchasing advice and recommended me to the butcher. I took delicious meat home.

The dish I chose comes from the book of Jewish food by Claudia Roden and was inspired by a gift I received from a friend's garden.

Serves 6

1-1.5 kg lamb

3 garlic cloves, chopped finely

4 tbsp oil e.g. sunflower

500 g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled

juice of 1/2 lemon

500 g peas (I used frozen)

Fry the meat in oil until it's brown and add the garlic in the end. Add pepper and salt and cover with hot water. Bring to the boil, then cook on low heat for 1.5 hr.

Add big slices of Jerusalem artichoke, pepper and salt, lemon juice and more water if necessary.

Cook for 15 min and add peas.

Cook for another 5 min.

I served this with steamed potatoes.

Before we had a beef broth with finely cut vegetables and Hungarian soup pasta.

The dessert was baked apples.

The whole menu met with success.

Enlarging my food horizon

2009-03-14T11:02:00.002+01:00

In my new life I also get to experience new kinds of food. This work of art was carefully constructed and then devoured.

Roast chicken with fries

2009-03-02T22:21:00.012+01:00

This WE we were house-and-dogsitting at my mother's. For city birds like us, it's great to get out to the countryside, and have some space. We took advantage of the facilities and invited family and friends over for a very traditional Sunday dinner: roast chicken with fries and apple sauce. As a kid we had this every Sunday, except for the fries. We used to be a very untypical Belgian family who didn't own a 'friteuse' for deep frying for a very long time.

For starters I prepared soup in an enormous pot, according to my basic soup recipe, using onion, leek, green celery, fennel, broccoli, parsnip and 'knolselder' (root celery, celeriac?).

The fries were freshly cut from potatoes, since someone in my household strongly objects to deep frozen ones.

Some were cut by hand, with a very sharp Japanese ceramic knife

and some using a special tool for cutting fries - I couldn't believe I still could find this in my mother's house after perhaps more than 20 years.

After this the fries were soaked for min. 1 hour. Then they were pre-baked at 170°C, and later properly baked at 180°C. Baking them twice is a secret of Belgian fries.

The chickens were washed and dried. Inside they were seasoned very liberally with salt and pepper, and a little sage and rosemary. You can add a lemon cut in 4 on the inside.

On the outside the skin is loosened a little on top and then you put some sage and rosemary in between the flesh and the skin. These herbs should be fresh or soaked, to prevent the skin from breaking when in the oven. Then rub the skin with olive oil and season liberally again with pepper and salt.

Our helper in the kitchen said it was a pity that the chickens were dead, since they couldn't enjoy the massage any more.

Put them in a 200°C oven for about 15 min. Take them out of the oven, turn them upside down, season the other side and put them back in the oven and lower the heat to 180°C. Reverse them every 15 min and pour some of the juices over the chicken. Total cooking time is about 50 min- 1 hour.

The chicken was served with fries, apple sauce (from my mother's deep freezer ;-) salad and home made mayonaise. It all tasted terrific.

My guests brought cakes for dessert, but I forgot to photograph them. Labelga did though. Cakes on Sunday is also a real big tradition here.

I had also prepared a few healthy appetizers and brought real good pistachioes and fried corn from Istanbul.

To my surprise, the vegetables were very popular with the kids.

After the meal, albeit not without difficulty, we managed to stir ourselves for a walk.

A strange phenomenon was observed.

Thank you all guys for a very cosy afternoon - exactly like a Sunday should be.

Note

For my own records I noted the quantities. We were 9 adults, 2 big children and 3 smaller ones. We had 5 chickens which was a good estimate. We had 6-7 kg potatoes for the fries, which was far too much. 5 kg would have done. One big box of apple sauce would have done, I had opened another one. 2 bags of salad were OK and mayonaise made with 2 egg yolks as well.

Pancakes

2009-03-02T21:51:00.003+01:00

I have a legendary pancake recipe, which I got from a cooking course at school when I was 10 years old. I still have the original piece of paper on which I wrote it down. It's a bit worn, so now I want to preserve the recipe here. No pics - but you know what pancakes look like ;-)

500 g flour
5 eggs
1,1 l milk
2 tbsp sugar
2 packets vanilla sugar
butter
pinch of salt

Heat 1 dl milk, 1 big tbsp butter, 2 tbsp sugar, and vanilla sugar, until the butter is molten.
Add 1 l cold milk to this.
Whisk the eggs and add them to the milk mixture.
Mix flour and salt and add eggs and milk. Add some water if the mixture is too thick.
You can let the dough stand for a bit and then it's ready for baking.

Notes
For the quantities: 3 eggs serve 4 people.
You can sieve the flour beforehand if you like.

Apple tart

2009-01-18T18:55:00.008+01:00

I made an apple tart for a belated Christmas dinner. Actually it was lunch. I dug into my cardboard boxes in het cellar to find the little book with my grandfather's recipes. He gave instructions for dough and pastry cream, but not for the apples, so I improvised.

For the dough

250 g flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
180 g butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 dl water

For the pastry cream

1 egg
50 g sugar
3 tbsp flour
1 packet vanilla sugar or 1/2 vanilla pod
1/2 l milk
pinch of salt

For the apples

4 apples (not a mushy type)
juice of 1/2 lemon
some sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Add salt, sugar and vanilla sugar to flour and mix. Add butter and egg yolk and knead into a dough. Add the water bit by bit.
Let the dough rest for 2 hours in the fridge.
Grease a tart dish, roll out the dough and put it in the dish. Cover with baking paper and with baking beans. Bake for 25 min. at 200° C. Remove baking paper and beans and let it cool for a bit.
Peel and core the apples and slice them very thinly. Cover them with lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Take the apples out of the juice and cook them at very low heat with some sugar and cinnamon. They should just be slightly cooked and not fall apart.
Whisk egg with sugar in a cooking pan, add flour and whisk again.
Boil milk with vanilla (sugar). After boiling, add it to the egg and let it boil for a few minutes until it thickens. Pour into the baked dough.
Decorate with the apples. Put the slices close together.

Notes
I wonder if the pastry cream would taste even better when made just with the egg yolk instead of the whole egg.
You can put the apple slices closer together than I did in the picture.
The dough shrinks a little when baking, so you can leave an extra cm at the bordere when filling the tart dish.

According to my grandfather you could also make this tart with bananas or other fruit, which you don't need to cook.

New Year's walk

2009-01-03T13:21:00.006+01:00

Last year we inaugurated the new year with a walk by the seaside. I thoroughly enjoyed it and decided to start a tradition. This year we didn't manage to get to the seaside, but discovered the beautiful surroundings of Vollezele. You can find a full report at Leafy Cooking.

Of course we didn't forget to take a snack, tasty waffles by Brussels specialist Dandoy.

And after the walk labelga treated us to delicious appetizers.

I'm all for lots more walks like this in 2009!

Semifreddo di mele

2009-01-02T22:25:00.007+01:00

Another dessert I prepared for New Year's Eve was this semifreddo, a type of custard with cooked apples underneath, and with a lemony twinge. I finished it off with grilled 'peperkoek' crumbs, inspired by a cook in Normandy.

The recipe is from the birthday present from my godchild A.V., born on 13 November 2008: The Vegeterranean, recipes by Brasilian Malu Simões and her Italian husband Alberto Musacchio.

Serves 6

For the apples

5 big apples, or 6 smaller ones
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
rind of 1/2 lemon

For the cream

500 ml milk
rind of 1/2 lemon
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
4 tbsp sugar
4 egg yolks
4 tbsp flour
1 slice peperkoek, grilled and crumbled

Peel and core the apples. Slice thinly. Squeeze the lemon juice over the apples to prevent browning. Cook with sugar, cinnamon and lemon rind over a low heat, covered. Stir occasionally. Remove from the heat when the apples begin to caramelise, about 5 min.

Bring milk, lemon rind and vanilla to a boil, then turn off the heat. Whisk sugar and egg yolks in another saucepan until pale yellow. Sift in the flour and mix well. Remove lemon rind and vanilla from the milk and pour it into the egg mixture, whisking all the time.
Cook this cream in a double boiler (bain marie) over a medium heat for a few minutes, until it thickens.

Pour apple mixture into a dish and pour warm cream on top. Alternatively you can divide the dessert over small martini glasses or bowls. Let it cool, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Decorate with grilled peperkoek crumbs.

Notes:
The cream was quite thick, I recommend to use small tbsps of flour.
After tasting both apples and cream, I added more sugar.
I need to work on the technique for grilling the peperkoek crumbs, perhaps our cook from Normandy can advise...

Walnut cake

2009-01-02T22:02:00.005+01:00

We spent New Year's Eve in the company of friends. Everybody was asked to bring a dish. I prepared two desserts, with expert help. One of them was a walnut cake. A friend gave me the recipe when we were students. It's a very easy recipe and it always meets with succes.
It's the first thing I baked in my new oven and it came out wonderfully.

For the cake:

4 eggs
200 g sugar
250 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
80 g walnuts, chopped
1 glass sunflower oil

For the topping:

2 eggs
150 g sugar
125 g soft butter
150 g walnuts, chopped + a few whole walnuts for decoration
1 tbsp rum

Beat egg yolks and sugar into a creamy mixture.
Mix baking powder into the flour and add this to the egg yolks.
Add chopped walnuts and oil and mix well.
Beat egg whites and add them to the mixture.
Grease a cake tin and add the mixture.
Bake for 30-40 min at 180° C.

Prepare the topping: mix eggs, sugar and butter into a smooth cream. Then add chopped walnuts and rum.
Let the cake cool, then add the topping on top and/or in the middle.
Decorate with a few whole walnuts.

Notes
The cake was a little dry, maybe 200 g flour is enough.
The topping is a big quantity and very rich, so you might also halve the quantities and only add it on top or only in the middle.

Last and first soup

2009-01-02T21:41:00.007+01:00

Finally another post with one of the last things I cooked in 2008. With many changes in my life, such as a new family to get to know, and moving into a new place, it's pretty hard to find time to fiddle with photos and to blog.

Here comes the first soup I cooked in my new kitchen, it's Jerusalem artichoke according to my basic soup recipe and we had it with backerbsen, something from long ago, when we went skiing in Germany, and which we really loved as kids.

It was eaten in good company ;-)

Rice and parsley soup

2008-08-02T13:55:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I prepared a light soup, ideal for letting your stomach recover after your boss brought buckets of Häagen Dasz to the office, to celebrate that he's going on holiday.
The recipe, minestra di riso e prezzemolo, comes from Emanuela Stucchi's 'Italian vegetarian cooking'.

Serves 4

2 potatoes, peeled and cut in big pieces
2 tbsp olive oil
1l vegetable stock
210 gr rice
2 tbsp fresh parsley leaves, chopped
15 g butter

Add potatoes, olive oil and some salt and pepper to the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let the potatoes simmer until cooked. Remove them from the stock, mash them and add the mash to the stock again.
Bring to the boil, add rice and simmer on low heat until the rice is cooked.
Remove from the heat. Add parsley, butter and more salt and pepper if necessary.

Note: I added first some carrots and then courgettes to the rice and left out the butter this time.
Last year I prepared the soup without vegetables.

More Summer

2008-07-29T08:44:00.003+02:00

I was offered special sepia pasta and a great bottle of rosé from Süd-Tirol (Alto Adige), which together with a few more courgettes from my mother's garden made for another delicious Summer meal.

Thanks F. & I. for your gifts!

Summer delights

2008-07-27T21:52:00.006+02:00

Finally a few tropical days in Belgium. I prepared the first of the courgettes (and its flowers) from my mother's garden, just lightly fried and served - with love - on toast with olive oil.

Today was a day for roaming the countryside of my youth, visiting a mill, where a brave guy was challenged to climb up and change a sail

and later a content millner was spotted looking out his window.

Seaside cooking

2008-07-27T21:39:00.004+02:00

Last weekend I spent at the seaside. On Sunday I did an early morning walk along the beach in a heavy gale and I saw a curious guy sitting on the 'golfbreker'.

After that I was picked up for a day of relaxing, fighting the wind, buying Dutch specialties such as Autodrop and plenty of cooking. You can find a full report at Leafy Cooking.

We had a well equipped kitchen at hand and exploited its facilities

such as this steaming oven,

a first with a great result.
Thank you labelga for a relaxing afternoon in enjoyable surroundings.

Apple crumble

2008-07-11T13:42:00.003+02:00

Recently I tasted a special crumble, made with speculoos, which worked quite well. I was asked for my own recipe and apparentely I haven't posted it yet. So here comes my friend K's delicious recipe, without picture because I haven't made it in a while.

Serves 6

6 apples
200 g dried raisins (or raspberries)
125 g butter
250 g flour
75 g light brown sugar
25 g dark brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix flour and butter, then add sugar.
Peel apples, remove core and cut them into pieces.
Grease an oven dish with butter, add a layer of apples, then raisins and cinnamon, and repeat.
Sprinkle the pastry on top.
Bake for 30 min at 200°C.

My addition is to soak the raisins in rum before adding them.
Of course this tastes great with vanilla ice cream.

Clafoutis

2008-07-11T13:19:00.006+02:00

For our annual neighbours' party, I made a clafoutis. I consulted a recipe in 'Het Gerecht' by Filip Verheyden, but I decided to stick to a very quick and light recipe from my mother, which probably comes from the magazine Elle.

500 g white soft cheese (platte kaas)
125 g flour
100 g sugar
a little vanilla sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
400 g fruit (cherries, red- or blackcurrant, plums, ...)

Wash fruit.
Beat egg yolks, sugar and vanilla sugar until the mixture gets creamy.
Mix baking powder with flour, and add flour and cheese gradually to the mixture.
Beat egg whites and add.
Pour half of the mixture in a greased tin, distribute the fruit over it and cover with the remaining mixture. Keep the fruit 2 cm from the border to avoid leaking.
Bake for 30-40 min. at 180°C.

The recipe in Het Gerecht uses these ingredients:
100g flour, 4 eggs, pinch of salt, 175 g sugar, 2 packets vanilla sugar, 4 dl milk, 450 g cherries.
Everything just gets mixed, with the milk last, except for the fruit.
They gave the useful tip to leave the cherry stones in the fruit for extra flavour.

Sushi

2008-06-15T17:39:00.003+02:00

Making sushi isn't as difficult as it seems. We were invited to sushi but we had to make them ourselves. The rolling bit was quite fun actually.
I didn't take any pics but you can see a full report at Leafy Cooking.
We smacked our lips with the result. Thanks T & M for a great evening!

Biologists' dinner

2008-06-05T22:38:00.005+02:00

Last month we had another biologists' dinner.

With delicious cavaillon melon and ham

and pizza in two versions

one for the kids

and one for the adults (I'm glad to be an adult)

and for dessert I baked a crostata di marmellata with fresh apricots.

After this we participated in a walk combined with theatre for kids, organised by Bronks,

in which I humiliated myself with a football in front of a bunch of very good football players.

Birthday bash

2008-06-05T22:03:00.002+02:00

Beautiful flowers

a fantastic guacamole is being served

animals from Tanzania guard the napkins

a present is tried out

and then my battery went flat.

Bar Bik

2008-06-05T21:47:00.003+02:00

Another favourite restaurant in Brussels is Bar Bik. It has good food and drink, a pleasant atmosphere and even a few tables outside when the weather's good. Booking is recommended.

I was joined there by someone - a Belgian person - who likes to take the necessary literature with him when venturing onto the streets of our capital.

I had asperges again

whilst soup appeared on the other side of the table.

The vitello tonnato was delicious

and this was duck if I remember correctly.

Simple delights

2008-06-05T21:34:00.004+02:00

Tonight I had a simple and delicious meal: a quiche with steamed courgette, endives lightly fried in butter and smoked trout, prepared with 1 egg and cream according to my basic recipe

and preceded by the first artichokes from my mother's garden.

Zinneke

2008-06-03T20:26:00.004+02:00

Lots of photos and lots of stories are waiting to be disclosed here, if only I would find the time. For now just a quick one, showing our Zinneke Parade which took place last Saturday, a fantastic initiative uniting thousands of Brussels people in a festival of creativity and spontaneity.

You can see more pics at my Picasa gallery.

Appropriately, at the end of a day like this we had asparagus, a typical Belgian speciality - probably for the last time this season -

prepared à la flamande, but with a special secret touch which enhances their flavour even more.

Delicious! Thanks a lot W!

Eurasian dinner party

2008-05-05T09:15:00.008+02:00

On Saturday I was invited for a party. When I arrived the table was already filled with goodies,

a small hand was tucking into Asian rice snacks,

and from the window we could check out one of the pretty squares in Brussels.

Meanwhile rice was being prepared

as well as potatoes.

A bowl was filled with Asian fruit

and the chicken got a finishing touch.

My plate looked like this:

I admit I had several helpings.

And then it was time for dessert: pears stewed in port wine

were covered in chocolate sauce

a strange Asian fruit was added (the name I remember is dju dju, which is actually a swear word in Flemish)

and this was served with ice cream, cookies and a mint leaf.

Hail to the cooks R and F for this feast!

Dinner in the Brussels sun

2008-05-05T08:56:00.005+02:00

When the sun is finally out in Brussels, everybody is out on the terraces. Yesterday we had dinner at an old family favourite, la Marie Joseph.

This choron-sauce was anxiously eyed when it arrived, because the fear immediately arose that there wouldn't be enough of it to accompany two tuna steaks.

After dinner we went for an ice cream at Zizi. It used to be another of my favourite spots in Brussels but I have to admit that we were a bit disappointed by the quality of the ice cream last night. I hope this was a one off.

Early birds

2008-05-02T20:55:00.007+02:00

Last week I assisted a music happening at Gravensteen in Gent. The theme was oriental and although the weather wasn't very cooperative, it was great to experience the building in special lights and decorations, while listening to different types of music.

And yesterday I was crazy enough to get up at 6 am on my first day of holiday, in order to join a group of birdwatchers for a walk at the Wolfsputten in Dilbeek.

Didn't realise it could still be that cold in the morning!

But the walk was very rewarding

especially with all the daslook (Allium ursinum) flowering everywhere, filling our nostrils with the smell of garlic.

Afterwards labelga treated us to a feast for breakfast.

This organic raisin and nut bread was simply delicious

and the salmon avocado toast didn't taste bad either.

The only flaw was this piece of porcellan flowers

purchased on eBay - and can you believe it? Nobody else bid on it - the only reason for this, as explained by the purchaser, was a little chip in one of the flowers.

Anyway, thanks a lot for getting this together!

Birthday brunch by the canal

2008-05-02T18:59:00.003+02:00

A few weeks ago I was invited for a surprise birthday brunch at kaai Grand Café in Boom.
I forgot to take a picture of the great view on the canal, but I didn't forget the food, which tasted as good as it looked.

By the train station

2008-05-02T18:21:00.006+02:00

Today I had lunch at Brasserie de la Gare, a typical Brussels restaurant, at a rather unexpected spot, near the train station of Sint-Agatha-Berchem.

After light starters

we went for very typical dishes: veal's liver

and asperges à la flamande, my favourite in this season!

Simple broccoli and courgette soup

2008-04-24T19:17:00.006+02:00

Sometimes a simple soup turns out really delicious and it's worthy of taking along when invited for gnocchi.

I used my basic soup recipe again, with a sprig of broccoli, 1 courgette and 1 leek, and also 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves, a bay leaf and dried basil. At the last minute I decided not to mix the soup.

Gnocchi

2008-04-24T18:52:00.006+02:00

Don't turn down an invitation when an Italian offers to prepare gnocchi. Especially when he has trained shaping them since he was a kid.

This load was ready when I arrived

and a new batch was being prepared

After serious deliberation we decided to serve them al burro salvia, so we picked fresh sage leaves on a city balcony.

The result looked like this

and then parmesan needed to be added of course

Pure heaven!

Before we had a simple soup and afterwards an equally simple and delicious salad, with Roman lettuce, carrot and fennel.

Italian birthday dinner

2008-04-24T18:32:00.004+02:00

Some time ago, I was invited for a birthday celebration at another Brussels classic: Rugantino, an Italian family restaurant in a charming decor.

Some of us had mixed appetizers

whilst others chose ravioli ai carciofi - delicious.

After that linguine alle vongole e zucchini appeared

and I opted for good old-fashioned porcetta alla romana.

Seated at a long table, we had another enjoyable evening.

Rosa's

2008-04-21T20:26:00.006+02:00

Another busy month without time for blogging.
Let me start to catch up by telling you about a favourite restaurant called Rosa's.
It's a tiny place with a very relaxing atmosphere. Delicious food is prepared in an open kitchen and served in a friendly manner. Prices are very reasonable.

Young gods

2008-03-19T23:46:00.004+01:00

Tonight I had the privilege of assisting a private concert of Gabriel Rios, Jef Neve and Kobe Proesmans at Flagey, a favourite location.

Three young gods on the stage, thoroughly enjoying themselves - what a delight!

Cool communication

2008-03-16T21:51:00.004+01:00

Look how this advertising agency is trying to recruit

And what about this campaign by Médecins sans Frontières?

TRAILER " WOMEN ARE HEROES"
Uploaded by JR

I'm impressed.

Carrottes Gilbert

2008-03-06T16:16:00.004+01:00

Recently I tasted a special dish: stuffed carrots, prepared according to Gilbert's recipe. Gilbert is from the French Pyrénees and got this recipe from his grandmother.

He prepared the dish in Indonesia, where the recipe was copied into a travel notebook.

And then the dish was prepared in Belgium, and the recipe got copied again, so it might appear on a familiar blog one day.

You need to pick enormous carrots, and it's a hell of a job to remove the insides.
Special tools were used and great concentration was required.

A Belgian touch was added in the sauce with a speciality beer (Postel).
The result was delicious.
A tiny observer agreed totally.

Kuregem

2008-03-03T20:56:00.003+01:00

Enjoyed an excellent guided tour through Kuregem (Anderlecht) today.

Checking out birds

2008-02-25T20:18:00.008+01:00

Once in a while I go to the countryside with a real birdwatcher and I get pointed out loads of different birds. I also get told about their sounds. And afterwards I forget 90% of this lesson.
No pics of birds though, because out there it's not as easy to photograph them as when they're sitting on the crane outside my window.

We went to a nature reserve in Harchies.

But actually, when you watch birds, you see the landscape like this:

All the species are duly noted

This was only the beginning of the list, because in total we saw 55 different species, of which the most spectacular were: grote zaagbek (Mergus merganser), grote zilverreiger (Egretta alba) en cetti's zanger (Cettia cetti).

Nature lovers don't always pick up their garbage

Apart from birds we also saw lovey dovey donkeys

There's lots of water

which all of a sudden looked very strange

a natural fenomenon, caused by a tiny plant, eendenkroos (Lemna)

We had lunch and couleur locale at Au Moulin, a restaurant in Ville-Pommeroeul, which we had great difficulty in reaching because of overzealous guards of a cyclists' race.

In the afternoon we walked in the woods of la forêt domaniale de Beloeil and stretched out on the leaves for a little break.

Another nice Sunday!

Fish in Antwerp

2008-02-24T20:08:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I went to Antwerp to try the fish restaurant Dôme sur mer.
We had a nice dinner in white and blue surroundings, with goldfish swimming around us - although some of them stopped swimming after a while.

Waiting for amuse-gueules

which then arrived

A handy support was fitted to our table

and filled with seafood

whilst another plate with grilled langoustines appeared.

It made for a pleasant evening. Thanks L!

Seaside

2008-02-17T17:25:00.004+01:00

This weekend I went to visit relatives at the seaside.

I was treated to a great dinner - everything home made, even the olive bread

Someone's socks didn't match.

And the weather was just gorgeous.

Birthday dinner

2008-02-14T23:20:00.003+01:00

I had a very enjoyable evening at an old friend's birthday dinner: great company, delicious food and pleasant surroundings at Domestica in Gent.

Thanks N! It was great to be there.

Sunny morning

2008-02-14T23:16:00.003+01:00

One of the first mornings with warm sunrays this year in Brussels

One of those Sundays

2008-02-04T20:00:00.000+01:00

You start with old books

- the monks made jokes, once in a while, while copying the manuscripts.

Then you have lunch, with a quickly whipped-up soup - pumpkin and parsnip, with a little onion and leek, according to my basic soup recipe - and bubbles, provided by our generous host,

and for dessert: castagnaccio, photographed in a Zen setting.

After a meal like this, we were ready for more culture and went for a walk to discover interbellum architecture in Dilbeek.

And after that, we were ready for a drink

at a favourite spot, where Italian was spoken - appropriately, as Italian travel plans were made, while sipping our negroni's -

and a Chinese meal at Xu Ji, 5 rue des Poissonniers in Brussels, where we got authentic Chinese food (as far as we are able to judge) and terrific wonton soup.

If you ever try this place, here's a tip: go for the 'petits plats' (small dishes) on the menu, hidden a few pages behind the average and more touristy stuff.

Castagnaccio

2008-02-02T21:14:00.000+01:00

Well, I was offered some of the home-made chestnut flour from Tuscany, so I baked my own castagnaccio. I followed the recipe which my mother had used. She told me to use some more water than mentioned.
I love this dish, the flavour is delicious, and the smell is intoxicating when you're preparing it. It's very easy and quick to prepare. The only difficulty is obtaining the chestnut flour, which really determines the quality of the dish.

Serves 6

250 ml water
6 tbsp olive oil
100 g dried raisins, soaked in hot water
200 g chestnut flour
50 g pine nuts
50 g walnuts, peeled and chopped in big pieces
pinch of salt
pinch of rosemary

Put the chestnut flour in a big bowl, add salt and 2 tbsp olive oil.
Add water gradually while stirring with a fork, until you have obtained a smooth dough (as for a cake).
Drain the soaked raisins and add them to the dough.
Put some baking paper in a baking tin and grease it with 1-2 tbsp olive oil.
Spread the dough over the paper in a layer of max. 1 cm high.
Sprinkle pine nuts, walnuts and rosemary over this and 2 tbsp olive oil.
Bake for 30 min on 200°C, until cracks appear and the nuts are golden brown.
Pour off the excessive oil.

Although this dish doesn't contain any sugar, eggs and hardly any fat, it's pretty rich and you can serve it in small portions.
Go easy on the rosemary, so as not to spoil the dish with too strong a flavour.
Afterwards I found another recipe in Lorenza de Medici's 'ITALY The Beautiful Cookbook', which uses a lot more water, leaves out the walnuts and mixes most of the pine nuts through the dough. It also advocates eating the castagnaccio while it's still warm. Might try that next year, if I can get hold of another dose of that heavenly chestnut flour.

Italian dinner

2008-02-02T21:03:00.000+01:00

Last week I was invited for an Italian dinner.

A real spaghetti carbonara (with eggs and pancetta and no cream) was prepared in a virtually authentic 1930's kitchen.

Afterwards I was spoiled with bread from Paul, a new bakery in town,

a salad

and Italian cheese and coldmeats.

This plant has a great view.

Biologists' dinner

2008-01-27T20:33:00.000+01:00

Another biologists' dinner.

With marinated red pepper

and blinis - with salmon and sourcream, and with tarama - as appetizers

tuna cakes for starters

duck in walnut and tamarind sauce, with spicy root vegetables and basmati rice

and a frangipane-like pie for dessert.

The remaining recipes are available on request.

Pea soup

2008-01-22T20:27:00.000+01:00

Felt like making pea soup. A quick search didn't result in an appealing recipe, so I just improvised.

1 onion
2 leeks
2-3 cups of peas (deep frozen)
3 slices of bacon, cut in big pieces
thyme
bay leaves
pepper & salt
a little butter

Chop onions and leeks and fry them with thyme and bay leaves for a few min in butter on medium heat. Add boiling water, peas, and bacon and season liberally with pepper & salt (depending on how salty the bacon is). Bring to the boil, cover and turn down the heat. Let it simmer for around 10 min. I didn't bother mixing it with the hand mixer.

Today I was offered a piece of home-made castagnaccio, prepared with home-made chestnut flour straight from Tuscany and walnuts instead of pine nuts. The flour is really sweet so this doesn't need any sugar at all (aye labelga ;-)

Yellow pepper, mushroom and bacon pizza

2008-01-21T22:00:00.000+01:00

Another version of a quick savoury tart. I had a salad with it.

Serves 2

1 pizza dough (ready made)
a bit of butter or olive oil
1 yellow pepper, chopped
250 g mushrooms, chopped
1/2 dried red chilli pepper, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp dried oregano
a bit of ricotta
smoked bacon, chopped

Heat butter at high heat in a pan. Add yellow pepper, red chilli pepper and a pinch of salt. Fry for a few min, while stirring continuously. Add mushrooms and garlic, and fry until both vegetables are nearly cooked.
Roll out the pizza dough in a pie dish. Pierce it with a fork. Spread the ricotta over the dough. Add vegetables. Cover with oregano and small pieces of bacon.
Bake for 25' at 200°C.

Sunday evening vice

2008-01-21T21:54:00.000+01:00

You just stop at a friend's for a chat, and all of a sudden gin fizz is being made.

one without milk for me

and one with a sliver of milk to get it frothy (this involved two separate cocktail shakers)

Unfortunately we didn't know the exact quantities of the ingredients (lemon/lime juice, sugar cane syrup, gin, ice and milk for the amateurs). So a bit of adjusting was needed.

Carrot and pea risotto

2008-01-21T21:45:00.000+01:00

Time for another risotto. The quick version, without all the stirring.

1 cup of Arborio rice
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 cup of peas (I used deep frozen)
2 slices of pancetta
1/2 dried red chilli pepper
a bit of red wine
stock
bay leaves
dried basil
parsley, chopped

Girls and their toys

2008-01-18T22:52:00.000+01:00

This week I took an afternoon off for a shopping trip to Antwerp. The first place we ended up in was In den Olifant, the most magical toy shop I've ever seen. We went around the beautiful old house, shrieking with delight at each new discovery.

Isn't this chicken fantastic?

Or do you like this one better?

This was my absolute favourite cuddly toy

Great puppets for playing puppet theatre

and beautiful Pinocchios

a balloon to fly away in

The duck was chosen as a present for a niece

and look at all this miniature cooking gear

After this some more shopping was accomplished, useful as well as frivolous.

And then we went to check out the recently renovated Stadsfeestzaal.
We were impressed.

Fancy champagne bar, high up above

but we chose the ground floor

for our aperitif

For dinner we returned to an old favourite, where we hadn't been in a long time: pizzeria Arte.

This is what happens when you go out for dinner with a fellow blogger

we didn't resist dessert

The food was as good as we remembered, with very pure flavours, we enjoyed the cosy atmosphere and the beautiful interior design, and we thought about the lyrics of Les Feuilles Mortes by Jacques Prévert written on the wall.

City alpinists and dinosaurs

2008-01-15T21:11:00.001+01:00

Sometimes building works need to be tackled by alpinists.

Today I had the great opportunity of getting a privileged guided tour at the newly renovated dinosaur gallery, at our Museum of Natural Sciences.

Wow!
Beautiful old floor

an elephant with a story

birds showing an evolutionary link

Rhoarrr!

A beautiful renovation with fantastic design and lots of interactive displays. A museum to be proud of in Brussels.
Just go and see for yourself!

Simple chicken stew

2008-01-15T20:40:00.000+01:00

Tonight I prepared a simple, quick and light chicken stew, based on the recipe for treya by Claudia Roden.

Serves 2-3

2 chicken breasts, chopped
1 fennel, washed and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
4 small potatoes, peeled and chopped
6-8 cardamom pods
a few parsley sprigs, chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp sunflower oil
salt

Put all ingredients in a pan and add water until the ingredients are not entirely covered.
Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer until it's cooked (around 15 min).

Notes
I had added 2 slices of pancetta, but this didn't do much for the flavour, so next time I will leave it out.
You might add a dried chilli pepper or lots of white pepper. Ginger could also be nice.
On a previous occasion I prepared this dish without potatoes and served it with rice - a special Claudia Roden version of rice with vermicelli, called roz bil shaghria.

Perfect Sunday

2008-01-14T23:12:00.000+01:00

Yesterday labelga and I had a leisurely afternoon at a well kept secret, which I will nevertheless share with you: Sauna O. It's a small scale, cosy sauna with beautiful interior decoration.
One of the things I really enjoy there is having a cup of tea by the fireplace.

Then we set off home, where a gentleman opened a bottle of bubbles for us.

Meanwhile, the preparations for a great dinner, started in the morning, were finished: chicken broth and tamarind-coated duck, with a side dish of black beans.

And again there was this leftover Sunday pie, which I really shouldn't eat but couldn't resist.

That was just a perfect Sunday. Thanks labelga for the glorious food!

New Year's walk

2008-01-05T19:06:00.000+01:00

On New Year's Day labelga picked me up and we drove to the seaside for a big walk near het Zwin in Knokke. A walk is a great idea for a day like this, when you're too wasted to do anything else. I vote for making it a tradition.

It was a bit misty, and you got the feeling you could be anywhere, in another world even. The atmosphere reminded me of the movie Down by law by Jim Jarmusch.
It took us a while to find the big rabbit - oh no it was a hare.

After the exercise in the cold we had to recover of course, so we went to Marie Siska, where we've spent many childhood hours.

The cream was for the waffle

the heart went onto the pancakes

you can sprinkle sugar from the big cans

but I prefer brown sugar.

Hmm, now we felt better, ready to drive back to Brussels and take another ride in the big wheel.

The new year has started well.

Tom Yam Goong

2008-01-05T17:49:00.000+01:00

I prepared this Thai shrimp soup on New Year's Eve, according to the recipe from Weldon's 'THAILAND The Beautiful Cookbook'.

Serves 4

250 raw shrimps, peeled, keep the shells
750 ml water
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
5 bergamot leaves
3 slices of fresh galanga or ginger
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 stalks of lemon grass, only 1/3rd (the lowest part), cut in 3 cm pieces
2 shallots, sliced
50 g straw mushrooms, sliced
juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped

for the black chilli paste:
1-2 chilli peppers
1 shallot, chopped finely
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
pinch of shrimp paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp sunflower oil

Make the black chilli paste: fry chilli peppers, shallots and garlic in oil for a few min. Add the other ingredients and fry for a bit longer. Set this aside.

Rinse the shrimp shells. Put them in a pan with the water and bring to the boil. Then pour through a sieve, conserve the liquid and throw away the shells.
Add garlic, bergamot leaves, galanga or ginger, fish sauce, shallots and mushrooms to the stock. Bring to the boil on medium heat and let it simmer for 2 min on low heat.
Add the shrimps, bring to the boil again and let them simmer until cooked. This takes only a few min., at most.

Add lime juice, chilli paste and coriander leaves to the soup and serve.

Notes
A difficult thing with this soup is estimating how spicy it will be. I used 2 dried chilli peppers (1 small and 1 medium size) for 8 persons and this was definitely too much. Steam came out of everybody's ears. 1 small one would have done the trick.
You might try using fresh chilli peppers, which are less hot.
You might also add the chilli paste little by little to the soup and taste in between.
The recipe doesn't mention salt, but I added some.

Fortunately I had also prepared blinis again, so we could cool our palates with those after the hot soup. Since we were 8, I doubled the quantities mentioned in the recipe and we got through most of that.

As a main course, we had two types of guinea fowl: one with the typical Belgian ingredients gueuze beer and witloof (endives), and the other one with a raisin and cream sauce. They were served with mashed potatoes and mashed parsnips. Very yummy, all of this!

Cosmopolitan

2008-01-03T20:06:00.000+01:00

I like to drink this cocktail at L'Archiduc, but the one we got served on New Year's Eve tasted even better. And I got the recipe!

2 measures vodka
2 measures cointreau
3 measures cranberry juice
1/2 measure lime juice

Shake with ice and serve!

Note: The cocktail maker advised to use fresh unsweetened lime juice from the brand Pulco.

Later that night I tasted a great rum from Barbados.

This was after wine and champagne.
Don't know how I managed to play Jenga without making the tower fall once.

More pumpkin

2008-01-03T19:39:00.001+01:00

Can't get enough of pumpkin, so in between the party dinners I made another pumpkin risotto. A simpler version of the recipe posted before, only with pumpkin, no onions or carrots. I used a big slice of organic muscat pumpkin and it tasted delicious. Contrary to my habit, this time I prepared it in the proper risotto way, adding small portions of water at a time and stirring a lot.

Sweet roast pumpkin

2007-12-29T20:38:00.000+01:00

I had more than half a pumpkin left from making the pumpkin and hazelnut cake. I was inspired by labelga's 19 December post of an oven-baked pumpkin cup and I also remembered a dish my friend K once prepared as part of a Jamaican meal: sweet potatoes baked with rum and butter.

So I invented this dessert:

I greased an oven dish with sunflower oil, added the pumpkin half and a few more pumpkin wedges, added a few broken cinnamon sticks on top and sprinkled a bit of sugar and quite a bit of rum over the pumpkin. I baked this in the oven at 200°C for around 40 min, until the pumpkin was really tender.

It tasted delicious. I was out of butter, but I think that would be a nice addition.
You can eat it just like this. Maybe vanilla ice cream would go well with it.

This is Babette's duck, which really does change colour when it gets hot.

Pumpkin and hazelnut cake

2007-12-29T20:07:00.000+01:00

Recently I copied this Spanish recipe from Larousse's 'Les cuisines du monde'. I decided to try it for my yearly get together with my friends from school.

Serves 10-12

400 g pumpkin, peeled and chopped (weight is without peel and seeds)
4 eggs
40 cl sunflower oil
350 g flour
200 g sugar
200 g ground hazelnuts
a little butter
3 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

Steam the pumpkin until soft. Let it drain in a sieve overnight.
Crush it with a fork or using a handmixer.
Add eggs and oil and whisk everything.
Mix flour, sugar, ground hazelnuts, cinnamon and salt, and add this to the pumpkin mixture.
Mix well.
Grease an oven dish or cake tin with butter and add the mixture.
Bake for 50'-1hr at 180°C, until a knife comes out dry when you stick it in the cake.

Note: Unless you have a huge party, use half the quantities mentioned.

Unfortunately my cake was in competition with 3 delicious pies from Les tartes de Françoise.

So I took some of it home again and had a piece for breakfast.

Taking a break

2007-12-29T19:49:00.001+01:00

In between all the renovating and Christmas socializing, I finally had time for a simple drink in town, in the company of Wisteria and others.

The next day this was repeated at a cosy lounge in Gent, of which I've forgotten the name.

You do get used to bubbles at this time of the year.

Aromatic Christmas

2007-12-25T17:27:00.001+01:00

At my third dinner (in as many days) we had takeaway lobster

accompanied by a simple vegetable soup - the picture isn't great but the soup was delicious.

My mum grew lots of herbs in Italy and dried them, and decided to distribute them to her children for Christmas.

This was my share: verveine, citronelle, tilleul, basilic, sarriette, peperoncini, rosemary, fennel seeds, oregano, bay leaves and sage.

And because this is a sentimental season, I include a picture of my mum's dog.

Blinis - small version

2007-12-25T10:46:00.000+01:00

The festive season has started, where I get together with friends and family and there is lots of food. Last Saturday I was invited for dinner and I helped out a little in the kitchen.

I baked small blinis, prepared according to a recipe from the beautiful cookbook 'Het Gerecht' by Filip Verheyden.

It's a fast and easy recipe without yeast, so the dough doesn't need to rise as in my previous post.

Serves 4

60 g buckwheat flour
40 g normal (wheat) flour
1 egg
1,5 dl milk
butter for baking
salt
sour cream and caviar

Mix both flours, add egg yolk, milk and a pinch of salt. Whisk it into a homogenous dough and let it rest for 5 min.
Beat the egg white and mix it gently into the dough.
Heat a little butter in a pan. Add several teaspoons of dough and fry both sides for 2 min on high heat.
Let the blinis cool and serve with sour cream and caviar.

Note: We also served a few blinis with smoked salmon in stead of caviar.
You can sprinkle a bit of lemon juice over the finished blinis.

We got very spoilt: loads of delicious appetizers, next to the blinis

a salad with deep-fried mozzarella, rucola and baked cherry tomatoes, as a starter

and a fantastic fish soup

served with homemade rouille

Quite amazing that after all of this we still managed to eat my Danish apple dessert, served with vanilla ice cream from Comus & Gasterea (described in my post about Brussels goodies).

We ended the evening with a game of Colonists of Katan - very enjoyable, especially for the winner :-p

Thanks R and F for your great hospitality!

Christmas market

2007-12-18T20:00:00.000+01:00

Met up with my colleagues to go to the Christmas market. It's next door to me but I hadn't properly visited yet, although I've already taken a ride in the fancy new big wheel followed by an ice cream at old favourite Comus & Gasterea.

It's becoming tradition to have fish soup at fishmonger De Noordzee

Some of us chose other fare

Were they pregnant by any chance?

Another tradition is having a real German sausage, nibbled at at both ends

and a 'jenever' goes down well after that.

After the market I needed some spices, so we popped into Desmecht, a fabulous shop with a room at the back which only has drawers with herbs and spices.

After this fun intermezzo I went back to my apartment which I've started renovating.

I'm a total wreck after only 2 days of manual labour.

Roast chicken with potatoes and mushrooms

2007-12-18T19:49:00.000+01:00

My neighbours had a busy weekend moving stuff etc so I cooked them a simple Sunday dinner.
The recipe is from R. C. Sidoli's "The cooking of Parma".
Forgot to take a pic though :-(

Serves 4

16 potatoes (small - medium size)
1 chicken, cut in 8 pieces
500 g mushrooms, whole
1 tbsp olive oil

Grease oven dish with olive oil.
Add all ingredients, season with a lot of pepper and salt.
Bake in oven at 200°C for 1h - 1h 30, until everything is cooked.
Mix the ingredients regularly while baking.

I served this with a turnip soup and pears with star anise.

Note: the chicken legs took a bit longer than the wings.
The vegetables tasted so delicious that everybody ate loads of them.

Très bon

2007-12-15T20:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we went to try out the restaurant Bon Bon, which had been recommended by my friends K and F, true food lovers and very good cooks.

We had incredibly fresh langoustines, cooked exactly enough

deer - very tasty and tender meat in a delicious sauce - with red cabbage and bacon, and alternating slices of black pudding, apple and red beetroot

three types of butter: plain salted, butter with seaweed and smoked butter

Some of us couldn't resist the cheese platter

and then our entire table got covered in desserts, that just kept coming:
a mango and lime affair, with a pistachio cracker

roast pineapple spread out at the bottom

we couldn't guess what was in the guimauve (marshmallow): it was Chartreuse verte, a French liquor
the moelleux and crème brûlée were delicious, I was told, but by then I had given up, much to the contentment of the men in our party
the third dish held grapefruit and a white cheese and basil mousse, very surprising

also surprising was the sorbet of kriek beer

Our verdict was unanimous: très bon.

Christmas tree felling

2007-12-09T21:38:00.001+01:00

My friends in the countryside own a small wood with Christmas trees and each year they invite their friends who want a tree to come and fell it. I didn't want a tree - I'm not so Christmassy and I still have a small Japanese cardboard specimen if I really feel like it - but I went and enjoyed the other goodies ;-)

Fantastic cheeses, with delicious home baked breads (maybe the recipe can be posted here?)

accompanied by cold meats

and pumpkin soup - made from home grown pumpkin - to which you could add 'croûtons'

so it looked like this

served with great wine - two types of red (a Sancerre and a Côtes d'Anjou if I remember correctly) and a white, which is supposed to be the best to serve with cheese

and then there was dessert, served by a tiny hand.

What a feast! Thanks guys!

As my friends also function as a kind of private library, I was handed a new load of books to read:

Colum McCann: This side of brightness
Haruki Murakami: Norwegian Wood
Richard Yates: Revolutionary Road
E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime
André Aciman: Call me by your name

I had brought these back:

Dave Eggers: What is the what (fantastic)
Sandro Veronesi: Kalme chaos (fantastic and hilarious)
David Mitchell: Black Swan Green (not bad)
Haruki Murakami: A wild sheep chase (not mad about it, too surrealistic for my taste)

and I've just started reading
Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely loud & incredibly close (reads 'like a train').

Meat loaf

2007-12-08T12:28:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I prepared meat loaf (pain de veau), according to my aunt A's recipe. This was a joint cooking venture with labelga from Leafy Cooking.

Serves 4

750 g ground meat (I used beef, my aunt suggests half beef, half pork)
1 egg
1 small onion (my aunt suggests 4 onions or shallots)
breadcrumbs (my aunt suggests using dry bread, soaked in milk)
a few sprigs of fresh parsley, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
pepper and salt
2-3 bay leaves to put on top

Mix everything well. Give it the form of a loaf, add bay leaves, put it in a greased oven dish and bake for 1-2 hrs at 180° C.

Note: My aunt used to add lots of vegetables such as carrots, kohlrabi, spring onion, red pepper and mushrooms. I didn't bother on this occasion. Sometimes I also add chives.
My loaf took around 1 hr to bake.

Beforehand it doesn't look all that appetizing

it needs messing about

ready to go in the oven

coming out

and served

with steamed potatoes and pumpkin ratatouille. We used sweet potato in stead of courgettes and one red pepper in the ratatouille, and we didn't need to add sugar as it already tasted deliciously sweet.

It was real comfort food, with comfort feet.

Outside the Christmas market has started, showing this view from my window.

This morning I was given two sets of 1930's door handles by a neighbour. I was very happy because in the appartment that I recently bought, most of the original door handles have disappeared, so I'm on the hunt.

Tabouleh

2007-12-01T17:00:00.000+01:00

Tabouleh is more of a Summer dish, but it's also good party fare. Yesterday we organised a small party with our neighbours, so I prepared this dish, according to the recipe my aunt gave my mother, over 15 years ago.

250 g couscous
4 juicy tomatoes + 1 extra for decoration
2 small onions, or a few spring onions
2 lemons or 3 limes
1 cucumber
black olives
5 tbsp olive oil, extra virgin
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves
pepper & salt

Put couscous in a bowl, add olive oil and lemon juice, pepper and salt, and mix well.
Peel cucumber, remove seeds, cut in small dices.
Peel onion and chop finely.
Peel tomatoes (put them in hot water so the skin comes off easily), and cut in small dices.
Add vegetables, olives, parsley, and mint to the couscous.
Mix well and let this stand for at least 2 hours in a cool spot. Mix once in a while.
Decorate with olives, slices of tomato and mint leaves.

Note: Crucial to this recipe is that you don't use water at all. The couscous gets softened by the olive oil, lemon juice and vegetable juices.
I tend to use half a bunch of parsley.

Before the party started, we had a Thai curry delivered

which tasted very nice with our first bottle of bubbles.

Brunch in Antwerp

2007-11-29T20:18:00.000+01:00

Last weekend we gathered for brunch in Antwerp, at Tati.

It's a bistro in Borgerhout, which doesn't usually do brunch, but I asked them to cook something up. And they delivered...

We had a reason to celebrate

Delicious dishes kept coming

I really enjoyed the cosy atmosphere, delicious food and good company!

Afterwards we went to see the show Maria Pascallas by our great actor Pascale Platel, in the beautiful theater Roma.

Satellite dishes

2007-11-18T19:51:00.000+01:00

A few days ago, I saw these guys, fixing yet another antenna for satellite tv.

Cucumber salad, red beetroot salad and potato salad

2007-11-18T19:25:00.000+01:00

Today I had friends over for lunch: an oldfashioned Sunday lunch. So I went for oldfashioned fare.
I prepared a soup from chicken broth, as posted before, and I served the cold chicken meat with salsa verde, and with a few salads from Claudia Roden's book of Jewish food.

The quantities serve 6 persons.

Cucumber salad

2 cucumbers
salt
lemon juice
1 tbsp sugar
2-3 tbsp sour cream

Peel cucumbers, cut in half and remove the seeds.
Chop them finely, sprinkle with a lot of salt, and let this drip in a sieve for at least 1 hr until it gets soft and looses the moisture.
Rinse and dry with kitchen towel.
Mix lemon juice and sugar with sour cream and add this to the cucumber.

Red beetroot salad

500 g red beetroots, boiled, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped finely
salt & pepper
lemon juice
1 tbsp sugar
2-3 tbsp sour cream
3 tbsp dill, chopped finely

Mix sour cream, lemon juice and sugar.
Add the other ingredients.
Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Potato salad

1 kg potatoes
salt & pepper
olive oil, extra virgin
1 onion, chopped finely
3 tbsp parsley, chopped finely

Wash potatoes and steam them. Peel them immediately and slice them. Add olive oil, salt and pepper to taste while they're still warm. Mix well. When they've cooled, add onion and parsley.

Note: you can add capers, anchovy, black olives, boiled egg etc. Today I omitted this because I also served salsa verde, which contains most of these ingredients.

We had a great bottle of wine with this meal.

Vive le roi!

2007-11-15T18:45:00.000+01:00

I'm not really a royalist, although I don't like this idea of splitting our small country up.
But today I like our monarchy, because as a public servant I get a day off for the celebration of our royal dynasty ;-)

Days like this give one the occasion to meet up with old friends, have coffee on the heated terrace of Hotel Mêtropole in the last sunshine and watch the passersby, buy beautiful gloves at an oldfashioned glove shop in Galerie de la Reine,

buy speculoos at Dandoy, in anticipation of Sinterklaas on Dec. 6, and stop at Le Cirio, a Brussels institution

where you must have half-en-half, a Brussels speciality which is a mix of white wine and sparkling wine,

and pick up a book at Passa Porta, a favourite bookshop.

And sometimes, on days like this, you get really lucky and already receive beautiful roses for your birthday, weeks in advance. Thanks N!

Sunday dinner

2007-11-15T18:29:00.000+01:00

A while ago, I was invited for a delicious Sunday dinner. I really enjoyed hunting for premeal snacks, spying on the preparations,

eating a delicious meal in good company, letting myself go on the pies, left over from an afternoon visit - a Flemish tradition, pie on Sunday afternoon -

and after this enormous meal, still stuffing our faces with the most vicious sweet in het world: AUTODROP!

Celebration

2007-11-11T16:20:00.000+01:00

I haven't commented yet on two small causes for celebration. The first one is this blog's first anniversary, on October 21st. So one year already of recording fun in the kitchen, delicious food, and also some fun in Brussels and in general.

The second one is that I received the Nice Matters award from labelga at Leafy Cooking. Thanks a lot!

Red pepper and walnut paste

2007-11-11T15:40:00.000+01:00

Last month, when my friends came to dinner, we prepared this paste and served it on small toasts as a starter. You can also use it as a sauce to dip vegetables in. It's another Claudia Roden recipe, called muhammara.

Serves 6

2 red peppers
red chili paste
1 slice of bread without crust
90 g peeled walnuts
1/2 garlic clove, crushed
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
olive oil

Roast red peppers in the oven at 200°C for 30 min. Turn them once. Let them cool in a plastic bag, then peel them and remove stem and seeds.
Blend all ingredients into a paste using a blender.
Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

The walnuts were deftly and painstakingly peeled by hand using Mono Pico, a very simple device which my cousin brought me from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

We forgot to take pictures of the result - which was delicious. So instead a few pics showing the view from the kitchen in the evening.

Pumpkin and quince stew

2007-11-07T19:27:00.000+01:00

Last month I had friends over for dinner and now I'll finally share a delicious recipe with you that I prepared that day. It's a sweet dish with pumpkin and quince that accompanies a couscous, in stead of oignons confits for instance. The recipe comes from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food' and she calls it 'Hlou aux coings et potiron'. I love quince almost as much as pumpkin, so I really wanted to try this combination.

Serves 4-5

2-3 tbsp sunflower oil
100 g sugar
1 big onion, chopped
250 g pumpkin, peeled and chopped
2 quince, peeled and chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat oil with sugar until sugar starts to caramelize and get brown.
Add onion and fry for 5 min.
Add pumpkin and quince and lemon juice, add water until everything is just covered.
Let the dish simmer for 45 min.
The mixture should be thick, like a jam.
Serve hot or cold with couscous.

The taste was fantastic and the dish was a great success with my guests.

I prepared the couscous according to Claudia Roden's basic recipe, which I won't copy here.

London

2007-11-05T22:08:00.001+01:00

Went to London for a short break. We enjoyed very sunny and mild weather. And great food, as usual.

Ahh, the pleasure of a gin-in-T at the local...

After that, you may imagine seeing foxes roaming the neighborhood, but this one was for real

We went for a nice curry at the South-Indian restaurant Rasa in Stoke Newington, with mango lassi

and fish cakes for starters

We also had Japanese food at Aki Japanese Bistro. London is the place where I had the best Japanese food ever, and we weren't disappointed on this occasion.

My favourite Japanese dish: beef teryaki

Another favourite is brunch at the Giraffe in Islington, where you can have smoothies such as Mango Mama

or Groovy Muesli Smoothie

and my all time favourite cooked breakfast - aahh, still smacking my lips -

but you can also have pancakes with maple syrup

Look at the weather we had:

Brunch

2007-10-29T12:48:00.000+01:00

A lot of blogging is due, but I have to find the time. So, for now, just two pics of a nice Sunday brunch at Le Passiflore in Ixelles.

Two old ladies' feet at the table next to us.

Apple pie

2007-10-08T19:54:00.000+02:00

So many nuts

- huge ones -

and so many chestnuts!

But this post is about apples. Also huge ones - boscoop, a sour variety meant for cooking - from my mother's garden, which I used to make a pie. I follow my friend K.'s simple and delicious recipe. It has lots of fruit and only a little bit of pastry around it.

2 eggs
125 g sugar
125 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
750 g apples
a bit of dried raisins
butter

Separate the egg whites from the yolks and beat the whites.
Then beat the yolks with half the amount of sugar until you get a creamy and light coloured mix.
Add the egg whites.
Mix baking powder and cinnamon into the flour and add this to the egg whites.
Peel the apples, remove the cores and cut them into pieces.
Add them to the mixture together with the raisins and mix well.
Grease a pie dish with butter and add a little flour.
Add the mixture.
Sprinkle the remainder of the sugar on top and add a few pieces of butter.
Bake in the oven for 50 min at 180° C.

The pie was eaten by candle light in a cosy appartment ;-)

Note: I added a bit of rum.

Chestnuts again

2007-10-06T20:46:00.000+02:00

Tonight I prepared my first chestnuts of the season, hooray!
A simple soup to start with, using a previous recipe, with slightly different ingredients.

I used patisson from my mother's garden and also shallot and leek.

Pears with star anise

2007-10-06T20:27:00.000+02:00

My mother gave me pears from her garden, a special variety called St-Rémi, which you need to cook. I was inspired by labelga's recipe for stewed pears with star anise and cardamom.
I left out the sugar as she recommended and added honey instead.
I also left out the cinnamon as I wasn't sure how this would combine with the other spices, and used bigger quantities of those.

4 pears
2 star anise
5 pieces of cardamom
2 tsp honey

Peel the pears, remove stalks and cores, and cut them in pieces.
Put them in a pan with a bit of water (they should not be completely covered) with spices and honey. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer for 45 min.

Birdies and beans

2007-10-02T21:18:00.000+02:00

More and more birds are showing up on the crane outside my window.

And where's the royal palace?

Tonight I made another butter bean casserole, with a few adjustments to the recipe:
I added carrot and bay leaves when boiling the beans for the first time.
In the second part I used shallot, carrot, yellow pepper, courgette, potato and celery as vegetables. I only let it simmer for 20 min, until the vegetables were soft.

Pumpkin and chickpea soup

2007-09-30T14:11:00.000+02:00

Yes! Today I prepared my first pumpkin of the season. It comes from my friends' garden.
I'm feeling a bit ill so I made a spicy soup to fight my cold.

1-2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 small onions, peeled and chopped
1 small dried chilli pepper (peperoncino), chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp dried coriander seeds, crushed
6 cm ginger, peeled and cut in 3 big pieces
1 small pumpkin
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
400 g chick peas, cooked and drained (this is the weight of cooked and drained chick peas)
salt

Fry onion and chilli in oil for a few min on low heat, add ginger and coriander seeds and fry for a few more min. Raise the heat a little, add pumpkin, cover the pan and fry for a few more min. Then add potato and chick peas, fry for a few min and add a little water if necessary to avoid burning. Add more boiling water, bring to the boil, add plenty of salt, then lower the heat and let the soup simmer for 30 min. Remove the pieces of ginger and serve, e.g. with fresh coriander leaves.

Notes:
You might add leek.
You can also chop the ginger finely or grate it and leave it in the soup.
The taste of the coriander seeds was a bit weak, so you could probably add a whole teaspoon of them.
On the whole the soup received acclaim, from grumpy old men!

Red beetroot soup

2007-09-23T22:06:00.000+02:00

When I got home, I decided to start cooking the red beetroots from my friends' vegetable garden, right away. I still had some leftover vegetables so I combined everything in a soup.

3 small onions, peeled and chopped
6 small carrots, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, washed and chopped
1 courgette, washed and chopped
3 red beetroots, peeled and chopped
a bit of celery, washed and chopped
chopped parsley
olive oil
2 cloves
2-3 bay leaves
vegetable stock

Fry onions and celery stalks for a few min in olive oil on low heat.
Add red beetroots, carrots and pepper, raise the heat a little and fry for some more min.
Add courgette and celery leaves and fry for some more min.
Add boiling water, lots of salt, pepper, cloves, bay leaves and vegetable stock.
Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let the soup simmer for 30-45 min until the vegetables are cooked.
Serve with chopped parsley.

Note
The original recipe (from the cook of Lukemieke, a vegetarian restaurant which existed in Leuven when I was studying there) uses these vegetables: 300 g red beetroot, 2 carrots, 1 onion, 1/2 white or green cabbage and 2 leeks. It also suggests serving the soup with sourcream. I added a tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.
After tasting the soup I decided that in future I would leave out the red pepper (too tangy) and courgette (got too soft) and add leek and potato in stead.

Stuffed courgette flowers

2007-09-23T21:36:00.000+02:00

Today I went to visit my friends in the countryside. I witnessed the preparation of a house specialty and I asked for the recipe, so here comes.

180 g ricotta
100-200 g boiled spinach
some grated parmesan
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, chopped
15 courgette flowers
pinch of nutmeg
1 tbsp olive oil
125 g flour

Mix ricotta, spinach, parmesan, nutmeg and basil leaves. Season with pepper and salt.
Wash the flowers delicately, make an incision and remove the part in the middle.
Stuff each flower with a teaspoon of the ricotta mixture.
Make a liquid batter with flour, olive oil and some water.
Dip the the flowers quickly in the batter, let them drip a bit then fry them in frying oil.
Serve immediately, sprinkled with salt.

These were the flowers, straight from the garden.

Stuffing them

Stuffed

Frying them

and savouring them! Delicious!

Note: you can omit the parmesan for a lighter dish.

My friends live in a great house with a fantastic garden: they have a vegetable garden, a flower garden, chicken, sheep, fruit trees... and today was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for enjoying this.

We ate outside, probably for the last time this year.

My friends' dahlias

and sheep, in a meadow with an apple tree bearing loads of fruit

The hazelnut harvest

which needs to be peeled

and the walnut harvest, which we gathered in about 15 minutes; there are so many nuts this year!

and this is the loot I took home.