Biologists' dinner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.