Categories for Food

Green tomato chutney

Tomato harvest is going towards its end. Last weekend we picked most of the tomatoes from the plants. Green ones. Around a month ago i made green tomato chutney. I likd it, but it was too sweet for some people. So i searched for another recipe. I found this one on the BBC Good Food website.

In the comments there are some variations mentioned. So i’m adding some spices and chili’s. I will add the old chutney i made, simply add less sugar and taste a bit more.

The courgettes are for a pickling sweet sour courgette recipe. I ended up not making it. Another day.

Ingredients

  • 2½ kg green tomato
  • 500g onion
  • 1 rounded tbsp salt
  • 500g sultana
  • 500g cooking apple
  • 300g light muscovado sugar
  • 1 litre jar spiced pickling vinegar
  • spices: ground ginger, tumeric, ground star anice, dried chili

Method

  1. I didn’t leave the tomatoes and onion overnight. Too impatient. I did start out with them though and left them standing for a while.
  2. Next i picked the jars from my collection of saved ones and put them in big pans with boiling water. I left them in there with the water boiling fiercely for around ten minutes.
  3. Chop the sultanas. Peel, core and chop the apples.
  4. Put the sugar and the vinegar into a large pan, boil and stir to dissolve the sugar
  5. Add the sultanas and apples to the vinegar and sugar and simmer for around ten minutes
  6. Strain the tomatoes and onions, don’t rinse. Add the tomatoes and onions
  7. Put the ginger, tumeric, star anice and dried chilis in a dry pan and roast them for around ten minutes. Add them to the chutney mixture
  8. Simmer for around an hour or until you are happy with the consistency.
  9. Transfer the chutney to the jars, make sure they are really full and cover with the lids

Published on October 25, 2018 at 6:00 by

Membrillo

Membrillo paste, a Spanish jelly made with quince and sugar
Quarter the quinces and cut out the core. I didn't peel them. More pectine and more taste!
Boil tha quinces in water for around an hour
Get rid of the water and puree the quinces
Add the sugar. The recipes says to add the same weight, i added a bit less
Cook on a low fire...
.. till it gets brown. It took me around two hours. Do go through it with a wooden spoon to prevent it from burning at the bottom
Put the paste in a tin and let it cool. The brown bits are from the paste getting burned a bit. Lazy me.
Some apples drying. I hope these will work out! And that the flies keep of them.
Published on October 12, 2018 at 6:00 by

Appeltaart

A proper Dutch apple tart. Delicious!

Ingredients
Dough

  • 200 gr soft butter
  • 160 gr light brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 300 gr flour
  • bit of salt
  • 1 egg
  • breadcrumbs

Apple filling

  • 100 gr raisins
  • rum
  • 1 kilo of Elstar apples
  • 100 gr walnuts sliced coursly
  • 4 tsp sugar
  • 1 bag vanilla sugar

Preparation

  • Rub a 24 cm wide springform in with butter and cast flour over it
  • Preheat your oven to 180°C.

Dough

  • Whisk the butter, light brown sugar and cinnamon
  • Sift the flour over it with a pinch of salt and add one egg
  • Mix to a supple dough and leave to rest in the fridge for at least fifteen minutes
  • Divide in three parts, one part for the bottom, one part for the side and one part for the top
  • Roll out two parts and put this in the springform
  • Divide the breadcrumbs over this

Apple filling

  • Put the rum over the raisins and leave them be – i did this at the start of making the cake
  • Peel the apples and cut into course pieces
  • Put in the raisins, decide for yourself if you want to sift out the rum (i didn’t)
  • Mix the apple, raisins, walnuts, sugar, vanilla sugar and cinnamon

Put together

  • Put the apple filling in the springform
  • Roll out the rest of the dough , slice this into small ribbons and cover the cake with them
  • Break an egg, scarmble this and cover the ribbons with it
  • Bake the cake in 60 minutes
  • Let the cake cool a bit
  • Serve with some powdered sugar and whipped cream if you like this

Published on September 21, 2018 at 6:00 by

Courgette Brownies

In the busy time of making the batter for the brownies, i forgot to make photos of each phase. So i only have a photo of the wet ingredients. Well, it is not that difficult. I used this recipe on Great British Chefs as a source. I left out some of the spices, the cardamom and pistachio nuts. Still is pretty good to me. I will make another photo once they are done. There are of course many more recipes for courgette (zucchini for you US people) brownies to be found. I have made other ones before. One of my favourite baking websites Joy of Baking has many different options for any type of brownie you want!

Ingredients

  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 packet vanilla sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 160g of light muscovado sugar
  • 60g of oil, flavourless, such as vegetable or rice bran, or in my case, sunflower
  • 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 45g of cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 130g of spelt flour, or plain flour
  • 2 courgettes, or 1 large courgettes, grated
  • 100g of dark chocolate chips

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 175°C/gas mark 4. Grease a 20x20cm baking tin and line with baking parchment
  • In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, salt, sugars, oil and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the cocoa, baking powder and flour
  • Sift this into the wet mixture and fold gently to combine. Fold in the grated courgettes and chocolate chips, and mix until just combined
  • Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30–40 minutes, until the batter has set and springs back when pressed in the middle. Leave to cool
  • I leave the brownie to cool overnight in the fridge, i like the fudgy feel it gets then, but if you can not control yourself, slice into 16 squares straightaway and enjoy!

Published on September 6, 2018 at 6:00 by

Dumpster diving

Today i got these things from a friend from the garden. Dumpster dived. Skipped. Whatever name you give it. I can use this for the cakes i am gonna bake the end of this week. The savoury cakes i will bake for the garden work moment. Thanks!

Five kilos of wholemeal wheat flour milled in Schiedam
Lineseed oil cold-pressed
Two packs of savoury cake mix
One kilo of spelt flour milled in Schiedam
Published on September 4, 2018 at 6:00 by

Italian applecake

Apples!

I confess, this morning when i peeled and cut the apples i got from the garden, i sighed. And decided to use to of the Delcorfs new harvest i bought on the market. Because they are bigger.

The recipe i used is from smulweb.nl, a Dutch cooking website. I did do a search on duckduckgo.com for the word appeltaart, trying to find a good recipe for the Dutch appeltaart. And there i found this Italian applecake recipe. Hmm.

Ingredients

  • 150 gram butter
  • 150 gram sugar ( i used light brown sugar)
  • 4 eggs (i only had three, i added soaked lineseed for the fourth)
  • 500 gram apples
  • 150 gram flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 lemon, the juice and the rind
  • a bit of salt
  • 1 courgette, rasped (because i have so many and this cake is for the garden)

Method

  • preheat your oven to 180 ºC
  • melt the butter on a low fire, keep an eye on this and put out the fire once the butter is completely melted
  • peel the apples, slice them finely
  • rasp the courgette over the apples
  • rasp your lemon
  • squeeze your lemon and put it over the apple slices
  • put the sugar, salt, lemon peel and four eggs in a bowl, whisk this till it is foamy
  • add the melted butter to the apples
  • add the flour and the baking powder to the apples and mix
  • add the apples and flour and butter to the egg mixture and mix good
  • cover a 26 cm wide round springform with butter and add a spoon of flour to it and swirl it around
  • put the dough in the springform
  • bake for 40 to 50 minutes in the oven
  • put the oven out once it is done and leave the cake inside for five minutes

Enjoy!

Published on September 3, 2018 at 6:00 by

Low carb

Seven years ago i was diagnosed with diabetes. Since then i took pills. And for two years i have been giving myself insulin after i have measured a too high glucose in my blood. I also started to go to a dietitian again. Seven years ago i went to another dietitian, but it to my liking. The only thing i learned was to spread my meals a bit during the day. I also got a piece of paper with the traditional low fat meals on it. I never used it.

I have been talking with my current dietitian about my food. I do have a sweet tooth. I do enjoy bread. Potatoes. Pasta. The one thing i learned through reading online is that low-carb is a good type of diet for diabetes.

I talked with my dietitian about this and i have tried to minimize my carbs. With difficulty.

At the start of June, just over a month ago, i decided to really make a go with it. These are the rules from A Guide to Healthy Low-Carb Eating with Diabetes i follow:

Foods to Eat

  • Meat, poultry and seafood
  • Eggs
  • Cheese
  • Non-starchy vegetables (most vegetables except those listed below)
  • Avocados
  • Olives
  • Olive oil, coconut oil, butter, cream, sour cream and cream cheese

Foods to Eat in Moderation

  • Berries: 1 cup or less
  • Plain, Greek yogurt: 1 cup or less
  • Cottage cheese: 1/2 cup or less
  • Nuts and peanuts: 1–2 oz or 30–60 grams
  • Flaxseeds or chia seeds: 2 tablespoons
  • Dark chocolate (at least 85% cocoa): 30 grams or less
  • Winter squash (butternut, acorn, pumpkin, spaghetti and hubbard): 1 cup or less
  • Liquor: 1.5 oz or 50 grams
  • Dry red or white wine: 4 oz or 120 grams

Foods to Avoid

  • Bread, pasta, cereal, corn and other grains
  • Starchy vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams and taro
  • Legumes, such as peas, lentils and beans (except green beans and snow peas)
  • Milk
  • Fruit other than berries
  • Juice, soda, punch, sweetened tea, etc
  • Beer
  • Desserts, baked goods, candy, ice cream, etc

I have minimized my alcohol ever since 2011. A year and a half ago i stopped drinking wine at home. I drank two bottles a week then. Now i occasionally drink wine or beer. Usually once a month. Longer even. Sugar, desserts, cakes and all, that is hard to leave standing. Really hard. still working on it. Coffee is hit and miss. The past three weeks i did drink coffee at home, with sugar and cream. I will go back to tea once the coffee is finished. Tea i drink with no sugar. Bread is difficult. Today i baked a new bread, with lots of eggs, courgette and coconut flour. I like it. I will try more recipes. I’ll keep you posted here about them!

I am happy i am an omnivore. It would be really difficult to eat low-carb as a vegan.

My glucose has been significantly less the past month. I just got to keep it up.

Published on July 12, 2018 at 6:00 by

Gevuld speculaas

Today i went for gevuld speculaas. This is almond spice between two layers of speculaas. Speculaas is a spiced cookie dough. It might seem a bit like ginger biscuit, but there are more spices in it: pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg.
I went for the filled with almond paste version. One my alltime favourite cookie.
The coukie dough is like a short crust pastry.
Last Friday i got the flour and spices. It was dumpster dived.
At the back there are a couple of recipes for speculaas.
The almond past goes on top of the first layer of speculaas. On top is the final speculaas. Yummy!
A whisked egg is spread on top.
A cross section. I have way too much. Tomorrow i will bring most of it to the garden to share.
Published on April 10, 2018 at 6:00 by

Parsnip cake

A sunny day. This evening we will be looking at the stars and the planets. Maybe the moon as well. I don’t know if it is visible here. We’ll see!

This morning i baked a parsnip cake for Daniël. Yesterday i made pumpkin soup for this evening. A bit spicy, with a large winter carrot, a parsnip, onions, garlic, ginger, three hot peppers. I hope it is nice. Spicy.

Ingredients

  • 160g whole flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 3 tsp cinnamon or mixed spice
  • 1 tsp cardamom
  • 150ml vegetable oil
  • 200g light soft brown sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • half an orange juice
  • 200g finely grated parsnips
  • 80g raisins or sultanas

How to

  1. Place the flour in a bowl and stir in the cinnamon, cardamom and the baking soda, put to one side.
  2. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a large loaf tin with parchment.
  3. Beat the sugar with the oil with a hand held or in a standing mixer. Add the eggs and the orange zest and beat in well. Stir in the grated parsnips followed by the flour and mix it in. Stir in the raisins.
  4. Bake for around 50 minutes.

I discovered some old Wire gig footage on youtube this weekend. Here is one for you.

Published on January 15, 2018 at 6:00 by

Christmas shopping

This year’s special Albert Heijn‘s special Christmas shopping booklet with all the Christmas dishes you can buy. Some things do appeal, especially the vegetables and vegetable mixes for soups. Most things though i don’t like at all. The ready made dishes. The chocolate milks. The puddings. I’m not saying i won’t buy anything in the Albert Heijn. But not that much. These dishes are of course meant for the largest crowd in the Netherlands. The people with not that much time, simply wanting to celebrate Christmas together. Nothing wrong with that.

I won’t be spending Christmas with my family this year. I will ask around if other people are spending Christmas alone, maybe there is something we can organize. A dinner. With sauerkraut and mashed potatoes perhaps. A self made cake for dessert. And whipped cream. Pumpkin soup. Or parsnip soup. Simple dishes. But i’ll see what comes around. Still plenty of time to organize something.

Aah, and today i donated five euros to the Kraut Fund Fest Rotterdam. On 16 December i will go to the Rotterdamse Oogst Markt and make my own sauerkraut. With a special bucket and a water seal. My own experiment a year ago failed horribly. Or was it two years ago? Anyway, looking forward to that!

Published on December 8, 2017 at 6:00 by