An easy recipe today. Still, it took me years of getting to this point. I used to make chocolate milk with cocoa powder, sugar and a bit of water. Added the separately warmed milk and presto, chocolate milk. Nowadays i do make it different. Chocolate! At least 71% cocoa, could be more, but depends on what you want to pay for it. Full milk, one teaspoon of sugar. Warm the milk and sugar, add the chocolate and use a whisk to combine it all together. Chocolate milk. Yum!
With the chocolate milk i had some gevuld speculaas. The basic speculaas dough filled with almond spice. I bought mine at the supermarket. Love love love it! Yeah, i know, i should make this myself one day and share the recipe with you. I might. One day.
A lazy day today.
I did make pancakes this morning. Pannenkoeken. With this recipe: Pannenkoeken zoals het hoort (Dutch only).
Ingredients:
I did put the flour and the milk together yesterday and let is soak for more than twelve hours. This morning i added the eggs, salt and butter. I baked the pancakes next. Not as thick as American pancakes, but with the buttermilk a bit thicker than usual for Dutch pancakes. And this evening i baked some more! With apple and bacon and maple syrup. Great!
I also went into town this afternoon. I was a bit dreamy. I did go to Lush to get a soap. I checked at home and saw that that was the next thing i would need. First i did go through the shop and looked at all these things. It was busy. The smell was a bit overwhelming. Finally i did ask someone to help me with picking a soap. Lots of oil, not too heavy a smell. She suggested two soaps, one from the Christmas collection and one called Sultana of Soap. I bought 98 grams of this soap. It does feel very fatty. Good.
I do feel tired. Gonna lie on my couch, watch the Great British Menu and the Great British Bake Off, one after the other. Yay 🙂
The garden gives so many courgettes over the summer. I had to look for recipes for which i could use it. Apart from rasped in an omelet, a ratatouille, courgette soup and many other recipes. So: cake!
I found a good recipe on the bbcgoodfood.com website. It is in a way similar to a carrot cake. Oil, no butter, brown sugar, sultana’s and walnuts. The first time i made this cake i still had some walnuts in the house, which i all cracked and put in the cake. The second time i didn’t have any walnuts anymore. So out came the sunflower seeds.
I’ve baked this cake around five times in the past weeks. I still have some courgettes from the garden, so i will bake another one tomorrow to take with Friday morning. It does taste a bit like a carrot cake, it has the same combination of wet and dry ingredients. I love it. I do leave out the vanilla, i simply don’t have in my house. Please add if you do have it.
Ingredients
Method
Last evening i sat down for a bit, on the ground on my meditation pillow with a cushion for my knees. The meditation pillow i have for around twenty years or so. I mainly use it as a doorstop. My cats have a habit of closing doors, when they don’t really want to.
I sat down in my room for around half an hour. I listened to all the sounds in the house and outside. The tram in the street next to mine riding by. Cars in the distance. A couple of cars closer by. Birds singing and chirping.
Writing this down now makes me listen to the sounds outside. The balcony door is open. It was raining a lot today. When i was on the market it started to rain once again. I hoped i had picked an hour in between rain, but no. Still, i was sitting besides the library for a while, went inside the Markthal to go to the Asian supermarket and get some soy sauce. When i went back home it was dry once more.
Today i made raw pickled beetroot. Last week i bought a couple, and i had two in the fridge. I looked around for a good recipe. Several i found for cooked or baked beetroot. This one is for thinly sliced raw beetroot. I like it raw. I’ve made salads with raw beetroot. Last week for the bonfire evening in the Peace Garden i made a salad with raw beetroot, raw carrot, raisins, a bit of honey and a dressing with olive oil, mustard and vinegar. Some feta separately, to add to if you wanted it. Tasted good!
The pickle was easy. First i got the water, apple vinegar, sugar, peppercorns, star anise, salt and cayenne pepper in a small pan and set it up to heat through completely. I started to slice the beetroot on my mandolin. I had set it to a very small distance, so i would get thin slices. I sliced half a red onion after that, and one garlic clove.
I searched for a pot which would fit the beetroot. I boiled water enough for the pot to be covered with it and set it to dry on a piece of kitchen paper. I filled the pot with some beetroot, added some onion and garlic. Going on until the pot was filled. I had some beetroot left over. Enough for my soup for tonight.
I let the pot cool for an hour or so. Now it is standing in the fridge for at least two days. After that they are done.
Bon appetit!
I came across this recipe earlier this week. At home i do have strawberries, a bit less than asked for in the recipe, but i can adjust. I do have sugar and i do have buttermilk. No ordinary milk, but i do enjoy the taste of buttermilk lots more than ordinary milk anyway.
So i got the strawberries out of the fridge and weighed them. I have around 350 grams! I sliced them and added some sugar so they are all coated. They are standing in the kitchen now for around an hour to let them macerate.
Later on, i suddenly thought of the one stalk of rhubarb i have in the fridge. I decided to simply add cooled boiled rhubarb to the milk. I cut up the rhubarb in small pieces, added a bit of sugar, a few droplets of water and cooked it for around 8 minutes.
I let the rhubarb cool for two hours. The strawberries were releasing more juices in their sweet sugar sweetened liquid.
I put the strawberries and the rhubarb in a blender and mixed them all to mush. I added some buttermilk. Done!
Yummy 🙂
Pizza!
I made the dough myself. Not with white flour, but with wholemeal. A bit tougher, but i liked it. The recipe said it was for two pizza’s, but i divided it into four pieces. Was plenty for me.
Mix all the dry ingredients, make a well, fill with the olive oil and almost all the water. Stir with a wooden spoon. Add extra water if you need it. When it is all mixed, get it out of the bowl and start needing for around 10 minutes. Let it rise for an hour and a half.
Once it is risen, get it out, deflate it and divide into four parts. If you are really hungry, you can try 2 parts! Let the parts rise for another fifteen minutes.
You can put the parts you will not use in a plastic bag and put those in the fridge. Not sure how long they will stay good, my guess is about a week.
For a tomato sauce i sauteed some onion and leek, a bit of garlic and tiny bit of hot pepper i stil had in the fridge. I skinned and deseeded three tomatoes, sliced them up and added them. I let it simmer for around 20 minutes. I also put a bell pepper in the oven for around half an hour, put it inside a plastic bag when done and let it cool a bit. After that i skinned the pepper and sliced it finely.
I put the tomato sauce on the pizza, added the bell pepper slices. Only half a bell pepper i used, the other half i put in the fridge for the next day. I sliced up a piece of mozzarella and added them around. Some olives around them and finally 4 slices of anchovies.
In the meantime i had put my oven to its highest point. I put in the pizza, on the baking paper and let it bake for ten minutes.
After the pizza was done, i added some rocket on top and let it wilt for a minute or so.
Great!
I will get some parma ham tomorrow for my new pizza. I can’t wait.
It is Sunday morning. A bit warm. A bit cloudy. But still, the balcony door is open, the cats dozing of. A lovely morning.
I have chickpeas cooking. Beetroot in the oven. I’ll be making hummus with it in a few hours. A bit of tahin left over, but not enough. I’ll be putting some sunflower seeds in there too.
I just looked up a recipe for the sunflower seeds. I do need to roast them for around 5 – 10 minutes. They do need to be cool before you move on.
OK, done that.
I only need to add olive oil and blend them until smooth.
I did just taste a chickpea. It is ok, but could do with a bit more cooking, for around half an hour or so.
Well, i hadn’t planned on writing about the hummus i’m about to make! I did set the category of this post to food too. I might even make a few pictures.
What i had planned was writing about not falling in love. Which is what i have planned for myself for the moment. I’m not sure though.
I came across this quote from Maya Angelou at Brain Pickings:
We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable.
The courage to create yourself daily. That does speak to me. I do realize that posting this on this blog makes it open for others to see. That is my own choice. It forces me to keep on working on it. And i don’t mind. Well, not too much! Sometimes i’m embarrassed. Ouch.
It is difficult. I treasure the time at home. To listen to music. To watch tv. To read. Not as much as i would like, but still! To watch youtube. To read the whole internet! To cuddle my cats. To cook.
I have to reread what i wrote in my last post Work. I do try to keep things simple. But pfff, that takes much.
It’s evening now. I didn’t do a lot of work in the garden. Nicole from the States came by and we talked for a long time about the garden, about why we work there, what we buy in a supermarket and other things. I showed her around. It was raining the whole time, but not cold, so i didn’t really mind that much. Once i was wet anyway.
I watched a bit of television. Grand Designs, De grote verbouwing, i love to watch. I had already seen the episode, but i still watched it.
Then i danced.
That was quite a few weeks, since i last danced. Took some time to get into it. I always dance with other people in my mind. People from the garden popped up. Marijn was there too, Liorah, Jeroen, Carolien. I was inviting them to come to dance with me. It was good.
And then the thought hit me. I should fill up my life. I should be as happy as i can be. Time alone is part of that, of course. But i also love to be with other people. Simply talk with them. Enjoy life.
I do not know everything. I have so many things to learn.
But i do realize that the past year and a half i’ve been happy, all by myself. In a very quiet way. Other people will have hardly noticed it. i’m sure. But yes, the Turkish man selling big potatoes and kebab on the market has noticed it. People eating chips at the side of the library have noticed it.
So yes, fill up my life with the things i want to do. Be as happy as i possibly can.
😀
Ooh, the title of this post. Yes, not fall in love. If i can. 😉
Today i’m gonna eat ratatouille. I have made this so many times before. I do usually eat this with some pasta, as a sauce. It’s also good with different cuts of meat, omelettes or baked potatoes. Or simply on its own.
Some vegetables are required, i do add others if i have any.
I start with slicing the onions and frying them for a couple of minutes. While they fry, i cut the eggplant and add the pieces.
The courgette i first quarter and remove the seeds. Then i cut each piece in two and slice each part in around 1 inch cubes. These are added to the onions and eggplant.
The bell pepper is halved, the seeds removed and cut into 1 inch pieces. These are added to the other vegetables. The garlic is sliced up and added too. The anchovies and the oil they are kept in are added too. These vegetables are simmered for around half an hour.
In that time, cut up the tomatoes, get the peas from their shells, slice the chard. After the half hour, add all these vegetables and the olives, around a handful. Let this simmer for another 10 minutes or so.
This is the way i make ratatouille. I cooked some pasta at the end, added the ratatouille and put some cottage cheese on top of it all. I also added a bit of olive oil on top of it all. I did read Elizabeth David‘s recipe beforehand and followed it broadly. The peas, chard, anchovies and black olives i added myself.
I love this dish. In all its forms and shapes!
Last week i bought dried chickpeas and tahini at the supermarket. It is hummus time! Tahini is a made from sesame seeds. I know, i could make this myself as well, but man, i just want the hummus. So i bought it. The chickpeas i bought dry. A new thing for me. I usually buy chickpeas in a tin, already cooked. But it is a lot cheaper to cook the chickpeas yourself.
Ingredients hummus
After soaking and cooking the chickpeas most work was done. Well, apart from skinning the chickpeas. When i got the chickpeas out of the cooking liquid, i rubbed them with some kitchen paper. The white transparent skins do come off rather easily. Most were removed by the rubbing, some i had to squeeze out. Since they were well cooked, they usually just slipped out. A few more rubbings and removing of the skins later and they were all clean and tidy in the small food processor.
I added one big garlic clove, the juice of one lemon, three serving spoons of tahini, one teaspoon of salt and paprika. I blended this for around a minute or two. After that i added two serving spoons of the cooking liquid. I blended a minute more.
I tasted the hummus. The tahini came through great. I like the taste of the sesame seeds. I realized then i had forgotten the olive oil. But it was fine, i will add the olive oil when i serve it together with the pita bread.
Pita bread i usually buy. Today i thought about what i will be eating. I still have the roasted vegetables in the fridge, but they can stay good until tomorrow. I was planning on making the hummus this week anyway, so then my mind turned to pita bread. I do have all the ingredients in house to make, so why not. First i planned to make half a recipe, but then i read that you can keep the dough in the fridge for about a week.
I used this recipe from the kitchn.
Ingredients pita bread
Preparing the dough is a basic bread recipe. Add the yeast to the water and let it rest for five minutes. Weigh the flour and add the salt. After the five minutes add the flour to the water, add the oil and mix it all together. Take the dough out of the bowl, use some extra flour and knead for around 7-10 minutes. I always have some music on, so that is around three to four songs. Clean the bowl, add a bit of oil, then the dough and set it at a warm space and leave it for an hour or two.
I made the hummus in the meantime and let that rest until dinner time.
Around fifteen minutes before the rising is finished, turn on your oven to around 230ºC. Make sure to heat up a large baking sheet in the oven. You will need the heat. You may also use a cooking pan (read about that on the kitchn website). When the rising is done, get the dough out of the bowl and slightly deflate it. Now is the time to put the part you won’t be using yet in the fridge. I put in two thirds. From the other third i made three small balls and rolled them out with a bit of flour beneath them. You need to bake the breads for around three minutes.
Since this was my first time making the pita bread, only two puffed up. In the recipe it says that if this happens the oven or skillet is not hot enough. It also says you can still eat them, especially in pieces with hummus. Since this was exactly my recipe, i didn’t bother that much. The taste was good anyway.
I did eat two pita breads and enough hummus to dip each bit in. A bit of oil and some flat parsley added. I kept one pita to have an hour later with an avocado. Half.
Yum 🙂