Braised Beef with Salsa Verde

Christmas is the time of the year to make the most delicious meals and simple meals. Yesterday besides my Christmas Cake (you can read in my previous post) I made a very nice and easy stew, they only thing is that it had to cook for about 4 hours, but it was worth it! Absolutely delicious, we still have some left over for today, I can hardly wait to eat it again.

The ingredients you need for the stew are:

• 1 liter beef stock
• 1 kg beef in one piece
• Fresh thyme
• Laurel leaf
• 250 gr. shallots cut in quarts
• 250 gr. champignons cut in quarts
• 1 carrot pealed and cut in small slices

To start the best is to have the meat at room temperature, so I recommend to take out of the refrigerator about an hour before you are going to start cooking. Then dry the meat with a kitchen towel, sprinkle all round with salt and pepper. Put in a casserole some olive oil, once is hot add the meat and in 5 minutes bake all round until bruin. Add the stock, thyme and laurel leaf. Once is almost boiling turn the fire very low, cover the casserole and cook for about 3 hours and 30 minutes. Keep an aye that it doesn't boil other wise the fire should be even lower. After that time add the vegetables and cook for another 30 minutes, until the vegetables are ready.

The ingredients you need for the Salsa Verde are:

• A lot of fresh parsley.
• 1 tablespoon cappers
• 4 anchovies (since we don't like them I replace them for extra cappers)
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 soft crackers
• Red vinegar
• Extra verge olive oil

Put all the ingredients in the mixer. After mixing well add some salt and pepper and if you feel that is to dry, add some olive oil. Keep in the refrigerator until you need it.

Once the stew is ready, take the meat out of the casserole and cut in slices. Serve the slices with the vegetables and the stock and some of the salsa verde. Perfect with bread and read wine. Merry Christmas to all!

 

Christmas Dutch Cake (Kerststol)

In The Netherlands there is a typical kind of cake that you eat on Christmas, it is called "Kerststol", there are many different ways and ingredients to use, everybody does it in another way, but they all have in common is that in the middle is an almond paste.

This year I found a very good recipe in the Dutch version of the Jaime Magazine and I decided to give it a try, it was absolutely delicious! Perfect, I made it yesterday and it was good, but today it was even better, I think I never had a better one.

Since it is not my recipe I think the best I can do is to put the magazine link in here:

Dutch Christmas Cake

I will translate here the ingredients you need:

• 125 gr. currants
• 125 gr. dried cranberry's
• 200 gr. caster sugar
• 150 gr. butter + 50 gr. melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 3 mature bananes
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 500 gr. flour
• 7 gr. baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 200 gr. almond paste (I made myself as well)
• 75 gr. icing sugar

I am definitely going to make it again even if it is not Christmas, you have a winner cake here!

Merry Christmas everybody!

 

Gnocchi with pepper-parsley pesto and blue cheese

If you have a busy day and you feel that you don't want to spend much time in the kitchen, then this recipe is absolutely for you, easy, simple, nutritious, delicious.

The ingredients you need are:

• A pot of roasted red pepper, in small pieces
• A lot of fresh parsley
• 1 or 2 garlic cloves
• 1 chopped red spanish pepper 
• About 80 gr. grated parmesan or grana padana
• Olive oil
• 1 tablespoon double cream
• 1 pak gnocchi (500 gr)
• A handfull roasted pine nuts
• Some blue cheese, I use normally gorgonzola

First make the pesto, put in a mixer the red pepper, parsley (only the leaves), garlic, spanish pepper, double cream and parmesan, mix well then add some salt, pepper and some olive oil. Mix again until is the pesto is smooth. You can prepare the pesto a few hours in advanced if you keep in the refrigerator, just remember to take out half an hour before cooking, to bring to room temperature.

Follow the instructions on the package to prepare the gnocchi. When ready leave to leak completely, then heat some olive oil in a pan and bake the gnocchi until golden. Put the gnocchi into a baking dish add the pesto, mix well, add the pine nuts and the gorgonzola. In a medium preheated grill bake for about 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

Absolutely fantastic with a green salad and some bread.

Chocolate Banana Bread

Today it was the traditional Christmas Breakfast at my daughter's school. All the kids bring something and they have a nice celebration breakfast. She wanted to make Chocolate Banana Bread, that is absolutely delicious. So yesterday we made one, it tastes fantastic, unfortunately kids don't like to try new things so only the teacher took a couple of pieces the rest is all back home. Well we will have more because we love it ;-)

The ingredients you need are very simple:

• 250 gr. peeled ripe bananas (mash them a bit with a fork)
• 75 gr. dark chocolate (chopped) 
• 100 gr. walnuts (chopped)
• 250 gr. self-raising flour 
• 150 gr. caster sugar
• 100 gr. melted and cooled butter
• 2 eggs (beaten)

In a bowl mix the flour with a pinch of salt and the sugar. Then add the butter, eggs, bananas, chocolate and walnut. Mix all with a wooden spoon very careful until is well mixed and smooth.

Put the dough into a greased loaf tin (26x12x7cm) with the base fine lined with greaseproof paper and spread evenly. Bake in a 180 degrees preheated oven for about 55 minutes. When ready leave to cool for about 5 minutes,  after that take out of the tin and leave on to a wire rack to cool completely before cutting in slices.

 

Quesadilla's

Every now and then I feel like cooking Mexican food, a bit in my own way of course, but still very very good. Also every quite often we eat vegetarian. Quesadilla's is good combination of both, mexican and vegetarian. Healthy, fresh, delicious.

For my quesadilla's you need red peppers, spring onions, garlic, coriander and a lot of grated cheese. First chop all the ingredients (except the cheese of course) very small. Put them into a bowl, add the cheese, salt and pepper, mix well and cover the bowl with cling film, set then into the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, of course can also be a few hours, that way the taste of the ingredients and spices will be much better.

Meanwhile you can prepare the tomato salad. For that you need a few tomatoes and red onion. Cut all of them small, mix in a bowl adding white vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Let it rest for also at least 30 minutes, they will taste much better.

To make the quesadilla's, divide the ingredients into the half of the wraps tortilla's, then put the rest of the wraps on top, press a little bit. Bake them in a low fire for about 5 to 7 minutes, half way turn them out. The idea is that the cheese will melt bringing all ingredients together.

Serve with the tomato salad, some tortilla chips, with guacamole (you can see the recipe in my post from September - Mexican dinner), sour cream and rose wine. Absolutely delicious!

Mini cupcakes

My daughter goes every friday evening to Spanish lessons that are part of a program from the Spanish government for children with at least one of the parents with the Spanish nationality. Today it will be a special lesson, actually we are having a Christmas party. Everybody is bringing something to eat or drink or ... of course the first thing came to my mind was to make a cake, but then maybe not everybody would be able to eat, not big enough, so I came with the solution of making mini cupcakes, I can make more, they are small and everybody can try.

I prepared the dough based on my normal cupcakes recipe. You can read the ingredients and the way to make on my post from October 11th (cupcakes for school). I made 2 times the recipe, normally should be for 24 regular size cupcakes, I made 64 mini cupcakes. The baking time you also have to make shorter, instead of 25 minutes should be about 15 minutes at 180 degrees preheated oven.

The marzipan decoration from the mini cupcakes was done together with my daughter, it took us not longer than 1 hour, it was actually very nice work to do together. We will see what the parents and kids of the Spanish school think about it ...

 

Beef Stew

For my birthday I got a very nice Tagine, I was very happy although that I didn’t have much space in the kitchen to keep it. Well I guess now I will not have that problem anymore Yesterday I was planning to make moroccan beef using my tagine. So I put it in the fire with some oil, when start to warm up I put the beef, but then the tagine broke in two, you can see in the picture …

Well of course we still had the meal we were planning only I had to use another pan, suitable for stew. Lucky me I have enough tools in my kitchen …

The first think you need to do is one day in advanced (overnight) mix the beef with the spices: salt, pepper, ras el hanout spice mix, ground cinnamon, ground cumin, ground ginger and sweet paprika. Cover with clingfilm and into the refrigerator. The next day just one hour before you are going to start cooking, take out the meat, needs to be in room temperature.

The ingredients you need are besides de beef, onion, chickpeas, tin of chopped tomatoes, fresh coriander, vegetable stock (bouillon), squash or pumpkin (I used pumpkin yesterday), prunes and flaked almonds.

I used a casserole in the end but of course if you have a tagine that works you should use it. Put some olive oil in the pan and when is hot add the spiced beef, cook for about 5 minutes and add the chopped onion and some coriander, bake another 5 minutes. Then add the tomatoes, chickpeas and about 400 ml of the stock. When start boiling, cover the pan and in a very low fire cook for 1 and half hours, every now and then stir a bit.

When is time add the squash or pumpkin (cut in 5 cm chunks), the prunes and another 400 ml stock. Stir well and when starts boiling cover again and in a very low fire cook for another 1 and half hours. Keep an eye and stir every now and then.

The stew shouldn’t be to runny, so you might need to keep it a bit longer. Serve with some more coriander and couscous. It is absolutely delicious!

Chicken with Salsa Verde and Polenta

Some how I always find difficult and not very exciting to use chicken, but every now and then I like to try something new. Looking into my books I found this recipe, actually I couldn’t get all the ingredients from the original recipe so I made my own version and it was absolutely delicious, a pity we didn’t have more chicken …

The ingredients you need are for the chicken: chicken breast with skin, fresh rosemary, olive oil and pepper. Put the chicken breast in a roasting pan with the skin up, then add a couple rosemary branches, olive oil and pepper. Bake in a 220 degrees preheated oven for about 30 minutes, until the chicken is ready.

For the salsa verde you need: a good bunch of fresh parsley, 3-4 grams dry tarragon, the zest of one lemon and the juice of half, chopped spring onion, salt and olive oil. Put in a blender, the parsley, tarragon, lemon zest, salt a some oil. Mix well then add slowly the lemon juice and some more oil until you get a nice pasta.

When the chicken is ready cut it in small pieces and the juices from the roasting pan add to the salsa verde and mix again.

For the polenta what you need is: 250 gr. instant polenta, 1.1 liter water, salt, 50 gr. grated parmesan, 1 tablespoon butter and some milk. Boil the water then add the polenta, stir well until all water is gone. After warming up for a couple of minutes, add the salt, cheese, butter and milk, mix well. Then put the polenta in a greased casserole and into a 180 degrees preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Afterwards take out of the oven, warm up to 220 degrees and put back for another 10 minutes.

Serve all together like in the pictures below with some bread and a fresh salad. Absolutely delicious!

Pan con Tomate and Blueberries-Yogurtcrumble

Today December 5th is in The Netherlands Sinerklaas (San Nicolas), tonight will be what the dutch call “pakjesavond” (presents evening). Well at this moment my mother is visiting us for a few days and tonight she is flying back to Spain, so we celebrated San Nicolas yesterday, that way she would also see how it is. Since San Nicolas is coming from Spain (strange) we thought that will nice to have a kind of cold tapas dinner, we had “Pan con tomate” or in English “Bread with tomato”, perfect, easy and absolutely delicious.

The only thing you need is good quality bread cut in slices, ripe tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and a toaster. Toast the bread, when ready spread a bit of garlic on and then spread the tomatoes, sprinkle a bit of olive oil. Eat with spanish ham (jamon serrano), manchego cheese, chorizo, salami or other kind of meat. Together with a good red wine, we had a Rioja and a fresh salad, it is so good and kids will enjoy!

As dessert I made a very easy blueberries-yogurtcrumble. Some time ago I made a lot of crumble for a cake and the left overs I put in the freezer in small portions, that way I could use when needed.

The crumble I made with flour, ground almonds, bruin sugar, oatmeal, chopped almonds, ground five spices and butter. First you mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the melted butter and mix well using a wooden spoon until you have a nice mixture. Now you can freeze what you don’t need and the rest put in a baking try in a 160 degrees preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Let it cool completely before serve.

In a glass put some greek yogurt, add the crumble and some fresh blueberries, it is so good, delicious and healthy!

Pasta with broccoli

Last thursday was my birthday, well you know if you saw my post from friday about my birthday cake. Anyway I got a lot of presents almost all related to cooking and food From those presents I got 2 books, “Nigellisima” and “Jaime in 15 minutes”, what a lot of fantastic and easy recipes are in those books.

Well from the book from Jaime I made yesterday the pasta with broccoli, having a bit of my own twist. Of course it doesn’t take 15 minutes, but with a total work of 30 minutes you have a delicious and healthy meal.

My own version of the pasta with broccoli using as ingredients, quantities depending in how many people you are: as pasta I use conchiglie tricolore, then a bunch of fresh basil, 1 lemon, 2 garlic cloves, grated parmesan, broccoli and pine nuts. In the original recipe there is anchovy but since we don’t like so much I just added a lot of extra olive oil, salt and pepper in place. Also in the original there is dry spanish pepper, but I just use a bit of chili flakes.

My way of cooking it’s not exactly as in the book as well, I have a bit more time that just 15 minutes maybe that’s why it takes longer. Cook in a big pan the water with some salt, when starts boiling add the broccoli, after 3 or 4 minutes add the pasta and cook following the instructions on the package.

Then in a blender or a food processor, put together the basil, the lemon zest and and the lemon juice a bit of cooking water, the chopped garlic, the parmesan, olive oil, salt and pepper, then you could put a bit of the chili flakes. Mix until is nice and smooth.

In another pan rooster the pine nuts. Keep a bit of the cooking water of the pasta. To serve, put the pasta and broccoli in a serving bowl, add the basil sauce, the pine nuts and mix well adding some of the cooking water if the pasta is to dry. Grated a bit more parmesan and serve together with a nice salad, we also made the salad from the book. Really fantastic!

My Birthday Cake

Yesterday was my birthday, even that I was not planning to celebrate (this year has been a bit difficult year for me), my husband told me that his parents were planning to come and also because my mother is now here visiting us, I decided to make a cake, why not? And it did work again very good, it was really delicious! On wednesday afternoon I already baked the sponge cake (2) and that way yesterday I only had to do the buttercream and the marzipan decorations, the decoration I did together with my husband he is a bit more creative than me, actually he made that beautiful girl silhouette.

There are many ways to prepare a sponge cake, I use the recipe of the English Victoria Sandwich Cake, I think is so good and then decorated with marzipan is even better.

For the sponges you need: 175 gr. soft butter, 3 eggs, 175 gr. caster sugar, 175 self-rising flour, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon milk.

Put the butter and the sugar in a bowl and mix until is very creamy and light, I use normally my electric mixer. Then beat the eggs together with the vanilla and add slowly to the butter mix. Add the sifted flour and the milk very carefully, using a spoon to fold. I use 2 tins (20.5 cm), divided the mixture into the 2 tins and in a 170 degrees preheated oven, bake for about 25 minutes, until they are light golden brown. When ready carefully take them out of the tins and leave to cool down completely in a wire rack.

For the buttercream you just need to mix very 250 gr. soft butter with 250 gr. icing sugar until they are very very creamy and ready to spread in the cake.

How do you make the cake? In one of the sponges you spread first a good layer of buttercream, then spread a good layer of jam, I use strawberry jam but any other jam will also be good. Take the other sponge and put on top pressing a bit, just enough to stick to the jam. Then cover the hole cake with the rest of the buttercream, actually you might have some left over, but you can keep in the refrigerator for 1 week. When is done it’s time to decorate with the marzipan, you can make your own design, but what you do use a good quality marzipan, be careful because not all marzipan that see on the shops is good!

Well that was, the cake was absolutely delicious!

Risotto with mushrooms

I love cooking and actually my cooking is quite good, but if I had to say what is my specialty that would be risotto. I can prepare in different ways, you can see in my blog in previous posts and almost 99% of the times it is absolutely delicious. Well yesterday I made again a fantastic risotto with mushrooms, it was like melting in your mouth.

The ingredients you need are risotto rice, vegetable broth (I made also yesterday a fresh one, already in the freezer for a few times), cep or also called dry funghi porcini, fresh mushroom, onion, garlic, fresh parsley, butter, white wine, parmesan and a bit of truffle oil.

To start put the dry funghi porcini in hot water for about 15 minutes, then take them out and add that water to the bouillon. In a pan that can also go into the oven, bake the chopped onions and garlic in some butter until golden, about 5 to 10 minutes. Then add the risotto rice, scoop well and add the white wine, pour in once the bouillon. When starts boiling put the pan into a 170 degrees preheated oven, for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the mushrooms in small pieces and bake in some olive oil with salt and pepper until the start to shrink, then add the chopped parsley, scoop well. Take the pan out the oven and add the mushrooms, the pan goes again into the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the broth is almost evaporated.

When ready take out of the oven and add the grated parmesan and some more parsley. Serve with some more pepper and a bit of truffle oil, it is heavenly delicious!

Chocolate coconut cake

What do you do in a boring saturday afternoon? Bake! So that’s what I did yesterday. I baked a chocolate-coconut cake. It was really good, even that by mistake I use the wrong biscuits. Next time I will be a bit more careful.

The ingredients you need are: 225 gr. wholemeal biscuits with pure chocolate (I forgot that and I use without chocolate, also good but not perfect), 85 gr. butter, 1 egg, 175 gr. condensed milk, 1 tea spoon vanilla extract, 2 table spoons muscovado sugar, 6 table spoons self-rising flour, 125 gr. grated coconut and some extra pure chocolate to melt.

Crumble the biscuits, then smelt de butter and mix with the crumble. Put the hole thing in the tin (20×20), press hard. In a bowl mix the milk, egg, vanilla and sugar. Add mixing slowly the flour and the coconut. Then put into the tin. Bake in a 180 degrees preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until the top layer has a nice golden color.

Let the cake rest for about 5 minutes and then cut it into pieces, but let it cool down completely in the tin. Eventually you can sprinkle with melted pure chocolate, if you do that let it rest until the chocolate is hard.

It is absolutely delicious with a cup of coffee or tea.

Greek couscous

Busy, busy, busy, what a week, I hardly had time to be in the kitchen. Again a few appointments and things. Yesterday even though I made some couscous, easy, healthy and quick. That’s the good thing of couscous, you can have a meal in 20 minutes.

The ingredients in this occasion were gyros strips, red onion, green and red pepper. Then for the couscous just vegetable broth (bouillon), couscous and parsley. For the garlic sauce you just need full-fat yogurt, garlic, italian dry spices, salt and pepper.

The first thing you need to do is the garlic sauce, just mix all the ingredients together and put into the refrigerator for a couple of hours, that way all ingredients will mix well. This sauce you can use for different things, like BBQ.

In a wok pan with hot olive oil bake the chopped red onion, then add the gyros, bake for another 5-10 minutes and add the chopped peppers, bake all together 10 more minutes. Meanwhile, boil the broth add the fresh chopped parsley and after a couple of minutes put it into a bowl with the couscous, let it rest for 5 minutes, stir well with a fork.

Serve the gyros with the couscous together and put the bowl with the sauce on the table. Absolutely delicious.

Scones

With those cold days you just want to be home, have tea or coffee and something sweet, with a nice classical music on the background, just relax! Well yesterday it was sunny, we had a nice walk along the small lakes we have close to our house and when we arrive home I just felt like making scones, actually my husband made them this time, following the recipe we always use. There were really a treat, absolutely delicious.

The ingredients you need are: 250 gr. self-raising flour, 50 gr. caster sugar, a pinch of salt, 50 gr. unsalted butter, 1 egg and 100 ml buttermilk. You can also add 50 gr. raisins if you prefer, then do that when the doug is ready for cutting.

Sift the flour, sugar and salt, mix a bit, add the butter and mix with your fingers until fine crumbs. Add the beaten egg and the buttermilk and mix all well until you get a nice soft dough. In a working surface put some flour and knead the dough a little bit. With your hands make the dough flat, about 3 cm. thick and cut with a scones cutter.

Then put then in a greased baking tray and bake into a 210 degrees preheated oven for about 10/12 minutes. Serve with clotted cream and jam. Yesterday I used mascarpone instead, that also gives a delicious taste.

Risotto with tomatoes

It has been a very busy week, so busy that since tuesday actually I didn’t have time to cook special meals. Finally the weekend was here and yesterday I could expend some time in the kitchen and a risotto it was a good idea for it.

The ingredients you need are: risotto rice, vegetable broth (bouillon), small tasty tomatoes, garlic, spanish pepper, red onion, balsamic vinegar, tomato puree, white wine, pancetta, fresh basil and parmesan.

First chop the onions, garlic and spanish pepper. In a pan that also in the oven can go, add some butter and olive oil, bake the onions, garlic, spanish pepper and pancetta, very slowly, for about 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes in quarters, in a bowl mix with the vinegar, salt, pepper and the basil, leave to marinade.

When the onions mix is ready add the risotto, mix again and then add the white wine, after 2 minutes add all the broth in once and 1 big table spoon of tomato puree, mix well and cook until starts boiling, then put in a preheated 160 degrees oven the pan, for about 15 minutes. Take the pan out of the oven and mix the half of the marinaded tomatoes and put back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes, until the broth is evaporated and the rice is ready.

Take out of the oven, add the rest of the tomatoes and some grated parmesan, mix well. Serve with some basil leaves and some more parmesan. Absolutely delicious!

Quiche with chicken

Last week I bought the book “Koken met Karin” as I already mention in an earlier post. There are a lot of delicious oven meals, cakes, cookies, … Yesterday I decided to give a try to the Quiche with chicken and rosemary.

It was the first time for me to prepare a quiche from the start. Normally I use frozen puff pastry. This time I did follow the recipe that Karin gives for the dough. Absolutely delicious, even that in my case the dough was not crispy, I think that the next time I need to keep it a bit longer in the oven.

The filling was also very good, the chicken, the onions, the pancetta, mix with the rosemary, then the eggs and double cream. Perfect really perfect. We still have some left overs, so tonight we will eat together with other lefts overs from monday!

Focaccia

We had again a busy weekend, with nice things of course. On saturday we had a friend coming over for dinner and sunday we went for a walk to the forrest, to enjoy the beautiful color of the autumn, this was during the morning. Yesterday was also Sint Maarten, in the evening the kids go with a self made lamp door to door singing in trade for candy. We always do that with our neighbors and the kids, after that we have dinner all together, this year it was in our house.

Since we had people coming over on saturday and on sunday, on both days I decided to make a focaccia to go with the dinner. It was quite some time since the last time, but it was really good! I still have some left over for my lunch today 

The ingredients you need are: 500 gr. flour, 1 bag yeast (7 gr.), some olive oil, 310 ml warm water, 5 gr. salt and 3 table spoons of sugar. That simple!

First mix with the water, the yeast and the sugar, leave it for about 10 minutes until start bubbling. Sieve the flour, make a hole in the middle and put the yeast mix in it, then add 4 table spoons of oil. Mix well with you hands and then add the salt. Work the dough for about 15 minutes until is nice and elastic. Make with the dough a nice ball adding some oil around, put in a bowl cover with a towel, leave it 2 hours to rise in a warm place.

After the dough is double of his size, take out the air with your hands and work it a bit again, then make it flat about 30×50 in a baking tray, top with your fingers every +/- 5 cm, then brush with some more olive oil, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise again for about 45 minutes-1 hour.

When this is ready you can put the ingredients you want, I used tomato puree, mozzarella and basil. But you can have other combinations, like goat cheese with rosemary. Just what you prefer. Then in a 200 degrees preheated oven, bake for about 30 minutes. And then you will have a fantastic bread!

Chocolate cookies

What a busy couple of days I had, I am still very busy. But finally I made a few minutes to post about the great cookies I made last thursday, just to cheer me up in my down moments 

On Wednesday I bought a new cooking book “Koken met Karin” full with recipes for in the oven. There they were those cookies, of course in the ingredients list I add my personal touch, normally I always do.

The ingredients according to the book are: white chocolate (that is the fulling), self-rising flour, soft butter, sugar, cacao powder, egg, a bit of salt, and then my ingredient a bit of vanilla extract. Just mix the flour, cacao powder and salt, then add the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Mix well until a nice brown dough. Then make small balls with your hands and fill the every ball with a bit of white chocolate. Put the nice round balls in the 170 degrees preheated oven for about 10/15 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool completely.

Absolutely delicious, my husband doesn’t like so much, he is not so fun of dark chocolate, but my daughter and me love it!