Mexican dinner

My daughter is crazy about Mexican tortilla’s, she has been asking me for a while to make them again, but for one of other reason I was postponing. Finally yesterday I decided to make them after I found organic tortilla’s in our favorite shop in Haarlem.

They are very easy to make, you prepare first a tomato sauce with good quality tomatoes, garlic, tomato puree, lime, salt and pepper. Our tortilla’s have also chopped meat, that I prepare with some onions and ground cumin. Then of course guacamole! just avocado’s, lime, coriander, salt and pepper, you could also add some garlic or spanish pepper, I didn’t this time. For guacamole I made always a bit more, that way we have some left over to dip with tortilla chips.

You just roll them with the ingredients you prefer, then you add the tomato sauce, sour cream, spanish pepper, coriander and in the oven for about 20 minutes. Then as side dishes the guacamole, sour creme, corn, kidney beens, tortilla chips and some times I made rice, not this time … And of course a salad is always good. Que aproveche!

The new wok

Years ago we discovered how good, easy and healthy was the wok pan. We had a very good one until one day was kind of broken and we couldn’t use anymore. In our favorite shops we couldn’t fin anymore that kind of wok, so the last couple of years we had a different one nonstick and for a wok is not good. A wok should not be nonstick, because the secret is how darker it gets and how longer you use the better it gets. Finally a couple of weeks we found in the Toko shop a real one, we bought it and yesterday was the second time we made use of it.

It is so easy, just some tofu with sweet and sour wok sauce, then you add some chopped vegetables, a bit of cocos milk, coriander, sweet chili sauce and you eat it together with egg noodles. In 15 minutes you have a healthy and delicious meal on the table. For those busy days when you don’t have much time to cook, it is perfect!

Quinoa with chicken and champignons

Quinoa is a very healthy grain, full of vitamins and minerals. Also it taste very good. So with the broth I made yesterday, that already was full of fresh vitamins, we had a very healthy meal for dinner.

It was my second time to prepare this meal, the ingredients were champignons, chicken, garlic, onion, spanish pepper (according to the recipe I should use dry chili peppers, but since at this moment in my green house I have a lot of spanish pepper, I thought it will be a nice change), white wine, parmesan cheese, parsley, vegetable broth (bouillon) and beet root. Instead of beet root you can also use spinach, like I did a few weeks ago.

The meal turned a bit red due to the beet root, but the taste was still so good and we definitely got our vitamin portion for the day!

Vegetable broth (bouillon)

What a grey morning was yesterday, very depressing, cold and rainy. The best time to prepare some fresh ingredients and in the afternoon I made a big pan of vegetable broth.

We are all very much use to use those “bouillon” tablets for everything, just to give extra taste to meals or to cook some rice or pasta or … But what we should think is that those tablets are full of chemic stuff, except if you use organic ones, if you look careful in well assorted supermarkets you can find them or you need to go to organic shops. The other option is to make it yourself and when you do, make enough to freeze, then you will have for some time.

What I do is I keep some of left over vegetables in my fridge, like the green part of a leek that you didn’t use. Or when you buy celery, you don’t actually need all for your meal so keep it. Ok my ingredients: leek, celery, tomatoes, carrots, onions, some times also garlic and some fresh species like thyme, parsley, laurel. You add the water, in my case yesterday I put almost 4 liters water. And then you let it cook for about 2 hours, very slowly, all ingredients will mix together and the hole house will smell delicious.

I freeze them in 550 ml portions, yesterday I did 4 portions. The rest I use it for my dinner. From the 4 liters water I had about 3.2 liters broth.

Chocolate cookies

On wednesdays kids in The Netherlands don’t go to school in the afternoon, so I thought it would be nice to make some chocolate cookies with my daughter and maybe some friend of hers. But things went different, in the end I made the cookies by myself, good though they didn’t work so well as I expected   They taste really good but the chocolate did smelt before went to the oven, I thought they will be chocolate chips cookies. The dough was just to warm when I added the chocolate.

The ingredients are actually quite simple, butter, caster sugar, muscovado sugar, 1 egg, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder and then you can add nuts, chocolate, dry fruit. I thought chocolate would be nice … next time I am going to try with almonds I think then they will not be so liquid. Any way the taste is absolutely good with a cup of coffee or tea …

Chicken Piri-piri

The week didn’t start very well for me, on monday I was good ill, I had a terrible cold, I could hardly move from the sofa. My husband was so nice to prepare some dinner, just good healthy vegetables to get extra vitamins. And it did work actually, even that I was not completely recover yesterday I felt much better. I did my groceries and I prepared a nice dinner.

The recipe you can find in the “Jaime in 30 minutes”, I did exactly how in the book says. This was my first time preparing, so I made a couple of notes for next time. It was good very good, only the potatoes for our taste had too much lemon. The chicken was really delicious, all those fresh spices (basil, spanish pepper, worcestershire sauce, sweet paprika, white vinegar, lemon, salt, pepper) mix together and then in the oven with fresh thyme , gives a fantastic aroma to the chicken.

The potatoes were prepare with lemon as well, it was a bit too much lemon. The garnish was with coriander, spanish pepper and feta cheese, absolutely delicious.

Only thing is that it doesn’t take 30 minutes! You need already 15/20 minutes just to prepare the ingredients and then you have cook, hahaha. And I even didn’t prepare the dessert, it was too much … that is most probably happening tonig

    

Spaghetti with Pancetta

The weekend has passed, we had some quality time together as family. On saturday we went to the city center and walk around some nice shops, one of the shops was for cookware and I saw the mixer I want to buy. Since it is a bit expensive I need to find a way to save the money, being unemployed will make it a bit more challenging but I hope by the end of the year I got it!

On saturday my husband did the cooking, he wanted some chili con carne and since I am not fun of, I don’t like beans, he prepared dinner and I have to say even that I don’t like beans the meal was quite good 

Sunday we went again for a long walk to the woods, we wanted to get some chestnuts, acorns and other stuff to make a nice autumn table. Now I just have to get some nice brown/orange candles. So after all that fresh air there is nothing better than pasta. For dinner I made spaghetti with a different kind of tomato sauce that we are use to. The pancetta was really the final touch, the sauce was so creamy, it was like melting in your mouth, absolutely delicious!

Cheese Fondue

What was cold yesterday, the autumn is really coming very quickly now. After a very busy day at home and doing groceries in my favorite shops we decided that a nice glass of white wine with a cheese fondue would be the best way end the day.

You need very few ingredients, white wine of good quality,  garlic, grated cheese and blue cheese, in our fondue we use Gorgonzola, but you can also use Rochefort, the one you prefer. Then when is almost done you can add spices, I use normally fresh chives but you can use what you prefer. We eat with Turkish brood, really delicious, of course with some raw vegetables is also delicious. The good thing of cheese fondue is that you can combine with a lot of different ingredients so every time is different.

Fideos a la cazuela

It seems the autumn is really coming fast in The Netherlands, yesterday we had a bit of cold, rainy, windy day. On those days there is nothing better than a warm soup. Our favorite is actually not a soup, only I add more water and spices to make it like that.

Fideos a la cazuela is a typical Spanish dish. Fideos means noodles and cazuela is the type of pan you use to cook, in the early years was from special pottery, now we use more modern ones.  There are many recipes around, I learned of course from my mother and I change it a bit with my own ingredients. The basic are tomatoes, onions, garlic and chicken, then sea salt, sweet paprika and saffron. Of course you also need the noodles, they are very difficult and expensive to find where I live, so every time I go back to Spain I bring a few packages, or when somebody comes to visit us they bring for us. The sweet paprika and the saffron, basic ingredients in the Spanish kitchen also I bring from Spain, better quality and cheaper.

It is definitely our favorite meal in the cold days, healthy and delicious.

Healthy risotto

This week is been a bit difficult for me, on monday I’ve got 2 rejections for job applications, yesterday another one. Monday I’ve applied for another job and I have done it today again. It is quiet frustrating when you know you can do the job, when you know that you are actually the right person for that position and still you get an standard email saying that they have decided not to go ahead with your application. I have to keep positive that’s what everybody says but it is really hard to do that …

So to relax and try to keep positive I concentrate in my cooking, there I can forget for a moment all the problems all the difficulties. Thinking of healthy food that gives positive thinking. Yesterday I went thru my cooking books and magazines a I decided to make a healthy risotto, if you are healthy inside you are also outside. It is a risotto with cauliflower, never had it before and actually it was quite nice. The recipe was with anchovy but since at home we are not very fan of I decided to use bacon instead, really delicious, next time I will put a bit more of bacon 

Simple casserole

After a long walk like the one we did yesterday and some playtime with our daughter, you feel like doing something that doesn’t take much time to prepare, just few minutes to prepare and then in the oven. This casserole is the ultimate fast one, you need only 3 basic ingredients, potatoes, red onions and chorizo (this one you will add in the last 15 minutes of cooking time). Then salt, pepper, oil and fresh sage (to add as well with the chorizo). Then for about 45 minutes in the oven, sit and relax or meanwhile you can prepare a nice salad, we always do.

Of course you can add other ingredients or take out other ones, like instead of sage you can use rosemary or thyme, whatever fresh you have in house . One tip if you feel like working a bit more, bake previously the potatoes for about 15 minutes in a pan with oil. That way you need less oven cooking time and the potatoes taste even better.

A nice crumble

Weekend that means family time, a bit of shopping, walking in the woods, like we did today, about 8 Km in the dunes. And of course extra time to cook specially cakes 

Yesterday I prepared for the first time a crumble cake with summer fruit, surprisingly very good. My 9 years old daughter helped me, it was nice the 2 of us in the kitchen, mother-daughter cake. She helped with mixing the crumble, while I was with the hand mixer preparing the base for the cake. In the recipe we had to much crumble over, so she separated in parts and we kept in the freezer, for next time.

After one hour in the oven and the cake was finished, we still had to wait another hour until it was completely cold. It was delicious. We had of course some cake over, we will eat in a few minutes, this time with a bit of cream, I think that will give the final touch. With some ice cream will also be very good, but I just don’t have now at home, umm tomorrow I will do some shopping then …

Easy arroz a la cubana …

Yesterday were the Dutch elections like you already know. I couldn’t vote, I am not allowed because I am not Dutch, but I can pay my taxes, very confusing isn’t? My husband had to work late, he works for a news company so they had to cover the elections and he had to be there to make sure all systems were working.

Anyway my daughter and I were alone for dinner. I wanted to keep it simple and easy but still a bit healthy. So I prepared the typical Spanish dish “Arroz a la cubana” but with my own touch.

Normally is white rice with tomato sauce and fried egg. Well my version is to put a bit of saffron in the boiling water for the rice, that give a bit of extra taste to the rice.

th coconut milk, but I like with the saffron that’s the Spanish touch. Then for the tomato sauce I use good quality “pasatta di pomodori” add some dry parsley, salt, pepper and a bit of sugar. When is finish I add fresh parsley. This is so easy, in 15 minutes you have a meal at the table that the kids will love it, my daughter loves it.

Yesterday’s dinner

What a nice and healthy dinner was yesterday. Actually I was really surprise, it was my first time to eat beetroot, never before. The taste was very sweet maybe because of the honey but the all meal was absolutely delicious.

I took the recipe from one of my books, adding from some ingredients more than said and from other less. Due to my food allergy I always have to puzzle with food, making sure that I don’t get reaction and then I need to take my pils. This time was the perfect combination. Definitely we are going to that again, next time with other ingredients, you can always use season’s vegetables. In this case I have used couscous, but I think with burglur or quinoa will also be nice, I have to try that next time.

Shopping for tonight

I just went to do some shopping at the city center from where I live. I bought a few nice old plates at the second hand shop, really old stuff for bargain prices they will look really nice when I take pictures of my meals to post here. I wanted to buy also some cups, big plates and old fashion table clothes, but today they didn’t have, I will have to go back another day.

Afterwards I went to the local organic shop and I bought the vegetables that you see on the picture, only missing the carrots, I have to pick them up from my garden later on. They really look very fresh, we will have a nice healthy meal, it’s a new one so I will not tell what it is because maybe it doesn’t taste that good  but I doubt it, with so fresh food it can only be delicious.