Chufi

Roasted green beans! You have to try this - it's my favorite way to eat cold beans. Toss the beans with a little olive oil and some coarse salt. Spread on one or two baking sheets, it should be a single layer (or almost) Roast in hot oven (200 C) for about half an hour. They will look a bit blistered. The roasting brings out their nutty flavor.. it's really delicious. Mix with tomatoes (raw, or roasted for about 10 minutes with the beans). For herbs: parsley is good, fresh marjoram, or in summer, lots of fresh basil. You can also roast some garlic cloves along with the beans. A dressing with balsamic vinegar is great. Goat's cheese crumbled on top is good! Or slivers of good parmesan! But if you want to keep it really simple, just make the roasted beans, with some salt & pepper, a drizzle of oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar, and you are in green bean heaven.

Meatloaves are not very common over here (The Netherlands) but I like to make them and for guests it is always something unusual and interesting. I have made a lot of different ones: sometimes I use beef, sometimes beef and pork, or beef + pork + veal. Flavorings vary according to what's in the fridge (mushrooms, peppers, tomato, different herbs, bits of cheese, etc.), they were all good but none of them was great enough to become THE meatloaf recipe for me. I would love to hear some of your favorite recipes.. what's the best way to make a delicious, juicy meatloaf?

Percy, oohhh.. tomato cream wodka sauce! I LOVE that. I think I need that on the menu this week. Great excuse to buy a bottle of wodka..

I used to, but now I rarely bother and I find it makes not much difference. They do seem to cook a little faster when salted. I think the main thing is that you have to make sure that it's cooked long enough. Underdone eggplant is just terrible. I was thinking about eggplant and remembered one of my favorite dishes from years ago: eggplant kuku, which is a kind of Iranian omelet: Prick 1 eggplant all over with a fork and roast in hot oven until very soft. Scoop out the flesh. Fry 1 large onion (chopped) in a generous amount of oil until golden and soft (takes about half an hour over very low heat). Mix onion, mashed eggplant flesh and 1 tablespoon of flour into 3 beaten eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into a lightly oiled baking dish and bake at 180 C until golden and slightly puffed up (I don't remember exactly how long this takes, about 20 minutes I think). This may sound ordinary but it's delicious. Also great buffet food because it tastes very good cold (served with a garlicky yoghurt sauce)

Sunday dinner.. partridges pot roasted with onions, carrots & white wine polenta grilled with parmesan & sage buttery leeks & mushrooms: (.. and my husband who always seems to be clutching his glass of wine in my pictures)

I like to dice eggplant fairly small and then fry in a non-stick frying pan over high heat with only a little bit of oil, until golden brown. You have to keep stirring them so they don't burn. When done, they taste great in a tomatosauce for pasta. Also I like to roast big chunks of eggplant together with wedges of onion and oeices of red pepper, in a hot oven. Drizzled with only a bit of oil. When almost done, I add a coule of tomatoes chopped up. This is good with fresh marjoram and some goat's cheese crumbled in.

I wonder. Boernkaas? that is almost a dutch word (boerenkaas). What is it and where do you buy it? Susan - how wonderful to see those potatoes and tomatoes on one of your beautiful plates in Florida! Btw the potatoes were an idea I got when browsing through a dutch cookery magazine at a newsstand. I think the original recipe was from Jill Dupleix, an Australian foodwriter.

thanks! We only bought it last year and I'm glad we did every day! Susan - those slowroast tomatoes are the easiest thing - just halve them, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little sugar, and roast at 120 C for about 2 1/2 hours. For serving I drizzled them with a little balsamico. I like them best cold. The potatoes: boil unpeeled until barely tender, press flat between two plates, sprinkle with salt, fennel seed and thyme (or any other herb), drizzle with olive oil and roast in hot oven (200 C) for 20 minutes. They were a revelation, first time I made them!

roast cod with shallots and garlic slow-roasted tomatoes pressed baked potatoes with fennel seeds and thyme:

I love vongole, but I never cook them. Why not, I wonder. and the tagine with pears.. in autumn, I love to make dishes that combine meat and fruit. Last week I made a chicken dish with prunes... yum.. Last night our dinner was composed around a great bottle of port (1989 Kopke Vintage port). On the table: different cheeses (Stilton, Brie, Manchego, aged Gouda, a beautiful red-rinded cheese that I forgot the name of, and a little creamy, pungent au lait cru). Homemade soda bread, grapes, sliced Fuji apple, toasted pecans, and the last of a batch of onion confit. we ate it all so that was basically the meal.. but we had a bowl of Jerusalem Artichoke soup afterwards just to have something hot

our salt pork is not very salty, so I don't soak it. (I find that when it comes to meat, it is sometimes difficult to translate recipes. Butchers do very different kind of things with meat in different countries!) I take a little bit of the white fat of and put the whole thing in the soup. After a couple of hours I take it out, get rid of the fatty layers, and put the lean meaty bits back into the soup. That way the flavor of the fat is in the soup, but you don't have to chew on it. (I'm glad you like my pics fifi. I'm afraid taking pictures of my food is becoming my new obsession...)

thanks for the suggestions. I had a meeting with the bride and groom last night and this is what we decided on: appetizers: goats cheese topped with red pepper marmelade, on slices of baguette blini with smoked salmon, sour cream, chives and salmon eggs chorizo puffs cheese puffs little squares of spicy meatloaf, served on bread, probably with some onion confit. first course: a buffet of different kinds of quiches, green salads, and some fish platters (shrimp - smoked eel) main: (this may sound odd but it's what the groom wants..) choucroute served on warm rolls with mustard, sausages and baked ham for the vegetarians: choucroute on rolls served with sauteed mushrooms dessert: Storebought meringue and chocolate cakes Biscotti. Everything will be home made except for the cakes. I will make the appetizers, the mother of the bride will make the quiches, and the rest will be made by the groom and me together (all will be prepared ahead and will only need reheating) On the evening itself I will be in charge of all food and wine related things: plating, serving, opening wine, etc. I will have a couple of high schoolstudents (groom is a teacher) to be my slaves for the night. This is going to be a real challenge but I am actually looking forward to it!

Green peas (use frozen ones) are easily pureed with cream or butter. Flavor with mint.

Thanks percyn. But it's not THAT easy when you live somewhere where Bisquick does not exist!

casserole of white beans, pumpkin, and really good pork sausages. Flavored with lots of sage (because sage goes so well with both beans and pork)

Anna Thomas - The New Vegetarian Epicure. It's menu-based and focuses on seasonal ingredients. Every recipe I've tried works, and I really like her style of cooking.

that salmon looks wonderful. Was tthe salmon mixed in at the last minute, so that it was still moist? and.. I've said it before.. I love your plates!! I always was a "white china only"girl but I think I need blue plates!

I want my husband to make me THOSE pancakes while I am out shopping. Can you teach him? (don't tell me you ate them all yourself..)

paella! now that sounds like a great idea and very much their style, too. thanks!

Jane Grigson's Cauliflower Polonaise: Steamed or boiled cauliflower, not too soft. Lightly fried in butter and then arranged on a platter. Sprinkle with chopped hardboiled egg (2 eggs for 1 cauliflower), chopped parsley, and fresh breadcrumbs fried in a lot of butter. The breadcrumb mixture has to be sizzling hot when you pour it over the cauliflower.

I need advice! Friends are getting married and they asked me to 'help' with the food. They are on a budget and want to do most of it themselves (exept for the wedding cake). I am known as a good cook who also loves to cook for crowds. But my biggest crowd has been hors d'oeuvres for 50.. so I think this crowd of 100 is going to be a real challenge. The groom is a very good cook. He spends all his summers in Italy and loves French and Italian 'country'style food. His birthday parties are feasts with whole pigs being roasted, big pans of pasta on the table, chunks of bread and tomato salads. But he is also very chaotic and not very well organized (at his parties, there are usually some people with an empty plate because there was just not enough pasta). - which means I am going to do most of the organizing. So. What would be easy dishes for a crowd this big, that can be prepared ahead? I could use tips for mains as well as appetizers. The party will be at the house of the bride's parents, there is a small kitchen, but I think we will have to rent a stove or something. Oh boy. And by the way.. the wedding is 3 weeks from today.

Great thread. .. I often think that the process of thinking about food, possible combinations and flavours, is for me at least as satisfying as the actual cooking. For my daily meals I tend to think: what do I feel like.. what sort of food, what style or theme. Sometimes I have a dish all figured out and only have to stop at the market to get the groceries. But when I have more time, I love to spend hours or even days planning a dinnerparty, changing my mind every hour. But some of my best dinners have been when I went to the market and simply bought stuff that looked good and appetizing, without knowing what they would turn into. If you have a good store cupboard of basics, you can make fresh stuff go many different directions. I love the creative process of thinking about food. I like to think that I have a big pile of foodrelated info in my head - things I once read about, recipes, things I once ate, memories etc. When the creative thinking starts, all these things connect and if it works, can create new surprises to be added to the pile!

that IS very similar to traditional dutch splitpea soup. Anyway, thanks to this thread, I had a fun day making my mom's erwtensoep: this is what goes into it. 500 gr. split peas a couple of carrots a small celeriac 3 fat leeks a couple of potatoes 2 large onions about 1 kilo pork ribs a piece of salted pork 4 bayleaves 4 litres of water smoked pork sausages All the vegetables (diced and sliced into fairly small pieces) go into the pot together with the washed peas, water and the pork (exept the sausages). Simmer for 4 hours.. or so. Add some salt and pepper. Take the meat of the bones and leave the soup till the next day for the flavors to develop. Next day, heat the sliced sausage in the soup, sprinkle with a little bit of celery leaf and serve.. with black ryebread, spread with mustard, with some katenspek (a kind of bacon that has been salted, boiled, smoked AND grilled). edited to add water to list of ingredients and recipe. For soup, you need water!

400 ml coconut milk, 500 ml. milk, 50 gr. of dark chocolate (grated), the crushed seeds of 5 cardamompods, 5 tablespoons puddingrice (I use risotto rice or paella rice whatever I have), 50 gr. sugar. Mix everything together and bake in the oven at 120 C for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. You should stir every 30 minutes but I stir every 15 minutes so I can lick the spoon more often! Different types of rice absorb more or less liquid so after an hour you should check regularly to see if it's ready and not drying out. Serve warm.

I hope you will find your cat. Losing a pet is terrible.. Comfort food here as well. We had a bowl of pasta with fennel and chorizo and then this Chocolate coconut cardamom ricepudding. It doesn't look very pretty but it tasted fantastic. I made it as comfort food for my friend who got fired this week.