Chufi

Everything looks so good. Hathor, the fusilli with baccala.. I have never made baccala.. this might push me over the edge! I had plans to make a simple tomato & leek sauce for spaghetti tonight, from the Plotkin book. But while I was cooking I realized I was not in the mood for pasta. (sometimes that happens. You have plans for a dinner of pasta, sausages and salad, and next thing, your plans are soup and frittata ) So, I just thinned out the sauce until it was leek/tomato/basil soup. Is it Ligurian? Let's presume sometime, somewhere in Liguria some housewife had the same issues and served this soup. It was good!

Yesterday a friend took me to cheeseshop Kef for a cheesetasting. In business since 1952, this shop has changed owners a couple of times the past years. The present owners are running the shop for a year now and I was very pleasantly surprised with what they are doing! The focus is on French cheeses, but one of the things that distiguishes this shop from other cheeseshops in Amsterdam is the fact that you can sit down with a plate of cheese and a glass of wine, while chatting with owner Frank about cheese, wine, or life in general. A very friendly and relaxing atmospehere.. and some excellent cheeses. This was just the first plate of 3 that we had yesterday: a Dutch goatscheese from Brabant, a Spanish goatscheese with almonds, and a Reblochon. My favorite from yesterday was a blue cheese called Persille de Malzieu. Highly recommended!

de Koffiesalon (Utrechtsestraat 130) is a relatively new coffeeplace. Thet serve great coffee from very early in the morning, (7 AM) which is unusual in Amsterdam. Nicely decorated with large communal tables where you can relax with your coffee and a magazine. Another good thing about this place is that they sell pastries from one of the city's great patisseries, Lanskroon (the patisserie is located in the city centre, Singel 385). Lanskroon is famous for their stroopwafels and their stroopwafel variations, the one with figpaste is my favorite. In the summer, the shop at Singel sells award-winning artisinal icecream.

I am going to cross-post some of the places I visited during my second blog, to make it easier to find them for future Amsterdam visitors. a 10-minute ferryride from Central Station, in Amsterdam Noord, is this nice little harbor restaurant Wilhelminadok. It has a lovely terrace with a spectacular view and I highly receommend it on a sunny day for coffee or lunch: Kroketten, with Central Station in the background.

2 weeks ago I had a really good dinner at le Hollandais. No pics cause it was our anniversary dinner and I left the camera at home for once. I had a very rich and subtly flavored rabbit ravioli to start, my husband had a salad with grilled bay squid. We both had perfectly cooked turbot, and molten chocolate cakes for dessert. While this was not a 'dinner to remember' (as you can see I've forgotten most of the details of this dinner), everything is very well excuted - it's the kind of place you can trust to give you a very good meal, in a very pleasant atmosphere, every single time. Service is excellent and the restaurant is located on the river Amstel, perfect for a nice after dinner stroll.

I used to live in that neighborhood, and often bought their chocolate. Very good indeed! Another very nice place to eat Surinamese food is in the take-away section of my favorite toko, Toko Tjin (eerste van der Helststraat 64, in a little street just off the Albert Cuyp market): I am sorry that you had a disappointing dinner there. But thanks for posting about it, it can be a warning for others! I haven't been there in a while, but I agree it has a very nice atmosphere, very relaxed. I'm glad Greetje is such a success! Maybe I should go there myself one of these days! Timo, there is a recipe for Limburgs sweet and sour rabbit in the Dutch Cooking thread over here, which is, I think, similar to the beef you had at the restaurant. Hangop means "to hang up" and is simply joghurt, drained in a cheesecloth for hours until it has become very thick and creamy.

Lexy, they are very pretty! Today I tested a recipe for a catering job I'm doing in June. I don't have to do all the food (for 150 people) but I will have to make dessert. Lexy, when I saw your apple tarts I actually thought of doing those! here are the cakes I made today: strawberry/almond/cinnamon cakes. The fruit is baked with the dough, which is equal amounts of sugar, butter, selfraising flour and ground almonds. The cinnamon gives it a lovely and unusual flavor. We just had it for dessert.. Now, will I be able to make 150 of them

We had the leftovers yesterday. The curious thing was that the flavor of the cloves had become much more pronounced, even though I had removed the clove-studded onion. I added some water when reheating, because the beans seemed to have absorbed most of the liquid. Overall, I would say that I liked both flavor and texture of the dish better on the day that it was cooked, which is kind of weird for a braise? Not that it wasn't good yesterday.. but 3 days ago, it wasn't good, it was divine.

I made these florentines yesterday. Had a couple yesterday, but today, now that I've forgotten how much work they were, they tasted much better and I just had about 10 of them for dessert... They are very, very nice and I just want to keep on eating them... edited to add: the ones with the dark chocolate were the best. If there ever is a next time, I'll just make those.

I'll be in Seattle in September (traveling up from Amsterdam ) and I would just love lunch at Salumi. How long before the date do you think I should call? I already know the days we'll be in Seattle. But September is still such a long time away...

I love the colors! Also, I'm excited about anything 'vancouverish'.. Like Katie, I'm taking notes for an upcoming trip! I'm sure this blog will get me in the mood even more!

here's my pork with red beans and carrots.. when it just came out of the oven: and on the plate it was really really good.. I had 2 friends for dinner and they kept on saying how good it was.. such a beautiful complex flavor. I did sprinkle it with walnut oil, brandy (no Armagnac in the house) and red wine vinegar and I thought that was a lovely touch. I'll be making this again cause it's cheap, utterly delicious, and fairly simple to make.. it takes a long time to cook, but it's not complicated. Wonderful!

Thank you all for showing me a slice of life so very very different from mine. In your honor, I smoked a tiny duckbreast and a slightly larger chicken breast this week on my new stovetop smoker. But I really enjoyed seeing butts, bacon and rows of sausages on your grills and smokers. That mile high pie is in my files waiting for the right occasion. Thanks for doing this, all 3 of you, it's hard work, please know it is much appreciated! Mike, happy anniversary to you and Maggie. Dennis and I celebrated our 11th anniversay last week and one of my presents for him, was that I did not take pics of the restaurant dinner we had (like I always do)

Helenjp made tempura while she was blogging in January, post with pictures here. When I read that, I actually thought I could do it and wasn't so scared anymore. Not that I've done it yet though Maybe this cook-off will finally get me going!

ravioli for 24 Elie, that pasta is really beautiful. and Kevin, the chicken with walnuts looks very good. I'm going on a Ligurian wine hunt tomorrow.. see if a couple of my favorite wine shops have it!

Did some chicken breast today.. Going to try salmon next. I really like this thing! Is it supposed to get so black? After only using it twice, it is already beyond scrubbing. Not that I mind but I wonder why they made it so shiny when that won't last..

Good to hear you liked it. I'll be soaking the beans tonight, cooking the dish tomorrow, and serve Wednesday. Most of the recipes in this book really call for multiday-planning.. no good waking up and thinking "oh I feel like rabbit compote for dinner tonight.. wait I should have started cooking 3 days ago"

Chocolate chestnut cake This came out really well by accident. I had about 125 grams of those vacuumpacked chestnuts left over from dinner last night. I used Nigella Lawsons recipe for Chocolate chestnut cake, which calls for 425 grams of chestnut puree, and 'sort of' divided all other ingredients by 3 or 4 (I'm really terrible at math). Baked it in a small souffle mold and it came out just perfectly moist and very tasty!

Elie how did that dish turn out? I'm thinking of making it this week.

Tonight I made the Correze garlic soup. Which was as delicious as everybody said it was. I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It makes great bed-time reading!

thank you.. I think that is the reason I'm tired of making stuffed pasta right now I hope the pasta making spirit will return..

I also think it's beautiful. And I'm glad to hear it tasted good! This is something that is on my "I-would-really-like-to-do-that-but-I'm-afraid-to" list (a very long list, that one). Your report may have brought me one little step closer to trying it myself.. somewhere in the future.

Marlene, is the recipe for the mile high butterschotch pie online somewhere? Time-consuming but not difficult sounds exactly like my kind of pie

Did you like the pansoti Kevin? I've been thinking about that recipe and it sounds good, but for some reason I don't feel much like making fresh pasta lately, so it has to be really good before I can be persuaded to make it Pontormo: so glad you had rhubarb. Everybody should eat rhubarb. After cooking a Ligurian dinner first, ofcourse.

I'm enjoying this a lot. And in the spirit of this blog, I bought a stovetop smoker this weekend and smoked a teeny tiny duckbreast I know it's nothing compared to the whole beasts I'm seeing smoked here! But I smoked! So thanks for inspiring me!