Chufi

Summer has not really arrived yet here in Holland and I don't think it will... I think we will slip quietly from this cold, wet and windy August into a cold, wet and windy fall. I could really use some sunny days and a chance to wear my summerdresses! that said.. fall is my favorite cooking season.. and only yesterday I found myself craving beef stew.

wow percyn, that is a very impressive piggy! over in Amsterdam, we had another vegetarian dinner Spinach & ricotta gnocchi, roast broccoli, salad with mozzarella, tomato and basil. The girls were not too enthousiastic about it. Tomorrow, they're cooking for us, so we'll see what happens when you turn two 16-year olds loose in the kitchen Dessert was blackberry crumble ice cream. That they liked.

I have enjoyed this thread so very much. When all you know about a country comes from television and newspaper reports on war, political tension etc., it's hard not to forget that this is a country like any other where people live, love and find joy in (among other things..) food. Thank you for showing me another side of your country and yet again, make my world a little bigger and less biased. Beautifully written, lovely pictures, and a lovely mixture of nostalgia and descriptions of the present, without romanticizing. Thank you.

Diane Kennedy: My Mexico Found in a second hand bookstore among piles of Danielle Steel novels and magazines about horses from the 70's, for only 6 Euro! happy...

that looks goooood. Ok, assuming I make up this dough, eat some of it raw (I promise), and bake the rest of it into cookies.. would the cookies still taste good the next day?? I know this is probably not the right place to ask but I'm looking for a good chocolatecookie to bring over to friends when I go visit them next week, and I need to bake the cookies the day before.

Isn't that wild. I am like that too. If I eat a big breakfast I eat a lot more during the day. If I have hardly nothing for breakfast, I am good till 2:00, and then some yougurt and fruit is enough to get me through to dinner. I feel your pain. At least we get to look at all the pretty pictures of what everybody else eats ← Hah! me too! I always regret having a big breakfast. Makes me tired and sluggish and has me craving for more food, which makes me even more tired. What I like best is to have nothing but fruit and a glass of juice for breakfast.. then a light snack around 10, maybe ricecakes or some raisinbread or something. I consider that to be breakfast part II. Then lunch at 12, a sandwich and a salad. More fruit in the afternoon to get me through to dinner. I have to say though that around 6 pm I'm always very very hungry so we always have dinner early! that said.. I just had a bowl of greek joghurt with a dollop of homemade redcurrant jelly for breakfast I had some last night for dessert, and it was so good that I woke up craving it again!

vegetarian lasagna, made for my 16-year old stepdaughter and her vegetarian friend. I made the tomato sauce with chopped mushrooms, porcini stock, red wine and sundried tomatoes. Lots of fresh basil in it too. Very good!

Ah, I love composed salads. They can look so lovely and abundant all spread out on a big platter! Here's one I did a little while ago: new potatoes, roast asparagus, serranoham, eggs, mint. Dressing was a thinned mustard mayo. I'm going to think now about doing one for this cook-off, prefereably something I haven't done before.

I forgot to mention what I had a couple of days ago.. fresh capucijners with crispy fried smoked bacon and fried onions. I have no idea what capucijners are in English. In the pod, they look like green peas, only the pods are a dark bluish purple. The peas itself are grey-green. Their taste is more earthy and deep than green peas.. less spring-like.. but lovely. Tonight I made a 'sort of nicoise': Romaine lettuce, hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, tuna, anchovies, green beans. And tagliatelle tossed with olive oil, ricotta, lemon zest and parsley.

I had frog's legs in a Pouilly Fuisse cream suce in Burgundy this spring. I had never tasted frog before but I loved it. Very flavorful little things. I spent a lot of time licking the bones! Our dinner tonight: Veal sausages (from the supermarket, nothing special but it's organic veal) with a cheat's onion confit/marsala sauce Gratin of potato, zucchini and tomato Romaine salad with galric/mustard dressing. Dessert: Delia Smith's plum cinnamon oat slices. They are delicious.. rich buttery oaty.. mmm

salad of cold soba noodles, with cucumber, mango, mint & dill miso-glazed turkey

I love how this thread always has me laughing and salivating simultaneously! that Chicken in cooked wine looks so good. Do I see capers in the sauce? You don't mention them in the description, but since we're still in Sicily..

shrimp with artichokes and a homemade tarragon mustard mayonaise. After that we had spaghetti with clams, the sauce was made with the juice from the clams, stock I made from the shrimp-shells, fresh tomatoes, white wine and saffron. I partly cooked the spaghetti, drained it when it was still very al dente, and finished cooking it in the sauce. The pasta absorbed the liquid and it was very flavorful.

that brioche looks so lovely! I had my favorite sunday breakfast: toast (from sourdough bread) with butter, some slices of young Gouda, a softboiled egg (very soft, with a very runny yolk.. mmm) and a glass of freshly squeezed orange & grapefruit juice.

I guess that means you're heading my way somewhere in the near future! I'm enjoying your blog Melissa. Lovely markets! That's a big bag of yeast. Do you do a lot of baking?

ohh what a great idea. I might make that for dessert tonight! what spices ? I'm thinking clove, nutmeg?

in our house this is called "iets uit niets" meals " - Dutch for "something out of nothing"! I also find, when I do go grocery shopping, that it helps to think: do I need this? (that helps to control any kind of shopping actually ) If the recipe calls for shallots but you have onions in the house, you really don't need to get the shallots. Unless you're preparing a grand classic dinner where every nuance matters. edited because it seems I can't do english today!

Penne with roast cauliflower, crispy bacon, onion fried in the bacon fat, parsley and parmesan. Delicious. Roast cauliflower is definitely one of EGullets greatest gifts to the world!

today was a cold and rainy day in Amsterdam.. 15 C/ 59 F.. so I was craving autumnal comfortfood. I made leek, mushroom, porcini and barley soup - cooked in stock from a porcini stock cube.. with a slosh of Marsala added at the end. Delicious. And a salad of mixed cold rice (red, brown, wild) with belgian endive, parsley, mint, tomato and lots of lemon juice. A nice frugal dinner after the fatty and sugary extravagances from earlier this week.

I also have to manage my groceries budget carefully, allthough I have to admit that this more by choice than out of necessity. Here's what I do: eat less meat. I'd rather eat some really good (preferably organic) meat or fish twice a week, than bland battery chicken and pork every day. Sometimes I think I need to go groceryshopping, but then I don't, and just make dinner with bits and pieces from the fridge, freezer and pantry. Use your kitchen as a supermarket! Some of these dinners have turned out so great that they became regulars. Although it's a good thing to have a shoppinglist (to prevent impulse-buys), I don't think you should stick to the list no matter what. If you have zucchini on your list but the eggplants look better and are cheaper, be flexible and change your menu. We have friends over for dinner on an average of 1-2 times a week, and even then I try to stick to the budget. You don't have to treat your guests to steak or wild salmon.. a quiche, a salad, fresh fruit for dessert, make it look beautiful, and no-one will think you're cheap.

So true. I used some of my frozen mole a couple of weeks ago. It made 2 dinners: for the first one I simmered some pork in it, the second dinner was black beans and mole wrapped in tortilla's. I actually thought the mole tasted better than when I had freshly made it. But you may be right. Maybe it will taste better because by the time you pull it out of the freezer, you don't remember the hard work!

Dinner with friends last night: fava bean puree with mint and parmesan, slowroast garlic tomatoes, aged dutch cheese (Remeker) fried chicken (the second time ever I made fried chicken!); cornbread with chiles, cheddar and fresh corn, served with chipotle butter; and a salad of potatoes, beetroot & ham, with a horseradish-chive dressing rhubarb and moscatowine jelly pudding. This is a Nigella Lawson recipe and it was just fantastic.. I served it with some thin cream to pour over and the 4 of us ate the entire thing!

well, I'm sorry, but I don't see a culinary weak spot anywhere I am very much intrigued by the swordfish impanata. I have made swordfish involtini with capers twice the past 2 weeks, and have become really addicted to the flavor combo. Adding orange sounds fascinating.. Would you consider putting your tweaked recipe in recipe Gullet? or maybe PM it to me if you have the time?

Pan, I am enjoying this blog so very much. I've only been to NY once, last october, and fell in love with it.. if I were rich, I'd go back this year!. Still I hope to go back sometime.. soon.. and I hope the places you featured in your blog will still be up and running, I can't wait to visit some of them. Like Abra, I can't imagine a life of not cooking. But I also think that eating and living like you do, is only possible in a place like where you live.. with such a huge variety of restaurants that serve high quality food for relatively low prices. I have been thinking about your blog while doing my errands and shopping in Amsterdam this week, and I must say I think it would be difficult to eat out every night, on your budget, in my city.. if you're looking for quality that is. thanks for sharing your adventures

what a wonderful idea. I have some catching up to do, but not many memorable meals to tell you about. I did make a wonderful rice cake with spinach and ham last week, like a very dense risotto, with a high ratio of spinach to rice. Baked in the oven until firm. Delicious. Another good thing were redcurrantcreams for dessert, with home made redcurrant jelly. Yesterday I made a fresh sweetcorn and basil risotto. And some fantastic meatballs. The mix was half pork half beef, I mixed in garlic, thyme, salt and pepper.. and then, thinking of Marlenes peanutbutter burgers, I mixed in a tablespoon of peanutbutter. Lovely, juicy meatballs and nobody could detect the peanutflavor! Today, the best thing to do with leftover risotto (maybe I like this even better than risotto ): We also had vegetable soup (leeks, tomato, onion, garlic, chucks of zucchini, rosemary) and bluecheese toasts made with a delicious dutch blue.