Breakfast

Remember I told you I had another funny story with Paris as, well let’s say as part of the story? Well here is comes, the story of a love gone sour… (nothing serious here, it’s a typical case of how a lot of holiday loves end I guess)

The love story starts in England, in a tiny tiny town called South Nutfield where I worked as a volunteer for a foundation that organizes holidays for disabled people (previously called Winged fellowship). I signed up on a spur of the moment thing, as my sister did it a year before me and loved it.

It was a very international mix of people, although the fact that I’m the only Dutch causes some issues in the first few days as it turned out that my school English was in no way sufficient. I didn’t understand ANY of the accents spoken, with the English ones being the worst. I forgot where they all came from but they sure had some heavy accents. That is not what you learn in school, so they might as well have spoken Russian as far as I was concerned. Within a few days I sort of got the hang of it and all that English started to make sense again.

My patient was a lovely lady who suffered from multiple sclerosis and while we had a pretty full day as volunteers I did still manage to fall in love with one of the French guys who also volunteered. He was blond, sexy and very sweet and we had a great time at the mansion, trying to sneak away to steal a kiss here and there. Privacy was hard to find though in a house filled to the rim with people, so before I knew it, we had agreed to meet in Paris where he studied. We said our goodbyes after a fun two weeks and I was already excited and looking forward to meet Y. again in Paris!

Ah Paris, that glorious, glorious city of romance! How could my visit not be romantic? The bus ride was long to Paris and I was tired when I arrived but excited too. I wasn’t too alarmed when Y. was not at the bus station when I arrived. The bus was delayed for several hours so he probably went home. I called him to say I was there and he sounded…well, not like the guy I used to know I guess, but I was still not alarmed.

He arrived soon enough and we went to his place, or so I thought. I was a little taken aback when I saw the ‘apartment’ we were supposed to stay in that weekend. It was a dark hole of a place, with a bed for 1 person, a dirty tiny kitchen and a not so pleasant smell. Y. explained that this was not his place but the place of a friend that he had ‘borrowed’ for the weekend so we could stay together. Aha… Y. immediately started kissing me, making it pretty clear that he wanted to ‘make love’ with me right there and then. I felt dirty and tired after having been on the road for more then 10 hours so I gently pushed him away, saying I wanted to have a shower first, have a bite to eat and do some fun things maybe before attempting anything psychical in that tiny tiny bed.

He grudgingly agreed; we went to a horrible restaurant where I started to feel this might not be the weekend I had thought it would be. He behaved like a totally different person from the Y. I had met in England, but I was stuck, I knew no one else in Paris and I wasn’t the world traveler I am today (or I like to think I am today) so I had no clue what to do and figured the best thing was to endure it for the weekend. We went to an Ingmar Bergman film I believe it was. A weird film about horrible tests on human’s that ended in a lot of blood and murder. I can’t really remember the name. Y. fell asleep during the movie. (Yes, he really did… and snoring loudly too!) We went home after and had horrible sex. I mean, seriously… French man are perfect lovers?? Well not all of them I can tell you! Lol.

The next couple of days only became bearable because he did have a few nice friends and we hung out with them, but any moment spend alone with Y. was terrible and I’ve never been happier that my stay in Paris ended! It was probably a good thing that I had been to Paris before or I might have forever associated that gorgeous city with that horrible experience. Thinking back on the whole thing; my guess is he actually had a girlfriend at the time, so couldn’t take me to his own place, so he thought to have some cheap sex in his friends flat with that weird Dutch girl. I guess I will never know, but it was a big big disappointment!

Now on to better things in life, I will share this delicious breakfast with you that is made of some of the leftovers from that gorgeous French souffle. I added some matcha into the yogurt and sweetened it with Manuka honey which I got from Julia before. I used the rhubarb-blackberry puree and the crumble I had leftover. It’s the French delight I made for the Monthly Mingle that made me remember this “lovestory”. More to follow there but now over to the recipe!

Matcha yogurt with rhubarb-blackberry puree and hazelnut crumble

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Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon matcha powder
• 250ml yogurt
• 1 tablespoon manuka honey (or regular honey)
• 4 tablespoons rhubarb blackberry puree
• 2 tablespoons hazelnut crumble

rhubarb blackberry puree

• 500g rhubarb (sliced into 2 cm pieces)
• 140g sugar
• lemon zest (of one lemon)
• cornflour
• 150g black berries (I used frozen but you can use fresh too ofcourse)

hazelnut crumble

• 75g flour
• 50g butter
• 50g brown sugar
• pinch salt
• 50g rolled oats
• 50g hazelnuts

Directions

Rhubarb puree

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put the rhubarb with the 140 gr of sugar in a pan, add a splash of water, cover the pan and let it simmer on low heat for a while. Once the rhubarb is cooked but still has some chunky bits in it, add the blackberries. You can use frozen blackberries if you cannot find fresh. Add a bit of lemon zest in the pan as well. Put some cornflour in a small bowl, add water and whisk until smooth. Add this bit by bit to your fruit mixture until it is thick enough. It should become a thick puree. Leave to boil for another 1,5 minute to cook the cornflour. Then put your fruit puree into another bowl and stir to cool it down for at least five minutes.

hazelnut crumble

Make a crumble by adding the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it with your fingers till it resembles a rough crumble. Put the crumble on a baking tray, spread it out and bake for about 5 minutes until light golden brown.

Add 1 tsp of matcha powder to your yogurt and still well to combine. You can add more or less matcha if you prefer. Sweeten the yogurt a little bit with the manuka honey to your taste. Make layers in the glass with the puree, the yogurt, ending with some hazelnut crumbles on top!

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Muffin with bacon, mushrooms and parmesan

I’ve been nosedeep into (a photoshoot for) cocktails all week long so far, so I figured it was time for something savory here. Just to balance things out a bit, hence (is that even a word people use anymore??) you find here these pretty muffins. I have made some sweet muffins before, although not that much either, so making savory ones was a first. I had been trying out various recipes from Jamie Magazine for the entire week already. (The magazine was in the kitchen and I kept seeing quick and tasty week dishes and so far non of them have disappointed).

Muffins

Now you have to know that muffins and I have some sort of love-hate relationship. While my cupcakes always come out looking perfect – knock on wood – my muffins always come out looking mwah… I know that I need to work the batter totally differently. As little as possible in fact and it’s not that they’ve tasted bad, but I know I can do better. I see all those gorgeous muffins every Monday for Muffin Monday by Bakerstreet and they all look absolutely delicious and worth making. But then mine… They look ok-ish, taste ok-ish, but that’s not what we want from food, now is it? We want to have bold flavors and tastes to remember. There is enough ok-ish stuff in live. Not what I want in my muffins… ;(

Pretty flowers

And as much as I hate to admit it; these muffins – again – where ok but not spectaculair. I forgot to add the parmesan on top before putting them into the oven. O and I forgot to mix the pinenuts into the dough before putting it in the tin, so that was just plain annoying.

Maybe I have to be patient and not expect wonder for my very first savory muffins. And then again maybe muffins are not meant to be savory? I don’t know. Whatever the case, if you have any magic muffin tips; please let me know!

I’m thinking of making matcha muffins for the next time. Still got some matcha powder left and am addicted to that lovely green color and the flavor. Suggestions are welcome!

O and can I just say that I’m quite pleased with the light in my new photography spot on our kitchen table? It was previously somewhere else, but since the kitchen has changed, the light has changed as well. I think it works!

Bacon and mushrooms muffins

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Serves	12
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	15 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
Allergy	Egg
Meal type	Side Dish
From magazine	Jamie Magazine

Ingredients

• 200g flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 25g pinenuts (roasted)
• 50g parmesan (grated plus some extra)
• 2 eggs
• 250g yogurt
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (plus 1 tsp)
• 4 slices bacon (chopped finely)
• 200g mushrooms

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 C and put 12 muffin papers into a muffin tin. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, parmesan, 1 tsp salt, some black peper and pinenuts into a large bowl. In another bowl mix the eggs, yogurt and 4 tbsp of olive oil; pour this into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon roughly until just combined.

Bake the mushrooms and bacon lightly in the remainder of the oil and stir through the batter. Divide this over the muffin forms and sprinkle with grated parmesan. Bake the muffins for about 15 minutes or until they're cooked. You can check this by inserting a wooden skewer into one; it should come out clean,

Note

The funny thing is that I was worried that the moisture of the mushrooms would be making the muffins too wet, so I drained them a little bit after cooking as that releases their fluids. However; I actually found the muffins to be on the dry side, so maybe I should have left it in?

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Apple cinnamon baked oatmeal

I was reading a post this week made by Christie from Coco Bean featuring a delicious looking apple cinnamon baked oatmeal recipe. I had some oats leftover from the oatmeal cookies that I baked the week before, so I figured this would make a perfect destination for them!

Now the recipe is really fairly simple; you throw all sorts of ingredients together in a bowl, mix and put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Sounds simple now doesn’t it?

I was a bit late for lunch as I went for a spinning class in the morning, so I didn’t have time to do the groceries before and I was going to meet with my sister at 12. Our parents are having their 50 year wedding anniversary on April 7th, which means that there is some arranging to do! Not a lot really, as it’s going to be a high tea and it’s gonna last only for 3 hours, so really… not that much work. We just needed to check out the location so we knew what we could and could not do. Yvonne (my sister) did not have a lot of time so we couldn’t have lunch together and by the time I was home and had done the shopping needed it was already 2 pm.

Before going in the oven

I mixed all the ingredients as per Christie’s recipe and put them in three separate bowls. Christie had warned me already that I should not use a bowl that was too small, but for the photo I wanted it to be in two smaller bowls and one larger to make the remaining. The recipe calls for 20-25 minutes in the oven and then the liquid should more or less be gone.

Well….. it wasn’t! I left the small bowls for about 35 minutes and they were still quite moist. The larger bowl had the biggest amount of fluid and even after 45 minutes was still quite wet. Now I think I probably went wrong with the measurements for the fluid. In Holland we do not know the measurement ‘cup’. We tend to measure in milliliters, so that is how our measuring things are made.

I do have a measuring glass that tells me the cups, but I believe there is a difference between a cup size in the US vs a cup size in the UK, and then Christie is from Canada so…. the question is; did I use the right cupsize?? Regardless of the longer time in the oven it was still delicious. I finished one of the small bowls without any addition and the second one I put on a plate with vanilla curd. I didn’t have yogurt in the house and since it was already moist enough on it’s own, I didn’t think that adding milk would be such a good idea. I just think I used too much fluid but other then that this is a very easy and delicious breakfast dish! And that smell coming from the oven… soooo good!!

Apple cinnamon baked oatmeal

It’s not the most exciting dish to photograph as the colors are all a bit muted and mingled together. I wanted to jazz it up a bit with some other fruit, but I only had apples so that didn’t help a lot. In the meantime I was so behind with my planning for the day that I decided I would make the other recipe I had been planning for tomorrow. I couldn’t find enough hazelnuts anyway, so need to go in search of those.

If you want to give the oatmeal recipe a try… here is the recipe! Taken from Coco Bean

Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Adapted from everybody likes sandwiches blog
1 1/4 cup of instant oats
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 1/2 large apples, diced
1 cup 1% or skim milk
2/3 cup apple cider or juice

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine everything. Place mixture into a baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with additional milk and yogurt.

If someone can tell me how much ml a regular cupsize is that would be much appreciated. I’m getting a bit confused…

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