Don’t you just sometimes feel you’re at the mercy of some stranger when it comes to hosting of your blog? Not too long ago I moved from my Dutch hosting guys to Hostgator and while I have to say everything went smoothly up until this morning, I now felt why it makes sense to have a host a little closer to home. This morning I had a spike in CPU usage on my blog. It could be a hack attempt or whatever else can happen these days being online, but I was immediately locked out of all my accounts to prevent the server crashing. And I get that. Believe me, I understand why they decide to close down your site at that particular point.

What I do NOT understand is why it then has to take the entire day to get me back online. I was working on location so I could not get behind the computer to use the live chat (one of the disadvantages of hostgator for me I think) so it was 4 pm before I could do anything. And even then it took me about 2 hours in the chat to get it fixed. I had to reply to emails so I could ‘fix’ the issue (hard to fix something if you don’t know what’s causing it) plus  had to almost beg to get it done. So… I am very annoyed at all this. I’m totally fine moving to another service and pay more if that is what it takes, but I just need to be able to rely on my host to not lock me out at the first sign of something going wrong. Or just lock down the offending site and not the entire account, as they did in this case. Locking down all my 6 websites…! It turns out that a plugin by the name of W3 total cache was causing the issue apparently, so that has been replaced… but still….

I know there are many of you out there who have huge amounts of traffic and high volume blogs, mine is peanuts in comparison, but how does your host handle traffic spikes and who is your host? Any hints, tips or whatever to help this being prevented? At this moment I am very tempted to move back to my previous host. I left because there was a huge price difference, but now I can see why there is one…

Sorry to be venting a little bit here but I just had to get this of my chest… And to sweeten the mood a little bit I have prepared this gorgeous and succulent cake for you. The recipe comes from the book Jamie Does. . . where he lists this recipe in the Greece section. It’s delicious and pouring the honey syrup over the cake makes it moist and delicious. I’m sure you’re gonna love it too!

Honey and pistachio cake

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Serves	10-12
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	35 minutes
Total time	45 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
From book	Jamie Does....

Ingredients

• 5 large eggs
• 225ml greek yogurt
• 225g caster sugar
• 75g ground almonds
• 1 piece lemon (zested)
• 1 orange (zested)
• 150g flour (plus extra for dusting)
• 200g semolina
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 200ml olive oil (mild and creamy)

serving

• 2 punnets strawberries (hulled and roughly chopped)
• greek yogurt

Topping

• 150g pistachio (shelled)
• 150ml honey (good quality and runny)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Mix all sponge ingredients together in a large bowl. Grease a cake tin of about 22 x 29 cm with a little olive, then dust with a sprinkling of flour and shake the tin about. Spoon in the sponge mixture from the bowl, scraping it all out and use a spatula to spread it evenly.

Put the cake into the hot oven to bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, until golden and cooked through. To check, remove from the oven and stick a skewer into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean it's done, so put it to one side to cool for about half an hour.

When you're just about ready to serve your cake, toast the, roughly chopped, pistachios in a dry pan over low to medium heat till they start to become golden brown and smell delicious. Add the honey to the pan and stir everything through. Squeeze the juice from both the orange and the lemon in the pan and then boil for 1 or 2 minutes until it becomes syrupy and thick.

Stab the cake all over with a small knife to create little holes for the syrup to sink in to. then pour the pistachios and syrup all over the top and use the back of a spoon to spread it out evenly. It will look a bit runny but if you leave it for about 15 minutes the syrup will be soaked up. While still slightly warm, slice your cake and serve it with some chopped strawberries and greek yogurton the side

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Steamed quinoa

I drive a lot. Part of my job is going from one location to the next either in Europe or in Holland. Well mostly in Holland really, but once or twice every so many years I also have to drive to Germany, France or similar places. I love driving, I’m comfortable on the road and don’t mind having to get in the car. Never had an accident either until yesterday. I was on my way to a client to discuss the photoshoot we’re having end of May. Moodboard, ideas, that would all be discussed this particular morning in Amsterdam. It was raining hard, so not the best conditions to drive in and I had already called them that I would be a little later due to traffic jams.

I was almost there, about 800 meters left to go when I turned right on a busy street. Bicycle path was on my right and I had to cross that to get to the next street. I never saw the motorcycle speeding towards me and before we both new it, he had hit my car, or I had hit him, however you look at it and I saw someone tumbling down the street.

The next things that happened are almost a blur; I parked my car on the side of the road and ran to the man lying on the street. I half expected him to stand up and I would have loved it if he had then started shouting at me but no, he remained lying down softly moaning. Obviously in pain. I tried to say something, then realized I had to call 911 (or 112 in Holland) immediately so ran back to the car, grabbed my phone, went back to the man and started dialing.

By then, two people who had seen it happen, had stopped and that was a good thing as I started to get very shaky and the bystander got my phone from me and explained what had happened to the ambulance people. Thank God, the ambulance and police where there within 5 minutes, sirens blazing.

Both police and ambulance people where extremely nice to me. I guess it was pretty obvious that I was badly shaken, could hardly explain what had happened. They also couldn’t understand a word the poor motorman was saying, as it turns out he wasn’t Dutch and I’m not even sure he spoke English. One of the policeman led me to their car and planted me inside to calm down a bit and obviously to hear from me what had happened.

I guess it was a pretty straight forward accident; obviously my fault but definitely not on purpose. I had to have my alcohol levels checked (also obviously zero) and they wrote down all my details and I could move on. The motorman had been taken away in the meantime.

And then you have to get back in your car and drive away. My car – btw – had hardly a scratch. A little dent in the front bumper and a scratch along the front of the bumper but that was it. In a way it’s probably good to have to drive straight away after something like that. I had called Tom to tell him what happened but it would have been silly to let him come and pick me up. After all, I had to get back in the saddle, so to speak.

And then comes the waiting. Waiting to hear if the man you hit is gonna be ok. I had nothing to go on; no name only his license plate from his motorbike. The police had promised to call me in the afternoon but didn’t, so I started calling them myself this morning and they did call me back fairly quickly to tell me that the man had been released from the hospital and was gonna be ok eventually. Wearing a brace around his back for possibly a few months as he bruised something there but it could have been worse!

For someone who has never even hit a pole or whatever, this was an experience I hope not to repeat. And with that said, I will be leaving you with something a lot sweeter then the story I just shared; a delicious quinoa dessert. The quinoa is slowly steamed with lime and coconut and is then eaten lukewarm with rhubarb and raspberries.. Mmmm, what’s not to love?

Quinoa with coconut, lime and rhubarb

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Serves	2-3
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	45 minutes
Total time	55 minutes
Meal type	Breakfast, Dessert
From magazine	http://www.deliciousmagazine.nl

Ingredients

• 100g quinoa
• 150ml coconut milk
• 1/2 lime (juice and zest)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 100g raspberries
• 100g rhubarb puree (or you can add more to taste)
• 12 pieces coconut with peel on
• mint (for decoration)

Directions

Get a shallow wide bowl that fit into your steamer and add the quinoa, coconut milk and 50 ml of warm water, the lime juice and zest and a pinch of salt. Place the bowl in your steamer and steam the quinoa for about 30-40 minutes. Stir once or twice during steaming and check if the quinoa is done to your liking at the end. Be careful as the steam is very hot.

Take 2-3 glasses or bowls and put some raspberries at the bottom, stir the honey through the cooked quinoa and divide over your glasses. Add the rhubarb on top and garnish with the coconut and mint.

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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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Monthly mingle; April in Paris

Alors, j’taime Paris… My love affair with France dates back from when I was a little kid. My parents always went to France on holidays. When we were big enough to ‘survive’ the long trip from our home to Bretagne, we went there every year. I must have been 13 or 14 when I entered for the very first time. We went to places like St. Malo or Boules (it was called differently but can’t think of the actual name now!) as long as it was close to anything resembling water. My nickname in those days was ‘waterrat’; if there was water around, you would find me in it. So any camping we would go to would have to be by the seaside or a large lake (we went to the Dordogne a couple of times too)

In fact, I received my very first kiss in France. I was 15 years old, very tall and very slim (tall I still am, but not sure where the slimness went..lol) and very blond. We went on holiday that year with friends from my parents who had two kids (they had more kids, but only two came on that particular holiday) and both of them were boys. The youngest of the two was my little sisters age but the oldest of the two, R. was a little older then me and quite handsome too.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

I was already feeling those famous butterflies in my stomach every time he walked close to me. At some point we were visiting rather boring caves somewhere close to Paris and R. and I stayed a little bit behind. He suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “Have you ever kissed?” He asked me. I squeaked something that must have sounded like ‘no’. ‘Would you like me to show you how to kiss?’ He proceeded asking, at which I squeaked ‘yes’ and that’s how it happened. I received my very first French kiss in France. How fitting! I can’t say I totally enjoyed the experience but we got to practice that entire holiday so we did get quite good at it.

Of course we never wanted our parents to find out what was going on, so we had a lot of fun hiding our ‘activities’ from our folks. I’m pretty sure that they knew what we were doing behind the tents but at the time we were totally convinced we were being secretive and no one knew we ‘were in love’. It was fun while it lasted and it was really only a holiday fling, but fun non the less.

The theme of this months Monthly Mingle brought back all those memories from years past. Made me think about how I love Paris and France in general. Yes, the french can be obnoxious and arrogant at times, but quite honestly I’ve never had a lot of trouble with that. O I now remember a funny story about my Parisian boyfriend too! I’ll save that for another day!

This months mingle is hosted by my dear friend and fabulous writer Jamie from Lifes a Feast. She is an American but has been living in France for a rather long time, so this theme could have come from no other then her! Check out her post about the Mingle and her own entry here, which looks pretty amazing too. The Monthly Mingle is an invention from my other friend Meeta from What’s for Lunch Honey, where a new theme is picked every month. it’s been too long since I last participated as I love the mingle, but couldn’t skip this one, now could I?

Couldn't resist playing with the lensbaby ofcourse

To fit the theme I chose rhubarb and blackberry souffles with a crumble on top. I originally saw this recipe made during an episode of Masterchef Australia and was planning to make it. So when I saw this months theme I just knew it had to be these babies. What can I say? Totally delicious, fluffy and worth making! I was a little afraid the mixture might be too liquid but it worked brilliantly. I didn’t have icecream and whipping cream but that would be fantastic with this dessert.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

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Serves	6
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Hot
Region	French
Website	Masterchef Australia

Ingredients

• 500g rhubarb (cut into 2 cm pieces)
• 140g sugar
• 150g black berries
• 4 egg whites
• 75g sugar

Crumble

• 75g flour
• 50g butter
• 50g brown sugar
• pinch salt
• 50g rolled oats
• 50g hazelnuts (roughly chopped)

Directions

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.

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.

Butter your ramekins twice. Butter once and then put in the fridge for 5 minutes, butter again and put a tsp of sugar in the ramekin. Turn it around so the sugar coats all the sides of the ramekin well and tap out the excess sugar. Put aside until ready to use.

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.

Take 4 eggwhites and add about 1 tbsp of sugar to it and start whisking until it becomes soft and glossy. Add 75 gr of sugar and whisk until it forms soft peaks. Don't overwhisk it.

Put 1/3 of your fruitpuree in a bowl and add about the same amount of eggwhites to it and carefully fold until combined. Repeat this until it's all incorporated. Take your ramekins and with spoon pointing downwards fill all your ramekins up till the rim. Smooth the top with a knife and run a finger along the side of the ramekin to make sure nothing sticks at the sides as that will prevent your souffle from rising.

Put the ramekins in the oven for 6-7 minutes, take them out (they should have risen about 1-2 cm at that stage) and add some crumble on top. Not too much as that will weigh it down but just eough to give it a bit extra. Bake for another 3 minutes and you're done.

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Lovely and moist carrot cake

I’ll let you in on a little secret; up till not so very long ago I always thought that carrot cake wasn’t real. That it didn’t really exist other then in a stupid joke that I heard when I was a kid. The joke was about a bunny going to a bakery asking for a carrot cake, which they didn’t have. He came back every day asking for that same  cake, until the baker felt sorry for the bunny and made him one. So the next time the bunny came and asked for the carrot cake he proudly said that yes he had made it especially. At which the bunny looked at him and said; ‘Do you hate it as much as I do?”

Admittedly a very very bad joke really but it sort of stuck with me. And the fact that it was a cake with vegetables in it, had me convinced that it was an actual joke and not real.

I’ve never told anyone about this until now. Of course I’ve known for a couple of years now that carrot cake is in fact a very real thing. My mistake is probably also due to the fact that I don’t think it is very popular here in the Netherlands or maybe I just haven’t seen any. Fact is that up until yesterday I had never tasted one! It was just one of those things that didn’t occur to me to make. But when I wanted to try out our new oven yesterday and I ‘bumped’ into this recipe on the Good Food website which was a makeover to make it more healthy I figured it was  a sign.

So the very first thing out of our brand new oven is this carrot cake. And I can tell you now that I will definitely be making it a few more times! This is good, seriously good. I haven’t checked against a regular carrot cake recipe why this one is considered to be more healthy apart from the fact that it uses wholemeal flour instead of plain flour and the frosting is made of cream cheese combined with quark which gives it a lovely acidity.

And am I glad to be back cooking and baking! I seriously missed it!

Carrot cake

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Serves	16
Prep time	30 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 30 minutes
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Website	BBC Good food

217 kcalories, protein 4g, carbohydrate 31g, fat 9 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 2g, sugar 21g, salt 0.52 g

Ingredients

• 1 medium orange
• 140g raisins
• 125ml rapeseed oil (I used sunflower oil as I couldn't find rapeseed)
• 115g wholemeal flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (plus a pinch)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 140g dark moscovado sugar
• 280g carrots (finely grated)
• 2 eggs
• 115g self raising flour

Frosting

• 100g light soft cheese (I used philadelphia light)
• 100g quark
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar (sifted)
• 1/2 teaspoon orange zest (grated)
• 1,5 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. For the cake, finely grate the zest from the orange and squeeze 3 tbsp of juice. Pour the juice over the raisins in a bowl, stir in zest, then leave to soak while you make the cake. Lightly oil and line the base of a deep 20cm square cake tin. Mix the flours with 1 tsp baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.

Separate one of the eggs. Put the white in a small bowl and the yolk in a large one. Break the remaining whole egg in with the yolk, then tip in the sugar. Whisk together for 1-2 mins until thick and foamy. Slowly pour in the oil and continue to whisk on a low speed until well mixed. Tip in the flour mix, half at a time, and gently stir it into the egg mixture with a rubber spatula or big spoon. The mix will be quite stiff. Put the extra pinch of baking powder in with the egg white and whisk to soft peaks.

Fold the carrot, raisins (and any liquid) into the flour mixture. Gently fold in the whisked egg white, then pour into the tin. Jiggle the tin to level the mixture. Bake for 1 hr until risen and firm or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin 5 mins, turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper, then leave until cold.

Frosting

To make the frosting, stir the soft cheese, Quark, icing sugar and orange zest together - don't overbeat. Stir in the lemon juice. Swirl the frosting over the cake and cut into 16 square. This cake is even better if left well wrapped for a day or two before icing and eating. Will keep up to 5 days uniced in an airtight tin, or in the fridge if iced.

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