In light of all of the above my quest to loose weight is a simple one, but still one that can occupy my thoughts for a large part of the day. Well, let’s face it; my thoughts are already occupied with food for a big part and now there is just the added complexity of making good dishes a little leaner. One case in point was my lunch of today. I came home after working in the studio and felt like cooking something simple and quick. I had no idea what to make so I just went to the store and then saw one of their recipe cards with a recipe for gnocchi with bacon and garden peas. I liked the look of it and figured I could make that dish but then in a leaner version. And so I did! And it was delicious!

The original version had bacon, creme fraiche and a lot more cheese but my version made me feel better… I’m normally not a big fan of store bought gnocchi and I’m still not but whipping up freshly made gnocchi for this afternoons lunch felt like a little bit too much hard work, so I did opt for the store bought and with all the other ingredients added it was good. But I’m sure will be much better if you do decide to make your own gnocchi. And why not go for it?

O and I have to tell you too that I had THE best salmon hamburger tonight for dinner too!! I didn’t take any photos but I will definitely be making this again and share! Soooo good!

And who is here trying to dip her nose in and stealing a little bit of that ham??

Large cobwebs were everywhere and every now and then a sticky thread would get lodged on her face or hair. Absentmindedly she wondered how those spiders would survive so deep below ground. There seemed to be no other life form and even the webs were hanging there empty and useless. Far of in the distance there was a faint light shimmering and she used that as a beaken to guide her. She had no idea if she would find her target there or if it would even be here but the light, at least, gave her the idea that something should be. The further she proceeded the colder the flow of air became and she was glad she had put on a thick sweater. Despite the cold draft and despite the damp mist she started sweating….”

No don’t worry I have not lost my mind… That is the beginning of ‘Rainbow House’ a horror story I wrote somewhere in my twenties or maybe I even started before that. I thought I had lost the entire story or at least the digital version, but because of the writing we did in Plate2Page I started searching and I found it! It was somewhere on one of the harddrives. Safely tucked away in a document folder I hadn’t looked at for ages. I even decided I would be printing this in hardcopy as it’s a fun reminder of what I used to do.. When I wrote this (still on a DOS computer with Wordperfect!! Yes, I am THAT old! lol…) there was no such thing as selfpublishing like Blurb or Lulu and apart from printing out all the pages there was no way you could ever print your own book. But yesterday I quickly changed the format from A4 to A5, made it into a PDF, uploaded the thing to Lulu and ordered the book. Yes, all 568 pages of Rainbow House will be in my bookshelf… It’s in Dutch by the way, so this is translated but it would not seriously interested anyone other then myself. It’s a shaky narrative at best as the story is written in a time period of about 10 to 15 years and changed so many times in between I honestly don’t know what it’s about anymore. Well vaguely; it’s about 3 girls living in this old house (Rainbow House) in the South of England and they find large vaults under the house and guess what…? Something else lives there too… Whoohoo… Haha… Anyway, just thought it was fun to mention. But now on to more pressing matters and this delicious recipe I wanted to share with you today…

The original recipe is from Donna Hay’s magazine but it’s slightly changed..

Goatcheese lemon pasta

I see a flutter of wings when the magpie family lands on the windowsill right in front of my office window. It’s rainy and windy outside and they’ve taken the liberty to use our windowsill as a hide-out when it gets too wet in the trees. They are curious and I think the reflection in my window prevents them from seeing me the same way that I see them. They have young ones too so I think there is a nest somewhere in our overgrown garden. Great place for birds to hang out, as it is usually very busy with the real tweets… The parents feed the young right in front of me. I think a mere 50 centimeters separates them from me. Well that and a glass pane ofcourse. On occasion they peer inside and look me straight in the face, which never fails to make me laugh. They seriously look at me and as long as I don’t move to much they will stay there, staring at me, possibly wondering who that creature is sitting there…

Two days ago the weather was a little better and Gizmo, our old and slightly senile cat was outside sitting on one of the lawnchairs. I hadn’t noticed she went outside until I heard the magpie’s going completely insane and making a noise that would have awoken the entire neighborhood. Of course it was in the afternoon, so no one was sleeping. I got a little nervous and called Gizmo she had to come back inside (and believe me she actually listens when I tell her to come inside… Although I do think it is the only thing she listens too!) Magpies are fairly big and they sounded rather aggressive. An old cat would be an easy target! So better be safe then sorry. Now that I think about it; it could have been one of the neighbors cats that was lurking in the bushes as normally they don’t even react when Gizmo goes outside. As if they know she is old and slow. The sparrows will actually sit on the same chair Gizmo is lying in, teasing her…! Little buggers…

The reason I started talking about the magpies is because the weather has been lousy the last week meaning I had a lot of magpie visits on my windowsill. I am longing for long warm summer days and this pasta would be gorgeous to eat on such a day. I ate it yesterday while a storm was howling around the house and the rain was making the garden look like a pond, so I can tell you from experience that it does taste equally well on a cold day… Quick and delicious!

Pasta I can eat just about any day of the week. I think I have said it before, but I will tell you again; it is the perfect meal for using leftovers. Tom and I have had a fabulous weekend with lots of sunshine and a really nice foodfestival called “the weekend of the rolling kitchens” which was held in Amsterdam. The festival was held from the 2nd of June till the 5th of June and we were wise to pick the saturday to go there as the weather was perfect, nice and sunny while on sunday it rained the entire day. It was a fun festival where I was surprised to see what people where able to cook up in a caravan, old trailer or some even on an old bike! Believe it or not… We had dumplings (delicious ones I might add) that were prepared in a wok (as you would expect) but that was heated in a small wood fired oven inside an old bike!

Stove inside a bike cart

We had some really good food too and some lovely wines as well. We did a little wine tasting where we each got three different wines to taste. I picked the white ones and Tom had the red ones, but I think we all loved them. We will definitely be buying those!

Anyway, on our way back we started talking about food and the amount of food we waste on a year basis. It’s quite shocking really. I go to the supermarket (remember we don’t have anything else here in the neighbourhood!) and buy groceries for the week, including vegetables, meat and such. I pop whatever we have to into the freezer and the only thing I still have to buy are some vegetables. But what happens at the end of the week is that a lot of stuff is leftover. We didn’t cook on tuesday or we had an unexpected

Rolling kitchens

invitation for dinner with friends on thursday and so on. I’m ashamed of it really, as it is good food that goes bad just because we are too lazy to come up with some way to use it. I know everyone does it and I know most people feel bad about it, but that doesn’t mean that it is ok. So we decided then and there that we’re gonna be using up our supplies in a better way.

So to start of on my new good intentions I decided to dive into our fridge and see what needed to be used urgently. It was tomatoes; I had loads of tomatoes in the fridge, from small ones to big ones and they would not last much longer. So tomatoes it was… And then my obvious choice was to ad that to a good pasta.. I told you I could eat pasta with anything…

I asked Tom to pick up some fresh pasta on the way to home as well as some smoked chicken. From our cupboard I added tomato cubes, some wholegrain mustard and some German Schmand (creme fraiche) that I brought with me from Plate to Page. I roasted the tomatoes in smoked salt and pepper with olive oil and a beautiful little dish was born.