Onion quiche with cheese

Very slowly but surely there is some white fluff coming out of the sky. It’s not a lot but it’s cold enough for the white stuff to remain. The day has been grey and very overcast. Certainly not ideal for taking photos so that’s a bit of a nuisance really… Yes, ladies and gentlemen by the look of things, it appears we ARE finally getting something resembling a winter. If I’m totally honest I am ready for spring. I mean, I love winter, I really do, but then I like winter to appear when it is supposed to. For me that is around Christmas. And not at the beginning of February when all I can think of is spring! But if nature has proven anything lately then it is the fact that it cannot be controlled. So winter it is then. At least it is good for getting rid of some of the mosquito-eggs (I hope).

We have this thing here in Holland called De Elf Stedentocht. It’s a skating race across eleven cities (cities = steden) for a distance of around 200 km. It’s held on natural ice only, so that means that we have to wait for the weather gods to be with us, in order for the ice to be thick enough to hold masses of people at the same time. The last time it was held was in 1997! So you can see that it is rare for the ice to be of good enough quality. Every year, usually around this time, we do have some frost and as always there is this buzz going around for people that maybe this year we will be having the tour… Willem-Alexander, our crown prince even participated last time so you see, it’s a big deal here..

Ten yrs old.. getting skating lessons..

I’ve never been really good in skating… I found this picture of me at the age of 10 trying to do some skating..:) I’m the clumsy one on the left holding my friends hand and that’s my little brother behind her keeping an eye on things… I used to fall on my face quite a bit and I guess I never really learned it properly. See those skates by the way? Those are called Friese doorlopers and  you can tie them under your regular shoes. This particular water (slootje) we are skating on was behind my parents house, as we were overlooking farmland.

Onion quiche

Now when it’s cold and dark outside, you want something warm and comforting, right? This particular quiche is perfect for that. it’s incredibly easy as it uses ready made croissant dough. The onions are slowly cooked in some dark beer giving it a hint of sweetness. We loved it! I used port salut in the recipe as I know Tom hates stronger cheeses (he hates all cheese but as long as it’s melted on something and not too strong he’s ok with eating it) but I would recommend using something with a bit more flavor. Blue cheese combined with regular cheese would be fantastic too. Recipe from Delicious Magazine

Onion-cheese quiche

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Serves:	4
Prep time:	30 minutes
Cook time:	35 minutes
Total time:	1 hours, 5 minutes
Meal type:	Lunch
Misc:	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold, Serve Hot
Region:	Worldwide
From magazine:	Delicious magazine

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 750g onions (in half rings)
• 100ml dark beer
• 1 can croissant dough (Here you can buy these in tins which have enough dough for 6 croissants. not sure how that would be in other countries)
• 100g ham
• 4 eggs
• 150ml double cream
• 3 tablespoons flat leaf parsley (plus a little extra for garnish if you want)
• 200g abbey cheese (for instance port salut or any other good cheese you want, rind removed)

Directions

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the onion rings and bake for about 8-10 minutes until they are nice and soft. Don't let them get too brown though! Pour the beer in and keep cooking until there is no moisture left in the pan. Preheat the oven to 200 C.

Roll the dough out and line a 10 x 30 cm tin with it or a round tin with a diameter of 24 cm. Make sure there are no holes in the dough. Line the bottom with the ham. Whisk the eggs, mix with cream, parsley and add pepper and salt to taste. Add the onions into the tin. Pour the egg-cream mixture over it and put the cheese on top in slices. Bake the quiche in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until golden brown and cooked. Sprinkle with a little extra parsley.

Note

While the recipe states that the qty's are for a tin of the size I have you I found there were far too many onions, so I actually made two out of the qty given. One of 10 x 30 cm and one round one. Which is fine but just thought I mention it!

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The ultimate cranberry sauce

I did promise you I would give you the recipe for the ultimate cranberry sauce right? Well, here it is… I’ve made cranberry sauce, cranberry compote and cranberry relish before but never before did I find THE cranberry sauce to go with everything. If you look at the small list of ingredients it is really nothing to fancy and it’s also nothing really special but I can assure you that the end result will never have you ask for another cranberry recipe, ever again. It is rich, it is sweet (but not too sweet) and it goes so well with both savory dishes and sweet desserts.

I made this sauce for the simple reason that I had bought too many cranberries so I just figured I might try a couple of different variations to see which one I liked best. We had this the first time with some pork and we were immediately sold. Then I used it to spice up the mascarpone raspberry trifle you saw earlier and that just confirmed the fact that this does go with just about anything.

Cranberry sauce on top of delicious trifle

Cranberry sauce

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Serves:	4
Prep time:	5 minutes
Cook time:	10 minutes
Total time:	15 minutes
Meal type:	Condiment, Side Dish
Misc:	Pre-preparable
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

• 250g cranberries
• 3 pieces star anise
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1,5 cup fresh orange juice

Directions

Put all ingredients into a saucepan and brings to the boil. Once the sugar is all dissolved turn down the heat

Leave to boil softly until all craberries have popped open. Take of the fire and remove the cinnamon and star anise. Put in a blender and puree until smooth. Be careful when turning on the blender as it is hot which means it will spatter too.

Once pureed put through a sieve to remove all the skins.

Note

This recipe is perfect for both sweet and savory dishes. Sofar we have had it with dessert and we had it with pork but this will be equally good with turkey!

I am actually thinking of making large batches of this sauce so I can freeze it in and enjoy it for the rest of the year too. I still have quite a few dried cranberries left so I am wondering if I can use those to make cranberry sauce too. Something tells me that is not an option as there would be no popping. Does anyone have any experience with using dried cranberries for making a sauce? Would it work to re-hydrate them first and then cook? Let me know your thoughts! In the meantime I have another bag of cranberries in the fridge that is just waiting for me to make another batch…

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Creamy goatcheese with pomegranate and chives

Wow… if you are reading this, that actually means that it worked! You might have wondered where I went to the last couple of days but I have been very busy behind the scenes with changing over all my websites (and there are six in total) from one host to the next.

My friend and  Dutch blogger Kay from Kayotic Kitchen first alerted me to the fact that maybe I was paying just a bit too much on my hosting package and then when I went to Germany Meeta told me pretty much the same thing. Time for me to start looking at other options.

While I have been really happy with my hosting company the fact of the matter is that I am now going from something like 1200 euro per year to a total of 90 dollar a year… That is too big of a difference to dismiss!

I’ll spare you all the nerve wrecking details, but as I said; if you’re reading this.. it is working!!

What else is going on here; I had my second meatcourse which I will tell you all about later. I had a couple of really fun cupcake shoots and in the meantime I am starting to think about Christmas menu’s.

It’s been difficult getting my head into cooking mode with all that is going on. On top of that I am also worried what January 1^st is going to bring. With Tom still looking for a new job and the change over to the studio it’s quite a bit of changing around here lately but that’s ok. Change is what makes the world go round right?

So to give you a lovely and very tasty recipe I am bringing you this creamy goatcheese with pomegranate which is fabulous as a quick lunch spread but would also be ideal for any party. Try it you’ll love it!

Creamy goatcheese with pomegranate

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Recipe type: Sidedish

Author: BBC good food

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 6

Ofcourse goatcheese and honey is a classic combination but add the pomegranates and the chives and it is even yummier!

Ingredients

• 150g pack soft, rindless goat’s cheese
• 250g tub ricotta
• 50g pomegranates seeds, from a tub
• small bunch chives , snipped
• 1 tbsp clear honey
• 2 tsp red or white wine vinegar
• loaf of crusty bread , to serve

Instructions

1. Mash the goat’s cheese and ricotta together in a bowl, then use a spatula to roughly spread over a large plate. Scatter with the pomegranate seeds and chives and set aside until ready to serve.
2. Stir together the honey and vinegar, then as you’re about to serve, drizzle over the plate. Enjoy with crusty bread.

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2.1.7

 

 

 

 

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Fresh whole spices for making garam masala

Let me first start with a disclaimer here; I am gonna give you a recipe for garam masala, but I am convinced that there are 100′s, 1000′s of recipes out there that are possibly more authentic, better or whatever then mine. I don’t know much about the Indian kitchen other then what I have tasted and cooked myself. So this is from a recipe from a book I have on spices.

So that’s all for the disclaimer.. Now on to the recipe itself!

The spices are roasted and into the pestle and mortar

Garam masala is not one particular spice, it is a combination of different spices that you roast to create a blend. You can use it to flavor curries or as in this case a lovely salad. (recipe for that will follow later, but you need this to make the salad)

I got this recipe from the book The Spice Bible by Jane Lawson. I love that book and it has some useful information on all sorts of spices you can think of. And most important for me; pictures of the spices… I mean; take for instance kardamom. If you know what it looks like then it’s easy. But if you’ve never seen a cardamom pod in your life then searching for them might be a bit hard. So pictures are good, pictures are very useful.

She gives the base recipe for garam masala and some suggestions of other spices you can throw into the mix. I added a bit of other herbs as I know I like their flavors. Most importantly when making this mix is that you use fresh spices. I made the mistake once of trying to create a curry using old and bland spices. Trust me; that does not work. If they don’t smell anymore get rid of them.

The ground and finished garam masala

Garam Masala

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Prep time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	5 minutes
Total time:	15 minutes
Meal type:	Condiment
Region:	Indian

Ingredients

• 10 green cardamom pods (remove the seeds from the pods and discard the shells)
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons cumin seed
• 2 teaspoons cloves
• 1 teaspoon black pepper corns
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly ground)
• 1 teaspoon coriander seed
• 1 teaspoon mustard seed

Directions

Remove the seed from the cardamom and throw the pods away. Break the cinnamon in pieces.

Roast the cardamom seeds, cinnamon, cumin, cloves, peppercorns, coriander and mustard seed for 1-2 minutes in a dry frying pan. Make sure not to burn them (and watch out as the mustard seed can be quite jumpy)

Fry until you smell the aroma’s.

Leave to cool. Ground in a magimix or pestle and mortar and make sure you have no whole cloves left as that is not very tasty.

Airtight it will be good to use for about 1 month.

Note

There is no such thing as one recipe for garam masala as each household might have it's own version. Add the spices that you like and keep trying until you have a blend that works for you!

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Pink smoothie

Are you as much in need of spring and summer to arrive as I am? Winter just seems to drag on and I know it’s only March but still…. My day first started with a shock at hearing about the earthquake for the coast of Japan. A friend of mine has recently moved with her husband and little child to Tokyo (I will be visiting her next month!!) and so my first concern was if everything was allright with them. Thankfully she replied fairly quickly to my textmessage saying that all was ok, but they were pretty shaken up by the whole thing. At this point there is no news of the total number of casualties but I wish everyone affected lots of strength to get through this!

It seems there are too many natural disasters these days, not to mention the trouble in certain parts of the world!

Now on to the Monthly Mingle, the fabulous monthly event by the fabulous Meeta of What’s for Lunch Honey, of this month which is hosted by Sarah, of Maison Cupcake. I have participated in the Monthly Mingle only once before… Shame on me… But you know how it goes with all the challenges going around the blog-o-sphere. Soooo much to choose from and so little time. My first idea of joining the Monthly Mingle was to bake something sweet and pink, but then I started thinking about the upcoming weekend where I will be making the Daring Baker challenge (suspence, suspence!!) plus I am going to be baking bread, so I figured enough baking would be done tomorrow already.

For my birthday I got a brand new Kitchen Aid blender in a very appropriate shade of pink (also named red…lol) and I had not even used it properly. So there you had it; I just had to make something in the blender and it had to be pink. I confess that it is not the hardest of dishes to make ofcourse, but I will make it up with loads of difficult recipes in the days to come! Promise!

And really doesn’t it give you spring-like feelings looking at these gorgeous colors? And on a day like today where the sun in shining I almost feel like going out the door without a coat (only to be running back inside because it is still coooold!!)

I make loads of smoothies in the summer when there is a bounty of gorgeous fruits available but in winter not so much. The fruit we have at the moment is less suitable for smoothies then the softer summer fruits and while I was looking for fresh raspberries in the store, there weren’t any. So if you’re gonna make this smoothie, I would suggest to use fresh and not frozen as I had to.

RASPBERRY – CRANBERRY SMOOTHIE

Raspberries (frozen or fresh)

Cranberry juice (I used pom)

Yogurt (don’t use the skinny ones as that will affect the flavor)

Few mintleaves (optional)

You can add a little sugar if it’s too sour for your taste.

Put all ingredients in a blender, blend on high and you’re done! Spring in a glass!!

Now to make up for this not so creative recipe I took a few shots of pink flowers also… Enjoy!

Tulips

Rose

Hydrangea

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