Tulips and a sandwich..;)

Even though the sight of fields with rows and rows of tulips is nothing weird here I still love the sight of them. Since a few years the area around Almere is used to produce tulip bulbs, which means that the fields get to full bloom and are only removed once all the tulips are dead and gone. Even though today was not the best of days to visit one of the fields to take some shots, I just couldn’t resist. I just know they will be gone in a few days time and it would just be a shame to miss them.

Tulip season has opened

So I played a little bit with my new lensbaby and with my 50 mm 1.4 I should probably have brought some other lenses now that they are so good looking (the tulips I mean) but didn’t feel like it and just quickly snug out of the house.

What I also love besides tulips is a good sandwich. You’ve already seen a couple on my blog before and today I wanted to share another one with you. One that is quick to put together and equally delicious. It’s a veggie sandwich with cheese. The original recipe states to use Colby Jack Cheese.

Gizmo is checking if there is any meat involved

And I loved it. Gizmo not so much. She was keeping an eye on me, checking my every move around the table, but unfortunately for her, there was no meat involved. She does like cheese but prefers the melty gooey kind that she lick from my finger rather then having to chew (she has only one tooth left!) The avocado ads a nice creaminess to the sandwich and I added some chives instead of the garden cress I bought but could not find anymore (…).

But I loved the chives on it, so that was all good. I will probably find the garden cress again when I don’t need it anymore. Which is usually the case. Anyway, here is the recipe for this delicious sandwich!

Cheese and veggie sandwich

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Serves	4
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	5 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Bread, Lunch
Website	Sargento

Ingredients

• 8 slices multigran bread
• 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 4 slices cheese
• 1 large avocado (thinly sliced)
• 1 tomato (thinly sliced)
• 1 small red onion (thinly sliced)
• 2 some chives (chopped)

Directions

Light toast the bread if you want. Spread mayonnaise on each side of your sandwich. Layer cheese, avocado, tomato, onion and chives (or use alfalfa sprouts or garden cress) on four slices of toast and top with the remaining toast

Junglefrog Cooking disclosure: This post was sponsored by Sargento. Though I have been compensated to write this post, all opinions expressed are my own.

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Yummy sandwich

I think I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again; sometimes the best things in life are the simplest things… Now take for example this delicious bruschetta. Made with some of the leftover contents of our fridge and voila, you have a perfect lunch sandwich.

Not sure how the weather is in your part of the woods but here it is currently grey and boring… I’m glad all the snow and ice are gone as I am soooo ready for spring at the moment! We still had all the snow on Saturday, on sunday the temperatures rose quite dramatically from -10 to +5 C and the snow disappeared equally fast. Within a day virtually all was gone, except for the ice on the rivers. Some of that still remains even today but the majority is gone. And while I was fed up with the snow at least it gave the world a slightly more cheerful look. Now when I look outside it is grey and well, boring.. I have a little bit of green from the evergreen shrubs in the garden but that’s about the only green I see. Are you also ready for spring?

I have visions of warm summer nights, bbq-ing with friends in the garden. And light, lots of light! Especially in the evening. Although you can tell that the evenings are getting longer in terms of light, it is still no where seriously light… In any case, these delicious little sandwiches give you a hint of spring since tomatoes always make me think of spring (don’t ask me why, they just do..)

It’s incredibly easy to put together and while you certainly don’t really need a recipe to make a bruschetta I thought I share the ingredients of mine with you anyway. So if you want to you can make this yummy sandwich yourself too. It has tapenade on it, cheese, ham and roasted tomatoes and topped with just a few mustard-cress. I love growing those by the way. Within days you have a pot full of any cress and they really do add taste as well as looks to almost anything!

Sourdough bruschetta

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Serves	2
Prep time	5 minutes
Cook time	10 minutes
Total time	15 minutes
Meal type	Bread, Lunch
By author	Simone van den Berg

Ingredients

• 2 slices sourdough bread
• 4 slices Prosciutto
• 1-2 tablespoon Tapenade (I used a variant with olives(green and black), tomatoes )
• few slices cheese (I used a variety called charmeur cheese but you can use any cheese you like)
• 50g cherry tomatoes
• salt, pepper
• 1 tablespoon mustard cress

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put a thick layer of the tapenade on top of the bread. You can make it yourself or buy a good version at a delicacy store. Cover the tapenade with the cheese. Put the bread in the oven. Put the tomatoes in a small baking tray, sprinkle with olive oil and pepper and salt and put them in the oven too.

Remove the bread once the cheese is melted and leave the tomatoes until the skin cracks. Line your melted cheese with a few slices of prosciutto (or other ham) and add a few of the grilled tomatoes. Sprinkle with some mustard cress and you're done!

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My version...

Let’s just do another easy one, I thought to myself when going through one of Donna Hay’s cookbooks. It should be a simple recipe but enough of a challenge in getting it right. Well… if only I had thought about that a little better.. I failed, I failed miserably in recreating the original that you will see below. It seemed fairly straightforward but the trick in this particular image is not so much the recipe as that is real simple, but the angle of the photo.. You’ll see what I mean soon! In the meantime we are already on the 6th version of the Donna Hay Styling and Photography Challenge and I loved all the entries from last month! I would say spread the word..

Photo; Con Poulos

Above you can find the challenge recipe photograph by Con Poulos. it’s from the cookbook Seasons and let’s face it; it doesn’t scare you just by looking at it, does it?  But wait until you analyze this a little further. First of all there is the issue of the size of the props. If you compare the size of the bottle with the size of the bruschetta then it can’t be very big and they appear fairly close together. The tricky part for me however is that the bread in the foreground is big. There is a lot of focus on that plate of food so it is prominently featured in the frame. However I tried to place it and however I changed my lenses I could not – for the life of me – get it right. I’ve tried a wide angle and going in really close but that didn’t give me any blurred background. I tried placing the plate in front and the bottle in the back and using a telelens (which makes objects appear closer together) but then I only got a small piece of the bottle in the frame. I tried so many things I forgot to pay attention to the actual position of the bruschetta but ok…

Plate is too small in the frame here

My plate is probably bigger too or maybe the bread in the original is bigger. It’s shot on a round table and I didn’t have a round table obviously but still I just failed completely in getting it right. I know you are all eagerly awaiting the next challenge so postponing it until I got it right was not an option so you’ll have to do with my failed attempt. Can’t wait to see what you come up with! And please, please let me know how you did it.

Wrong again

I tried it with a smaller plate above (only had a little christmas plate at hand..lol) but again not good! The light in the original is coming from above right and is mildly strong. I had a beautiful clear day and so much light that it was a bit too much but I gave up and just did my own version, which you see as the first picture. Rather different but still with the same elements mostly.

I will try again but also curious what you come up with! Good luck on the challenge! You’re gonna need it (or maybe it is really simple and it is just me..lol)

Feel free to change the recipe to suit your needs and/or allergies/preferences. If you’re vegetarian you can use maybe some slices of eggplant or courgette and if you’re glutenfree, change the bread etc. All options are allowed! The rules are below the recipe.

Bruschetta with mozarella, prosciutto and rocketpesto

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Serves	4
Meal type	Appetizer, Bread
From book	Seasons

Ingredients

• 8 slices bread
• 1 clove garlic (halved)
• extra virgin olive oil (for sprinkling)
• 3-4 pieces bocconcini (in small slices or you can use regular mozarella)
• 8 slices prosciutto
• black pepper (coarsely ground)

Arugulapesto

• 1 handful basil
• 2 handfuls arugula (rocket)
• 1 handful basil
• 40g pine nuts (roasted)
• 20g grated parmesan
• 1/4 garlic clove
• 60ml extra virgin olive oil

Directions

For making the arugula (rocket) pesto put arugula, basil, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic into a foodprocessor and puree roughly. While the motor is running add the olive oil and mix until it is a thick, rough substance. Don't make it too fine. Chunks are ok to have.

Heat a gridlepan and bake both sides of the bread golden brown and crispy. Rub this with half a clove of garlic and sprinkle with some olive oil.

Put some of the slices of mozarella on the toast and liberally cover with the pesto. Top this with a slice of prosciutto and finish with some salt and pepper.

• Once a month (on the 3rd of the month) I will give you a recipe plus the accompanying photo out of the Donna Hay magazine. I will try to make it seasonal but can’t promise anything.
• You have that same month to produce your post. You can post it any day you like just as long as you finish it before the end of that month at the latest.
• You have to  produce that recipe, alterations to the recipe are allowed to make sure any dietary restrictions are met. But only minor changes!
• You have to cook and STYLE the recipe trying to replicate the photo as best as you can. If you think you can do a better job then the original photo, by all means feel free to make your own changes to the styling.
• Shoot the dish and then write a blog post about it. It would be great to add notes on how you took the photo and how you styled the dish,  so that other people can learn too.
• Link back to this months blog post about the challenge and link back to the Donna Hay Challenge page here
• Leave a message on the post that is up here for that month, saying that you completed the challenge and link to the post on your site so others can find it too.
• If you want to use the original photo in your blog post as well as the recipe be sure to link back to the Donna Hay website plus the photographers website. They will both always be mentioned in the monthly challenge posts.

Each month a winner will be picked who will be featured in the Hall of Fame page. If you like you can add a badge to your site saying that you are taking part in this competition. The badge is featured below and should link back to this page.

Above all this challenge is about having fun styling and photographing a dish by taking Donna Hay as our great example. You can join all months or whenever you feel like joining in. Using an example of the great photographers that Donna works with, I always find that it is a good learning experience to see how did they light the scene, where does the light come from and how did they manage to make it look so beautiful. Try and analyze all of that and then come up with your own version.

While taking food photos is all about finding your own style and certainly not copying anyone else, it does help to analyze how your hero’s do their job. It’s about learning to light and style a scene properly. In no way am I trying to suggest you copy another person style. Find your own unique style! This challenge is just a tool to help you along the way..

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Home made fresh buns

Don’t you just totally love it when you walk into the house and you smell that best of smells; freshly baked bread? And then to take it out of the oven and the moment you hear that soft crack when you break of a piece of warm crust and pop it in your mouth, unable to resist? O how I wish that scenario actually happened here in this very house!

Instead I tend to end up with bread that is either too dry, too firm or just plain disappointing… In all of the before three cases, it still beats getting the bread of the supermarket. Not that they have bad bread perse, but it’s just not the same as homemade, now is it? So yes, I do struggle with breadbaking. I followed a breadcourse before as you know, but as with many such things, haven’t baked a bread since. It was an enormously interesting course and I learned a lot but it was also pretty daunting to do all that stuff yourself. So when I learned about Levine’s workshop I decided that’s where I wanted to go.

Dough rolled and ready to be baked sprinkled with poppyseed

She approaches the whole breadbaking from a homebaking perspective, so I felt right at ease and with her guidance I actually started to feel confident I could maybe do this myself at home without too much danger of messing up the bread. We made two types of bread; the soft buns you see above and some crusty pistolets that I haven’t eaten yet. Too much bread to all eat in one go so they went straight into the freezer. But if the lunch we had is anything to go by then I just know that it is going to be awesome too. O and Levine gave us some amazing baguette too, which basically means I will have to come back to learn how to make those too.

Fresh crusty bread

For now I will tempt you with this recipe for soft buns, which you can also make into the pretty ‘braided’ buns you see on top and below. And trust me when I say that it took me a while to make anything resembling a knot with that bread but it was fun and if you can’t do that you can always just keep them round!

Fresh soft buns with seeds

Soft buns

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Serves	16
Allergy	Egg, Milk, Wheat
Meal type	Bread
By author	Levine van Doorne

Ingredients

• 560g flour (Good quality)
• 9g yeast (dry yeast)
• 10g sugar
• 60g butter (unsalted, at roomtemperature)
• 100g egg (At roomtemperatue, whisked loosely)
• 250 g full fat milk (lukewarm)
• 10g salt
• baking tin of 24 cm, greased

Additional ingredients

• 1 egg
• baking trays lined with baking paper

Additional ingredients (Optional)

• poppyseed or sesameseed for the top

Directions

Kneading the dough in the kitchenaid; put all ingredients, except the butter in a bowl. Stir together with a wooden spoon. Using the doughhook, knead the dough for about 8 minutes and then add slowly add the butter and keep kneading until the dough feels pliable and is stretchy. It should feel as sticky as a post-it note. It is usually around 10-15 minutes. If you're kneading by hand; put all ingredients into a large bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon until the flour gets moist. Turn out onto a worksurface and knead by hand for about 15-20 minutes til you have a pliable dough. Don't ad extra flour if it's not really necessary; the dough will get less sticky during the kneading.

1st rise; Grease a large bowl with some oil and put the dough in. Turn once so all sides are covered with oil. Cover the bowl and leave the dough to stand at roomtemperature for about 1 hour so it doubles in volume.

Shaping: Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled workbench. Divide with a doughcutter into 16 equal parts and make them into little balls. Leave those covered for about 10 minutes and round them again firmly.

For separate buns: put the balls of dough onto a baking tray a few centimeters apart. If they do not fit onto one tray take your other tray and divide them over the trays. Bake them one after the other.

Breadcrown: Divide 8 balls of dough into a baking tin and put the other 8 in the other one.

Coat the dough balls with a little bit of eggwash and sprinkle with seeds if you want to.

Second rise; leave them covered at roomtemperature for about 60 minutes until almost doubled in size. The dough has risen enough once you press a finger in and it slowly moved back.

During the second raise preheat the oven to 200 C. Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes brown. Remove from the baking tins or from the baking trays and leave to cool on a cooling rack. You can freeze these really well. You can use the same dough to also make little knots in your bread. See notes

Note

As mentioned you can use these same buns to make different shapes. You can rol them out after the first raise to very thin long strand and then tie a knot in them or use your imagination to make something pretty of them. Continue also here with the second raise

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Goatcheese salad with pear and roasted walnuts

I sit on my chair. Well ok, more truthfully, I lie on the couch. There is still a faint smell of chocolate lingering in the air that makes me slightly nauseous. Too much chocolate in too little time cannot be good for a person. It’s been baking galore here; if not for our selves or for our friends I have been baking cupcakes for a client or shooting other cakes and cookies for another client. And no, not Christmas anymore. We have moved on to spring pictures already. It’s almost as bad as shooting for fashion although for that we are now in fall 2012 season. I can hardly remember what season we really have on hand!

In the midst of all that Christmas chaos I sometimes just need to get away from all the overly sweet or overly festive dishes that tend to dominate the december month. I feel more like eating fruit all day or enjoying a really tasty and simple salad. Because let’s face it; do you really need yet another recipe for a simple goatcheese salad? I always think that everyone already knows how to make a quick (but delicious) salad like this, but in case you do not know; Below is the recipe written out for you.

Goatcheese salad with pear and walnuts

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Serves	4
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	15 minutes
Total time	35 minutes
Meal type	Lunch, Salad
From book	Delicious kookboek by Valli Little

Ingredients

• 150g goatcheese
• 60ml walnut oil (plus extra for greasing the cheese)
• 6 slices bread (walnut bread is really good here, but you can use any stale or fresh bread you have left over)
• 80ml olive oil
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 handfuls salad leaves (radicchio is really nice here but use whatever salad leaves you like best. I've used rocket here and lamb's lettuce as that was available)
• 150 g watercress
• 1 pear (make sure it is a ripe pear)
• 60g walnuts (chopped and roasted)

Directions

Coat the goatcheese all around in walnutoil and cut the cheese in 4 rounds and put in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Cut the crust from your bread and cut the bread in 2 cm cubes. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the croutons keeping an eye on them for about 1 to 2 minutes until they are crispy and golden. Remove from the pan and leave to drain on kitchen towel.

Mix the walnut oil, honey and lemonjuice in a little bowl and add salt and pepper to taste.

Divide your salad leaves across 4 plates. Cut the pear in slices and coat in lemonjuice to prevent discoloration, put the pear on top of the salad leaves and add the croutons and the chopped walnuts

Heat the grill at the highest setting and line a baking tray with baking paper. Put the cheese slices on the baking tray, sprinkle with walnut oil and put the cheese under the grill for 1-2 minutes or until the top becomes golden brown and the cheese starts to melt. Put a piece of goatcheese on each salad plate and sprinkle the dressing over and serve immediately.

Note

Everyone has a version of this classic salad, and there are probably as many variations out there as people but still... this one's good too!

It’s nothing new, but it is incredibly delicious and using homemade croutons does make it better. Making your croutons from walnut bread or a really good sourdough bread will make this simple salad even a little bit more special. You can use whatever saladleaves you have on hand right now. Radicchio would have been nice but couldn’t be found, so we used a combination of rocket, watercress and lamb’s lettuce that we could find. After having lunch with such a delicious salad, I feel lighter, healthier and ready to tackle the next Christmas task at hand; figuring out on how earth to prepare an entire turkey!

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