Junglefrog Cooking » delicious

Onion-cheese quiche

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:29:34 +0000

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

Print recipe

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!

Lamb’s lettuce salad with feta and tomatoes

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:52:36 +0000

Pin It

Quick and healthy..

O god no… I can hear you think… not yet another salad!! Yes, sorry, it is another salad.. Isn’t January the official salad month? The month where half the nation wants to lose a little here and a little there so turns to ‘boring’ salads? Now let me correct that immediately; salads are amazing, salads are so versatile you could eat salads for the rest of your life and never have the same one twice.

True, when I was growing up, my conception of salads was also quite boring; iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, throw in a boiled egg for good measure, make a dressing from one of those little bags they sell in the supermarket (it’s called salad dressing, add 2 tbsp of mayo and 3 tbsp of water and voila, you have a dressing) and if you go really wild you might add a few pieces of ham. That was my salad growing up. That was – I fear – the only salad mum ever used to make.

Essential; a good homemade dressing!

When I left the house to go study as a nurse (yes, yes… that’s how my working life started!) at the age of 19 we had to live in a ‘sisterflat’ where all girls had there own tiny room (2 by 3 meters) and a kitchen that wasn’t worth mentioning. The only cooking equipment we had was an electrical plate and that’s all we had to prepare a healthy meal. Ofcourse the idea was that all girls would eat the hospital fodder.. Something we weren’t all that keen on, so we did try to cook a little bit. For years I was under the solid impression that salad was the above described uninspired meal.

There are still a lot of people out there who have the same strange ideas about salads. Let me tell you people; salads are amazing! I never eat iceberg lettuce anymore; it’s banned where-ever we can. It’s boring and tasteless and why bother if there are so many different and tasty varieties out there that are preferable in any given situation?

This salad came together from random ingredients I had in the fridge and needed to use. It’s simple and the delicious dressing makes this salad a winner, any time of the year. I’ve used a special sweet muscat vinegar for this dressing that was kindly given to me by Didi from Made In Spain (she has some amazing Spanish articles in her webshop, check it out) and it really complemented the dressing and the salad!

Lamb’s lettuce with feta

Print recipe

Serves:	1
Prep time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	None
Total time:	10 minutes
Dietary:	Vegetarian
Meal type:	Lunch, Salad
Misc:	Serve Cold
Region:	Worldwide
By author:	Simone van den Berg

Ingredients

100g lamb's lettuce
50g feta
1 small handful tablespoon sunflower seeds (roasted)
3 tomatoes (cut into quarters)
croutons (from 1-2 slices of stale bread)
1-2 tablespoon grated parmesan
1-2 tablespoon Olive oil

Dressing

2 tablespoons homemade ketchup with bellpeppers
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon coarse grain mustard
1 tablespoon sweet muscat vinegar

Directions


Cut the tomatoes, wash the salad and roast the sunflower seeds. Make the croutons by cutting the bread into small cubes, put these in a bowl with some olive oil and grate some parmesan cheese on top of it. Mix and then roast these in a hot frying pan until golden brown and crispy. Drain on a kitchen towel

Arrange all the separate ingredients together on a plate and put all the ingredients for the dressing together in a bowl or small jar. Shake or stir well to combine, taste and add seasoning where needed

sprinkle some of the dressing on top of your salad and enjoy!

Quinoa, feta and walnut salad

Simone (junglefrog) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:42:46 +0000

Delicious and healthy salad with quinoa, feta and apple

It’s no big secret that I love quinoa as it has been featured here a couple of times, as you can see with this delicious quinoa salad with courgette, the quinoa salad with pomegranate and most recently the pumpkin stew. I was reading a couple of blogs on my Iphone this morning (don’t you just love the possibilities of wireless internet??) when I came upon this delicious recipe from Reeni of the blog Cinnamon spice and everything nice. She had this quinoa salad on and I immediately knew what I wanted to make for lunch. I had everything in house so it was perfect.

I knew I would be baking the entire day for a customer who wants to have all the recipes on their site re-shot, so I figured I could do with something NOT sweet for lunch. I’ve been pretty good too, despite being covered in flour and buttercream most of the day. I have not eaten anything of the sweet goodies!! Proud of myself…. I’ve lost 9 pounds so far and want to keep the momentum going. It’s not that I don’t allow myself anything “bad” but all in moderation. And if I have to choose between – for instance – a good piece of cheese or a cupcake, I would go for the cheese anytime, so I’ll stay of the sweets for a while.

And I gotta say that after having this delicious salad I did not feel the need to snack on anything so that was all good. This salad is definitely going to be on my list of favorites. I changed the dressing and the qty’s a bit from the original but I’m sure it was just as lovely!

And I can say that in terms of the Living Leaner project, this did not cost me anything, but that is not entirely fair of course as I have bought these ingredients at some point in the past. I’m pretty sure that it would fit nicely below the 10 euro budget as the most expensive ingredient in here is the feta of which I used about 1/4 of the package, so still some left for more yummy salads this week! The rocket cress we grew ourself on our window sill. Love rocketcress! So tasty and so easy to grow too (and trust me when I say I do not have green fingers at all.!)

Quinoa, apple and feta salad

Print recipe

Serves:	1
Prep time:	15 minutes
Cook time:	15 minutes
Total time:	30 minutes
Dietary:	Vegetarian
Meal type:	Lunch, Salad
Region:	Worldwide
Website:	Cinnamon spice and everything nice

Ingredients

75g quino (cooked and cooled off)
50g feta
a fewwalnuts (roasted and chopped)
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
1 head apple (I used half an apple here)

Optional

1 tablespoon rocket cress

Dressing

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon coarse grain mustard
salt
pepper
1 teaspoon honey

Directions


In a small skillet over medium heat toast walnuts about 5 minutes stirring often. Remove and allow to cool. Chop the walnuts into smaller pieces. Chop the cranberries also into smaller pieces. Crumble the feta cheese and peel, core and cut the apple into bitesize chunks. In a large bowl combine quinoa, apples, cranberries, feta cheese, and the walnuts.

Make a dressing of the oliveoil, limejuice, pepper, salt, honey and mustard and taste to adjust seasoning to your liking. Pour the dressing over the bowl of quinoa and enjoy!

Note

This is an incredibly tasty and really healthy lunch salad that is quick to put together. You can also use another grain such as couscous or pearl barley for this.

Marinated chicken on a stick and living leaner

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:00:32 +0000

Delicious meal

Now that the new year has started the term Living Leaner that Mona started on her blog Wisewords, takes on a bit of a double meaning for me. In fact, it takes on a triple meaning… I’m no different then anyone else around the world who wants to get fit and healthy in the new Year. Maybe with this difference being that I actually started right after Christmas (with just a short break at New Years) so this doesn’t count at all as a New Years resolution. I don’t do New Years resolutions so this just happens to be in the same period. And let’s face it, we’ve been here before now haven’t we? But in terms of living leaner; I could be a lot leaner myself and since Tom is still unemployed we have to live a lot leaner ourselves to. The budget has a limit!

And quite frankly, the way we were spending money before was – at some point – quite ridiculous. That’s the thing with having enough money; you tend to start living according to it. And that’s fine really but it also means that taking a step back is a bit harder. And it’s quite a big step back too. Finding a job in these days is hard. December is not the best month in any year to find a job but with the crisis everyone talks about, it is even harder. We’re still hopeful all will turn around soon but as of this month Tom is on unemployment benefit for the first time in his life (and I bet he also wishes it is going to be the last time too)

Skewered chicken with orange fennel salad

And the worst thing is that we do not know at this point how much money we will have left. I have an irregular income and Tom will only hear at the end of the month how much his benefit will be. So we’re preparing for the worst case scenario, just in case.. That means that we’re on a tight budget. I do realize there are loads of people out there that have a far worse situation then we do, so believe me, I’m not complaining. I’m merely stating the facts. So that means that we have to also become a bit more creative with what we eat. Once a week (on saturday) we get a crate of organically grown produce including meat, vegetables, cheese, eggs etc. If we use it wisely it would be enough to feed us for a week if we add some extra’s to it such as pasta, spices etc. It’s always seasonal and local too. Going to the supermarket would possibly be a tiny bit cheaper but then I wouldn’t know where it came from and I would like to still support the local farmers where we can. And for now, we still can, so no reason to get rid of that.

This particular meal does have a lot of ingredients but most of that we always have in house so there was no extra cost involved. The only thing I needed to buy was the chicken, the fennel, the salad and the oranges and the cost of those you see below. It was delicious, especially the marinade on the chicken gets high points. We had this with some plain rice as otherwise the meal would have been too light. And while I do want to lose weight, I want it to be sensible too!

And so you can all check how I’m doing I’ve added a little weight loss badge on the right in the sidebar… If it stays at the same number for too long, you can come and kick my butt!

Spicy skewered chicken with fennel-orange salad

Print recipe

Serves:	2
Prep time:	20 minutes
Cook time:	10 minutes
Total time:	30 minutes
Meal type:	Lunch, Main Dish, Salad
Region:	Chinese
From book:	Chinese food made easy

Ingredients

200g chicken breast
olive oil

Herb mix

1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon chili flakes
1/2 teaspoon paprika powder
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon seasalt
1 teaspoon arachid oil (nut oil)
1 teaspoon shaohsing ricewine or dry sherry

orange fennel salad

4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons orange juice
1/2 piece lime juice (juice from half a lime)
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon roasted sesame oil (I used regular sesame oil)
200g mixed salad leaves (washed)
1 piece fennel bulb (sliced thinly, soaked in cold water for 30 seconds and drained)
2 pieces oranges (peeled, parts cut out from between the pith)
seasalt
pepper

Directions


Soak 8-10 bamboo skewers for 20 minutes in cold water

Mix all ingredients for the herb mix in a bowl. put the meat in and coat them with the mix before you put them on the skewers

Heat a griddle or grill pan on high and sprinkle the meat with a little olive oil. Put the skewers in and grill the meat until golden brown, turn and grill the other side too. take of the fire.

For the salad put olive oil, orange and limejuice, soysauce, sesame oil and salt and pepper in a bowl together and whisk. Put the salad leaves in another bowl and divide the fennel and orange parts; sprinkle the dressing over the salad.

Divide the salad over 2 plates and put the chicken skewers on top and serve immediately.

Note

The original recipe uses lambfillet but that is hard to find here so I went with chicken instead!

Cost:

Fennel € 1,30
Oranges € 0,50
Chickenbreast € 1,50
Mixed Salad leaves € 1,50
TOTAL 4,80

Obviously the salad leaves could have been cheaper had I used regular salad but these were bought for a photoshoot so I figured I might as well use them!

Turkey adventures

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:52:01 +0000

Before me lies a big naked bird. A somewhat hairy bird that seems to need a bit of pampering to get going. I look around the kitchen to find a tool to remove the remnants of it’s feathers, find a big tweezer and start plucking. It’s really not much but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to have one of those big feather ends in their mouths. So that’s done… I carefully open the breast cavity and peer inside… It’s dark.

Naked, stuffed and ready to be popped in the oven

I hesitate; sticking my hand in a dead cold bird is not my idea of a fun time. Yes, yes, I know I’ve done worse then that, but there are just some things I would rather prefer not doing, if it was up to me. So I call Tom. He laughs at me for being too ‘chicken’ to get my hand in there and then proceeds in cleaning the turkey on the inside. Not that there is anything to clean, the bird is empty on the inside. We wash the heavy monster, dry it and put it back in the fridge without any coverings, as that is supposed to get a crisper skin while baking.

Sigh of relief; part one of mission cold turkey is completed.

On Christmas day the alarm goes off early and we head downstairs for a day in the kitchen. First remove the naked bird from the fridge and set aside to get to room temperature. Then we proceed with making the stuffing. We changed our opinions about twenty times in the past couple of days whether or not we should put the stuffing in or out. In the end it seemed to make sense to put it in so we didn’t have to worry about oven space and such. I got a lovely chestnut filling recipe from my friend Valerie from Love through the stomach so we started prepping that by cooking the chestnuts first.

Getting the table ready and christmassy

The recipe said to cut the chestnuts on the flat side, then cook for 5 minutes, take out of the water and then remove the shell and skins while still hot.. Have you ever tried doing that yourself?? The chestnuts were hot and peeling away the hard shells sounds easier then it is, which the blisters on our thumbs proofed! I do know that next time we will probably buy them without shells! But we managed and I can tell you that the stuffing was delicious…

Before we actually put our turkey in the oven I watched about a dozen little YouTube videos on what is the best way to roast a big bird and I guess I can conclude that there is no best way to roast a turkey. There were so many different ways of doing it that we did get a little confused and just decided to go with what we knew. Our bird was about 5,5 kgs so we figured we would wrap it in bacon to keep it moist and then wrap in foil for the first few hours to prevent excessive browning. However, when I took it out of the oven to take a peek after two hours there was no browning at all! I should have known with our crappy oven that it was probably better to use no foil at all.

Not as brown and crisp as we had hoped!

At this point we removed the foil and continued cooking the damn turkey (we also removed the bacon)… I can’t tell you how happy I am having a meat thermometer as I would have completely lost it if we didn’t know at least the meat was cooked at the right temperature! We took it out, left it to rest for quite some time as we were preparing and eating our starters in between too but I am happy to say that, while the skin was inedible, the turkey itself was delicious. The meat was juicy and tender and with my perfect cranberry sauce it was great.

Cutting the enormous beast!

We served our turkey with chestnut filling, mashed potatoes with celeriac and roasted vegetables.

As you can probably tell just by looking at the photo on the left cutting the turkey was not as easy as they made it look in the videos we watched either. Tom had the manly task of cutting the bird. I think we didn’t even eat half of the thing (we were with 5 people) so you can guess what we have for leftover dinner today…

I’m gonna give you the recipe for the chestnut filling. I changed a few minor things in the recipe as ofcourse I missed buying a few ingredients. It was fun making a turkey for the first time, and as with everything you learn while you go so I will know what not to do for next time!

Chestnut turkey stuffing

Print recipe

Serves:	10
Prep time:	None
Cook time:	None
Total time:	None
Meal type:	Side Dish
Misc:	Pre-preparable, Serve Hot
Region:	Worldwide
Website:	Love through the stomach

Ingredients

2lb chestnuts
2 cups butter
2 cups onion (chopped)
2 cups celery (chopped)
5 cups dried bread crumbs (I used panko)
5 cups bread (fresh or stale, chopped into medium size chunks)
3 teaspoons mediterrean herbs (The original recipe states 1 tsp each of thyme, rosemary, marjoran which i forgot to buy (I always use fresh normally) so I substituted with some other herbs I figured would go well and added some fresh in there for good measure))
2 teaspoons dried savory ((=bonenkruid in Dutch))
salt
fresh ground pepper
chicken/poultry broth (to taste, if you bake it outside the turkey)

Directions


With a sharp knife cut a cross on the flat side of each chestnut. Cook for 5 minutes. While the chestnuts are still hot, remove the shells and skins. Cover with fresh water, then boil for 20 to 30 minutes until tender, then chop them and set aside. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onions and celery (and optional garlic), and cook until tender. Mix in bread crumbs and bread. If the mixture looks a little dry, add some more butter. As soon as it's moist enough (no dry spots, not soaking) add the chestnuts and seasoning and mix in well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This step is only when you don't stuff the turkey, if you stuff, skip this! --- Add enough chicken broth or game or poultry fond to moisten the stuffing significantly. Place stuffing in casserole dish and bake in the oven until the top starts to get a little crispy (not too much, just to dry it out a little again and deepen the flavors). If you do want to stuff your turkey, here it goes! Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Wash turkey with cold water, and pat dry. Rub salt and pepper on the inside of the bird. Loosely spoon stuffing into the turkey. Close skin with skewersor twine, and tie drumsticks together. Place turkey (on a rack if you have one large enough) in a roasting pan large enough to fit the entire bird. Place a foil tent over the turkey up until the last hour. Baste regularly.

Roast turkey 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours in the preheated oven, until internal temperature of thigh reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C) and stuffing reaches 165 degrees F (75 degrees C). If the skin starts to brown too much during that last hour before it reaches the right temperature, replace the tent until your turkey is fully cooked. REmove from oven and let it stand for 10-15 minutes before carving.

Note

We only followed the recipe for the stuffing and to enhance the flavor a little bit we did add some poultry fond into the chestnut mix to give it a little more flavor. The flavor changes after having been inside the bird but we liked the additional flavor.

Also I would recommend using precooked and peeled chestnuts as the peeling is a nightmare, but that's just my opinion! :)

Junglefrog Cooking » delicious

Onion-cheese quiche

Onion-cheese quiche

Ingredients

Directions

Note

Related Posts:

Lamb’s lettuce salad with feta and tomatoes

Lamb’s lettuce with feta

Ingredients

Dressing

Directions

Related Posts:

Quinoa, feta and walnut salad

Quinoa, apple and feta salad

Ingredients

Optional

Dressing

Directions

Note

Related Posts:

Marinated chicken on a stick and living leaner

Spicy skewered chicken with fennel-orange salad

Ingredients

Herb mix

orange fennel salad

Directions

Note

Related Posts:

Turkey adventures

Chestnut turkey stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Note

Related Posts: