Simple yet delicious

I’m a moron, you know that right? A downright idiot sometimes, if you will. I am impulsive. Act before I think about what I’m doing on many occasions. I change my mind often and radically too. Not to fear though, it usually effects only myself, so any harm done, is usually only done to myself and time spend… Starting yet another website was one of those insane actions. An action that – looking back – was just plain ridiculous and why would I do that if I have two good running ones? Why would I go through all that trouble? Well, I told you; I’m an idiot..

I do come to my senses usually at some point. And such is the case now… I had an epiphany last night… And don’t think no one told me that before, but it always takes a while to sink in my thick skull (moron, I told you!) I figured I could do a separate health section here on Junglefrog Cooking. Duh… Not exactly rocket science I would think… So the adventure of Beetroot and Halloumi will come to a full stop. I will – in time – transfer and repost the guestposts that were so graciously done there to here (might get my guestposters some more traffic too!) but for now I will just share this delicious salad with you.

It’s part of my ongoing quest at getting a healthier me. Part of that is the fact that I will be starting Michelle Bridges 12WBT very soon, starting beginning of June for the next 12 weeks. It’s in preseason now meaning that we’re shaping ourselves up to get fitter and healthier. And because I love salads, especially in summer (even though it looks more like autumn really) I always throw together a few ingredients and it ends up being delicious. This is a no-brainer really as it features strawberries and feta, which I think is a classic combination, rocket and mint. I could have added pine nuts to it, if  had thought about it too.

I’m also sending in this recipe for the foodblog event (Dutch one) for May which has the theme of strawberries! Perfect match. It is hosted by Caroline this month. Check out all the awesome entries here

Strawberry feta salad

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Serves	1
Prep time	5 minutes
Meal type	Lunch, Salad
By author	Simone van den Berg

Ingredients

• 150g strawberries (hulled and chopped in half or quarters depending on size)
• 75g feta (crumbled)
• 1 handful rocket
• 1-2 sprig mint (leaves picked)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons cameroon mango vinegar (or another suitable sweet vinegar)

Directions

Clean and hul the strawberries and then put them into a bowl, together with the rocket, feta and mint. Combine the olive oil and the vinegar together, season to taste and sprinkle over the salade

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Salmon terrine with anchovies butter

We have funny friends, did you know that? Friends who come up with these crazy ideas…. And it seems that our new kitchen is sort of bringing it out in all of them. It could have something to do with the fact that everyone all of a sudden wants us to cook dinner, and hey, it’s even more fun if there is a challenge attached to it. So P. and M., friends we have known for a little over 20 years had decided that Tom and I should do a pressure test.

Checking the recipe again!

If you’ve watched masterchef Australia (2nd season) this recipe might be familiair to you. it’s the salmon terrine that was used in one of the pressure tests. For those not in the know, a pressure test, is where the cooks that were the least successful in that round need to recreate an existing dish within a certain timeframe. usually the dishes are not simple, but require some sort of skill one way or the other. Obviously, we are no masterchef’s, so we bend the rules a little bit to suit our needs. The rule was that the recipes as well as the ingredients would be given to us by friday. So we had the saturday to get extra stuff if needed. I had to work on saturday, so the cooking was on sunday.

Turning the terrine out; le moment supreme

We had three recipes to make; one the salmon terrine with hazelnut salad, two; the drunken chicken recipe from Alvin, three; the roasted pear cake from Neil Perry. The terrine was really not difficult to be honest, it just requires a certain amount of time to cool and set. But once that is done, it is really very straightforward. We were disappointed in the drunken chicken recipe as that was just not to our taste. The dessert however was totally delicious so two out of tree ain’t bad!

Plating up

In the recipe I list the avocado mousse which you do not see on the plate. I did make it, but then I forgot to plate it up… Duh.. The terrine was a big success. Lovely taste of the anchovies butter combined with the salmon. As you can see by looking at the photos I forgot to make the butter layers really thin in the beginning so those are a bit too thick. Paired with some crusty bread this is a real winner and one that will go on our list of party recipes!

I don’t have a good photo of the roasted pear cake but I will def be making that one again so that will come up later!

Smoked salmon terrine

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Prep time	1 hour, 20 minutes
Meal type	Appetizer
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Website	Masterchef Australia

Ingredients

• 700g sliced (smoked salmon)
• 400g unsalted butter (at roomtemperature)
• 1 lemon (rind finely grated)
• 200g white anchovies (drained and pat dried with paper towel)
• 2 slices (pane di casa bread)

Hazelnut salad

• 60 ml olive oil
• 1/4 cup hazelnuts
• 30ml hazelnut oil
• 1 teaspoon chestnut honey
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 15ml sherry vinegar
• 1/4 cup baby endive hearts (We used little gem)
• 2 tablespoons chervil leaves (picked)
• 2 tablespoons baby basil (snipped)
• 2 tablespoons baby parsley (snipped)
• 1 tablespoon red kale (snipped)

Avocado cream

• 1 avocado
• 15ml lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

. Preheat oven to 180˚C. Trim brown fat from each slice of smoked salmon. Square off long edge of each piece. 2. Process butter in food processor until pale and thick, add rind, anchovies, season to taste and process to combine. 3. Grease the inside of a 1 litre capacity terrine mould with oil, line with plastic wrap, with at least 6cm overhang on all sides. Cut a piece of foam to fit inside the terrine mould. Cover it with aluminum foil and set aside. 4. Cover the base of the terrine with one layer of smoked salmon. Using a crank spatula and a straight edged wooden spoon spread a thin even layer of butter. Continue the layers, alternating salmon and butter mixture until you have reached just over half way of the mould. Cover the terrine with plastic wrap and gently press down, place the foil-covered foam into the terrine and weight down with a few food cans. Freeze for 30 minutes, transfer to the fridge for a further 30 minutes. 5. To make the avocado cream, blend together avocado, lemon juice and oil using a stick blender, until smooth. 6. To make the hazelnut salad, Place hazelnuts on an oven tray and roast until browned. Transfer to a clean towel and rub to remove skins. Heat 15ml olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add hazelnuts, cook until golden. Place remaining olive oil, hazelnut oil, honey, mustard and vinegar in a bowl, whisk to combine. Add the hazelnuts to the vinaigrette mixture. Toss salad leaves through the dressing to lightly coat. 7. Heat grill pan over high heat, drizzle bread with olive oil and cook on each side until golden. 8. To serve, invert terrine mould onto a chopping board and slice. Serve with a spoon of avocado mousse, hazelnut salad and grilled bread.

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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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Cauliflower fennel gratin

When you talk to people about fennel, they are either in the pro or con camp. There doesn’t seem to be some sort of middle way when it comes to fennel. Granted the flavor of fennel is quite distinct. I love it in all it’s forms; seeds, fresh or dried (come to think of it, I can’t recall every using dried fennel but that’s beside the point…:)

When I first read the recipe for this Cauliflower gratin I was a bit surprised that it included fennel. I hadn’t tried that particular combination before and it’s not one that would naturally come to my mind. But reading through the rest of the dish I had to conclude that it was definitely on my want to try list.

And what can I say; it is totally delicious. There is a lot of mild cheddar cheese used in this dish which you can ofcourse substitute with another cheese, but I felt that it worked really well here. Plus I love the bright yellow of cheddar. It makes it looks already golden in our crappy oven (just a few more weeks before the new kitchen..! Whoohoo!) without too much hassle.

Lovely and golden yellow

We added a layer at the bottom of boiled potatoes and had this with a chicken leg. I will definitely be making this again too and then want to incorporate some minced meat and potato puree. The fennel here is not too overpowering so if you’re new to fennel eating.. you might want to give this dish a try. I substituted the original heavy cream for a lighter version as with all that cheese it was a bit on the heavy side for someone who’s trying to loose weight. Although by watching portion size I think I still stayed within the limits.

Cauliflower fennel gratin

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Serves	6
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	50 minutes
Total time	1 hours, 5 minutes
Meal type	Main Dish, Side Dish
Misc	Serve Hot
Website	Sargento

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic (the original recipe stated 2 teaspoon but I used tablespoons and quite liked it..:))
• 1 small fennel bulk (thinly sliced)
• 1 head cauliflower (cut into florets)
• 1/2 cup cooking cream light
• 1 cup cheddar (grated)
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
• 2/3 cups fresh breadcrumbs (I used sourdough bread to make these)
• 2 tablespoons parsley (chopped)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan over medium low heat; add garlic and fennel. Saute until tender, about 3-4 minutes.

In a pot of boiliing water, blanch the cauliflower until tender. Add to fennel and garlic mixture. Cook an additional 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat; add cream and 1/2 cup of cheese and toss together. Season with thyme and salt and pepper where needed.

Pour into a lightly sprayed baking dish. Stir breadcrumbs and parsley together and sprinkle over cauliflower mixture. Top with remaining cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until bubbly and brown

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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Creamy rhubarb delicious

Those of you who know me a little better or those of you that have followed me a little longer, might know that I have not always been in the same profession. Lord knows I have had just about as many different jobs as anyone wants to have when I was younger. I made it my pride to be a job-hopper. The longest position I had been in for the first 10 professional years of my life was maybe 2 years.

However, one of my most memorable jobs must have been starting out as a student nurse all those years back in 1982. I was 19 at the time and as green as grass. My parents have always been fairly strict. I went to parties at our local high school but that was about the experience I had with ‘disco’s, partying and the like”. In that day and age it was a rule that you had to live in the sister-flat if you started your education. It’s all changed nowadays but when I started out you had to study for three months, then do an internship at a hospital, go back to school and then work some more. The majority of the time was spend in the actual hospital that hired you as a student.

Delicious creme fraiche

I was a very shy girl when I went into that sister-flat but I did meet a lot of nice people pretty quickly, some of which are still my friends today. We all had a tiny room of 2 x 3 meters which was our home. Put a bunch of girls together in a house and you’re bound to have mayhem so there had to be rules. No men were allowed in the house after 11 pm. No booze was allowed in the rooms. And we had a very very firm mentrix overseeing us all. Let’s call her mrs. S. She was pretty terrifying and she either liked you or she hated you. It doesn’t take a lot of guessing finding out in which category I was placed.

My friends all had boyfriends and our rooms where situated close to one another. I was – having grown up in a protected environment – still a virgin so it soon became a bit of a joke, me being the ‘eternal virgin’… (hey, I was almost twenty years!) It didn’t really bother me a lot to be honest so I just joked along with the rest of them.

My room was the only one facing the hospital. So if you would be working in the surgical ward we all worked in, you could literally look into my room. Not a good thing when you have someone like Mrs. S watch your every move like a hawk.

The boyfriends of my friends would drop in to the flat to see if there girlfriends were home. Remember this was the age before we all had Iphones to register our every move, so without a phone in the room, it would always be easiest to drop by and see if someone was home. Quite often they were gone, so the guys, whom I had met and got along quite well would drop in to my room for a cup of tea and a chat before saying goodbye again and moving on. This would always happen during the day. Broad daylight so my curtains were mostly open. No reason to sit in the dark, right?

Imagine my surprise one day when I got back from work, still in my uniform and pretty tired, when Mrs. S was waiting for me in the hall. “Come with me young lady.” She said in her usual aggressive and scary voice-tone.

My mind started racing and thinking what on earth I could have done wrong this time while I walked with her to her office. She opened the doors and imagine my surprise when my parents where sitting in her room. I was a little shocked, not knowing what to think but I was gestured to sit down and shut up.

Mrs. S. then proceeded in explaining, in front of me and my parents, that she was very concerned about my behavior. I had a lot of male visitors, I drank booze in my room on many occasions and I sometimes got home at 6.30 pm. In short, she was basically saying I was some sort of whore and she had alerted my parents to this fact. I was completely and utterly stunned. The only part of her story that was true was the last part; I did get home sometimes after having been out really late. We would go dancing for the entire night with friends and come home, well yes, very late. But we were young, living on our own for the first time, so who could blame us right? Wrong…

I stammered and I stuttered which I am sure convinced her and my parents of my obvious guilt. The fact that I blurted out that I was still a virgin was obviously just a tactic trying to get them of my back. I did not drink alcohol at all at that time. I hated beer and thought wine was just mediocre, so I didn’t drink, but I did have the occasional beer in my tiny fridge for when I had visitors. It appears mrs. S was close friends with the headnurse of the ward where I worked who -clearly – could spy and look into my room. She must have seen the guys coming over and having a tea (not whiskey).

One of our fellow students who had a room next to mine, M., was a very timid and weird girl. But she was high on the list of favorites of mrs. S. so I did not have the heart to tell her that M. was the one who brought in all those bottles of booze (which she probably found empty at some trashcan)!

I got a really serious warning that afternoon. If I would not get my act together I would be thrown out of the program altogether. I was so mad you can’t believe it. Being caught is one thing, but being blamed for something you obviously did not do, was beyond me. My parents, unfortunately, believed mrs. S and it is still the reason why they look at the friends of that period with mixed feelings. They still think I did all those things. And they blame my friends for that… Ridiculous but true. Not that we ever talk about it, but I just know.

My friends and I; well we had a really good laugh about it later on and they had something else to tease me about.. Thanks goodness for friends!

And why o why you wonder, does this have anything to do with these lovely and creamy rhubarb tarts? Well, mrs. S was a regular horrible old tart. So guess how I was reminded of this story… So before you’re completely nodded off, have a look at this delicious and simple recipe!

Creamy rhubarb tarts

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Serves	4
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	25 minutes
Total time	45 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
Website	BBC Good food

Ingredients

• 4 sheets puff pastry (we have squares here that are already the right size)
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 tablespoon cane sugar
• 1 tablespoon creme fraiche
• 2 sticks rhubarb (thinly sliced at an angle)
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar

Directions

Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Thaw the puff pastry squares if you have them or if you're using a block of pastry roll out and cut into the desired shape. You can use round or squares

Lay your pastry on a baking sheet, prick all over with a fork and brush the edges with the whiskes egg. If using squares score a border of 1 cm on the inside of the pastry not cutting all the way through. Whisk your creme fraiche and the cane sugar together and spread a thin layer at the bottom of the tarts. Lay out your rhubard slices neatly within the borders of your cuts. Use whatever shape or pattern you want.

Bake the tarts for 20 minutes until puffed up and golden. Leave to rest for a few minutes and eat warm with either some extra of the creme fraiche or a scoop of icecream

Note

Totally loved this recipe. The rhubarb is still quite tart so it's best eaten with something like the creme fraiche so I made some extra as it goes together brilliantly!

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