Citrus salad

On the fear of sounding ridiculous… it’s soo warm right now…:) Haha… well it is warm and lovely right now so I am not complaining! Honestly! As you can tell the weather is going a bit up and down right now but sofar the predictions are that it is going to be sunny for easter weekend! Fingers crossed!! I always think it is amazing how all those bare trees can go from nothing to green in just a matter of days when it is the right temperature. It’s almost the same with blossom trees; one moment there is nothing and the next; bloomheaven all over! We have this amazing endless row of appleblossom trees on one of the roads leading to the highway and it amazes me everytime I pass it. Soooo beautiful! People stop and take photos of it. It only lasts for a very short period of time unfortunately but still… it’s a delight everytime!

With spring in my mind I figured I would make another springy salad for lunch yesterday and it was nice but not something I will make again. I don’t mind a little bit of work for a lunchsalad but this was just too much hassle with having to peel the orange and the grapefruit that went in it. I should have shot it on a white plate too instead of on a yellow one, but too late to change that now. It was also on the too light side. I felt hungry like 10 minutes after finishing the salad so you will definitely need a sandwich or something more substantial to go with this salad. It will be perfect and fresh though for a hot day.

Beetroot

I also had another shoot for the citycouncil and found another great store with things you cannot find in the rest of this town, so I’m quite pleased with their selection of vegetables and other delicacies. They even have vanilla beans, which is something you cannot find around here normally. I was especially pleased to find beetroot. In june of last year I saw this fabulous recipe at Sabra’s blog, Cookbook Catchall and I desperately wanted to make it but I could not find beetroot anywhere!! I searched the entire town and the next, but the only thing I could find was the cooked and ready variety which was not what I wanted. So imagine my surprise when I saw these lovely beetroots lying in the store when I walked in. Guess what I will be making soon?

Here is the recipe for the Citrus salad if you want to give it a try:

CITRUS SALAD WITH SUGARSNAPS (serves 4)

100 gr of sugarsnaps

2 oranges

2 small grapefruit

walnuts

arugula

red salad

1 cucumber

for the dressing:

2 tbsp walnut oil

2 tbsp of tarragon vinegar

1 tbsp of olive oil

1 teaspoon of coarse mustard

1 teaspoon of sweet chili sauce

Put the sugarsnaps in an empty bowl or pan and pour boiling water over it and let sit for about 2 minutes. Drain and rinse the sugarsnaps with cold water. Peel the orange and grapefruit and remove all white skins. Chop the walnuts into small chunks. Make small slices or cubes of the cucumber and put all salad ingredients together in a large bowl.

Make the dressing by putting the ingredients in a pot and shake well. Toss with the salad and serve.

Chocolate nougatine with hazelnuts

Hmmm…. you know that moment when the visual image of something turns out to be less then the actual food itself?

Let me explain; I had been wanting to make the recipe for chocolate nougatine with hazelnut praline from Jo over at Foodjunkie for a while now, but I couldn’t find enough hazelnuts. In the supermarket they only sold them in tiny packs of 50 gr and I needed 450 gr and ofcourse they did not have enough packs plus that it cost a fortune, so I was happy when yesterday I finally found them albeit with the skins still on.

Since I have an unexpected day of tomorrow it meant I would have time to do some proper cooking today and this would be the perfect opportunity to make this recipe. On the recipe you see the original photo from the magazine, which – as I am sure you will agree – looks very different from this version I made.

I started with making the meringue which tasted fabulous even without baking it…:) but then I got to do the hazelnut praline and I am really not sure if I did it correctly. The recipe calls for making it into a paste, but when I put the caramelized hazelnuts in the blender it ended up being powdery rather then anything that looked like paste. Still adding the chocolate and then the cream still made it look ok and the taste was lovely.

When looking through our cupboards it turned out I did not have a oblong caketin! I had a few but I threw them out a while ago as they were very old and terrible looking. Thinking – ofcourse – that I would remember to buy a new one… Which I obviously did not!!

I had a very tiny caketin that I used for the photo part and the rest I put into a large square caketin which meant it was a bit flatter then it was supposed to be. It’s still very tasty but it just doesn’t look very attractive I think.. O well you can’t have it all. In the end it is the taste that counts, but I like my food to look pretty as well. Especially if I plan on taking a photograph of it!

Hazelnuts being caramelized

I did not take the skin of the hazelnuts as I don’t really mind the skin and didn’t think it would make a huge taste difference. Does it? It’s just such a painful process to remove them…:)

I think the hazelnuts look prettier then the finished product but ok. I probably should have left the meringue slightly longer in the oven, as it was on the too sticky side when moving them into the caketin.

Here is the recipe (from Foodjunkie)

Shimeji Mushrooms

It must be something that only people who love cooking can appreciate; the ability to be able to buy the most beautiful ingredients at your own doorstep.
I am not that lucky as the place I live in  doesn’t seem to feel the need to create places where you can buy something other then potatoes and regular vegetables. I guess there must be no market for it, although that is hard to believe! I would certainly buy it.
Places like Amsterdam, Haarlem or Utrecht all have fantastic little shops where you can buy all sorts of homegrown produce or from smaller farmers, locally grown. They even have a special “supermarket” called Marqt, where you can buy fantastic stuff all from small producers who get their own space there. So if you go to the bakery section you would get real bread, if you go to the butcher area you get meat from a small farmer. Anyway, I can complain as much as I want; that is not gonna get those shops here, but you never know what might happen in the future. Although with the current climate I am not so sure that is gonna happen.

Red beet sprouts

Ollie (foodstylist) had suggested to me to get a Hanos card. I never figured I would be able to get one as it is mainly for restaurants to buy their ingredients etc. but it was actually surprisingly easy and now I can go there and buy all sorts of lovely goodness!
So on thursday I just had to go there and buy some ingredients for photography (and eating later) so here are a few examples of the stuff that I bought. The mushrooms are fantastic and have a quite pungy flavour. The beetroot sprouts are great but as dangerous when it comes to coloring (my lovely white tablecloth) as is the mother beetroot!
I had to restrain myself from buying too much stuff, so I ended up buying dried peas, as those I can use for a much longer period… But I will be back many many times! I haven’t even gone into the meat, fish and dairy section yet, knowing that I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself buying things I didn’t need!