Baked penne dish

Did you know that the Dutch are known as ‘cheese heads’ (kaaskoppen)? I’m quite sure it is not a term a Dutch person would use for themselves but it is an internationally known term. I wasn’t entirely sure how we got to be called that, other then the fact that we sure do eat cheese a lot.

As it turns out, our friendly neighbors the Belgians, came up with that name in the period of the “Belgische Opstand” (1830-1939) when they no longer wanted to belong to the Netherlands and were calling us names. You guess what one of those names was; ‘kaaskop’. The thinking was that the round cheeses produces looked a bit like a head.

Gooey goodness

In fact when going a bit further into detail there appear to be several stories about the origin of the word but in general it is definitely something the Belgian’s call us..:) And that’s fine; there is quite some name calling involved in the relation between Belgians and the Dutch! Lol…

Now having said that; I LOVE cheese. Seriously. Any cheese really but I have a strong preference for Italian cheese, French cheeses and strong cheeses. But then I also love Old Amsterdam (strong old Dutch cheese, which is delicious!) or well, like I said all cheese.

So when I was approached by Sargento to feature one of their recipes on my blog I did not have to think long and hard. I mean… it’s cheese! When browsing through the collection of seriously yummy recipes on their site I kept going back to the one featured on the front page, which was an oven dish with baked penne and eggplant featuring some lovely mozzarella cheese. I used minced veal in this dish but the original is vegetarian so check it out here if you’re more a veggie person!

Baked penne

My father in law was coming for dinner last night so this is a good dish to serve if you have an informal dinner party. You can prepare the dish upfront and just pop it in the oven half an hour before you’re ready to eat. Tom thought it was a tiny bit on the cheesy side, but then he is not a big fan of cheese (weird man, that man of mine!!) but he did find the flavors here lovely, so this will definitely be made over and over again.

Baked Penne with eggplant, tomatoes and cheese

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Serves	4
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	1 hours, 5 minutes
Total time	1 hours, 15 minutes
Meal type	Main Dish
Misc	Serve Hot
Region	Italian
Website	Adapted from Sargento

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon garlic (minced)
• 4 tablespoons fresh oregano (chopped)
• 3 pieces tomatoes (chopped into cubes)
• 3 sprigs thyme (leaves only)
• 1 shalot (finely minced)
• 350g minced vealmeat
• 400g penne (or other type of pasta)
• 1 courgette (chopped in cubes)
• 150ml tomato sauce
• 200g mozzarella (chopped or grated)
• 100g old cheese (grated)
• 1 eggplant (cut into cubes)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180 C. (350 F) Brush a large enough baking dish with 1 tbsp of olive oil.

In a heavy skillet first brown the vealmince first until cooked. Bake the eggplant separately until cooked and set aside. Add the chopped onions to the veal, with the garlic and zucchini and bake until cooked. Add the eggplant back in and add the chopped tomatoes. Leave cooking until the tomatoes have lost most of their liquid at which point you add the tomato sauce in. I use a sofrito tomato base for this.

Mix in chopped oregano and thyme and season the dish to your liking with salt and pepper and remove from the heat. Cook your penne pasta in 11-12 minutes until al dente. Drain, rinse and add a little olive oil to the pasta to prevent it from sticking. Add the pasta in your vegetable mixture and fold in 2/3 of the grated cheese. Transfer to the baking dish. Put the mozzarella on top of the dish and finish with the remaining grated cheese. Bake this dish for 25-30 minutes in the oven. If it becomes to brown then you can cover it with aluminium foil.

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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Matcha pannacotta

Wake up, look at the alarm. Damn, it’s only 3 am… Too early… Go back to sleep. Wake up, look at the alarm… Hmmm, 5.30 am. That is late enough, isn’t it? I would jump out of my bed and run excited to my parents bedroom. Screaming something like ‘It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday!’ The tradition was that we would all go and sit on my parents bed (we actually all fell through the bed at one such occasion. Apparently the bed was not build for 6 people) and that’s when we would get presents. And let’s face it; birthday = presents, right?

Usually my parents – knowing us all too well – would give us a strict timeline. Do NOT wake us up before 6 am! But excitement and enthusiasm usually got the better of us so we would always be waaaay too early. Claiming we hadn’t seen that it was only 5.30! So my birthday was always fun and I loved it. Loved being the centre of attention. I’m not really sure when that all changed but I do think it was pretty early on. By the time I was 15 or 16, I no longer thought that birthdays were fun. O yes, the getting presents was fun, but I happened to have friends who did not get along together very well, so what was the point of celebrating when I could only invite one half of my friends?

Happy birthday girl at 4!

These days, birthdays are well, just another year older, really… Getting close to my fifties is somewhat daunting I have to confess. In case you were wondering, today is my 49th birthday. I sometimes still feel that there must be some kind of mistake made. That I wasn’t born in 1963 but rather much later. I don’t feel 49 (of course I have no way of knowing how one is supposed to feel at 49!) and I’m frquently being told that I don’t look 49 either. (I’ve had to show some sort of ID a few times to actually proof that I was that old..lol) But the truth is, that I am and o well, I do feel my age too from time to time.

When I’ve had a really busy day I can feel my bones and muscles protesting (doing a little more sports would help!) but overall, I think I cannot complain. Today is going to be a typical birthday for me; hiding in plain sight for friends and family… We never have a party and if we can, we try and get out of the country to celebrate somewhere else. Or we go out for a nice dinner. Just the two of us and sometimes with a few friends, but that’s it. Enough party for me!

Now on to the subject of matcha. I’d had seen matcha featured in many blogposts over the years but I’d never managed to actually find that elusive green powder and when I finally found a source for it, it turned out they ran out of it, the time I was there to get it. Luck was not on my side. I probably have looked in the wrong placed to, but that’s a whole other subject.

Matcha

I mentioned something on a blog post and sweet Kate from Serendipity send me an email asking if she could send me some of the matcha? I was delighted she would take the trouble to send it to me and a few days later I had two packages of matcha in my mailbox. One was bright green and from Japan, the other was a much duller color and apparently from Belgium. Interesting how those two would react!

Now ofcourse I wanted to make something that would highlight that fantastic green, so my first thought was to make a matcha pannacotta. I had found just the recipe for it, so I set about it. Having made a zillion pannacotta’s before I didn’t think much about it, poured the finished product into the molds and into the fridge.

But then something interesting happened; the substance split. I’ve never had this happen before and while the pannacotta’s are still delicious and if turned over they still hold their shape, it’s interesting to know why this happened.

Holding it's shape but barely

I used double cream and milk for this… You can read what I’ve done in the recipe below. If you’ve got any thoughts on why the mixture split, please let me know! I have a feeling that it wasn’t warm enough as you can still see the little powder dots everywhere which I think is not what’s supposed to happen…

Matcha pannacotta

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Serves	6
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	4 hours, 20 minutes
Allergy	Milk
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
From book	Panna cotta by Camilla Saulsbury

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons matcha powder
• 2 cups double cream
• 1 1/4 cup full fat milk
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3,5 sheets gelatin (or 2 tbsp dried)

Directions

Put the double cream, milk, seeds of the vanilla bean and sugar in a small saucepan and heat until close to boiling but not actually boiling. Take of the heat. Soak your gelatin leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.

Put the matcha into a cup and add one cup of the hot mixture slowly into the powder while vigorously whisking. Once combined add the matcha mixture into the cream mixture.

Add the soaked gelatin (squeeze out the moisture) into the warm cream and whisk until dissolved. Pour the cream into your ramekins, glasses or other molds. Leave to stand in the fridge for at least 4 hours before unmolding. For unmolding you can dip the ramekins into hot water (making sure the water does not get into your molds ofcourse) for a few seconds and then turn them onto a plate and lift the mold.

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Pavlova with cream, pomegranate and cranberry sauce

You did not think I would get rid of my cranberry sauce so easily now did you?

It’s actually quite funny how you sometimes start baking and then have leftovers that turn out to be made into something far superior then your first recipe. I had one of those days today; it was about time to decorate the Christmas tree so I figured I could combine that with some Christmas baking in between. We’re thinking of doing creme brulee as the dessert for Christmas as it is supposed to be fairly easy and at least you can prepare it up front.

Pavlova

I had thought to make three recipes; creme brulee, banana-cinnamon bread and to get rid of all the leftover egg whites also a pavlova. As it turns out my creme brulee was less then successful as I let the cream get too hot resulting in curdled cream and for some reason my banana bread broke when taking it out of the tin.. But the pavlova…. the pavlova was even better then I thought it would be. I was a little worried it would get half brownish as my oven is really not the best anymore but for once everything went according to plan and my pavlova came out looking as gorgeous as I had wanted it to look.

Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce

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Serves	6
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 15 minutes
Allergy	Egg
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert
From book	Modern Classics

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites
• 225g sugar
• 6 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 250ml whipping cream
• 1 pomegranate seeds (seeds from one pomegranate)
• cranberry sauce

Directions

Preheat the oven to 150 C. Whip the eggwhites in a grease free bowl until soft peaks. Slowly add the sugar until the meringue is glossy.

Put the cornstarch through a sieve and fold it into the eggwhites together with the vinegar

On a baking tray lined with baking paper make a circle of about 18 cm wide of the meringue and put it in the oven. Turn down the oven temperature to 120 C and leave it in for an hour. Turn the oven off and let the pavlova cool in the oven completely.

Once cooled you can top the pavlova with whipped cream and as I did with pomegranate and cranberry sauce.

Note

I wanted to keep the topping of this recipe in red but you can ofcourse add whatever you like on top of the pavlova. Raspberries, blueberries, passionfruit or mmm, warm cherries!

All in all I still don’t know what to do for Christmas dessert. I mean this looks pretty good right, but I’m just afraid it will be too heavy after a big Christmas meal. I want something fairly light and fruity I think… Sigh… back to the drawing board. O of course; the creme brulee is still an option. Just need to redo that one and make sure it doesn’t curdle this time. In terms of looks however, this is a real winner!

Pavlova goodness

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Cinnamon pannacotta with amaretto

Decisions can sometimes be the hardest things to make. Do we hold on to things because it makes sense or because we are used to ‘having’ it? It’s the time of month to do my tax returns and that got me thinking about the cost involved in keeping my studio versus the return it gives me. Three years ago when I first rented the place we said we would have a look at how it went and if it would be profitable enough for me to keep the studio or if we would need to look for another solution. In 5 months time I will have to renew the contract for 5 years or cancel it… So I did a lot of calculating and then some more thinking of different angles, other ways to use the studio but it seems to all lead towards the inevitable end of my studio…

Pannacotta and autumn goodness!

My goal has also changed in the last three years from doing more people shots to doing more food and with that comes the fact that I am using my studio less except for larger productions where a little extra space is needed. I still do the occasional portrait in the studio as well as product photography but in the end I do not need 120 M2 to do the work. A lot is done at home (such as these lovely pannacotta’s) since I have more cooking equipment there…

But even though my mind tells me that it makes sense to find another solution; my heart tells me differently! I love my studio. Spend hours and hours there, painted and decorated the whole place and have soooo many props stored there too. The scenario’s of what next keep tumbling through my mind… It makes me tired to even think of all the consequences but there are a couple of possible scenario’s

1.  Keep the studio
2. Find a smaller studio
3. Convert one of the rooms at home into a studio of sorts and rent a larger studio if I need one
4. Co-rent a studio with a photographer friend in Amsterdam
5. Store all my stuff in a storage facility (but that would mean it’s hard to find anything if I need it)

Right now I’m leaning strongly towards option 3. But believe me when I say I keep changing my mind just about every day or so. Something I have no need to change my mind over is this totally delicious pannacotta with a hint of amaretto… You’re gonna love this with some poached pears!

The original recipe for the pannacotta came from Delicious cookbook by Valli Little which I had bought the day before (if only for the gorgeous photographs by Brett Stevens and styling by David Morgan!) and since Charlotte was coming over for a cooking session we cooked all the recipes from the book. A totally delicious hummus and fallafel with green peas and pita bread were our first courses after which the room was filled with garlic… I will remake the hummus and falaffel and shoot them at some point but the light was gone and none was left after dinner.

I changed the recipe for the pannacotta by adding amaretto instead of cognac as I simply do not like cognac but love amaretto. For the pears I used just about anything I had on hand; pomegranate juice (leftover from the pomegranates we used with the hummus), verjuice and loads of spices… Loved it and again not as red as I would have wanted them to be. I’m gonna try and add some dark ruby port in them next time. That should do the trick!

Poached pears in verjuice

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Serves	6
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	30 minutes
Total time	50 minutes
Allergy	Milk
Meal type	Dessert

Ingredients

• 1kg Wilder Gieseman pears (or another pear that can be poached)
• 1 cup verjuice
• 3 star anise
• 3 sticks cinnamon
• 6 green cardamom pods (crushed)
• 1 pomegranate (juice only)
• 3 tablespoons sugar (use sugar to taste and depending on the sweetness of the pears)

Directions

Peel and core the pears.

Put the pears in a pan that is big enough to hold the pears plus poaching liquid. Add the verjuice, the sugar, the pomegranate juice, the cardamom, staranise and cinnamon and top with water until the pears are almost covered but not quite.

Bring to the boil and cook until the sugar is dissolved. Turn the heat down and let it simmer until the pears are done. This really varies a lot depending on the type of pear you use. For the Wilder Giesseman pear that I used it was stated it should cook 1 1/5 hr but mine were done after 20 minutes! So check regularly if they are soft enough. Once cooked let the pears cool in the liquid. If the liquid is still too thin you can remove the pears and cook the liquid down a little further until it becomes syrupie..

Note

Delicious autumn dessert and paired with the cinnamon pannacotta it is really good!

Cinnamon/amaretto pannacotta

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Serves	6
Prep time	1 hour, 30 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	5 hours, 30 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
Region	Italian

Ingredients

• 500ml whipping cream
• 125ml milk
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 40g sugar
• 3 sheets gelatin
• 2 tablespoons amaretto

Directions

Bring the milk, cream, cinnamon sticks, ground cinnamon and sugar on medium heat to the boil, take the pan of the fire and leave to stand for about an hour to infuse the flavors into the cream.

Soak your gelatin leaves for 5 minutes in cold water until they are soft. Slowly heat the cream mixture on low heat. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin leafs and still them into the warm cream until they dissolve. Add the amaretto en put the liquid through a sieve. Pour your pannacotta into 6 ramekins or other forms and leave them in the fridge for at least 4 hours to firm up.

Note

For some reason I had a skin forming on the pannacotta so my guess is that it was still slightly too warm when I put it in the fridge. I've never had this issue before with any pannacotta so I'm a bit unsure what caused it. Thought I mention it anyway!

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This is a school example of how you should not be styling your pannacotta!

Once upon a time there was this girl that had all these pretty pictures in her head. Beautiful images of wonderfully styled desserts, simple yet effective and made with just the flick of a spoon or in the blink of an eye. But sometimes, every so often, the evil witch came by and made sure that all her desserts looked absolutely horrible. No amount of begging or pleading would make the witches curse over the desserts go away. No matter what the girl would do; all her desserts came out completely wrong, putting her in a miserable state of mind.

Maybe that is a slight exaggeration… There is nothing wrong with my state of mind, other then the fact that I had to laugh pretty hard at myself when I tried to plate up these pannacotta’s so I could make a ‘pretty’ picture. Needless to say that that didn’t exactly work as I had envisioned it before!

I’ve made many pannacotta’s before.. Like this apple cinnamon one, this wonderful pannacotta with lemon-buttermilk and now… this disaster of a pannacotta.. I was wondering if I should be sharing something that, obviously, is not the best looking example when it comes to styling, but then I figured; lots of people struggle with styling a dish (including myself) so why not share the ones that went wrong? On the bright side; the colors look pretty enough.

I made this plum pannacotta when my father in law was coming over for dinner the other night and because I was a little late in making my pannacotta I put the ones we had for dinner in glasses, so that looked pretty enough and no harm was done for our dinner. But because I always end up making a bit too much of the pannacotta I also filled a couple of the molds I normally use for this dessert. I have the ones you see here: on the left. They work fine most of the time but what I should have realized is that pouring the cream mixture in after putting the plum mixture in, was bound to go pear shaped.

And while that was not a big issue when I served it in a glass, it looks slightly messy when you do that and then turn the pannacotta out as I did in the first picture… I tried to save the day by adding a few things on top of the pannacotta. That’s the nutty crumbles you see and the small pieces of plum. But that didn’t help matters either!

And no putting it in a glass didn't work either

I guess that just proofed that if it is wrong, it is wrong and no amount of fiddling around will make it any better. With everything I added to the poor pannacotta it sort of started to collaps upon itself even more, leaving just a flat bit of cream with a blob of plumcoulis on top. It tasted good though, even though the plums had their best time and I will definitely not be making this pannacotta again. I’ve had better!

Plum pannacotta

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Serves	6
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	4 hours, 10 minutes
Allergy	Milk
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Cold
Region	Italian
Website	Tartelette

Ingredients

• 2 cups Plums (Cleaned and deseeded)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 cups Heavy cream
• 3 sheets Gelatin
• 1/4 cup Honey
• 1 cup buttermilk (full fat)
• 1 piece vanilla bean

Directions

Clean the plums, remove the stone and put them in a blender. Once they're all cleaned make a puree of the fruit.

Place the water in small bowl and put the gelatin sheets in it. Reserve.

In a large heavy bottomed saucepan placed over medium heat, bring the heavy cream and honey to a simmer. When the cream is hot, remove from the heat and whisk in the reserved gelatin until it is completely dissolved. Add the buttermilk and whisk until well blended. Remove the seeds from the vanilla bean and add to the mix. Whisk to combine.

Put the plum mixture in the bottom of a glass and carefully pour the cream mixture on top. Let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving to let the cream set properly.

Note

The pannacotta itself is great but if you use plums, make sure that they are sweet and have a nice texture as that will heavily influence how your end result will be. I didn't pay enough attention to that with the result being that this was just a mediocre pannacotta for me.

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• Delicious panna cotta
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