UPDATE!
Due to the slightly more complicated challenge this month the deadline is extended for one whole month. Get your entries in before end of May now! And remember; it’s not all about having the same props. Mood and atmosphere is more important. I don’t think anyone would have such a lovely rack to place the potatoes in but that is all good! Just be creative!

A meaty challenge! Photo by Ben Dearnley

I realized that after having done 7 Donna Hay challenges; we’ve done vegetarian, we’ve done sweets and we’ve done sandwiches but what we have not done before is anything really meaty. So when the latest issue of Donna Hay’s magazine arrived and I started drooling over the Argentinian pages I figured it would be perfect for this time of year! Ok, depending on where you live it might still be a little too cold for doing a full barbecue but maybe the weather is kind and we can eat outside. Fire up the grill and make this gorgeous salted rump steak. In the magazine these steaks are served with delicious roasted potatoes with chimichurri sauce and since it’s always good to have a vegetarian alternative you actually get to pick this month from two different recipes!

Roasted potatoes. Photo by Ben Dearnley

Now is that a luxury or what? Both photos are quite stylish and will probably give you some challenge in terms of props, lighting and placement but that is what this is all about. Last month was fairly straight forward, so I thought to mix it up with something a little more challenging for the more seasoned photographers out there but if you’re just starting out, don’t be afraid to tackle this too. Whatever happens, it will definitely teach you something.

The photography on both these shots is done by one of my favorites; Ben Dearnley, styling is done by Steve Pearce. I love the styling in both these shots as it give me a sense of summer but in a rustic kind of way. The colors are dark but still vibrant and the food jumps out at you. I can’t wait to make both of these (you don’t have to choose, you can make them both if you want!) but since I am currently without kitchen I could not taste test either of these recipes but I have the feeling they will be all right!

Enter your link below!

Since there had been some complaints about the quality of  my scans (rightfuly so!) I have found the originals on Ben Dearnley’s site so that looks a whole lot better! I’ll try to make sure the quality of the photos is good enough for you to be able to see what you need to do.

You can find all the rules for the Donna Hay Challenge on the special DHSPC page on top of the menu.

As usual the rules are very straightforward;

• recreate the original images to the best of your ability
• write a blog post about your experience and showcase the photos that you took
• Include some notes on how you took the photos and how you tackled the styling
• link back to this post
• Deadline for entry if April 30th.
• Read the rest of the rules on the DHSPC page
• Judging will be done by Jenn from jenncuisine, Meeta from What’s for Lunch Honey, Kay from KayoticKitchen and myself

Entries are open for everyone. No need to let me know if you want to join. Once you’ve made your post include the link in the linkytool below. It will need to be approved by me first so you will not see it before that.

Salted rump steak

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Serves	4
Prep time	1 hour, 10 minutes
Cook time	7 minutes
Total time	1 hour, 17 minutes
Meal type	Main Dish
From magazine	Donna Hay magazine

Ingredients

• 1kg rump steak (cut into large pieces)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup rocksalt (300 gr)
• cracked black pepper

Directions

Thread the steak onto metal skewers and rub with olive oil. Place on a baking tray and cover completely with the rock salt. Place in the fridge for 1 hour. Wipe with absorbent paper to remove the rock salt and sprinkle with pepper. Heat a char-grill pan or BBQ over high heat. Add the skewers and cook for 7 minutes each side for medium rare or until cooked to your liking. Serve with the chimichurri saue (see below)

Roasted potatoes with chimichurri sauce

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Serves	4-6
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	45 minutes
Total time	1 hours, 5 minutes
Meal type	Side Dish
From magazine	Donna Hay magazine

Ingredients

• 1,5kg large sebago (starchy) potatoes (peeled and chopped)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• sea salt
• cracked black pepper
• 100g wild rocket (arugula) leaves (to serve)

Chimichurri sauce

• 1/3 cup flat leaf parsley (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon oregano (chopped)
• 2 teaspoons rosemary (chopped)
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
• 1 clove garlic (crushed)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• sea salt
• cracked black pepper

Directions

To make the chimichurri sauce, place the parsley, oregano, rosemary, paprika, chilli flakes, garlic, bay leaf, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix to combine. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 220 C (425 F). Place the potato in a large saucepan of salted cold water over high heat and bring to the boil. Cook for 10 minutes or until the potato is just tender. Drain, return the potato to the pan and cook for 1 minte to remove excess moisture. Shake the pan to fluff the potato. Place on a baking tray, drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 40-45 minutes or until crisp and golden. Serve the potatoes with the chimichurri sauce and rocket leaves.

Related Posts:

• Donna Hay styling and photography challenge #1
• Artichoke and feta tarts – DHSP challenge #7
• Bruschetta with arugulapesto – DHSPC #6
• DHSPC #6 – results and exciting news!
• Sage and prosciutto corn cakes – Donna Hay Styling and photo Challenge #4

My version

While I think some of the last couple of challenges where… well quite challenging… I think I may have picked a very easy one this time..:) So I would almost say that there is no reason not to participate this month!

For the new Donna Hay styling and photography challenge, number 7 already, I picked a recipe from the most recent Donna Hay magazine nr. 61. Photography is by William Meppem and Styling by Steve Pearce. For the past couple of months I have gone for dark and moody shots (to fit the season), rather then the signature Donna Hay style which is light and airy. I was in the mood for spring however and when I saw this gorgeous shot I could not resist.

The original by Wiliam Meppem ; the colors should be more like mine though. Blame it on the scan!

Smaller but better version of the original by William Meppem

So this is a fairly simple challenge, certainly compared to the ones we had previously but maybe it’s good to throw in an easy one for a change, to give you all some room to breath. It does not use a lot of props other then baking paper and a baking tray so in terms of prop shopping it’s easy too. I’ll show you a shot of my setup as well, so you have an idea on how I lighted the scene. Basically I had daylight coming from behind the subject and from the left with fill in with a large silver reflector from the right.

Setup for the shot

The light on this particular day was soft and cloudy so perfect really for a shadowless (more or less) photo. You could even go as far and place all the peas on the same spot but that was maybe a bit stretching it, so I left it the way I liked it. I also did have yellow tomatoes but for me that is not a huge difference so use whatever tomatoes you have.

Left mine, right the original

Now on to more pressing matters; we have a fantastic judging panel in place for the new challenge! I’m proudly presenting the following three awesome foodbloggers and awesome photographers/foodstylists.

Kay from the famous Kayotic Kitchen and a fellow Dutchie is a great photographer and has the amazing ability to do step by step shots for each and every single dish she makes. Hats of from me there!

Meeta from the equally famous What’s for Lunch Honey needs no further introduction if you come here more often. She’s not only a dear friend but also a very talented food photographer and foodstylist.

Then last but not least we have Jenn from Jenncuisine. Jenn has been participating regularly already from the first challenge and has won three times! So to avoid her winning anything else I thought I’d ask her to be on the judging panel..lol.. . She’s a great photographer and stylist as well.

So with that our judging panel is complete. The judges themselves are allowed to take part in the challenge as well, but they cannot win obviously. But it’s still fun to participate so didn’t want to take that away from anyone. Enter your links via the below Linky Tool!

Hungry yet?

You can find all the rules for the challenge on the special DHSPC page. As for the logo; I previously used the official Donna Hay logo but I was kindly notified that that is not allowed, so I changed it a bit. If you have the old logo, please use the new one from now on..

The Donna Hay team has kindly offered to share some wonderful prizes with us so the winner of the new challenge will receive a beautiful Donna Hay cookbook. it’s one of the two latest ones. I haven’t received them yet but will share that later as well.

Once the winner is decided upon  by the judges I will ask the winner for his or her homeaddress to ship the book to.

So now all that leaves me is to share the recipe with you here and it’s a delicious recipe for sure, so if all else fails you still have these delicious tarts!

As usual; dietary changes are allowed!

Artichoke and feta tarts with tomato salad

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Serves	4
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	15 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
Meal type	Appetizer, Lunch, Side Dish
From magazine	Donna Hay magazine

Ingredients

• 1 sheet store bought puff pastry (thawed)
• 250g feta (crumbled)
• 4 artichoke hearts (marinated and halved)
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• 100g mixed cherry tomatoes (halved)
• 120g frozen peas (thawed)
• 1/4 cup mint leaves
• olive oil (for drizzling)
• white balsamic vinegar (for drizzling)

Directions

Preheat oven to 200 C. Cut the pastry into 4 squares and score a 1 cm border around each square. Place the square on a baking tray lined with non stick baking paper and top with feta and artichoke. Brush the pastry borers with the egg and bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden

Place the tomato, peas and mint in a medium bowl, drizzle with olive oil and white balsamic and toss to combine. Top the tarts with the tomatoe salad to serve. Serves 4

Note

This is  really simple and delicious recipes that - at least it does for me - gives me a spring feeling!

Related Posts:

• Donna Hay styling and photography challenge #1
• Lemon Sour Bundt Cake – DHSPC #2
• Rumpsteak or potatoes; Donna Hay challenge nr. 8
• Sage and prosciutto corn cakes – Donna Hay Styling and photo Challenge #4
• Greek salad

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.

Related Posts:

• Cauliflower fennel gratin
• Greek salad
• Sourdough bruschetta
• Onion-cheese quiche
• Artichoke and feta tarts – DHSP challenge #7

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

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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
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!

Related Posts:

• Cauliflower fennel gratin
• Baked penne with eggplant, tomatoes and cheese
• Spicy cake with persimmon
• Greek salad
• Nectarine frangipane flan with verjuice glaze

80-21-35 or is it 40-21-50? I honestly have no idea what the ideal measurements are supposed to be. What I do now, for a fact, is that my waistline is no where near those ideal measurements!

You’ve heard me complain about them time and time again, and you also heard me say I would be good and I would watch my weight and I would be skinny   healthy at some point in the near future….

Well, ahum… it is that time again! O no, I can hear you thinking, not that again!

 

Delicious chickpea curry with minced meat

I do apologize; as a reader of my blog (or maybe you’re the lucky person who came here for the first time today) you probably think I am never gonna succeed so why give it another try, right?  Being a foodie doesn’t really help in the whole scheme of things, as there are so many tasty morsels out there, but then I am also pretty sure that good food is never the problem.

It’s all the bad food I do eat in between. Busy, stressed, no time to cook. The grab-a-pizza-days… We all know those now don’t we? Combine those with a serious lack of exercise and too many of the pizza days and you do have your recipe for disaster. I’ve also watched the series of Obese on Dutch tv (and I know there is apparently an American edition of this too) and while I am nowhere near that heavy, it is still a good reminder of how easily things can slip and go too far. I am sure that one way or the other we all know how that feels, and we have all experienced the pains of trying to lose those terrible extra pounds!

So here I am once again… saying I am going to be snacking less, eating less junkfood and eating more healthy foods. Expect to see healthier food here too as that usually pretty much reflects my eating pattern. See a lot of cakes passing by? That probably means I’ve eaten my fair share of them in the process.

I do have to say – and that’s not an excuse – the fact that I sometimes need to shoot all that delicious sweet stuff is not really helping a lot in my determination to lose weight but I should not be a chicken and get on with it. I’ve told you before I am a firm believer in a change of lifestyle rather then a drastic decrease of calories, so don’t expect me to go all water and bread on you.

But yes ladies and gentleman it is time for weightloss effort number 52 to be on it’s way! And so handy too just before Christmas… On top of that one of my clients just mentioned that they would like me to photograph a whole bunch of recipes and they’re all sweet… Guess who will be doing the baking too? *sigh* This particular recipe I am sharing with you today at least is healthy and lean.. (but I do warn you; there will be loads of unhealthy recipes coming up too.. it’s almost Christmas after all!)

The ultimate waistline

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Recipe type: Main

Author: Adapted from BBC Good Food

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 onion , chopped
• 400g minced meat (half porc, half beef)
• 340g frozen peas
• 100 ml cooking cream (can be left out if you want)
• handful fresh coriander , chopped
• brown rice , to serve (optional)
• FOR THE PASTE
• 1 red chilli , deseeded and chopped
• 2 garlic cloves , chopped
• thumb-sized piece ginger , chopped
• tsp turmeric
• tsp ground coriander
• 2 tbsp korma curry paste
• FOR THE RAITA
• 200g fat-free natural yogurt
• 100g cucumber , roughly grated
• salt, pepper

Instructions

1. Whizz together the ingredients for the paste in a blender or food processor – add a splash of water if you need. Mine was still too little volume for the processor so I used the pestle and mortar. Might be just as quick.,
2. Cook the onion in a splash olive oil for about 5 mins until softened. Stir in the mince and cook for another 5 mins to brown. Add the paste, cook for 1 min, then pour in 100ml water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins. Add the peas then simmer for a further 5 mins. Stir in the cream at the very end and heat through. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste where needed.
3. Meanwhile, mix together the raita ingredients and season to taste. When the mince is cooked, season and stir through the fresh coriander. Serve with the raita and brown rice, if you like.

2.1.7

In terms of the “living leaner” challenge (and what a fitting name too!) this recipe stayed well within the limit of the 10 euro. Living leaner is a challenge started by my friend Mona from the blog Wisewords who tries to feed a whole family on ten euro a day! The minced meat was 2,50 and the coriander was a ridiculously high price of 1,39… I just wish coriander would survive in my garden but it doesn’t… But you can see how that saves a lot of money. The only other thing I had to get was the korma curry which I can’t remember the exact price but was 1 euro something and the cucumber (40 cts) The rest of the ingredients were all in the cupboard from leftovers from previous dinners.

Related Posts:

• Marinated chicken on a stick and living leaner
• Spicy bean soup with cuminpoori’s – Living leaner
• Punjabi chicken curry
• Salmon en croute: Daring Cooks december 2009
• Artichoke and feta tarts – DHSP challenge #7