Junglefrog Cooking » puree

Matcha yogurt with rhubarb-blackberry puree

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:00:13 +0000

Breakfast

Remember I told you I had another funny story with Paris as, well let’s say as part of the story? Well here is comes, the story of a love gone sour… (nothing serious here, it’s a typical case of how a lot of holiday loves end I guess)

The love story starts in England, in a tiny tiny town called South Nutfield where I worked as a volunteer for a foundation that organizes holidays for disabled people (previously called Winged fellowship). I signed up on a spur of the moment thing, as my sister did it a year before me and loved it.

It was a very international mix of people, although the fact that I’m the only Dutch causes some issues in the first few days as it turned out that my school English was in no way sufficient. I didn’t understand ANY of the accents spoken, with the English ones being the worst. I forgot where they all came from but they sure had some heavy accents. That is not what you learn in school, so they might as well have spoken Russian as far as I was concerned. Within a few days I sort of got the hang of it and all that English started to make sense again.

My patient was a lovely lady who suffered from multiple sclerosis and while we had a pretty full day as volunteers I did still manage to fall in love with one of the French guys who also volunteered. He was blond, sexy and very sweet and we had a great time at the mansion, trying to sneak away to steal a kiss here and there. Privacy was hard to find though in a house filled to the rim with people, so before I knew it, we had agreed to meet in Paris where he studied. We said our goodbyes after a fun two weeks and I was already excited and looking forward to meet Y. again in Paris!

Ah Paris, that glorious, glorious city of romance! How could my visit not be romantic? The bus ride was long to Paris and I was tired when I arrived but excited too. I wasn’t too alarmed when Y. was not at the bus station when I arrived. The bus was delayed for several hours so he probably went home. I called him to say I was there and he sounded…well, not like the guy I used to know I guess, but I was still not alarmed.

He arrived soon enough and we went to his place, or so I thought. I was a little taken aback when I saw the ‘apartment’ we were supposed to stay in that weekend. It was a dark hole of a place, with a bed for 1 person, a dirty tiny kitchen and a not so pleasant smell. Y. explained that this was not his place but the place of a friend that he had ‘borrowed’ for the weekend so we could stay together. Aha… Y. immediately started kissing me, making it pretty clear that he wanted to ‘make love’ with me right there and then. I felt dirty and tired after having been on the road for more then 10 hours so I gently pushed him away, saying I wanted to have a shower first, have a bite to eat and do some fun things maybe before attempting anything psychical in that tiny tiny bed.

He grudgingly agreed; we went to a horrible restaurant where I started to feel this might not be the weekend I had thought it would be. He behaved like a totally different person from the Y. I had met in England, but I was stuck, I knew no one else in Paris and I wasn’t the world traveler I am today (or I like to think I am today) so I had no clue what to do and figured the best thing was to endure it for the weekend. We went to an Ingmar Bergman film I believe it was. A weird film about horrible tests on human’s that ended in a lot of blood and murder. I can’t really remember the name. Y. fell asleep during the movie. (Yes, he really did… and snoring loudly too!) We went home after and had horrible sex. I mean, seriously… French man are perfect lovers?? Well not all of them I can tell you! Lol.

The next couple of days only became bearable because he did have a few nice friends and we hung out with them, but any moment spend alone with Y. was terrible and I’ve never been happier that my stay in Paris ended! It was probably a good thing that I had been to Paris before or I might have forever associated that gorgeous city with that horrible experience. Thinking back on the whole thing; my guess is he actually had a girlfriend at the time, so couldn’t take me to his own place, so he thought to have some cheap sex in his friends flat with that weird Dutch girl. I guess I will never know, but it was a big big disappointment!

Now on to better things in life, I will share this delicious breakfast with you that is made of some of the leftovers from that gorgeous French souffle. I added some matcha into the yogurt and sweetened it with Manuka honey which I got from Julia before. I used the rhubarb-blackberry puree and the crumble I had leftover. It’s the French delight I made for the Monthly Mingle that made me remember this “lovestory”. More to follow there but now over to the recipe!

Matcha yogurt with rhubarb-blackberry puree and hazelnut crumble

Print recipe

Ingredients

1 teaspoon matcha powder
250ml yogurt
1 tablespoon manuka honey (or regular honey)
4 tablespoons rhubarb blackberry puree
2 tablespoons hazelnut crumble

rhubarb blackberry puree

500g rhubarb (sliced into 2 cm pieces)
140g sugar
lemon zest (of one lemon)
cornflour
150g black berries (I used frozen but you can use fresh too ofcourse)

hazelnut crumble

75g flour
50g butter
50g brown sugar
pinch salt
50g rolled oats
50g hazelnuts

Directions

Rhubarb puree

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put the rhubarb with the 140 gr of sugar in a pan, add a splash of water, cover the pan and let it simmer on low heat for a while. Once the rhubarb is cooked but still has some chunky bits in it, add the blackberries. You can use frozen blackberries if you cannot find fresh. Add a bit of lemon zest in the pan as well. Put some cornflour in a small bowl, add water and whisk until smooth. Add this bit by bit to your fruit mixture until it is thick enough. It should become a thick puree. Leave to boil for another 1,5 minute to cook the cornflour. Then put your fruit puree into another bowl and stir to cool it down for at least five minutes.
hazelnut crumble

Make a crumble by adding the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it with your fingers till it resembles a rough crumble. Put the crumble on a baking tray, spread it out and bake for about 5 minutes until light golden brown.

Add 1 tsp of matcha powder to your yogurt and still well to combine. You can add more or less matcha if you prefer. Sweeten the yogurt a little bit with the manuka honey to your taste. Make layers in the glass with the puree, the yogurt, ending with some hazelnut crumbles on top!

Green peas and broadbeans with mint and mozarella

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:50:48 +0000

Beans on toast

There are many things that can be said about Jamie Oliver and you either love him or you hate him (apparently) but you cannot say he has a lack of enthusiasm for cooking and product in general! Yesterday we were watching an episode of Jamie at home which we have on DVD (in case you were wondering; I am a fan.. ) and this particular episode was about beans, peas and anything related to that family. With the fresh pods from his garden (what a garden!!!) he made this lovely recipe, which is really quick and really simple and I found it very refreshing with the weather right now. So definitely a fabulous lunchrecipe. Healthy too!

It’s incredibly hot and humid right now and huge thunderstorms are being predicted for later this afternoon, which – quite frankly – is probably good since it’s too hot to do anything really. Yesterday I decided to go for a bike ride to my parents house which is in a little town called Eemnes. But to get there you have to cross a bridge and it’s 25 kilometers to get there (so yes, that is 50 km in total) and that may not be a huge distance for a lot of people, but for me it’s a big distance! Plus on top of that it was 30 degrees C yesterday as well. Luckily I got fed fresh strawberries at my folks so I was nourished before going back.

Why is that you always have the wind against you on the way back?? Anyway, I made it. Slightly sore bum today though…

I was up early this morning as I had to get to Amsterdam to pick up my brand new Canon Eos 5D Mark II!! Whoohoo!! Photos above are taken with this new toy (well not really a toy with these prices..) The one thing I am a little unhappy about is the fact that they thought it was a good idea to change the battery type from the original 5D to the 5D mark II! That means I have to get a whole stack of expensive new batteries. I hate it when they do that for no good reason really as the other ones where perfect.

I will play around with it and let you know how I like it! Curious about the filming too!!

Here is the recipe for the lovely lunch I had!

PEAS AND BROADBEANS ON TOAST WITH MINT AND MOZARELLA (serves four) From at home with Jamie

500 gr fresh peas in the pod (about 150 gr out of their shells)

700 gr broadbeans (about 250 gr. once pods are removed)

fresh mint, use only the leaves

seasalt and black pepper

extra virgin oliveoil

50 gr grated pecorino, plus some extra for serving

juice of 1 lemon

4 slices of sourdough bread

1 clove of garlic, unpealed, cut in two

2 large balls of mozarella

a handful of peasprouts (I couldn’t get those so used wild rocket instead, which works well too)

Remove the peas and broadbeans from their pods and put them in separate tubs. Keep the smallest ones apart to mix through the salad.

For pureeing the beans and peas, Jamie is telling you to use a pestle and mortar but I chose the lazy option and used a small kitchenmachine. Mix half of the mindleaves with the peas and ad some salt. Puree and then ad the broadbeans. Make it all into a thick green paste.

Gizmo hiding from the sunshine

Ad a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to make the puree lovely moist. Add the grated pecorino. If the puree becomes too stiff you can thin it with a little extra olive oil.

Add about 3/4 of the lemonjuice – that will bring all the flavours together. Have a taste and if needed ad salt and pepper to taste.

Grill or toast the bread on a bbq or on a grillpan on both sides and rub them only twice with the halved garlic and cover them with a big spoon of the puree and half a ball of mozarella.

Add the peashoots, the rest of the mintleaves and the small beans and peas that you kept separate in a bowl with the rest of the lemonjuice, salt and pepper and put the salad on top of the crostini. Decorate with a few drips of olive oil and some grated pecorino.

Now to just leave you with something rather funny; I was throwing something away in the bin at the end of the garden and heard serious buzzing. We have a bird’s house hanging there which is occupied by a nest of bumblebees. The house is hanging against our shed and we’ve had the bumblebees there for the second year now. I had a quick look to see what all the buzzing was about and then I noticed this tiny bumblebee sitting in the opening of the house flapping it’s wings like crazy. That was the humming sound I had heard! I think he was trying to get some cool air into the nest. I can only imagine how hot it must be in there if they do that! I thought it was rather cute.

In the meantime the thunder and rain has started here, so hopefully it will become a little bit cooler now!