Couscous salad

While I have made couscous salad before, this was more or less the lean version of the one I did before. I was just reading the other recipe and realizing it’s really not that much different, but ok… it definitely has less oil in it!

Yesterday we had a really nice evening. We went out for dinner at Sensus in Almere with friends and afterwards we were gonna be watching the new Harry Potter movie! I am a big Harry Potter fan. Have been since the beginning too, before the whole hype began. The dinner was good. It’s a restaurant with an international kitchen and you basically order small dishes. Four of those make up a ‘regular sized’ meal. I had halibut (which was not so good, as it was overcooked and too salty), feta with chili and watermelon with pickled raisins and a little asparagus tart with parmezan. The last was absolutely my favorite and while the other two dishes weren’t that bad some of the combinations were really weird. I like sweetness with feta but watermelon was just a weird combination plus the fact that the melon was not really ripe, didn’t help either… If you sum it up it actually doesn’t sound like a very good meal, but it wasn’t so bad really. The people there are very friendly which can be a nice chance here in Holland, as you do get a lot of bad service in some restaurants.

And dessert was lovely too. Ok, ok, I know I am supposed to be on a diet, but to compensate for dinner I had been really active the entire day. Started with a spinning class in the morning. I think I can honestly say I have never been sweating so much as that morning! It was warm and humid outside and we never spin with the airconditioning on, since one of our group is allergic to the airconditiong-air.. ( ) The door to outside was open, but it was a vigorous lesson and combined with the humidity…. Pfftt… On top of that I had also cleaned the house in the afternoon, so that should make up for at least some of the meal. Back to normal today anyway!

After dinner we headed over to the cinema, which is a very short walk away. I was glad I had gotten tickets the day before as the lines in front of the register were looooonnggg! You have to know that while we have a huge cinema, it tends to be rather empty most of the times. So to hear that they had Harry Potter playing in three of the rooms (out of 6 or and all three were completely packed, that was amazing.

There was some confusion over chairs (isn’t there always?) before the movie started and they actually stopped the previews to sort it out. This was an extra show anyway so they weren’t so much on a timeschedule as normal. Once it was all sorted we could finally watch the movie we had all been waiting for so long.

I won’t be telling you anything about the movie, to not spoil the surprise if you haven’t seen any of it! I liked the movie, but there was a little less action then I had thought there would be. I have read all the books, so that helps in piecing the story together, as there were a bit too many things that remained a mystery. Tom, as well as our friend Peter, had not read the book and then it’s rather difficult to understand why certain things are happening. In addition to that, Peter had only seen the first movie (not really a Potter fan, but he came along for the ride and because Mary (his wife) loves it) so that made it double hard!

Despite all that I loved it and thought it was another brilliant movie. The scenes and special effects are amazing. And I can’t believe how much those kids have grown!! In preparation for the new movie, Tom and I had been watching the first ones this week and then it’s even more obvious how the little kids have now become so big!

Anyway, it was fun and if you haven’t seen it yet… GO!!

Back to food…

Here is the recipe for my lunchsalad of today!

Couscoussalad with tomatoe and cucumber

40 gr couscous

1/3 cucumber

2 tomatoes

lemonjuice, about 2 tablespoons

parsley

cilantro

Ham or chicken (if you like)

Prepare the couscous according to package instructions. Chop the cucumber and tomatoes in small cubes. Once the couscous is done, loosen it up with a fork and let it cool down. Add the tomatoes and cucumber and season with salt, pepper and the lemon juice. Add the chopped parsley.

If you like you can add some chicken or ham into the salad. I used ham as that is what I had leftover in the fridge, but I think this would have been brilliant with feta or smoked chicken. (or both) You can also ad a splash of olive oil into it, which would probably have made it a little juicier but in the light of losing weight I opted not to.

Add cilantro just before serving.

Delicious and light lunch!

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Plate of antipasti

It’s been months in the planning; I think we have been talking about doing an Italian dinner with friends since christmas! But tonight it is going to happen!!

I started the morning with a good old spinning class, so I don’t have to feel so guilty when enjoying the delicious food tonight and after a shower I went on to grocery shopping. Our menu is:

Antipasti

Spaghetti Tetrazine

Rigatoni with homemade sauce with catalan sausage

Insalata caprese

Pannacotta with lemon and buttermilk

Antipasti

Initially we were going to make various crostini, but we figured it would probably be too much food. M. and P. will be the ones coming tonight and I know that M is very picky when it comes to food. Well, that is maybe an understatement; there is not much she likes at all! She likes plain spaghetti with ham and cheese….. that is her favorite meal… So it’s going to be a challenge if she likes this or not. But to be honest; she never complains, just doesn’t eat it! So maybe not the best people to make a meal for in the first place, but they are very good friends and in theory she likes “Italian” (not sure if her favorite ‘Italian’ meal deserves that name though..:)) Anyway, we cheated with the antipasti, as I got them from the Italian catering company in the

Antipasti

city. They have fantastic stuff, so a little cheating is ok. And let’s face it’; it’s not as if I am going to make my own sausages anyway! And it looks good doesn’t it?

I’ve chosen some garlic shrimps, black marinated olives (without the garlic as there is plenty of garlic in some of the other stuff!), manchego cheese with membrillo, vitello tonato and some pepperdews filled with cheese. To go with that we will have some Italian toast. It’s probably already too much.

For our main course we will be having two variations to pasta. One with spaghetti. It’s from Jamie Oliver’s book ‘Italy’ and it is called spaghetti Tetrazine. It’s basically chicken, mushrooms in various types and lots of cream. Put it in the oven with some good parmezan and done. So we have prepared the sauce for that and will finish it later, so we can pop it in the oven and forget about it.

Next one is a creation of our own, so I don’t know yet what we’re gonna throw in but the base is tomatoes and spanish sausages that we rolled into small balls. (split the skins and roll the inside into small balls) We will probably ad zuchini to it, oregano, basil, garlic and for the rest we will see how it tastes by then and if it needs anything extra. The balls are made, which is the biggest job, so it’s basically tossing in the pan and should be done in no time.

Next to that we will have my favorite Italian salad; insalata caprese with home made basildressing. I bought a lovely piece of buffela mozarella at the Italian deli this morning and various shapes of tomatoe and ofcourse lots of fresh basil.

And for dessert we will be having lemon buttermilk pannacotta.

Ingredients for lemon buttermilk pannacotta

I’ve made that a while ago as well, so the recipe you can find already here via the link above. It’s very simple and lovely. Instead of the raspberries, which are really not good right now, we’re having blackberries. I’m gonna crush them, add some sugar and leave it for a while and then put it on top of the pannacotta. They are done and in the fridge to get firm.

Lemon juice and zest

So all in all… lots of food to eat, so we’ll probably be eating the same tomorrow… And with pasta, it always seems to taste better the next day anyway, so no punishment really…:)

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This time we prepared the little things in the studio so I could actually take a photo of it. Well, I could have taken a photo at home but my tripod was in the studio… That was really the only thing I needed.

Recipe for tomatoe with shrimpcocktail:

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