You know how you can hear about certain flavor combinations where you first go; “what”?? The combination of strawberries and balsamico is one of them. I think I first heard it on one of the blogs about a year ago and it intrigued me. Certainly not a flavor I would naturally combine with eachother, but still interesting thought. So when I read in one of my new cookbooks about a salad that incorporates strawberries, tomatoes and balsamic glaze I just knew I had to try it. And can I just say.. WOW! Ofcourse it is essential that you pick good strawberries and tasty tomatoes as that is the main part of this salad, but it is so much better then I would ever have thought!! Tom was even more doubtful then I was. I mean; he doesn’t like balsamic vinegar at all, while I do, to begin with so telling him that there was balsamic glaze in this recipe together with tomatoes and strawberries he looked at me as if I was going nuts… But when I finished making it and then almost forced a spoonful into his mouth it was funny to see his reaction go from “O no, what are you shoving into my mouth” to “That is actually pretty damn good!”

Strawberry salad with balsamico glaze

And it is; nice and refreshing and tasting of spring! Making it is almost too simple to talk about but for those of you who want to know; use equal amounts of small tomatoes (I used a type that is called Amor and is lovely and tasty. I am not too fond of cherry tomatoes at least not the regular kind as they tend to be too watery, but use whatever tomatoes you love) to strawberries and cut both into quarters. Chop up some basil and toss that with the tomatoes and strawberries in a bowl. Put on a plate and drizzle some balsamic on top. And voila; you’re done!

In the spirit of the season I figured I would do a give-a-way as I saw this fun book while browsing for christmas presents on the web. I ordered two copies; one for me and one for the lucky winner of the give away. It’s a book with Dutch recipes, called Dutch Delight and while I haven’t seen it myself yet it looks like a fun book with some very typical Dutch recipes in there. So if you’ve always wanted to know everything about Dutch cooking and how to make it now is the time to leave a fun comment on my blog. The winner will be picked at random and I might ask for the help of Tom for that very important task… Be sure to enter your comment before December 25th!!

O and in case you were wondering; no, we don’t all walk around like the lady on the cover! There are still some areas of Holland where you can find the traditional clothing, mainly places like Volendam and the like and even then, I do think it is in large part to please the tourists… Anyway, no hesitating and go and leave that comment!

Now on to the dish I prepared today; I had been meaning to give this one a go for a looooong time as everybody was raving about it. When you look at the ingredients you might think; what is all the fuss about? It’s a pasta dish with tomato sauce… and well, it is. However, due to the added chili and the pancetta this dish is simply delicious. Or maybe it is the slow cooking times (not really a slow dish to make, but simmering mere tomato sauce for 25 minutes is long normally) that give it the added flavor. If I look at the other dishes I have made from Marcella sofar then I am thinking it must have been a combination of both.

Now ofcourse I am a huge tomato fan; just love them. First of all; I think they are very pretty with their nice round shiny skins and luscious glossy exterior… and then on the inside there is all this yummy goodness. Ok, admittedly we have some pretty bad tomatoes here as well. It’s only in recent years that we can buy more then your average watery tomato. We now have pomodori, tasty tom’s, cherry tomatoes in all colors, kumatoes etc. etc. Don’t you just love international influences??

Now I have to admit that I made this dish in the afternoon thinking I needed to have some light to take a photo… How sad is that. I am home alone tonight as Tom is gonna be working late, so nobody is expecting dinner to be at regular dinner times. With the current winter months the light fades really quickly so in terms of photo taking; you can actually prepare this dish ahead. It should be warmed up in no time I am guessing.

I was not the only one who was very interested in this particular dish; I think it was the crisp pancetta that I put on top that made the smell irresistible to Gizmo! I couldn’t help but take a quick snap before I chased her away from my dinner

Gizmo trying to catch a little bit of pancetta!

If you would like to try this dish yourself (and it is worth it!!) here is the recipe

Pasta Amatriciana (tomato sauce with Pancetta and chilli pepper from The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan)

Serves 4

2 tbsp of vegetable oil

15 gr butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

6 mm/1/4 inc thick slice of pancetta, cut into strips

400 gr tinned imported Italian plum tomatoes, drained and cut up

chopped hot red chilli

pepper, to taste

salt

3 tbsp freshly grated parmezan

450 gr pasta

Marcella recommends using bucatini for the pasta shape. Since I did not have that available I used conchi’s (I think they were called that, but I am not sure!) penne, rigatoni or conchiglie would also work equally well.

1. Put the oil, butter and onion in a saucepan and turn on the heat to medium. Saute the onion until it becomes coloured a pale gold, then add the pancetta. Where I live it is impossible to find pancetta that is thicker then very thin and already sliced so I used thinly sliced pancetta but left the slices on top of eachother which then resembled a slightly thicker slice. Cook for about 1 minute, stirring once or twice. Add the tomatoes, chili pepper and salt, and cook, uncovered, at a steady gentle simmer for about 25 minutes. Taste and correct for salt and hot pepper.

2. Toss the pasta with the sauce, then add both cheeses, and toss thoroughly. I could only find the one cheese, so I used only parmezan, which worked great anyway.

This dish was made for Cooking Italy!

Hmmm, maybe my plan on eating healthy is not exactly eating anything with puff pastry now is it? Lovely buttery and slightly unhealthy puff pastry… O well, on the plus side; I ate only one of these little darlings! Yesterday I finally received my brand new Macbook pro so I love new toys and I have been playing around with it, transferring files from one computer to the other etc. It’s always amazing to me how fast time flies when you’re behind the computer!! Ooo and in addition to the new laptop I also bought a Apple Cinema LED display 24″. Can I just say…. wow… what a difference!! Now my ‘old’ display is really quite old, so colors were not that vibrant anymore and it really was in need of replacement. And I totally love it. And how big is 24″ compaired to the ‘old’ 19″… VERY big!!

Anyway, I will not bore you any longer with tales of my new computer stuff, so instead I would like to share my lunch of today. After being behind the computer yesterday for most of the day I was really in need of a lovely little indulgence for lunch. Tonight is already our very last cooking lesson… so sad… The last lesson is about venison and other game, so I am little scared of what we are going to find when we enter the kookstudio. I hope that it’s not an entire deer!! There are limits to what I can take!

Anyway, for lunch I made little savoury tartelettes using storebought puff pastry. I love those little things as it is so easy and you can basically throw in whatever you want and still have a lovely little pie. In these I used (frozen) peas, ham, egg, cherry tomatoes and some leftover cheeses I had such as gorgonzola and brie. In terms of looks; the brie looked better, but in terms of taste the gorgonzola had a little more punch, so if you can’t decide and pretty looks are not important, go for the gorgonzola!

Oooo and I got to share something as well; Tom had a cooking workshop with some colleagues from work yesterday and he ate something (I can’t even remember what it was that he ate) containing gorgonzola and he actually liked it!!! Maybe I should not cheer too soon as I know that gorgonzola can loose quite some flavor when warm, but maybe there is still hope for my cheese-hating husband… (in case you didn’t know; Tom and I are not married, but we have been living together for 18 years so instead of calling him boyfriend all the time, I like to just call him my husband to make life a little simpler.. Boyfriend somehow always feel like someone you’ve only recently met… That’s probably silly but now you know!)

Ok, so what is in these little darlings:

Qty’s for 4 people

Puff pastry sheets, defrosted

150 gr of frozen peas

100 gr of hamslices

100 gr of cherry tomatoes

2 eggs

gorgonzola or another cheese to your liking

Preheat the oven to 200C. Use little tartelette forms with bottoms that can be taken out as those are easiest to use. Whisk the two eggs together in a bowl and add the peas and ham to it. Stir until well combined. Season with salt and pepper. Line each pie form with a puff pastry sheet and press into the form. Once done, dock the bottom by pricking it with a fork.

Distribute the egg mixture into the four forms and put the cherry tomatoes on top (cut in half). Add little blobs of cheese in and around the tomatoes and put in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes or until golden.

Enjoy!

Oeuf Cocote

I think everyone has moments in a month, a week or a year where cooking seems to take less of a priority due to all sort of different reasons. We’ve lately been having some serious health issues within both Tom’s family as well as my family, which shift the importance of certain things quite dramatically.

It’s been busy with other things as well, so some nights we come home and the only thing we really want to do is sit and talk. Cooking is needed for nourishment, but our minds cannot set ourselves to try out new recipes so we kind of stick to the familiar or the quick and easy. I had heard about Oeuf Cocote a while ago and to me this is a perfect little dish that requires almost zero time and very little effort and with some good bread it is very suitable for a quick meal. It’s more a lunch then a dinner really, but still works fine as a quick meal. You can make it with whatever leftover’s you have in the fridge, so it’s perfect for that too!

What more can you want? I made this particular one for lunch, but then I had it again on friday for dinner after a particularly frustrating day with the telecom guys. I’ll spare you the details as it will only make me angry again. And since I will have to go to at least one more of those days to get it fixed I better keep my anger management under control…

For this particular dish I used slices of ham I still had in the fridge, little strips of roasted peppers (also leftover), cherry tomatoes and some grated gruyere on top. O and ofcourse two eggs… The one I made in the evening I added some feta cheese in and some basil as well. But you can add more veggies if you want, more cheese or all sorts of other things. The only thing you have to do is to wait until it comes out of the oven, which takes approximately 20 minutes.

I ate mine with some toasted bread and it was very filling and quite good.

I have no idea what the English name would be for this dish. “Hidden eggs” or something? There must be a name out there as it’s a really well known meal. Works as a breakfast too if you are the hearty breakfast eating kind of person.

How to make:

Use a shallow bowl to put your ingredients in so it all bakes through or if you do not have that put the bowl in hot water in the oven, so it heats evenly.

On the bottom of the bowl put your ingredients such as ham, tomatoes, peppers, feta or whatever you like or have leftover in the fridge. Crack two or more eggs in the bowl and do not stir. You want the yolks to remain whole. You can add cheese of your liking on top (grated, whole; it doesn’t really matter) and put in the oven at 200C for about 20 minutes. The only thing to keep in mind is that your veggies need to be able to get done in those 20 minute as well. If they need longer prepare them first before adding to your bowl.

Spaghetti with crushed tomatoes

I was asked by the lovely Olga from Mango and Tomato to write a guestblog for the time when she will be on holiday…. Ofcourse with a blog called Mango and tomato, it would be fun to choose a dish with either mango or tomato (or both) in them. Now I love both those ingredients so not such a very hard task. Plus – since I am on a diet – tomatoes are a perfect choice as there is hardly any calories in them…

I had recently bought the new book from Donna Hay, “No time to cook” and while I did have time to cook, I figured today would be the perfect day to try one of the recipes and see if it really would be as quick as no cooking. The title is actually a little misleading; if you’re thinking you’re buying a book with all sort of recipes that require no cooking at all, then you should be buying something else. It does require cooking but it’s just very quick. What I also like about the book is that most of the recipes are for two. Saves me all those calculations I always have to do…

Ingredients

Tom is gonna be home late today, so I can easily make this twice; it is that fast. With spaghetti I prefer to make it fresh since that simply tastes the best.

Now one little word of warning; the recipe wants you to bruise all the cherry tomatoes. Removing the pits and some of the inside juices apparently is meant to enhance the flavour. So I faithfuly set about doing just that; now tomatoes have a funny way of behaving when you pinch a really ripe tomato! The proof is all over my kitchen! lol… So be careful when you want to make this, as even being careful doesn’t prevent the odd flying tomato- sauce!

The only thing that needed boiling for this recipe was the spaghetti, but that is not really work at all. Except for the garlic, no other cutting is required and it’s literally done and on the table in about 10-15 minutes. Really really simple and quite tasty. I would add probably a little bit of maybe smoked chicken in there for next time, or little bits of ham. Just to spice it up a little bit.

I like my pasta to be simple, with really not a lot of ingredients and this was a perfect example of a good pasta with minimum effort.

Spaghetti with bruised tomatoes (from Donna Hay; No time to cook) serves 2

200 gr spaghetti

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 cloves of garlic

fresh basil

500 gr cherry tomatoes (I used honey cherry tomatoes, which are lovely and sweet)

seasalt

30 gr of butter

Cook the spaghetti in about 10-12 minutes. Chop up the garlic and squish the tomatoes so part of the juice and the seeds are removed. In a pan heat the butter (or use olive oil if you prefer) and add the garlic, balsamic and cherry tomatoes and heat them through untill the tomatoes become warm and a little bit soft. Once the spaghetti is cooked, add to the tomato-balsamic mixture and add fresh basil. Serve.

I added parmezan as no pasta is complete without a little sprinkle of cheese (or so I think) but add whatever you like to this, as it’s a perfect base recipe.

Enjoy!

Roasted ricotta with honey tomatoes

Still not feeling all that well, although slightly better then yesterday. The thing now is that my eyes are completely puffed up from tearing so much yesterday, so it’s really not a pretty sight! Not a day to go outside… Anyone has an instant cure for puffy eyes (really, really puffy that is!) I would love to know! So I still had some ricotta in the fridge plus lovely honey tomatoes that I had bought previously and figured would make a great lunch together with the focaccia bread that was also leftover from friday’s Italian meal (still had to be baked).  So when I went downstairs to start preparing lunch I was greeted by a loudly screaming cat.

Gizmo demanding her medicine

We have three cats, all of which are very old. The youngest one, who was the one screaming, is called Gizmo and will be 17 years in may. The middle one is 19 and the eldest of the threesome is 21 years old. So it’s a bunch of ancient cats together.

Gizmo has a thyroid gland problem, so she needs to have one pill each day. In the beginning that was a total disaster. As any catowner knows, cats are rather smart and she knew quite soon that if she got something nice like chicken or tunasalad, there would be a bitter tasting thing inside. So she either ate around it, spit it out or did anything to prevent it going down where it was supposed to go. I am not sure at what point it changed, but we are now at the third set of 100-pill boxes, so she must have had around 250 pills by now (minus the ones she managed to spit out) and we have found the perfect mode. She actually reminds me that she hasn’t had her medicine yet, by very loudly screaming while sitting on the table near the fridge. She comes running when I shake the little pillbox even! The trick is that I hide the pill inside tunasalad (which she loves) and then balance the bit containing the pill on my finger. I first let her have some of the tuna from my left hand and then hold her the balancing but on the right finger. One lick of her tongue means the tuna almost “collapses” into her mouth and she has no other option but to swallow. Because it goes so fast, she has no time to eat around the pill as it goes down before she notices it. Plus I always make sure that there is something left on my finger and – little greedy monster that she is – she cannot resist that so swallows that too… Fingers crossed that it stays that way cause with cats you never know!

Ricotta roasted with tomatoes

Anyway, after having given her the medicine I popped the ricotta in the oven along with some lovely honey tomatoes that are very sweet especially after having roasted in the oven for about 20 minutes. I seasoned the tomatoes and the ricotta just with pepper and salt and added some fresh basil on top after removing it from the oven. I am slightly disappointed on the look of the ricotta as it still looks the same as when I took it out of the container. I would have hoped it started looking a little more appealing after coming from the oven but it didn’t. For next time I will probably season the ricotta inside as well, mix it up a little more and then roast, rather then doing it as I did now. Maybe adding some other herbs during the roasting process would also increase the flavor. Rosemary or oregano maybe?

On crusty bread! Delicious

It did taste very well and was certainly very filling. It’s hardly worth calling a recipe, but in case you want to try it:

Put ricotta out of it’s container in a baking tray with some tomatoes. Add any type you like, I used honey tomatoes as I love their sweet taste, especially once they are roasted. Did you know that tomatoes are actually one of the few vegetables that are actually higher in nutrients if you process them? I read it somewhere once… can’t remember why or where though.. haha… Anyway, just wanted to share that bit of information. Sprinkle both the tomatoes and the ricotta with some olive oil, add salt and pepper and pop in the oven for about 20 minutes. Spread it over a nice crusty bread such as I have done here with the focaccia or eat any other way you like.

Now… it was a bit too much for one person, so I had some leftovers and while cleaning up the kitchen it was still on the table… Gizmo decided she had earned a little of the ricotta as well!! I do have to confess that ever since she got that thyroid problem she is very spoilt by us. We try and maintain her weight which is hard with this particular illness, so she gets all sorts of treats to keep her at the same weight. And it is working too! Last time we were at the vet she was pleasantly surprised to find that she has not lost any weight since last time (she’s only about 3 kilo) which is quite good in this condition. So the spoiling helps… and that is why I let het eat a little so I could take a photo and then removed the plates and threw out the remainders…

Gizmo enjoying leftovers

If you don’t have cats or don’t like cats, you will probably find this all probably very disgusting, but if you do have cats I am sure you can relate!