As soon as I arrive in the small street in Amsterdam I frantically start looking for a parking spot and luck seems to be on my side as I find one within 200 meters of my final destination. I park, put on my parkline parking thingie, grab my bag from the passenger seat and run rather then walk those last 200 meters to De Sperwer. Unfortunately the door is already closed when I arrive, so I feel even worse when the workshop leader comes down the stairs to open the doors. The typical ‘who are you’ round is nearly finished when I mumble some excuses for being half an hour late and quickly take the one empty seat.

Maybe not the best start of my culinary writing course I am taking under the esteemed Onno Kleyn, a rather famous culinary writer here in the Netherlands. But I had to work and as luck would have it, the cooking contest I was shooting ran late by two hours. I had anticipated a little delay but not two hours… I am thirsty and slightly exhausted when I take my seat at the workshop (afraid to ask for a coffee) and listen to the last few people introducing themselves. It’s a mixed company and I’m already mortified that I might have to introduce myself as well. I hate introducing myself. I always feel I need to say a lot more then “My name is Simone, I am a photographer and I like to write.” The stories I’m hearing from the contestants don’t help. Entire life histories are being recited and one fact sounds even more impressive then the next. For just a brief moment I hope they forget all about me, but one person is so smart as to notice I haven’t said anything so I squeek out the previously mentioned part… Not very impressive no…

That part over we continue with a lot of information about form, content and your target audience which is all hugely interesting so I’m relaxing a bit. Before we came to the course we were asked to write a piece. It’s all shared on dropbox so we could read each others entries before coming to the first lesson. I wrote a – apparently slightly controversial – piece about Vietnam, dogs being eaten there and chickens that are very cruelly treated at the markets. My controversial statement was that I truly think that most caged chickens here would rather die a cruel death if that meant having a life filled with roaming around farms and even roaming around villages for a considerable longer period then the 6-8 weeks they get to life here. Bundled up together with god knows how many other chickens. Never seeing the sky, never knowing the pleasure of picking up little bits of this and little bits of that and every now and then a fat worm… I don’t think that is controversial. I hate animal cruelty. Anywhere, anyplace, so I’m not saying that is ok. I’m just wondering which cruelty is worse….

After all that reflecting I leave you with a deceptively simply salad. Easy to throw together and delicious in all it’s simplicity!

Green salad with herbs and peas

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Serves:	2
Prep time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	5 minutes
Total time:	15 minutes
Meal type:	Salad, Side Dish
Region:	Worldwide
From magazine:	Allerhande

Ingredients

• 75g bacon (small strips)
• 150g green peas
• 1 lime (washed)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon clear honey
• a few sprig fresh mint (just the leaves)
• 1 bunch basil (just the leaves)
• a few sprig fresh coriander (just the leaves)
• 75g rocket

Directions

Bake the bacon crispy in their own fat (so use a dry frying pan). take out of the pan and leave to drain on paper towels

if using frozen green peas, quickly blanch them in boiling water and rinse with cold water and leave to drain

Grate the zest of the lime and squeeze out the juice.Add the zest and the juice to the olive oil and add the honey to make it a dressing

Add salt and pepper to taste. Tear the mint and basil leaves in pieces. Mix with the peas, bacon, coriander and rocket. Sprinkle with the dressing

Note

This is a very green but lovely salad. It's good on it's own but will also work as a sidedish!

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Cucumbers?

Call me weird but everytime I see an ingredient that I don’t know or have never seen before I can’t resist and I just have to buy it. Today I was visiting one of my favorite places to buy meat and vegetables which is the Lindenhoff in Baambrugge. I went there to get a good piece of meat for dinner since my father in law was coming over and I figured we could all use a good piece of something. So I got a really nice piece of veal and started walking around the vegetable area. They grow a lot of their own produce and when you arrive at the farm (the shop is located in the farm where the raise the cows, calves, pigs and lambs you buy in the shop) you can actually walk into the veggie garden. They had a lot of stuff this time of their own garden and I saw these little green spiky monsters. I picked up the basket they were in, took a good look, put them back and then started getting the stuff I needed to have for dinner (lautrec garlic, celeriac, roseval potatoes, apricots and carrots. Didn’t need the last ones but couldn’t resist those either.

They do look a bit chinese if you see them like that, don't they?

When I went to the register to pay for my goodies I asked the girl at the counter what on earth those things were. Well, she tells me; those are mini cucumbers.. Ok, they are green but that is sort of where it ends in terms of recognizable. So, yes I bought them and now I have no idea what to do with them. I tasted one and indeed the have a cucumber taste but the texture inside is different. More spongy I would say then regular cucumbers. The outside also appear a little tougher. A supermarket cucumber is cruncy on the outside while this one doesn’t break immediately when you put your teeth in it.

I am hoping someone has a suggestion on how I could use these? I haven’t thought of anything other then the obvious boring salad option. Any advice?

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I was invited by the lovely Sanjeeta from Lite Bite to make a guestpost for her theme of Awesome Food Bloggers Healthy Living Secrets… I think it’s a brilliant idea to ask bloggers on how to stay fit, because as a group we are definitely food lovers so a little healthy advice never hurts. Now as for myself and my tips… they’re maybe not earth shattering and most of it is common sense, but still it was good to think about what I do to stay fit and healthy (not enough to be honest) and also on how I can improve on that myself.

Hop on over to Sanjeeta’s blog and check out the other bloggers who posted on AFBHLS before. You might be inspired. And yes, you will also find this wonderful recipe that I send in with quinoa, feta, tomato and courgette. Delicious!

Quinoa salad with courgetta and feta

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Serves:	2
Prep time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	10 minutes
Total time:	20 minutes
Dietary:	Vegetarian
Meal type:	Salad
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

• 75g quinoa
• 1 piece courgette (big)
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 spring onions (finely chopped)
• 100g cherry tomatoes (quartered)
• 1 red chili (finely chopped, seeds removed)
• 100g feta (crumbled)

Directions

Cook the quinoa (about 10 minutes), drain and rinse with cold water. Leave to drain

Cut the ends of the courgettes and slice with a potato peeler into thin ribbons.

Add the oil and the vinegar together, mix well and season with salt and pepper

Put everything together, pour the dressing over and stir. And you're done! Enjoy!

Note

Perfect for a light summery lunch

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Grilled asparagus with grilled haloumi and mustard dressing

I can’t believe what is happening with the weather at the moment. The temperatures are rising to summer levels and beyond. It’s been 26C almost the entire week, which is weird if you think that it is only April! Now I am not complaining but I am totally in summer mood and I know this will most likely not last long enough to give us a summer that is this good. Nature is slightly confused too with dandelions blooming two weeks before their time (which was great for my photoshoot as you can see… )and I am sure this will eventually have an effect on crops and prices of veggies and fruit at some point.

I think we had a similar warm spring last year or the year before and the end result was that we had rain for the biggest part of the summer. I even heard on the news that apparently we are currently the warmest country in Europe! Now how weird is that??

But let me not forget to wish you all a wonderful Easter!! I don’t think there have been many Easters in the last centuries where we could actually have a barbecue or lounge on the beach! Haha… I am sure that will be source for talk in the years to come too. In the meantime this is perfect as we are entertaining some friends tonight and we’re making a wonderful roast lamb with a new potatoesalad with capers and mashed peas with mint. The starters we have done before; first off it will be this lovely little salad with smoked salmon and then followed by scallops wrapped in prosciutto. And for dessert we have Jamie’s fabulous mascarpone berry cream.

Now that sounds like a great meal right? I am a little anxious about the lamb as we are not that familiar with cooking large pieces of meat, but I think we’ll be ok…. I will share the results with you if they are any good (and also if they’re not..lol)

But now on to the dish I am sharing with you today; a beautiful little salad with asparagus and grilled haloumi. It’s brilliant in flavor and the mustard dressing fits perfectly. It’s asparagus season and if you love asparagus this is the dish for you. It’s quick and the saltiness of the halloumi works well with the asparagus. It would be great as a small starter or it works well as a lunch on a hot summer (or spring) day as I did this week. Enjoy!

Grilled asparagus with grilled halloumi

5.0 from 1 reviews

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Recipe type: Appetiser, lunch

Author: Simone van den Berg

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 2

A delicious and quick lunch which is also perfect as an elegant little starter dish

Ingredients

• 200 gr green asparagus
• 100 gr haloumi cheese
• 1 tbsp course mustard
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp of honey
• chives
• 1/2 tbsp of sesame oil
• salt
• pepper

Instructions

1. While you heat your grillpan, make the dressing
2. Put the lemon juice, mustard, honey, sesame oil and oliveoil together in a small bowl and whisk well to combine.
3. Chop the chives into small pieces, but only add them to the dressing at the last minute.
4. Clean your asparagus by breaking the last wooden part of the stalks.
5. Brush each stalk with some oliveoil and put them on the grill for about 3-4 minutes. They should still have a good bite to them.
6. Cut your haloumi into slices, brush them also with oliveoil and grill for 1-2 minutes each side.
7. For plating put 3-5 stalks of asparagus per plate, drape the grilled haloumi over it and carefully add 1 tbsp of the dressing over the dish.
8. Serve the remaining dressing on the side

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

1.2.4

 

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Spring rolls

While the rain keeps pouring down outside I was very much in the mood for something that would give me a bit of a spring feeling. I mean; I don’t mind winter but the current weather is too miserable! Ofcourse I am officially not allowed to complain as we are leaving on our trip to Costa Rica on saturday so I will have to endure only two more days of rain before (hopefully) enjoying some sunshine. It’s been a rather weird week. Tom’s grandma died very unexpectedly last friday at the age of 88. And while that is respectable age it still always comes as a surprise. Just a week before we had celebrated her 88th birthday with the entire family and she was in fairly good health (taking her age into consideration) and no matter how much you know it is coming; it is always hard to lose a loved one.

The cremation is this friday, so the day before we leave. Which means that on the one hand I am busy packing but on the other hand there is that…. Plus Tom has been busy getting into trainings at his new job and he hasn’t stayed home for the first part of the week. So all in all, it’s been a weird week. But all weeks come to an end and this one will end as well..

So on to this springy little dish. I saw the original recipe online at the Good Food website but didn’t feel like eating prawns which was in the original. I imagine it will be great with prawns too but since I was in the process of getting rid of the content of our fridge and had some leftover chicken, that is what I used. And well, what can I say about these rolls other then; what’s not to love? They taste incredibly nice and the good things about springrolls is that you can fill them with whatever you like.

I use fillopastry to make the rolls but I still have some ricepaper too which I am dying to use for the next time. I am thinking of making steamed ones so they become translucent. I like the baked ones better but I think the steamed ones just look so pretty! See through and everything!

So how to make these little darlings? It’s not hard at all and here’s what you need:

CHICKEN SPRING ROLL WRAPS (serves 4) Adapted from Good Food website

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