A Dutch Classic

It has been raining all weekend. As most parents with small children will experience, I too am extremely prone to all kinds of colds. So when it starts raining, and the children come home with a only a tiny bit of a cold, I immediately start sneezing.

Time for some soup! I know, I should have been making chicken stock... It just is the best when you are having a cold, but this Vegetable Soup with Meatballs is sooo comforting and warming on rainy days.
It takes a while to make, but most of the time is waiting time, so can be spent with (in my case) the children.
In these rainy weekends we spent a lot of time in our big 'living kitchen', working on childrens art projects such as making a house out of cardboard boxes, painting, cutting and pasting images from magazines etcetera.

I find it comforting to hear the delicate bubbling sounds of the soup in process next to the tapping sound of the rain on the roof and the windows. Not too mention smelling the soup, which already warms me without even tasting it.
Probably it is in my genes, as my mother and also my grandmother would allways make their own broths as well. I must have passed the 'love of this soup' genes to my children, because both my children love this soup and are even eating the veggies in it!

Vegetable Soup with Meatballs
A Dutch Classic

Ingredients for 1 pan of soup:
Broth:
2 marrowbones (1 with and 1 without meat),or more if you like.
1 very small tin of tomatoconcentrate
1 celery
2 big carrots
2 onions
1 leek, green parts
1 hand of parsley

Finishing the soup:
1 leek, white parts
1 spring onion
250g of mushroom
250g of minced meat
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
Vermicelli
Parsely

Put on the oven-grill on highest temperature. Spread a spoon of tomatoconcentrate on the marrowbones and roast them for about 10 minutes in the oven. Put the bones in a pan and fill with cold water. Put it on the stove at a low heat. Chop the celery, 2 onions (washed, but unpeeled), the green part of the leek and 2 1/2 carrot in big chunks and roast for a few minutes in the oven as well, after which you toss them in the pan. Also add some parsely, peppercorns, and of course whatever vegetables/herbs you furthermore like to put in.

Leave it on the low heat for a few hours, preferably the whole day. Strain the soup into another pan, squeezing out as much fluids as you can from the vegetables. Throw away the vegetables from which the soup was maked, but save the meat.
If you want to save the broth for later you could reduce it now untill you only have about a quarter left, cool it and freeze it in small portions ready to use whenever you need a broth as a basis for soups or sauces.

If you are ready to make the soup, you'll go on by pulling the meat in small pieces and add it to the strained soup. Season with salt & pepper.

Finely chop an onion and the clove of garlic and put in a bowl together with the minced meat, egg, breadcrumbs salt & pepper. Make a lot of small balls from the meatmixture.
Finely chop the white of the leek, the remaing 1/2 carrot and the spring onion. Roughly chop the mushrooms.

Add mushrooms, meatballs and vermicelli to the soup and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the vegetables 2-3 more minutes.
Taste and season some more if you like. Put in bowls and dress up with a little fresh parsley if you like.

Score: 5 out of 5, but only if you take enough time to let it simmer!
Tip: Make a large pan full of the broth, reduce half of it and freeze it in small portions (icecubebags are perfect) use the other half to make the soup. You can throw in just about any vegetable you like a few minutes before serving. A mix with small pieces of cauliflower, leek and carrots is a popular choice in the Netherlands. And don't forget the meatballs, without these it wouldn't be a Dutch Classic!
Time: to make it perfect, you'll need at least one day.
Amount of work vs waiting: Low.
About 30 minutes to start it up if you roast your meat and veggies, which I would recommend. But you could also make a lazy version by just putting all ingredients in the pan, fill it up with water and be ready to let it simmer within 5 minutes.
Finishing the soup will take about 30 minutes, making the meatballs and chopping the veggies.
Ideal for: Simple family dinner, Autumn, Winter

Quiche

Making quiches always brings back good memories to me. When we were dating I often planned a biking or walking picnic trip into nature. Usually I would bake a savoury quiche, make a small salad, pack a bottle of good wine and we were of for the day. Enjoying the nice weather, beautiful nature, a nice meal and of course each other.

With small children and fully booked agenda's this belongs to the past, and only the sweet memories stay with us. But nothing to be sad about, there is room to make plenty more sweet memories that do or do not involve quiches! Having a family picnic isn't as lazy, and we usually go to a park nowadays where we meet up with friends instead of making trips into the woods, but they are just as memorable as the old days. 

Talking with friends while watching the children all play together, drinking a good glass of wine and enjoying the same old quiche... Life evolves, but with some sun on your face, good company, a nice glass of wine and good food, it still treats us very well!

Ingredients for 1 quiche:

Basics:

1/2 package of puff pastry. (You can make it yourself, but I like the one we have in the freezer here, and it is so much easier...)
A spoon of butter

250g creme fraiche, mascarpone, double cream or something comparable
1 or 2 eggs
200g grated cheese
garlic
Salt (a little) & pepper

Other ingredients:
Basically you can variate all you want with the other ingredients inside. See some suggestions below.

Heat the oven at 210 degrees Celsius. (410 degrees Fahrenheit)
Defrost the puff pastry. Whisk the eggs and put most of it through the creme fraiche (or whatever alternative you use) in a large bowl, save some whisked egg for later. Finely slice or press the garlic and add to the mixture, add a little salt, some pepper and the cheese.

Spread the butter on the baking mould. Cover the mould with the pastry, letting it hang slightly over the edges.
Put in the other ingredients of your quiche and cover with your cheesy/creamy mixture. Fold the edges in. I sometimes (as in the picture above) like to make a roof of puff pastry, adding a bit more pastry to close up the pie. But you can also choose to bake it without a roof. Spread the little bit of whisked egg over the pastry roof or edges and put in the heated oven for about 40-45 minutes. Let it cool for a picnic or serve hot for a simple family style dinner.

A few of my favourite quiches:

My Basic quiche, super simple but preferred by my husband:
Bacon, leek and mushrooms (I bake the mushrooms with salt &pepper before I put it in, but put the leek and bacon in raw, they cook inside the quiche)
You can keep it in the fridge overnight and eat again the following day. It is also nice when eaten cold, and is also nice without the mushrooms.

Sweet onion & goatcheese quiche
Shallots, goatcheese, honey, thyme. Gently bake the shallots for 15-20 minutes. Add the thyme to the cheesemixture. Devide the shallots and half of the goatcheese over the pastry, add the cheesmixture put the rest of the goatcheese on top and sprinkle some honey over it.
Serve hot or cold, you can keep it overnight in the fridge.

Chicken- Tauge quiche
Chicken, mushrooms, tauge, more garlic. Cut the chicken into pieces and shortly bake them with some salt and pepper. Bake the mushroom with salt and pepper in another pan, add the finely sliced garlic for another minute and put all of it together with the chicken and tauge on the pastry. Add the cheese mixture, put a pastryroof on this one and serve it immediately when it comes out of the oven. The tauge gives a nice fresh bite to this quiche, but when you leave it to cool down and or reheat it, I don't like it any more. So no picnicfood...

I can think of a thousand other nice quiches to make, ingredients that you can add to the quiches above, but I suggest you start experimenting for yourself!

Score: 4 out of 5
Tip: nice for picknick's. Quiches are also very good partyfood, especially a lot of small (different) ones in bright cupcake forms. They are easy to make and everybody just loves them.

Time: 1 hour (15-20 minutes work, 40-45minutes oven-time)
Amount of work vs waiting: low
Degree of difficulty: easy-moderate
Ideal for: Picnic, simple family dinner, party

PS, curious what I put in this one? It was my husbands favourite with bacon, leek and mushroom, but I also added a few baked onions.

Spicy Zucchini Soup

It's summertime, so I love to eat cold soups as a starter! Making a tasty soup for a dinnerparty is a great way to have a succesfull evening while still having time to chat with your guests. It is easily made and can be prepared in advance. The only thing you have to do is serve them!

The soup I made wasn't for vegetarians, because I used homemade chickenstock, but of course you could add some vegetable stock instead. Since making this zucchini soup is sooooo easy when you already have a stock prepared (or if you use a stock cube) I will also add my tips for making chicken stock...

Whenever we eat chicken, I choose either a whole chicken or chicken legs. For example, we make our Green Chicken, or any other chicken recipe. We have our family meal, and when cleaning up after dinner, I collect all the chickenbones and rests of the vegetables which have not been touched. Instead of throwing things away, I put it in a pan, add fresh water, and usually some carrots, celery, onions, a few black peppercorns, parsely or whatever useful ingredients I find in my fridge or garden. Leave it on the stove for about an hour, cool it down and put it in the fridge overnight.

The next (or another following day) I put it on the stove for a couple of hours more. After which I sieve it, season it, cool it again and use it as a base for various soups. The easiest is chickensoup, for which I use the rests of the meat on the bones. Pulling the meat of the chickenbones is a great meditative activity...  Then add some vegetables and vermicelli and you have a delicious and wholesome chicken soup. Especially recommended for when you have flu patients in your house, they'll inmediately feel better after this homemade soup.

To make your stock even more delicious, you could roast the bones and vegetables before you put them into the water. It is also possible to add a variety of herbs, or other flavours. I sometimes use thyme, garlic or ginger, but usually I prefer the more plain version.

Back to the Spicy Zucchini Soup, super easy to make, a very good start for a dinnerparty or your family dinner. For the kids, you can just skipp the sriracha if they are not a fan of spicy food (yet). You can make it in advance and have it at the dinnertable within a minute. Perfect for summer! For our family dinner I added an icecube with an oreganoflower, just to make it look nice and because it was available in our garden. (The oreganoflowers, not the icecubes..). Flavourwise it would have been better (even though we finished our soup long before the oreganoflavour reached the glass) to have a mintflower icecube. But, hey, it looks nice!

Spicy Zucchini Soup
Author: me

Ingredients for a small pan of soup:
2 onions
4 cloves of garlic
2 small (or 1 large) zucchinis
A splash of olive oil
1/2 liter of chickenstock (or any other stock)
Salt & pepper
Sriracha
For garnish: a (edible) flower in an icecube

Chop the onions, garlic and zucchini. Gently fry the onion, after 2-3minutes add the garlic and zucchini. Fry for another few minutes, add the stock and blend with an immersionblender. Put the pan in the sink filled with a layer of icecoldwater and icecubes just below the level of soup in the pan. If neccessary, change the surrounding cooling water once or twice. When cooled down, season to taste, prefill your serving glasses and put in the fridge.
Prior to serving, add an icecube and a few drops of sriracha.

Score: 3 out of 5, but for simplicity and advance preparation 5 out of 5.
Tip: without sriracha also perfect for small children. Check out the text above for tips on making the chickenstock.
Time: 45 minutes, of which 10 minutes preparing, the rest is cooling.
Amount of work vs waiting: low
Degree of difficulty: easy
Ideal for: summerdinner, simple family dinner, dinnerparty

Green Chicken

Ok, I will admit... It doesn't instantly sound appealing, and the picture isn't that great either, but it is one of our favorite 'homemade' recipes! It is something my husband 'invented' one day and it has immediately won over the harts (and stomachs) of our children. This was back in the days that our oldest didn't eat much more than sweet sandwiches and fruits, and we were seriously worried about his protein (and vitamin) intake. So we were delighted he started to eat some meat. Nowadays we are lucky if he let's us eat some of the chicken...

So back to the not very appealing picture of the chicken, I have a presentation for my job to work on, so after some (but not enough..) research on the internet I bought a programm (picmonkey) to make some alterations and watermarks in my pictures. I started practicing on these watermarks and texts in my food pictures. Wow! It is funny to see how a rather dull picture can become something special with a bit of text in it. You can see for yourself here! Ok, the green may be a little too much shouting, but it's my first try. Give me a few posts before you judge it, and let me (a total digital moron) be proud of it.

So, would I recommend Picmonkey to you for upgrading your pictures? Only if you have a device with a flashplayer... Yep, I didn't do enough research (luckily it wasn't that expensive), and I do think that Picmonkey should have warned about needing adobe flash player before it sold me a subscription, but it doesn't work on Ipad/Iphone (yet). Basicly it doesn't work on the devices I take my pictures with and from where I work most of the time... So now I have to, very efficiently..., transfer my picures to the laptop first, add the watermark and texts, and transfer them back. But hey, I love what it does to my pictures and I haven't even tried all of the options yet. So I'll be working from my laptop more often, and I might have to start working on getting this website more professional now that my pics start to look so profi..?

Back to the chicken!
Green Chicken
Personal recipe

Ingredients for 4p:
1 whole chicken, preferably organic
4 (or more) hands full of basil leaves
4 cloves of garlic
60ml olive oil
1/2 lemon
400g of small potatoes
250g of mushrooms
6-10 scallions
250g of cherry tomatoes
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees celcius. (356 F)
Grind the basil leaves with 1 clove of garlic and some salt & pepper in a mortar, add half of the oil. Make a space under as much of the skin of the chicken as possible and rub the basil mixture in this space. Also rub some salt & pepper in the belly. Cut the lemon in peaces and put together with some tomatoes, scallions and garlic gloves in the belly of the chicken.
Put the chicken in a casserole and pour the rest of the oil on top and put it in the oven.

Boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes. Add the potatoes, rest of the garlic, scallion, tomatoes and the mushroom in the casserole after 20-30 minutes and leave in the oven for another 30 minutes. Enjoy your chicken, and don't forget to save the bones and juices...

Score: 5 out of 5, but I must admit I'm a little prejudiced, so maybe you should try for yourself...
Tip: You can add all sorts of other vegetables (and herbs for that matter). usually we eat 2 times from one chicken, next day I make a salad or pasta with the 'spared' meat. After you finish, usually I put the bones and remaining fluids and veggies in a pan full of cold water, add some leek, carrots and celery and simmer for a few hours. Take out the solid parts with a strainer, season with salt & pepper and you'll have a very nice homemade broth.
Time: 75 minutes
Amount of work vs waiting: Low, about 20 minute work, and rest is oventime.
Degree of difficulty: Easy
Ideal for: Children's favorite, simple family dinner

Spinach 'Meatballs' with Spaghetti & Courgettesauce

We have a winner and a keeper!!!!

Our children our the worst eaters I've ever met, especially the oldest. When he was 7 months, old after one of those childrens illnesses, he decided he didn't want anything but milk and bread. After a while some pear and bananas went in as well, but meat and/or vegetables were out of the question. After his first birthday, he started to eat a little bit more. But, now 4 years old, still his diet exists of bread with peanutbutter or someother sweet topping, some types of fruit, sausages, chicken, kibbeling (a dutch fishdish you buy at a fishstand and consists of fried pieces of seasoned cod) and pasta without any sauce. Since half a year now, we now and then get him to eat a tiny bit of veggies by giving him only a little bit of the food he loves (sausages or chicken) and reward him with some more only if he eats a bit of his vegetables. But it is a fragile standoff, if we ask him to eat too much vegetables for a piece of meat he will not eat anything anymore... Trust me, we've done just about everything else to get him to eat a more normal and healthier diet. It just doesn't work with him.

His little sister isn't too fond of her veggies eather, but she can, like most children, sometimes be tricked by hiding the veggies in a sauce or in these spinachballs!!!, which she absolutely loved.
We had to trick her older brother to eat almost a whole spinachball by telling stories about Popeye and promising him more spaghetti without sauce. Meanwhile she was, as we say in Dutch, watching the food out of his mouth, after she had already eaten three balls of her own and some spaghetti (with sauce.. there has got to be some difference).

Spinach 'Meatballs' with Spaghetti & Courgettesauce
Adapted from:
Pasta met courgettesaus en spinazieballetjes
Eerlijk Italiaans, pg 24 & 72
Author: Antonio Carluccio

Ingredients for 4p:
Spinachballs:
500g fresh spinach
2 eggs
small amount of freshly grounded nutmeg
1 clove of garlic
5-6 slices of fresh white bread without the crust
50g of grated parmezan or grano padano
50ml of olive oil
salt & pepper

Spaghetti:
400g of spaghetti (all'uovo if you can find it)
2 cloves of garlic
1 red chilipepper
2 courgettes
20-30ml olive oil
50g of grated parmezan or grano padano

Firstly make the spinachballs (you can even give them straight away to your children, adding spaghetti later).
Wash the spinach, boil it in lightly salted water for 1-2 minutes, drain and cool it. Squeeze the spinach untill you cannot get anymore fluid out of it. (Maybe save the water for a healthy drink?)
Finely cut the leaves and put it in a big bowl. Loosely beat the eggs in a separate bowl and add to the spinach afterwards. Finely cut the garlic add a tiny bit of salt and rub the garlic into a paste. Add to the big bowl. Pull the bread into fine pieces and add it. Also add the parmezan, nutmeg, some salt & pepper. Mix and make balls from the mixture. (NB, if it is too wet you can add the extra bread)
Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the balls and gently fry them golden brown in 4-5 minutes each side. Take out and leave to rest on kitchen paper. (Also possible to keep them warm in the oven if you like)

Cook the spaghetti for 8-10 minutes 'al dente' in plenty of lightly salted water. Catch a bit of the boiled fluid when you drain the spaghetti.
For the sauce grate the courgettes. Finely cut the garlic and chilipepper and gently fry them for about a minute in the oil in a frying pan. Add the grated courgette for 3-4 minutes. Take it off the gas and add the parmezan, season with salt & pepper and mix well. Put it together with the spaghetti and a little bit of the boiled pastafluid. Serve with the spinachballs on top.

Score: General: 3 out of 5, but 5 out of 5 for making the kids eat spinach!
Tip: The spinachballs can also be served chilled as an appetizer. Without the spinachballs this is a really simple and fast pastadish for after a day of work, maybe add some smoked salmon or nuts.
Time: Spinachballs: 20-30minutes, pasta 10-12 minutes
Amount of work vs waiting: high, spinachballs you have some waiting time during frying, but I suggest you keep an eye on the balls. During pasta cooking time you can prep your pastasauce.
Degree of difficulty: Medium
Ideal for: Children's favourite, simple family dinner, appetizer, vegetarian dinner

Quinoa Goddess Salad with Shrimps and Avocados

This spring I found a recipe in the 'Allerhande', a free magazine from the largest dutch luxury supermarket chain, Albert Heijn, inspired by a californian green goddess salad. Since then I've been cooking this frequently because I absolutely love it!
This week for the first time I actually made the original recipe, because usually I give my own twist to it, and it was great to eat the goddess again. Although I personally liked my own version with a different type of lettuce better... I will show you some pictures of that version the next time we'll be eating this superb salad again!
It is a whole meal kind of salad, no side dishes needed, but my husband likes some freshly baked (ok, baked-off, I don't have the time to bake bread during weekdays since we don't have a machine for it) with it.

It is kind of 'good weather food' but since I had my mind set on it, and groceries had already been done in better days, we ate it (and still enyoyed it) on a rainy day.
I really love quinoa, but with most of the recipes it is not to my husbands likings. This is one of the exceptions however, luckily for me because it became my 2015 favourite spring/summer meal.
I think it is the dressing that won my husbands hart over. The anchovis make it savory, there is some sweet from the mayonaise and sour from the lemonjuice but the combi with the chives and basil makes it a very special dressing that goes so well together with the shrimps and avocado. The texture of the dressing binds the quinoa together to give it a very nice sensation in your mouth.

I have just started blogging and I still have to find out how to make cathegories, but this one will end up in my old-time-favourite section for sure, so let's start!

Quinoa Goddess Salad with Shrimps and Avocados
Quinoasalade met avocado en garnalen
Allerhande 2015
Author unknown

Ingredients for 4p:
150g quinoa (black according to the original recipe, I've always used the regular version)
300ml vegetable stock
250g green peas
1 cucumber
Iceberglettuce sliced in fine pieces (I like it better with lambs lettuce)
4 anchovis
juice of 1/2 a lemon
4 spoons of mayonaise (which you can of course also easily make yourself when time is on your hand)
a big bundle of chives
2 hands full of basil leaves.
2 avocados
150g (or just a bunch) of peeled shrimps
salt & pepper

Boil quinoa in the vegetable stock for about 10 minutes with a closed lid. Put aside and let it cool down. Boil de green peas for 1-2 minutes and put in icewater or under cold running water untill it is cold again.
Peel and slice the cucumber in parts. Mix quinoa, lettuce, cucumber and green peas.

Finely slice the anchovis and mix it with the mayonaise and lemonjuice. Chop the chives and basil leaves. Mix half of the herbs in the anchovis-mayonaise. Add some pepper and salt if you wish.

Cut the avocados in small wedges. Put the salad in a bowl, dress up with the avocado and shrimps, add some of the dressing (give the rest on the side) and finish with the remaining herbs. Bon appetit!

Score: 5 out of 5
Tip: I think it's better with lambs lettuce, looks prettier as well.. Cooking the quinoa in a nice homecooked stock will make it so much tastier, you will hardly need any dressing if you want to have a slimmer salad.
Time: 20-30 minutes. Again, depending on your cutting-skills
Degree of difficulty: Easy
Amount of work vs waiting: High, you can do your cutting and gathering while you wake for your quinoa to cook and cool down.
Ideal for: Romantic dinner, family dinner, spring/summer meal, dinnerparty, lunch, salad

Sausage with a soursweet onion-ale marmelade

Yesterday the kids were quite tired, so the little one had an extra afternoon nap and the oldest sat half asleep in front of the TV. Time for some cooking.....!
Since it is holidayseason and I have a little bit more time at home, I thought ahead and bought for the first time in ages a cooking magazine from where I selected some dishes to cook this week.
In the prekids era, I used to buy these kinds of magazines at least ones a month. Also my bookshelves are full of cookbooks, so really, if I were to cook all of the recipes I've collected in all those years, I'm not even sure I would have sufficient time left...
But there is something about those culinary books and magazines that it keeps me wanting more and more. Maybe it is the gorgeous pictures and lay-out, I don't know, but they have a strong appeal on me.

So, as I said before, it has been a long time since I last bought a food magazine, so for my first try-out recipe I sought out something easy and tasty, something that would appeal to all the members of my family. (That's quite difficult, but I'll write about that some other day)
I wanted to be able to make this meal with two children screaming and hanging around (or on) my legs, as cookingtime usually is a difficult time for the kids. But, this time I was lucky with my little (half)sleepers. It isn't the most attractive food to look at, but it tastes great!

                                  


But I must admit, it would have been easily done with two children in my hair, and it was delicious, it will therefore be not the last time this sauce was cooked at this house!
I will no longer hold you in suspence, here it comes...
As always I adjust recipes a little to my liking, so ingredients and workways may differ from the original recipe to which I refer.

Sausage with soursweet onion-ale marmelade
Broodjes worst van de bbq met bier-uienmarmelade
Delicious. augustus 2015, page 44
Author Valli Little

Ingredients for 4p.
Olive oil 50 ml
2-3 Onion, sliced in thin rings
Pinch of salt
Half a bottle of dark ale
Spoonful of butter
40 Gram of sugar
1 Spoonful of redwine vinegar
4 Sausages (pork)
4 Crispy breads (I used bake-off German breads)
4 Spoons of Groninger musterd (or whatever you have available)
Lettuce, rucola or watercress

Heat the oil in the frying pan at medium high. Slowly bake the onion goldenbrown with a good pinch of salt (about 30 minutes). If you are not precooking the sauce, now would be a good time to put your sausages (if they are as big as mine) in another frying pan. Pour the ale in the pan and reduce by half (5-10 minutes). Add butter, sugar and vinegar and let it reduce to a dark, sticky sauce. Put aside, this you can make the prior evening or during kid's naptime.
Now, you can either light up the bbq as the original recipe said, or you can just put your sausages in another frying pan, like I did. That is, if you haven't got them in your pan already... Also heat up the oven, if you have to bake-off your bread.
Cut the breads and grill them if you want. Put as much musterd as you like on both sides of the bread, add lettuce/rucola or watercress, put in the sausage and add a good heap of your onionsauce. It's delicious!!!

Score: 4 out of 5 for the sauce
Tips: I liked it best with rucola
Time: Original recipe 45min; it took me: Sauce only 45 minutes, whole dish 50-60 minutes
Degree of difficulty: Easy
Amount of work vs waiting: Low
Ideal for: Simple family dinner, BBQ-party's