Back from Ireland

Hello everyone!


I've been away for a while for the Summer vacation. I'm still a student - not for long now because next year June I hope to complete my Master of Political Sciences - and the Summer is really the ONLY time of year I can get away for longer than a day. That is if you don't have to resit exams of course!


I went with two of my best friends, Johannes and Emily, to Ireland. We explored the West coast in the County Clare. Our aim was to hire a car, but unfortunately the car hire companies don't trust students with licences younger than two years ... We only found out about that a day before we had our flight to Dublin, so we improvised a bit and were able to catch a train to Ennis the same day our plane landed. After a few hours by train, we arrived and our trip could start for real.
Not having a car on hand, we decided to hire bicycles instead. At least we didn't need to prove our skills beforehand to the shopkeepers ;)


Taking your holiday in Ireland is a risk. With on average nearly 300 days of rain a year, it's a miracle to not get wet, especially on bikes. But the near impossible happened: we had the best week of the year yet with blue skies, a lot of sun and 20°C! (that couldn't be compared with the much higher temperatures of +30°C in my home Belgium at the same moment, but who cares?)

Ireland is a wondrous destination. I can recommend it to you all. I'm a nature lover and the nature is everywhere. There are also numerous ruins of monasteries, castles, churches, high crosses ... so that people interested in history and culture have everything they need.


We stayed at a cottage we rented for the holiday. A super nice woman called Brenda Reilly took the greatest care of us, with even a delicious welcome pack on the first day. 


Anyway, after such a holiday, I'm totally re-energated and ready for another year. 


Today it was the first day of me cooking at home since Ireland. I had this strange craving for pizza for a while, so I made my healthy home made version of it again. 
I made a mainly vegetable with a little ham one for me (round) and a partly meat-partly fish one for both of my parents (the elongated ones due to not enough space on the tray).

The dough and the tomato sauce is the same as for the other pizza I once made. 

Toppings round pizza:

- 1/2 roasted yellow bell pepper

- 50 grams ham

- diced mozzarella cheese (as much as you like)

- grated gruyère cheese (again, as much as you like)

- fresh basil leaves

- chilli flakes

Toppings for one of the elongated pizza's:

- 1/2 roasted yellow bell pepper

- 25 grams ham

- 25 grams salami 

- 1/2 tin crab meat

- 6 anchovies

- 2 or more olives, halved

- fresh basil

- mozzarella cheese

- grated gruyère cheese

- chilli flakes

On the pizza's for my parents, I divided each pizza in half approximately and topped each half with either meat or fish. the other ingredients were put on both parts.

They really liked theirs, and I liked my - slightly lighter - version also greatly!

Pasta with Summer flavours

The weather is dreadful yet again. No sign of Summer, only rain, lots of wind and a dark sky. Let's hope it's changing for the better once the 21st of June comes. I'm prepared to wait for the official date to call it Summer, but after that I expect much more from the skies above us!

To ease the pain, I have to do with food that gives me a joyful feeling.

Today it was pasta with fresh vegetables, Italian ham, pine nuts and fresh cheese. Due to the vegetables that aren't cooked along, you get a nice crunch and it's really a cross between a pasta and a salad.

Ingredients for 4:

- 300 grams pasta (penne for example)

- 200 grams fresh cheese (I used Philadelphia)

- 150 grams Italian ham

- 35 grams pine nuts

- 80 grams rucola (rocket)

- 100 grams cherry tomatoes

- 3 dl milk

- pepper and salt to taste

- crushed dried chilli to taste

- some cheese to top (if you like) like emmental, gruyère ...

How to:

First, cut the tomatoes in half and place them next to eachother with the wet side up on an oven tray. Put the tray in a 150°C oven for about 1 hour. The tomatoes will come out a little dried and their taste will be even sweeter.

Cook the pasta al dente. 

In the meanwhile, cut the ham in smaller, bitesize pieces. Roast the pine nuts.

Warm the cheese in the milk. It'll get thickened while heated. Add pepper and salt to taste to the sauce.

Toss the cooked pasta in the cheese sauce so that it gets soaked up.

Now assemble everything: spoon a bit of pasta in a plate, put some ham, pine nuts, rucola and cherry tomatoes on it. Then spoon some more pasta on top of it. Put some ham, pine nuts, rucola and cherry tomatoes on it again, crush some chilli on it and cover with some cheese.

I promise: it's a heavy dish, but the Summer flavours make up for at least some of the bad weather!

Pizza from scratch

A few days ago my sister asked me when we would eat Swiss cheese fondue again. I don't like it a lot, but she's doing her exams this month, so no question of hers can be denied I guess. I went for the fondue at the supermarket - I've never prepared it myself, so the shop's will do for the time being.

For myself - not a fan of the bread in cheese combination - I decided to make my own pizza from scratch. 

Knowing my own habits of messing around, I made the dough and the tomato sauce this morning before taking a shower (so that my hair wouldn't be white from flour again). 

Ingredients for a 1 person's pizza dough:

- 85 ml luke warm water

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 2/3 tablespoon honey

- 1 tablespoon olive oil (I used scented oil with bay leaves and peppers)

- 116 grams flour

- 2 to 3 grams instant yeast

How to:

Mix the water, yeast and honey and leave them for a couple of minutes.
Then add the flour to form a sticky dough. Add the salt when all the other ingredients have been mixed thoroughly. It'll look somewhat like this:

Knead for a little while and make a ball of it which you put in a small bowl covered in the olive oil. Cover the bowl with a towel/tin foil/... until it has risen. As I made it early in the morning and the pizza was meant for tonight, I set it in the fridge. 

Ingredients for the tomato sauce:

(enough for 3 pizza's - put the rest in the freezer if not needed)

- 1 can of peeled tomatoes (400 grams)

- 1 little can of tomato paste (70 grams)

- 2 cloves of garlic

- 1 tablespoon basil

- 1 tablespoon oregano

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

- 2 teaspoons sugar

How to:

Heat the peeled tomatoes, the tomato paste and the mashed garlic cloves until they cook. Add the herbs, sugar, salt and pepper and let simmer on low heat for at least 20 minutes.

I'm quite fond of my toppings. I think I've not quite often chosen different ones the last couple of years. They're nearly always tomato sauce, cooked ham, parmesan cheese, fresh basil leaves and a little gruyere. You might say it's like pizza prosciutto, but my version.

After assembling the pizza, it was ready to be put in the oven (230°C) for about 20 minutes. I usually depend on my instincts and take it out when I think it should. The crust must be light golden brown in colour and must sound hollow when tapped.

I dare say it's been a really good dinner. I watched my sister and parents eat their cheese fondue and I enjoyed my pizza in the meanwhile :)

Believe me, this pizza tastes much better than it's freezer counterparts!