Chocolate chip cookies with a twist

It's good outside so I decided to take my book out in the garden to read it there. I didn't think it would get that hot in the sun, though. I really had to get inside before getting a sunburn. But what to do when you have time off and you can't do what you had in mind? Right: you get creative in the kitchen :)

Creative to do what I wanted to do (baking chocolate chip cookies) without the necessary ingredients (no vanilla extract, no plain chocolate, ...). Substitutions would have to do.

Ingredients for 8 large cookies:
- 105 grams butter
- 120 grams white chocolate with rice crispies
- 50 grams milk chocolate with hazelnuts (like the one from Côte d'Or)
- 60 grams white sugar
- 1 egg
- 160 grams flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

How to:
In a small pot, melt the butter and the white chocolate. Take off the fire once they've combined and add the sugar and the egg. 
Then put the flour and the baking powder in. Mix well.
When your dough is cooled off, you can throw in the hazelnut chocolate you've cut or broken into small pieces. Stir again so that the chunks are all over the dough.
Line a baking tray with some non-stick paper and make 8 large heaps of dough, evenly spread out over the tray.
Put in a 230°C preheated oven and bake for about 10-15 minutes.
The cookies are still gooey when ready. They set and get crispy when cooled off completely.

My parents' found them delicious. My mum really liked the nutty taste. She thinksI used the real nuts ;) My dad didn't say anything but just ate 2 large ones in about five minutes time!

my sister and one of the cookies ...

Birthday party!

Friday I turned 22 years old. Yesterday, the 5th of August, we celebrated. I invited quite some people but I didn't think everyone would be able to come. 35 people came and with the ambition to prepare all the food by myself, it was the largest party I organised yet.

Originally - that is before I knew that many people could come - I wanted to do a Middle and South American night. I looked up recipes from all over the continent, from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, ... But as we didn't have pots large enough for the crowd, I switched plans for something less complicated. 

I was to make a buffet of different kinds of bread and side dishes to go along with them. 
To serve with the coffee, I made biscuits and as dessert I made fresh pineapple and chocolate ice cream.
The ice cream was a total experiment: I never made it and we don't own an ice machine. When I told my uncle I made my own ice cream he laughed and said 'Yeah, that won't be much of a success ...!', but when he tasted it he was delighted. Haha! 

Top-down, left to right: buttermilk-poppyseed bread, walnut bread,
multigrain bread, Colombian torta de choclo, raisin bread and saffron bread

Loved making all of it, but it took a full day and a half to do so.

Especially the saffron bread was liked by everyone. Therefore I put the recipe on the blog.

Ingredients for a large saffron bread:
- 700 grams white flour
- 450 ml lukewarm milk
- 1 gram saffron powder
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 7 grams instant yeast
- 25 grams butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk

How to:
Put all the flour, the salt and the sugar in a large bowl. Mix well so that the salt and sugar have been taken up completely. Make a hole in the heap of flour and place small chunks of butter around the hole. Pour in the yeast, milk and egg in the hole. 
Now start kneading with your hands. It's quite a sticky kind of dough, but add a little more flour if you're unable to shape the dough. 
Put the ball of dough aside in a warm enough place for at least 1,5 hour. Cover the bowl with a clean towel to prevent it getting in touch with too much cold air.
Knead the dough again for a couple of minutes. Now you can shape the dough to your liking. I made a round bread yesterday, but any shape is possible (but make sure it's shape is not too uneven so that it can bake properly without getting burned a a side while the other side is still raw!).
Set aside for another 1,5 hour. In the meanwhile you can preheat the oven at 230°C. 
Take the egg yolk and spread it on the risen bread with a brush. The yolk will make your bread look nice and shiny.
Put in the oven for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 200°C and bake for another 25-30 minutes. The bread is ready when it's golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

It's a bread that has a hint of sweetness so it's delicious with both salty things like cheese as well as with sweet jams, chocolate, ...

Smakelijk!

I must say that the party was a succes for me. 
I loved it and I have to thank all my friends and family for coming! I'm sorry I didn't have the time to talk to everyone properly. 

Fish on the BBQ

Barbecue today, according to me just the way a hot Summer's day should end. 

My parents are meat lovers, so they had a good steak and pork ribs. I looked in the freezer for some inspiration and found fish fillets. Now the problem was what to do with them. Plain is nice, but then you don't have BBQ every night, right?

In our house there are always oranges around. For my glass of fresh orange juice, my daily morning shot of vitamin C to start off ;) That was ingredient one. 

Second were fennel seeds. As I' was the only fish eater today, I didn't have to care about the others that don't like the taste of them.

A little olive oil, salt and red pepper finished my marinade.

Ingredients for 1:

- 1 white fish fillet

- juice of 1/4 orange

- red pepper to taste

- salt to taste

- dash of fennel seeds

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

How to:

Take a piece of tin foil large enough to wrap the fish later on.

Put the fillet on it and cover it with all the other ingredients.
Close the foil to make a package, fish en papillote. A quarter of an hour on the roster and ready to serve. 

Why make something difficult when you can do it easy? At least you have the rest of the time off to relax. Never waste a good Summer's day!

The fish and the marinade is very light. So it's a good recipe for people that don't feel like dining heavily. Of course that depends also on the side dishes ... ;)

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!

Egg plants have returned

We haven't used egg plants for ages, here at home. The reason is simple: it's not a much liked vegetable by the majority of my house mates (my dad and my sister because of the taste, my mum by lack of ideas what to do with them). 
But ... I saw them lying in the supermarket, next to the zuchini's and the tomatoes, and I got the feeling I should do something with them.


My first idea was to make a tajine, named after the Moroccan dish prepared in the beautiful terracotta pots. So I took out the tajine from the cupboard and dusted it off. It became evident why it wasn't used before when I started cooking in it: the house smelled of burned oil because of a large tear in the tajine's bottom!


My beloved egg plant and the other vegetables already frying in it were immediately rescued into the safety of another pot. There they cooked further. My idea of making tajine  wasn't a success, but the result is quite alright :)


Ingredients for 4:
- 8 pieces of chicken
- 400 grams canned and peeled tomatoes
- 1 egg plant
- 1 red pepper (sweet)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- chilli flakes
- black pepper and salt to taste
- olive oil
- shoarma spices to taste
- teaspoon of cumin powder
- half a can (small) of tomato paste
- 1 star anise
- 200 grams cousous (semolina)
- fresh parsley for serving


How to:
Cube the egg plant and cover with some salt. Let stand for about half an hour until the saps come out. Rinse the cubes and dry them.
Heat the pot and pour in some oil for frying.
Add the diced pepper and the egg plant to the pot. Also add the whole cloves of garlic.

Once they're covered with a little oil and have fried a while, pour in the canned tomatoes. Cover with the lid and let simmer on medium heat for about half an hour.
Now put the chicken on top of the vegetables. Season the dish with star anise, cumin, shoarma spices and chilli flakes. Also put in the tomato paste.

Put the lid back on and let simmer another hour, turning around the chicken from time to time. 
Taste and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with the couscous (semolina) and some fresh parsley.


Enjoy!

Pasta con pesto, a little pimped

I didn't know how many persons would come for dinner. My sister and her boyfriend are leaving for the Summer holidays to the South of France, and they might or might not dine with us tonight. I thought of something which can be made easily for 3, 4 or 5 people without problem and it was pasta con pesto Genovese.


I'm a huge pasta fan. You might have noticed as three out of the last four posts involved pasta. I could eat it every day if my dad wouldn't mind.


Just the pesto along with the pasta is good, but it lacks some vegetables and colour for me. So I pimped the dish a bit to suit my taste :)
I also traded half of the basil for rocket. It's both goof on its' own, but why not taking both, then?


Ingredients for 4:
- 400 grams pasta (such as tagliatelle)
- handful of fresh basil
- handful of fresh rocket (rucola)
- 80 grams pine nuts, lightly roasted in a hot skillet
- 200 grams parmigiano reggiano
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- olive oil
- pepper and salt to taste
- 8 cherry tomatoes
- bruschetta herb mixture (I use the one from Oil & Vinegar)


How to:
Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and put them on an oven tray with their rounded sides down. Sprinkle them with the bruschetta mixture. Put them in a 150°C oven for at least one hour. Take care the herbs don't burn, that taste isn't very good.
Grate the cheese. Put it in a pot but keep some aside to serve.
Pull the basil and rocket into smaller pieces and put them in the same pot. Keep a few leaves apart for serving.
Put the garlic, the salt, pepper and the pine nuts in the pot and start crushing all the ingredients together. Pour in enough olive oil to make a thick liquid.
Cook the pasta according to the package and drain.
Serve the pasta with a few spoonfuls of pesto, some dried cherry tomatoes, some leaves of basil and grated parmesan cheese.


Heavy but sooo good ...


Buon appetito!

Konijn met pruimen (rabbit with plums)

Today real Belgian classic cooking: rabbit in a sauce of red wine, onion and dried plums - or konijn met pruimen as we call it. 

It's more of a Winter's dish, but the weather permits cooking like this these days. It's actually pouring rain all day. We have these glass doors across the back of our house, facing the garden, and we can't see anything but rain splashing down. Belgian weather it is!


Ingredients for 4:
- 1 whole rabbit in pieces
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 onion
- bouquet garni (bay leave, thyme, rosemary, ... bound together)
- 75 grams bacon
- 12 (or more if you like) dried plums
- butter
- 75 cl red wine
- salt and pepper to taste
- Maizena express (or something the like)


How to:
Fry the rabbit pieces with the bacon in a pan. Season it with pepper and salt. Take them out of the pan and fry the onion and the garlic in the same pan. Put the fried ingredients together in a large enough pan or pot and pour in the wine and add the bouquet garni. Put on the lid and let it all simmer on low heat for about 45 minutes.
Then add the dried plums. Let them simmer along for another half hour.
Take the pot off the fire and let it stand for a few hours (the longer the better). The taste will be better.
Thicken the sauce of the rabbit with some Maizena.


It's wonderful with pears cooked in red wine scented with vanilla sugar and a cinnamon stick. 


Ingredients for 4:
- 4 pears, cut in half lengthwise
- 4 tablespoons vanilla sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 50 cl red wine
- about the same amount of water


How to:
Bring the pears and the rest of the ingredients to a boil and let them simmer until the pears are tender. They'll have taken up all the flavour and colour from the wine, cinnamon and sugar.

I served it all with fresh chips. It's so much better to make your own chips. The chips you buy in the supermarket - frozen and prefried - doesn't ever get the right taste. In Belgium we are known for our chips, and this is the right way to prepare the chips:


Ingredients for 4:
- 1 kg potatoes, peeled
- oil for frying
- salt for serving
- sauce (mayonaise, ketchup, ...)


How to:
Cut the potatoes in sticks of about half a centimeter on each side. Rinse them under some cold water.
Heat the frying pan at 140°C. Put the potato sticks in the hot oil and let them simmer for some minutes. You have to stand close to check whether they're ready (when they are tender inside (check with a fork or knife!) but still whitish in colour). Take them out and let them cool.
Heat the oil now at 175°C. Put the chips you've fried already once in the oil for the second time. This time they're supposed to get their right colour. Once they're golden brown, take them out and serve them with salt and a sauce you like.


If you do your chips this way, you'll never want the frozen kind again!


Smakelijk!