Lemon-Yoghurt Cake

A couple of weeks ago I found out that at my mom's place we have the tv channel 24 kitchen. Thank god I do not receive that at my place; I would probably fail my studies. I left that weekend with a ton of inspiration and new recipes. And this is one of them. I baked this cake 2 weeks ago. It was good, but the cooking time is not near enough to bake the cake. Maybe it is my oven, but even after 1,5 hours it was still not done in the middle. It did not matter; everyone thought it was delicious!
I am not giving you the recipe here since I am busy studying and am trying out a recipe for christmas! So find the link below. The next few recipes will all be my christmas recipes!
Lemon Yoghurt Cake

Bell Pepper Soup

One thing that often frustrated me during cooking was my lack of kitchen appliances. My cheap immersion blender almost caused short circuit the last time I used it and my mixer is making noises that he should not make. Since I cannot live without making soup or chocolate mousse I needed to do something. I saved money for a few months and now my new favorite thing has arrived! A Kenwood food processor that can do practically anything. Yesterday I used it for 4 different things: making juice, slicing vegetables, blending my soup and mash my potatoes! My new best friend!
Enough about this thing; I could talk about it all day but I will not do that to you. Some people who know me will wonder why on earth I would eat bell pepper soup. I generally do not like bell peppers and usually I would never buy them. But my housemate had some left over and I hate to throw things away. I love soup and I remembered that my mom made a lovely sweet pepper soup some time ago. And ofcourse I had to try out my foodprocessor. It is a lovely soup with a velvety texture and from now on this is my new favorite soup!

Ingredients:

4 bell peppers, preferably red or yellow, cut in small cubes
1 carrot, finely sliced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 liter of chicken stock
50 ml cream
10-20 g of butter
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Heat some butter in a large pan. Add the onion and bake for a few minutes. Add the garlic and celery and bake again for a minute or two. Add the carrot and peppers and mix well.
Add the chicken stock and bay leaf and bring to the boil. Boil for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Remove the bay leaf and puree the soup.
Add the cream to taste; I think I added less than I put in the recipe. Add salt and pepper to taste.
If you want to freeze the soup leave out the cream.

Hutspot (Carrot Potato puree) with Sauteed onions

When I started this blog a few months ago I thought it would be an easy extension to my cooking. Cook, make a picture, write a post. Hardly costs more time than only cooking. But that is not true. My camera is not that good, so I try to make the best of it which may take some time. And then I have to write a post. Although I am fluent in English it is not my native language and especially with cooking terms, I have often no clue how to say it.
Currently I am already close to my exam week which also means that there is not much time for cooking. But I promise to do better and post at least weekly again!
This recipe is perfect for my exam week, because I can make a lot of it and freeze it. Microwave meal and homemade cooking in one! It is a typical dutch recipe. We love to mash potatoes together with a large variety of vegetables (kale, endive, sauerkraut). We call those dishes stamppot (literally mash pot or something) and they are perfect, easy-to-make winterdishes. And I made this typical dish with a little twist of my own!

Ingredients (4 persons)

500 g carrots, sliced
500 g potatoes, cut into cubes
20 g butter
4 onions, cut into rings
sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt, pepper

Put the carrots and potatoes in a large pan of water. Add salt generously and bring to the boil and let it boil until they are done; about 20 minutes.
In the meantime, heat olive oil in a baking pan, about 4 tbsp. Add onions, thyme and bay leaf. Let it bake on medium to low heat for about 20 minutes. They should be brown, but still soft. Turn off heat and add the balsamic vinegar.
Drain the potatoes and carrots and save some of the water. Add the butter and mash the potatoes and carrots together. Add water until you have a nice moist puree. Add the sauteed onions and pepper and salt to taste.

Serve the pork cutlet or nice slice of bacon. Smakelijk eten!

Apples with custard (Appeltjes onder een deken)

I decided to participate in another foodblog event. I especially liked this one, because I have an excuse to use this delicious and typical Dutch dessert. The event was started by Raven's blog (which is a very nice blog to check out).
I never had this dessert before I met my boyfriend. It is one of his favorite desserts of his childhood and it is perfect on a cold winter night.
One other advantage of making this is that I once again get to try to make custard. I never seemed able to do it. Maybe it is because of my impatience or just that I never get it right. But I managed this time! Not perfect yet, but I found the method that works for me.

Ingredients (2 persons)

2 apples (I used Elstar)
3-4 tbsp raisins
2 tsp sugar
pinch of cinnamon
Custard:
300 ml milk
200 ml whipping cream
5 egg yolks
60 g sugar
1 tsp cornflour

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Peel the apples and remove the core. Mix the raisins with the sugar and cinnamon. Fill the apples with this mixture and put in the oven for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile make the custard. Heat the milk. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and cornflour together.
When the milk is at the boil add the mixture to the eggs. Put the mixture in a clean pan and heat on low heat. Keep on stirring until the custard thickens, but do not let it boil.
When the apples are done put them on a plate and pour the custard over the apples.

Autumn Dinner

Sometimes it is a little boring to be just cooking for myself or my bf. Especially when I received a wonderfool cookbook: My favorite ingredients by Skye Gyngell. I have already read the book three times and enjoyed both the beautiful pictures as well as the wonderful recipes. I picked out three recipes from this book that are perfect for the season and produced this dinner for my family:

Sweet-and-sour pumpkin with roasted tomatoes and mozzarella

Steak with hazelnut-orange picada with rösti and endive

Pear stewed in Marsala

The absolute winner of this dinner was the pumpkin. If you want to impress your guests, this is the recipe you should make:

1 small Butternut Squash, 1,5 kilo (I used a different kind that also gives a sweeter taste), cut into small wedges

220 g sugar

200 ml red wine vinegar

1 bottle of white wine, (750 ml)

small bunch of thyme

3 laurel leaves

1 chili pepper

Put al the ingredients except the pumpkin into a pan and bring to the boil. Put the pumpkin wedges into the pan and let slowly simmer for 45 minutes with the lid on the pan. The pumpkin should be cooked but still firm. Let it cool down to room temperature in the syrop before serving. 

Pumpkin-Kale stew with lentils

I noticed that I tend to make a lot of dishes with meat. Considering the name of my blog it is a bit contradicting. So I needed to do something about it. I grew up with the idea that no dinner is complete unless you have some kind of meat in it. And I more and more come to realize that this is absolutely not true. I always loved vegetables and there are so many delicious ways to combine them without adding meat. This stew is one surprising dish. The addition of lentils made it very nutritious and the flavors are wonderful. The ideal meal on a cold winter night.
Since the dish was a succes I decided to submit it to the foodblog event My Legume Love Affair. This months host is Simona and the event was started already three years ago by Susan. I found out about the event by coincidence because one of the blogs I follow participated. It was great fun to make this dish and I am definitely going to participate more often!

Ingredients(4 persons):

1 pumpkin of about 1 kilo, peeled and cut into cubes (2x2cm)
250 g kale
1 can of lentils, drained
1 lemon, skin grated and juice squeezed
1 large onion, coarsly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 can tomatoes
pinch of clove powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
salt
pepper
olive oil

Heat some olive oil in a pan. Add the onion, garlic, pumpkin and kale. Bake for about 7 minutes the vegetables have softened.
Add the lemon zest, juice, tomatoes, clove powder, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Fill the empty can of tomatoes with hot water and add to the stew. Bring to the boil and stew for 30 minutes.
Add the lentils in the last 7 minutes.
Serve with flatbread.

Brasato al Chianti

As my previous post this is an Italian recipe and I think many Italian recipes will follow. First of all because it is my favorite cuisine and second of all because my housemate lended me The Silver Spoon. It is an amazing book that gives me constant inspiration and an urge to keep on cooking. And that is what I am doing. I even woke at 8 in the morning on sunday to make this stew! And it was worth it!

Ingredients (2-3 persons)

500 g beef
1 onion, minced
1 carrot, sliced
1 can of tomatoes (only 3 tomatoes not the sauce)
1 tbsp of tomato paste
100 ml red wine (I used chianti, but another full-bodied red wine will also do)
100-150 ml beef stock
1 bay leaf
25 g of butter
2 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

Heat the butter with the olive oil. Add the onion and carrot. Let slowly simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the beef and bake until brown.
Sprinkle the beef with salt and pepper and add the red wine. Cook on medium heat until the wine has reduced by half.
Add tomatoes and squash them. Add the tomato paste, beefstock and bay leave. Stir well.
Let it simmer for 1,5 hour.
Serve with grilled polenta.