Mullets and a salad

I had a day off, so there’s time to try out a new recipe. Not that this recipe takes that much time to make, but today I have time to visit the Albert Cuijp market and buy some different fish than the usual trout. Today it’s mullets and this is how I made them tonight for the two of us:

Oven baked Mullets 
Dinner for 2

For the mullets

2 mullets

2 tbsp. olive oil

½ a tbsp. sea salt

1 tbsp. fresh thyme leaves

1 lemon

2 bay leaves

Vlaamsch Broodhuys

After strolling through a thawing, but still ice cold, Vondelpark, we head over to Vlaamsch Broodhuys at the Constantijn Huygenstraat

Unfortunately they're out of quiche. We both order a mackerel sandwich instead, which are so very good we decide to also share one of their salmon sandwiches. Normally we just go here to purchase bread from their bakery; I had no idea their sandwiches were this delicious. We will definitely return to their lunchroom as well!

Garlic chicken

This honestly is the very first time I have prepared a whole chicken! Shameful to admit I have been more of a chicken breast person. Until now!

This recipe is very simple, but also very tasteful! How? Like this:

Garlic chicken with mushrooms

Dinner for 3/4

The chicken

3 bulbs of garlic

Handful fresh thyme leaves

1 organic chicken (around 1.5 kilo’s)

1 tbsp. olive oil

100 gr mushrooms, halved

Savory Pancakes

I do like pancakes a lot, best of all with some good old fashioned Dutch syrup. As a breakfast that is, or lunch, not so much for dinner. With my dinner I definitely need to have my veg, as much as possible. I now have found a perfect recipe to have pancakes as a dinner every once in a while, but also not having to miss out on my veg

Savory Pancakes

Lunch or light meal for 2

For the pancakes (about 6)

100 gr flour

1 egg

200 ml milk

Sunflower oil

Spicy Shrimp Pasta

Blue Mondays. The start of the week, the end of a perfect weekend. The days are getting shorter and shorter.  We really are longing for a sunny, but easy to prepare dish so a light Shrimp pasta it is!

Shrimp Spaghetti 
Light meal for 2

250 gr of spaghetti

250 gr of shrimp

1 tsp. sunflower oil

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 chili pepper, grinded

1 cm fresh ginger, chopped

1 tbsp. butter

½ lime

Rocket

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of salted water. Fry the shrimp a couple of minutes in sunflower oil, add the garlic, chili pepper and ginger. Add the butter, stir till melted, press the lime above and then stir in the spaghetti so it’s nicely covered in butter. Add a few hands of rocket and ready you are.

Spring Onion Soup

After a long day of work, especially at the end of the week we are mostly chosing some easy meal to cook. Let me refrase, we mainly like to take away or order in on those days, but it's still hard to find take out dinners containing enough fresh vegetables to my likings. So tonight we choose the easy cooking:  soup and a salad.

A spring onion soup with a smoked chicken salad 
Lunch or light meal for 2

The salad:
1/2 a cabbage lettuce
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 chicken breast, sliced

Meatball Spaghetti

A real classic. My husband loves this recipe very, very much and when I want to surprise him once in a while I can most definitely make him very happy with this recipe. It does take some serious time though: the longer the tomato sauce is cooked, the better it tastes. Rolling the meatballs also isn't a two minute job either.

What also is important with the tomatoe sauce - as I learned from Jamie Oliver - is to try not to bust the tomatoes in the cooking process, but to wait until the cooking is done. This way the sauce will be more sweet . Breaking the tomatos in an earlier stage tend to make the sauce a bit more souer.

Spaghetti with meatballs in a tomato sauce

Dinner for 4

For the tomato sauce:
1 clove of Garlic, chopped 
1 dries chili pepper, chopped
1 tsp. oregano
2 cans of peeled tomatoes
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
a hand of fresh basil, chopped

Nicoise Salad with Herring

A Simple salad made around the wonderful herring we bought at the specialist Jewish sour shop De Leeuw. If you like souer stuff as much as I do, please go and visit this sweet little shop on a thursday, friday or sunday and get yourself some fish, pickles, onions or even some souer horseradish.

This salad is a mix of boiled green beens, tomatoes and sliced red onion, mixed up with some vinegar and olive oil. Herring, hard boiled eggs and some fresh dill on top.

Forest Theater

In the middle of “het Amsterdamse Bos” (The Forest of Amsterdam) there is an open air theater: Het Bostheater. Every summer there is a play on this stage. This year they play Don Q, A wonderful play although a bit confusing.

One of the best parts of the theater also is the time before the play starts, when people have their picnic on the benches. Eating the food they brought, having wine and mainly having a good time. The atmosphere during these warm summer nights is very special and even though you might not speak Dutch it would be worth visiting a performance when in Amsterdam

Finland

A weekend break to Finland is one of the most relaxing things I have ever done. They do not only all have saunas, they also seem to have their vacation cabins located next to lakes or on private islands in their archipelago. We fly to Turku to have a real Finnish dinner – fresh mushroom soup, Finnish cheese, Home baked buns, real Finnish meatballs and mash potato – with the parents of our friend the Viking, before driving up to his little house on an island. An Island without electricity or running water but with a sauna and hammocks.

Nightly sauna sessions, cooling down in the lake, having sausages, beer and potato salad at 2 at night. Picking blueberries, searching chanterelles and even go spear fishing to catch some fresh cod. Strolling a nearby year market in search of a coffee at 10am, only find out the only beverage that can be bought is beer. Deciding to than have beers instead, accompanied by one of the very best smoked salmon I have ever had.

Wish we could do this once every year!

Roadtrip

Sometimes you just have to escape the city and take a little road trip. We packed up our stuff and our dogs, drove to Holten, took the camper and crossed the border to BBQ on a German campsite. Grilling meat, smoking beets and having the dogs run outside for the whole weekend.

Fretoy

This was one of the most beautiful weeks of our lives. Five days of our closest friends and family getting to know one another. Starting the week with our civil marriage in Zeeland, so our three grandmothers and 1 grandfather could be there too. Afterwards driving up to France with a big group for a couple of days of BBQing, swimming overall relaxing while the other guest were trickling in. On Thursday saying our vows to our fathers in front of our guest in a French meadow under a burning sun.

We would do it over every year if we could