Pancake Cake

It’s a very special and important day today. My oldest daughter is turning four. A mile stone for us, since it in the Netherlands is the age a child goes to primary school. We can hardly imagine our little girl is growing up this fast.

After the success at the birthday of the twins, half a year ago, I decided to repeat the pancake cake we had for breakfast that day. I baked the pancakes the night before the big day, so the whipped cream wouldn’t melt this time. The only thing we had to do on the Birthday morning is whip up some unsweetened cream and layer the cake. We alternated layers of whipped cream and strawberries with banana – nut butter – maple syrup layers. On top a whole lot of whipped cream with raspberries, blueberries and pistachio nuts. And four candles of course.

When we visited my grandma for her 80^th birthday last year my daughter doubted her for really having her birthday. After all, no flags were hanging around. And a birthday cannot possibly be a birthday without the flags. So no flag shortage in our home today!

Pancake Recipe (for about 12 pancakes)

200 gr spelt flour

2 eggs

400 ml milk

Pinch of salt

Sunflower oil for baking

Sieve the flour into a bowl and make a little pit in the middle for breaking the eggs in. Stir in the eggs from the middle and slowly start adding the milk so you can stir the lumps away in the process. Add a pinch of salt in the end.

Heat a drip of oil in a frying pan and add a small ladle of batter while moving the pan so the batter will equally spread. Let it rest until the top is dry, then turn and bake the other side for another minute. Repeat this recipe until all the batter is gone and you have a nice pile of pancakes. Don’t forget to add a little drip of oil for each pancake; it’s needed in order to thicken the batter.

Easy Does it

Wednesday evening is German language course evening, which means I do not have a lot of time to cook. Mostly on Wednesdays we eat something I can prepare in advance, like this quiche we are eating tonight. I got the recipe from the Season to Season cookbook by Sophie Dahl and, as I always do when I'm trying a recipe for the first time, I followed the recipe to the letter.

The thing I normally love about quiches is that you can put in heaps of vegetables for the kids without having to pay special attention to them eating it. Unfortunately for me this quiche is all about bacon, eggs and a bit of onion. We cover the veg part by eating a green salad with oven baked tomatoes. 

The reason I nonetheless wanted to share this recipe is that it one of the best flan bases I have ever made before. And as long as the base is perfect, the rest will work out just fine and you can throw in as much veg as you’d like. 

For Sophie is sharing the full recipe on her own website, I won’t bother you be writing is down again myself. You can find it right HERE

Savoy

Kale is a cabbage that is very easily obtained fresh in the Netherlands. In Germany however it is available, but it needs a bit of luck finding it fresh instead of canned or frozen. Sometimes it’s there, mostly not. So when I asked the husband to bring me some kale from the market it wasn’t really a big surprise he brought back a huge savoy.

I do like savoy, used it quite often back in Amsterdam. It was a vegetable my organic box contained every now and then in winter. The problem for me with the savoy is the size, if you purchase a savoy you’ll most likely be eating it for three to four nights in a row. So that is what we’ll be doing this week: A week of savoy

First night: Green Kitchen Table 

Savoy leafs filled with a mixture of mango, canelli beans, avocado, and corn, seasoned with coriander, cumin, cayenne and paprika powder. I blanched the leaves a little bit, not enough though: they stayed a bit too crisp for my liking. It felt a bit rabbity to be honest. My four year old ate the whole thing, the twins didn’t like it. At all.  I could only get them to eat their avocado and some of the beetroot and goats cheese salad I made. Too bad. Maybe giving this one another go when summer is here again and mangos are a bit riper

Second Night: Jamie Oliver

Savoy as a side dish. Stir fried savoy with accompanying one of the best Chickens I ever made. The trick here is to add another kind of cabbage, in our case Brussels sprouts, bacon for the salt and green peas to sweeten it a bit. At the end adding a bit of butter makes it an easy to eat dish, also for the girls, but nothing innovatory here. 

The chicken we had, however, was one to remember. The new thing for me in this recipe was adding fresh herbs by stuffing them between the breast and the skin. Difficulty is carefully tearing the skin loose without damaging it, but once you succeed it really is delicious. I for one will always use this technique roasting chicken from now on.

Third Night: Yvette van Boven

With the leftovers of the savoy we made a colcannon from the Home Made Winter cookbook by Yvette van Boven. Like any other hotchpotch it’s potato mash mixed with 10 minutes cooked, sliced cabbage. What makes this one particularly tasty is adding sliced leek that has been boiled in milk fot a couple of minutes. It’s an easy but tasteful recipe and we accompany it tonight by vegetarian sausages, which actually are not tasty at all. If somebody knows where to get tasty, non-dry veg sausages, please let me know. I have not been successful finding those yet.

 

Chocolate Cake

We baked a chocolate cake today. As healthy as possible. Actually it is a beet and chocolate cake. Me, I don’t like chocolate that much. Honestly. Sometimes a little bit, then flush it away with loads of tea. I do like beets tough, I love them and could eat them every single day.

The girls do love chocolate, so this cake is the perfect combination. What I like most is the bite the raw beets give to the cake. We left it a little too long in the oven, so it went a bit dry, but solved this by eating it with some unsweetened whipped cream. You can find the recipe right HERE

Flammkuchen

Flammkuchen is a special German snack, which I must say until today I never had before. It actually is some kind of pizza, but than with a very thins and crispy crust. One of my favorite blogs about food and Berlin (and a lot of other stuff, but those of course have my main interest) kitchentablefood.com wrote about the flammkuchen and I immediately decided that this would be a perfect Sunday dinner for us because it would allow the girls to help me in the kitchen decorating the kuchen. 

Neurotic as I can be I of course had to make an exact copy of the one Kitchentablefood described with the mackerel and the zucchini, but besides this one we made three others topped with just about everything we were able to find in the fridge and cabinets. This is what makes it the perfect Sunday evening supper and we have made it a millions Sundays since this day.

For this super easy  recipe and lots of other good stuff please visit www.kitchentablefood.com

Risotto with Asparagus

Our favorite asparagus stand is still going strong on the Kollwitzstrasse. As long as they are there, we’ll be eating asparagus. Second time this week. Tonight we had green asparagus with a saffron risotto. 

Here is the (very simple) recipe for about three persons. Put 750 ml vegetable stock on, so it’s hot when you’re going to use it. Bake 1 chopped shallot and 1 chopped green pepper (deseeded) a minute in a tablespoon of butter. When the shallots look glassy, add a wisp of saffron. Add about 200 grams risotto rice and cook for a few until the rice looks a little glassy. Deglaze with 1 dl water with ½ squeezed lemon. If the water is absorbed, add the stock a ladle at a time and stir till the rice has absorbed it before adding another one. Test after about 2/3 of the broth if the risotto is done. I myself add stock until the rice is soft because it really is easier for the little ones to eat - one of the ladies only has six teeth- but I can imagine that you'd rather have it a little more al dente.

When the rice is done, remove it from the heat and add a tablespoon of butter, a teaspoon of honey and 50 grams of grated parmesan cheese. Add pepper and salt if needed: done!

Meanwhile, I cooked a bunch green asparagus in a pan of boiling water for about 10 minutes. Again, I cook them a little longer than I would do for myself; softer is easier for the girls. A few pieces of asparagus on top of the risotto and the rest with olive oil and coarse sea salt on a separate plate.

I must admit that I’ve cheated a little with the girls. They are not as fond as their mum of asparagus. They like it a little more each time, but I added green peas to their risotto so they will both try to learn to like asparagus and had enough veg tonight.

Aubergine and Tomato with Poached Eggs

The dish the girls and I had for lunch today was from one of my Sophie Dahl cook books. In Dutch it’s called Season to Season. I bought this book because of the box of veg I got every week and I didn't always know what to make with all these seasonal veg. Also of course a bit because of her grandpa who has given me so much fun in reading in my younger years. I honestly can’t wait until my girls are big enough to read the books to them.

I have to say it’s a sweet book and I use it as an inspiration, but the recipes are not always quite elaborated and often ‘missing’ something for my taste. Also with this recipe, the combination of the fried aubergine and tomatoes with the poached egg is fantastic and I will definitely keep that in mind, but I will definitely work on the taste of the veg. The original recipe by Sophie can be found here.

About poaching the eggs, I have a great tip from my Yvette van Boven books: make sure you stir the water (with vinegar and salt), so it swirls, before putting the egg in. It was my first time poaching and didn’t fail an egg!

Strawberry shortcakes

Asparagus and Strawberries, that’s what it’s all about these days in Berlin. First one at least once a week, second one absolutely every day!

So of course it was about time to make these Shortcakes from Yvettes Home Made Summer book. And they are delicious. Today we ate them with strawberries and whipped cream, next day they still were perfect with some mascarpone and cherry jam.

And I found the recipe online! Right here

Olive Blinis

Today for lunch, and as part of my challenge, I made Olive Blini’s with Beets and Salmon. This seriously is one of the most delicious little bites I have ever tasted. The combination of the sour beet with the salty salmon and the sweet mascarpone is amazing. It was hard to stop eating them, luckily the girls loved them as well and most of the blini’s were served directly to the plate because it was hard to bake faster than they were eating.

Of course my picture does not look as nice as they look in the cookbook, but that was mainly because I don’t own a flapjack pan. One more reason to get one. I did manage to find the recipe on a website right here

Farls

Still going strong on my cooking challenge. I have cooked my way through at least a quarter of the first Home Made book and started adding other books to my challenge to cook as versatile as possible. I will only post some of what I make because on one hand most of it tastes good but is not looking that photogenic. On the other hand I do forget to take a picture most of the time and I also don’t think all these food pictures without recipes are that interesting.

Today we made something that was really delicious and looked good as well. We actually wanted to go out for a picnic, but as we were putting on our shoes thunder and lightning started as we haven’t heard before in Berlin. So we had an indoor picnic instead.

These Farls (kind of like blini’s but made with potato) with herb crème fraiche and salmon were sooooo delicious that I had to made a post with them. The girls absolutely loved them and almost didn’t leave me some. I’m writing this post a few weeks later and have made them two more times already when we had people coming over and everybody loves them!

Want to make them? Recipe can be found here

Apple Pancakes

Making them lunch every day makes me explore new things or just go back to the really old ones: the things your mum made you when you were little. One of my favorite things my mum made for dinner when my dad was on a business trip were pancakes – I believe my dad didn’t think pancakes were proper dinner so we only ate them when he wasn’t there. Every one of us had their favorite; she always made a couple of those for everybody. Mine were apple pancakes.

Today for lunch I decided to bake the girls a stack of apple pancakes. It’s actually surprisingly easy (again I’m not really a sweet baker) to make the batter by adding 1 egg and 2 dl milk and a bit of salt per 100 grams of flower. It’s even more surprising that I often hear Dutchies who live abroad complain about how they can’t find a good pancake ‘mix’ where you only have to add milk to it. I don’t know what is in this mix but it only substitute flower and eggs.

Anyway, making the really thin apple pancakes I like so much myself was a huge hit with the little ones. My plan was to make a huge stack of them and then put it in the middle of the table like my mum used to, but I guess they were so attracted by the smell they were begging for some the whole time I was baking. In the end I didn’t even get to put two pancakes on top of each other because they already ate one before the next was ready.

Cookie Baking

Baking sweet stuff has never really been my thing. I think I made 1 cake myself over the last ten years and last year made cookies twice, but that was with a jar from Dapeppa so I guess it doesn’t really count. (Were very good though, especially the walnut and cranberry ones

In my new life as a stay-at-home-mum (still not used to the name) I decided that one of the thing I at least should master is baking cookies. We’ve started on plain old “sand cookies” (kind of like shortbreads) and will keep on going till we got them really perfect before we move on to more complicated baking goods. At this point our mixture contains 2 parts sugar, 3 parts cold butter and 4 parts flower (no rice flower, that was a huge mistake). Mine also contains raisins, hers just contains huge chunks of chocolate.

http://www.dapeppa.nl/

Favorite Dish no. 1 – Spaghetti with Oven tomatoes

This really is one of my favorite dishes and I believe I really do make this at least once a week. This has everything to do with the fact that it takes very little time in the kitchen but is very, very tasty. It actually is a recipe my friend Marie made for me about ten years ago and I’ve been making it ever since.  It’s all about the tomatoes, since this is a product Germans are better in producing than the Dutch I especially make it a lot since we’re here.

I’m not a recipe writer and don’t know anything about the proportions, but I’ll try my best to explain. Just take a lot of tomatoes, about twice as much as you would normally use and the smaller ones are really better (about one size up from cherry tomatoes are the best). Cut them up and put them in a baking dish with a lot of olive oil, garlic from the press, balsamic vinegar and fresh thyme. Now the key is that you actually can make any time during the day because it can be in the oven for three hours, for just an hour or even a half. The shorter it stays in the oven the higher you should put the temperature, I always try and put it in the oven at least two hours before I want to eat and then put the temperature around 120C. (when late and I just have half an hour in the oven I put it up to 200C) Just stir it every now and then and adjust the temperature to make it go faster or slow it down. I always taste the juice half an hour before dinner to sometimes add a little honey to sweeten thing up because a lot in this dish depends on the quality of tomatoes. The nice thing in this dish is that it actually dries the tomatoes a bit which makes them sweeter and concentrates the taste of the tomatoes very much. After taking it out of the oven and seasoning with salt and pepper I add a few hand fresh basil leaves.

Serving is done with pasta, my favorite is spaghetti, and cheeses. I always use parmesan and when I have it in the fridge or am well prepared with fresh soft goat cheese on top. Please do try, it really is a very, very good dish. Especially with small children, in my family everybody loves it when I make it.

Lamb chops on the BBQ

After a huge Easter brunch we hardly need to eat anything the rest of the day, but there are some lovely lamb chops (from De Krat) in the fridge. So the BBQ is lit again for a simple Easter dinner.

I marinated the lamb chops in some olive oil and fresh thyme with sea salt and black pepper for half an hour. Grill them for about 8 minutes, while putting some left over baguette next to it.

Dress some lettuce with red wine vinegar and olive oil. Other left over ingredients on top, in our case halved cherry tomatoes, roasted pine nuts, sliced spring onions and some fresh cut mint.

One of the things I really love about having a (tiny) garden in Amsterdam: Being able to BBQ!

Easter Eve BBQ

Although the weather wasn't very helpful these last couple of days we decided to have an Easter Eve BBQ, if only because our weekly organic box 'De Krat' was so full off lovely ingredient screaming to invite some guests. Only ingredients we had to add for a 6 person BBQ with salads and bread were some steaks, 1 avocado, pinenuts and some fresh basil and thyme. Alright, and some merquez sausages.

Salad 1: Grilled Veg Salad
Slice 1 Courgette and 1 yellow Pepper, brush the slices with olive oil and grill for a couple of minutes on each side. Mix it up with a chopped peace of Garlic, chopped Basil, a squeeze of Lime juice and some salt and pepper. Put aside. Fry some Pine nuts, cut some Cherry Tomatoes in half. Mix up 1 tbsp Red WineVinegar with 3 tbsp Olive Oil for the vinaigrette. Dress 3 hands full of fresh Spinach with the vinaigrette and put all the other ingredients on top. Finish of with some salt, pepper  and fresh Basil

Salad 2: Sunny Salad
This salad was solely based on the fact De Krat brought me pansies to use in the kitchen, so we had to make them into salad that added a little sunshine to our Easter Eve BBQ. All you need to do for this salad is slice and mix and its ready.
Cut and wash (a) Green Lettuce, slice an Avocado, cut Cherry Tomatoes in half, slice up half a Yellow Pepper. Slice a Leek  into thin rings, put in a bowl and pour some boiling water over, put aside. Make a dressing of 1 tbsp (Fennel) Vinegar, 3 tbsp Olive oil, 1 tsp (Spring) Mustard, 1 tsp  Honey and s+p. Dress the lettuce and put on a plate. Drain the leek and put on top, together with the other ingredients. Finish of with the Pansies, some Fresh Herbs (I used fresh Mint and Perilla) and maybe some Pine Nuts.

For the rest we needed some meat and bread. Where else to get your steaks than from butchery Louman who truly sell the best steaks you can get in Amsterdam. Their Merquez Merquez sausages are also not to sneeze at by the way. Bread of course from De Krat, who brought us some nice Walnut bread from Menno this week. And also got some brown Baguette at the Vlaams Broodhuys.

 

Despite the low temperature it was a very successful Easter Eve BBQ with thanks to De Krat en butchery Louman! 

Spicy Oriental Soup

Fry 1 chopped clove of Garlic and a chopped up cm of fresh ginger in a bit of sunflower oil. Add 1 small sliced leek, a small sip of stock and fry for a couple of minutes till the leek has softened. Add 1 grinded chili pepper and the rest of 500 ml of vegetable stock. Softly boil while preparing the other ingredients.

Whisk 1 egg with some pepper and bake a thin omelet of it in some oil. Roll the omelet and slice it up. Fry 50 gr of shrimp in the left over oil of the omelet.

Put ½ a sliced bok choy in with the broth, season with a dash of fish sauce and bring to a boiling point. Put the omelet, shrimp, a chopped spring onion and a bit of chopped parsley in a bowl and pour over the soup. Ready is your one person spicy soup

Hotchpotch with Chinese cabbage

And Hotchpotch time it is! Two times in a row on the menu and again one outside my hotchpotch comfort zone: Chinese cabbage and mushrooms. It actually is made almost the same as yesterday, with 500 gr of potatoes, 15 gr of butter, 50 ml of vegetable stock and a big dash of olive oil. 

Fry ½ chopped shallot in 1 tbsp. of olive oil, add 1 chopped clove of garlic after a minute or 2. Also add 1 tsp. of dried coriander, a pinch of nutmeg and ½ tsp. of cumin, fry for another 2 minutes before adding 1 small Chinese cabbage cut into small strips. Fry for five minutes and put aside.

Fry the other ½ shallot in 10 gr butter, add 250 gr of sliced mushrooms as soon as they soften. Fry for about 5 minutes and season with salt and pepper.

Stir the cabbage through the mash; put the mushrooms on top and maybe some fresh herbs like basil or parsley.

Hotchpotch with Brussels Sprouts and Lime

Since the stormy weather has started and the holidays are over, the craving for real winter food has begun. I tend to stick to the regular, mainstream Dutch hotchpotches (Kale, Sauerkraut, Endive or Carrots and Onions), but today there’s a whole lot of Brussels sprouts lying in the backyard. 

Although I do not hate eating them as much as I did when I was a child they still are my least favorite vegetable. Up until now I didn’t have a recipe that made me want to take a second bite. This really is the best recipe for them I ever found. The mash tempers the bitter taste they have and the lime even makes them taste kind of fresh.

Cook 250 gr of Brussels sprouts for about 10 minutes and cut them into quarters. Cook 500 gr of potatoes, drain them but save the boiling water. Mash the potatoes with 15 gr of butter, 50 ml of vegetable stock and a big dash of olive oil. When it is to dry you can moist it a bit more by adding a bit of the left over boiling water. Stir in the zest and juice of ½ a lime and add the Brussels sprouts. Season with salt and pepper. Add a couple of sausages and you’re good to go.

Salad with figs and Parma

What you need for the salad: 

Bunch of Mint

Bunch of Watercress

2 spoons of Hazelnuts

6 dried figs

150 gr of Parma Ham

1 apple into cubes

Dressing: 100 yoghurt, juice + zest of 1 lime, 1 bag of vanilla sugar, peper&salt, mix everything then slowly stir 3 spoons of hazelnut oil through

How to make it:

Mix all the ingredients together and poor over the dressing: bon apetit

Mackerel with Mustard Sauce

I've eaten a lot of smoked mackerels, but never had a fresh piece in my hands. Until De Krat brought me one, or actually two fillets. Including a recipe, which I tried immediately as fish should be eaten as fresh as possible. What I particularly like about the dish is the crispy skin and the nice solid texture of the fish.

Preheat the oven at 250ْ  C, season 2 mackerel fillets, with skin, with some salt and black pepper. Create, in the middle of a baking dish, a mound of 1 chopped red onion, 1 bay leaf and a handful of fresh parsley (keep a bit aside for the garnish). Put the fillets on top with the skin side up, pour 100 ml of white wine over it and put in the oven. Cook for 7-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. Put the fillets aside on a warm serving dish as soon as they're done, cover with some aluminum foil to keep warm.

Strain the cooking liquid from the baking dish in a small saucepan and boil for a couple of minutes to concentrate. Add 2 tbsp. of mustard and stir, whisk 30 gr of chopped cold butter through and let it simmer for about 3 minutes. Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with some parsley.

Very nice with some skin cooked potatoes and a green salad. Very light, the fish is oily enough by itself.