Quaintr

Hope you find this as cool as i did when i just found it!

(yes i should be studying...)

A proper meal can make such a difference for my mental health. So can exercise. Or fresh air. So after a few days of staying inside, sitting on the couch, and too lazy to cook i changed things around. I started with dancing around my living room on Friday eve, going for a long walk this a.m. (didn't fall this time), and -finally- making my veggie chili (i was supposed to make that on Weds). Main reason: I need to empty my cupboards, fridge and freezer in 4 weeks. I hate throwing things away and my housemate won't use it (too healthy). I think i'll manage. 

But since the chili was a small success i thought i post the recipe for y'all:

Marinate 14 oz of crumbled tofu in a mixture of peanut butter (1 tbsp), soy sauce (1.5 tbsp), crushed clove of garlic, some chili paste, tomato paste (1 tbsp), and about 2 tbsp of water, for a few hours. 
Take the pinto beans you cooked the day before out of the fridge (about 1 -1.5 cup dried beans), dice up 1 onion and sauté this one in 1 tbsp of olive oil, add 1 jalepeno pepper (or the parts that are still usable), 1 bell pepper (i used a red one), 1 diced up carrot, 3 crushed cloves of garlic, 1 stick of celery, a lot of chili powder, a bit less of paprika powder, about the same amount of ground cumin, some oregano. Once it starts to soften add the marinated tofu and the pinto beans. Add a can of tomato's and the rest of the tomato paste together with a cup or 2 of water. Let the whole thing stew for another 15 mins and check for taste. When you feel it's ok for you (the softness of the veggies and the spicyness, top with fresh parsley and serve (maybe with a salad, some bread or crackers or whatever you feel like).

Cryptogram 'voertuig wat in de kreukels ligt' 10 letters

Opa: "klotefiets"

After the autumn storm and accompanying power cut, and the week without heating in Jan, i sort of thought i'd seen it all. Maybe i shouldn't have made that secret wish. The wish about a white birthday. Although, of course, the snow came slightly too late for my birthday. But it came nonetheless. More trees seem to have keeled over compared to the autumn storm, and thousands are without power. This time it's not me, luckily. Schools are closed, and so are roads. One can hardly walk on the pavement, cars and busses are stuck in the snow. Suddenly the feeling that normally accompanies the snow has melted away, and i realised that being without power and heating during the winter isn't the least romantic...

The update

There ain't that many people with whom i can comfortly cook. There are even less people that tend to have the same style (read: lots and lots of herbs and flavours). Luckily he has both of these qualities. Today we used his leftovers to cook a brilliant 3-course menu (ok, dessert itself was a left-over so we cooked a 2-course meal). However, we definitely over-killed the soup. It was still very nice, but we were subtly reminded that one can put too much herbs and too many flavours in one soup.

 

The recipe, shorthand style: 100 ml water, 35 gram coconut cream (santen), 1 sheet of gelatine soaked in water, 50 grams of sugar. Warm, melt. Mix. Cool. 150 ml cream, whisk. Gently fould the cream into the mixture. Cool again. Serve, for example with grilled pineapple. (Mousse is even better the second day... also very usable for breakfast.)

Okay. It wasn't as bad as I imagined. But then again, I didn't really think he would change into a huge blue monster with seven eyes, four arms and a muscular body covered in long black hair and green goo, leaving snatches of his white coat and sticky feetprint behind after we went into his office. Nope. He was real friendly, but made me feel uneasy. But he's a MD, wearing a white coat, working in a hospital, a big hospital. 

I don't like hospitals.

But, then again, I'm an MD, and in five weeks I'm working in a hospital, a big hospital, wearing a white coat.

Somewhere something went wrong...

Today, it's her 25th birthday... (I hope, 'coz I'm real bad at these things these days so I could be off by a day, or even by a year, but I think I'm pretty close this time.) Funny thing, birthdays. Her birthday started here 6 hours before her birthday started for her, don't you love timezones? But then again, she can enjoy it 6 hours longer. Enough time to bake a pie and eat it. (I made an applecrumble, just to feel a bit party-ish.) I'm just saying: happy birthday Roosje!

What exactly is a 'vegetable related injury'?

... the reason I start yawning while bellydancing. (And keep yawning during the whole dance btw.) Google didn't give me the solution, just a couple of ideas and an old post. Trying to find reason, I found a free hug! Any volunteers?

I tend to cook. A lot. Especially when i'm stressed, nervous, or down. So today i spent a long time in the kitchen. Because of Martin Luther King Jr. day, i had the day off. Great! That gave me the necessary time to do some shopping and, yes, cook some food. So after the mocha-cheesecake (a combination of a mocha-mousse and a white-chocolate-cheesecake recipe), i made a fish pie (which took a bloody long time), and since i had time left i also made some wholewheat-spicy-sugar-free-cookies (bit like making a sugar-free carrotcake but slightly different).

I just heard his plane has been delayed by half-an-hour. Really have to constrain myself not to start making something else...

Yesterday I fancied some experimental cooking, so I made a simple lentil curry (a bit like this one), tried some baba ganoush (which I concluded to be a faillure, but he disagreed) and made my first homemade 'naan'. Traditionally, naan is a flatbread made of white flour. But (as usual) I didn't stick to the traditional recipe. The main reason (this time) is the fact I prefer whole wheat flour instead of white flour. So I almost used Jannekes recipe of garlic naan... but not exactly. 

For two normal sized naans use 1,5 teaspoons dried yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar, 0,9 dl  warm water, 125 gr  whole wheat flour, 50 gr white flour, 25 gr  melted butter, 1 tablespoon yogurt, 2 gloves of garlic, some cumin and coreander. Mix yeast, sugar and lukewarm water in a bowl. Place the bowl 10 minutes at a warm spot.Mix the flours, salt and add the butter, yoghurt and the yeast mixture. Knead the dough for about 4 minutes. Place the dough near some heating for about an hour. (Mine didn't double like it suppost to do, but resulted in a light and airy bread after all.) Knead the dough again and shape it in two normal sized naans (about 20x25 cm). Now you can add your favourite flavour to the bread. I used some grounded cumin and coreander, and a whole lot of garlic. Bake in a hot oven (about 180 degrees) for 6-10 minutes.

A threesome of chocolate (dark, white and milk) is one of my favourite desserts. Last time I made a absolute fabulous creme brulee of white chocolate, sorbet icecream of milk chocolate served with a coulis of red fruit and a mocca tart with dark chocolate. Which is (no surprize) a lot of work. Last thursday some friends came over for dinner, so I decide to create a simpler, quicker and failproof version of the threesome of chocolate.  A combination of an eggless white chocolate mousse, a small piece of arretjescake and a profiterole dipped in milk chocolate. I made the arretjescake the day before, to save even more time. I melted 100 grams of butter and stirred in 100 grams of suger. Added 2 tablespoons of cacao. Crumble 100 grams of plain cookies (mariakaakjes) and add to the mixture. Cool and the cake is done! I just storebought profiteroles, and dipped them in melted chocolate myself. The white chocolate mousse consisted of 100 grams of white chocolate, melted au bain marie, and 100 grams of cream. Cool. Wisk. Cool again. Done. Serve the three dishes together on a plate... and make sure you serve a light dinner.

Way too adictive. But real fun...gravitymaster

I guess it was either the forth or fifth year that i didn't get him a present. But he said it would be a great present if i got rid of my British accent and instead develop an American one... I definitely don't agree, and don't want to change my accent. However, of course my accent is changing and there's nothing i can do about it at the moment... (and i guess i'm lucky i'm not in an area where they speak with a very heavy Southern accent)

Remember this? So what would you make with that? And with a cauliflower that really needs to be used? Right: cauliflower couscous. Of course i didn't stick to that recipe, so here's what i did to it *grin*

Grate 1 cauliflower and steam it till it softens but still has a bite to it. In the meantime cut up a few slices of your pickled lemon (rind only) and put that in a bowl, with some mint, cilantro, and paprika. Also add some raisins (half a handful). Et voila, done. 

Think it would have been nice to add some chopped cashews (which i didn't have of course).

One may wonder why it stays so quiet on this side of the ocean... Well, that's because i don't do much at the moment, except for getting hours in, cooking (yummie, steak-mushroom-ale-pie), and browsing the I-net (mainly foodblogs). I'm very happy with my x-mas present (a no-sew fleeceblanket) since our heating has decided to stop working... Hopefully we get the heat back on soon, together with a repaired roof (it still isn't leak-free).

This year, we're hoping to finish the huge diy project he started about 16 months ago (!). We've got about a week, fulltime, to finish the last part: the shower. But a lot has to be done: remove the old tiling on the walls and the floor, level the floor, some plumbing, tiling the walls, tiling the floor and don't forget all the finishing. A week time is short, especially if you take into account all the time you'll have to wait for things to dry (glue and stuff). First estimate... I need about 12 days, which is particularly annoying 'coz I've only got 7.

Does anyone know how to make the impossible possible, or at least plannable?