Whoa There !

Every now and then I surprise myself. Yesterday was such an occasion as I got off my lazy bum and made a bit of food for the freezer. Not for the freezer as such but for us, to eat at a later stage and to make dinnertime prep easier for when I am busy doing other things.

Like sitting on my bum.

Bert has recently bought a pizza oven via t'internet (I really should keep him away from the 3 w's). It works with wood pellets. Which is great because we have them hanging around the house, seeing we normally use them as cat litter. As you do.

Anyway, I decided to make a head start with the dough. Just in case there will be a day somewhere in the future, without wind or rain, when he lights the pizza oven.

I made two batches of dough and divided each into 6 balls.

I wrapped them individually and placed them in the freezer.

 Last week I also organised two of our three freezers, by the way.

I still had massive beetroots from my friend Sophie which I had stored in the fridge.

They had a good roasting in the oven while I was busy doing other things. I saw this recipe on line for beetroot ravioli and thought if I portion off the right quantity of roasted beets, they can be frozen too.

The oven was hot from roasting the beets and I made use of that by chucking in two loaves of bread.

With the kitchen a mess, I thought, "what the heck! I'll make shortcrust pastry too"

Six portions went into the, yes, freezer and I made one pastry case for a quiche for today and one beetroot, goats cheese and smoked salmon tart for last night's dinner.

Layer sliced goats cheese, roasted beetroot and red onions sauteed with balsamico.

In a hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Add fresh goats cheese blobs and return to oven for 5 more minutes. Leave to cool for 10. drape with smoked salmon and drizzle with reduced balsamico. Sprinkle with black pepper. I just wish I had rocket to set it off a bit better, flavour wise and for photographic purposes.

The pastry was yummy. There is a reason why this is usually served as a small portion for a starter. It's rich !

Patricia xxx...x

Poached Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (preferably free range or organic)
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered
• 3 celery stalks, washed and cut into 4
• 1 large carrot, washed or peeled, quartered
• 1 fennel bulb, washed and quartered
• a handful of parsley stalks
• 4 bay leaves
• a few sprigs of thyme
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 1 tbsp black pepper corns
• 1 tbsp coarse sea salt

Method
It is dead easy.

The carrots here are hiding at the bottom. You'll just have to take my word for it.

• put the chicken in a cooking pot, large enough to contain all ingredients plus water
• arrange all other ingredients around and over the chicken
• cover with cold water
• bring to the boil
• turn down the heat, and let it simmer ! for about 1 hour.

• take the chicken out of the stock straight away and transfer to a plate or shallow dish.

• Drain the stock through a colander and use it for soups, sauces, gravy...The vegetables are for the chooks.
• Pick the meat off the bones while still hot/warm. It'll come off easier than when it is cold.

Use the succulent meat for salad, sandwich, soup, ragout, chicken pie

Skin and cartilage  for the dogs

Discard of the bones. Bin or compost.

And there you have it. Simple and doesn't take a lot of effort. You'll get quite a few meals out of this.

Patricia xxx...x

Celeriac Soup

If you've read through my blog every now and then, you might know which one is my fav vegetable. Yup, it is celeriac !
So when I was out shopping the other day and discovered 4 specimen in the supermarket, I was delighted. Three of them jumped into my trolley and one was left behind, all by its lonesome, hoping another 'adventurous'  cook would take pity and take it home.
Meals containing celeriac are comforting to me and at the same time they exude festivity.
So, what do you think ? Shall I give you the soup recipe now ?

Ingredients

I made double the amount of the recipe that follows, because I had a dinner party and wanted some soup for the freezer.

• 2 tbsp butter, or sunflower oil
• 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and roughly cut
• 1 medium parsnip, peeled and roughly cut
• 1 small sized (like in the pic above) or half a large one
• 1 fat garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• sprig of thyme
• 2 ltr vegetable stock
• 250 ml double cream
• seasoning (salt & black pepper)

Here is how you go about cutting and peeling a celeriac.

Halve  the beast with a large kitchen knife and cut into 2 cm slices. Peel with a paring knife (a potato peeler is not up to this). Cut into batons, then cubes. 

Method

• Melt the butter (or heat up the oil) in a large cooking pot, on the hob
• Sautee the vegetables with the herbs and garlic for 5 to 10 minutes.

• Add the stock and bring to the boil

• Let it simmer/rolling boil with or without lid till the veg are tender.

• If you cook your soup without lid, the stock will reduce much more than when you cover the pot and you will get a much thicker consistency. You'll get the same result if you cook for much longer than strictly needed.  But that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It is all a matter of preference.
• With a stick blender, but not before you take out the bay leaf and woody thyme, turn this into a smooth soup. You can blend with any blender obviously, but why make life difficult for yourself. Invest in a stick blender. My second one in 30 something years has been going strong for nigh on 20.

You see this ? That is too thick for my liking. I don't want to use a knife to cut the soup.

No drama!

• If you feel your soup is too thick, add boiling water to the pot and cook through again for a few minutes. 
• Add cream too, if you so wish, and adjust seasoning with sea salt and plenty of black pepper.

Smooth and velvety. Dunk in a chunk of quality bread.

We like it with Blue Cheese and Nut Bread for which the recipe is in the making. So please come back for that at least.

Patricia xxx...x

Salmon and Prawn Laksa - It is Just a friggin' Soup.

I've been wanting to make laksa for some time now, but 'exotic' ingredients, like rice noodles, are often hard to come by in this neck of the woods. Let alone, laksa paste or lemongrass. So most of the time improvising is on the agenda. But that is okay, because I'm an improvisatrice extraordinaire, even if I do say so myself.
I can't think of a time that I have ever had the honour of eating laksa, but looking at recipes on the web, I could 'imagine' the flavours. A choice had to be made though, last Monday, whether  it was going to be a fish based, chicken or vegetarian laksa. I opted for this recipe from BBC GoodFood .
While I had foraged the not-too-far shops over the last month or so, I had most ingredients in the house, except for laksa paste or Thai red curry paste, but in the freezer was a small (very small) plastic container with homemade Malaysian curry paste

Here is how I set to work.
Ingredients - serves 3 as a main course

• sunflower oil, 2 to 3 tbsp
• butternut squash, the neck only, peeled and cut into 1.5 to 2 cm cubes
• courgette, one that has been laying around the kitchen for a while (but you can use a fresh and firm one too), de-seeded and cut into similar size cubes as squash
• laksa, Thai red or homemade Malaysian curry paste, 2 to 3 tbsp.
• lemongrass stir-in paste, a squirt
• 1 tin of coconut milk, 400 ml
• chicken stock, 600 ml, more or less ( can be made from a stock cube)
• rice noodles, 150 gr, soaked in boiling water and drained (according to the BBC Good Food website). Don't use this cr*p, because they become too mushy :

• fresh beansprouts, 300 gr
• salmon, 300 gr, sliced or cut into chunks
• king prawns, the frozen kind, but defrosted. 1 handful (a shovel sized hand)
• fish sauce, a splash
• juice of half a lime
• chilli, red or green or yellow, as many as you like and as hot as you can stand, sliced into rings
• a small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped.
• 3 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal.

Preparation

• Heat  the oil in a pan and sautee the butternut squash for 5 minutes
• Add courgettes and cook for another 5 minutes while regularly stirring. 
• Spoon in the paste of your choice, together with the lemongrass squirt and coat the vegetables, cook for a few minutes.
• Pour in the coconut milk and stock, simmer for 10 minutes
• Add noodles, beansprouts and fish, simmer for another 2 minutes or till the salmon has lost its translucency.
• A splash of fish sauce.
• Turn off the heat and add the prawns. If you use the kind I used they are already cooked and just need heating through.
• Stir in the lime juice, some of the coriander, chilli and spring onions, keeping some behind to sprinkle over the served dish.

And there you have it.  It tasted just as heavenly as I imagined.

If by any chance my recipe scares you, I won't be offended if you use the one from the Good Food website. Well, maybe just a little bit.

Patricia xxx...x

Malaysian Curry Paste - Vegetarian Version

That's what I'll call it for now. But it could be from anywhere in Southeast Asia, I suspect.
We are honored to have a lovely young woman from Malaysia staying here as a volunteer. Her name is Wen and even though she has been traveling a good part of the globe for 5 years or so, I feel it is my duty as a host to make our volunteers at home. So, I 'try' to cook something from their homeland from time to time.
Now, I am not a seasoned cook in Asian cuisine.  Oh, I do make Indian curries and kormas and other Indian inspired dishes. And bami goreng is also in my repertoire. Obviously all given the 'Patricia treatment' depending on the ingredients I have in the pantry and spice drawer.
Trawling the internet for a Malaysian curry I came across many recipes that called for 'a jar of Malaysian curry paste'. Yeah, well, that wasn't on the cards living where we live.  I prefer to cook from scratch anyways.
Off to google Malaysian curry paste recipes, then. I was in luck, if only I had some galangal and lemongrass. I didn't have any shrimp paste either, but that was okay, since Wen is a vegetarian.
Looking a bit further I also found recipes for Laksa paste. this paste contains more ingredients  and would give a slightly intenser, albeit different flavour.

Here is my concoction, made with a gathering of internet info.

Ingredients

• 1 medium size onion, peeled & cut into large pieces
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 1/2 chilli, red or yellow, medium heat - I used red serenade chilli. By all means, use a hotter variety if you so wish. Wen is from Chinese descent and doesn't take to overly spicy food.
• a good chomp of ginger, peeled and sliced
• handful of cashew nuts
• 6 fresh or dried kaffir lime leaves
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 level teaspoon paprika
• 1 level teaspoon turmeric
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons of peanut oil

The ingredients I didn't have were galangal & lemongrass. I just used more ginger to substitute the first. The lemongrass would have given it a whole different dimension and I advice you to add 1 stalk, white only, chopped.

Method
Chuck it all in the food processor and blend till you have smooth paste.
I used half of the paste for a coconut milk based vegetable curry and froze the other half for future use.

Wen asked me for the recipe ! She might be just polite, but I believe her when she says the flavours are authentic. She mainly uses jarred pastes and they are way to spicy for her and certainly for her German boyfriend. It is also difficult to find a vegetarian option without the shrimp paste in it.
I believe her, also because she had the leftovers for lunch. Haha.

There, Wen, this is a recipe for you.

Thanks for reading.
Patricia xxx...x

Tomato Flan

Simple and fresh.

Ingredients  quantities depending on the size of the flan and on how many of them you'll be making. I'd say for 3 eggs, use one tbsp cream cheese and 150ml double cream.  It really doesn't have to be very accurate.

• shortcrust pastry
• eggs
• cream cheese
• cream
• seasoning
• dried basil
• cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• fresh basil leaves to serve

Preparation

• Preheat the oven 200° C - fan oven
• Line a pie dish with baking paper.
• Roll out the shortcrust pastry and line the pie dish, prick with a fork and put in fridge until ready to fill and bake
• Beat the cream cheese and cream smooth and add the beaten eggs.
• Season with salt and pepper, dried basil.
• Pour into the pie dish - don't over fill.
• Arrange the halved tomatoes on top with cut side up.
• Bake in the oven for 10 minutes then turn down the oven to 170° C, bake further for about 15 to 20 minutes, till the egg mixture is firm and the pastry cooked.

Shaheen's Beetroot Croquettes

I fell in love with these as soon as I saw them on the Allotment2Kitchen blog. 
Of course I needed to wait till my beets in the garden were ready to harvest.
I did make them, last year in July, lots of them. They freeze well (unfried) and that is what I did with a good few.
Yesterday, I took some out for dinner and served with shaved fennel slaw and salmon.
Beetroot works well with fish, in my opinion, and these are no different.

Last year's, served with a rocket salad and a selection of smoked fish and of course my favourite....capers.Haha.

Next time I will either use a finer grater and/or parboil the beets first.

I suggest you browse  http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.com/ .  You don't have to be a vegetarian to appreciate most of the recipes on there.  Look at me !  I love meat, but I also love Shaheen's recipes. Truly inspirational.

Thanks for visiting.
Patricia xxx...x

Chicken Soup

After 'the family gathering' the one Sunday, Monday I had to wrap up the 2 chicken run terrorists for the freezer.

From the carcasses I made a stock that day (see recipe here )

A simple recipe for a fragrant, clear chicken soup.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 leek, cleaned and finely sliced
• 2 medium sized carrots, cubed ( 1 cm)
• 300 grs frozen peas
• 1 handful of chopped fresh chervil
• 3 liters of chicken stock
• 200 grs chicken pieces, cooked
• Vegetable oil
• Seasoning

Preparation

•  Sautee the onion in a little vegetable oil, add leeks, carrots and leave on a low heat for another few minutes.
• Pour in the stock, cook until the vegetables are tender/al dente.
• Add the peas in the last few minutes, together with the chervil.
• Take the soup of the heat and add the pieces of chicken.  They only need heating through. If you boil them they will get tough.
• Season with sea salt and freshley ground black pepper.

Simple.


Thank you for dropping in.  Leave your comments after the beep.

Patricia xxx...x

*beep*

 

 

Chicken Stock

A simple chicken stock that I loosely followed from Jamie Oliver's recipe.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/easy-chicken-stock

My ingredients

• Carcasse of 2 chickens, neck and giblets included. I used raw carcasses, but, as you well know, you can also make a terrific stock from the carcasse left over from a roast chicken.
• 2 onions, roughly chopped
• 3 large garlic cloves, unpeeled and squashed
• 4 carrots, roughly chopped
• 6 celery sticks, roughly chopped
• 2 large bay leaves
• A bouquet of fresh thyme
• A bouguet of parsley
• 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 10 black peppercorns 
• 5 liters of cold water

Preparation

• Use your largest, deepest cooking pot for this.
• Throw all your ingredients in and cover with cold water.
• Put on the hob and bring to the boil.
• Turn back the heat and leave to simmer for 4 hours, skimming when necessary.
• Take it off the hob and drain through a colander or sieve, saving the liquid in a clean pot or bowl.
• Leave the liquid to cool as rapidly as possible. I was lucky that it was freezing so I left it (covered up) outside near the backdoor for a couple of hours.
• Once cool, you can divide into small containers and freeze for later use.
• Meat can be picked of the carcasses for any kind of use. I used it in my chicken soup.

My recipe for chicken soup coming to this blog soon.


I love reading comments (mainly when they're nice ;) ) so please, feel free...
Patricia xxx...x

Cheese Croquettes

Scuse the photo quality :-/

Would you believe I have never made these before and Belgium is undoubtedly the land of croquettes. Potato, cheese, brown shrimp, ham.

Only once did I make potato croquettes and that was eons ago, but last summer I got very excited about beetroot croquettes that I saw here , I had a go and they were the bees knees. YumYum.

But now I was stuck with loads of cheese - camembert style and goats cheese - from christmas.  Couldn't stand the smell anymore and I didn't feel like eating cheese morning, noon and night, so what better way to use all the cheese than in croquetes.  I made 60 of the little blighters, they freeze well and are gorgeous.

Ingredients (for 15 to 20 croquettes)

• 100 grs butter
• 150 grs flour
• 500 ml milk
• 1 tsp English mustard
• 250 gr cheese (if using Camembert, remove the white skin as it doesn't melt)
• 4 eggs
• extra flour for coating
• breadcrumbs
• Salt, black pepper, nutmeg

Preparation

• Make a thick bechamel sauce with the butter, flour and milk. Stirring all the while.
• Add the mustard
• Separate the eggs, add the yolks to the sauce and let it come to the boil again, stirring. Keep the whites for coating the croquettes afterwards.
• Add the cheese but don't let it come to boiling point anymore. If using hard cheeses, they need to be grated before you add them.  Stir until the cheese has melted into the sauce.
• Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.
• Tip the sauce onto a floured tray and spread out eavenly.
• Store away in the fridge for a couple of hours
• Cut the paste into 4x4 cm squares.
• First coat them in flour, then into the beaten egg whites, and lastly cover with breadcrumbs.
• Put them on a clean tray next to each other.
• Another cooling off period will benefit the end result. I did put them straight into the freezer.
• Heat up about a cm of sunflower oil into a deep-ish pan. Or you can use a deep fat fryer - 170°C
• Fry the croquettes in batches (depending on how many you have)until they are golden brown on both sides (you might have to turn them over halfway through the cooking proces, obviously)
• When they are done, scoop them out of the oil and drain on kitchen paper. 
• Ready to be served with salad, dipping sauce of your choosing.

It is not my favourite dish to make, but let me tell you they were worth the effort.

Enjoy.

Patricia xxx...x

  



Spiced Cauliflower Flan with Apricot Cardamom Sauce

This isn't my recipe.  I once spotted it in one of the many Country Living Magazines I have lying about.  Forgot about it for a long time and I don't know how this happens to pop back into one's head again all of a sudden, but the fact is I couldnt find the magazine with said recipe  anywhere , obviously.
So I tried good old Google and what-do-you-know, there it is.
http://www.lovebonnemaman.co.uk/recipes-cauliflower.aspx

I have made this a couple of times now with my homemade shortcrust pastry.  Oh, it is so good !  A very novel way of using cauliflower, this  and makes a nice change from a vegetarian quiche with a great combo of flavours.

I am super-duper envious of the oblong pie dish used for the flan in the Bonne Maman recipe, I had to make-do with a round one.

The recipe says to serve it warm, but I found it also very palatable, served cold - it could even go into the lunchbox  for work or it could take you out for a picnic ;oD

Receptje in het nederlands
Gekruide Bloemkoolflan met Sausje van Abrikozen en Cardamom

ingrediënten flan

• +/- 375 gr kruimeldeeg
• 1 grote bloemkool
• 145 ml volle room
• 3 medium eieren
• 1 theelepel gemalen komijn
• 1 theelepel gemalen koriander
• zout en peper

bereiding

• Oven voorverwarmen op 220 °C
• Een taartvorm bekleden met het deeg en in koelkast zetten
• Kook de bloemkoolroosjes 'al dente' in kokend gezouten water
• Laat de bloemkool grondig uitlekken en zet ze nog even op het vuur tot al het water verdampt is.
• Zachtjes prakken met een aardappelstamper, maar niet te fijn. Laten afkoelen tot kamertemperatuur.
• Eieren klutsen met de room, komijn- en korianderpoeder.
• Roer doorheen de bloemkool.
• Giet in de voorbereide taartvorm en bak in de hete oven gedurende 10 minuten, vervolgens temperatuur terugdraaien naar 180° C en bak nog een 20-tal minuten verder.

ingrediënten sausje

• 3 flinke eetlepels abrikozen compote
• 5 cardamoms
• 2 sjalotten
• 25 gr boter
• 125 ml water
• Sap van 1/2 limoen

bereiding

• Haal de zaadjes uit de cardamoms en stamp fijn in de vijzel
• Hak de sjalotjes fijn en stoof gaar in een pannetje met de gesmolten boter.
• Roer er de compote doorheen, samen met het water en de cardamom.
• Breng aan de kook en laat sudderen gedurende 5 à 6 minuten.
• Limoensap toevoegen en pureren met de soepmixer.

De flan warm opdienen met een lepel (of twee) saus, maar dit is ook lekker koud voor bv de lunchbox.

Chestnut soup and recipes for disaster

Next week will be the first aniversary of my participation in the choir Cantate from Aarschot.

http://www.cantate-aarschot.be/

It took me a while to get back into singing after a break of about 6 years, but I enjoy it tremendously. Meeting people and singing together is fun !

One of the issues I have, is that because I spend a lot of my days on my own, with Bert only joining me after his work day and as we all know, he ain't no great conversasionalist, I tend to go beserk when I go to the choir practice and I talk, talk, talk to anyone catching my eye.

Not only do I talk incessantly, but I also show signs of hyper-activity. I start flapping, laughing, joking, acting clumsily, just being an embarrassment, really.

So yesterday evening, the choir had a concert, titled No Depression In Heaven and we performed songs from The Great Depression in the US during the 1920's - 1930's, together with Norbert Detaeye, who is a fantastic jazz-pianist. After the concert the choir had organised a drink and a Bowl of Soup, for which I prepared a Smooth Chestnut Soup.

As I like helping out where I can, I joined a chore group in the morning to prep everything for the reception.

It all looked very pretty, with Lena's gorgeous little flower arrangements and all. Glasses were set out on tables to serve from, beers in the fridge, soups (also included here were Jos's Pumpkin Soup & Tineke's Tomato Soup) in the fridge. We had sweeped the floors, laid nice tablecloths etc. . Perfect !

When we were about to leave, I just kept on rabbitting and not looking where I walked, I ran into the table with the glasses on !!!

The Sound of Breaking Glass ! The feeling that goes through your entire body, filled with dread, humiliation, not knowing if you want to cry or start laughing hysterically.

Lucky for me, my singing companions haven't lost patience with me, ....yet, so they started cleaning up all the mess and in the end only four glasses got broken, even though it looked like the whole shebang got blown to smithereens.

Okay, I can live with one public embarrassement a day, but not two !

This is what happened when the concert had finished. People were already leaving for the reception, still plenty around to notice what I did next.

The venue being a 'modern' church from the 60's/70's, I walked down the steps from the altar and tripped ! No I didn't fall with my knickers on show ! I gripped one of the gold-sprayed aluminium banister uprights of the pulpit instead. Only, it came loose at the bottom end.

Can't really remember what happened after that, it's a bit of a blurr, only know that some sympathetic choir members helped me to regain my balance and tried to slam the upright back into place.

How do you brush yourself off and walk away with your dignity intact, after such a stint ? Should I lock myself up and let someone else throw away the key ?

No, I think I should just take a deep breath before I go and mix with people, take a step back and relax instead of being like an uncoiled spring once I leave my own four walls.

I can but try.

Chestnut soup

I will say this again. This recipe is only a general guidline and if you want to add a bit more of this and less of that, it will still make a fantastic soup.

Ingredients

A splash of olive oil, you can use butter if you like

2 or 3 onions, peeled and chopped

1 or more cloves of garlic, peeled, roughly chopped

3 carrots, chopped

1/4 celeriac, chopped

fresh sprigs of thyme

1 bay leaf

3 liters of vegetable stock ( I admit using stock cubes - organic from Kallo)

About 250 grams of roasted and peeled chestnuts

Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Heat the oil in a pan, sautee the onion & garlic.

Add the thyme, bay leaf, carrots, celeriac and chestnuts.

Sautee for 5 more minutes, before adding the stock.
Let it come to the boil and let it simmer till the vegetables are soft.

Take of the heat and fish out the woody thyme stalks and bay leaf.

Blend with your handheld blender until the soup is smooth and velvety.

Season with salt & freshly ground black pepper.

I did make an extra topping for the soup based on Delia Smith's recipe for bacon and thyme croutons.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/soups/chestnut-soup-with-bacon-and-thyme-croutons.html

I fried in olive oil some smoked lardons, onion, croutons, loads of fresh thyme, some extra chesnuts (roasted, peeled and chopped), when cooled I added oodles of freshly chopped flatleaf parsley.

Add as little as a tablespoon on top of your plate or bowl of soup. Autumn (or fall) on a plate.

Note : You can also add a splash of sherry, port, brandy or whatever tickles your fancy, to the soup. It gives it another dimension.

As a gesture of gratitude to the choir members for putting up with me this last year I'll be baking a 'carrot cake' for the next choir practice. They won't know what hit them. First chestnut soup, then carrot cake, whatever next !

Nederlandse versie van dit recept