Simple dinner for three

White rice is a favourite with our kids, as long as it is served with brown muscovado sugar and a knob of butter. Alas, their Mom likes to expand their world by vegetables, sweet and sour mango-chili sauce and chicken. They didn't mind the chicken, ate their veggies and scorned their mom for adding too much heat...

Sorry guys, will leave out the chillies next time (add less anyway hehe).

Moisture attracts ducks...DB Challenge March

Daring Baker's Challenge March. And off we go, loads of butter and eggs. Our hostess this time is Morven and the recipe is called Perfect Party Cake, from the book that almost every US baking citizen owns; "Baking, from my home to yours" by Dorie Greenspan.

I was nervous. Perfect and cake in one sentence is not something I feel comfortable with. There was a mention of buttercream as well. Shudder. I've made quite a couple of buttercreams and I think I can say I mastered the technique, it never curdles, goes on nice and shiny... but we don't like the butter taste!

Obviously I had my ducks in a row this time, but this isn't going to be my cake. Not sure if it's is a cultural thing, or just my inability to bake a proper cake but girls and boys, if I want to have a moist cake, I'll just hold it under the tap, drench it in some adult drink or leave it out in the rain.

It's a 2-layer cake. Not that I planned it that way, no. Used cake flour, whipped till it spun but still my cake batter was liquid. Cakes should have been high, high and fluffy so each layer could be sliced in half, my layers? Approx. 1 inch high. Dense. Moist. Clinging. Oh ánd buttercream, so after eating a piece of this you aren't able to open your mouth for a while.
Hmm, might be useful for some people. Me.
Haven't tasted it yet, just the cut off tops.

I think the ducks were attracted to the little pink puddle in the -almost- center of the cake. (I made some luscious blood orange curd to fight the buttercream, recipe will follow!)

My inner child got the best of my decorating skills I'm afraid.






Breaking news! We cut the cake this morning, served it to our guests cautioning them that it was ok not to eat it.
They ate anyway. Even my kids ate it. Hell, even Wessel ate his piece. All of it. Unbelievable!
I ate it.
It was not as bad as I thought. Mission completed. Again!

My apologies for the haphazard post, wrote this on and off inbetween preparing and waiting for our guests, and now they have just left the building...
Just wanted to add that I procrastinated big time, baked it yesterday morning with my Baking Burka Buddies: Tanna and Ilva! Thanks for the giggles girls!

Don't forget to check out the Daring Baker's Blogroll on the right hand side of the screen! I know there are some marvellous decorated cakes out there!

Gadgets that work! Pre-cut parchment paper

Back in January, Lisa at La Mia Cucina, jumped to the opportunity to review Reynold's parchment paper. True to style she reviewed it up and down and asked bloggers to help convince the Parchment Parliament People out there to give us pre-cut parchment rounds, cookie sheet sizes or please alter the box so we can actually use it to tear it the way we want to...

Well, living in Holland obviously Reynold's isn't a brand we know, but I bet the complaints here are the same. Those cardboard boxes tear away at the roll and I end up ripping the box apart, hurting myself and use scissors.

This post is long overdue because Santa (by way of my Mom) brought me pre-cut parchment rounds, fitted to use in spring forms. All the way from Germany, easy as apple pie! Tadaaa!

I love him

I do love my cat to pieces. And fortunately he loves me back. Or rather my furniture.

To pieces.

I think what he needs is this! In hot pink. Goes so well with his white coat don't you think.

Escaping Easter

Cooped up...

Wishful thinking...

Too late!

The simple life, back up for Easter

Sometimes life can be simple, especially when you spent a long morning waiting with son nr. 2 in an academic hospital room only to be send home with an affirmation of the earlier diagnose. Son nr. 2 happy that, in his words: "they won't rip anything out." We had our bit of fun as we saw the first doctor, coming back with a second one, both disappearing only to return with a third; Huey, Dewey and Louie in white. Luckily they all agreed with our own hospital: it's a tiny rust colored spot, we know what it is (they did tell us but I can't remember; blood vessels in the upper skin layer leaving a rusty iron red), no need to do anything. Teehee! McDonalds time!

On to the food then, another simplification; all you need is a regular white bread recipe, no additions, just plain bread flour, yeast, salt and water.For instance:
500 gr bread flour
350 gr water
1.1/4 ts salt
1 ts yeast

Knead this dough to an elastic ball that clears your work surface / bowl of your standmixer. Cover and ferment in a lightly oiled bowl untill doubled (approx. 1 hour). Carefully tip on a lightly floured surface (I prefer a light coating of vegetable oil) and divide into tiny pieces, each weighing a 30 grams. Ball up, making tiny tight skinned rolls and place 2 inches apart on a lined baking sheet.
Dip your finger, or the handle of a wooden spoon in flour and press holes in the middle of each roll. Fill each dimple with a topping of your choice*, I used pesto and red bell pepper & ancho chili jam. Tent with plastic wrap, make sure you leave the top side undisturbed. Second rise will take something between 45 minutes and 1 hour or untill quite puffy. Bake in a preheated oven (250C), immediately lowering the temperature to 200C after the rolls are in. Bake for 12-17 minutes to a golden brown. Let cool thoroughly and freeze for later use. Pre-baking is also an option: bake for 4-5 minutes, let cool and freeze. Bake-off in a 220C oven for a couple of minutes untill golden brown. (Go wild on toppings, pretty much anything goes; cheese and onion, minced pre-cooked mushrooms, chocolate, dried fruit.. I would suggest an eggwash prior to baking when using sweet toppings.)

This Blundering Babe is Bitten By a Croc!

For perseverance and endurance, beautiful breads and stamina, please go and visit my Bread Baking Babe Sister. What I show you here is just a mediocre miserable excuse of a bread.

We all headed for coffee and chats to the lovely and talented Lien in her Kitchen of the Month. Boy, did she pick the perfect recipe for us. A bread to gnaw at our nerve ends, a dough to wrestle and conquer in the broadest sense of the word. We were going Wet and Wild this month. A recipe from Carole Fields the Italian Baker, the wettest of the wet, a nice 107% liquid ratio;

Crocodile Bread

And Carole, bless her white cotton socks, says the following:

"This bread, named for its shape, was dreamed up about thirty years ago by Gianfranco Anelli, a baker in Rome. It is his favorite bread and, judging from the numbers of people who come from all over the city to buy it, it may be his most popular as well. At the bakery it takes two days to make; I suggest that you start it in the morning, work at it again for ten minutes in the evening, and finish the next day. I actually prefer to stretch the process over three days because the flavor is even better. Three days may seem formidable, but the working time of the first two days is only 5 to 10 minutes.

This is one dough that you will find difficult to make without an electric mixer, for it requires thirty minutes of continuous stirring for the final dough-of course you could enlist help. The result is an extremely light bread with a crunchy dark-speckled crust and a very chewy interior. The bread stays fresh for an amazing number of days."

Wasn't shocked by the mentioned three days, not intimidated by the two separate starters, not even terrified by the thirty (30!) minutes stirring by hand (less when you use a stand mixer, but O.M.G... this was no dough, it was soup, the blobbiest of blobs, impossible to shape and fit to be tackled by Uri Geller I think. A mentalist good do some healthy work here to keep this monster at bay! (I do hope Lien is showing her hand magic with two bench scrapers). You can find the recipe in Dutch and in English in her Kitchen.

All I have to show you are these two pics, it disappeared too quickly to take anymore. Besides, I wanted to make it again, thinking I had thoroughly ruined this bread. See, I made the first starter, incorporated the first into the second starter the next day. Building confidence to tackle the dough on the third day. Put it to proof.

And forgot about it.

For several hours.

Only to be reminded by the big bowl in a warm spot in the kitchen at 11 pm! Pyjama-clad all ready for a nice last read in bed.... No way I was going to shape, rise and bake that monster blob that night.

I dumped it rather unceremoniously on a well floured lined baking sheet, performed miracles with two bench scrapers and my hands. (Yuck!!), divided in half and flipped each half over to one side. Then searched for the biggest plastic bag I could find and tented the whole thing. Shoved it in a corner, kissed it goodnight and went to bed..... Knowing all too well that this was going to be a large sticky failure. Already prepping myself I had to do this one again.

So..the next morning I silently tiptoed into the kitchen as to not disturb my croc. Fully expecting it to leash out at me, punishment for severe neglect. What I found was a even larger blob, spread out a bit, but altogether not too bad. Decided to bake it anyway.

Somehow between that first bread, and the hilarious exchanging of mails and forbidden words (do you know how many names this bread got called the past weeks?) I never got around to baking one again. Something got in the way, life perhaps or maybe I just didn't feel capable enough to tackle a croc. Call myself Sheila and get a proper Aussie hat first maybe. For now I feel I'm a Joey.

Oh and I did use my regular bread flour and some durum flour although the recipe asked for high protein flours from hard wheat. I guess I was a bit like Katie; if it can't be baked with what I have...too bad. After all; considering how I mishandled the dough, viewing the gorgeous breads my fellow bakers turned out and seeing what this bread is supposed to look like, I don't think it is too bad.

Please check our Crocodille hunters this month: A Fridge Full of Food (Glenna), Bake My Day (Karen), Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn), I Like to Cook (Sara), Living on Bread and Water (Monique), Lucullian Delights (Ilva), My Kitchen in Half Cups (Tanna), Grain Doe (Gorel), Notitie van Lien (Lien), The Sour Dough (Mary aka Breadchick), Thyme of Cooking (Katie), and What Did You Eat (Sher)

Don't forget, you can become a Bread Baking Buddy again this month! How? Read all about it here, or in Dutch here.

To end this -late- post with a bang, let me show you my back side, (sometimes bread does imitate real life):

Nature or Nurture: Have a cookie.. or two? Dutch fare

The million dollar question... someone comes over for coffee and a chat. You go ahead, brew some fresh coffee, and sure enough something to nibble on.

What do you do?

A) Present a cookie, close the lid on the jar and put it out of reach?

or

B) Present a cookie, put the cookie jar out on the table and with a hand gesture encourage to go ahead and have some more?

A..... you're Dutch!

B..... might as well be Dutch but you've learned a thing or two...

I know the stories about the thrifty Dutch who, with one eye on the clock (6 pm) send guests out on the street when dinner time is nearing and it seems that the cookie thing is world famous. We (as in "we Dutch") offer sweets... one with each cup of coffee and that's it. Period.

When Ulrike asked me about the latter, I had to think...and blushed... I think it's true! Not too sure about my generation but I know for sure that for instance my mother in law had a strict schedule in presenting. Special days there were bonbons (one! with a tiny bonbon saucer) with the first cup of coffee. And a -one- butter cookie with the second cup of coffee. Oh and coffee; she used to ask how many cups of coffee you'd like and brewed exactly that amount... no way she'd risk throwing out any extra! Oooh stories... I have so many I could tell you... I think no one from my family in law reads this but let's keep it safe...

To assure you, (and show you the contrast hehe) I come from a family that habitually brews enormous pots of coffee, loads the table during birthday parties, always had plenty food for any guests (or inventive enough to come up with something), the cookie jar out on the table. Contrary..when my friends and I meet over coffee, we just have coffee.. but that might have to do with our hips and thighs.....

Recipe butter cookies:

200 gr butter, softened

100 gr soft white sugar

2 tbs (2 packages) gr vanilla sugar

1/4 ts salt

250 gr patent flour

1 egg, loosened with a fork (eggwash)

topping of your choice, eg: ginger, candied peel, sugar clumps, jam, sprinkles

Combine butter, sugars and salt (medium bowl, spoon or fork). Add the flour and make a soft-ish dough. Wrap in plastic and leave to firm in the fridge (at least 1 hour).

On a floured work surface proceed to roll out your dough, aim for 4 mm (1/4 inch). Either use a cutter or a knife to make squares, brush with eggwash and choose your topping. I made an assortment and used some of each.

Gather your scraps, and do it all over again. Bake for 15 minutes on 180C, keep an eye out they might brown easily and you'll have to pull them out before the timer rings.

Rest assured, this will make enough to survive one or maybe even two (!) coffee visits ;-D

Left over couscous goes a long way...

(Not the best pic I know..)

and updating you took even longer. Personal life and a laptop got in the way. (Both suffering from irregular performance).

As David suggested I decided on a casserole, sweet caramelized onions on the bottom, followed by a layer of cod, a layer of nice crisp greens (peas, green beans, broccoli, sugar snaps, leek) mixed with some potato in tiny cubes and some slivers of smoked ham, topped with a layer of couscous.

Quantities are approximate, as this was a spur of the moment kind-a-thing:

2 onions, halved, sliced in thin rings

2 garlic cloves

1 ts sugar

1 knob of butter

some 400 gr. cod (I used frozen)

600 gr mixed green vegetables, blanched

1 large potato, in small cubes, pre cooked for 3 minutes

250 ml single cream (koffieroom!)

1 hand full parmesan cheese

salt, pepper, ground ancho chili pepper, ground cumin

a sprinkle of lemon infused olive oil

(I added some left over cured ham, just a tiny amount)

left over couscous (don't dare to guestimate..)

some more parmesan cheese

some more lemon olive oil

Caramelize onions in a frying pan, boil the potato cubes in a large pan for just two of three minutes, scoop them out, set aside and use the boiling water to precook your greens for just a few minutes. Drain and combine with potatoes. First layer in your oven dish is onions, arrange your fish over this layer, third layer is vegetable and potato mixture. Drizzle with a little olive oil.

In a small bowl combine cream with seasoning, maybe toss in some herbs as well, add the cheese and whisk. Pour over the greens.

Fluff and loosen the cold couscous with a fork, adding a little oil and some parmesan. This is your top layer. Divide the couscous evenly on top of the greens, make sure it covers it all, right up to the edges.

Cook for approx. 30-40 minutes in a moderately hot oven. (175C)

Couscous dorkdum

Faced with a mountain of couscous, the following conversation enfolds:

Mam, what were you thinking, this is far too much!

Me: the package said 500 grams for 4 so I added half and had enough for 6 right?

Says one of my 11-yr olds: ok simple; why didn't you add another 100 ....

Me, triumphant: yes, but this was easier, I just added half the amount of couscous and half the amount of water. It's 500 gr couscous and 1/2 ltr of water

stunned silence

11-yr old patiently: Sooooooooo, add a 100 gram of couscous and 100 gram of water and you're done!

His older brother helps: Mum? 1 : 1 ratio? Capisce?

Other 11-yr old chips in: she'll remember next time...


Clearly not my genes talking. Yes, they are my babies and I love them dearly. Just need some time to recover.

Recipe for couscous leftovers anyone?

Gevulde koeken; Passing rites / Overgangs rituelen / Dutch Fare

(in English? Please scroll!)

We hebben het bijna gehad, basisschool, groep 8, de CITO, de musical is nog een plan, het kamp ook maar er valt niet aan te ontkomen, er moeten nieuwe fietsen aangeschaft (2!), nieuwe rugzakken (2!), een mega stapel boeken (x2!) om die rugzakken te vullen tot ze barsten. Ik vraag me trouwens altijd af wie 't het eerst begeeft, die rugzakken, die fietsen of de ruggetjes van die brugpiepers.

Nooit opgevallen? Brugpiepers verplaatsen zich in een soort vooroverhangende tred, alsof ze op zoek zijn naar verloren muntjes.... Hiertoe gedwongen door de ik ben übercool, kijk maar naar mijn trendy-rugpijn-veroorzakende-laaghangende rugzak. 10 kilo op bilhoogte? Daar wordt je niet vrolijk van. Waar ik persoonlijk ook niet vrolijk van word is de schoolkeuze, zucht, zoals je misschien uit de "keer 2" tirade hierboven hebt begrepen, hebben wij aanstaande tweeling-bruggers. Zorgt voor geheel eigen problemen inzake welke school de mannen gaan vereren met hun aanwezigheid, al dan niet gezamenlijk.

Wat vrolijkers dus: het bijbrengen van de belangrijkste zaken: het snaaiwerk! In mijn herinnering was er: de gevulde koek en de rose koek. Oh ja, en thee en tomatensoep. Verder niet. Ik wil niet weten wat er aan hartkleppen verdichtende zaken tegenwoordig aangeboden wordt op school waardoor moeders volkoren boterhammetjes hun weg vinden naar de prullenbak, maar ik vind dat de gevulde koek in ieder geval niet mag ontbreken. (Even voor alle duidelijkheid, absoluut belachelijk dat er kennelijk niet wordt nagedacht over het voedsel aanbod op scholen!). En vervolgens geeft ze vrolijk het recept voor gevulde koek met veel boter en suiker, tuurlijk!

Komt'ie:

(afhankelijk van de grootte krijg je ongeveer 20 koeken)
250 gr bloem
180 gr zachte boter
150 gr witte basterdsuiker
2 el water
1 tl citroenrasp

Vulling:
200 gr amandelspijs losroeren met 1 tl citroenrasp + 1 losgeklopt ei. (Als je de amandelspijs liever met een spuitzak op de bodem heb je een soepeler spijs nodig, als je met je handen een bolletje vormt kun je met een gedeelte van het losgeklopt ei toe.)

Deegje kneden van de ingredienten en minimaal 1 uur in de koelkast laten opstijven. Even doorkneden en op een licht bebloemd oppervlak uitrollen in een lap van ong. 3 mm. Uitsteken met een vormpje, vullen met platgedrukt bolletje amandelspijs (of de spijs opspuiten met een spuitzak, kan ook), afdekken met een tweede laagje deeg. Afstrijken met losgeklopt ei, halve amandel erop. Ong. 20 minuten zo laten staan en dan nogmaals bestrijken met ei. Twee laagjes geeft een prachtig goudbruin koekje!

Afbakken in 15-20 minuten, voorverwarmde oven 175C (hetelucht),

It's almost there, after summer break our twins will leave school (from 4-11 yrs old) and go on to the next level of their education... (12 to 16 yrs). Before that happens there are some milestones to pass: the results of their final tests, (probably somewhere next week), practice the musical, wave them off to their goodbye school-camp.
I conveniently leave out the horrors of which school to pick, on what grounds, will they go together, mutual competitiveness an issue or not, same class, same type of school.... My mood swings from lying awake at night, to f*** reasoning, just enter them and we'll see what happens and anything in between...

So I figured these cookies are a nice ritual to start a new phase. It's the one cookie that belongs to the Dutch schoolyard. In my days the only things we could buy were these cookies (in XL), almost too sweet pink fondant ones, tomato soup and tea. I hear horror stories what kids these days can buy in school lunchrooms... ranging from the ubiquitous croquet and pizza slices (!) to semi-healthy sandwiches and all kinds of candy and soft drinks....
Oh maybe I should tell you here that in Holland you're supposed to pack lunch (usually bread with cheese, nutella or sliced meat, yes that'd be one or two slices not a pound, we're Dutch!). Why would you eat the healthy whole wheat sandwiches your mum forces you to take with you? Rather clog your arteries and get obese while you can right? With these wise words I'll proceed to give you a butter and sugar recipe....

Almond filled cookies:
250 gr flour
180 gr softened butter
150 gr white soft sugar
2 Tbs water
1 ts lemon zest
Filling: 200 gr almondpaste, crumble with a fork and mix with 1 ts citrus zest and half a beaten egg.

Combine ingredients and mix a dough, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease baking sheets or use baking mats. Work on a floured surface and roll out dough to 1/4 - 1/8 inch thick. Cut into round shapes with cookie cutter, fill with a walnut sized somewhat flattened piece of almond paste, top with another cut out piece of dough and place 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Brush with eggwash , and after 15 minutes brush again. Bake for 15-20 minutes in a preheated oven 350F.
Depending on size you'll get approx. 20 cookies.