Fridge

Karen who lives in a beautiful house somewhere in the USA and has a wonderful blog called This Old House 2, posted a photo of the contents of her fridge and dared her avid followers to send her a photo of their fridges too. Well, I decided to take it one step further. I have no shame. For you, my dear loyal readers, I’m posting a photo of my fridge too.

I’m quite anal about my fridge. Not about its cleanliness though. It’s clean, but that’s not what my analiness (new word) is about. No, it’s worse.

I want everything in a straight line. Not the fridge itself obviously, judging by the photo below, but everything inside it. Obsessive compulsive? Moi? 

Milk cartons need to be in a straight line. Water bottles, all neatly lined up. Yoghurt cartons… you’ve guessed it. And even if there’s only one, like now, it has to be straight. Just between you and me, I’d love to take out a ruler and space everything out at equal distances. But self-restraint and all that prevents me from doing so.

Then there are the juice cartons. Yes. I know, it is sad, but they need to be next to each other like that. If hubs has the nerve to put one of them upside down, I might have to kill him. Again.
On top of the juice are two pre-baked pizzas with tomato sauce only that are waiting patiently until it is their time to get out of the cold and go into the oven. I’m going to top them with baked mushrooms, black olives, thinly sliced red onions, oregano and mozzarella. And then in the oven. Yum.
Next to that, just visible is a bottle of Vermouth.

Next shelf: fresh mushrooms, three varieties. A small black box with vegetarian stuff that for some reason tastes like chicken and is very good in stir fries and also a box of blueberries. To add to the Greek yoghurt and make us believe we’re eating healthy. Next to that the cheese box with some smoked cheese on top of it. Cat food and behind that a jar of roasted red peppers.

Two white boxes filled with cakes, because it is hubs’ birthday tomorrow. A tub of Greek yoghurt (delicious, but too many calories). Blueberries to the rescue. Behind the Greek yoghurt are two cartons with small tubs of yoghurt/fruit and all kinds of healthy bowel bacteria added.
Then a drawer filled with mozzarella, feta, small tub of cottage cheese and some butter.

The vegetable drawer: lettuce, fennel, peppers, carrots, beans and below that a drawer filled with different kinds of onions. I don’t keep the zucchinis and egg-plant (aubergines) for the planned lasagne in the fridge, so they are in a bowl on the kitchen worktop somewhere.

In the door, top to bottom: eggs, produced by our own chickens of course. Soy sauce, whipped cream, butter for frying things in.
Sambal (small jar of very hot Indonesian stuff), black olives, capers, Zaanse mayonnaise, small bottle Heinz ketchup, two different mustards.

Cream (I’m going to make a potato/carrot/courgette gratin with cream), crème fraiche (for a spinach quiche) and milk for people who drink their coffee in the totally wrong way.

A bottle of Limoncello, a present from friends who’ve been to Italy, a bottle of sweet dessert wine, orange juice, apple juice.

And last but not least, black currant sodas (cassis).

Reasonably healthy, I’d say. But above all: straight lines equals happy smile.

Good News deserves a Fat Bastard

Today was Result Day of hubs’ colon cancer examinations. And the news is good. They found nothing else, except for the rather large tumour we already knew is there in his colon. The tumour is on the border of his colon and his rectum. But fortunately they have decided it can be treated as colon cancer. If they would have decided that the tumour was situated too low, hubs would have had to undergo chemo- and radiotherapy first. So, since they have decided it is in his colon, an operation only will do. And, unless they discover something scary about the tumour when it is removed, that will be it.

It must have been all the positive energy and thoughts and your prayers, don’t you think?

When hubs’ doctor delivered the good news and we talked about what the next steps in his treatment will be, I said: “Good! And now we’re going to buy some ‘Moorkoppen’ to celebrate.” (‘Moorkoppen’ are hubs’ favourite pastry (and ‘rijstevlaai met slagroom’ too actually)). So on our way home we stopped at a bakery and bought some ‘Moorkoppen’.

One could consider the name Moorkop to be politically incorrect if one is very sensitive about these things. It means something like Moorish Head, probably referring to the delicious chocolate topping on the choux pastry? But I’m sure the Moorkop doesn’t mean to insult anyone. Their sole purpose in life is to be delicious. Choux pastry, lots and lots of whipped cream and chocolate and for the healthy touch a piece of sliced pineapple.

In fact, I googled ‘moorkop’  after I wrote the above and found this: The origin of the name moorkop lies in Den Bosch. There was a house named ‘de Moriaan’, and the residents were well-known for their cooking. They specialised in delicious patisseries. At some point in time a pastry made by the cooks became a popular delicacy and someone shouted: 'it looks like a morenkop' (a ‘morenkop’ is a stone head of a moor, or black man, that hung above many pharmacies). Our moorkop came from the name 'morenkop'.

And if one eats too many of these, one becomes a…

… fat bastard. That’s right.

I saw this Rose (haven’t found out how to get the ‘accent aigu’ above the a or e; the combination ‘e or ‘a doesn’t work on this laptop, so if someone knows the trick, please let me know) in a supermarket and I couldn’t resist it. Look how cute the hippo is. And I mean; Fat bastard. Does that not bring a smile to your face? It does to mine. And it doesn’t taste bad either.

We might open a bottle tonight with a couple of friends who want to celebrate the good news with us.

Now we have to wait for hubs’ operation, which will take place later this month. They gave him a book full of information about the examinations he’s had and about the operation and apparently they will let him go home after the operation ‘if the patient can pass wind’. WELL… what can I say. To me that seems to be a wise decision from the hospital’s point of view. I hope he doesn’t pass too much wind when he gets home though. I could do without another flatulent guy in this home. Biggles passes enough wind for the entire population of our village me thinks.

Petje (the cat) is extremely brave to pick this spot to have a nap. I’m happy to say that she did survive the gas attacks and that she didn’t get squashed either. They were both really comfortable actually. It’s amazing. I know.

This, that and the other

First I’d like to thank you all for thinking of Hans and me and sending us good thoughts, prayers, positive energy etc. It really helps to know that so many people care. We’re Teflon coated by positivity now, so everything bad just has to slide off immediately.

THIS
Hubs’ case nurse, Jitty (who seems to be quite relaxed, even though her name suggests otherwise), turns out to be a little gem. She managed to twist some arms so hubs will have his MRI scan this Friday after all. In stead of a week later. So we will hear the good news (provided his Teflon coating works) Tuesday next week. The best news would be that the cancer hasn’t spread and that they’ll only have to remove a small portion of his colon to get rid of the tumour.

We’ll see.

THAT
And now for something totally different: salads. I had a salad on the menu for tonight. With some Nasturtium flowers from my vegetable patch I thought. And then this morning, or it could have been this afternoon, I visited Jabblog who had a post about a beautiful looking, and no doubt very tasty, summer salad. With Nasturtium flowers! And Pansy flowers too. Some people just exaggerate things. Anyway, I told her that we would be having a similar salad tonight and that I’d post some photos of it. So…

Salad leaves, toasted pine nuts and walnuts, Nasturtium flowers and a dressing made of extra virgin olive oil, Balsamic vinegar, mustard and honey. Doesn’t only look good, tastes nice too.

THE OTHER
Or should I say: the others. Some of the others anyway. This is part of our private zoo:

Tumtum, in half winter/half summer coat (summer coat = bald) is looking at us, Nufnuf is just in front of him inspecting the box hedge. Naloma is in the first stable, Evie in the second (from your left).

And next to Evie is Willem.

No you’re not drunk, or maybe you are, but if you were sober you’d also see the wall leaning. It’s not the wall. It’s the camera. Or actually; it’s not the camera either and I wasn’t drunk when I took the photo. I can honestly say I’m never drunk. But this is far too much information. I could have just Photoshopped the photo straight, but it is 30 degrees Celsius and I couldn’t be bothered. In real life the wall is straight. There. That’s what I wanted to say.

And look, we have a little chick. Its (we don’t know yet if it is a he or a she) mom is one of our brown chickens and she’s in there with him, just not in the photo. We’ve put the both of them into a run and their (con)temporary home is a travel box for the cats. They like it in there. Chick is too small to go up and down the ladder in the big coop yet. But when he'/she is a little bigger, we’ll put the both of them back with the rest of the family and keep them all locked up for a while in their coop and run. Hopefully it is a ‘she’, so she can stay with us. Otherwise I’m afraid he’ll end up in someone’s soup ;-(

My laid back Easter Bunny joined the mafia

One of my friends invited me to a workshop Cake Decorating. So Thursday evening we joined 8 other women and learned how to decorate a cake Easter style.

We had to cut the cake in three layers and then fill it with two different sorts of yummy stuff, using a piping bag. I managed to do that really neatly actually. No persons next to me, not even myself, got covered in the yummy stuff. Quite and achievement for someone who usually goes through life wearing clothes covered in all sorts of stains, without a clue how they got there and what they are.

We then had to roll out yellow fondant (I believe it was fondant, I’m sure it wasn’t marzipan.) in a circular shape to cover the cake with. A couple of cake decorating diehards who were on the opposite side of the table were amazed that a cake decorating novice like me could manage to do that so quick and accurate. And then we had to roll all kind of different sizes of balls from the brown fondant and create an Easter Bunny out of those.

I created a very laid back Bunny.  

We rolled out some more fondant, pressed flowers out of that and stuck it on the yellow fondant. Add some Easter Eggs in the form of tooth breaking candy and voila… My Easter Bunny Cake. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole cake decorating experience.

 

We put the cakes in boxes and took them home.

But when I opened the box, my formerly laid back Bunny seemed to have joined the mafia.

It definitely had that ‘You talkin’ to me?’-look on his face.

Not a happy Bunny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But hubs wasn’t afraid. He got out the big knife and said to the shivering Bunny: “No. I’m not talkin’ to you. You’re a fondant Easter Bunny. Why would I talk to you? And if you don’t behave I’ll be cutting off more than only your Easter Eggs. So you watch it!”

 

Easter Bunny covered his private parts with his basket and hubs cut the cake. Easter Bunny is behaving very well so far. And the cake is delicious.

HAPPY EASTER

I’m slightly worried and 100 Things I Love About The Netherlands #15

 

I love our well-stocked supermarkets. Oh I know that there is a lot to be said about supermarkets and how they make life difficult for smaller, specialist shops, and that is true. But there are lots of countries where people can’t go to a supermarket and fill a trolley with all the food they need and don’t need. So, in that sense I do love our well-stocked supermarkets that make life easy for us, consumers.

However, I’ve overheard some conversations between supermarket staff lately that left me slightly worried.

In the supermarket we know as ‘Germany’ (long story, something to do with not having been on holiday for years and the desire to go somewhere ‘exotic’ for once. I have posted about it here), but that is in fact Lidl, two employees are shouting their conversation across three isles and are therefore impossible to ignore:

Employee 1: “You know what they said?”
Employee 2: “No.”
Employee 1: “They want me to do my shopping here too!”
Employee 2: “What?”
Employee 1: “Yeah, that’s what I said. The boss wants me to do my shopping in this supermarket.”
Employee 2: “Oh?”
Employee 1: “Yeah. As if! Do they think I’m crazy? I’m not going to do my shopping here!”
Employee 2: “No, I wouldn’t either!”

In the supermarket we know as ‘France’, but that is in fact Jumbo, a couple of giggling cashiers:

Cashier 1: “Do you know if they caught the mouse yet?”
Cashier 2: “Mouse? What mouse!?!”
Cashier 1: “The one that was running around here.”
Cashier 2: “What? When?”
Cashier 1: “About half an hour ago. And then it ran towards the bread counter.”
Cashier 2: “No! Really?”
Cashier 1: “Oh God yeaheah. There are lots of mice running around here.”

In the supermarket we know as ‘Holland’, but that is in fact Albert Heijn, a couple of guys busy stocking shelves:

Guy 1: “Did you see the mouse?”
Guy 2: “No?”
Guy 1: “There was a mouse running around the cheese counter. The girls were really scared haha.”
Guy 2: “Oh. Did they catch it?”
Guy 1: “Dunno.”

Oily balls (100 things I love about the Netherlands: 14)

 

I knew oily balls would get your attention. And since I need ‘things I love about the Netherlands’ to get to 100 one day, I’ve included them in the list. Even though I don’t really love oily balls. They give me heartburn.

They will no doubt resemble something your country will have in it’s culinary assortment too. If not… lucky you!

Oily balls are made of a yeasty dough, filled with currants, raisins and/or candied lemon-peel (shock horror) and they are deep-fried. It is tradition to eat ‘oliebollen’ (that’s what we Dutch call them. It literally translates into oil balls, but somehow oily balls sounds better. Makes me think of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show. Why? I don’t know.) on New Year’s Eve. With a generous dusting of icing sugar. (Demonstrated here by hubs, who gave the granite worktops a generous dusting too.)

I’ve never really liked oily balls, especially not the ones filled with the disgusting candied peel and such. So my mother used to bake some ‘blind’ ones for me. Oily balls without the raisins etc. are called ‘blind oily balls’. Or my mother baked ‘appelflappen’. I did like ‘appelflappen’. They are made by dipping whole round apple slices, with a hole in the middle where the core has been removed from the apple, in the yeasty oily balls dough and then deep-frying them.

Years of being subjected to peer pressure on the oily balls-subject (“these are very good, you háve to taste one”) resulted in me actually preferring the raisin filled ones to the blind ones and éven to the ‘appelflappen’. As long as they do not have candied peel inside them.

In December ‘oliebollenkramen’ (stalls where oily balls are baked and sold) pop up in parking lots near shopping centres and in villages and city centres all over the Netherlands. During the rest of the year they are probably found at fun fairs, where oily balls and waffles with whipped cream are very popular ‘food’.
I’ve googled ‘oliebollenkraam’ and came across this questionable ‘singer’ with his ode to the girl in the oliebollenkraam. It makes me very ashamed to show it to you, and I assure you this is not an example of the best Dutch music (although certain people in the Netherlands do like this kind of music, but I’m all for keeping them in gated communities and not allowing them to interact with people who have taste) but it also made me giggle. It truly is a horrible song, but the video gives an impression of a Dutch ‘oliebollenkraam’. So my advice will be to turn off the sound and simply watch it for a short while.

(I díd warn you.)

I’m sorry for being such a bad blogger lately Been busy with other things.

100 things I love about the Netherlands: 12 & 13

12: Tompoes (or tompouce)

I loooove tompoezen (one tompoes + one tompoes = two tompoezen). It is my one weakness one of my weaknesses. And especially the tompoezen that are made and sold by the HEMA. Love them! (Although the whipped cream version made by a bakery in a nearby village isn’t bad either.) So, just for you, dear blogfriends, I went to the HEMA yesterday and got you four tompoezen.

Only for the photos of course.

A tompoes is made of two layers of puff pastry with a vanilla pastry cream filling and pink icing on top. Its shape is always rectangular. Around Queens Day (the day our country celebrates the Queen’s birthday) and when our national football team has to play an important match, the icing on the tompoezen isn’t pink but orange. (Orange is our national colour. Our Royal family is called Van Oranje-Nassau.)

The difficulty with tompoezen is ‘how to eat them in a civilized manner’. You could try to prick your pasty fork into the top layer of puff pastry. It won’t work. You’ll either press the top layer down, making a mess of the whole thing because the cream filling will ooze out, or the whole tompoes will shoot off your plate and land on the floor or against the wall or in the lap of someone else. So pricking your fork in the top layer of pastry is not the best way to attack a tompoes.

The safest and easiest, but perhaps not the most elegant and civil way is to use your hands to take off the top layer, eat that first and then use your pastry fork to eat the rest. Or take alternate bites.

I wonder, how does the Queen eat a tompoes?

Somehow the tompoezen I bought for photographic purposes only ended up on saucers. With pastry forks.

Irresistible.

And the other two we ate that evening. Oops. Weak flesh and all that. (Even weaker with the calories of two tompoezen each added.)

 

13: HEMA

The HEMA (an acronym for Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam, ‘Dutch Standard Prices Company Amsterdam’) is a chain of department stores. The first HEMA opened in Amsterdam on November 4th, 1926. Everything on sale had a standard price of 10, 25, 50, 75 or 100 cents. Quality goods for a low price. They still sell good quality products, but the prices are no longer standardized. To see the range of products they sell you can follow the link below (Mara from Weighty Matters tipped me that this site has a fun chain reaction going on):

http://producten.hema.nl/

The HEMA is also famous for its ‘rookworst’ or smoked sausage.

Since the 1990s, HEMA has also expanded into neighbouring countries. Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and France have HEMA’s too.

The HEMA organizes yearly competitions for Design students. The winning design will be produced and sold by the HEMA. This year’s briefing was ‘design an authentic HEMA product, which makes it easier and more fun for people to get out and about’.

You can see the winning design of this year here.

Carrot Cake

No Thursday’s Trifles this week. I’m sorry. Didn’t have (or make) time to read the newspapers this week.
And I don’t even have a ‘100 things I love about the Netherlands’-post ready yet.

What I dó have however, is this:

 

I hadn’t baked a carrot cake for ages. A very funny post by Don’t Bug Me reminded me of carrot cakes (and while you’re there, you can also go to her previous post - it’s about insects - and nominate her blog to be awarded Best Canadian Blog), but I couldn’t find the recipe I used to use. Fortunately I found another one and added a little bit of my own ideas to it. So this is my recipe. I’m giving you both grams and ounces, but I believe English and American ounces differ slightly. And when I cook I use the ‘about-method’. So I measure ‘about’ 200 grams of grated carrot, not exactly. It usually works for me.

6 eggs (I used 8, because our chickens produce small eggs)
250 gr sugar (9 ounces)
2 of those small sachets vanilla sugar, in total about 20 grams (nót, I repeat NOT, the baking powder)
1/2 teaspoon salt
250 gr plain flour (9 ounces)
200 ml vegetable oil
125 gr pecan nuts (4.5 ounces)
200 gr grated carrots (7 ounces)
2 handfuls raisins
250 gr icing sugar (9 ounces)
100 gr butter (3.5 ounces) 100 gr cream cheese (3.5 ounces) (I used Monchou)
lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 175 Celsius.

Beat the eggs with the sugar, vanilla sugar and salt until it has a light yellow colour and creamy consistency (it should form a ribbon if you let it run off a spoon). Sift the flour above it and beat the flour and 200 ml of vegetable oil (bit by bit) through it (I used an electric hand mixer). Spoon the carrots, raisins and the pecan nuts through it. Poor the mixture into a greased cake tin and bake it for about 60 minutes. Remove from the oven (good tip!) let it cool and then….

….beat the butter and the cream cheese until soft (I used a wooden spoon). Beat the icing sugar and a little bit of lemon juice through it until it is a creamy consistency and spread it on top of the cake.

 It turned out pretty good. Very light and soft texture, nice with the nuts and the raisins.

 

Do you have a great carrot cake recipe? Would you like to share it? Please? Pretty please?

100 things I love about the Netherlands: 7

Poffertjes

Poffertjes are a traditional Dutch batter treat. They look like small, fluffy pancakes, and are made with yeast and buckwheat flour. Unlike pancakes, they have a light, spongy texture. Typically, poffertjes are served with butter and icing sugar.

They are not difficult to prepare, but a special pan cast-iron or copper pan (also available in aluminium with Teflon coating) with several shallow indentations in the bottom is needed. Supermarkets sell ready-made poffertjes, but also stock mixes for poffertjes, to which you only have to add milk and eggs.

Especially in the Autumn and Winter temporary stands selling poffertjes (poffertjeskraam) ‘pop up’ in town squares. Sometimes the ‘poffertjeskraam’ is big enough to provide indoor seating, sometimes you have to eat them outside. 

 

This is a large ‘poffertjeskraam’ that provides both indoor and outdoor seating.

 

This ‘poffertjeskraam’ that was on the ‘Buiten Bezig Dag’ is the smallest and cutest one I have ever seen.

 

Three portions ‘poffertjes’, ready for sale. Hubs is ready to buy two of them. One for him and one for me. Just for the photo of course. The things I do for this blog ;-)

The plate with the little indentations is very hot. The poffertjes baker pours batter in the indentations and as soon as he’s poured the batter into the last little dent, he can start turning the ones he poured first over to let them cook on the other side. Experienced bakers can turn the poffertjes over incredibly quickly.

Yum!

‘Fun’ conversations with my mother-in-law

I: “My nephew will be doing a work-experience project at the Royal Marines.”
MIL: “Why?”
I: “I don’t know. Perhaps he wants to be a Marine.”
MIL: “Oh, but Marines are not in the Royal Marines!”
I: “No?”
MIL (very definite): “No.”
I: “Which part of the Army does a Marine belong to if he isn’t in the Royal Marine Corps?”
MIL: “I don’t know.”
I: “But you’re sure a Marine isn’t in the…”
MIL: “Yes! I’m sure!”
I: “Okay.”
(Just between you and me; a Marine is in the Royal Marine Corps. But just try telling my mother-in-law that.)


My mother tells my mother-in-law that she (my mother) and my father will be going to a rehabilitation centre called ‘Visio’, because my father suffers from an eye-disease.
Mother: “We’ll be going to Visio next week.”
MIL: “You mean thé physio.”
Mother: “No… I mean Visio.”
MIL: “When I go to the physiotherapist I say: ‘I’m going to the physio.’”
Mother: “Whatever. But we are going to Visio. V I S I O.”
MIL: “You’ve spelled that wrong.”



I: “I’d like to taste soy milk. They always have those little stalls with fruit juices or cheese to taste in the supermarket, but never with soy milk.”
MIL: “Why do you want to taste it?”
I: “Because I don’t eat meat. But I do drink milk. And to produce milk a cow needs to have a calf. And lots of those calves end up at the slaughterhouse. So in fact, I’m still guilty of murdering cows.”
MIL: “Oh, but you have special dairy cows who always give milk, even when they don’t have calves.”
I: “I don’t think so.”
MIL: “I’m sure of it!”
I: “No, you see, they take the calf away from the mother cow, otherwise it drinks the milk. And then they feed the calf fabricated stuff. I’ve often fed calves from a bucket when I was a child.”
MIL: “Oh, but Carolina, I’m from a farm and I’m sure there are special dairy cows.”
I: “Yes there are, but they give milk because they have calves.”
MIL: “I’m a Gemini too, Carolina (I hate it when people use my name like that), and I always want to be right too. Just like you!”
I: “But the difference is that I don’t want to be right. I just usually am.” (hubs nodding in the background)
MIL: “Well, I’m going to look it up on the internet. I’m sure I’m right. And I’ll email you the proof.”

I’m sure I won’t get that email.

A fun day out, part 2

See for part 1 of our fun day (well, afternoon… or actually two hours) out the previous post.

 

There were two ladies in folkloric costumes.
(Remember the post I did about those? You can find it here. These costumes must be from Drenthe.)

 

This box contains owls’ pellets…

…and these children (and adults) were taking them apart to see what the owls had been eating.

If you wanted, you could climb up a tree.

This mother sent her poor son up.
He was actually screaming: “I want to go down now!”, but mom wanted to take his picture first. Cruel!

Hubs was looking for some new light fittings. We might have to move to an even bigger house.

There was a pizza baker on a bike (you can just see the ZA of pizza).

The mother of all swings.

Okay, I haven’t a clue what this is. You? But it’s cute.

And goat- and other cheeses.

And there were lots and lots of different types of mushrooms…

 

…but only one type of beetroot. The very decorative chioggia beetroot.

 

What can I say; the sun was shining and the atmosphere was very… relaxed.

Chard

I’m far too excited about this vegetable garden. I might have a mental breakdown if the slugs and pigeons discover and attack it. Let us all hope it will not come that far. I have bought slug and snail pellets for the first time éver and will not hesitate to use them. No more Mrs. Nice Girl!

Meanwhile, yesterday we had our second harvest from the tiny vegetable patch. Chard or perpetual spinach.

I didn’t have a clue what to do with them, so rule 3 came into operation: ‘When in doubt, make a quiche!’ Rule 1 is of course: ‘Brinkbeest is always right’. Rule two: ‘When Brinkbeest is not right, rule 1 will automatically take effect.’ It works for me.

So a quiche I made. And both rules 1 and 3 proved to be correct. Using puff pastry for the base and filling that with sweated down onion, garlic and chard, soft goats cheese, pine nuts, some fresh mint from the garden and a mixture of eggs and cream. And lots of pepper. Some grated Gouda to top it off, 20 minutes in the oven on 200 Celsius. Okay, so maybe it doesn’t look all that appetizing, but it tasted really good.

And for dessert we had something really sweet:

Noticed Snoes’s little paw resting against Phoebe’s back? You can ‘biggify’ this photo by clicking on it. One of those heavenly benefits of using Windows Live Writer. All pictures will get bigger if you click on them. Bliss! And they appear where you include them in your post, without having to juggle them and the text around again and again. And again. Until you are ready for the men in white suits to take you away… That is why the photos in this post are dotted around all over the place. Just because…

Stamppot Postelein but This Is Not A Cooking Blog

This blog is fast becoming everything it wasn't set out to be. First I felt the need to explain that it isn't about our animals, but about ME (that was in this post - you know, the one about Naloma having colic) and now it seems to have become a cooking blog. But it isn't. It is purely a coincidence that two sequential posts are about food. Now, I am able to prepare a reasonably tasty meal. At least people always say yes when we invite them to come over for dinner, which is a good sign. Or they like living on the edge. Or they just like us. We also have friends who will either phone to ask if they are welcome to join us for dinner, or just drop by around the time we usually eat. Therefore I'm inclined to think that I'm not the world's worst cook. And certainly not the best. But sort of agreeable with outliers at both ends. From utterly disgusting (doesn't happen too often) to very delicious (ditto). Anyhoo, tonight I cooked 'Stamppot Postelein'. I honestly haven't a clue what Postelein is called in English. Or even if you, dear blogfriends who take the time to read this post, know Postelein at all in your country. So I've put up some photos of the delicious little stalks with little leaves. Can we call them vegetables? Why not! They are. QUESTION: if you recognise this Postelein (this sounds like they are wanted and you can get a reward if you turn them in, but I'll have to disappoint you; no reward) will you please let me know in the comments-section what they are called in your country? Hubs and I thought the stamppot Postelein I made tonight tasted really, really good, so I shall give you the recipe. Sort of, in 'about' measurements. Just in case you recognise the little culprits that are making me feel rather uncomfortable now because I ate far too much, and want to make this culinary delight yourself. For 4 people you need about: 1 kilogram (2 lbs) potatoes 400 gr (0,8 lbs) postelein bacon cubed (I use the vegetarian bacon cubes from Albert Heijn), as much as you want 100 gr (0,2 lbs) grated cheese 250 ml (1 cup) milk (it should be warm, but I often ignore the rules and use cold milk) salt (but not too much of course) pepper (lots of) Peel, slice and cook the potatoes in salted water until soft. Meanwhile wash the Postelein, remove the ends of the stalks and cut the rest up into smaller pieces (about 1-2 centimeters). Fry the cubes of bacon until crispy. Make a mash of the cooked and drained potatoes, using as much milk as you need to make it smooth, add the grated cheese and lots of pepper (if you like that), stir well, place the pan with the mash back on the stove on a very low heat and stir the postelein through the mash. You now have stamppot (you can use all sorts of different vegetables, raw or cooked, to make stamppot, but the base is always mashed potatoes). Stir the crispy bacon cubes through the stamppot, remove from the heat and serve immediately. For this occasion (I would do that if we have guests and since you áre my guests...) I have used one of those fancy metal rings to make a nice tower. If hubs and I are on our own, we just dump a blob of stamppot on our plates. Notice the delicately draped grated cheese on top. I know! It's almost Art ;-) If you want, you could have this with meat. Pork chops (we won't tell Nufnuf and Tumtum) or a 'Gehaktbal' (you háve to follow this link, because I wanted to give you the recipe for 'Gehaktballen', but was too lazy, so I Googled for a recipe and found this actual cooking blog with a great recipe for Dutch meatballs. Isn't that just wonderful?).