Yoghurt with

Children sometimes refuse to eat.
I've discovered many ways to fool my children so they would get enough nourishment to stay healthy.

I never told them yoghurt is healthy, or is a desert.
Yoghurt is a treat.

And I make it even better when there's a reason to do so, and I don't like sugar to play much of a role in it.

I use a smoothy to improve the taste of yoghurt when I have no fruit available.

Pour the fruit in the yohurt and mix it in a blender until it's foam.

Kids, and grown ups, love it!

Baked apple

Take a goldreinette (apple which is quite firm and stays rather firm when heated).

Peel it and make slices of one to 2 cm.

Take the middle hard part out with a knife.

Heat a teflon pan with a bit of butter.

High fire.

Put the apple slices in and keep moving the pan.

Throw cinnamon on the apple.

Turn the slices,

go on baking and moving and throw cinnamon on.

Throw snowsugar on it and turn the slices.

Bake for 30 seconds and throw snowsugar on the slices and turn.

Repeat snowsugar and turning.

Keep a close watch on the bottom of the pan, because the sugar shouldn't go black but golden brown.

When you like the smell well enough,
pur the whole lot on a plate and either serve them slice by slice with some honey and cinnamon icecream, for instance. Or on a piece of cake.
Or just the way they are.

Yummy!!

Carrots and leek

Take about an equal amount of carrots and leek.

Slice them and put them in a pan with potatoes.

Cook.

When it's nearly ready take smoked bacon and slice them in small pieces or buy pieces.

Bake them in their own juice until the fat is nearly gone or the bacon is brown.

When the potatoes and carrots are ready, stamp the food and mix it with the bacon.

Yummy!!

Broccoli pie

Needed:

500 gram potatoes
375 gram broccoli
125 gram carrots
100 gram sellery
50 gram bacon
250 spices minced meat
1 union (circa 125 gram)
1 garlic
1 tin tomatomash (60 gram)
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
2 teaspoons parsley

75 gram grated old cheese
nutmeg, pepper, salt.

circa 25 - 50 gram butter

Preparing

Time in oven: 40 - 45 minutes after preheating..

Peel potatoes and cut them in 4 parts. wash them.
Put them in water. About half under.

Don't use salt!!! Cook them. When ready pour the water away and leave them to rest.

While cooking the potatoes, cut the large stem from the broccoli and wash what's left.

Cut the flowery part from the broccoli, and save the small stems for later.

Kook the broccoli in a bit of water with salt in about 5 to 10 minutes. Pour in a sif so the water can be drained.

Slice the small stems in small pieces of a half to one cm.

Clean carrots, peel them and cut in small parts.

Cut selery in small parts.

Put the broccoli stems, carrots and selery in water and a bit of salt and cook for 3 minutes.
Leave them in the water and save for later.

Peel an union and slice in small parts.
Peel garlic and cut it in very small pieces.

Bake bacon, take it out of the pan and put minced meat in the fat and bake that. It doesn't need to be brown, just baked a little bit.

Get rid of too much fat and water.

Add the union and bake a bit more, add garlic and leave it baking for 1 minute.

Take tomatomash and add it.
Add some thime, parsley and a bit of dalt and pepper.

Then put the vegetable to the meatmix and add all in a fatted ovenbowl.

Make mash from the potatoes and add the broccoliflowers.

Maak nu de aardappelpuree:
Add cheese, some pepper and salt and nutmeg.

Add the mash to the vegetable mix in the ovenbowl.

Put little pieces of butter on top. (about 15 grams)

Preheat the over at 200 degrees celcius.

Put the pie in it in the middle and bake until brown. That's about 30 to 40 minutes and about 5 to 10 minutes longer when the pie was kept in the fridge.

Salmon wraps

Take a mexican wrap.
Spread it on the table in front of you.

With a knife spread herbal cheese on it.
Preferably french soft cheese with herbs.

On it: a thin layer of salmon.

And then: large thin slices of cucumber.

Rol the wrap and slice it in 3 cm long pieces.

Eat!

Yummy.

Pretzels and chocolate

When you have some chocolate somewhere, maybe even some peanuts, you have the basic ingredients to make your pretzels special.

Melt the chocolate and chop the peanuts to little pieces.
Throw the pretzels in the mixture and stir carefully.

Then put them on non sticky paper and let them dry.

If you can get them dry before they're eaten.

Clay pot chicken

Some people are not afraid to try something new.
In the past I had a go at an unknown way of cooking.

Cooking in a clay pot.

It takes a long time, but oh...it's so delicious.

OK. Here we go.

Emerge the clay pot in clean water.

If you don't have a clay pot, use a crockpot or something else.


Slice chicken (without the bones and skin) and carrots in cubes of about 2 cm and put them in a bowl.
Add 1 green bell pepper (green paprika) chopped in 1 cm small pieces.
When you don't like cooked bell pepper, save it until later.
Chop fresh ginger root into small pieces. About 2 tablespoons will do.
Add 0,5 cup of water or chicken brew.
Also add 0,5 tablespoon of allspice (Pimenta Dioica).
And a bit of pepper.

Mix it well and take the clay pot out of the water. Shake off the water.
Put the mix in and put it on a low fire for 7 to 8 hours, or until the chicken is OK.

When it's ready, take an 8 oz. can of pinapple chunks.
Mix the juice with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. When it's mixed well add it to the crockpot while stirring.
Add the pinapple pieces and the bell pepper.

Put it on the fire again and heat it on a higher fire until it's thickened. That's after about 15 to 20 minutes, maybe a bit more.

Colcannon

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

To honor the Irish a recipe which is a real traditional.

And it's easy.

Main ingredients of Colcannon is traditionally: mashed potatoes, kale or cabbage, butter, salt, and pepper.
Other ingredients such as milk, cream, leeks, onions, chives, garlic, boiled ham or Irish bacon, can be added.

Just boil the potatoes in salted water.
Mash them.
Add butter, salt and pepper and when you like some nutmeg.

Add the sliced cabbage to the hot mash and serve.

improvised tarte something

We call it "tarte something".

It's a great way to create a meal that's different, quick and uses your left overs.

Make a dough of
- 250gr of flour
- equal parts of lukewarm water and olive oil until you've created a souple dough.

Put it in a cakeform and then add whatever you want on top.
Tomatoes and cheese,
spinach, bacon and cheese,
pineapple, chickenpieces and peppers,
the left overs of the former day..

Just use your imagination.

Put it in a hot oven at 180ºc for 20 mins.
Be aware that some ingredients may require a bit longer (you can prebake them), or less. So keep a close watch.

Enjoy!!

yoghurt in a different way

Ofcourse you can eat youghurt just as it is, with fruitsirup, with sugar, but you can also use it in a different way.

Take a very clean, ironed, teatowel.
Take a bowl and a place to hang the teatowel.

Put the teatowel over the bowl and pour the yoghurt in the teatowel.
Bind the 4 corners together and hang the teatowel over the bowl.

You'll see liquid dripping down.

Leave it a night and in the morning you'll find a firm yoghurt.

Put it in a clean bowl and taste it.
Isn't it nice?

You can add fresh fruit, or use it with lemonice, for instance.

mushroom wine sauce

There are many ways of making wine sauces.

My grandmother used to take the meat, preferable steak, out of the pan and put it in a preheated over of about 180 degrees.
Then she would use the juices as the base of the sauce.

In the meantime she asked me to heat the plates and put them ready.

The we would slice the meat and pour the sauce over it.

I always wanted mashed potatoes with a bit of cloves-powder. It accentuated the taste of the sauce even more.
But my uncle wanted potatoes and loved a bit of cream to the dish.

The traditional recipe goes like this:


garlic
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
1 cup fresh mushrooms

Peal and chop garlic as fine as you like.
Chop the parsley
Slice the mushrooms.

Put ready:

1 cup dry red wine
4 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves,

Freshly ground pepper

Put olive oil in a pan and melt the butter in it.
Stir the garlic and bake it until it's slightly brown.
Add the wine and the mushrooms.
Cook the mixture for 5 minutes while stirring.
Now the mushrooms are soft.
Put the parsley in and add pepper.
Stir a few times and then pour it over the meat.

I'm sure your guest will love this!

red wine and meat

Using red wine when cooking often done during the wintermonths.

The taste of meat becomes fuller, tastier.

Before you add wine to baking meat warm it first, so the meat stays soft and easy to chew.

Don't use aluminium when dealing with wine, because you can add a metaltaste to the food.

chicken and red wine

Prepare a chicken or chicken pieces the way you like, but stop when it's not completely ready.

Take an oven bowl or sledge and put the chicken in or on it.

Sprinkle some paprika powder over it. Not more than a tablespoon.
And do the same with brown sugar, not more than a cup.

Then take the red wine and pour it around the chicken. Not more than a cup will do.

Put the lid on the bowl or put some baking paper over the chicken and wine.
Let it simmer for about 20 minutes and while it does, skoop some wine over the chicken now and then.

When the chicken is ready, take it all out the over and taste the juice.
You can either add salt and pepper, or you can put the juices in a pot and let it simmer with a few clovers. (The last will give a sharp taste and wonderful smell.)

Enjoy!

Christmas rings

1 dl eggwhites
300 gr brown sugar (basterdsuiker)
1 small bag vanilla sugar

Put the eggwhites in a bowl and stir them untill firm, but not dry.
Add half of the sugar and stir until firm again.
Then carefully add the rest of the sugar with a spoon. Try to keep the firm consistency.

Take a plastic bag and cut off a corner to get a diameter of about 7 mm.
Take baking- or fatfree paper or put butter on a bakingplate.
Put the mixture in the bag and carefully make rings with a diameter of about 5 cm.
Put them in an over for about 2 to 3 hours at a temperature of 130 degrees celcius.
When they're ready they won't glue on the bottom again.

Let them dry a bit more and keep them well in a tin.

You can wrap them up in a plastic christmasbag, a nice mug, or on a christmasplate and give them as a present.

Or you can put them on a ribbon and hang them somewhere.

Cornmeal cakes

Ingredients

2 cups stone ground cornmeal (grof volkorenmeel)
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon salt (flattened spoon, not too much salt)
2 tablespoons boiling water

Preparation:

Mix the cornmeal and salt.
Cut the butter through the mix. Because the corn covers the pieces you can slice the butter into small lumps.
Then use your hands to mix it even better.
Add the milk little by little,
and add water little by little to make a moist but firm dough.

The dough can be cooked in the oven (400 to 425 degree, preheated), on a griddle, in a pan, fried in a pan, or baked in the waffle iron.

Use two wet spoons to drop the dough on the plate, griddle or in the pan and flatten the ball a bit with the back of the spoon.

Don't try that when you fry them. LOL!

When you use the oven, watch until the top side is brown and turn the cake.
In the waffle iron both sides will be ready at the same time.

You can eat them with fruityelly or chocolatesauce or with anything you like.