The old Year

New Years even with a couple of good friends, resolution for 2012 is to eat less meat. So the evening of the year there are steaks on the menu. And of course not any steak, but the nice good ecological steak by "Siem van der Gragt". Accompanied by mushrooms, croquettes of potato, small potatoes, avocado tomato salad and a fennel and pomegranate salad. A real feast. And please people of Amsterdam, get your meat at Siem van der Gragt! Delicious meat and no animal had to suffer.  

http://www.siemvandergragt.nl/

Pre New Years Party

Pre New Years Eve Party of hubbies office. Wonderful located in a gallery on the Nieuwezijdsvoorburgwal, completely decorated for the occasion. Chapeau for hostess Afke for arranging everything on short notice for the 40 people attending. Although the fish soup as a started didn't have much taste, the rest of the meal (wonderful salad, loved the roasted onion, turkey was good and the nuts on the desert delicious) as well as the evening were great. Also much appreciation for the burlesque dancer. It was just, the wine, this wine was not my best friend the next morning ouch ouch. Mummy and daddy are not used to going to bed at four thirty in the morning :-s

Salad with Figs and Parma

What you need: 

Bunch of Mint

Bunch of Watercress

2 spoons of Hazelnuts

6 dried figs

150 gr of Parma Ham

1 apple into cubes

Dressing: 100 vanilla yoghurt, juice + zest of 1 lime, peper&salt, mix everything then stir 3 spoons of hazelnut oil through

How to make it:

Mix all the ingredients together and poor over the dressing: bon apetit

Christmas Breakfast

Needed: subscription to De Krat, because the deliver the loveliest and most delicious salmon from Frank. It's been so long since I had some smoked salmon by Frank (except for Christmas Eve) and I missed it!

Scrabbled eggs with salmon, best breakfast ever. Want to try? Puccini ins the Staalstraat has the best scrambled eggs if go there before twelve.

Day 2: the Culinary by Dad Dinner

Dad always cooks a multiple course dinner every Christmas for our family, my granny, aunt and uncle. This year my brother couldn't be there because he celebrates Christmas at the beach of Bali, the bastard. So it was just the 10 of us. He usually cooks from the magazine the Allerhande, so I'll put a link with each foto towards the recipe.

Bonbon of Rib eye with Herb Salad and Lemon Zest

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/#/recepten/775510/bonbon-van-ribeye-met-kruidensalade?rq=ribeye&course=voorgerecht

Tomato Creme Soup with whole Tomatoes

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/#/recepten/775616/tomaten-cremesoep?rq=tomaten&course=voorgerecht

Coquilles with Chicory in a cream sauce

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/#/recepten/775636/st-jakobsschelpen-witlof-ham-kaas?rq=witlof&course=voorgerecht

Cocktails of Shrimp from Stellendam and Grapefruit

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/#/recepten/534952/garnalen-met-grapefruit?rq=grapefruit+garnalen

Canard a l'orange

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/#/recepten/775612/canard-a-l-orange?rq=eendenborst+sinaasappel

Supertrifle with Berries

http://www.ah.nl/allerhande/#/recepten/775540/supertrifle-met-bessen?rq=trifle

Merry Christmas!

Day 1: the comfort food dinner

Christmas has started I love it. We were supposed to spends the holidays with hubbies family in London, but couldn't get the dog in because of some blood tests which the UK will abolish from the 1st of January and that's a week to go. Too bad, but it give us the opportunity to spend Christmas eve with one of our favorite people in the world: Bennie!
Ben invited us to his house boat for an easy comfort food diner, and that was all we needed. Appetizer: taco chips with melted cheese guacamole, chili and creme fraiche. We really attacked the plate! Diner course 2: home made wonderful delicious tomato red paprika soup with lots of chili and lots of ginger. This is my favorite soup in the world (want to try it: go to Puccini's where Ben is in the kitchen or book a night at his houseboat and he might just make you some). So delicious we had 2 big bowls! Main course: warm smoked salmon salad with grilled mini potatoes and grilled green asparagus. yum yum. Salmon came from the very, very best place in Amsterdam to get smoked stuff: Franks Smoke House. Once you've tasted his salmon you will not be wanting any other! I made braised pears with ice cream for desert, but we were really to full to eat another bite. Just some cheese and red port and the evening was complete. Thank you Ben!

http://www.bensboatandbreakfast.nl/

 http://www.smokehouse.nl/

Mackerel with Mustard Sauce (Makreel met Mostersaus)

I've eaten a lot of smoked mackerels, bur never had a fresh peace in my hands. Until De Krat brought me one, or actually two fillets. Including a recipe, which I tried immediately as fish should be eaten as fresh as possible. What I particularly likes about the dish is the crispy skin and the nice solid texture of the fish.

Needed:

2 mackerel fillets with skin

1 red onion, chopped

Fresh Parsley

100 ml white wine 

1 bay leaf

2 el mustard

30 g butter, cold and chopped

Preheat the oven at 250ْ  C, season the mackerel with some salt and black pepper. Create, in the middle of a baking dish, a mound of the onion, bay leaf and parsley (keep a bit aside for the garnish). Put the fillets on top with the skin side up, pour the wine over and put in the oven. Cook for 7-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. Put the fillets aside on a warm serving dish as soon as they're done, cover with some aluminum foil to keep warm.
Strain the cooking liquid from the baking dish in a small saucepan and boil for a couple of minutes to concentrate. Add the mustard and stir, the whisk the butter through and let it simmer for about 3 minutes. Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with same parsley.
Very nice with some skin cooked potatoes and a green salad. Very light, the fish is oily enough by itself.

Decorated the Christmas tree

View at the IJ

My office has a view on the west side of the IJ. We have a lot of windows so the view is often magnificent.

Today the light was amazing, dark clouds with the sun coming through and lighting everything almost orange

Bakkerswinkel

 At the wonderful Westergasterrein is best best Bakkerswinkel of the lot. Decorated beautifully, a lot of space and a great environment. One of our favorite places on the Sunday morning, they open at 10 which is the best time to enter, just before the families with their children arrive around eleven and it gets really crowded. First a stroll with the dog over the free dog walk terrain and then a big breakfast at the Bakkerswinkel. The westergasfabrieksontbijt with eggs and ham is when you're really really hungry, but I would recommend sharing a bakkersontbijt with two persons and then order some additional scones (with cranberries for example) If only so you can try all the different jams that are in jars on the tables, like the lemon curd, pineapple and basil or just raspberry.

http://www.debakkerswinkel.nl/amsterdam-west

Cathedral of Madrid

A good place to flee the city and have a moment of peace and quiet for a little while. If you don't mind the horde of tourists. 

El Jardin Secreto

After a couple of days of eating tapas, we were craving for a lot of vege. Or anyway, I was. El Jardin Secreto is a lovely and cozy place especially known for all their different hot chocolates and chocolaty deserts, but we're very happy with their salads and burgers. Also lovely is the wide range of non-alcoholic drinks, among which violet drink. They dress their meals and drinks with flowers as if it is a real garden. Specially a good place for a romantic being together.

Stop Madrid

Madrid of course is full of tapas bars, but we really wanted to have some old fashioned tapas. On our way to our hotel we already spotted Stop Madrid, bur unfortunately it was closed as we wanted to visit at our cocktail hour (7 o'clock) and opens again at Spanish hours around eight.

Delicious old fashioned tapas at Stop Madrid, with your beer you already get some bread with tomatoes and you can't visit Madrid without having some proper manchego and iberico: Stop Madrid is the place to be!

Mercado de San Miguel

A good place to try a little of a lot that Spain has to offer. A large covered market, with all kinds of stalls where you can get tapas, paellas, oysters, tortillas, jamon, manchego, chocolat, wines, beers...everybody gets what he likes and then you eat it at one of the bars or many tables. 

A real tourist attraction, which is not surprising because you have a bit of everything, but also a whole lot of Spanish people that lunch here or have a drink in the afternoon accompanied with some nice snacks.

http://www.mercadodesanmiguel.es/

La Mallorquina

Taking a break to visit Madrid for a couple of days because the husband has to go there for work. Packed my sunglasses, shorts, sunburn...not necessary at all! Madrid this time of year is just like Amsterdam in the fall: raining and 10 degrees. No worries, enough to see and do and every sunbeam is a reason to take a walk.

Our apartment is in the middle of the center, right near Puerta del Sol. Perfect to be if you didn't book a place that includes breakfast,  because on Puerta del Sol you've got La Mallorquina. A small pastry place, downstairs is the shop where, but upstairs is the breakfast room. Packed with people, but with a quick turn around, so you don't have to wait to long for a table. The waiters are just running around carrying trays with breakfast. They don't have a menu, so first have a look downstairs or just order napolitanas, which they have in a cream version or a chocolate one. Croissants, Orange Juice and some Café con Leche and your good to go.

Salad from De Krat

Just made a simple but delicious salad today with the lovely mixed tomatoes from De Krat

Some fresh spinach, tomatoes, tore some mozzarella, made some fresh pesto with the basil from De Krat et voila! 

Badhuis Javaplein

Meeting up with a friend who lives at IJburg we mostly end up somewhere in the Eastern part of Amsterdam. One of the parts of Amsterdam I've never lived and therefore don't really know. An upcoming neighborhood with lovely restaurants and bars popping up. I've been eating at Wilde Zwijnen behind the Badhuis, very good, but closed for lunch. So this time meeting in the Badhuis.

A very easy going place, with a lovely, very kind staff. You can easily sit at one of their couches or reading table for a whole afternoon. Only thing is: hygiene is not a high value. Don't mind tallow :)

Melted Cheese sandwich: very good, and again a very very nice staff.

http://www.badhuis-javaplein.nl/

Plaice Fillet with New Zealand Spinach (gebakken Scholfilet met Nieuw Zeelandse Spinazie)

"De Krat" has been delivered today, a whole bunch of fresh ingredients to cook with!
From De Krat:

2 Plaice fillets

1/2 Granny Smith apple - Thin Slices

500 gr of Newzealand Spinach

1 shallot - Chopped

1 clove of garlic - Chopped

1/2 lime in 4 pieces

Olive oil

Butter

Flour

Saute the Garlic and Shallot in the olive until they're soft (about 5 min.) Than put the spinach in hand by hand, it will shrink very much. Heat the butter in another frying pan until the foam had gone. Put salt and pepper on the fish and, at the last moment, put flour on them. Fry them on both sides for 2-3 minutes. 

In the mean time the spinach should be done, sprinkle the juice of 2 pieces of the lime on and season with some salt and pepper.

Spinach on the plate, apple on the side and fish on top. Finish with a bit of pepper and a slice of lime on top

Bouillon B Baard

Bakker Baard (Baker Beard) is a new phenomena in Amsterdam. Made baking Clafoutis his specialty. Tasted his Pies for the first time at a party a couple of months ago and thinking about them since I was very happy to hear he opened his own place at the Westergasterrein. We had some potato soup with Garlic Clafoutis, Pear Clafoutis with  pepper and chocolate and one very, very good very, very fresh pear juice. hmmmm. We had to go but I'll be back really soon for a Clafoutis plate, with three different Clafoutis the ladies next to us had - and a pear juice, and maybe a garlic Clafoutis and...:)

http://web.me.com/bakkerbaard/Bakker_Baard/wie_is_Bakker_Baard.html

Deer Stew with Parsnip and Jerusalem Artichoke puree (Hertenstoof met Pastinaak en Topinamboerpuree)

Again a night of Cooking from De Krat. Tonight I'm using some ingredients for the very first time, one of the reasons why I have De Krat in the first place. Ingredients from De Krat I'm using tonight: Venison, Parsnip, Jerusalem Artichoke, Chicory, Mushrooms and Apples.

For the stew: (based on the recipe delivered by De Krat)

400 gr Deer

100 gr Mushrooms

1 shallot & 1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 table spoon of thyme leaves

50 gr butter

40 gr bacon

350 ml stock

50 ml red wine vinegar

100 ml red wine

2 cloves & 1 bay leaf

Pinch of Chili Pepper

1 table spoon of dessert wine

Fry the bacon in half the butter, add shallot, garlic and thyme and bake for about 5 min until its soft. Fry the Deer until its brown in a Casserole in the rest of the butter, than add the onion mixture. Turn the heat high and add the vinegar, let it boil for a couple of minutes. Add the red wine and also let this boil for a while. Add 3/4 of the boiling stock to the pan, together with the Bay Leaf and Cloves. Let it softly boil for 1 hour, stir every now and then and add some stock if necessary. Than add the Dessert Wine and Mushrooms and cook for another 15 minutes. Season with some salt and pepper if necessary.

Side Dishes: 

Jerusalem Artichoke Puree - Peel 500 gr of artichokes, boil them for about 15 minutes. Mash together with a teaspoon of mustard and a tablespoon of creme fraiche, salt&pepper and some fresh thyme. If Necessary add some cooking cream to make it smoother.

Parsnip - Peel them, cut them in pieces of about 5 cm long and put them in water with lemon. Cook for about 15 minutes, drain, add salt pepper and olive oil.

Chicory Salad - Peel and chop 1 apple. Mix it with 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon of mustard, some olive oil and some lime juice, salt&pepper. Put in a couple of sliced pickled onions and 2 stumps of chopped chicory.

Salad with Bloater and Red Cabbage (Salade met Bokking en Rode Kool)

De Krat Brought me some nice Bloater this week. Best thing for a salad: smoked Fish. Since De Krat also contain some Red Cabbage, Nice apples and something I don't remember the very difficult name of, but it was Japanese and can be used as a salad.

Needed:

2 bloaters

400 gr Japanase vege (or something like it, like raw spinache)

1/2 a reed Cabbage

1 avocado, peeled and sliced

1 big apple

8 small pickled onions, in quarters

2 spring onions, thin slices

1/2 lime

1 tbsp olive oil

for dressing the Cabbage: 1 tbsp Mayonnaise, 1 teasp mustard, 3 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar and a drip of honey. Salt&pepper

Cut the Cabbage in thin Slices. Peel the apple and cut 3/4 into chunks and 1/2 into thin slices. Mix the ingredients for the dressing. Mix the Cabbage with the pickled onions, apple chunks and dressing and put aside. Clean the Bloaters. Put the spinach on two plates, squeeze 1/4 of the lime and sprinkle the olive oil above. Put the Cabbage salad  on top. Than the Bloaters, sliced Apple, Avocado and spring onions. Finish with the rest of the Lime juice, Salt&pepper.

Little Sis

And then after another hike and getting very lost in the forest, little sis had made you her wonderful pumpkin-vanilla-soup with lots of real vanilla. Hmmmmm

Bilderberg

needing a little escape from the city and wanting to visit little sis who's living in Arnhem: spend the night in Wolfheze and take a long hike through the surrounding forest: two birds with one stone :)

Old School Saturday Night Dinner

On Saturdays my dad would start peeling potatoes at five o'clock to be made into home made fries.  

He still does this if we come and visit on Saturdays because he knows how much we love it. Always proudly explaining what kind of potatoes he used this time. For the sake of vegetables he always makes a salad with it, if possible with homegrown vege from my mothers yard.

Picking Apples at De Olmenhorst

For my sisters birthday I gave her a so called adoptive tree. It's an apple tree you can adopt to stimulate the organic apple production. The idea is that they hang a sign on a tree with your name and when the apples are ripe you can go and harvest your own tree.

It was a surprisingly sunny and warm day for the time of the year when we went to harvest. Also the last day of the self-picking season, so a lot of festivities like pony riding and archery.

We went to pick our 25 kg of apples, ate some lovely apple pie, bought some fresh goat cheese at the farm shop and mainly had a very fun day and some fresh air. They almost every weekend have some special activities and you can of course just go for their lovely high tea which is what I'll be doing somewhere in the spring

http://www.olmenhorst.nl/

Cafe de Paris in Hamburg

If you are in Hamburg and your have the time you have to have breakfast at Cafe de Paris, and be early because they're waiting in line. We went there on a business trip and made the stop on our way to the train station. Because we knew we had to travel for a long time and the curry wurst in the refreshment room is NOT something you want to eat for a second time, we went for the full breakfast including a glass of champagne.

It takes all the way to Amsterdam. Very nice, with breakfasts from all over the world in a place that looks like your in Paris. 

http://www.cafeparis.net

Braised Lamb Shank (gestoofde lamsschenkel)

My little brother is coming for dinner and he just loves braised meat. Luckily for him De Krat has brought me some Lamb Shanks.

2 lamb shanks

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp olive oil

1 shallot, choppes

1 clove of garlic, sliced

100 ml red wine

150 ml stock

1/2 can chopped tomatoes

2 sprigs rosemary

Coat the lamb shanks in the flour. Heat the olive oil in a casserole on high heat and fry the shanks brown. Take them out of the pan and saute the garlic and onion until they're soft. Put the shank back in the pan and add the wine, stock, tomatoes and rosemary and bring to a boil. Put a lid on, reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour until the meat comes of the bones easily.

Take the shanks from the pan, let the sauce boil without a lid for 10 more minutes until it thickens. Shanks back in the pan, if necessary season with salt & pepper and it's ready. We ate it with some mashed potatoes and green salad. Very yummie.

Muiderslot

Just outside of Amsterdam is the old town of Muiden with it's very own Castle: Muiderslot which you can also visit. Stroll around the gardens, surrounding grasslands and have a cup of coffee watching the boats waiting in the sluice.  

Twiske

Wanting to get out of the city and go for a stroll among the goats and cow's? Twiske is the place to go. You can reach it by bus or by bike, it really is a nice ride if the weather is good. Only half an hour or so by bike from the ferry behind central station. It's a nice place to walk around and have a cup of coffee and if the weather is really nice you can take a swim in one of the lake and have a pick nick in the grass.

We unfortunately choose a rainy day for our walk, so got soaked, didn't see that shower coming. Nevertheless, wasn't cold so getting wet wasn't that bad.

Roof Terrace Wasp

Fifteen Amsterdam

It's important to once in a while take take some time together and bring the little one to grandma ans grandpa. Time for mummy and daddy to go out. We start our evening with some beerd at Brouwerij 't IJ, one of my all time favorites. A small brewery in an old mill. On a warm day like today the terrace is packed, they only sell beer and some small snacks like peanuts or some cheese and close at 8 o clock. That a good thing because we are already late for our reservation at Fifteen (and a little bit lightheaded after to of the heavy IJ beers) 

At fifteen we're warm welcomed by the hostess and shown to our table. Which I find very odd because it's a very slow night and I really don't understand why she's not letting us pick our own table. Now we're in the middle of a huge space, surrounded by empty tables. The girl that serves us tonight is very sweet, still learning but that's ok. I start with a salad of buffalo mozzarella with beets and a very nice balsamic vinegar. Very good, this starter alone would be a reason to come back, Very fresh and soft mozzarella, nice and fresh dish. The Vitello Tonato of Men is also very nice, with some grilled fresh Tuna added besides the Tuna mayonnaise, but I'm just not a big fan of putting endangered species on a menu. 

For the main we take some pasta's. I'm having the linguine with mussels and tomatoes, the dish is nice, but this plate is undoable. It's just not possible to eat normal from this soup bowl shaped plate. The Tagliatelle with Rabbit Men is having is delicious, will be trying to make some nice pasta with stew myself. 

Deserts are not good. Very salty and not very tasty. I will certainly visit fifteen again for the nice starters and mains, but will never order a desert here again, just a cup of coffee

 www.fifteen.nl