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 :)