Food Bucketlist

At the beginning of 2014 I made a food bucketlist, which became huge, and that I didn't share here. Because I was afraid that I wouldn't stick with it. But now I want to share which goals from my food bucketlist I accomplished. And maybe even share a tiny part of the goals I take with me to this year (because damn, that list was long).

I went to the ABC restaurant at least one time. This is an all you can eat restaurant with all kinds of different departments, like sushi, Italian, Chinese etc. We went there to celebrate the b-day of a friend.

Try the 2 new sushi restuarants in Nijmegen, where I live. I visited Shabu Shabu a short while ago. Just because a friend of mine and I felt like it. The other restaurant I still have to try.

Make some Indonesian Dishes from scratch. I started out with this goal in the beginning of last year. I made a vegan babi ketjap, sajoer beans (also vegan) and Foe Yong Hai. I also made another recipe but I still need to post that.

Go on a picnic. In may last year we went to the Millinger theetuinen and had a picnic there for Beltane.

Make apple sauce. I did that, a the recipe you can find here.

I also made something with lemoncurd. Even made it from scratch too. And used it in these sun cookies.

I also visited the Bagels and Beans. On Nicks b-day we went to have lunch together. I have been there before but we don't really do these things very often, so I actually put it on my list, to make it happen ;)

Bake shortbread. Last year around this time, I never made shortbread. But 2014 was a bit the year of the shortbread. After I made one, I couldn't stop and I actually hosted a shortbread month on my blog :) These peanut butter and chocolate shortbread cookies became our favorite and we actually made them again last Sunday :)

I have some half competed or ongoing goals. Like make salads you love, because I am not much of a salad eater. But I discovered I like salads as long as they are not too leafy. My favorite was this couscous salad with salmon, but also loved this simple cauliflower and pea salad.

I am also still using my cookbooks and trying to cook my way through my non vegetarian cookbooks, to give them away when I am done with them. But this is a slow process, because there are so many recipes I want to try, and Pinterest is such an easy tool for finding new recipes...

So a few goals that remain on my bucketlist are:
- make baba ghanoush
- Eat in a Turkish restaurant (because in 2014 I discovered my love for the Turkish kitchen, but I actually never ate in a Turkish restaurant)
- make a key lime pie
- buy a waffle maker
- buy and make something with coconut oil
- eat at Tapas restaurant 't Zusje
- go out for high tea
- Try new flavours of Ben and Jerry's

and much more.

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Weekend Cooking: Pin It and Do It

Trish from Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity is having another Round of Pin It and Do It! And of course I am all for that! If you don't know what Pin It and Do It is, head over there to take a look what this is all about :)

I have been picking quite a lot of recipes from Pinterest recently to make. It is my favorite site to go to if I want to try something new. Here is a summary of recipes that I tried from Pinterest this month :)

Batch of zucchini latkes

One potato and one zucchini latke with sour cream

From Avocado Pesto I tried these zucchini and potato latkes! It are basically fritters. This recipe is so good though that this will probably be my new base recipe to go to when I want to make something like this :) I love it. Find the recipe here!

Carrot risotto

From Amuse Your Bouche I have Carrot and coriander risotto with mozzarella. It is one of my favorite ways to prepare carrots from now on! Click on the link for the recipe.

I also made Avocado Hummus from Giada de Laurentiis. I didn't make the pita chips that went with it but just ate it on a sandwich. It is good, but a bit on the sour side. Less lemon next time ;) Vegan and delicious!

I tried some more recipes, but I will save that for a next post. I can't garuantee that will be a Weekend Cooking post as well. It depends if I find the energy to write some book reviews. So keep and eye on the blog if you want the scoop ;)

This post is part of Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Head over there to see what everyone has been cooking up!

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Weekend Cooking: Announcing the Cookbook Challenge

I thought I would offer something fun during this Bloggiesta weekend and for Weekend Cooking! I know you must be like me: having tons of cookbooks laying around but you barely used most of them. Well I thought it would be nice to change that! So I am hosting this challenge to we get our butts in gear and use those cookbooks!

We will be doing this during the months October and November. This will give everyone plenty of time to sort out which cookbooks you want to start cooking from and actually do it! Also with the holidays approaching, it could be a nice chance to try things out.

Some rules:
- You can use any cookbook you like, one or multiple, it doesn't matter BUT
- It have to be cookbooks that you barely used, so no cooking from your favorites
- Make a post you are participating in the challenge and link that below
- Please make a short post about your accomplishments, it doesn't have to be full recipes (you can if you want), but a wrap up with which recipes you tried is also fine. (there will be a link up for that later)
- Sign ups stay open during the whole of October and November so jump in any time you want.

Levels:
Bashful Baker - 1-2 recipes
Creative Croissant - 3-5 recipes
On a Cinnamon Roll -  5 - 10 recipes
Swedish Chef - 10+ recipes

This is the first time I am hosting a challenge like this! I would really be grateful if you can help spread the word in any way :)

Edit: To link up progress and wrap up posts, please go here.

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Recipe: Lettuce Mash Pot

Most of the times lettuce is used in salads but yesterday I tried lettuce mash pot for the first time :) Mash pot is something typical Dutch (stamppot) and we eat it mostly during the winter. However there are also some mash pots that are made during other seasons as well. Lettuce mash pot is one of those.

As promised, I added a picture as soon as we would eat this again, because I forgot to take a picture when I actually posted the recipe. Since I originally posted the recipe, we have made this several times and it is very tasteful, filling and low budget to make.

Lettuce Stamppot (for 2)
- 1 crop of butter lettuce
- 500gr potatoes
- 3 eggs
- some milk
- some butter
- some cheese
- pepper

Peel and cook the potatoes. Boil the eggs and cut the lettuce. Rinse and mash the potatoes with some milk and butter. I mostly use a mixer for this. Put the mashed potatoes back in the pan on low and add the lettuce and cheese. Peel and cut the eggs and add those as well with some pepper to taste. Warm the dish through until the lettuce has shrunk and the cheese has melted. Serve with some apple sauce.

As variations you can also replace the butter lettuce for turnip tops, endive or fresh spinach.

The recipe is part of the Whip Up Something New Challenge and Weekend Cooking.

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Recipe: Squash Risotto

Last weekend I was visiting a large speciality shop in Enschede. I was hunting for Japanese snacks to review (and yes I got some!) when I encountered an affordable beautiful butternut squash. I never used a squash before (or a pumpkin for that matter) but I wanted to for a long time. So today I made risotto with half of the squash, which means another squash experiment tomorrow, because wasting half a squash is not an option.

The picture doesn't do the risotto justice, really. It is taken with my actual camera, but evening light spoils it. Anyway, the dish has a beautiful orange color. It is quite an unusual combination, this risotto, but I liked it :)

Squash risotto with coconut - Serves 4
- 500gr butternut squash (about half of it)
- 400ml coconut milk
- 300gr risotto rice
- 2 gloves of garlic
- 1l vegetable stock
- 4tbsp light soy sauce
- 2tbsp lime juice
- 2tbsp olive oil

Cut the butternut squash in half, remove the seeds and cut it in cubes. You can leave the peel on there, it will soften while cooking. But you can take the peel off, if desired. Chop up the garlic and bakes this with the squash in the olive oil for about 10 minutes, till the squash slinks and turns golden-brown. Then add the rice in the pan and bake it some more. In the meantime warm the stock with the coconut milk and the soy sauce in another pan. Make sure it doesn't start to boil though. Then start adding the liquid in the pan with the rice little by little. Keep stirring the rice and wait till the rice has absorbed the liquid before you add more. It should take about 25 minutes for the rice and the pumpkin to be nice and soft. The risotto still needs to be a bit moist. Lastly stir the lime juice through the risotto before serving.

This recipe is submitted to the whip up something new challenge. A place where people share their new tried recipes!

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Improvised high tea lunch

It seemed that in my twitter time line a lot of people did something high tea related this weekend. I wanted to go out for high tea myself but that wasn't quite within my budget. So I put a bit of extra effort into lunch today with things we had. I was lucky because I had a quite nice stock in my fridge since I am going to make vegetable muffins and a pasta dish with fresh veggies. This all combined nicely for some hearty sammies for a poor people high tea ;) Of course these small sammies, will also work well in a bento :)  I left out the sweet part of a traditional high tea though.

I made 2 different kind of wraps and 3 different kind of sammies.
Sammies: Tomato pate with herbal cheese & cucumber, Tomato pate with cheese & rocket lettuce and Tomato pate with cheese & cucumber.
Wraps: Herbal cheese, salmon & rocket lettuce and chicken, herbal cheese & rocket salad.

I loved how I could make a few different combinations with what I had at hand. All though you can pack this in a bento, only make the wraps with salmon or chicken if you can store your bento in the fridge till lunchtime.

If you are cooking in the weekend, don't forget to hook up with weekend cooking at Beth Fish Reads :) It is a fun way to connect with other food bloggers over the weekend :)

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#75 - Teriyaki Bento

Today I finally got around to try the Teriyaki Hamburger recipe from the Hawaii's Bento Box cookbook by Susan Yuen. Of course I had to make some adjustments since I don't eat meat, so I made a vegetarian version instead.

This is my first stay at home bento in a long while. I think it looks great! I am quite happy with it. In the bento we have some Teriyaki burgers, red paprika, spring onions & mushrooms in Teriyaki sauce, half a kiwi fruit, onigiri, frozen cherries and a Laughing cow cheese. The BF had the same lunch but on a plate ;) I wanted to use my own pink cupcake bento since I haven't used it in a while.

Of course I will share my version of this recipe for Teriyaki Hamburgers :)

Makes 10:
- 2 soy based hamburgers
- 2 eggs
- 3tbsp mayonnaise
- 2 stalks green onion
- 1/2 bread crumbs
- 1cm fresh ginger
- 1 tsp pepper and a tsp salt
- Teriyaki sauce

I tore up the hamburgers and sliced the green onion in pieces. I put this in the kitchen machine together with the ginger, bread crumbs, salt & pepper. I used the kitchen machine so I would get a ground beef like mixture. I can't get it like that by hand. Then I added the eggs and the mayonnaise and formed little patties. The mixture should be wet, but won't stick to your hands. Heat some oil in a pan and bake the patties brown on both sides, then add some water to let them boil in that so the middle gets nicely cooked through. Remove the water from the pan and baste the burgers with Teriyaki sauce.
I served some now and added some to my freezer stash for later use.

Check out some other great recipes for inspiration at the Whip Up Something New Challenge and The Hello Japan Challenge :)

Don't forget to hook up your lunch at What's for Lunch Wednesday :) 

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#68 - Potato-Macaroni salad bento

Next on my review list is Hawai'i's bento box cookbook by Susan Yuen. It is my opinion that if you want to review a cookbook, you have to try at least 1 recipe from it. I will write the review in the next couple of weeks, since I want to try some more out of this book first. So look forward to a series of posts inspired by this book within the next couple of weeks! (This doesn't mean that every post I will make is about this book, but that I will try different things during the next weeks)

Today I tired the Potato Macaroni Salad recipe from page 131 of the book.(my adjusted version of the recipe below)

The large dinner bento contains: A large portion of the potato-macaroni salad, stir fried cauliflower, poffertjes (Dutch mini pancakes), clementine, risotto balls and cucumber slices.

The reason why I choose to make this recipe out of the book, was because I love both pasta and potato salad and combining the two sounded interesting. I did adjust some things to match my & BF's taste, and below is my version of this recipe. I have to say that I liked the spice combination of this recipe, however in my opinion the macaroni doesn't add anything. It is completely unnoticeable flavor wise because all the other ingredients taste stronger. So next time I will use just more potatoes, but try and taste for yourself:

For 6 small portions you need:
1 large potato, peeled and in small cubes
60 gram uncooked macaroni
60 gram of surimi, shredded (the original calls for 120gr, however the BF doesn't like it too fishy)
1 hard boiled egg
2 hands of frozen peas (the original had less, but I upped it)
mayonnaise (original uses 1/2 cup, but I don't use cups, I just added it gradually to taste)
1/4 tsp hondashi (Japanese bonito fish soup base)
some salt & pepper
1/2 tsp sugar (original was 1/4 but we like things sweet)

Cook the potato and the macaroni in separate pots, until soft. Drain it and let it cool completely. I always do this by running cold water over it. Combine everything in a large bowl and mix well. I added the mayonnaise last, in bits. I added some straight out of the bottle, mixed well and then taste if I liked it. So I have no idea how much I actually used. But just add it in parts until it tastes good to you. Then let it cool in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before serving. You can add a bit more mayonnaise before serving if you think it is needed.

I will submit this post to the Hello Japan challenge from In Spring it is the Dawn, where the challenge for February is all about Japanese cooking! So this is the perfect challenge for us bento enthusiasts to join! It is a lot of fun and there is a price to win :) Hopefully I will see all your nice entries appear there!

And also in the Whip Up Something New challenge, where people share the new recipes they tried :)

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#61 - Lamb bento for Imbolc

On the 1st or 2nd of February some pagan beliefs celebrate Imbolc. This is originally an Irish festival but it is also a part of the eight sabbats that form the wheel of the year. Since I celebrate the sabbats myself, I wanted to give it some attention in my bento as well. But since I only go to school every other Wednesday, I am early with this bento. One of the symbols of Imbolc is a lamb, so I tried to make a mozzarella lamb. It took me about 2 hours to make this bento but this includes preparing fresh fake meatballs.

In the bento is some pasta with broccoli, mushrooms & cheese sauce that my boyfriend had in his bento earlier this week. I placed the broccoli around the lamb this time to function as trees. I used a flower shaped cutter to make a body & head for the lamb. And a bit of food coloring on a toothpick to draw a face on the mozzarella. I see a lot of people make pink facial features with ham, however this isn't an option for me and I really don't like the imitation ham slices, so that is why I choose to do it this way instead. The eyes & nose are from black sesame seeds. In the other tier there are walnuts in the cup, cherry tomatoes & Italian seasoned vegetarian "meat" balls (recipe below).I included a cute duck pick :)

Before I stopped eating meat, I loved to make all kind of meatballs with different kind of spices for variation. I do sometimes buy veggie "meat" balls but they mostly taste the same so I really missed being able to decide how I wanted them to taste. The soy based minced "meat" is great for in pasta dishes or oven dishes but you can't make decent balls from them because it simply won't stick. But today I succeeded to make my own fake meatballs with a soy product as a base. I used soy based hamburgers for this experiment because they have a different texture and are a lot more moist. I have chosen for Italian seasoned ones today because they would fit with the pasta.

For 12 mini meatless balls you need:
1 pack of soy based hamburgers (I used these)
1 glove of garlic
1 egg, beaten
fresh basil leaves
1/3 of a courgette
olive oil

First put the courgette in the kitchen machine. Lay the pieces on a kitchen towel and drain all the moist from it. Then put the garlic, basil leaves and hamburgers in the kitchen machine and mix everything till it is a mixture of crumbles. Put everything including the courgette in a bowl and mix. Lastly add the egg as well to mix it through. You now should have the exact texture of real minced meat. (this was the point where I knew I got it right) You can now roll little balls from the mixture. This shouldn't be hard since the mixture should stick to each other and not to your hands. Make sure the balls are nice and firm. Bake the little balls in some olive oil till they are nicely browned.

I will be adding this recipe to the foodie challenge: Whip Up something new! It is a challenge about trying a new recipe each month and blog about it. It seems a fun way to connect with others and to find more delicious recipes to try! So if you have a food blog, make sure to join this great challenge!

 

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