A pasta dinner made by my husband

Sometimes I just don't have the energy or the inclination to make dinner.
Then my hero steps in and saves the day.
My husband is actually quite a good cook, lucky me.

Last night he made us a lovely dinner of spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms. He even served a  dessert of vanilla custard with apple pie filling. Delicious!

A Quick Macaroni Dish

The macaroni in the Netherlands is really, really, really tiny.
Little elbow shaped pieces of pasta.
I received a free bag of macaroni and I do like free stuff.

A simple tomato based pasta sauce with garlic, onions, mushrooms and basil smothered the cooked pasta. Then I covered it with a yellow layer of grated cheese and placed it in a hot oven to melt the cheese.

Serve it with a green salad and this quick vegetarian meal is complete.

Melkkos

My husband simply loves Melkkos.
It is a truly South African dish, eaten either as a warm and filling breakfast or as a dessert.
This morning my husband decided to make it for us as a special treat.

The main ingredient is milk, about 1 litre which you need to bring to the boil.

In the meantime add 1.5 cups flour, 1.5 tablespoon butter, pinch of salt and two tablespoons of sugar into a big bowl. Now rub the mixture together with your hands until you have breadcrumb like consistency.

Add the flour mixture a little bit at a time to the boiling milk and stir, stir, stir.

Once you've added everything you need to let it simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring continuously.

The consistency will be similar to that of porridge.

In a little bowl mix 2 tablespoons sugar with 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon. Add the cinnamon sugar to the Melkkos and mix well.

Serve and enjoy!

DWZI - Bubble Writing

I bought the most wonderful book:

How to be the best bubble writer in the world ever by Linda Scott.

It's fun and it makes me feel young and now I find myself wanting to use bubble writing for everything. Even taking notes during a meeting!

Happy weekend everybody :-)


Deze week zag ik... this week I saw
(inspired by DezeWeekZagIk on the blogs by Daan en Roos)

Leek and Celeriac Soup - the Very Basic Version

The rapid change in weather brought the cold and all of a sudden I found myself craving warm, comforting soup.

Soup that warms you up from the inside and makes you feel satisfied.

Leek and celeriac soup felt like just the right combination for this cold and rainy day. I decided to make a very basic version, since my ingredients were limited. It has pretty much only four ingredients: vegetable oil, leeks, celeriac and vegetable stock. That is it.

Take three large leeks, wash and trimmed, and then slice them into pretty rings. Peel and dice the celeriac. Add a dash of vegetable oil to a casserole dish (or whatever you happen to be using to make your soup in) and heat up the oil for a minute. Then place the leeks and celeriac in the dish and saute for a couple of minutes. Now add a litre or so of vegetable stock to the vegetables and season as per your personal taste.

Let is simmer for 30 - 45 minutes, stir occasionally and add water if necessary.

Once all the vegetables are nice and soft, take a hand blender and blend until you have a smooth consistency. Serve with fresh bread and enjoy.

Baking an Ikea Bread

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I really like Ikea.

Not only for their furniture, but for all the accessories and food stuff too.

This week I baked a bread, a lingonberry bread, and it came out really well.
Plus it is gluten free!

I served it with leek and celeriac soup and the whole family was happy as can be.

The recipe goes something like this:
Mix the flour with the yeast. Add warm water and mix well. Knead the dough for 10 minutes and let it rest for 30 minutes to rise. Knead some more, divide in two and rest for another 30 minutes. Bake in a 200 degrees Celsius oven for 40 minutes.

Yes, it really was that simple!

Couscous Salad

If you want something really quick and healthy for dinner then I can suggest making a couscous salad. All the vegetables in this salad is raw and the beauty of couscous is that it is ready in 5 minutes.

This salad is served cold and is perfect for a summer evening, or pretty much any time of the year!

Ingredients:

Couscous - 250 gram or less, depending on how many mouths you have to feed. (I made enough for two adults and lunch the next day)
A hand full of green beans - cut diagonally into small pieces
2 or 3 tomatoes
Half a cucumber
Half a red onion
One small carrot - finely diced
A handful of green olives - sliced
A hand full of cashew nuts
Toasted pine nuts
A handful of raisins
Sea salt and black pepper

Dressing:
Use any dressing you like or prepare a simple vinaigrette by mixing white wine vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard and some extra virgin olive oil - I usually just adjust the quantities to my liking.

Method:

Prepare the couscous as per the packaging.
Once it is ready, let it rest and cool down. You can also add the raisins at this point (or leave them out if you don't like them).

Dice and slice all the raw vegetables and then combine together.
Season and add the dressing to the salad. Mix well.

Combine the vegetables and couscous.
Add an additional dash of extra virgin olive oil or more dressing if your salad is a bit dry.