A Bit of a Detox Weekly Menu

Oh the good life.

The too good life.

Time for a detox.

No meat or processed food for one week.

One can but try...

DWZI - Kasteel de Haar

This week I saw some real extremes.

We enjoyed a lazy sunny picnic at Kasteel de Haar.
Then before you know it the weather changed and I spent most of my time stuck in traffic, alternating between first and second gear.

I felt like ranting and raving about the craziness and the frustration of sitting in your car, not moving, and not being able to do a thing about it. Then I decided it is better to focus on the beautiful picnic that we had. Good friends, good food and sunshine.

Kasteel de Haar has some kind of magic about it.

Happy weekend!



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

Wok de Mallejan in Maarssen

Sometimes you go to restaurants simply because you know exactly what to expect.

Wok de Mallejan is one of those places.

We don't go there often, well that is an understatement. Once a year at most.
It is a very big restaurant where they make all kinds of oriental food served buffet style including sushi but their main attraction is their wok bar. You pick the ingredients and they cook it in the wok for you.

Here is what I like about it:
- if you are hungry you can literally have a plate of food in front of you within minutes of entering the restaurant;
- it is child friendly. They have baby chairs, changing facilities and an unsupervised kids entertainment area.
- it has a lot of choice. Sometimes it is nice to be able to have a little bit of everything.
- you can eat as much as you like (probably not a good thing in my case).

This is not the type of restaurant where you go for fine dining. It is loud, busy and the food is o.k. You go here because the price is good, the service is quick and you feel like being a bit of a glutton. Once a year is just about the right number of times to go.

Quiche Lorraine

This was a week of many firsts... I finally decided to make a quiche.
Perfect picnic food, right?

I found a James Martin recipe for quiche Lorraine on the BBC Food website. It had a rustic look about it which tempted me into making it.

Well, it did turn out to be delicious but I had a bit of a pastry disaster.

Lesson learnt: Use ready made pastry - it will just make your life much easier!

Here is a link to the recipe.

The most important thing to note is that you simply must make sure that the pastry does not have any holes or cracks or else it will leak when you pour in your egg mixture.

Here is a copy of the recipe:

For the pastry

• 175g/6oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• salt
• 75g/2¾oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• (alternatively use ready made pastry)

For the filling

• 250g/9oz English cheddar, grated
• 4 tomatoes, sliced (optional)
• 200g/7oz bacon, chopped
• 5 eggs, beaten
• 100ml/3½fl oz milk
• 200ml/7fl oz double cream
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme

Preparation method

To make the pastry, sift the flour together with a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until you have a soft breadcrumb texture. Add enough cold water to make the crumb mixture come together to form a firm dough, and then rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll out the pastry on a light floured surface and line a 22cm/8½inch well-buttered flan dish. Don't cut off the edges of the pastry yet. Chill again.

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.

Remove the pastry case from the fridge and line the base of the pastry with baking parchment and then fill it with baking beans. Place on a baking tray and bake blind for 20 minutes. Remove the beans and parchment and return to the oven for another five minutes to cook the base

Reduce the temperature of the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3.

Sprinkle the cheese into the pastry base and add the sliced tomatoes if you are using them. Fry the bacon pieces until crisp and sprinkle over them over the top.

Combine the eggs with the milk and cream in a bowl and season well. Pour over the bacon and cheese. Sprinkle the thyme over the top and trim the edges of the pastry.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until set. Remove from the oven and allow to cool and set further.

Trim the pastry edges to get a perfect edge and then serve in wedges.

Uppercase

Uppercase Magazine.

If you don't know it well then I think it is time for you to find one and read it!

It is a Canadian magazine and I stumbled across it in my Illustration class when my teacher, Kim Welling brought it along for us to look at. It is a magazine for the creative and curious (me! me!)

Filled with interesting ideas, personal stories, beautiful fonts and lovely illustrations. It just makes me happy.

Salted Caramel Millionare's Shortbread

You might think I am a little silly, but the main reason I made this dessert was because I had a can of condensed milk in the cupboard. I typed 'condensed milk' into the BBC Food web page and did a search.

Salted Caramel Millionaire's Shortbread came up.

It seemed like the perfect dessert for a picnic.

Two things to note...
1. I have never made shortbread.
2. I have never made caramel.

Did that stop me? No, no, no.

Here is a link to the recipe.

I followed it to the letter. However, there were some problems.
The caramel wasn't quite as simple to make as I had hoped... in fact, it was a bit of a disaster!

It split. I mean the condensed milk mixture totally separated from the butter.
I thought I was going to have to just throw it all away, but miraculously I managed to save it. I got rid of the butter, and transferred the remaining caramel to a cold ceramic bowl. Then I stirred it until it became a lovely smooth caramel which was just right in the end.

The shortbread turned out beautifully. All in all it was a bit of a learning curve for me but the dessert was excellent.

It is not called Millionaire's shortbread for nothing - it is very rich so you only need a little bit at a time.

A Picnic Menu

We're going on a picnic - yay!