Christmas and more excitement

So I had a whole series of posts planned but the last few weeks have just flown and not it’s boxing day! And in an hour we’ll be getting onto a bus to get to a plane and another one and another one and then in about 26 hours we’ll be landing in Melbourne to start our 4 week holiday! I’m so excited! Good friends of both Barry and me are getting married in Tasmania in January and we decided it was a great opportunity to catch up with them, see them on their special day, meet other friends who are attending and spend some time on what promises to be a fabulous island. So there won’t be so much posting done although I'll definitely be enjoying lots of nice food and wine. I hope you all have a fabulous New Years Eve and see you in 2008!

ps...a fab tip I found in one of my cookbooks, if you have any mulled wine left over, freeze it and serve it as a sophisticated granita

A wintery pizza

Another brief post as this week we are in Ireland visiting Barry's family. We're getting all are family visits sorted now as we won't see them for Christmas. The reason?? We're going on a 4 week holiday to Melbourne and Tasmania! I'm so excited as we haven't had a holiday all year and we've been saving days for this one! Anyway, more about that in a later post.

With all the traveling, socializing and getting presents organized, the cooking has been somewhat limited recently but I still wanted to share this recipe with you. Its another one from my friend Simone who is a source of great recipes that are often easy but totally delicious! For this one we were lazy and bought a ball of pizza dough at the local store, which here is as good as home made, topped it with thinly sliced potato and Taleggio cheese. After baking it in the oven for about 20 min at 220°C on a pizza stone the cheese was melted and golden. Topped with some truffle oil to give it a nutty earthy smell, it was an incredibly tasty dinner that we'll be making much more this winter. I also think my little bottle of truffle oil won't last very long (even though a little goes a long way) as we've already been using it on this pasta and I think it would work well on something like a mushroom bruchetta.

In a pickle...

...that's what happened to these baby onions, herbs and spices using this recipe. I've made this recipe for the last several years and they are great! so much better than the store bought ones. They make a lovely present or are great to keep and eat with fondue, raclette or meat. I normally make half the liquid suggested in the recipe or use twice as much onions...whatever you fancy. This is my entry for A Spoonful of Christmas hosted by Zlamushka I know it's a bit short but am in the Netherlands up to my ears in Sinterklaas poems and surprises.

On Snow, Parsnips and SHF

How fitting that my 100th post is about one of the most perfect days I've had in a long time! Last Sunday I went to the mountains in my friends new camper van. After an early start we arrived in Lauterbrunnen, took the gondela up and walked to Mürren. This is why I moved to Switzerland!

The weather was perfect, sunshine, blue skies and the most amazing snow I've ever seen! About 70 cm deep and covered with a layer of crystals several cm big, they were like little Christmas trees. We made a beautiful walk, played in the snow, built mini snowmen and ate lunch in the sunshine.



When it comes to walking food, I'm just not one for sandwiches. I always find that by the time you get to eat it its squashed, cold and often tasteless. Therefore, I prefer home baked lunches, preferably with nuts and cheese for lots of flavour and energy. For this walk I used parsnips as they are back in season! I developed quite a liking for this root vegetable whilst living in Scotland. Before that I'd never even seen a parsnip as they are very hard to come by. However, this year the local supermarket has started selling them as an "ancient vegetable" so we'll hopefully be eating a lot more of them. I know parsnips mostly as a savoury vegetable but they also go well with sweet (think honey roasted) flavours and I'd heard that they can also be used in cakes, like carrots, but that this somehow fell out of fashion after the WWII.

I adapted this recipe (a firm favourite for summer walks) as I wanted to make a savoury and a sweet version to take along and use some of the walnuts from my parents garden. They were a great success. For the savoury I used gruyere, walnuts and fresh herbs (rosemary, sage and thyme), whereas the sweet ones had raisins, nuts, nutmeg and ginger. Both yummy and with lots of energy to keep me going on the walk, hopefully the season will be good, there will be many trips and I can make them loads. This post my entry for this months sugar high friday - The Beta Carotene Harvest - hosted by Definitely not Martha



Sweet or Savoury Parsnip Muffins (makes 6)

1 cup flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
3 eggs
2 parsnip - grated
1 tbsp creme fraiche
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Sweet
60g raisins
60g walnuts - chopped
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Savoury
60g gruyere - grated
60g walnuts - chopped
2 tbsp fresh herbs
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the over to 180°C, in a large bowl, mix the creme fraiche, oil and eggs. Then stir in the flour and grated parsnip. Finally, add the extra fillings and the spices. Or at this point you can divide the mix in two and make both (make sure to halve the amounts given above). Pour the mixture into buttered molds and top with either raisins or walnuts. Cook for 30 min or until a needle comes out clean. Leave to cool and enjoy!

Nigella's express mousse

I'm not sure if you've been watching the most recent Nigella Lawson series? Titled Nigella Express she promises you ideas to make good food fast with her usual "fantabulous" style. Don't get me wrong, I watched every episode but can't help feeling a bit cheated after every show. Yes, the recipes she shows are fast and no doubt tasty but a lot if somehow pre-made or bought and for me it takes the joy out of cooking a bit. Plus all the hair-flicking, flirting with the camera and vocabulary seems a little out of place to me.

Not that I want to slave over a hot stove every time but when having a dinner party, it's nice to make a bit of effort. But I appreciate that I can be a bit of a masochist when it comes to these things and she definitely has some nice ideas. I've become pretty addicted to her bean mash and when she made her no worries chocolate mousse, I knew I had to try it as I had the perfect occasion/audience.

A friend of mine has been organizing girlie weekend get-togethers in the Lake District for the last 4 years. They are weekends to catch up with her friends (and mine both from before and through this) and they are always fabulous. How often do you get the chance to spend a weekend with up to 20 women your own ages from all backgrounds, nationalities, professions in a wonderful setting?! Most make it every year and we chat lots, walk, have been known to treasure hunt and eat and drink lots of nice things. On Friday night it's casual pizza but on Saturday night all the stops are pulled out for a pot luck dinner. Everyone always makes a real effort and there is always to much food.

And this year was no exception, as I was traveling from Switzerland this year, I didn't want to make something very complicated but still wanted it to shine and I figured these would do the trick. And indeed they are a breeze to make (although I was a bit worries about pouring the hot chocolate mix into the beaten cream which totally deflated of course), set very fast and tasted lovely although it was incredibly rich and perhaps a bit too much after a 4 course meal! I paired them with some wafers inspired by the Essence cookbook I bought recently (fantastic! a definite recommendation and will blog about it soon!). These are very easy to make and look spectacular. The perfect dessert for another perfect weekend, I already look forward to the next one.

Rice paper and cocoa nib tuiles
50 g sugar
50 ml water
rice paper (from Asian supermarket;the white ones for making fresh spring rolls)
handful of broken cocoa nibs (or anything you want to use)

Boil the water and sugar together to make a syrup, then leave to cool. In the mean time line a baking tray with parchment paper, cut the rice paper into pieces and dip one into the syrup. Place it on the tray and sprinkle with some cocoa nibs. Repeat this process till you run out of rice paper. Dry these tuiles in the oven at 80°C for 3-4 hours, they will keep in an airtight container so are easy to make in advance.

And for the people who wanted the flat bread recipe:
Flatbreads (±15)
2 tsp dried yeast (or 30g fresh)
450-475 ml water
750 g strong white flour
2tsp fine sea salt
black pepper freshly ground
50 ml olive oil
extra flour for rolling

Start about 2-3 hours before required and you need quite a bit of space to make these. First mix the flour, salt, pepper and olive oil then add in the yeast and mix well. Finally stir in the water bit by bit to make a soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl clean. Knead for about 10 min till elastic - you can do this by hand or with a mixer, whatever you prefer - cover the bowl with a lid/moist towel and leave to rise in a warm place. to speed things up you can partially fill the sink with lukewarm water and place the bowl in there. Alternatively, heat the oven to 50°C, turn it off and place the bowl inside. When the dough has doubled in quantity, knock it back and divide in to 15 pieces. Roll each piece out on a floured surface shaped like a large pita bread. Cover loosely and leave to rest for 3 min. Barbecue over fresh hot coals for 1-2 min each side (the bubbles that pop up are great!). You can also try making them in the oven as it's not really barbecue weather, I would guess at 225°C for 4 min each side. If you can use a pizza stone that will make them puff up nicely.

Preserving summer....

We're well in to autumn here with the Basler herbstmesse (autumn fair) starting last weekend, most of the leaves on the ground and chilling temperatures at night. So here are a few of the things I made this summer an just haven't gotten around to post about and as they're mostly preserves I can still enjoy the summer flavours a bit longer.

First up is this lovely gooseberry curd recipe that was in last years delicious. magazine. I'm not a fan of gooseberries at all, I've always found them to bitter but Barry is a huge fan so I decided to make it for him. I found these dark red/pink ones here that seem to be just as common as the green ones. It gave the curd a lovely pink/salmony colour and I was pleasantly surprised by the taste. It was creamy and sweet but with a nice tart contrast making it much more palatable and I have to admit that with the help of a few jars of this, I'm even craving gooseberry curds now!

Second, is this elderflower curd I made from heads I picked on one of our walks in the Jura. Elder flower is something I learned you could eat whilst living in Scotland. I really enjoy the fresh "green" taste of it both on bread or in desserts. For this recipe, I basically soaked the cleaned heads in apple juice overnight and then boiled this the next day with pectin sugar.

Third up are mirabelles, these are little plums that are only in season for 3-4 weeks in August. We've always had a tree in our garden so their taste is very sentimental but it's hard to resist these sweet little fruits anyway. As the season is so short, I try to make the most of them. We eat them in clafoutis, tarte tatins or just on its own or with some yoghurt for breakfast. To preserve the flavours for the rest of the year I also made jam (800g sugar per kilo of cleaned fruit) and liqueur (equal weights fruit, cleaned fruit and alcohol-I tend to use vodka as it doesn't have a strong flavour).

Last but not least are these flatbreads. I picked up the recipe in a free leaflets from Harvey Nics when I was in London in May. Incredibly easy to make they definitely gain something special by being cooked on the BBQ. Yummy with kebabs, salad, burgers or just on its own. So that's it, I'm all up to date and will blog about some more autumnal food next

Pumpkins and apples

A very brief and quick entry as I'm off to Paris for my fellowship interview tomorrow!! There is still so much to prepare but I just need a break as I feel my head will explode with science! I'm also very excited about Halloween and Stephanies Blogpary this month. Although it's not one of the traditions of the Netherlands, I think it's a fab holiday. Dressing up, trick-or -treating, lots of candy, scrummy food and a spooky atmosphere make for a perfect party I think. On top of that I can't get enough of pumpkins at the moment - Barry jokingly says I will turn into one soon, but who cares! They're tasty and healthy and lovely I think, and my friend Simone agrees which is why we have a whole Halloween pumpkin dinner planned for next week complete with pumpkin soup, bread and ice cream! However, first I have to get tomorrow out of the way and then I can focus on the kitchen again.

Anyway, back to the treats for this week: I made these little biscuits I discovered here (the beauty of online translaters) on Sunday as was very taken by them. First, they are easy to make. Second, they look beautiful and third, they have a lovely texture, crunchy without being hard or dry. I added some cinnamon and ginger for a more autumn taste which was nice and complemented the subtle pumpkin flavor. A perfect treat served along some hot mulled apple juice (put apple juice in a pan with some cinnamon, cloves and star anis, heat for about 5-10 min to let the flavors infuse) and to keep the brain going till tomorrow.

Little Sweet Pumpkins (makes 12)
30g cooked/roasted pumpkin
30g butter
25g sugar
pinch Salt
60g soft flour
2g cornstarch
pumpkin seeds

Cream butter and sugar together, when this is light and fluffy, add the salt and pumpkin. Mix well again and finally incorporate the flour and cornstarch. You should have a dough that is relatively firm but does not crack and leaves the bowl clean. Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge. Divide the dough into 12 parts, roll each of them into a small ball, flatten slightly to give a pumpkin shape. apply marks to the side with a toothpick and insert a pumpkin seed as the stem. Bake 17-20 min at 170°C.

Boozy apple upside down cake

A hasty post for SHF as I'm in the middle of studying for a fellowship interview on Thursday (yaikes!) in Paris (yeah!). So our flat is sparkling clean, my bills have been organized, I've been for a run, met a friend for coffee and cooked lots of yummy food this weekend. But still, the slides for the presentation are not finished and I've read much less than I should have! Part of it is that I always overestimate what I can do but, as you can tell, a big part of it is that I get incredibly distracted when I have very important deadlines and will do anything but that!

So SHF was another great distraction and as Andrew from SpittoonExtra picked such a fabulous theme it would have been rude not to partake. I wanted to use my newest weird ingredient, these long peppers I bought on my holiday in Paris three weeks ago. I had read about them in an article on pepper varieties in Saveurs (food magazine) a while ago and had been on the look out for them ever since. So when I saw the bottle, I knew it was mine...when I opened it, I was greeted by a sweet spicy vanilla smell so my first association was to use it in dessert although I've later read they are used more in savory recipes.

As I was a bit short on time, I decided to alter a recipe I used before. Instead of the honey syrup I made a syrup of sugar, water, brandy and long pepper and I substituted the oranges for apples (about 6). I grated 2/3 into the batter and cut 1/3 into slices to layer in the bottom of the tin with sugar, butter and some grated long pepper. Unfortunately, we only had Boskoop at home and they cooked to mush so I didn't get the nice French apple tart top I was going for but the taste was still great. The semolina made it nice and crunchy whilst the batter was moist from the fruit and syrup. The pepper gave it a hot cinnamon-like taste (so you can substitute with some ground cinnamon and chili powder)and the brandy made you feel nice and warm inside. A perfect autumn dessert!

Prickly pears!

With a name like that, don't you have to try some?! When I moved here (one year ago already and I've never blogged about them) I was fascinated with these prickly pink, yellow and/or green beauties. I suspected they were cactus fruits and after a bit of browsing on the web I discovered I was right but that their alternative name is prickly pear or opuntia, which is so much more fun. So I bought some, tried some different recipes and was hooked. I love the light fruity taste of them that you can use both in savory or sweet dishes. Last night, we ate some with grilled tofu and a variety of grains (wheat, buckwheat and quinoa, emptying all the left over packages!). To make the sauce simply fry a chopped onion in some olive oil until soft, then add 4 chopped tomatoes and 3 peeled and chopped prickly pears (I'd recommend wearing washing up gloves as I was picking needles out of my finger for the rest of the night - sometimes this doesn't happen but some pears are more prickly than others). Fry for another 5 min till you have a nice sauce, add chopped parsley, season with salt and pepper and enjoy. The pears do contain a lot of seeds but I think you can easily eat around them (think pomegranate or passion fruit). I think it would also be really nice to use in a cold tomato soup, as a sweet jelly or in baking.

Poppy overload!

A quick one as I'm off to the lake district tomorrow for a girly weekend with friends from Dundee! I'm looking forward to it very much as there will be lots of chatting, walking, relaxing and nice food. But I'll blog about that next time. The post now is one I promised to my brother who was visiting last week with his girlfriend. It was so nice to see both of them (last time was in March) and spend some quality time both in Basel and the Alps. Tuesday night was their last evening in Basel and so we cooked the first fondue of the season. For dessert I wanted to make something special and decided to open one of the jars of poppy jelly I made in July.

I was intrigued from the first moment I saw this recipe and knew I had to make it. So I set out one afternoon, gathered way too many leaves and spent hours cleaning all the pollen off (it pays off to be a bit more careful in the picking, then you'll have a lot less work). I made three jars of beautiful red jelly that then disappeared into the cupboard and came out again last Tuesday night. The taste of the jelly was strange but nice, not very strong but also not like anything I'd ever tasted. I decided to pair it with a panna cotta and to prevent it from all being too jelly-like (and stick with the theme) I added poppy seeds which collected at the bottom (=top after inversion) of the mold. They formed a nice contrast both in colour and in texture to the creamy panna cotta. I just thinned out the jelly (2 tbsp with one tbsp water) by heating it and drizzled some over/around the pudding.


Poppy Panna Cotta (serves 4)
200ml Double cream*
200ml Single cream*
60g sugar
1/2 vanilla pod
2 tbsp poppy seeds
level 1/2 tsp agar-agar**

Mix cream, sugar, poppy seeds and agar-agar in a pan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod into the cream and throw the pod in. Gently bring to the boil and cook for 1-2 min. Leave to cool slightly, then pour into individual molds. Leave to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

* This was just what was in the fridge but you could use double cream and milk or all single cream or whatever you feel like.
** I find it easier to just have this at home for when vegetarian friends come for dinner, you could also use gelatine in which case you need 1 1/2 sheets.