It really isn’t! Just follow these directions, and enjoy your poached eggs.
More tips after the break. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘quick’
Cream of celeriac soup and salad of grilled radicchio, pear and blue cheese
Soup and salad is my go-to simple meal for nights when I don’t feel like cooking anything but still want to eat something relatively healthy. But I love it so much that I sometimes fancy it up a bit. While today’s version totally defeats the purpose of the original concept (since it’s neither “easy” nor particularly “cheap”), it’s totally worth the effort.
This soup is a hearty, seasonal soup. It’s pretty simple to make, and freezes well. It’s a bit sweet, a little creamy, with a slightly nutty flavor from the celeriac. The salad, on the other hand, is a bit on the fancy side. The bitter radicchio is grilled on a griddle pan, and is topped with slices of pear, crumbled blue cheese, and caramelized pecans. While they don’t need to be served together per se, they compliment each other very nicely. (more…)
Spiced carrot-lentil soup
It’s soup season, so of course I’ve been making SOUP! This recipe resulted from a previous cooking endeavor that only used one carrot out of a whole bunch, and a half packet of red lentils that had been glaring at me sadly from the cupboard. As the carrots wilted and the lentils moped, I said “ENOUGH ALREADY!” And then I blitzed them all into a quick, hearty soup.
I am really proud of my soup, as I’ve always hated the bland, overly sweet flavor of many carrot soups. This one, instead, is zingy, zippy, zesty and all kinds of good things that start with z. It is also nutrient dense, without becoming something you eat only because it’s supposed to be healthy. It’s a filling soup without being to heavy, with light flavors that can be spiced up or mellowed down to your own taste.
Rolled cinnamon pastries
You know how you sometimes crave a pastry, but all the bakeries are closed, and all you have is some random bits and bobs in your freezer and pantry? That’s what happened to me today. So I invented these dainty little rolled cinnamon pastries. (more…)
Belgian endives with ham & cheese
I know I’m suppose to get cracking on that Boeuf Bourguignon I promised you, but the budget’s been tight and time is not on my side, so lately my cooking has been characterized by either “cheap” or “quick” or both.
Which brings me to Belgian endives. Damn, I love those things, and they are cheap as what-have-you ate the moment. I know lots of people are terrified of them, and many think they are very bitter. But with the bitter cores removed and combined with a luscious, cheesy sauce, they are delicious.
This recipe for Belgian endives with ham & cheese is my version of a Dutch staple. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I updated it by reducing the béchamel and cheese and using fancier ham. Despite this being an oven baked dish, it’s really quick and super easy. And, not unimportantly, it’s CHEAP!
Lentil salad with goat’s cheese and parsley
Today’s dinner is one I am particularly proud of. We had my favorite lentil salad, roasted carrots, some fantastic pita bread I bought a while ago from the jewish district, a spiced garlicky lemon-dill-yoghurt sauce I made, and some harissa for spice. It was a lovely, flavorful vegetarian meal, somewhat middle-eastern inspired, and very nutritious. I’ll post the lentil salad recipe first and tackle the carrots in the next post, because I think they both deserve to shine on their own.
Gambas with aïoli
One of the (many) reasons I will never regret moving to Amsterdam is the markets. My favorite Saturday activity is to wander around the Noorder-, Nieuw- or Albert Cuijp market, and decide my culinary weekend around what I find there. Last Saturday the prawns were looking exceptionally tempting, and the price was right.
I don’t eat prawns that often, because I can never be satisfied with 4 or 5 measly prawns. If I’m going to eat prawns, I want to be able to eat the HELL out of them. That’s why the portions on this recipe are rather generous. I’m also a prawn purist, so I don’t add too many ingredients. I do love some nice aïoli with prawns, so I added a recipe for that as well.
And of course I suck the head. It’s the best part!
Grilled eggplant with basil and mozzarella
This is one of my favorite quick meals. It takes no more than half an hour (depending on how you tackle the tomato sauce issue), but is still fresh and, not unimportantly, beautiful! It also works well as an hors d’oeuvre, if you cut the eggplant slices in half and offer toothpicks on the side, or as a pretty starter for a small crowd. But I usually want to just scoop it all into my maul as soon as it comes out of the oven…
Traditional tomato sauce
October 10th, 2009There are all kinds of commercial sauces available for pasta, and they all have one thing in common: THEY SUCK! Generally, they are too sweet, too watery, and too ketchup-like. And if you’re really unlucky, it will have all kinds of things that should never be in sauce-from-a-jar, like eggplant or parmesan. I mean, really? Parmesan cheese IN a tomato sauce? Barfalicious!
So needless to say, I make my own. And here’s the recipe. (more…)
Quesadillas, guacamole, and simple salsa
Today was supposed to be leftovers day. I always like to add something new alongside leftovers, just to keep things interesting. Stew one day, stew with a side of bread and dip two days later – that kind of thing. So today I decided that my spinach and chicken soup needed a side of quesadillas. But I forgot that my 9 month stint living in California had left me unable to even contemplate quesadillas without automatically checking the fridge for tomatoes, chiles and lime. Because quesadillas require salsa, and only home made will do. And if you’re making salsa you may as well go the extra mile, and make some guacamole, too. I also forgot that my idea of adding quesadillas as a side inadvertently ends in a huge stack of quesadillas in my belly and a lot of forsaken leftovers in the fridge.
Now, I must apologize to my American friends for daring to post a recipe for quesadillas, guacamole and salsa on this blog. I know you know how to make that shit with your eyes closed, one hand tied behind your back, while being spanked by a German dominatrix named Inga. This post is for my Dutch friends, some of whom have been tricked into believing that guacamole is a type of grayish sludge that contains 2% avocado and lots of mayonnaise, and that salsa is a ketchup-type of condiment produced by the Doritos ™ company and can be found in the snacks isle, next to the paprika-flavored chips.
Everything on the plate above was made by me out of raw ingredients, except for the tortillas and the cheese. And it took me no more than 20 minutes.