Happy New Year!

A bit late, I know, but in my family you can wish each other a happy new year during the entire month of January (I have a ginormous extended family, so it would usually take a while to tick everyone off). Also, getting a stomach bug is a wonderful way to lose all that holiday weight, but not such a fun way to start the new year. My stomach is back to its old good self now, but there hasn’t been much cooking in the V&C kitchen and hence not much to report either.

S and I spent most of the holidays with our families in Belgium – a wonderful week of eating, sleeping and not much else. And I was too busy chatting with everyone to think about updating my blog. We‘ve always celebrated with our little family on christmas’ eve; christmas day was reserved for a big lunch with my dad’s side of the family (fifty-odd people – told you I have a big family) and the last years is a perfect day for going to the cinema, or, even better, doing nothing at all.

The traditional christmas day lunch with turkey, cranberry, stuffing etc. is not really done in Belgium though (and we don’t have Santa Claus either – but we do have Sinterklaas, who comes on 6 December). We usually eat something nice and festive, and this year we all helped cooking. Mum did something nice with fish for starters, my brother made a lovely cream of mushroom soup, S made a beautiful gratin dauphinois and of course I was in charge of dessert.

I wanted to make something Sinterklaas-inspired, with speculoos, spices, and mandarines. And dad loves ice cream, so there had to be ice cream in it as well. And this is what I came up with: speculoos with cinnamon ice cream and mandarine caramel. Those fancy schmancy mandarine segments I didn’t do on purpose (I do have a life you know, and I don’t spend it dissecting mandarines into individual thingies); my original intention was to have large segments in the caramel and when I was trying to get the membrane off each segment, they just fell apart in these little thingies. And they looked kinda cute, so I used them like that. All the components for this dessert can be prepared in advance and are very easy to make; just be careful with the speculoos, because it burns easily.


speculoos

500g self raising flour
250g butter
350g soft or dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 shot glass of cognac (or milk or water)
mixed spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg etc.)

Knead everything together into a smooth dough. Leave to rest in the fridge for at least one hour. Roll dough to a thickness of 1/2 in for crispy speculoos, or 2 in for soft speculoos and shape as desired. Bake at 170 - 200˚C, for about 5 to 10 minutes (burns easily).

For this dessert I baked thin crispy rectangles of speculoos which I trimmed again after baking (the scraps mixed with coffee made a delicious spread for sweet sandwiches), but this recipe makes massive quantities of dough and, as my mum loves the thick soft speculoos, I baked a massive slab of that with the leftovers. Which disappeared in no time.

cinnamon ice cream

Find any basic ice cream recipe and infuse milk or cream with cinnamon sticks when heating it. (sneaky, I know, but my old basic recipe doesn't really cut it. Not enough egg yolks I think)

mandarine caramel
adapted from Claudia Fleming's Last Course

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup mandarine juice
1 tbsp butter
mandarine segments

combine water and sugar in saucepan and simmer until sugar dissolves (stir regularly). Raise heat and boil mixture until caramelised. Remove from heat and whisk in butter and fruit juice. Set over low heat and whisk until caramel is smooth. Let cool for at least 1 hour. Before serving, stir in mandarine segments (which I didn't have, so I just scattered my mandarine thingies over the plates).

learning to like Brussels sprouts

Growing up, there was nothing I detested more than Brussels sprouts. Along with every other child in Belgium, it would seem. My dad would occasionally make them (boiled) and the house rules were such that I had to eat whatever was on the table. I usually got away with three sprouts – my brother even managed to get away with eating just the one.

I felt the same about chicory and didn’t like the bitter taste of it at all, but it now is one of my favourite vegetables. Braised, or wrapped in ham with a cheesy béchamel sauce topped with breadcrumbs in the oven – I absolutely love chicory. And so I thought I owed it to myself to give Brussels sprouts another chance as well.

Plus they keep on popping up everywhere: at my local market, in Christmas food magazine articles and on various blogs. All of which was starting to make me feel like I was missing out on something. So I bought myself some sprouts and got a-cooking.

I went with Molly’s recipe, because masses of butter, cream and brown bits are always a good thing in my book. In an ideal world I would have added some bacon as well, but I didn’t have any. And as for the result… I think I can learn to like Brussels sprouts. They probably won’t make it on my all time favourites list, but they certainly are off the yuk list. And for S, who still didn’t like them because ‘they still tasted of sprouts’ (even though he had to admit they didn’t taste as bad as he remembered from his childhood) I mixed them with potatoes into a wonderfully creamy mash the next day, which he did like.

apologies for the awful picture, but the vanille & chocolat household has been extremely busy of late with hardly any time to cook, let alone take decent snaps (and of course I will continue to blame lack of decent daylight for the next few months)

a lovely green salad for HOTM #4

Because a girl can’t live on chocolate alone, right? And because green is my favourite colour. Even though I’m always posting sweet things, I love my vegetables. Except beetroot. And Brussels sprouts. And come to think of it, I’m not keen on red cabbage either. But these aside, I really really really love vegetables. So much so that I often get asked whether I’m a) on a diet or b) a vegetarian. The answers to these questions are no, and no. I just love vegetables. Simple as that.

My inspiration for this salad came from, ahem, a pre-packed M&S salad that contains edamame beans, rucola, sugar snaps and comes with a sweet chilli dressing. In my defence, it’s natural ingredients only and no colourants or preservatives. This salad is of course incredibly easy to make yourself (not to mention quite a bit cheaper than the shop-bought one) so that’s exactly what I’ve been doing recently.

I’m not adding a recipe, since it’s not rocket science. Just throw in whatever greens you have on hand – I’ve used peas, sugar snaps, French beans, asparagus, broad beans and soy beans in all possible combinations – and steam, grill or cook the greens to your liking. For the version I made yesterday I used asparagus (desperately hanging on to the very last ones of the season), broad beans and soy beans, which I boiled (afterwards I used the cooking liquid to make a vegetable soup) and dressed with a drizzle of olive oil, a twist of black pepper, a handful of parsley and some feta cheese crumbled over the top.

This salad tastes lovely all by itself, but it would go equally well as a side dish with grilled chicken or tuna, with bits of bacon in it (because according to some people everything tastes better with bacon and some people are absolutely right), perhaps with a nice lamb chop and roast baby potatoes, or whichever way you fancy. Just make sure you do eat this salad – it’s summery, yummy, crisp, healthy. And green.

This is my entry for Heart of the Matter #4: vegetables. The roundup will be posted on Joanna’s food and eating for life.

S starring in the kitchen (and a white plate guest starring)

S bought me a white plate! ‘For your food pictures’ he said. Sweet, non? But the plate is only guest starring, so let’s quickly move on to the real star.

Quite a while ago, S came home after work one day with a copy of Giorgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy: Food and Stories. S has a completely food-unrelated job in a food company, and one of the food people at his office had told him it was an excellent book. S also happens to be mad about pasta; he could eat it 24-7. He even eats it uncooked. But then he also eats stock cubes, flour, coffee and bread crumbs (preferred method for these:‘inhaled’ straight from the packet with a drinking straw) and after more than ten years together I’m used to these little quirks.

The book is not one I would buy myself – my first impression was that it looked a little bit messy. There is a lot of background story and explanation intermingled with the recipes, and I prefer it somewhat more separate and organised. When I started reading however, I found myself completely absorbed in Locatelli's family stories and anecdotes. He is clearly very passionate about good food, cooking, and conveying to his readers an understanding of Italian cuisine. And of course the title of the book is food and stories, so both are of equal importance.

The first thing S made from the book was pesto a la Genovese – a beautiful and delicious intensely green paste, which we added to pasta, sandwiches, chicken and lots of other things. Last weekend he was feeling a bit more ambitious and decided to make ravioli from scratch. Now I love me a good ravioli – I usually buy mine home-made from Lina’s, a wonderfully old-fashioned, family-run Italian delicatessen in Soho (18 Brewer Street) – so I wasn’t about to pass up on that offer! Also, S had a new toy to try out; a little pasta-shaping-mould thingy that we bought on our last trip to Antwerp.

And so last Saturday, S set about making dough and filling. We don’t have a pasta machine (it’s on our wish list), so getting the dough thin enough was a bit tricky and it ended up a bit on the thick side. For the filling he used my favourite: spinach and ricotta – very simply blanched spinach, wrung dry and chopped mixed with a tub of ricotta cheese. He served it with a tomato and basil sauce – even more simply a tin of chopped tomatoes, reduced in a pan with a bit of olive oil – and of course some parmesan shavings. Pasta, a nice glass of red and Billie Holiday in the background – the perfect Saturday evening.

easy-peasy midweek curry

My kitchen hasn’t seen much action in the last few weeks; even at weekends the oven and hob stay woefully underused. Last weekend was filled with DIY and a necessary shopping trip. Believe me, I can think of much nicer ways to spend my Saturday than to join the masses of shopping people in Central London, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, right? In this case: the girl had to find a dress for a wedding. And a suit for S, also for the wedding. And holiday stuff. Funny how much stuff you think you’ll need before setting off on a holiday. Weekdays are just too busy with work and last-minute preparations for a business trip to New York, followed by a visit to the gym; the exercise does wonders to clear my head after a long day at the office, not to mention my waistline, but when S and I finally get ourselves home around 8-8.30pm, neither of us has much energy left to start cooking things from scratch. So I end up nibbling cheese, salami and chocolate, hereby undoing what the exercise has done for my waistline…

All this gymming, shopping, and DYI-ing does not do much for a blog about food of course, so here’s an oldie from the archives (god that sounds ancient): the easy-peasy midweek curry. Of course there’s a bit of prep work involved and a bit of waiting around until it’s ready, but while waiting you can read the paper. Or solve a sudoku. Or think about your holiday. There’s no exact recipe; just mix about 50g of curry paste with a tin of coconut milk and heat it in the wok. Add whatever you like and let simmer until done. I like to add carrots, onions, peas, beans, red peppers and potatoes – no need for lots of preparation, I just peel what needs to be peeled and cut it up in big chunks – but something meaty of fishy would work just as well. While your curry is simmering away, cook some rice et voilà: a delicious meal in about 30 minutes.

It tastes even better the second day when all the flavours have fused together, so you could make it in advance and have a healthy ready-meal super-easy-peasy midweek curry. And there’s no law against making it at weekends. In which case, you’ll have an easy-peasy weekend curry.