breadcrumbs

It's a good thing I made that breaded cheese salad when I did, because yesterday evening, when I was looking for the breadcrumbs to top the cauliflower gratin I was preparing for dinner, they were nowhere to be found. Of course there was only one place they could have gone, I didn't even have to ask (but I did anyway, silly me).

here’s one I made earlier…

… because I was nowhere near my kitchen this weekend. Instead, I spent a lovely weekend in Belgium to celebrate my friend’s 30th birthday. She is Spanish and prepared some yummy food: tortilla, albondigas and much more. No pictures, too busy talking. The rest of the weekend I caught up with my family: chatting with mum, taking gran out for lunch and enjoying the wonderful sunshine and 25˚C weather. And stocking up on chocolate of course.

So all I’ve got right now is this salad: goats’ cheese, walnuts, apple (this time, I also use pear, dried cranberries or goji berries) and rocket with an olive oil-balsamic vinegar dressing.

S doesn’t like goats’ cheese at all, so I only make this occasionally, just for myself. And every time again I’m surprised how fast and easy this is. All you need to do is brush the cheese with egg, roll it in breadcrumbs and gently fry it in some olive oil, until the breadcrumbs are golden and the cheese a bit squishy in the middle. While the cheese is frying, dress the salad leaves, throw in some nuts, berries or whatever else takes your fancy. Plonk the cheese onto the salad, add a good twist of black pepper et voila…. an utterly delicious salad in about 10 minutes.

randomness

with the freakish winter we've been having, the flowers in my garden have all come out way too early

Where has February gone? It seems the new year started only yesterday, and suddenly two whole months have passed! As must be glaringly obvious from a complete absence of posts, not much baking has been going on in the vanille & chocolat household.

The one thing that has been going on, in large quantities, is DIY. Which usually starts on Saturday morning and ends Sunday evening, after we’ve washed all the dust out of our hair, soothed our aching muscles with a relaxing hot bath, and settled down in front of the telly with a nice cocktail (yes, those lemons sure served their purpose, if not the one originally intended).

American pancakes, baby knitting and my beautiful new ironing board cover

During the past few weeks, there was a wonderful and comforting Flemish dish: witlof (chicory) and ham rolls, in a cheesy béchamel sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and butter, baked in the oven. Prepared by S – yes, I am one lucky woman. There were also hearty breakfasts, to get enough energy for all the DIY. I’m totally in love with the American pancakes, bacon and maple syrup combo. I know this must seem a very mundane breakfast for you Americans out there, but I find it very exotic and if S would let me, I’d make it every weekend.

Weeknights, there has been lots of soup, housework, knitting (hadn’t done that for ages and my friend L having a baby was the perfect excuse to take it up again), and also the discovery of house renovation, crafty and decoration blogs. And etsy. All very addictive, but oh so inspiring!

details of two prints I fell in love with and just had to buy on etsy

This weekend we’re taking a break from all the DIY and are jetting off to Belgium for another one of these and some retail therapy. But I’ve got some new goodies and interesting recipes I can’t wait to try, plus there’s a few bank holidays coming up and the days are getting longer, so hopefully March should see something more than one sorry blog post saying I don’t have time to blog.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

lemon meringue pie – the Daring Bakers’ January challenge

Another month, another Daring Bakers challenge, and this month’s host – Jen, the Canadian Baker – chose lemon meringue pie. Now, I love me some lemon pie. I have a favourite, foolproof recipe, but it can’t hurt to try something a bit different once in a while. As usual, I left it to the last weekend to complete the challenge. S shopped for groceries, while I was stripping more paint off the woodwork.

With a pantry full of butter, sugar, eggs, lemon and cream, I fully intended to start baking. I even got as far as making the dough for the crust. And then… the call of the DIY became too strong to ignore. And so, by the end of the weekend, there was a lot of stripped wood, a ceiling without wallpaper on it, and not a lemon meringue pie in sight. Those lemons did come in handy though for our cocktail hour on Sunday evening…

Check out all the other Daring Bakers’ real pies here.

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).

yet another post without any food pictures...

... but beautifully sanded floors and painted walls instead. Which is what S and I have been doing all weekend long. More food to come, very soon.