Heavenly ribs

I want to eat now! Not 6 hours later because of the slow cooking in the oven :). The trick here is to cook the ribs in water and salt for about 30 minutes, when the water boils, turn down the heat. The only thing you need the oven for is to make the crust.

You can use all kind of marinades, but I'll share mine with you, I did not measure anything. Professionals don't measure either right? :p

Ingredients for marinade:

- Five spice powder

- Hoisin sauce

- Ketchup

- Honey

- A bit of chili sauce (add more if you like spicy)

Take the ribs out the pan and dry the ribs with kitchen paper. Sprinkle the ribs with 5 spice powder, rub it in with hoisin sauce, ketchup, chili sauce and honey. It is best to marinade it overnight, but at least 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 225 C (437F) and roast till it bubbles. If it's black, you've roasted it too long!

Enjoy!

Come to the dark side, we have chewy gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ever since I tried the white chocolate chip cookies from Marks & Spencer (in Ireland), there was nothing else I wanted to eat!

And since Marks & Spencer doesn't exist in the Netherlands anymore, that means I had to make it myself (again!). I found this recipe (see below, thanks to creator Alison 12!) online, which comes pretty close to the ones from M&S.

Don't bake the cookies too long in the oven, otherwise it will not be chewy and gooey as it should be.

I also found a similar recipe from Martha Stewart, which also looks great! (duh, it's Martha :p)

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the melted butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda, gradually stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

White Cut Chicken

I might get in trouble for this, but I'm going to share another Chinese secret with you! Your chicken will be very smooth, tender, love and care. And it will only take you 30 minutes!

Ingredients:

- 1 whole (small to medium) chicken or 4 quarter chicken legs like above.

- 1,5 liter water

- 1 table spoon of salt

For the ginger scallion sauce: (this is the hardest part, wait, chopping the chicken is the hardest part!)

- 2 Scallion / spring onion

- About an inch fine cut ginger

- 4 table spoon of oil (any oil will do, I use olive oil)

- 1 tea spoon of salt

Boil the water in a large pan with the salt, when the water boils, add the chicken. Wait till the water boils again and turn off the heat.

---> wait for 30 minutes

In the meanwhile, cut the scallion and ginger and leave it in a small bowl with the salt, then heat a wok with the oil until it smokes and pour the oil over the scallion and ginger.

Take the chicken out the pan and chop this in pieces. Serve!

Enjoy your weekend!

Pumpkin Soup

I bought the smallest pumpkin they had in the store and still I had pumpkin left after the fries... so.. yeah, pumpkin soup it is! :p

This soup is actually very healthy like the potato soups Chinese moms make! :)

Ingredients:

- 1 kg pumpkin (cut in medium parts)

- 1,25 liter of boiled water

- 2,5 scoops of no msg added chicken powder from Knorr for the stock

- 2 medium onions, cut in parts

- 2 cloves of garlic

- half red pepper without the seeds

- a bit of olive oil to fry the onion and garlic

First fry the onions, red pepper and garlic in a large pan, add the boiled water and the chicken powder with the pumpkin parts.

That's it! The only thing you have to do now is wait till the pumpkin is soft, you can mash the pumpkin parts with a mixer, but I like the soup with a bite!

Enjoy!

oh, the green stuff in the picture is kale... I wanted to add parsely, but didn't had any at home haha It tasted good though!

Paris - my new food paradise

Paris is my new favourite food paradise! They have so many stuff we don't have, like fresh durian and other exotic fruit and a lot of macarons (I bought durian macarons! :D)!

We stayed in China town and it was like I was in Asia! I believe it's the biggest of Europe.

There were many Vietnamese restaurants and there is one restaurant which always has a big queue, the Pho 14. We went there twice in 1,5 days lol

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Is that his middle finger?

Pumpkin fries!

The first time I ate this was at Din Tai Fung and it was deliciousss! But then I'm back in this cold country and if you don't know where you can eat this, you make it yourself! Right?

This dish is with salted egg yolks, but can easily eaten without (only step 2 till 7!). This is the only recipe I found on the internet and it's the same on every website. I am just going to copy paste the recipe here, all credits goes to the creator ofcourse.

1 small pumpkin (about 400-500g)
3 salted egg yolks
1 small fresh egg
¼ tsp of salt and pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour for coating
Vegetable oil for deep frying

1. Steam the duck salted egg yolks for 8-10 minutes. Crush the egg yolks with a folk for later use.
2. Peel and remove the seeds from the pumpkin, and also remove the fibrous layer beneath.
3. Cut pumpkin thinly into the size of fries.
4. Mix the pumpkin with the small egg, salt and pepper, leave it for 10-20 minutes.
5. Coat the pumpkin fries evenly with flour.
6. Heat oil in a pan until hot, fry the pumpkin pieces until a golden colour.
7. Remove the pumpkin fries from the pan and drain excess oil with paper towels.
8. Heat ½ tbsp oil in a pan; add in the crushed salted egg yolks.
9. Stir fry the salted egg yolks until they are light and fluffy. (They should start foaming).
10. Add in the pumpkin fries and stir well with the egg yolk.
11. Serve immediately.

Enjoy your weekend!

Red Green Protein Smoothie

Another healthy recipe! This smoothie contains the following and might get you a big forearm! ;)

- Mixed berries (I used frozen ones, but fresh are even better!)

- Half banana

- Whey protein

- A bit of milk

- A handful of spinach (!)

Mixed it all in a blender and you're good to go!

Enjoy.

Loek & Nina | Haarlem

A couple of months ago my wife was asking her colleague Loek how his weekend was. He told her that his weekend was one not to forget, because he proposed to his girlfriend Nina and she said yes! Excited to hear the happy news she asked for all the details.

By chance it was the time that I was getting more serious with photography and my wife showed him my blog and jokingly said that if he was interested I could shoot his wedding.

They took it seriously and I was so excited to be given this chance! To be shooting as a main photographer at a wedding is a totally new experience to me.

16^th September was the big day. The weather forecast was going up and down. It was either rain and thunderstorm or bright and sunny. We were lucky to have beautiful weather and only a short downpour of 15 minutes when the newlyweds were moving locations by car. It didn’t affect the ambiance of the day at all. My wife was the second shooter for the day. We had a great time and we made such a good team!

The wedding itself was so much fun, a reflection of the couple. Loek and Nina are such an easy going and spontaneous couple. We wish them all the love and joy in the world.