Ireland

I believe it was somewhere in the beginning of October I went to Ireland, it was culture night and many museums were free and the Guinness factory was also free (beer)!

The Leprechaun Museum

The Rainbow Room

And the pot of gold... haha

You have to kiss the stone before you leave!

Soft Almond Cookies

TGIF... I'll leave you with a recipe adapted from James Peterson's book and go to bed.. ZZzzzZ.

Ingredients:

- 100 grams almond flour

- 120 grams powdered sugar

- 4 medium sized egg whites

- strawberry marmalade or nutella spread

Pre heat the oven at 190C. Mix the almond flour and 100 grams powdered sugar with 2 egg whites in a bowl. Beat the other 2 egg whites with the rest of the sugar until stiff peaks forms.

Fold the egg whites through the almond mix. Scoop the mixture in a piping bag with a tip of an inch and a half. Make circles of an inch and keep the tip low.

Let them rest for 15 minutes and bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Let it cool for 5 minutes before making sandwiches with the marmalade or nutella spread.

Enjoy and have a nice weekend!

Quick Potato Wedges

Ten years ago when I was in Spain (no hablo Espanol) for an internship, me and my class mates almost ate this everyday. I remember that I llllloved it! Actually it was my class mate who cooked all the time and she was very good at it!

In the meantime I have changed it a bit and I have left the potato skin on, which has the best nutrition and I have added rosemary.

The following ingredients serves 2, or 1. hehe

- 500 gram medium size potatoes

- like 10 cloves of garlic (team Edward would be so scared!)

- water to cook the potatoes

- Sea salt by taste

- a bit Black pepper

- a bit Rosemary

- around 3 to 4 tbs olive oil

First clean the potatoes, you can brush them a little, but watch the skin. Then cut the potatoes in wedges, cut it in half and then another half of the half. (?)

Place the potatoes in a medium sized pan with water, just about till it covers the potatoes, cook this for 25 minutes.

In the meantime you can prepare the garlic, you can press the garlic with the flat side of your knife to remove the skin easily.

Then dice the garlic or use a garlic press and set it aside.

Drain the potatoes and heat a non-stick pan with olive oil. Fry a bit of garlic and then add the potato wedges to the pan. Give it a shake, add salt and pepper and the rest of the garlic and fry till it's golden brown.

Serve in a warm bowl and sprinkle the potato wedges with rosemary.

Enjoy! (Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!)

How to end a perfect date - in the morning

Only if you want it to end ofcourse. And if you get up first, follow the below instructions and make that cup of coffee! Ok ok, all craziness on a stick. (it's a Dutch saying)

I use a moka pot , I didn't know they call it a moka pot till today actually, but in some countries they also call it a cafetiere.

This thing comes in three parts where you add water in the bottom and ground coffee to the filter and screw it all together. Then you place the whole pot on the stove and you actually steam the coffee in the tunnel of the pot where it comes in the upper chamber.

Do not let the coffee boil, as the coffee is done when it's in the upper chamber.

I also use coffee syrup instead of sugar, the syrup comes in different taste, like hazelnut, caramel and vanilla. This tastes sooooo much better than sugar!

If you have milk in your coffee, use a sauce pan to cook your milk and use a whisk to create the foam for your coffee.

There you have it, a moka pot, ground coffee, yummy syrup and milk. Enjoy! (with your pinkie up!)

Mash Potatoes with Ricotta, Spinach and Bacon

Why would you wait for Thanksgiving? You can eat this everyday! Unfortunately, we don't have Thanksgiving in the Netherlands... Isn't it just an excuse to eat a lot? :p

Today, I'm going to share one of my favorite mash potatoes recipes. This recipe has the following ingredients and it serves two.

- 500 grams potatoes (duh) without the skin and cut in parts

- 1 onion - diced

- 125 grams ricotta

- 150 grams fresh spinach leaves

- 100 grams bacon

- a bit of butter and milk to make it smoootthh

- a bit of olive oil (not like Jamie Oliver, which is 1/4 of the bottle) for frying the onion

- a bit of nutmeg, like a 1/2 tsp

- salt and pepper by taste

First we have to boil the water with a 1/2 tbs of salt in a medium pan. Add the potatoes and cook it for about 30 minutes till it's kind of soft, but not too soft, does that make sense? Try to pick it with a fork.

In the meantime, fry the onion in a sauce pan till it shines and has a golden color, then add the ricotta and add a small portion of spinach at a time.

In another pan, fry the bacon until crispy and leave it there for later.

The potatoes should be done by now, so drain the potatoes, mash it a little, add the butter and milk, stir, add the ricotta mix, stir again and add the bacon.

Add nutmeg, salt and pepper by taste and enjoy!

I'm also excited to have a guest post on Smoky Wok. So, if you're thinking about to have a special Thanksgiving. Please stop by my fellow foodie, Jen from Smoky Wok, a Getty Images Artist, who has many Asian recipes which you can find in restaurants, but made at home! Happy (Asian) Thanksgiving!

Homemade Ciabatta

Whoa! I love bread, good bread! It takes time to make good bread! Most of the recipes I've seen take 2 days to finish the bread and so is this one, which I'm going to share with you.

The recipe is from James Peterson and his book about baking. The recipe for the pizza is also from the same book.

Ok, let's start with the ingredients.

- 375 g wheat flour

- 330 ml lukewarm water

- 1 package of instant yeast which is 7 grams

- 60 ml olive oil

- 3/4 tsp salt

- a bit of butter for the baking tray

For the ciabatta you need to make a wet starter (poolish), so the dough will rise really slow and you will get those holes in the bread.

To make the starter, add 95 grams flour, the yeast and 180ml water in a bowl and whisk till it's a bit thick. Cover this with foil and let it rise for 1 or 2 hours, till it's doubled or trippled the size.

The next step is to add the starter with the rest of the flour, water and the olive oil. Mix this 2 minutes in the Kitchenaid with a dough hook. Cover it with plastic foil and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Add the salt and knead it for 7 minutes on medium speed. Higher the speed if needed, so the dough will come off the hook.

Cover the dough with plastic foil (yes, again) and let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature and then overnight in the fridge.

I used a round baking tray of 28cm, you can use a different baking tray if you like. Spread the butter in the tray and add the dough in the tray, you don't have to press the air out of it.

This is the last part of waiting, yes, cover the dough again with plastic foil and let it rise for 2 hours till it's doubled the size.

- Now comes the baking! This is a whole experience itself. Pre-heat the oven to 230C. You need an extra tray with hot water on the bottom of the oven. Place the bread above the tray with hot water and spray the sides of the oven with water, wait 30 seconds and spray it again. Reduce the heat to 220C.

To spray the sides of the oven, you will keep the heat in the oven like the professionals (they don't have to spray, because they have pro ovens).

Bake the bread for 35 minutes till it sounds hole when you knock on it. Let it rest for 5 minutes before moving to a rack.

Finally! It's done. It is definitely worth to try and it's a fun experience to see the different methods of using flour and yeast to make different kind of bread.

I hope you'll like it and have a nice weekend!

ah, I forgot to mention that the bread is rrrrrealy good with good quality olive oil and sea salt!

I call it, Sweet Egg Pie Muffin Size!

Ok ok, I was supposed to make Portugese egg tarts, but it turned into something else :p.

It doesn't matter! They are still very tasty, soft, sweet and has a little cinnamon taste, I would describe it as a sweet egg pie muffin! :D

I used the ingredients and measurements from The Pleasure Monger and the method from the below Youtube video for rolling the pastry.

BUT! If you want to try the new invention, forget all the iced water and waiting etc. Use the ingredients from The Pleasure Monger and watch the video!

Enjoy!

Homemade Pizza From Scratch

If you want to go the easy way, order a pizza at Dominos. :p You could also buy a ready-to-decorate-dough and use the below toppings. BUT, if you want to go the hard way, read on.

The book (I have the Dutch version) and recipe I used is from James Peterson. I'll try to explain it briefly, but clear.

For the pizza dough you need: (enough for 2 thin pizzas of 28 cm)

- 375 grams flour

- 180 ml lukewarm water

- yeast, I used a package of instant yeast, which is 7 grams

- 3/4 ts salt

- 6 tbs olive oil

Toppings:

- 4 medium size (roma) tomatoes

- 340 grams mozzarella, sliced

- basil leaves (spread some olive oil on the leaves before you roll them up to cut, this will prevent them from turning brown!)

Mix the flour, water and yeast in a bowl. Add the salt, mix again and add the oil. Knead the dough with the dough hook till it's smooth for 7 minutes in the Kitchenaid on medium speed.

Cover the bowl with plastic foil and let it rise till it has doubled the size. 4 hours at room temperature or 1 hour at room temperature and a night in the fridge (I used the last method).

When you have waited long enough, you can knead the dough! Split the dough in 2 and roll the dough till it fits a pizza plate of 28cm, cut off the excess dough from the plate. Push the dough against the edge of the plate and spread it with a bit of olive oil.

Preheat the oven on 260 C. Spread the mozzarella first and then the tomatoes on top. Bake the pizza for 15 mintues. Add the basil just before the pizza is done and push the pizza back for another minute.

DONE! Easy right? Let me know if you're going to try this and how it went!

And... Happy Autumn!