woensdag 9 december 2009

rabbit recipe: stewed Thumper

I mentioned I was going to cook a rabbit in my last post. I thought you might be interested in a recipe I like.

Stewed Thumper.
Rabbit stew (serves 4)

Ingredients:



1 tablespoon lard or goose fat
1 tablespoon of (corn)flour
8 shallots, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Leg and saddle of 1 large rabbit (not separated)
1 salt and pepper to taste
1 cup dry white wine
6 plum tomatoes (blanched, skinned, and halved lengthwise) or a tin of peeled, stewed tomatoes if you’re in a rush
1 sprig of fresh thyme or a 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
10 ounces soaked porcini mushrooms. You van use fresh shiitakes is you don’t have porcini



In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté the shallots and garlic until they turn tender and start to caramelize, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Put the shallots and garlic to a bowl and set aside.

Season the rabbit with the salt and pepper, dust with the flour; add it to the pan and cook over medium-high heat on each side, to brown it thoroughly. Take rabbit out of the pan to deglaze the pan with the white wine and tomatoes. Then return rabbit to pan.

Return the caramelized shallots and garlic to the pan, along with the thyme and mushrooms Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and allow the rabbit to simmer for 40-50 minutes, until it is cooked through.


Enjoy!
hello y'all,

If you think it's been a long time since you posted anything on this blog berejnena, then you've got nothing on me! My last post was October 16th and it was about cooking pumpkin soup with kids. That's how long it takes to recover from a traumatic experience I suppose. 2 months and a lot of Xanax!

Very interesting that 4 winds restaurant.
Judging from the name, I guess you're glad it wasn't a restaurant that specialized in dishes with 1)beans, 2)onions, 3)cabbage and 4)Garlic huh? LOL

I just looooove Paella. Well okay, I loooove risotto too and Chinese fried rice, and Indonesian fried rice and beans & rice and... You get the picture I'm sure.

I saw a TV programme once about food allergies and there was this Chinese girl who was totally allergic to rice. Even the smell of rice was enough to give her the itches and skin trouble.
Guess what business her parents had. Yup. A Chinese restaurant and they also lived over the restaurant, so all the smells seeped through the wooden floors, including that of boiling/steaming/frying rice.
Now that's a bummer, no? It's like being allergic to oxygen.

Indeed, the Spanish are not known for their chips, or French Fries, as the americans call them. But then, apart from the Belgians, other countries in the world are not as culinarily well developed as we Dutch are. Chips play a central part in our food chain and so we take great care to make perfect chips. Golden brown and crunchy, best eaten HOT. Straight from the frying pan into your mouth! Supplemented with mayonaise and/or ketchup or peanut sauce or piccalilli. Mmmmm
Other nationalities, when they hear of this, shudder. They cannot imagine eating a potato chip with mayonaise, let alone peanut sauce or piccalilli. For them only tomato ketchup will do. Tssssss. Culturally underdeveloped pygmies!
Also, they do not fry them long enough or even use the richt frying technique. They dump the roughly chopped potato into an ocean of olive oil or whatever and take them out as soon as they see the oil is bubbling. What you get is like you described: a sorry looking, pale wannabe cheese-like strip of floppy potato that looks like it's begging for a viagra pick-up.

I have not been out to dinner lately. You know how it is: Shopaholic wife, 3 dogs, 10 kids, high mortgage, personal loans, 5 maxed-out credit cards and work stress....

Hahahaha.... Thank goodness none of the above nightmares are true!
But it is true that we have not had a meal out for a while. Instead we eat in. I cook most of the time, like 99.99999% of the time. I don't mind at all though, since I'm not spice blind or hanker after macro-biotic crappola, like my other half does.

You know, I don't understand those macro-nitwits and worse: vegan twits at all.
No meat??? No Fish??? and vegans : no cheese, eggs, milk and other animal products.
May as well jump off a cliff, right?
You do know of course, that VEGETARIAN is an old Indian word for "bad hunter".
Oops. Hope no vegs are on this blog. But if there are, well, be truthful. Your lives could use spicing up. I mean, look at where you vegetarians go for a drink....
A salad bar!
Really. How dull is that?

But okay. Enough about our fellow greenlings.

It's rabbit time again at the butchers, so I'm thinking of cooking a rabbit

zaterdag 17 oktober 2009

Sunday lunch at the Quatro Vientos

Howdy Cebolla,

It sure has been a while since I wrote something on this blog. You were right busy with the dachshund and other very interesting things.

I read both of your blogs. The Italian place sounds great. The afternoon woth the kids let me put it nicely sort of fun. I guess you'd rather make pumpkin soup here at Casa el Naranjo.

Between all my busy work we went out to a nice restaurant here in Spain named the Quatro vientos. We have been there before, to eat some tapas and because the tapas were so nice we decided to go back for lunch.

A good choice I might say. The boys ordered paella. Must say excellent. The rice was perfect, the filling (fish) just enough. I had the quatro vientos plato. A nice piece of lomo (pork) pepper, egg, chorizo and suprisingly good chips. Surprisingly because here in Spain the chips are normally very bad. You can say they look like long strips of very young cheese and they tast like a soggy sponge.
The other two had a very nice lambchop. Very tender meat.
As desert I had the home made arroz con leche. Thas was ok but a little bit to sweet for my taste. All in all the food, the service, the nicely set tables, atmosphere I would rate it 8,5 peppers.

Yesterday I made home made chips for the guests an us. I must say there we definitely worth 9 peppers. You can try them in December. See what you think about it.

Thats it for now. I really hope you got your energy back after your cooking class with the kids.

Berenjena

vrijdag 16 oktober 2009

The True Purpose of Pumpkins at Halloween

It is nearly Halloween. The time when kids go trick-or treating and people maul and manhandle poor, helpless pumpkins by carving them into evil, grinning masks with teeth that could have used a visit to the orthodontist and a few good braces.

But besides carving up pumpkins for Jack-o'-lanterns, they can also be used for food. In fact, it's preferable.

Preferable unless..... You are cooking a pumpkin recipe with........ KIDS!!!!

This is what I did on October 15th 2009, at 13.00 o'clock 'till 15.00 o'clock as part of a team consisting of 5 adults (teacher, 3 mothers and me) and 21 kids, aged around 8 years old. Good Grief!!!

The menu was simple enough. Salad, pumpkin/parsnip soup with bread and garlic butter and marshmallows dipped in melted chcolate.
The only drawback was that the kids had to make it and we were there to help and supervise them.

Teacher Miek had already prepared the pupmpkins beforehand, having peeled, cooked and mashed them to a thick, bright orange, puree.
What was left was to make the garlic butter, slice bread, make the salad and the marshmalow treats and make the soup: peel, dice and cook the parsnips (= pastinaak), add the pumpkin puree.
Does not seem like much, but Mount Everest does not seem that big either, if you stand away far enough from it.

I was on the garlic butter station. Have you ever tried to make garlic butter with 5 very active kids all at once? No??? Lucky you.
Peeling garlic is a hurdle. It takes some skill to take the skin off the garlic and these cloves did their very best to keep their skins on. Slipping out of small hands and escaping from onder dull knives (can't have sharp knives + kids). That Garlic saw all of the kitchen. Bouncing off the counter, hitting the walls and other kids and skidding over the floor. Finally being stopped by a heavy kid's foot stomping on it.
Well, on the plus side, the garlic clove was peeld and crushed.

Does your young son love putting gell in his hair? Listen ladies, you can save on hair gell expenses by using butter or margerine. Just get them to mash the cubes of butter with a fork to a paste and you'll have a head of hair so greasy, you can butter your whole loaf bread with it.
How hair can find it's way into butter is known. But how butter can find it's way onto 5 children's heads in 10 seconds is nothing short of a miracle. Of course, flicking bits of butter at each other from a fork does help the proces. Wiping your sweaty brow (yes, mashing soft butter cubes with a fork is hard work) with a buttery hand is even better.
But okay, the garlic butter was finally made (if you like big chunks of stomped-on garlic in your butter, I'll send you the left-overs).

Similar stuff happened with the parsnips and the iceberg lettuce and tomatoes but I was too busy trying to maintain some semblance of control at the butter station to see that. Besides, those kids were not in my group, so it was not my problem.

Of course, wearing a helmet might be advisable if one does not like hard bits of parsnip hitting one's nose.

Melting chocolate in a microwave can be dangerous too. Especially if you leave some wrapping paper among the broken up chocobits. Did you know those bits of paper can catch fire in the micro wave? No? Well now you do!
So always check that your chocolate bits are paper and foil free. Unless, of course, you like Choc. trés flambé and/or want a new micro wave, or even a new kitchen.

Well, finally the soup was made, the salad was ready and the bread and garlic butter was foot print and hair free.
The table had been set... sort of... and everyone could get down to the serious business of eating.
Luckily that went well. The kids were proud of their work and ate the soup or at least tasted it before screwing up their face and saying they did not like pumpkin and all the bread and butter was gone.
The marshmallows went down well too.
The mothers loved those! They would have fought the kids for them, but luckily there was enough and also, they licked the chocolate out of the empty bowl after they'd helped the kids dip the marshmallows.

After the meal the kitchen was cleaned up,as was the dining area and everything was left just as neat and tidy as when we arrived.

Everyone went home with a smile on their face, albeit mine was a bit forced.

When I arrived home I sat and stared at the wall for about 30 minutes. Just being Zen... Or recovering from shell-shock.

In all, it was good day, but I made teacher Miek promise me that she'd never ask me for this kind of help again because I'd then suddenly have to go away on business to Outer Mongolia for at least a month.

Cebolla

zondag 11 oktober 2009

Dinner in the Roman Empire

It's been a while since this blog had anything to eat, so I thought I'd better do something about it before I get charged with Blog cruelty.Of course I'm not the only caretaker of ths Blog. A certain ms. Egg Plant could have also fed this poor blog, but it appeares she has been a tad busy feeding human guests and creating witches with dachshunds.

Hmmmmm.... Makes you wonder what the blazes is going on there....I hope I got everything in the right order and that it's not: feeding the witches with homans and dachshunds.....

Oh well...

A few weeks ago, I had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Imperio Romano.It'sin The Hague (of course). There are 2 Imperios.One is a true restaurant as in pricey and upper crust-like. They don't serve mundane, plebean food like pizza or pasta.
That restaurant serves excellent food with more expensive ingredients, such as truffels, lobster, caviar etc. So don't forget to upgrade your Credit Card when you go to eat there.

The other Imperio is just a few metres away from the first one and does serve pizza, pasta,gnocci and all the food one normally associates with an Italian restaurant. Though we had been to Imperio 1, we had yet to visit numer 2. That was just what we did a few weeks ago.

It was absolutely great! I had a fish soup for starters and my partner had a tuna carpaccio. The soupwaswell stoicked with shellfish and prawns and had good, meaty fish in it.Just the way a soup should be. Those French would have been blasted outta the mediteranean with their bouillabaise!
To keepthings fishy, I ordered a spaghetti with vongole, tiny clams. Mmmmm. Just right.
Miek had sea bream encrusted in sea salt. Excellent as well.
Wine was a Pinot Griggio.
Desert was very un-italian like: a coffee with a liqeur, Frangelico, which is a light, caramel liqeur. Not too sweet, not too sticky.

The bill was about 45 euro PP.

Of course, you can make spaghetti al vongole and the salt encrusted sea bream at home too, because these are simple to make.

for 1 portion, take a handful of small clams and boil them in salted water until they open. Drain and cool.
Make a light tomato sauce by glazing a small finely chopped onion, likewise 1 clove of garlic and some salt/pepper in 1 tbsp of hot olive oil. Add 1 large, peeled and diced tomato and a small glass of good white wine. Let te sauce reduce to about 2/3 so that the tomatoes are soft and can be roughly crushed with a fork. Add clams and mix in with the spaghetti, which you have boiled al dente, of course. Add a bit of chopped parsely over the dish and voilá. Done.

The fish is even simpler. Take 1 small, whole, cleaned and scaled sea bream, place in an oven dish. Pack tightly with very coarse sea salt and place in a hot oven (220 degrees) for about 30 min. Take the dish out of the oven. The salt will have hardened over the fish.
Take asmall hammer and a chisel to ctack open the salt crust, remove it from the fish. The fish will be well done but still moist.
Carefully filet the flesh from the bone with a spoon and fork, taking care not to damage the fish and place on the plate. Eat with pommes duchesse or small diced, fried potatoes sprinkled with finely chopped parsely and mixed greens or a salad.

Buono apetito!

maandag 14 september 2009

ANOTHER Billy Bob evening?????

Howdy doody Berenjena,

Wow! You are one lucky so-and-so to have all those willing and able guys to do your bidding. Your kitchen bidding that is!
You have your live-at-home- cook mr. Chilipepper, the hot tempered wheeling-dealing cyclist cook on wheels and now you have roped in the Scottish Indian Curry cook from Glasgow, living in Bermejo.
Tell me. What's your secret???

I know. You bat your green eyes and loooong lashes at them and they're burnt toast! LOL

You know, if Billy Bob's gonna get serious about this curry delivery service, you may want to help him with the promo by making little felt chefs hats with Billy Bob Curry on them or on a special tag and hand them over as key rings, for his marketing.
Of course Billy Bob would have to understand that, noooo, he can't wear one of those wee felt hats 'cause his head's way too big for that now. What with his 8.something pepper rating.

So he made his famous chicken korma and colourful rice. You know, I associate the word colourful rice with colourful language. I can see and hear it now: Swearing rice with Chicken korma. A mild chicken dish served with hot language.
Heloh my der... You are looking prtty toodeh.(no I did not leave the a and e out by mistake. That's how Indians pronounce dear and pretty)
Want to rrun op wid me to jallallabad? No!!????!! ... Puckity-puckity-puck! (as you know, F is not part of the Indian vocabulary).

In any case, I see that Donaldinho aka Billiy Bob did his best once again. Glad you have extra cooking staff to help out when you need it most (read: when mr. Chilipepper is not doing the jive in the kitchen).

I'm certain he was worth every pepper.

Cebolla

zaterdag 12 september 2009

Indonesian dinner at Casa El Naranjo

Howdy Cebolla,

This is about a meal I have to tell you about. We had guests, I must say regular guests, who love food and wine.
The lady, who I will call lady A, loves to cook and is an expert in cooking Indonesian food. So when she offered to make some Indonesian dishes, what can one say but Yes!
It is always a lot of work so she started the day before. The chicken was marinated, the cucumber pickled, the rice soaked, a lovely greenbean dish prepared and some other things.

The food was mainly a surprise for mr. Chilipepper who would return from Holland.
We also had guests who liked to join us as well.
Needless to say that it was a surprise for mr. Chilipepper.

Before we could eat lady A had a lot more to cook, prepare etc.
So of she went to our kitchen and started withe the pots and pans.

I'll tell you what the dishes were but to be honest I forgot the names of evenrything so hopefulle lady A will react to my story and name the dishes.
What did we have: nice yellow rice, marinated chicken with a very very nice peanutsauce. Greenbeans with shrimps, Lady A mentioned that normally she uses the little dutch shrimps but since they don't sell them here she used bigger ones, well I'll tell you it was lovely.
Lady A also made a nice vegetable dish, cabbage, mushrooms, bacon and other secret ingredients. The dish our children loved was a meatloaf dish called fricadel. An over dish mmmmmmmmmm.
This all was served with kroepoek,the pickled cucumbers and dried onions.

I abslolutely loved it and if Lady A will come back and offers to make this food again we won't hesitate to say Yes!!.

I rate this food 8,5 peppers!. The taste, the combination of dishes, the athmosphere it is worth it!

talk to you soon
berenjena

another Billy Bob evening

Howdy Cebolla,

Yes it has been a while but the eggplant was very busy. So busy with guests that we decided to orginaze a indian evening. Ant who do you call for a nice Indian meal ....
Billy Bob of course. He could start a little catering business. Well anyway. We ordered a chicken korma, colourful rice, onion relish, mint sauce and the lentel dish.
The meal was very nice. Less dishes then the evening at Bermejo but maybe thats why I could taste it a bit better. The chicken was tender and very nice. The rice was a bit different then last time this time yellow/red and flavourend with kardamom and cinnamon. Absolutely delicious. I must say this time I' giving this meal 8.25 Peppers

donderdag 27 augustus 2009

Paella de postres

Howdy Berenjena,

Tssss... Silly me. How could I have forgotten that your colour is not yellow. It's GREEN. As in Kermit the Frog Green.
Sooooo Does mr. Chillipepper play Miss Piggy to your Kermit? Kissy Kissy!!! LOL

Well, what's in a colour? So you get green gloves. Heck, you use them yella gloves long enough on that there rancho toilet and they'll turn green anyhow!

"We are modest... unlike some persons"
HAH! Are you implying I'm not modest!!??
I'm the most modestest and humblest-est person I know!!! But I know quality in food when I taste it and my curry was top quality!

".. unlike some other people..." Tssssss.....

Today I made a stir fry with glass noodles. Now you are gonna ask: How do you make and eat noodles from glass?

Very carefully, dear! Hahahaha

I made it with spring onions (they were jumping all over the place.They shoulda called them "boinggg-Boinggg-onions"), courgette and chicken.
The chicken I marinated in soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil, together with finely chopped garlic, ginger and onions.

And just to show you how modest I am, I'll give myself a 7.5
Mother Theresa, watch out! Saint Onion's gonna kick your saintly but offa that chair on the clouds.

Yesterday I made Jerk lamb.
Boy was that lamb ever a jerk! Trust those islam lambs to be impolite hooligans! But I sorted that leg of lamb out all right!
Just dumped it in self-made Jamaican citrus jerksauce and roasted it in the oven. I'll write down the recipe next time, after I've improved it somewhat. It was not bad, but I could have done better. In fact I often HAVE done much better. But Miek liked it. So this jerky lamb was a 6, just about.

Mr Chilli pepper's paellas are always good. But if you give it an 8, it must have been special.
Banana Ice cream. Mmmmmm Must have been Tiny Ice cream, since your bananas were mini. LOL
But okay, if it tasted half as good as his choc-a-shock Ice cream, it must be great!

Still, I suppose one day, mister CP could make paella even more special by making an ice cream cake and put it in a paella pan. Yellow banana ice cream with bits of cactus fruit, passion fruit, cherries and a bit of kiwi for "paella" decoration. Load it in his little cart and cycle all the way to town to sell it. It'll be a hit! Paella de postres. Fabulosa!!!

Yes I know. You don't need to thank me. I'm a genius. A modest and humble genius,true. But a genius never the less.
Eternal sunshine in the spotless mind. That's me... Oh wait, that was a movie about a schizophrenic....

yellow gloves no way

howdy Cebolla,

I have been such a busy bee that I didn't have time to react on your last little story.
To start I would like to say that you are a true business onion. You see opportunities everywhere. The toiletcompany. The main problem I have whith this idea is the yellow gloves you know my favorite colour is green so NO yellow gloves. But I must say it does sound like another million dollar business, this beside the B&B our bananaplantation and Jello'07, our recipebook, need I say more we are nearly millionaires.........
Talking about banana's mr. chilipepper made ice cream of our own bananas yesterday mmmmmmmmm I would rate it at least 8 peppers. You see we are modest unlike other persons among us.
I know you are a good cook but be honest! to rate yourself 9 PEPPERS for a midweek curry that is the bloody limit!. You are as you say yourself not in your right mind
So as you promised you'll make the curry for us and then we will see what the proper rating is....

Tuesday mr. Chilipepper made paella. And altough it always tasts good this time it was really good. I dare to say 8 Peppers at least.

well better start making plans for dinner tonight

talk to you later

Berenjena

donderdag 20 augustus 2009

cooks, looks and toilets

Howdy doody berenjena,

You gave the same amount of peppers I did. How's that for sharing a taste eh? I'll bet ole Billy Bob peed in his pants for happiness.

This peeing business brings me to my comment on your blog about your dinner at the big ranch across the street from your house.
This place sounds interesting. Next time we're at your place, we'll go there.

Usually one should never look at the cook. certainly not if you're expecting a Brad Pitt look-alike wearing a chef's hat and a spotless apron.

Nope. Most restaurant cooks look grumpy, greasy and like they have trouble spelling the words c-l-e-a-n and t-i-d-e-y.
Handsome does does not fit in that package either.

Also,their outfit, an apron with last week's menu splattered all over the front, does not help.

So now you understand why they work in Hell's Kitchens. They just ain't gonna win no fashion shoot. Not with that no-hair- head, a 5 day, mangy Yasser Arafat beard and self-rolled cigarette hangin outa the corner of their mouth.

Still, as long as you don't order a raw steak tartare or think you can eat sushi and sashimi at their place, I believe you'll be okay. Just stick to the well cooked or fried stuff.

Just as a lot of ugly bulldogs are sweeter than they look, some of those cooks can cook better than they look.

As for toilets.... I guess in places as those, they look like the cooks huh? And stink like them too I suppose. I guess you need waders - those long boots fishermen use when fishing in the rivers - to get through all the mess.
That does nothing to stimulate the appetite or to keep your meal down, let me tell you.

Good thing you live just across the railroad tracks. Your guests can run back and forth to do their business.

Hey... That's a big bucks opportunity for you guys. You can charge the rancho guests 2 euro each time they hafta go pee. Just point an arrow to your place and place a chemical portacabin toilet on your side of the tracks.

Ahhh.... I can just see you sitting there every evening, wearing a floral print apron. Wee Yellow rubber gloves and toilet brush and WC Eend next to you. Reading penny romances or Mummy I love you-novellas by the light of the lantern posts while listening to Julio Iglesias, or crochetting your latest design toilet seat covers, priced at 25 euro a piece.

Is that not a wonderful sight to behold? ......

Whaddaya mean I'm not in my right mind!!??? LOL

Cebolla

Indian night at Bermejo

Howdy Cebolla,

Well finally here I am to write about the indian night we had at Billy Bob's house.
I promised to write my review about the food etc.
We started the evening with a nice cool tinto verano at the pool. A nice summer drink but dangerous as well because it tasts like lemonade only if you stand up you feel the alcohol.
Well at about 9 dinner was served. Because you already mentioned what Billy Bob made I will just say what I liked or not. Actually I liked everything. Unlike you for me it was spicy enough. My favorite dishes were the chicken korma, onion relish and the bread. But I also liked the other dishes. For me the rice was fine. I like the red/white rice. It looks very colourful.
I had about 2 big plates so that also says enough. And while helping Betty Sue with cleaning up I finished the last poppadum with the yoghurt mint sauce mmmmmmmm

We will definitely ask Billy Bob to cook for our guests one day.
The rating. Looking at the ambiance, company, food I'm giving this evening
8 chilipeppers.


I also have to tell you about our dinner at El Rancho Grande, acroos the street form our house. We heard dinner is very nice there as well. Since we have friends over and we didn't feel like cooking we al decided to go there.
It is a typical spanish bar/restaurant. that means no fancy tables etc and if you look to long at the cook you start wondering............
Anyway we alle ordered something different and as is almost custom in a Spanish restaurant the food is not served at the same time. So my friend got her fish first a sole that looked an tasted very good. Next were the hamburgers for the children, it looked good and according to the children it was good.
Mr. Chillipepper had a porksteak which was a bit greasy but ok. I had the mixed fried fish. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Nice and crispy served wiht a garlic mayonaise very nice.
Like I said if you don't look at the cook and the waitress, for that matter, to long you can enjoy your food a bit better. I would also skip a glance in the kitchen and use the batroom at home......
But the food was ok, ambiance very spanish, service ok. I would give 6,5 peppers.

thats it for now,

Greetings from Berenjena

dinsdag 18 augustus 2009

Bojo

A while ago I wrote something about a surinam style cake called bojo. It's easy to make and tastes great. So here is the recipe.

Surinaamse Bojo
1 kg. cassava
1 coconut
4 eggs
2 tbsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. Almond essence
1 tbs. vanilla essence
200 gr. sugar
75 gr. butter
pinch of salt
1 large glass of milk
100 gr. Raisins or currants.

Peel and rasp the cassava. Crack the coconut and remove flesh (or buy a bag of already shelled coconut). Remove the brown skin and rasp the flesh. Whisk the eggs with sugar and vanilla and almond essence. Add to the rasped coconut and cassava.
Add milk and salt.
Melt the butter and pour into mixture.

Take a cake tin and rub sides with butter. Pour mixture in.
Put the tin into a preheated oven on gas mark 5/175 ºC
Bake for about 1 hour.

Shake some cinnamonpowder over it when done.

Cut and eat.

Bon appetit!

vrijdag 14 augustus 2009

Indian curry from the Scottish Highlands

It is amazing what one can eat anywhere in the world these days. I suppose if you were really trying hard,you could find a plate fried cod 'n chips in Tibet or a stamppot peen en ui in Uagadougou. But of course I don't travel to those regions. Too far away and what on earth can one do in places such as those?

So what did I find in the picturesque metropolis of Bermejo, Andalusia?
A curry dinner, cooked by a man from Glasgow, with a Danish partner. Right beside a swimming pool in de depth of the Andalusian foothills.

Imagine: Dusk. The setting sun throwing a watermelon pink eil across the hot spanish sky, inviting the stars to come out and play.
I'm holding a vino tinto, sitting beside the swimming pool of this wee house belonging the one of the nicest wee couples: Billy Bob, the not-so flying Scotsman and Betty Sue, his lovely Danish partner.Also present were assorted pets(2 boys, 2 cats 2 dogs and a painter-drummer Scot). Rod Stewart squeaking out of a box in the backgrond, asking if we think he's sexy...

Aahhhh.....Perfect ambiance for a fun and relaxing evening.

And it's not just any evening. It's an evening to enjoy a curry dinner cooked by Billy Bob himself, helped by is very able assistant, Betty Sue

Billy Bob is a laid back Scotsman, borrowing smokes of a cigar from his scottish buddy, drinking a few beers, waiting till it's time to heat he dishes he prepared in advance. Billy Bob says it takes 5 hours to prepare all that. Wow!

What is "All that" ?

2 types of chicken curry: 1 slightly spicey and one not at all spicey (korma), plain rice, pilav rice, curried chick peas, spiced lentils cooked with tomatoes, chapattis, poppadums, onion relish, tomato relish and raita, the well-known mint and yoghurt sauce to accompany the curries.

It was a feast, laid out invitingly. I'm not one to wait for an invitation. I just grabbed a plate and helped myself.

So, what did it taste like?
First, I must compliment Billy Bob on making 2 different curries with chicken breast. In my experience it's so easy to make the base sauce and add either meat or fish to give the curry another name. The taste however, would not differ much.

In Billy Bob's case, the 2 curries did taste differently, so that was excellent.
One mildly sharp and one very soft and creamy.

The chick pea dish was really good.you could taste each spice very well. I liked that a lot.
The chapattis were truly excellent! I truly loved them. Restaurant quality. Mmmmm...
The spicing of the pillav rice was again of restaurant quality. Very good indeed!

Cardamon, cumin, onion, garlic, tumeric, etc etc. The Alladin's cave of spices that make a curry. Wonderful.

On a more personal note, I would have preferred my curries more spicey (like: take-the-roof-off-my-mouth-hot!)and the sauce thicker, more condensed so that the spices hae even more colour on my palate. Perhaps the rice could have used 1 minute longer in the cooker as it had a bit too much bite to it for my taste.
But of course others have to be able to enjoy them as well, so he really chose the best options.

Please take note that this is my personal taste and maybe I seem churlish and nit-picky (and perhaps I am) but Billy Bob did ask me to give my honest opinion on this blog, so here it is.

But aside from these minor details, really, I loved the meal. Otherwise I would not have gone back for more twice afterwards!

Would I recommend that Billy Bob make a curry for you? Yes I would!!


It was a wonderful evening, surrounded by a warm, welcoming couple. They both great hosts, with a good sense of humor and empathy. I felt at home immediately.

So how many peppers for food, service and ambiance?

8 peppers!!

maandag 3 augustus 2009

Sausages 'n mash and salt 'n vinegar chips

Good afternoon my dear Eggplant,

There. That's this English politness over with.

Just read your s'cream post. Looks like mr. Chilipepper's doing a great job. Before you know it, he'll be a major competitor for Ola Ice cream. What the heck, let them make you an offer you'be be brainless to refuse, right?
I'll bet he could try his hand at making Milkshakes too. Rum and chocolate milkshake as in Frozen Lumumba.... Heavy on the rum. Mmmmm That's a tropical nightcap worth killing the bathroom scales for!

Ever thought of fitting him out with a little pull cart? He can hop on his bike pulling this wee cart filled with Ice cream. All well insulated against the heat naturally. He'd be the treat of the town. Great body, great bike and even greater ice cream. You guys 'd be raking in the cash and have to hire staff to keep up with demand.....

Just got back from the fab. city of London. If you have enough cash on ya, you'll never need to go hungry for even 1 second. Our hotel was situated just off Queens street. Q-street is FILLED with places to eat. Everything from pub food to luxurious dining in a sorta French restaurant where the prices are not mentioned on the menu cards. You understand of course, that we gave that last one a miss. I mean, imagine having to pay an arm and a leg for a plate fulla ex-cargos.... Slimy little buggers!! Wonder what they were before they became ex- ....

But okay, we of course sat down to an Indian curry at a place called (Surprise, surprise) Maharadja. Had king prawn vindaloo. Nice and Spicy. Just about kept the roof of my mouth intact. Great! Miek was not so lucky, alas, because the fish she had ordered was dusted with wheat flour and that is a no-no for someone with gluten allergy. Silly we had not thought to ask. None the less, I must say, her fish dish was great. I ate it all as she couldn't. Waste not want not, is another of my mottos. She had onion bhajee and lamb roganjosh instead. Our side dish was sag aloo (potato+spinach. Drinks = 1 bottle of still water. The price was not bad. 65 pounds for the lot.
The curries were all well nd delicately spiced and each tasted different. 7.8 peppers

The next day we went Persian at.... Persia!
The few times I tried persian/Iranian food in holland, I was not impressed at all. The food was dumped in all sorts of spices, of which cinnamon was the prevalent spice. Also it was rather sweet and I'm not fond of sweet main courses at all.
Persia on Q-street in London was different! It was perfect!!!
I had a BBQ-ed poussaint (chicken) in lemon, with fragrant rice and a smoked aubergine puree. The taste was ab-so-lu-tely gorgeous. The fine, fresh taste of lemon on the chicken, mingled with a touch of cumin, a wee bit of cinnamon and whatever else, bbq-ed to perfection. The rice, buttery and spiced with a bit of cardamon. The auberine puree was smoked and you tasted that throughout. It's an aquired taste, but it went very well with the chicken. Miek had a lamb stew with chick peas also cooked with lemon and tomato. A delight to eat. The lamb was soft, succulent and evenly spiced. Also served with rice and a fresh salad.A flat bread, resembling a naan, but thinner, was served with it as well. Of course, I ate that.
We were so stuffed that we only had roome for a mint tea afterwards. Drinks = 1 bottle of still water. The price: 32 pounds for the lot. We are now fans of Persian food!!! LOL 9 peppers

Next up was Italian. Quite good, but nothing we couldn't have here. Steak a la pizzaiola with spaghetti for me and grilled bream with veg. for Miek. Desert was gelatto limoncello, a sort of sorbet made with limocello liqeur, coffee and 4 liomoncello liqeurs. Price: a whopping 117 pounds!!!!! No way we're gonna do that again! 7 peppers

Our last meal was in an "all over Europe" restaurant in Camden Town. The Engineer.
Camden is a part of london where the canals used to supply the market folk. The canals are still there and so is the market. It sells everything from birds to carvings so 10th hand clothes I suppose. And food stalls galore!! Anything you'd fancy. Fish 'n chips, to moroccan, brazillian, chinese, indian, thai, you name it, the food's there.
I'll say one thing. If anyone says Hong Kong or Tokyo is crowded, They ain't seen Camden market yet! Like ants rushing all over a pile of sugar! If you're claustrophobic, don't go there!
But okay, on to the food. The restaurant is called The Engineer and serves Occidental food. Food from the european continent.
I had soup (carrot/pumpkin) Miek had salty fish and black bean salad for starters.
main: potato and mushroom tortellini and ruccola salad for me and Sea bass with mashed potato and summer greens for Miek. Desert was warm ginger cake with cream for me (mmmmmm) and white chocolate with vanilla mousse for Miek (double mmmm). Drinks: 1 bloody mary, 1 cider and 1 bottle of water. The food was very well done, very beautifully served and cooked to perfection. I wouldn't say it was highly unusual or absolutely superb, but the standards were very good, as was the service. Price: 70 pounds for the lot. 7.8 peppers.

Okay, gotta go now. The gym is holding a gun to my head! The bathroom scales have fled the country and asked for asylum in Eritrea. Smart assed corwards!!

vrijdag 31 juli 2009

Ice scream You scream

Howdy Cebolla,
Well well that has been a week of eating out for you.
I understand that at the moment you are walking the streets of London.
Did you behave... I mean no burgers fish and chips etc.
My guess is that you ate at least 1 time, some nice chinees food.

I promised to tell you about the homemade icecream. Mr Chilipepper bought this machine a couple of months ago and of course we had to try out different flavours.
The first one he made was chocolade icecream with chunks of chocolate. That one is definitely worth 10 chilipeppers!! My goodness it is delicious

Another flavour was hazelnut which is also very nice. A bit difficult to rate because the whole family loved it but I don't really like hazelnuts. I would say the family would rate it with 9 peppers.
Other very nice flavours were coconut (8 peppers) this one was lovely too but next time a little less sugar makes it perfect.
Mango/coconut looooooooovely , rate 8 and the cherrie icecream that was great too I would also rate this one with 10 peppers.
The yoghurt icecream, 8 peppers. We do need to work on a nice cinnamon flavour because the one we made was not so good.

The Lemon icecream served with a shot of rum is mmmmmm. I would serve this more as a drink then a desert. Something yoy like to drink on a warm night before you go to bed.

As you can read lots of icecream and lots of you scream ... you beeing the scale afterwards....

Curious to hear what you ate in London..

Safe trip home
love Berenjena

maandag 27 juli 2009

the weekend of food

As you may have read in the plans of last post, last weekend we went out to dinner at Harvest, a Dim sum restaurant, or rather, an eatery, as calling it a restaurant is like saying MacDonalds is a restaurant or the FEBO with a set of tables and chairs is one. In my book that is totally ridiculous. Technically it is not wrong to call it that, but for me, a restaurant must have a certain cachet to be called one.

Still, it can be handy to think of joints like KFC en the Mac as restaurants as you can take unsuspecting folk out to restaurant dinner and treat them to a cheap burger with fries or a bucket of fried chicken. Others will be impressed at your generosity. Your dinner pals I'm sure, will not be contacting you again any time soon.

But on with Harvest. We've been to this eatery qite a few times and we have never been disappointed with their food. Besides full fledged chinese dishes, there are all sorts of dim sums to be ordered, fried, steamed, roasted etc. and the taste and quality are very good. This time we were in a bit of a rush because we had tickets for the cinema and had just 45 min. to gobble the food down. That meant we could not order loads of dims and take all evening to eat them.
We had steamed crab in seaweed, mixed fried dims (wonton, springrolls, triangles) steamed strips of sole stuffed with chicken.
We had not ordered this one before and we were more than pleasantly surprised. The strips of fish are wrapped around chicken meat and are placed in a steaming basket. When it is done, the dish is served with a chinese wine and ginger sauce. Excellent!
Further we had stuffed green peppers with pork and fried cassava cakes with dried prawns.

For desert we had deep fried sesame balls stuffed with stewed prunes.

Each dish has 3 dims, so that's more than enough for 2. 3 people could have happily eaten that and not left feeling hungry.
But, since it was just the 2 of us, we were glad there is such a thing as doggy bags.
The price is stunning. 31 euro for the lot. Endless pots of chinese tea are free.
I give it 7.8 chilipeppers as a restaurant and 8 as an eatery

The movie, Megane, which in Japanese means eye glasses, is certainly worth seeing if you are not addicted to action packed movies or soppy romances. There is no romance, no sex, no intrigues, no killing or fast cars tearing up the streets. It's a beautiful movie packed with humor that relaxes, makes you laugh and realise that life means taking the time to absorb what is around you, appreciating what is there, here and now.

On saturday we went to Rotterdam for an Italian meal in a restaurant, Napoli. This restaurant has been there for a very long time and always has a steady stream of customers. If you do not reserve a table, no way you can have dinner there in the weekends and quite often, this is the case during weekdays too.

In Den Haag, there is an Italian restauarnt called Imperio Romano, which like Napoli, is run by Italians. This is important, as many so called "italian" restaurants are italian only because they serve the pizza and pasta that everyone knows and are unable to come up with anything else. Why? Because the owners and cooks are in reality Turks or Moroccans. That does not mean the food is bad, but it is terribly limited.

But back to Napoli. In comparison to Imperio, Napoli is average. It does not have the finesse the other one has. But if you want a good Vitello Tonnato, arranci ( little deep fried balls of rissoto filled with cheese and/or ham) and a wide variety of pizzas and pastas, that is the place for you!
I must say, I was surprised to see arranci on the menu, as very few Italian restaurants have it. I expect the owner or the chef must come from Rome, as it is a typically Roman snack or starter, so I have been told.
In any case, We had arranci, miniestrone, pizza 4 stagioni and pizza bruscetta and grilled swordfish in lemon and white wine sauce.
The 4 stagioni was fine, as was the swordfish, but take my advice: NEVER EVER order a pizza bruscetta! It is a soppy pizza with an overpowering taste of oregano. Brrrrrr!
The reason I ordered it was that I'd not seen this one before. Now I know why. As far as I'm concerned, they can take it off the menu presto pronto!
Desert was gellato avocatti con espresso, which means: a ball of vanilla ice cream with a likeur of choice drowned in espresso. Actually very good indeed.
Napoli gets a 7

vrijdag 24 juli 2009

50%

Hey berenjena,



How's life out there in the heat? I'll bet you and your family are lying flat out on the tiles in the house, next to your cats. Out here, the weather is so unstable, I don't know whether to wear a life jacket or a sun hat. Well, that's summer for you, over here that is.



Glad you agree on the 10 peppers Boss! :-)
And thanks for your generosity on the 50% profit! WoW!!!!


Look, us pepper lovers are just that. We've got a cast-iron stomach and our tastebuds are in great shape. Not like those whimps who need a tablespoon of sugar every time they come near a teaspoon of Tabasco... Not mentioning names. Ahem...



But I agree, I was a little too enthoustic with addin the hots in the dish. Still, it turned out pretty well. Not that it will have a repeat, since I noticed you AB-SO-LU-TE-LY did not want the recipe.



Señor Chilipepper: "I'd like the recipe"

Berenjena "Uuh... let's leave that for special occasions, like .... only when she's here"



And this was repeated 3 times. LOL

Don't worry, no more pepper chicken at your house. hahahaha



That nasi sounds good, but then, señor chilipeper is a pretty good cook. I'll bet he could give Billy Bob a run for his money.



That's what you get with them spanish french fries. wobbly and floppy. Yuck. Hopefully that does not reflect their male family jewel.... Oh well, stick a hot jalapeño where the sun don't shine and all's well. Or better yet, I'll serve em my undiluted pepper chicken dish! Beats vaigra, I'll bet!

Hmmm The quality of this conversation is going downhill. Exuse moi.



What's for dinner:
I know you're gonna think we lead a decadent life, and maybe we do in a way, but this evening we are going out to dinner again. Then we'll go see a movie. It's an arthouse movie called Megane. That's Japanese for Chill! or so I've read. So let's see how this person starts and enjoys a holiday.

For a bite to eat we'll pop down to Harvest, our favourite dim sum dive. Tell you what we picked later.

Tomorrow... yup, out to dinner AGAIN..... But this time it's for free as Peter, our Buddy, is gonna treat us to dinner at Napoli, Rotterdam. You can bet I'm gonna pick the most expensive dish on the menu and drink myself silly!



Hasta la pasta and enjoy your dinner.

10 little chilipeppers

Hello Onion,

Well it has to be said, one of us needs to be the boss. But since I'm such a nice boss I'll give you 50 % of the shares and any profit we will make on our Berenjena & Cebolla's fabulous world of food cookbook!!

I totally agree with the chilipepper rating. So I have to change my rating of Billi Bob's dinner as well. That will be a 7,5 then. My own pasta frito will be a minus 10!!

Sounds you had a couple of great meals in the restarants you visited.
I stayed at home this week and must say mr. Chilipepper made some lovely dinners.
He made a really nice nasi with peanutsauce. Not to spicy so everybody could eat it. It was also a 7.5
I like it better when it is not to spicy so you can add sambal or other spicy stuff yourself.
Last year we had a cook in our kitchen (won't mention names but its yellowish and has layers.....) she decided to make some spicy chicken........I thought why not join the cook in the kitchen and keep her company. So we chatted away while she was grinding the chilipeppers. It only took me 2 seconds to sniff the pepper and start coughing for an hour or 2. She tried the chicken just to see how spicy it was. Well let me tell you it was the first time I saw a sweating onion. My goodness it was hot like hell!!
The cook and mr chilipepper had no problem eating this spicy but she had to add some stuff to make it eatable for the rest of us.

Yesterday we did go out for lunch and had some Tapas at a typical local spanish restaurant.
I had a ensalada russa and a pincho the gambas. It was ok. The pincho I would say is a 6 because they added chips and they were not ok. Like always soft greasy brrrrrrrrr.
The ensalada was ok as well I would say a 6 as well.
Mind you it is not a fancy restaurant. The atmosphere is always nice and typical spanisch ..with a loud tv.

That's it for now . Don't know what I'll have for dinner tonight you?
Next time I'll will write something about teh lovely icecreams mr. Chilipepper makes mmmmm

hasta la pasta Berenjena


donderdag 23 juli 2009

chilipeppers

First of all, may I compliment berenjena on het wonderful photo of us for this blog. It's very nice indeed.
As the followers can see, berenjena is the boss, as she's bigger than li'l ole me. If I flap a skin wrong, berenjena will see to it that I become tomorrow's onion soup! LOL

I heard that señor Chilipeper thought I was was a bit mean with my rating of La Viña.

Well, you must understand that I am an old fuddy-duddy, so I tend to forget stuff like how many of him make a good score and how many don't. I thought the max score was 3 but it seems it's more. Was it 5? More? Less? I cannot remember. This is what old age does. Either old age or Korsakovs. I don't know which I'd prefer....

If 3 was not the norm, then Señor Chilipepper is right. I was too mean, but it's unintentional and I'll correct it right away.

So let's make it clear for all that 10 peppers is the max. score. To get a 10, that restaurant or cook will have to be so good, Michelin 4 star-ratings will hide in a corner out of pure shame.
10 gives room for nuance.

I hope Boss Berenjena will agree, otherwise she can tell me what she thinks is fair.

But okay if 10 is the norm, then La Viña scores 7 and Les Ombrelles 8.5.

Hopefully his meets with Señor Jalapeño not-on-a-stick's approval? LOL

By the way, I got a 10 today for my vegetarian lasagna but Miek was the one who gave me that and she's terribly biased I'm afraid, so I'll not invite Michel Roux to dine with us at home.

woensdag 22 juli 2009

La Viña

Yesterday was the 51st birthday of my dearest sweetness and delight so what better gift to give her, (she who has everything already - especially moi ) than a restaurant treat?
Exactly!

A dinner treat it was. I did not want to go too far out of our way, so I picked a nearby restaurant. The chip- and krokettenshop Bram Ladage is just that bit too far away, so I chose La Viña.

This restaurant serves mainly as a watering hole for ministry staff and their visitors, mostly. During week days you see hordes of suites and skirts after work, holding their drinks, blah-blahing away about the state of world affairs (all happening in the broom cupboard of their department) and you hear gossip treats about who got dissed by whom at the meeting with the minister or ambassador of whatever-wherever. True intellectual metier naturellement.

The cuisine is European/Mediterranean, although I don't know what's so European about a sashimi of tuna with tempura prawn for starters.

In any case, now you know what I had for starters. Miek did not want any starter, bless her (cheaper for me).
Again there was an amuse de bouche. This time it was cold cucumber soup with Dutch North Sea shrimp. Very nice.

We also drank a glass of very good prosecco as an apperative. Prosecco is, of course, THE summer drink for anyone who wants to appear adult, hip and 'with it' these days. It is the rosé of last year. As I said, it was very good indeed.

My starter was really excellent. I loved every euro-japanese morsel of it!

The main dish was grilled grouper on a bed of risotto with green asparagus for Miek and a steak with mushroom and chorizo saus for me. This was accompanied by French/Belgian fries.

Both dishes were quite good but the fries were too dark and dry. Not the way to treat fries at all. The Belgians and French would have shot the chef at dawn had they tasted it.

Nevertheless, the fish was grilled well, the rissotto was nice and creamy, as it should be and the presentation was tidy. My steak and sauce was nice too, but there were practically no other vegetables than those dark brown fries accompanying it. That is a pity.
Also, they did not ask me how I would have liked the steak: rare/medium/well done. Tsk-tsk.
Lucky for them I like mine medium, because that is how it was prepared. The mushroom and chorizo were cut very finely and added to the sauce. They went well with the steak.

Dessert was cheese board for Miek and vanilla ice cream with a soup of fresh, red summer fruit. Quite good.
Coffee and cognac finished it off.

In comparison to Les Ombrelles, this restaurant is not outstanding, but it does well enough.
I expect many a business lunch is enjoyed here as are dinners. The talk and the deal are what matters most. The food is secondary, but has still to be good enough to impress the average businessman or -woman.

The service at Les Ombrelles was excellent. La Viña was not bad either, I mean who would not smile at being served by an Allison Moyet look-alike with a gap-tooth down the center?
But again, compared to Les Ombrelles, service trailed a bit.

I give it 1.5 peppers.

vrijdag 17 juli 2009

Les Ombrelles

Looks like you had yourself great meal at Billy Bob's & Betty Sue's. Those 2 sure are great prairie cooks.
You are a lucky li'll so-and-so to have a great live-in cook like mister chilipepper.
So uh... Tell me.... Did he come by his name 'cause his mama thought it suited his temper or was it 'cause he has a pointy head/chin or 'cause he loooves chili?
Ah will not be surprised if you say it's all three honey. LOL

Went out fer a nice cat fish dinner yesterday 'cause it was special. Me and mah darlin wife, Minnie Mouse, have been married 8 years! Zoooooweeeee!!!! How's that fer staying power huh? :-)

Well, we went to this place called Les Ombrelles, that seems to be French for umbrella or parasol. I didn't see no parasols or anythin cause we was sitting under the shade of a tree beside the water, watchin them water chickens swim by.

This is some fancy place. Home baked bread rolls, tapenade and somthin to amuse yer mouth before you git yer main meal. Well my mouth was amused allright. It was a small glass of crab soup, with a foam of sometin or other. Looked real purty and stated just as good too.

They did not have catfish on that there menu, thatwas soe disappointment, but I had dressed crab with toast for starters. I had expected this crab to come dressed in a french costume or so and was hoping maybe it woud do the can-can dance, but the crab was deadas a doornail. Apparently they meant that the crabmeat was put in a sauce and then back in the shell. It came complete with a set of pliers so's I could attack the claws. Well, it was really good, but messy to eat. Still, it's fun to have to work for your food. Stops me from shovin it off my plate straight into my stomach in one shot. The dressing had a bit too much lemon in it for my taste though.
Minnie had a sashimi of mackerel with a few thin slices of sweet and sour raw cucumber

Next was fried red mullet (rode poon) with summer vegetables and fried polenta slices. Minnie Mouse had Sea bass on a bed of puy lentils and caramelised chickory (witlof).
Both were excellent! The fish was done just right. Not over- or underdone. The vegetables were nicely arranged on the plate.

Then they came with another amusing yer mouth thing. A small glass of pureed watermelon with port and a foam of vanilla/orange on top.Mmmmmmm.

For desert minnie had wild peach poached in a cinnamon likeur and vanilla ice cream and I had the cheese board. Very good again. Half way we switched so's we could taste each other's desert.

Finished off with coffee and armagnac. No cigars!

After that we put on our aprons and started the evening shift washing up. It was that or go to jail.They can be sooooooo picky! I mean, what's wrong with Monopoly money, huh?
We got home at 3 in the morning! Jeez, I had no idea it could get so busy. And they didn't even pay a taxi ride! we had to walk home on our sore footsies!
You know, restaurants should use paper plates.

Next time, I'll choose jail. At least you get free breakfast!

But hey, it was worth it and I give it 3 peppers. I recommend it to all who visit The Hague.

BUT REMEMBER: they don't take no monopoly money.

donderdag 16 juli 2009

dinner at Billy Bobs House

Howdy Cebolla,

Muchas gracias, for your reaction. Well I told you I was invited over at Billi Bob's and Betty Sue's house to have dinner last Sunday. The dinner was delicious!.
After an nice shandy (never drank it before it is different..) and a tinto dinner was served.
chunky chili patatoes, pincho de pollo (without the pincho) and thin sliced tomatoes with mozzarella and yoghurtmintsauce.
The patatoes, like BB already said he didn't put enough chili on the chunks which was fine by me because to much always means that you don't taste the rest and you 'enjoy' the chili again the next day.
They were tasty though, the chicken was nicely spiced and in combination with a mint yoghurt sauce even better. And you cannot go wrong with tomatoes and mozzarella.
The big question of course is how many chili's is this worth. I would say 2 1/2 chilipepper for this meal.

I forgot to tell you that the other night mr Chilipepper (who lives in this house) made a lovely dinner as well. Grilled thin sliced chickenbreast, a spicy warm tomatosauce, rice, green beans in a coconuttomato sauce and a nice salade. The spicy tom. sauce is a secret sauce, absolutely delicous. But we cannot get the recipe for out book. Next time I'll give mr Chilipepper a bit more wine while cooking so I can discover what's in the sauce.
This meal was in my opinion also worth 2 1/2 chilipepper.

Curious to know what you had on your plate this week. Did you eat out?

And still waiting for the boyorecipe with illustration without chesthair.......


berenjena

woensdag 8 juli 2009

Howdy cebolla,

Well no sign of the lowlife varmint and definitily no sign of a dee-tec-ive. I guess she is on holiday or still at the hospital in Tennessee....
I do have a primo suspect but no can tell on this public site.

Told you that we were going out for a meal at a friends house. We had a lovely JJJsoup
that is their names added with Jamie Oliver. They made this lovely soup, but to tell you the thruth it looked pretty disgusting. Like a big bowl of dark brown whatever. But the taste was great.
It contained, spinach (you now I hate it but this way it tasted good) , chorizo, garbanzobeans tomatoes, spices, onions and serrano ham and chopped hard boiled egg.
I think we should hand out chilipeppers I would say 5 is the max. and 5 chilis make a B&C star (which is of course similar as the michelin star!!)
I would rate this soup : 2 chilipeppers
Last night I ate a minus 5 chilipepper diner. Didn't really feel like eating and shared some pasta with tomato frito with my son. Just pasta with tomato frito well what can I say I added some salade to pimp it up but.......
By the way I think the boyo desert is a good one for our recipe book what do you think?

What was on you plate mrs C?





vrijdag 3 juli 2009

hello cebolla,
Are you interested in Billy Bob's famous Lentil soup.
Mind you after eating no open fire!
Girl, that's somethin. Eatin them beans round an open fire and whammo! you got yourself a BBQ-ed rump steak, medium rare!
Buns are there too, so what more d'you want huh?
BBQ sauce that's what!
Get lots of parsely,garlic, onions, olive oil, salt and lots lemon juice or vinegar.
Chop parsely, onions and garlic very finely, put in a jar with oil, salt and vinegar or lemon juice up to the tp of the chopped stuff. Add some peppercorns and leave to marinate for a day or 2. Of course the longer you leave it, the better it'll taste. Spread the stuff over your rump steak and you'll think your on the Argentine pampa.
Need more steak? feed an unspecting dude a portion of Billy Bob's beans/lentils by the camp fire and Bobo's your uncle!

donderdag 2 juli 2009

Hello Cebolla,
Had a very nice dinner last night. When you are here in August we will make the same dinner for you.
It was very simple . Fried boquerones. Just sprinkle the Boquerones with flour, fry them in olive oil and ready! Sprinkle a bit of lemon juice on top. Nice to eat with bread and a fresh tomato/cucumber salade.
declicious!
And what did you have on your plate yesterday??
--------
howdy berenjena,
today we had a friend for dinner... No, we are not cannibals, at lest not yet. She wouldn't fit on a plate anyway.
We had her over to dinner.
What we had were glass noodles with stir-fry mixed veggies and prawns. I got the feeling that there were too many veggies in there for her. Ah well, can't please everyone.
Chopped up broccolli, bell peppers, bean sprouts an all. marinated the prawns in garlic, ginger, terriyaki sauce. You know, maybe I should have served rice with that instead of glass noodles. Might have been better.
Desert was boyo. No, it ain't fried boys. It's a kinda sticky cake made with grated coconut, grated cassava, sweet pineapple chunks and raisins. mix it together to form a thick consistency with some milk. Not too much. and put it in the oven for about 20 -30 min. Mmmmmm Great wih a good cup of coffee.
I heard that some low-down thievin varmint took off with your bee hives. Can't trust them locals, is what I say... Or praps it weren't locals and it was some manic depressive gal with a bee in her bonnet. You know, them bees with red butts. Deadly they are.
So you sign some dee-tec-tive? Ah heard you had one down in the village called pakki or somethin like that. She any good that you know? If she is let her loose on the case.
You got any primo suspects?
How was your day?