Last night: Chinese fried rice (chaofan). The secret to its success is as follows. First put in quite a lot of oil in a frying pan. When it is hot, pour in about 3 or 4 beaten eggs. The oil will make the egg puff up dramatically and the eggs will be very nice to eat. Take them out as soon as they are just done. Then fry some sliced spring onions in the oil and other vegetables (carrot slices, green pepper) you might be using, add the cooked rice and take your time. It should crisp up a little. Don't add soy sauce or anything, but add sugar for a nicer taste - it sounds silly but I really like it better this way. Then put in ham or sausage, and finally, add the egg which you can chop up coarsely with the spoon you are stirring with. Add hot sauce to your taste on your plate and eat a cucumber salad on the side.

Simple pasta with a creamy cheese sauce: fry some onions in olive oil, some garlic, then stir in 2 or 3 tablespoons of flour. mix. then add milk, cooking wine and some chicken stock. I added some fried mushrooms, ham and blue cheese as well. Stir in more cheese and add milk or water. Boil pasta. When the pasta is ready, drain and add some cream to the sauce. Serve with big salad of tomatoes, rocket and fried bread.

Again Spanish-style potatoes the Nigella way: first fry up some slices of good chorizo in some olive oil in a wide saute pan, with some onion (omitted because out of onions here). Then, put in chunks of peeled raw potato. In the meanwhile, boil some water and put the oven on gas mark 6. Pour the boiling water on top of the potatoes so they are barely covered and boil for 10 minutes. Then put everything in an oven dish and put in the oven for about 30 or 40 minutes. The water will have evaporated by now, the potatoes are rustic brown at the edges, and taste really good because of the slightly hot chorizo. There are still some juices to go with crusty bread.
I had this today with a mozzarella and tomato - basil salad with plenty of olive oil, some chopped fried button mushrooms with a squeeze of lemon, and some slices of prosciutto on some rocket leaves.

had indonesian satay with plain rice and peanut sauce, some sweet&sour veggies on the side. this blog is made with a mobile phone from a crowded commuter train! cool

a boiled egg and frozen bread in the office

Seared salmon, fried potatoes with rosemary and garlic. Big salad dish with mozzarella, blue cheese, orange sweet peppers, rocket, tomatoes and torn basil. Warm crusty bread and a side dish of stir-fried button mushrooms with garlic.

Morning coffee in the office.... unfortunately, no paaseitjes helaas

As the sun was shining in our kitchen, I made some fried polenta: very crusty, made of organic coarse corn meal. A salad with tomatoes and some fried stale white bread in olive oil with a clove of garlic. Finishing the last one of the spare ribs (still here!). Then fried left-over spaghetti with oregano and just a little bit of tomato ketchup to get a hint of red. Sounds like I fried everything, doesn't it? Well, I had some fresh cucumber too, and I threw in some rocket on the tomatoes, which were also raw just like they are. To go with it, I had a glass of cold beer. What did you have for dinner?

Lazy Friday. Too many leftovers: some Chinese pork ribs, sweet, sour and spicy (crockpot); still some rice left; some oven-baked pasta with mushrooms; a whole bunch of carrots and some pancakes. I had some of the carrots, boiled briskly in some water with salt and a pinch of sugar. Just before all water has evaporated, add a dot of butter. These carrots are extremely soft and sweet. Then I had some of the cooked pasta with a left-over sauce of tomatoes, white beans and some of the pork ribs.

Cooking from Nigella Lawson's How To Eat. For starters, white bread in the oven, then rubbed with garlic, then quite a bit of olive oil. We had a spread of mashed chickpeas with garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, sesame paste and cream. The chickpeas had been soaked in water overnight and put in the crockpot on AUTO for a full day. Still, not quite soft enough: they had to cook 2 more hours on HIGH.
The starter went quite well with white wine. Then, as the main course, chicken pieces in the oven. They had been marinated in buttermilk overnight. Although tasty, they were not that spectacular, I should have chosen another recipe with some zing (lemon or so). They were accompanied by diced potatoes and a grand salad with rocket and cos lettuce. As dessert, the Nigella cooked apricots (with cardamoms and sugar), then chilled and filled with creme fraiche and sprinkled with pistachios. Ice cream to go with it.

Decided to post through Blogger, making it a lot faster to put stuff on my website.