Nostalgic Dinner

I hope you’re ready for another walk down memory lane cause today I incidentally threw something together for dinner that strongly reminded of my all time favourite childhood dinner.

I remember pleading with my mum to make it at least twice a week and as it happens I came across an old “friend book” lately (you know the ones you would hand out to all of your friend back in primary school to let them answer all kind of weird questions, or did this only happen in Belgium?) and I answered exactly that to the question “What’s your favourite food”:

Oven dish with potato mash, broccoli, minced meat in a cheesy sauce covered with grated cheese.

Here are the swaps I seemed to have made from my mum’s original recipe:

I swapped mashed potatoes with millet.
I swapped the cheesy sauce with a broth-hummus sauce.
I swapped the grated cheese with mozzarella.
The broccoli stayed as it always was and I didn’t use anything to replace the minced meat but you could always use vegetarian ‘mince’, lentils or minced meat for the carnivores among us. Just prepare it in a skillet and add it to the rest of the ingredients when you put it in the oven dish.

‘Millet and Broccoli Oven Dish’
serves 2

• one serving of millet ( a cup?)
• half a broccoli
• vegetable broth
• 2 T of hummus
• mozzarella

Cook the millet in vegetable broth (ratio 1:2.5) for 25 minutes. I don’t really know how much millet I’ve used, I used a little teacup at home to measure it out, not that this information is of much use to you. Just use what you think is the proper amount for 2 people to eat from.
Once done take it of the fire and let it sit for another 5 minutes.

Cook the broccoli until tender (about 5 minutes), prepare the sauce with about 100ml of vegetable broth, whisk in the two T of hummus.

Preheat oven to 200°C (390 F).
Layer the oven dish with the millet and broccoli, pour the sauce on top and top with about half of a mozzarella bowl. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes, make sure to turn on the grill for the last 5 minutes so the mozzarella will get some colour.

Eat from a bowl, because all classy people eat their dinner out of breakfast bowls!

Love, M.

Let the Games Begin

I finally got my hands on a Hunger Games edition!

I’ve been looking for these series for over a year, but they could not be found anywhere in Belgium. Thank god for the people who decided to make a movie out of it, otherwise I might have never found the book at all.
I finished this book in two days. It where busy days filled with classes and social ‘events’ but I just had to read every spare moment I had!

I can’t wait to see the movie but most of all I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. Locating them will be another problem I guess ;).

Now I’m off to study for a while,work on a paper and prepare dinner.
I’m taking another yoga class tonight as yesterday’s noon class was really invigorating and I’ve finally come to the point that I can walk down the stairs and not feel every muscle in my body aching the days after that type of yoga class. I am keeping it low key with an easy flow class though, one ashtanga class a week is plenty for now.

Love, M.

Girls Night In

With Daphne staying with my dad for the weekend, Friday night was the perfect time for me to prepare my ‘fancy’ couscous idea for my mum and me.
So we cracked open a bottle of red wine and I put together this amazing dinner, which as a bonus is also really easy and not time consuming at all!

‘Couscous Gusto Italia’
with mustard maple syrup dressing

• half a cup of couscous
• sun-dried tomatoes
• mushrooms (8 big ones)
• mozzarella
• olive oil
• oregano, basil
• for the dressing: 1 T of spicy mustard, 1 T of olive oil, a sprinkle of maple syrup, lemon zest

Place the couscous in a large bowl (I used half a cups for my mum and me, but still had leftovers the day after), pour boiling water on top of this (ratio 1:1) and let it sit for a couple of minutes.

Chop up the mushroom and sauté them in some olive oil in a skillet. Chop up the sun-dried tomatoes and the mozzarella.
Fluff the couscous with a fork and add the tomatoes, mushrooms and mozzarella. At this point you can also sprinkle some olive oil on top, or use some oil from the container of the sun-dried tomatoes you used to get some extra flavours in there. Don’t forget to season before you serve this.

My original plan was to serve the couscous with a dollop of hummus (which tasted amazing as well), but as a side for the couscous I prepared a spinach salad with a mustard maple syrup dressing and as soon as I tried this dressing with the couscous I was in heaven! Prepare the dressing by stirring together 1 T of very spicy mustard, 1 T of olive oil and a drizzle of maple syrup. Drizzle on top of the couscous, sprinkle with some lemon zest and prepare to be dazzled.

Love, M.

Parsnip Röstis

I’m falling in love with potatoes all over again.

I haven’t been too fond of potatoes these last couple of months.
When we were kids potatoes where the staple food in our house, dinner typically consisted of some kind of potato with veggies and meat. So it’s safe to say I have had my fair share of potatoes in my youth.

Last Sunday however I couldn’t resist trying to make some crispy, salted oven potato wedges and they immediately converted me back into a potato lover.
I’ve done another potato experiment yesterday and it turned out amazing as well!

‘Parsnip Röstis’
makes 8 röstis 

• 1 parsnip
• 3 small potatoes
• a small onion
• some garlic
• 1 egg
• pepper and salt (and any other herb you’d like to use: you could make spicy kerry paprika flavoured ones or röstis with fresh garden herbs served with a yoghurt dressing)
• olive oil
• optional: a few handfuls of grated cheese

Peel the potatoes and the parsnip, grate them. Chop the onion and the garlic, add them to the grated potato and parsnip. Add the egg and the herbs as well.
You can also add some grated cheese at this point, I didn’t do this in my first try but I bet they would taste even more amazing with some cheese in there.
Mix everything together with your hands.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (360 F).
Line a cookie tin with wax paper, sprinkle some olive oil on top and spread it out with a small brush or a paper towel piece.
Bake them for 20 minutes on 180°C (360 F),followed by 10 minutes on 160°C (320 F). Don’t forget the flip them over after 15 minutes.

You could also bake them in a skillet in some olive oil, when they are done you can keep them warm in an oven on about 140°C (280 F).

Love, M.

 

Veggie Fiend and Nuggets

I can’t get enough of the oven in my mum’s new house!

We used to have a microwave and oven in one and I always thought that was an amazing invention, two functions in one machine how can’t that be great?!
But now we have an oven an sich and it just works so much better!!

So lately I’m on a grilled veggies kick, I’ve already made a various array of grilled veggies for almost every dinner, my favourites so far are grilled zucchini and grilled broccoli with mozzarella on top.

Here’s today grilled veggie dish:

‘Grilled Cherry Tomatoes and Walnuts’
with a honey-olive oil dressing

• Cherry tomatoes ( a couple of handfuls)
•  a handful of walnuts
• 1/2 T of honey
• 2 T of olive oil
• pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Slice the cherry tomatoes in half, place them in an oven proof dish with the walnuts. Heat the honey in the microwave for a minute (or 2), add the olive oil and mix this. Pour the mixture on top of the tomatoes and nuts.

Place in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, grill them in the last 5 minutes.

This tomatoes make an amazing side or salad topping. Bonus points because you’ll have topping and dressing all in one.
Don’t let any of that dressing go to wast, I’m serious about this, you should just have a nice ciabatta with this and let the bread soak up the liquid you can’t get out of the oven dish.

I’ve also noticed I’ve been craving “meat” these last couple of days.
Mind the quotations marks, cause I’ve actually been craving extra protein and meat-structure-things not the actual meat. I haven’t had any meat replacers in ages so today I enjoyed some soy nuggets and they really hit the spot, so good!

Love, M.

Butterflies in your Belly

By now you probably know I like to eat my food out of bowls, well I also like to prepare my dishes in one big  oven dish or in one casserole, it just seems much cosier.

You can also prepare this pasta without putting it into the oven. Just make the pasta and the sauce and it’s ready to serve, but then you would be turning down melted mozzarella, just saying 😉

‘Farfalle Oven Dish’

• farfalle pasta (quantity depends on how much people you want to feed)
• 1 piece of mozzarella
• half a zucchini
• broccoli
• 2 handfuls of mushrooms
• cream cheese with herbs and garlic (I used  boursin)
• a few splashes of milk
• pepper, salt and olive oil

Cook the farfalle in  salted boiling water, follow the directions on the package.
Clean the broccoli and cook in boiling water for 5 minutes as well.
Slice the mozzarella and zucchini in small slices, slice the mushrooms as well.

In an oven dish, layer the zucchini until the bottom is covered, add a layer of mozzarella (half of it, you’ll need the other half later), put this in an oven on 200°C (390F)  for 5 to 10 minutes.

In the meantime pour some olive oil into a hot skillet (make sure it’s big enough!) and fry the mushrooms and the broccoli. Add the cream cheese and some milk.This will be the sauce for the pasta, when the farfalle is done you can add it to the sauce.

When your zucchini and mozzarella has been in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, get it out of the oven and top it with the pasta mixture. Cover with the rest of the mozzarella and place it back in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Buon Appetito!
Love, M.

Crazy Dinner on the Go : Episode 2

There is no way on earth you will ever guess what I had for lunch today!
What did you say? Spring rolls?? Why, you’re good, how did you know?

Okay, enough with the sarcasm already, cause you really won’t be able to guess what I’ll be having for dinner.
I’ll be leaving to go to a friend’s place soon to work on our Linguistics exam and tonight I’m going to be on the train home so it’s time for another episode of crazy dinner on the go:

Thus far it looks pretty standard: apple ,crackers and a box with an undefined content (and some leftover khaki, but it’s still in the fridge for now).

Just wait till you open the box!

On the left: Greek yoghurt with spinach and kiwi (it’s a crazy dinner on the go favourite) with flax, almonds and dried berries.
On the right: quinoa cooked in soy milk.
It looks really horrible, but the flavours are great.

When I’m home tonight I’d still like to go for a run, so I hope this is enough to hold me over for some time.

Love,M. 

Eat your Colours

Here’s a little secret: I used to absolutely loath peppers!

They look innocent enough, but there was just something about their smell and especially something about their taste that made me gag.

I wouldn’t eat anything with peppers in it, not my mum’s spaghetti sauce, not a salad with the slightest trace of peppers, no peppers in soup (they were the worst actually)…
But things have changed miraculously since the discovery of stuffed peppers.

I don’t know whether it has to do with the stuffing, or whether peppers in the oven just taste better than others.

No worries though, I’m not turning in to a pepper-lover, I still only really like the yellow ones, the other ones, I can tolerate more or less.

‘Couscous stuffed Peppers’
serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main dish

• 4 peppers
• a cup of couscous
• a cup of boiling water
• one carrot, chopped
• a small shallot, chopped
• 4 handfuls of mushrooms, chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped
• a few handfuls of chickpeas
• pepper, rosemary thyme and garlic
• olive oil
• optional: some tomato purée
• optional: tomato ketchup to serve them with (highly recommended!)

Cook the couscous according to the directions on the box (add the liquid and give the couscous some time to absorb it). In a small skillet, stew the shallot and the carrot until tender.
Mix this with the couscous and the rest of the veggies (they can stay raw, they’ll get tender enough in the oven, the carrot on the other hand will stay a bit too hard if you don’t stew it before it goes into the oven). Season the mixture.

Preheat oven to 150 a 160°C (310F).

Decapitate the peppers and clean them, fill them with the couscous and veggies and sprinkle some olive oil on them.
Now put them in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

Love, M.

Eight Brussels Sprouts and some other Green Stuff

For dinner I felt an incredible urge for Brussels sprouts.
Must be caused by the sudden awareness of my ageing (in exactly one week, I’ll be 20 years old, and I’m pretty paranoid about it).

No one in this household shared this strange craving, so I hurried to the shop to buy some Brussels sprouts. Eight Brussels sprouts to be more specific 😉

I put them in two by two and I counted them (though not out loud).
The cashier gave my a strange look, but hey, they should be used to things like this from me by now.

I’m glad I did buy those 8 sprouts though, they really made dinner sublime

‘Brussels Sprouts and Chickpea Salad’

• some Brussels sprouts
• a few handfuls of spinach (I used frozen spinach)
• 5 T chickpeas
• a few handfuls of mushrooms, chopped
• some garlic, chopped
• olive oil
• pepper and oregano
• optional: egg for poaching or toast to make croutons

Cook the Brussels sprouts for about 10 minutes. In the meantime chop  the mushrooms and garlic and rinse the chickpeas.
When the sprouts are done, cut them in half.
Pour some olive oil in a skillet on high heat, first add the garlic and mushrooms, when the mushrooms have a bit of colour add the chickpeas, sprouts and spinach. Season with pepper and oregano. Sprinkle with some more olive oil right before serving.

First I thought about making croutons (ie. toast a slice of bread in some olive oil in a skillet) to go with it, but I eventually opted for a poached egg, there’s something about chickpeas with egg yolk that’s just wonderful!

Love, M.

 

Crazy Dinner on the Go

 

No, there’s nothing wrong with your computer screen, you aren’t suffering from a temporary colour-blindness either.
This ,my friends, is a green yoghurt. A Greek green yoghurt to be more specific.

You might think I’ve finally lost it,
That too much green smoothies and an overload of experiments with leftovers have fried my brain.

That might be true 😉
But hey, at least I have created a kick ass dinner to eat during class and I’ve taken care of all the leftovers in my fridge, so I’m a happy camper.

One creates green yoghurt by mixing/blender lamb’s lettuce (or spinach) with yoghurt .

I added some kiwi, flax seeds, oats and vitality mix for a light dinner on the go, that I could eat during class without annoying everyone (I’m a noise and messy eater, or at least so they say).

On a side note: this might seem like a really small meal, especially since it’s for dinner, I think so too.
But since  I’ve had lunch at about 2 and just enjoyed the most amazing latte ever, and Indian latte with honey and cardamom, I’m not really hungry and nothing sounds appealing atm.
However, I have to pack my dinner now, leave for class in a moment and I won’t be home until half past 9, so this crazy yoghurt creation is just perfect in case I do get a bit hungry later this evening.

Love, M.