[My kitchen diaries has a new adress! Update your bookmarks... For you not to get lost around: an update with all the links of the old and new recipes on my 'new' kitchen diaries ,
Bon appétit, m.]

I hope this recipe index will help you roam around my kitchen more easily If not mentioned otherwise, recipes are in english. Have a look at the lexicon for french, english and dutch equivalents of the main ingredients and techniques. Enjoy, m.

Breakfast and brunch

Baghrir Crêpes mille-trous

Appetizers and Starters

Asparagus and vanilla mousse with its strawberry and argan oil dressing (EN) Mousse d’asperges blanches a la vanille et son coulis de fraises a l’huile d’argan (FR)

Chestnut cream soup Velouté de chataignes

Cod fish and fennel carpaccio Carpaccio de cabillaud et fenouil

Cracky tartlets with moroccan style sardines and candied tomatoes Tartelettes croustillantes aux sardines fraiches et tomates confites

Fresh cod fish in passion fruit marinade Cabillaud mariné aux fruits de la passion

Mini minute made gazpacho Mini Gazpacho minute

Mini melon and prosciutto skewers Petites brochettes melon/jambon

Mini savoury tartlets with candied tomatoes, spicy apple compote and smoked dcuk... Mini tartelettes sablées aux tomates confites, compote de pomme épicée et magret fumé...

Parsnip cream soup Velouté de panais

Pumpkin cappuccino Cappuccino de citrouille

Spicy dutch cheese sablés Petits sablés épicés au Gouda

Tender green salad Salade vert tendre

Tuna and salmon duo in ginger and wazabi marinade Duo de thon et saumon marinés au gingembre et au wasabi

Fish and seafood

Bacalhau bastella Pastilla à la morue

Cod fish and fennel carpaccio Carpaccio de cabillaud et fenouil

Cracky tartlets with moroccan style sardines and candied tomatoes Tartelettes croustillantes aux sardines fraiches et tomates confites

Fresh cod fish in passion fruit marinade Cabillaud mariné aux fruits de la passion

Improvised sauteed squid Calamars sautés

Moroccan style mackerel Papillote de maquereau a la marocaine

Tuna and salmon duo in ginger and wazabi marinade Duo de thon et saumon marinés au gingembre et au wasabi

Winkles Bigorneaux

Meat and poultry

Canneloni with fresh tomato saus Canneloni aux tomates du jardin

Chicken, onions and raisins tajine Tajine de poulet aux raisins at aux oignons

Guinea fowl marinated in calvados and mustard Suprêmes de pintade marinés a la moutarde et au calvados

Hachee (dutch hash stew) Boeuf mijoté à la hollandaise

Rabbit with wild mushrooms Lapin aux champignons sauvages

Veal and prune tajine Tajine de veau aux pruneaux

Veal tenderloin with grapes chutney Filet mignon de veau et son chutney aux raisins

Greens

Celeriac mash Purée de céleri

Parsnip cream soup Velouté de panais

Pumpkin cappuccino Cappuccino de citrouille

Spring zucchini and asparagus risotto Risotto printanier aux courgettes blanches et pointes d’asperges

Zucchini tagliatelles Tagliatelles de courgettes

Pasta & Rice

Canneloni with fresh tomato saus Canneloni aux tomates du jardin

Spring zucchini and asparagus risotto Risotto printanier aux courgettes blanches et pointes d’asperges

Sauces and chutneys

Grapes and red oignon chutney Chutney aux raisins et oignons rouges

Sweets

Appletart with hazelnuts Tarte aux pommes et aux noisettes

Cheesecake with "Fromage blanc" Tarte au fromage blanc

Chestnut and chocolate bites Bouchons marron & chocolat

Chestnut and hazelnut cake Cake aux marrons et aux noisettes

Dutch plums tart Tarte feuilletée aux prunes hollandaises / Hollandse pruimen Taart

Lemon squares Carrés au citron

Pear and almond bites Bouchées amandines aux poires

Speculaas Spéculoos

Stewed pears, candied lemon peel and almond tiles Poires pochées, écorces de citron confit et tuiles aux amandes

A strawberry tart for my valentine Une tarte aux fraises pour Valentine

Drinks

Melon/raspberry/vodka cocktail Cocktail framboise, melon & vodka

Feeling like a fragrant tajine to warm you up from the winter cold?

Have a look on my 'new' kitchen diaries...

Bon appétit!

Yesterday night was the night of Sinterklaas!
For you, I have baked some Speculaas....

Have a bite on my 'new' kitchen diaries!

A piece of cake? Have a look on my 'new' kitchen diaries, I saved you a piece!

Since I have been back online in september 2007, new ideas for my kitchen diaries have been rushing through my mind. It was great to comeback to blogging, but I wanted more. Actually, I wanted to offer you more...

First, I  wanted to improve my recipe writing (actively working on it thanks to the The recipe's writer's handbook from Barbara Gibbs Ostmann right aside my keyboard ), and my photos too, definitely... (more tricky with my limited skills at the job and the even more limited amount of light around lately, but working on it too). Finally, I wanted to be able to play around with all the new blog gadgets to make your blogging time on my kitchen diaries more enjoyable.

Problem: I am far from advanced at blogging and I have little time left with my dayjob. I started with creating a testblog on my current platform canalblog, went on advanced mode and after many sleepness nights in front of the computer, I had to give up. I just couldn't get it the way I wanted it. Canalblog has been a great companion during the last couple of years and I'll always be thankful to them for making my first blogging experience so much fun, but... it is a platform designed for french bloggers with french templates and add-ons that you I cannot easily get around... especially when you're as handicaped as me when it comes to programming and want your blog in english.

So after a lot of browsing around I decided to move to wordpress. After two months of hard work behind the scenes, reorganising my kitchendiaries, working on a couple of new features and mostly transferring every post one by one (there's no export function on canalblog :-( ).

On the new my kitchen diaries, you will find all my new recipes from now on, but also dedicated pages for the recipe index and the french-english-dutch lexicon as well as a brand new page for food shopping tips in holland. Aside from the recipe index you can also browse through the tag clouds to get directly to related posts with an ingredient that inspires you. My biggest regret until now is that I haven't figure out a way yet to transfer your comments, my favourite part of my blog. I'll be working on it.

So until I ever become an advanced blogger with my own domain and my own themes, you will find me and my kitchen diaries at the following adress:

http://mykitchendiaries.wordpress.com/

Have a look! With all my heart, I hope you'll like it!

myriam.

Don't you ever have that feeling that life is just going too fast for you at times?

Be so lucky if you don't... I am that dreamy, somewhat lazy type of girl who likes to take life slowly, very slowly. I might seem adventurous at first sight, but god knows I'm not. Lately, a wind of change is blowing over my head. I needed it, I wanted it, and now it's there. It's all good things, but still, it's all going soooo fast and I am having a little trouble to cope with everything.

Among those changes, I am working on a completely new layout for my kitchen diaries. I want it to be a surprise so I won't tell much about it. I promise, you should all found out about it sometimes in the next couple weeks.

In the mean time, here's something to keep you waiting....
One of these evenings, I came home from work once again exhausted, dreaming of a soup, my bed and a feel good movie. Yet, I had invited a few friends for dinner. I had bought several seasonal treats during the week: rabbit, wild mushrooms.... but I didn't have one minute to think of what I could cook out of it.  Too tired to be fussy, my mind was quickly made. A glass of white wine in my hand, and the cocotte on the stove, I got started. A little more than an hour later, dinner was ready... It turned out as one my favourite impro of this autumn! a great comfy but still impressive dish that required very little prep and effort but did marvels on that cold and dark night. It would go great with a celeriac gratin or puree. I went for what I had around: red cabbage with apples. A good match too.

comfy food for cold automn evenings

Rabbit with wild mushrooms
Lapin aux champignons sauvages

serves 4 pers.
prep: 10 min. cook: 1 hr

Ingredients:
1.2 kg rabbit, cut in parts,
4 shallots, chopped,
1 garlic clove, peeled and germ removed
25 g butter,
2 Tsp olive oil,
1 "bouquet garni" (laurel, parsley, thyme)
30 cl dry white wine,
10 cl water,
3 Tsp mustard,
750 g wild mushrooms brushed, whole or halved,
sea salt and pepper to taste,

In a cocotte on high heat, brown the rabbit parts on all sides in the butter and olive oil. Add the chopped shallots, the garlic clove and the bouquet garni. Season to taste with sea salt and pepper. Pour the white whine and water and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat, cover and leave to simmer on low heat for 40 min, stirring once in while. Mix in the mustard, leave to simmer 5 min uncovered and finally add the mushrooms, toss to coat the mushrooms with the sauce and leave to simmer covered for 10 more minutes.

Bon appétit!

Moroccan pancakes have the taste of my childhood. It tastes of my summer holidays in moroccan paradise, at my lovely aunt Mina, my mum's little sister. The whole summer, she would spoil us like kings...  Her modest house was our palace.

That's me, a long time ago:
a little gourmande in moroccan paradise...

Among all, the gourmande that I have always been can't help but remember the breakfasts and tea-time, back then...  True feasts of the 1001 nights. There were fountains of mint tea, fresh orange juice and milk, croissants, fresh bread, almond cookies, homemade jams, and so many more treats.  I had only eyes for the pancakes! The flaky Msemen* and the airy Baghrir** were my favourites.  My grandma or my aunt would wake up before sunrise to prepare them so that they would be just ready and warm, bathed in honey and butter sauce, when the little princess girl that I was would dare to get up for breakfast. Burning the tips of my fingers in the warm honey when reaching for my favourite treats was my only worry...

When nostalgy catch me off guards, I search my all house for the little piece of paper torn out from an old agenda where my mum lovingly wrote the family baghrir recipe when I left home to live my grown-up life. Yet, it is always a disappointment. After all these years of trying, I never managed to reach the perfectness of my grandma's, aunt's and mum's heavenly pancakes. Mine are always desperately compact.

Lately, after yet another heartbreaking and disappointing attempt, I sinned (please don't ever tell my mum about it): I drooled in front of the photo of Requia's baghrir. Shameless, I put aside the precious piece of paper and adapted the sacred recipe inspiring myself from Requia's delicious french blog. It was like my childhood's breakfasts all over again... Everything had just became clear: in her emotion, my mum had forgotten one of the ingredients when writing down the recipe... the flour!

Thank you so much, Requia, for bringing back the taste of my childhood on my breakfast table!

Raising dough and bubbling pancake

Baghrir
Crêpes milles trous**

~18 pancakes
prep: 10 min + 1 hour raising. cook: 30 min

Ingredients:
1.5 package active dry yeast (or 5g fresh yeast if you have more luck than me in finding some),
500 ml lukewarm water,
250 ml lukewarm milk,
1 egg, beaten,
300 ml all-purpose flour, sieved,
300 ml thin semolina,
1/2 tsp salt

To serve:
50g butter,
15 cl honey,
2 Tsp water

Read the instructions on the yeast package: if it needs to be delayed, delay it with a little bit of the lukewarm milk (do so if you use fresh yeast).
In a large bowl, pour the lukewarm milk, water and the salt. Then pour the beaten egg, add the yeast, the flour and semolina. Mix until smooth (as a lazy gourmande I use an electric blender or mixer).

Cover with a clean cloth and leave to raise at room temperature for about 1 hour. The dough should almost double volume and start bubbling.

Cook the pancakes a couple of minutes on one side only, on low heat in a warm pancake pan. Holes will form at the top. They shouldn't colour. Leave the pancakes to cool on a dry cloth, smooth part under (and not on top of each other if you don't want them to stick together).

To serve, warm up in a frying pan with a mix of butter and honey.

Eat them right away, with your fingers...

Bon appétit!

* Msemen are actually my true favourites. They are a work of art and patience... I'll tell you more about them soon. If you can't wait and want to practise your french have a look in Requia's kitchen!
** As you can see from the pictures and recipe, the yeast give Baghrir it's airy texture: thousands of bubbles form during baking, hence their french name: the thousand holes pancakes or "crêpes milles trous"   

Today, just back from work, I settled comfortably in front of my computer with a steaming expresso ready to get blogging when the doorbell started singing... Not expecting anyone. Probably my big friend the doorbell ghost again, I thought  (damn interferences!). But we never know, so I got up and went to the door...

Surprisingly, there was someone at the door this time: a ghost actually, the cutest little dutch ghost I've ever seen. Halloween! of course, it's halloween today... Believe it or not, this was my first trick or treat experience ever. Halloween is far not as popular in Europe as it is in America.  It didn't even exist in France when I was a child, and has always seemed to me as one purely commercial event that shops are forcing into our lives to fill their pockets while awaiting the christmas season...

She was so cute though. I melted. And then I freaked: I had nothing, not a chocolate bar, not one cookie in the house (I have to take drastic measures to combine food blogging and a decent waistline), maybe a mandarine?... she was not tempted... I felt just like Rachel in one of these episodes of Friends, when she rushes to her checkbook when she realises she's out of treats... What a flop!

I've rushed to the shop at the corner in the meantime to get a bag of candy, but my doorbell keeps now desperately silent...

So, to make it up... here's at least a little pumkin treat, all smooth and velvety, for all the smaller and bigger ghosts who will knock at the door of my blog tonight.

Pumpkin cappuccino
Cappucino de citrouille

serves 6 (as apetizer*)
prep: 10 min cook: 15 + 20 min

Ingredients:
A small butternut squash (~350g), peeled, seeded and roughly cut in ~0.5 to 1cm thick slices,
1 Tsp olive oil,
1 apple, chopped,
1 shallot, chopped,
1/2 tsp ginger powder (fresh should be great to, but I didnt have any at the time),
3 pods of cardamon
1 knob of butter,
50 cl chicken stock**
15 cl milk,
10 cl liquid cream,
sea salt and pepper to taste

To serve:
Whipped cream or creme fraiche,
Cardamon, crushed.

Preheat the oven at 200 deg C.
Line a baking tray with baking foil. Put the pumpkin slices on the tray, drizzle with the tablespon olive oil and season with salt. Toss gently and bake for about 15 min or until the pumkin flesh soften.
In a pan, warm up the butter on medium fire and add the chopped shallot, ginger and cardamon. When the onion is translucid (~5min), add the apple, pumpkin and cover with the stock. After the first boil, lower the fire and cover. Simmer for 15 min. Leave to cool for 10 min. Remove the cardamon pods. Then, add the milk and cream and blend until smooth.

To serve, warm the pumpkin cream on low fire, and pour in nice glasses or coffee cups, top with a generous lump of whipped cream or creme fraiche and sprinkle with cardamon. Serve immediately.

Cheers!

* Double the proportions, if you wish to serve this cappuccino as a tarter.
** If your stock is very concentrated, cut it with water so that it doesn't overpower the pumpkin.

Once upon a time, there was a lazy gourmande who loved cooking for the sake of gourmandise, entertaining loved ones and experimenting flavours. She was lazy but curious: she'd love trying new  ingredients and flavours, experimenting new techniques... In the kitchen, she could be very daring when she felt like it; she was not scared of getting dirty hands when it came to manipulating meat or fish; she loved trying rare ingredients she had never heard of before. Yet, she was cursed with a ridiculous fear for certain dishes and ingredients, mostly those she particularly cherished: macarons, pastillas, preserves,  cheesecakes, and many others. Some involved relatively complex techniques for a beginner, some where outrageously simple. It didn't matter, she could crave for them, fantasize for years about creating them out of her own hands... she would always find an evasive reason not to cook them. You got it: our lazy gourmande could get extremely insecure in her kitchen.

And then, she starting blogging!  After intense blog therapy, she slowly managed to overcome one of her fears, opening the door to a whole new world of cooking sensations. A couple of weeks ago, she made another huge step towards recovery: shocked by the sudden defrosting of the precious contents of her brand new freezer, stigmatized by the urge of saving as much as could be saved, she baked a cheesecake, a "tarte au fromage blanc*"!  So simple... She blushed remembering her fear, she blushed out of satisfaction.

Tarte au fromage blanc*

serves 8
prep: 10 min cook: 10+30 min

Ingredients:
1 shortcrust (~350g)
350 g 'fromage blanc' (Greek yoghurt or dutch kwark will do too)
10 cl liquid cream
5 cl milk
3 eggs, beaten
50g Maizena
4 Tsp sugar (or more if you have a sweet tooth)
1 pinch of salt
zest of 1 lemon
2 Tsp raisins soaked in alcohol** or warm tea

Preheat the oven at 180 deg C.
Line the short crust in a spring mould (at least 5 cm deep) and bake blind *** for 10 min. Reserve.
Delay the maizena with the milk. Pour into a blender. Add the fromage blanc, liquid cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla and blend until smooth. Then stir in the lemon zest and raisins and pour in the tart shell. Bake for 30 min until golden. Leave to cool at room temperature. Enjoy with friends on late sunday afternoons with a hot cup of your favourite tea.

Bon appetit!

*   "Fromage blanc" is a typical french dairy product. A cross between thick yoghurt and creamcheese. The low fat version has become very popular as a replacement for cream in low-fat recipes. In holland the equivalent is Kwark,  you can replace it with greek yoghurt.
**   I used the dutch 'boerenjongens' -literally 'farmer boys'- which are raisins marinated in Jenever.
*** Indicates baking a pastry dough without a filling ("cuire a blanc" in french). Prick the shell all over with a fork to prevent rising and line some baking foil over the dough. Fill with dry beans to prevent the pastry dough to retract. Remove the foil and beans after 5 min to allow coloring.

While my dutchie is a cycling freak and could spend hours looking and shopping for fancy expensive cycling gear, I, as a lazy gourmande, have something for fancy kitchen equipment... six pit stoves, professional gas-ovens, or just the kitchen aid department  at my favourite cook shop make my eyes shine with envy. Fridges are no exception though they are a little bit lower on my excitement scale. I dreamt for the cool and airy space of a fridge and freezer large enough to handle my saturday morning market escapades and our returns from France and our unevitable stops at the king of the supermarkets, ... Carrouf*.

We've had it with our small-ugly-old fridge. It helped us getting started, and we're glad. But it had its time: all door handles are broken and the freezer compartment has turned in an ice generating machine. So, there we went and buy a new fridge. Given the size of our kitchen, the limitations were high... but we found it: a high aluminium one door fridge/freezer combination with temperature management and a no-frost system of course! 

Like a kid, my dutchie wanted to take it right away, but (luckily) they didn't have it in stock so we had to wait a few more days for the delivery. The next friday, there it was at last. The small-ugly-old fridge was emptied and set to wait on the terrasse in no time. First cleaning up, power on... one hour waiting. We could see the led temperature quickly dropping to arctic temperatures. There we were. After the required indicated time we transfered our new food cargo recently acquired on our last trip to France back into the freezing cold. Happy like hippoes we feasted and celebrated our new fridge before falling into the arms of Morpheus with happy food dreams.

The next morning, my dutchie was up early to prepare a nice breakfast with croissants that he had prepared and frozen the week before. Berezina... For whatever reason our new acquisition revealed to be a defrost instead of a no-frost! It just didn't work... After a whole night, everything was defrosted: the farm chicken, the charolais T-bone steak, the duck breasts, the croissants dough, the morrocan pancakes, the rolls of flaky pastry... We could have cried, (I would have if I was not under the schock)... we put the small-ugly-old fridge back on, right there on the terrasse and we decided to party! I spent the whole day in the kitchen, making stews of what could be stewed, tarts, quiches and terrines while my dutchie called around our closest friends to put a large improvised sunday brunch together....

That was a fun cooking frenzy weekend topped with a great sunday brunch shared with good friends... and I now have a whole set of new recipes to share with you: From home made croissants to salmon terrine passing by apple tarts, morrocan pancakes, chicory quiche, tarte au fromage blanc and a chicken and raisins tajine!

*  Carrefour or Carrouf for the nostalgic expatriated french. The holy grail of the french supermarkets.

Hungry? here's to begin with:

Salmon terrine with fresh herbs from the garden
Terrine de saumon aux herbes du jardin

serves 6 to 8
prep: 10 min cook: 30 min

Ingredients:
250g salmon fillet, roughly diced,
1 shallot, chopped,
3 eggs,
15cl liquid cream,
juice of 1/2 lemon,
2 Tsp olive oil,
1 handful chopped parsley,
1 handful chopped chives,
2 sprigs of basil, chopped,
a few mint leaves, chopped,
sea salt, pepper and chili pepper to taste

Preheat the oven at 180 deg C.
Put the diced salmon, chopped shallot and the 3 eggs in the bowl of a blender or food processor. Add the liquid cream, lemon juice, olive oil and season to taste with salt, pepper and chili pepper. Blend until liquid and smooth. Stir the herbs into the mixture.
Pour in a greased medium size terrine (~15cm) and cover with baking foil. Bake 'au bain marie' * in the oven for 30min.
Leave to cool completely at room temperature. Then, forget in the fridge for at least an hour.

Serve cold as an aperitif with toasts or as a starter with mixed young leaves. You can serve it with lemon,  a homemade  mayonnaise, or a fresh tomato sauce made of thinly chopped fresh tomatoes, 1 small grated clove, fruity olive oil, a dash of lemon and basil.

Bon appetit!

** "Au bain marie" is a french cooking term. It means putting the baking dish in a larger one partly filled with warm water right in the oven. It's often used to bake terrine, mousses or cremes brulees.