Pour les filles: repas du mardi soir

Pour les filles: repas du mardi soir. Une superbe tarte: pâte brisée fait à la maison, beurre - farine - l'eau froide et un peu du sel . 

Une grande cuillère de moutarde pour imbiber la pâte une fois dans un moule.

Puis rangez les tomates coupées en rondelles, thym, poivre. Une boule de mozzarelle coupée en petits dés et puis deux petits boîtes de sardines .

Enfournez pendant 35 à 40 minutes au four. Manger chaud ou tiède.

Petite salade verte avec une mélange aux framboises et myrtilles et vinaigrette a choix. 

Tarte a ma façon: Pauw's quiche with gruyere

This has been a superb delicious quiche. I made this extremely exquisite quiche yesterday from a lovely cookbook, a French cookbook which is amazingly nice edited and it's entirely about vegetables, combined with a few other ingredients. Every recipe starts with vegetables and then the cook/author cooks wonderful dishes. The book follows the  4 seasons. It's lovely and as French as French can be.

This quiche is made of a nice dough by melting butter and than you add the dry ingredients: plain- and corn flour with an egg. Mix all ingredients until you obtain a sandy mixture. Then add the - three minute - cooled butter and work all ingredients together into a ball.
Decorate the quiche mould.
Cut the 4 tomatoes into thin slices and cover the dough,  cover with 100 gram of gruyère and a few branches of thyme. Season with pepper and salt, bake the quiche in the oven for thirty minutes.

Kale and raspberry with yoghurt

Kale;

kale is fashion;

kale is anti cancer;

kale is the food for foodies.

For me kale was kale and one of the favourite vegetables of my mother. In my youth we ate kale in winter every week . The 'boerenkool' today thought as one of the most effective vegetables against cancer. Proved and cherished by researchers in the fight against cancer. Embraced by foodbloggers and high profile chefs.

An antioxidant which boost your immune system and is highly significant to beat infections.

We used to eat kale shortly boiled and mixed with a home made mashed potatoes dish.  Often eaten with sausage and mustard.

I admit I rediscovered kale and I owe my mother. The knowledge about the healthy properties kale was hers, long before the trendy appreciation of kale stole the hearts of so many and researchers proved her massive qualities for a healthy diet. 

Kale salad: fresh washed kale, raspberries, mixed seeds, white cowl, dressing made with honey, oil oil and balsamic oil. I like to serve with plain yoghurt.

Cheese Rolls

Because of food.
Because of waist.
Because of health.
Because of living longer.
Because of life style.
Because of food intolerance.
Because of allergies.
Because of eczema.
Because of the love for food, the time for cooking and the use of leftovers!

These cheese rolls were made the other day,
last week by my youngest daughter. The last in the row and a big fan of cooking just like we all.
The dough was a leftover from a butternut pie.
The cheese is a fresh parmesan. The only hard Italian cheese S is able to digest, to like without all kind if side effects, like itching lips and tongue...
Fresh home made dough
(25 grams of flour, 125 grams of butter and a glass of ice cold tap water)

Roll the dough on your working table top.
Fill with parmesan cheese and roll up again.
We ran out of eggs, as we used the last one for our pie, but if you have one , stir the yolk and paint the dough with a pencil dipped in the egg yolk.

Lovely appetizer with a glass of wine, serve with black olives at the side.

Bake a pie

We had the girls' favorite pie yesterday evening. My youngest at least is totally thrilled when we have this pie for dinner. She helped me in the kitchen and made the dough. I measured , she worked herself with tiny fingertips and delicate movements through the process from crumbling into a soft dough ball. Well done baby B.

Flour and butter and some ice cold water gives you the dough you need for such a savory pie.
measure: 250 grams  flour, 125 grams of cold butter and a tiny glass of ice cold water.
You need to start working the flour and the butter, two knifes are really helpful while you cut the butter in the bowl with the flour. While working your flour and butter add the ice cold water, just enough to avoid a sticky dough.

The filling is about 500 grams of beef meat, salt and pepper, fresh chopped garlic (as much as you like), fresh chopped coriander, juice of a small green lemon.
Some chopped tomatoes with garlic again, prepare with olive oil until glazed.
Two pans.

In the meantime roll the dough and decorate a rectangular baking pan.
Fill it and alternate the meat and the tomatoes.
Top the dough cover with egg yolk to obtain the golden crust!

Bake the dough filled with the beef and the tomatoes in the oven at 225 Celcius.
During 25 minutes. Until nicely golden brown.
Serve with spinach and garlic.
Iceberg salad with cucumber & olive oil and balsamic.

Winter

Beans, carrots, onions, parsley, bacon and cherry tomatoes.
A fridge that need to be emptied before we travel later this week to Europe.
The combination of fresh veggies, the beans and the salty bacon make it a good and easy dish after a long day of school.  

Chocolate
raspberries
candles
eggs
flour
sugar
kitchen

time
surprise
sweet dreams
home

lazy
slow
pure
strong
bonding
friendship
no nuts
no peanuts
food
rich
chocolate
share
table

Ultimate flavor for a birthday girl.
Home made sister cakes.
No peanuts, no nuts, fresh lemon from the back yard, cool hands and patient soul, enjoy the art of making delicious food. Walking around with closed eyes. Your ears hear the quick movements in the kitchen, you're not aloud to come in.

Granates.

The ultimate fruit to relax, to taste, to enjoy the day, to mix with salad, muesli, yoghurt, beautiful Rabat, again. My allergy daughter loves it, and not just because of the wonderful color.

Food, fat and common sense, or the love for food!

Fats: Dietary Guidelines detail the good, the bad and risky - The Washington Post

There are just all the propositions that are well for you body, your brain, your hole self.

For me it's kind of a surprise every time when I read these articles, I think: do Americans really no so little about what's good and not healthy at all, there is a phrase about the too extended list of choices that this may be one of the reasons to grasp the unhealthier alternative, I don't know.

I keep all simple, kind of live the way I grew up, local, local and season choice....................

After years in the south of France and now in Rabat, Morocco, I only can say that I learned to enjoy even more the seasons, the colors, the rich basket filled with the fruit and veggies from the market, OK I admit we have fight with our temptations but then still I try a bakery, where I know that I eat at least healthier fats.

I you are a butter admirer, take a 100% butter not the nasty margarine, go for half salt butter.

Try to dip your bread instead in olive oil, sprinkle if you like with sugar (not the factory processed one).

I am sitting here at my too small kitchen table, my apron with apples gives this day a smile, we just had gnocchi, from the fresh Italian stand at the market this morning in Cassis, where it rained cats and dogs...

I made salad from with tomatoes, cucumber, onion, basel , pressed lemon and olive oil. (all chopped very fine and served in colored bowls). The gnocchi is so tasteful already that we had fresh cheese , basel pepper and olive oil.

The fruit laughs in all her colors, nectarines, apricots, grapes.

S feels better since some days.

the allergies and eczema come and go and I see a fluctuation when we change natural environments and yes she needs her treatments.

Midnight diary

My allergy girl is preparing for the hospital research next week.

In the meantime I had my best friend from China here today, we strolled some along the port of Cassis, had some nice cheese on a platter and a pink rosé. 

She's my blue cake soul mate, the cake my allergy girl had for her first birthday and caused kind of the first visual allergic reaction.

We had fresh zucchini from the grand father of a friend of my youngest girl, a garden in St Raphael, Cote d'Azur.She came into my kitchen last evening and looked up to me and gave me the six zucchinis. 'They're pretty nice and the taste is so good, at least that's what my grand father told me'. 

I made a dish with these green sugar babies, basel, olive oil, garlic in one plate in the oven.

The last ten minutes under the grill.

Turkey with garlic and some fresh baguette.

Just another day in the Provence, it's hot, the doors are still open and some air comes in, all girls -except my allergy girl chats on FB - are in bed. I am off too.................

Junk food revisited

What's in the name, junk food, an expression, a way of pointing out to some food industries who make most of the food we find from breakfast through lunch into dinner on our table.. (Food Inc Documentary)
Junk food has something to do with an addiction, I mean being a junk has it all in the name.
Or it is all about trash,
food we rather not taste,
probably without any flavor, prepared to be consumed as fast as junk food can be eaten, waiting in line for another plate.
For me it is easy, allergies made us on a distance from all these kind of dishes, prepared food is just not something we'll have in the fridge, on the table or during a long drive from Africa to Europe.
Junk food though has a certain attraction factor it is undoubtedly a pressure that makes that young people like this food, want to taste it, like to have it, ti obtain it at least some time now and then.
So many minds, so many tastes, the easy side of the fast food read junk food is you won't cook, you pick it up, you just drive in, you only need to dump the boxes at the end of the food intake. I mean dishes aren't really necessary so the minimal time investment is really interesting. Where time is an issue it seems to make sense, be honest, to pick up food. I mean the future dream house is totally equipped with it's own drive in.
So as we don't do the fast food nor the junk food we need to find out some alternatives, meaning small portions, finger food, boxes with snack varieties etcetera.

Tips:
small cakes in colored cups: cups cakes frostings  with coloring without any adds
chicken Bio, grilled with thyme and Estragon  in folio
macaroni salad with fresh herbs like basel, corn, red pepper, tuna fish or fried turkey served in small carton recycled containers
corn tortilla's home made filled with smoked salmon, chives, cream cheese; cut in small pieces wrapped in grape leaves. Find yourself some small baskets, or fancy decorated small plastic recycled bags. Museums have fashion boxes for meals, cool bags for snacks, go out and search for eye catchers.
No doubt that in all of this no traces of peanuts or nuts and no artificial adds. Try to buy fresh, if you have time, make more than you need and freeze. vary with any fresh herbs and that's the same for the veggies, radish or cucumber. Colors to make my day and it says something about the fruits you eat, red and blue is definite healthy. 


Tonight we had pasta. a nice butterfly pasta with 4 fresh green herbs, chopped  and mixed. Add to your warm pasta and pour olive oil! Fresh Parmesan cheese, I can find a nice one here in Rabat. The calcium is a plus of this particular hard and dry cheese.

Pound cake

Pound Cake or like the French say: quatre - quarts!

I love cake, the girls love it and most of the time it's simply the best. Pound cake. my father was pretty good in making us a Sunday cake, his father was the best, as I mentioned so often already. he was able to turn every moment into a celebration. he was delighted to be in the kitchen and looked after his grand children and I easily recall his attitude, a pure way of baking. Wooden spoons, simple tools, ancient balance and aper bags that did well instead of today's fat free paper.

We had pound cake with a frosting not on the outside of the cake but on the layers. my grand father cut the cake in nice slices, all seemed exactly the same size. (Today I all understand better. The exactly equal size seemed to be of an life threatened importance, but it was all connected to the scarcely food they had during the last winter in the second World war. )

On the slices he creamed a nice 'mocca' cream. The cream was made of butter and sugar and fresh made dark, dark coffee.

A recipe for pound cake:

5 eggs, separated
About 2/3 cup unsalted butter
About 2/3 cup sugar
About 1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind


Preheat the oven 325 F.
Grease a deep 8 inch cake pan.
If you like the pound cake.... then weigh the ingredients. Compare the eggs withe weigh of of butter and later on with the flour.
Melt the butter.
When starts melting take the pan of the heat
beat the egg yolks with the sugar and the lemon.
When mixture goes pale than add the the butter.
Gradually add the flour.
Beat your whites into snow. Peaks like the Alps!
Fold the snow into the mixture, all with gently movements.
Pour your mixture into the cake pan and into the oven!


Enjoy the pound cake warm with fresh fruits of the season, blueberries and all berries will do, or melon and watermelon, or make a nice butter coffee cream!

Sunshine

Because of a birthday and there's not the one who's having his birthday, but we will party later, that's what we said early this morning. While Rabat awakes and the day starts warm already with no breeze at all, but this is exactly what I like, it's the weather I live for, at least that's the time of year I admire the evenings, long and warm and the no border between in and out , inside and outside, doors seem transparent, when day ends and evening steps in slowly via the back yard I clean the kitchen after supper and we watch Julia Child, for the I don't know how many time we looked the movie together, the girls and I. 

The supper though I made in the afternoon, I thought of making the day longer and having the dish done and then all is so easy when the sun shines, the girls are happy and somebody is having his birthday.

I quickly fried the broccoli in olive oil and garlic. Cook 250 gr of three color pasta. Cut two small red pepper in small bits and sliced the garlic.

All ingredients nicely together as one fresh family of vitamins into a glass bowl and pored some olive oil, black pepper and sea salt. Bowl until supper in the fridge.

Served the salad with some mozzarella and smoked salmon,bread with grains.

I loved the colors, fresh and bright; the girls took more than one portion!

Ginger!!!

Tonight as dessert beautiful cake with ginger and apple.
A flavor that make you feel like being on a travel, a journey.
Ginger is a flavor that comes along with the thoughts I still have when thinking of my grandfather. He was the ultimate grandfather, the one who decorate the table with cakes and frostings. He made the 'butter-cookie'. Same tradition as a pound cake,
4 ingredients all in a nice balance and similar quantities:
flour, sugar, butter and eggs.

Butter Cake
250 gr butter
250 flour
250 sugar
4 eggs (I am not sure though and I need to look this up)

Because of the colonial past of the Netherlands there is ginger, so add some spoons of ginger and the tatse will be just awesome. Cut in small pieces because it's a traditional Dutch cake and very rich. Delicious when you have a cup of tea in the afternoon.

My cake tonight was:
180 gr butter
120 gr flour
60 gr corn flour
3 eggs
2 tbsp of ginger
1 apple, small pieces

The most important is to separate the whites from the yolks. beat them into snow.
Start with the butter, then add the sugar, yolks: one by one and finish with the flour mixed with the corn flour.The final add is the snow whites into the mixture, slowly.
Then apple and ginger.
bake in 35 minutes, 190° Celsius.

Serve with apple juice or a nice dessert wine.

Another Birthday Girl's favorite!

When: second birthday 1999, Les Janots, Cassis, Provence, France.
Source: The date has been written in the book Internationale gerechten, page 159.
Name: Duivels voedsel (Devil's food)

The cake is magnificent and very rich. An American recipe. I must have been thinking about the Blue Coconut Cake (see blog recipe index) I made for her first birthday, she had her first food related allergic reactions.
No peanuts and nuts, some eggs and there's chocolate. My allergy knowledge at that time was based on intuition and talks with dermatologists and pediatrics.

Devil's Food
(baking pan 22 cm)

Step 1.
100 gr black chocolate
60 gr sugar
1/8 l milk
1 egg yolk

Heat the oven, 180 ° Celsius. melt chocolate. Batter sugar, milk, yolk. Mix slowly into chocolate. Cool down.

Step 2
3 whites
2 tbsp sugar

Batter the whites into snow!

Step 3
4 tbsp butter
3 tsp vanilla sugar
80 gr sugar
2 egg yolks, 3/4 dl milk
salt
200 gr flour
1,5 tsp baking powder

Mix butter with sugar en add yolks, milk and salt, flour and baking powder.Add the chocolate melange and later the egg whites. Fill your baking pan en bake this Devil's food in 40-45 minutes. take out and let cool down.

Step 4
Frosting
1/2 l whip cream
1,5 tsp vanilla sugar
1,5 tsp icing sugar
2 tbsp coco powder
2 tbsp chocolate flakes

Prepare the frosting from cream and sugars en add the coco.

Step 5 and Final touch
Cut the cake in two layers. Cream one with a thick layer. Put the second on top and cover the outside with the rest of the frosting. Decorate with chocolate flakes. (Take a good brand with a high % of coco)

From the book: Internationale Gerechten. (International dishes)

A favorite of the Birthday girl

My daughter's birthday is today. Although not present, because of traveling, they fly out those teens! I will celebrate on the blog with some of her favorites, the list will be so long that I will never be ready before midnight but I'll share some. There were her special ones in all 5 countries where she lived so far. And with some Greek, African and Turkisch blood in the family the variety became only more exquisite. All recipes of-course are in respect of her allergies. We never felt, the last 14 years limited in making a choice for a nice meal. We never missed an occasion to make, bake and invite new adventures. I think one of the reasons my colorful daughter spends so much time in the kitchen, is because she turned out to be allergic. And overall she is a food lover! I do remember all the birthday cakes, just give me the time to share those on the blog. There will be some in Dutch, some in French and recipes in English, for the food lover among you, there will be no problem to understand. I mean the fun is the cooking, the link is the ultimate love for flavors and the sitting together, sharing a plate, a dish, a meal. Happy Birthday, bon appétit!

Today 35 degrees Celsius, pool, fresh food.


Spinach / Parmesan Pie. 

What you need for the crust:
250 gr flour
125 gr butter
salt
cold ice water

Prepare the dough with your kitchen robot.
You can cook the crust filled with rice for 15 minutes or cook it directly filled with your spinach.

Pie filling
500 gr spinach
50 gr Parmesan
garlic, pepper and salt (if you like)
1 onion
fresh sour cream, 2 large spoons
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
oil 2 tbsp

Heat oil, glaze onion and add garlic, 2 minutes.
Add spinach, 10 minutes low temperature.
Take away from stove and let cool down.
Add cream, egg and Parmesan.
Preheat the oven, 210° Celsius.

Roll the dough and cover bottom and borders fill with your preparation.
You can use the yolk for the borders so they will shine blond and gold when baked!
(35 minutes, depends on your oven)

You could make small envelopes filled with spinach, nice aperitif!
Try instead of Parmesan the Greek feta.

Crepes

While the words slowly wave their path to the paper I'll open the blog while the day has been out there since some time. Pretty much has been done these early hours. Traffic in the house, travelers leave and an allergy girl prepares another day of outdoor field soccer.
Unfortunately her neck is like a red bandage, a scarf  that lifts up when she turns her face and smiles towards me and facing the challenge of being in competition again today.
I am ready to make a new step and the search about natural medication and treatment.
An acupuncturist could bring relief.
As does a nice breakfast.

Crepes, golden and shiny like the sun with strawberries,
maple sirup's or sugar,
a glass of water and more bottles to fill for the rest of the day.

This is what I need for 8 - 10 crepes.
Crepes
125 flour
2 eggs
25 cl milk
20 g melted butter
butter or oil to bake
a bit of salt  


Flour and salt. 
In other bowl eggs, milk and butter and add the flour mix. Batter until you're obtain a fluid mixture, put away in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Sweets

Sweets to the sweet.

Shakespeare

Dates revisited

A beautiful Moroccan salad for 4

What I use:

1/2 cup dried pitted dates
1 lemon grated peel and the juice
1/4 cup of olive oil (I'll use the flavors from pressed olives from Marrakesh)
2 oranges peeled and cut in slices
4 cups of mixed salads, go after your personal senses, you can easily find different salads on the local market and you can vary with green herbs too. Don't hesitate to invent a new combination.
pomegranate seeds, these glass like transparent seeds with their pink hearts are exquisite and look like precious stones. 


Prepare 4 plates with the mixed salad, add and decorate with orange slices and dates. Mix olive oil and lemon juice and poor over salad. last and final touch the pomegranate seeds. Et voilà:  a wonderful seasonal salad, every one who knows Morocco will discover again the flavors of this mystic country.
Serve with corn bread.