Shrimps | Curry | Rice

Time for a new recipe. I made this curry last week for my brother's birthday, 20 hurray! He liked it, so mission accomplished, time to share the recipe with you. I used homemade currypaste (see below), the smell alone is worth the effort. Making the paste is pretty straight forward. Slice the ginger up roughly, put all ingredients in a mortar and grind until you have a paste.

Boil the jasmin rice according to the package. Although the instruction on a pack of thai rice says to use 2 parts of water for 1 part of rice, I prefer to cook the rice in plenty of water, to keep it from getting supersticky..

Put a wok pan on the stove and heat up some vegetable oil. Fry the shrimps until slightly colored then add the curry paste and fry for 1 more minute. Cut the sugar snaps in 1cm wide slices. Add the coconut milk, lime leaves and the sliced sugar snaps. Let simmer on a low heat for a couple more minutes. Add the bean sprouts 1 minute before serving. Finish off the curry with the juice of 1/2 lime and salt or fish sauce to taste (Normally I prefer fish sauce, but my brother hates it, so this one was made with salt). Serve with jasmin rice.

Forgive me for the sloppy picture (lots of curry sauce spilled on the rice, I guess I was too hungry :) )

Enjoy

Curry paste:
3cm ginger
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbs chili flakes
1 tbs turmeric
1 tbs black peppercorns
1 tbs fennel seeds

Other ingredients:

1 small glass of thai jasmin rice per person

7-10 shrimps per person (depending on their size)

200ml coconut milk

150g sugar snaps

150g bean sprouts
2 lime leaves (I used frozen ones)
salt or fishsauce

Linguini | Porcini | Vegtable bolognese

This is one of my favorite vegetarian recipes. The idea came from a dutch food magazine 'Delicious'. I adjusted it a little and here's my version.

Photo from Delicious magazine (june 2013)

Start of by soaking the porcini mushrooms in some boiling water for 10-15min. Boil the linguini al dente (see package).

Chop the vegetables roughly and put in a blender. Blend until all vegatbles are finely chopped. Heat 2tbs of olive oil in a large sauce pan and add all chopped vegetables. Let them simmer for 5min before adding the herbs and pesto. Drain the soaked porcini's and chop up. Add the chopped porcini's to the sauce. 
Let everything simmer for 1 more minute.

Poor in the red wine, let it boil for a minute to get rid of the alcohol. Then add the vegetable stock. Again, let it come to a boil. Let it bubble for 5 more minutes, then add the linguini (if the sauce looks too thick add a little bit of the pasta's cooking water). Mix the pasta through the sauce and serve right away. A bit of grated parmesan finishes it off perfectly!

Enjoy!
Ine

Ingredients:
(Serves 2)

15g dried porcini mushrooms
250g linguini
2 carrots
1 onion
2 celery stalks
1 red bell pepper
150g fresh mushrooms
2tbs olive oil
1tbs fresh thyme, chopped
1tbs fresh oregano, chopped
2tbs red pesto (made with sundried tomatoes)
125ml red wine
250ml vegetable stock
parmesan cheese

Lamb chops | Oven veggies | Tzatziki

I have to admit, this first recipe is already a bit of a guilty pleasure.. But try to limit the amount of meat and go wild with the veggies J. 

Ok remember that you can put in whatever you like. I picked bell peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and a couple potatoes for today. Chop them all up in bite-size pieces and divide evenly in a baking tray. (P.S. preheat the oven, 180°C)

To add flavor to the veggies, I used a shallot (chopped up roughly), 3 cloves of garlic (peeled and slightly crushed), fresh rosemary, thyme and oregano. Again use whatever fresh herbs you have or if you don't have any, just use dried ones.
Add all to the baking tray and cover with a bit of grated cheese. Put in the oven at 180°C for 30-35min or until the potatoes are soft.

While the veggies are roasting, I made Tzatziki. I make this quite a lot and totally love it. It's a yogurt based sauce, so when you use fat-free or fat-reduced Greek yogurt it's not that bad for you at all.
First of all grate 1/2 cucumber and squeeze out most of the water. finely chop a clove of garlic and mix both through the yogurt. Finish with a bit of good olive oil, black pepper and a bit of seasalt. I like to put it in the fridge until right before serving, as that seems to thicken the tzatziki a bit.

10 minutes before the veggies came out of the oven, I grilled the lamb chops for 4 minutes (2 minutes each side) in a smoking hot grill pan. They will still be quite red after 4 minutes, but that's how I like them. Take out of the pan and let rest for 5 more minutes, before serving.

Plate up en enjoy! 

Ine

Ingredients:

Serves 4:

8 lamb chops

Oven veggies:
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
4 large potatoes
1 shallot
1/2 broccoli
200g mushrooms
3 cloves garlic
200g grated cheese

Tzatziki:
150g low fat Greek yogurt
1/2 cucumber, grated
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
black pepper
seasalt
1tbs Olive oil

Post number one

Hi,

It's official, I'm no longer only a bloglover, but from now on also a blogger. That means that I believe that I have something interesting to add to the already very crowded blogworld. Which sounds a little scary when I put it like that!

             

What will I be blogging about? Most of my posts will probably be about food. I love to cook and I try to convince myself (and others) that my cooking is healthy. But let’s try to define healthy: don’t fry food, try to add a lot of vegetables, don’t exaggerate when it comes to meat, avoid a lot of oil/butter/mayonnaise. In comparison to many other blogs this one won’t even come close to qualify as healthy, but I just can’t survive on nuts, salad and juices alone. I like all three, don’t get me wrong!

Since I like good food, a nice glass of wine AND an in shape body, I try to exercise as much as I can (read: if I feel like exercising). So I’ll try to keep you all updated on the sports I love as well.

I know this is still a little vague, but hopefully things will become clear after some posts.

Boom the first one’s out!

Cheers,

Ine