Monthly Archives: December 2011

2012 here we come…..finishing with poached pears

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December is always the shortest month, it passes so quickly, first we have in the Netherlands Sint Nikolaas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Nicolaas) a special celebrations for children ( a man with a big white beard and a lot of ‘zwarte pieten’ are coming by boat from Spain to the Netherlands to give the children presents if they behaved the whole year like an angel ; )). On the 5th of December it’s the big evening, where the doorbell will ring and there are a lot of presents in a bag in front of the door. Time for unwrap them : ).
Of course on the 25th of December it’s x -mass time, I think it’s everywhere in the world! Christmas trees and lighting are taken over the living room and gardens ( Here people really get crazy with lights).
Everybody is going to eat with family or friends. We didn’t had a big dinner with family because my parents house is too little for all the family, so we did on the second Christmas-day a drink in the afternoon and a walk in the forest. Really relaxing and you stay thin : )

Now it’s the 30th, so tomorrow (it’s new years eve) a lot of people getting drunk, party, eating some kind of round doughnuts with raisins in it, playing games and so on. When the telly is counting down from 10 till 0, the fireworks will getting started. I like to watch fireworks on a distance, but to be on a square with a lot of drunken people, putting on the fireworks I don’t like. Every year you hear terrible stories, but whatever no time for talking about this…..we have to end this year happy and relax. Looking back after a great, strange, chaotic year and where a lot of changes has taken place.
And the best too look forward is we are getting a baby surround the 6 of June!! Anyway party and be happy, I wish you the best for 2012…and here some nice recipe of a side dish, it takes a long time. You can make this as a dinner but also as a dessert. But I really enjoyed this also when I was a child I really loved this.

Poached pears (4 persons) a side dish

are you ready?
1 cup of water
2 cups of cranberries
1 tablespoon of rice syrup (or maybe you like to take sugar or some other syrup) and some people like it more sweeter, so taste if you want to put more syrup in the pears.
1,5 kilogram of raw poached pears taken of the peel (In the Netherlands we have wildeman gieser pears)
3 teaspoons of star anise powder

Kitchen tools
a knife to peel the pears
a big cooking pan
a wooden spoon

The beginning…..
Ok it’s a lot of peeling work but after it’s easy! Peel the pears and cut them in 4 equal pieces. wash them and put them in the cooking pan together with all the other ingredients! Mix softly all the ingredients together. Put the fire on and bring the pears slowly to a boil, when it.s boiling put the fire on the lowest stand and put the lid on the pan….
Stew this for 2 hours or more, I didn’t had so much time so I did for 2 hours!
Stir sometimes a little and look if the bottom isn’t burning (then you have the fire too high).
After this is ready and now you can use it, with some nice potatoes on the side and some nice vegan burger or use this pears for dessert, it’s very sweet and nice together with some lemon icecream. Anyway enjoy this little sweet side dish oh and before I forget you can make this also with some cinnamon-stick (while stewing) instead of the star anise and without the cranberries, or maybe I never tried but it’s sounds great with some vanilla stick in the stew while stewing. Anyway dare to try

Eet smakelijk

endive on experiment-tour!

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Wintertimes! Nice to go to palace the Loo in Apeldoorn, not so crowded only a little cold! Nice to see the too much over decorated rooms, walls with flowers and gold, bed with flower curtains, al lot of paintings at the wall, the ceilings painted, closets with a lot of hand-crafted wood, the carpet full with flowers or carpets at the wall I think handmade. I think I would get neurotic and restless of all those impulses in the rooms!
What about the beautiful gardens with a lot of fountains, only no water because of the cold, but in the summer it would be lovely! A lot of Romans influences, the statues, the nice cutted bushes in all kind of shapes and a lot of squares. It was a pity when we were outside and the rain comes out of the clouds again, tomorrow it would be more worse they say, a lot of wind, storm they said and rain of course!
Ooh I didn’t tell about the place where the horses were standing, and the coaches. Wow if I had a house like that I would be very rich, it is soo big, I forgot already that we weren’t at the palace yet it was just a shed/garage. I t was a nice day and my parents and we loved it. It was a surprise for my parents we won some free tickets for the palace (yoohoo) from some lottery ! My boyfriend is a member for almost 30 years and finally he won something!
Anyway a Dutch palace, and some Dutch food are perfect too each other, and I was a couple of days being very creative and yes I have to say this time it worked out (sometimes I think I  do must eat this also? ;))
Anyway the experimental endive

The recipe for the experimental endive (4-6 persons)
2222 grams of potatoes with or without peel (if its organic with peel) cut in 4 pieces
a big crop of endive washed and drained, cut in little slices
4 big carrots cut in slices
1 cup of crunched walnuts
14 sun-dried tomatoes cut in little pieces

The kitchen-tools
a cooking pan
a knife
a masher
some plates to put the dinner on
a wooden spoon

Lets begin
Just easy to make this dinner, it just take 20 minutes out of your daytime to make it. Just wash and cut all the vegetables.
Put some water in the cooking pan and throw in the carrots and potatoes, bring it to a boil and boil for approx. 15 minutes (till the potatoes are soft)
When the potatoes and carrots are ready, poor out the water and mash the potatoes and the carrots, now it’s time for the endive to come in the pan, mix this all together that the balance of potatoes/carrots and endive is 50/50.
At last you can put in the sun-dried tomatoes and walnuts, or what I did I sprinkled the walnuts on the dinner when it is on the plate. So this is it enjoy! Maybe you can put it together with a vegan burger on a plate :)!

Dat het mag smaken