Dutch Chicory Easy-Peasy Oven Dish

Today was a cold, bone-cold day, with slush falling from the sky and a wind that made your lips crack spontaneously. What a great day for my Chicory Oven Dish!

(Especially suitable for absolute beginners or not-so-confident cooks)

What do you need?   (serves 4; or 3 if they are large eaters)

Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees C.

4 chicories (fat ones!)

8 medium potatoes (don't know about you, but in my book 'medium' is as large as a tennis ball)

250 grams of bacon in cubes

150 grams of grated cheese (suitable for gratin)

125 ml creme fraiche (30% fat) or sour cream

fresh black pepper

some sea salt

some real butter (you only need approx. 50 grams)

How do you make it?

* Start by peeling, washing and slicing your potatoes in thin slices. Boil them until just about ready for eating.

* While your potatoes are boiling, put the cut up bacon in a frying pan and fry until brown and crispy. Take from the fire and put in a place safe from your cat (essential in my house).

* Slice your chicory in thin slices, take out the toughest (and most bitter) innermost part (your kids will thank you) and feed this to the rabbit if you've got one (it will love you) and quickly boil this (the chicory, not the rabbit!) as well. This will not take long! (Unless you like it to turn into snot)

* Take an oven dish, butter it with real butter.

* By the time your potatoes are done, the rest will be as well. So let the potatoes and chicory drain (!) in a colander, and then put them in the oven dish.

* Use the remainder of your butter; put it in cubes on top of your potatoes

* Sprinkle with the bacon.

* Sprinkle with the pepper.

* Spread it evenly with the creme fraiche (or sour cream)

* Sprinkle your grated cheese on top.

* Put it in the oven until the cheese has melted but take it out before it turns too brown. This will not take long, so stay around.

It tastes fine on its own, but it loves to be combined with a glass of dry white wine or, alternatively, Dutch Trappist Beer (**).

I hope you'll enjoy it.

** Yeah, yeah, you think Dutch beer, you think Heineken or Grolsch. Wrong!

We happen to have quite a few independent small wonderful beer brewers who specialize in

 'brown' beer.  Trappist is a brown beer, but the name is coined - it can only be used when it is connected to Trappister monks, who brew this type of beer near or within their cloister walls. The mother of all Trappister beers was brewed in La Trappe, France.

Truth be told we only have 2 proper Trappist beer breweries in The Netherlands, while there are many in Belgium.

Still, this has never stopped me enjoying this wonderful beer. Believe me, when you have tasted a proper Trappist, you will think Heineken/Grolsch lager booooooooooooring!

Recipe for a Colourful Potato Salad to Lift Up Grey Days.

Good afternoon to you all!
I promised you the recipe for my Colourful Potato Salad - and here it is! It will give a lift to the endless grey days we Dutch folk usually experience around the turn of the year.
But it is very handy for a party as well.

Serves 6 (as a side-dish to a meal) or 10 (for party portions).

What do you need?

10 pre-boiled potatoes (I use our native Zeeland Bildstar, which is a semi-hard yellow colored kind)

1 lettuce (I use iceberg, I like the crunch)

4 to 6 eggs (free range, obviously; happy chickens, right?!)

20 cherry tomatoes

fresh chives

lemon juice

4 large gherkins or 8 small ones

1/2 a jar of sweet corn (pre-cooked)

8  (thin) rashers of bacon (free range; happy pigs, obviously)

fresh ground pepper

a pinch or two of salt (I use the pink Himalayan)

a good dollop of mayonaise

optional: fresh parsley

optional: garlic (2 'toes')

optional: tumeric (to taste)

How do you make it?

I've told you before in this blog: I am an enthusiastic but lazy cook. So I tend to make this salad when I have potatoes left over, meaning they are already boiled. But you can boil them to your heart's content on the day that you make the salad. But: let them cool first!

- start by frying the bacon crispy, so that it can cool off

- boil your eggs to perfection (meaning: not soggy, nor so hard that they've turned green)

- Cut up your cold potatoes in small cubes

- mix the potatoes with the mayonaise, some salt and pepper (to taste)

- add a good squirt of lemon juice and mix - put to the side

- now chop up the gherkins, the chives and mix this in with the sweet corn

- shred your lettuce

You've done the basics, now it is time for the fun part which makes you all happy.

- take out your prettiest salad bowl (a low wide one looks good) and fill the bottom with the lettuce.

- put the potato mixture on top of the lettuce, but leave a green circle around the rim of the bowl free (looks good)

- now sprinkle on the gherkin/chive/sweet corn mix

- put your bacon on top

- decorate with the cherry tomatoes and eggs

- finally cut up some chives and sprinkle them on top, for decoration purposes

Ah! Where are the garlic, parsley and turmeric, you may wonder?

Well, they are optional, as not everyone likes these tastes and some people are allergic to parsley (oh, horror!).

The garlic can be crushed and used to rub your bowl with right at the start.

The tumeric and parsley should go on top right at the end, but before you put your eggs on.

A variation:

Instead of the tumeric, curry powder tastes good as well. And if you are really into garlic, you can also fry this together with the bacon and put it on (I love this - my husband hates it...)

Enjoy!

Recipe for a Very Quick Healthy Dutch Beetroot Salad

Good afternoon to you!
A new year, so lots of you (like me and my family) will have made the resolution to eat (more) healthily. And good for you!
This very simple recipe for Dutch beetroot salad is everything you desire: easy to make, simple, quick, and very very very healthy.

Serves 4

What do you need?

- 4  normal size pre-cooked and cold beetroot (or 6 small ones)

- lettuce (I prefer iceberg, for a crunchy bite), as much as you like to use

- fresh chives (a small bunch)

- gherkins

- feta cheese (I use the original Greek sheep stuff, and not the cow's milk fake - I dislike fake)

- dressing (I use simple aceto balsamico - or balsamico vinegar in plain English)

- fresh ground pepper if you prefer, but it doesn't really need it

How do you make it?

- Tear up the lettuce

- cut up the beetroot in small cubes, put it on top of the lettuce

- sprinkle the cut up chives on top

- cut up your gherkins and sprinkle them on top as well

- cut up the feta and sprinkle this right on top

- finally, just before serving, sprinkle some balsamico over it and enjoy

PS Don't worry if your pee turns red...that's completely normal :-)

Some Autumn Medicine for all those Rhino Virus Sufferers.

Good evening!
I've been under the weather for the past week, although I have been dragging myself in to work anyway.
Persistant little worker, aren't I?

There is a virus doing the rounds in the Wetlands, called the Rhino virus. Compared to, say, Ebola it is a kitten of a virus. The symptoms are throatache, headache and a temperature. Oh, and you do need a wagon load of tissues...

Nothing very serious, you'll live. But it is a bugger if you cannot afford to take your soothing cup of tea and your good book to your sofabed, but when you have to work on instead.

So, if you are one of those poor people having to work on, feeling grotty, this post is for you. 

I have searched out the most gorgeous Autumn photos I could find at short notice. As I got them from the Internet, there are no credits.  But they are beautiful, those photographers know their trade!

To help you soothe that throat, and to feel better, try my recipe:

- boil some water

- put three large table spoons of organic honey in it

- put 1 table spoon of organic cinnamon in it

- stir well

- light a small candle underneath an aromatherapy burner

- put three drops of pure eucalyptus oil into some water on the burner

- put on the latest CD by Susan McKeown (Through Bushes and Through Briars)

drink your brew whilst sitting already in your bed, listening to Susan's intriguing way of treating traditional Irish songs.

You'll feel better! 

Susan McKeown

China? Ni hao! And France, bienvenue! Join me for Dinner?

Welcome, my Chinese and French friends!
So nice to see you!
I look at my statistics and see quite a lot of you are visiting, and it pleases me no end. Hope you are fine!
Today I have been cooking and cooking and cooking...

I have made 10 pots of grape jam (cannot bear to see my grape harvest go to waste on the vine) and I have baked a vegetable baklava.

This is only halfway through...Later on I have added green and black olives, and a mixture of feta cheese, 3 eggs and old Dutch Gouda cheese to this mixture of courgettes, peppers, onions and garlic and have seasoned it with Greek herbs.

And no, it isn't my own recipe, I'm not that good. It is from 24 Kitchen.

It is now in the oven, covered with filo pastry and sesame seeds.

And I cannot wait! My mouth is watering!

Good food is better than sex, in my opinion (well, I am 56...that explains a lot I suppose).

It's a good thing my family doesn't bother to read my blog :P

Anyway...

Food.

We were talking about food.

I have been raised by a woman who has almost starved between 1943 and 1945. That explains a lot as well...

Food was a major thing in our house. And it is important in mine. 

Done!

Have a lovely evening!

YAY! I've passed the 1,000 readers mark! I'll share my 'Renée's Salad' to thank you.

Good Golly! More than a thousand readers for Rays of Light within 6 weeks...I am chuffed, proud, pleased, happy, over the moon, and delighted with you all!

My Selfie

Hello there, you from The United States! So nice of you to drop in!

And you, from Russia! Lovely to meet you!

And you, over there in Serbia, how are you?

And that sole reader in Greece: never mind, I adore Greece.

And all the rest of you in Germany, England, Ireland, Sweden, Scotland, Morocco, India (yes, you, Smitty), Australia, Austria, South-Africa, Brasil and last but not least my fellow Dutchmen, who think nothing of reading my stuff in English - GREAT, I am proud of you!

Apart from toasting you all tonight with my single glass of red wine (this is for that fellow who is worried that I drink too many, you know who you are!), I thought I'd write down my very own salad recipe.

Renée's Salad

You need:

- mixed greens, made up of bean sprouts, endive leaves, lettuce leaves, chicory leaves, spinach leaves, in fact all sprouts you like except for the Brussels variety (for 4 people I use 200 grams of greens at least, and that is not counting the tomatoes, pepper and cucumber!)

- a hand-full of roasted pine nuts and/or walnuts (I use both)

- 250 grams tiny sweet tomatoes

- pieces of roast chicken (organic happy chickens, please, and how much is up to you. Organic chicken is bloody expensive in my country, so 250 grams is enough for me)

- spices (I use Himalayan rock salt, freshly ground black pepper, chili pepper, garlic)

- approx. 10 black Kalamata olives (hey! Greece!)

- fresh Parmezan cheese, in slivers

- you may add a couple of hard boiled eggs, but that is optional (happy...you know the score)

- 1 cucumber (in cubes)

- a bell pepper (red, green, orange, yellow, whatever colour you like)

Start by quickly spicing and roasting the chicken (I use coconut butter for this). Let it cool off a bit. Then take out your loveliest salad bowl (large! This is a large salad!) and put in everything else (hah! This is the kind of cooking I prefer - no fuss), put the chicken on top and end by grating your Parmezan cheese on top.

Now; the dressing. I usually make up an easy one by mixing a couple of spoon-fulls of organic mayonaise with the juice of half a lime and some finely chopped parsley. But I've been known to use finely chopped dandelion leaves instead of parsley(not too many, they will make it too bitter). Chicken and lime is a perfect combination. But you can use your own dressing, as anything goes, really. As long as it doesn't clash with the olives.

Enjoy!!

This is our greenhouse in Summer, b.t.w. Notice the Rucola on the right, it was growing rampant! The kids were complaining of a Rucola overkill.

By Popular Demand: my Secret Quiche Recipe.

Smoked ham and curried potato quiches

Good morning, folks!

Christmas buffet at Rays of Light home

It's me again.  (And apologies for the poor quality of the photos; my Samsung needs to be replaced...)
I was up at the crack of dawn, as I will be hosting yet another dinner party this evening, and wanted to bake my famous quiches.
So: Radio 2 on (they do a top 2000 between Dec. 25th and Dec. 31st - wonderful, all those musical memories!) and Viggo winding his way between my legs and tripping me up - you can picture the scene I'm sure.

When he had me almost pitching my face into the flour for the second time, I kicked him out. He is now sulking in the wintry sunshine in the back garden.

The quiches.

I have been baking quiches for 25 years. When I lived in London I very occasionally treated myself to lunch in a corner caf on Cricklewood Broadway.  The cheapest thing they had on the menu was a slice of quiche. So, for me, quiche is more than food, it is a trip down memory lane. When I finally managed to get me a kitchen of my own again, I started making quiches.

Preparations:
Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Centigrade.

The bottom

Are you in a hurry? Use ready-to-go squares of puff pastry from the supermarket. It makes your bottom more fluffy (obviously) and it has a slight risk of going soggy, but the taste is fine. And it saves you time and you don't get your hands greasy and your clothes floury (not to mention your kitchen dirty).

Plenty of time? Make your dough from scratch, using 200 grams of buckwheat or ordinary flour, 50 ml. of cold water and 1 large organic egg (remember: happy chickens!!). Knead quickly, roll out with a rolling pin or wine bottle (always plenty of those in my kitchen), put it in a buttered quiche mold and put away in a cool place or in your fridge.

The filling

This is the curried potato quiche, by the way.

For this filling, I've used:
- 6 pre-cooked potatoes (left overs from yesterday's Christmas dinner; waste not want not, my Grandma taught me)
- 150 ml. coffee cream
- plenty of curry, salt, pepper
- 2 large organic eggs
- 50 grams of pine nuts
- 10 grams of shredded dried coconut

Whisk the eggs with the cream , coconut and curry etc. Place the potatoes on the quiche dough. Sprinkle the pine nuts on them, cover with the cream mixture.

Bake in the oven, for approx. 35 minutes. This rather depends on your oven, so check! 

Filling for smoked ham quiche
- 150 ml. coffee cream
- 6 slices of Italian or Spanish finely sliced smoked ham
- 8 tiny tomatoes (I've used the Dutch kind called 'Tasty Tom' - they taste sweet)
- salt, pepper
- 50 grams of freshly grated Parmezan cheese

Whisk the eggs with the cream, cheese and salt and pepper. Put aside. Quickly dry-fry your ham in a frying pan, lightly browning it. Put the slices of ham on your quiche dough, cover with the cream mixture. Push in the tomatoes.
Bake in the oven, for approx. 35 minutes. This rather depends on your oven, so check!

I have many more on my repertoire, so, perhaps I'll do an update some day.
For now, I'll leave you to it. My husband is feeling neglected and wants soup. Okay. I can do soup as well.

Single Mum/Dad? Then this post (with cookie recipe) is especially for you!

Good afternoon!
There you are, searching for a way to entertain your kiddies, with two days to go until Christmas, or no Christmas celebrations but holidays anyway...Well, I've written this one especially for you!
Start by clicking on the link. It's worth it!    Lovely animation!

What do I have to offer you?
An easy-peasy Dutch recipe for Christmas/Holiday cookies, which you can bake together with your kids, or on your own if you prefer.

My (almost grown-up) kids have tried them and pronounced them very good. So... What's keeping you?

Dutch Coffee Kisses (koffiekusjes)

What do you need?

375 grams of flour (I've used the kind which has added yeast)

150 grams real butter (I've used the organic kind, produced by happy Dutch cows)

125 grams fine sugar (I've used the organic brown kind, hopefully produced by happy fair-trade growers)

1 large brown egg (happy chickens!!!)

1-2 spoons of ice water (table spoon, not a small spoon!)

1 spoon of instant coffee (ditto)

cookie cutters, or a sharp knife

 Decorations are optional. I've used ready-made sugar paste from the supermarket. But you can also make your own, by dribbling molten chocolate on, or icing sugar.

Do not forget to pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees! (that's centigrade)

What's next?

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Cut up the (cold!) butter into small cubes. Put in with the flour and mix in using your finger tips. Keep this up until the flour has the thickness of bread crumbs (this takes a while; builds up your arm muscles!) Then mix the sugar, coffee and egg all together in a separate bowl. Add the ice water and chuck it all in with the flour.

Next, mix the flour carefully with a knife (why a knife? beats me! this was passed on by my Gran). Knead well until you have a smooth dough.

Now, put the dough onto a large sheet of baking paper. Put a second sheet on top. Use a rolling pin, or wine bottle, and roll out your dough until it is approx. 5 mm thick.

Next, cut out your cookies.

Put them onto a baking tray (use a fresh sheet of  baking paper!)and bake them for 10 minutes in the oven (middle tray) or until golden brown.

The baked ones (first batch)

If you, like me, have carefully used up all your dough (waste not want not), you'll find you need to bake them in two batches. Let them cool off first before decorating!

ENJOY!!!! And have a lovely time!

Counting down to Christmas? So are we in The Wetlands! Here's your *free* recipe for Bischopswijn!

I don't know if you realise this, but there's a financial crisis on in The Wetlands. Christmas will be a frugal affair for many of my countrymen.
There are noticeably less light-decorations around the streets, and folks are being careful what they are spending their money on. To save money, I will have a do-it-yourself Christmas this year.

The bar at TweeHondjes, Hellevoetsluis

I took my old Mum to my favourite haunt in my home town, for a concert by Dutch female group Reïncarnatus.

 The management had splashed out on Glühwein (not Dutch at all, but German, although we have a spiced wine variety as well, called Bischopswijn) and raisin bread.

Recipe for easy-peasy Bischopswijn:

*1 bottle of red plonk (no need to pay a lot for it, as you will be chucking things in)
*1 lemon
*2 cinnamon sticks or a good dash of ground up cinnamon
*brown sugar (optional)

Heat the wine (do NOT let it boil!), add the juice of the lemon and the cinnamon sticks and perhaps the sugar if you have a sweet tooth. Drink hot, but not too hot, as it will impair the taste.
Enjoy yourself! We did :-)