well, in december i didn’t managed to post some of the things i wanted to, for example something on a squash soup. i got the recipe from a friend and mixed it with some i found online. it consists of squash, cut into small pieces. note that it is a good idea to take squashs whose hull is edible, like hokkaido squash, butternut squash and buttercup squash).

the pieces are cooked a bit with onions, garlic and spices such as cayenne pepper and curry, until water with stock is added:

after cooking it for 30-40 minutes, one can add crème fraiche (or sour cream if you live in a country where you can’t easily get crème fraiche).

enjoy!

after sharing one pancake recipe more than ten days ago, i thought i’d write about another one which i tried more often. it’s the result of preparing enough spinach sauce for a few days, and trying to combine that with pancakes.
i again made a lot of spinach sauce today, so i can eat a few days from it. i took one onion, one garlic bulp and one red chilli and chopped them. then, i put them in a pan and roasted them gently, adding “some” cayenne pepper.

after that, i added the frozen spinach, and let it defrost. during the process, i added some hot water, some more water with corn starch, and some whipping cream.

as usual, i prepared pancakes and added some of the spinach sauce on one half.

finally, i flipped the other half over, and obtained a small stack of spinach pancakes.

often, i experiment when cooking. adding or removing or exchanging ingredients, changing the result a little every time; i guess this is not that uncommon for anyone used to cooking. sometimes, i do some more experiments, like today. two days ago, when shopping, i got a spontaneous idea, namely to try a omlette with zucchini and cheese. well, i bought everything i needed, but on the way home, i continued to think and planned to replace the omlette by pancakes. well, and today, i finally tried it out. first, i cut the zucchini into small slices:

then, i prepared pancake dough – flour, a few eggs, salt, milk, and mixing it together. then, i started baking pancakes.

for the first try, i took the done pancake out of the pan and placed it on a plate. i added grinded mozzarella on one half, put on some of the zucchini slices, and flipped the other half over:

it tastes good, but i thought i can do better. so i tried to add some spices, in particular cayenne pepper, after putting the cheese on. i also put on the cheese while the pancake was still in the pan, as otherwise the cheese doesn’t really melt. it then looks like this:

finally, i had a small stack of pancakes, part of whom i enjoyed eating, while putting the rest in the fridge to enjoy it at tomorrow’s lunch.

last saturday, i was spending the afternoon and evening with a guy from the netherlands who is vegan. hence, for lunch and dinner, we tried to find vegetarian/vegan restaurants. he brought a list from happy cow, and for lunch we decided to go to a vietnamese place called white oak ii. it features a large variety of vegan vietnamese and chinese food, often things which originally contain meat, but where the meat is replaced. this was really amazing. the restaurant is placed in a small vietnamese mall, not obvious to find. i definitively have to go there again.
for dinner, we went to the coup, a vegetarian place at 17th avenue. this was a bit more pricy and stylish, but also very good. a place i also have to go to at least one more time. i had a vegetarian burger there, in fact the first vegetarian burger i ever had: it was really good! as was the spiced (in the sense of chili!) iced chocolate shake (hmmmm) and a cocktail called the “malibu barbie colada” which, despite its funny name, tasted fantastic. for dessert, i had a piece of organic chocolate torte, which in fact is vegan.

ingredients:

• the big lebowski (imdb).
• a sufficient amount of vodka.
• a sufficient amount of kalúha.
• a sufficient amount of milk.
• some hardware to play the movie.
• some glass for the white russian(s).
• optionally, some ice cubes.

instructions:

1. pour some of the vodka, kalúha and milk into the glass. add some ice if needed.
2. start watching the movie, while drinking the white russian.
3. as soon as the glass is empty, pause the movie, refill the glass and continue the movie.
4. repeat until the movie is over.

the amounts should be chosen high enough to ensure that you won’t run out of white russian during the movie.

well. seriously. (as serious as one can be after watching the movie and drinking several white russians.) the big lebowski is a movie by the coen brothers about a hippie slacker, called simply the dude, who is drawn into a kidnapping case which turns out to be a bit more complicated, with a bunch of different parties taking part in the game. the movie features great characters, most notably el duderino, his friends, donny and walter, and the german nihilists (nagelbrett by autobahn!), some great dream sequences, lots of bowling, and lots of white russians, all drunken by his dudeness.

if you’ve never seen it, watch it. and don’t forget the white russians.

yesterday i tried to make “real” hot chocolate, resulting in the most intense hot chocolate i ever had. i began with 200 gramms of dark chocolate, half a liter of milk, and a bit of sugar.
using the double boiling method, i.e. putting a smaller pot into a bigger pot filled with hot water, i melted the chocolate. when it was mostly melted, i started adding the milk and stirring. then, i added the sugar, and waited until it got hot again. then, finally, i added some chili powder and a bit of creme de cacao.
one last hint of mine is that you shouldn’t try to drink more than one cup of this in a few hours, it’s simply too much chocolate at once :-)

a few days ago, kornel wrote something on chili drink chocolate. it’s really easy: take usual chocolate powder, take chili powder, take milk, mix it, drink it, enjoy it. and, well, it is great. if you take a sip, it first tastes as usual drink chocolate, and then, seconds later, the chili starts burning on your tongue. that’s the kind of hot chocolate i like.

today i bought a bottle of creme de menthe, so i’d be finally able to mix one of my favourite cocktails, the grasshopper, myself. additionally to creme de menthe, it consists of creme de cacao, cream and ice, and is very sweet and refreshing.

to mix it, get the ingredients, put them into a shaker. some ice should be in the shaker, too, while the rest of it should be inside the class.

then, shake the shaker for some time, and fill the result into the glass. i don’t have cocktail glasses, so i took something else, happening to be green. then, i finally finished it off by adding a green straw.

cheers.