Caramelized Garlic Tart
My colleague let me have a look into her new cookbook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi filled with vegetarian dishes. The first recipe to catch my eye was the Caramelized Garlic Tart. I love garlic and this quiche-like pie sounded sooo delicious. I wasn’t disappointed. The carmelized garlic with fresh herbs and goat cheese melts in your mouth. Mmm…
Eggplant lasagne topped with pistachios and basil
This dish came about by accident. Originally I wanted to make Green Kitchen Stories’ Involtini di Melanzane, or rolled stuffed eggplant, because I had tomato sauce left over from a couple of nights before. But it turns out I am awful at slicing eggplant. You have to slice the eggplant very thinly, but mine were uneven and all but a few weren’t the entire length of the eggplant. Because the eggplant needs to be grilled in the oven before rolling, I had an idea for making lasagne after seeing the slices laid out in a casserole dish. So instead of pasta, I used the eggplant slices! Mmm…it turned out very well!
Ingredients for the sauce
I’m a big fan of Courgetti and Zoodles, aka thinly sliced zucchini that looks like spaghetti noodles. I’ve tried courgetti with various sauces ranging from avocado to tomato, but this is the first time with mango! Mmm… The Mint & Mango Marinated Zucchini Spaghetti from Green Kitchen Stories is so delicious! I prepared the zoodles as a side dish with salmon with paired together perfectly.
A few of the ingredients for the Maple Tossed Rhubarb & Puy Salad
I recently discovered Green Kitchen Stories and one of the recipes that caught my eye is the Maple Tossed Rhubarb & Puy Salad. I love summer lentil salads, and the mixture of fruits and vegetables with goat cheese (my substitute for feta) and basil sounded so delicious! Koen’s family from Canada was visiting and I decided to make this salad. This was exciting for me, because I’ve actually never made anything with rhubarb before. I wasn’t even sure how it tasted – sour it turns out! Before making the salad I wanted to look up a few things about rhubarb:
The salad is really easy to make – just cooking the lentils and chopping the produce. What a great combination of flavors! There were no leftovers, so that’s always a great sign!
Lunch at Beter en Leuk
For Els’s birthday this year, we celebrated in Amsterdam. We started out at our favorite café in Amsterdam – Beter en Leuk – for a delicious and healthy lunch. Beter en Leuk just so happens to be owned by Koen’s cousin Hanneke, and you can find organic vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, etc dishes and drinks for breakfast, brunch and lunch, as well as great cookbooks, clothing, jewelry, and other treasures! If you are in Amsterdam, Beter en Leuk is a definite must-visit!
After our feast, we took Els on her first metro ride to the center of the city to Dam Square. We visited the History & Royalty: Journey In Time exhibit at De Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) where I learned a lot about the history of De Nieuwe Kerk and its relationship with the Dutch Royal Family. After the exhibit we walked a bit more through Amsterdam before heading home. What a fun day!
Mont des arts / Kunstberg
A couple of weeks ago, Claire and I explored a bit of Brussels before class. We wandered the city discovering the Mont des arts, Magritte Museum, Parc de Bruxelles, and the Royal Palace. It’s shame we couldn’t take photos inside the museum! I’m a big fan of Magritte and it was so inspiring to see the world’s largest collection of his works. Because we started with his earliest paintings, it was evident how his work evolved. Before visiting the museum, I was only familiar with his most famous paintings and signature style. But it turns out he was always experimenting. There was an entire room with paintings from his Renoir Period! If you are in Brussels, you must visit the Magritte Museum!
Matongé Mural
This summer I’ve been taking classes in Brussels, so I took the opportunity to do a bit of exploring. I had already been to Brussels a few times, but always to the Historic Center and other touristy places. I had heard about Matongé from a colleague and was curious to check it out! Luckily a classmate, Samy, was free after class to show me around – and thought it was funny I wanted to go and take photos. I especially wanted to get plantains, okra, and habanero peppers, because they’re difficult to find in Antwerp. Fresh produce was available in abundance with little markets located throughout Matongé! I bought some Congolese food to-go to try the next day.
With my plantains, okra, and peppers I made Quimbombó con Carne de Puerco y Bolitas de Plátano – okra stew with pork and plantain dumplings. It’s a Cuban dish with a heavy African influence. It’s a bit like gumbo. If you say “King Gumbo” really quickly you get the idea. Everything turned out really well except for my plantain dumplings. They didn’t stay in their form. If I make this again, I will just fry them rather than mashing them and making balls.
Wonton Soup
Mmm…wonton soup – I don’t know why I never thought to make it before! This dish was a success and I will definitely make it again. I made two changes to the recipe: 1) the supermarket in Chinatown sells wonton soup base, so I didn’t make my own and 2) I couldn’t find yellow chives, so I used scallions. I thought it was really interesting how the dish is prepared. You need two pots – one for the soup broth and the other with boiling water. When you’re almost ready to eat, you carefully place the wontons into the boiling water. Once they float to the top they’re ready, placed into each individual bowl, and topped with broth.
I wound up making a lot of wontons, so the next day Koen fried them in a wok and we dipped them in sriracha and sweet chili sauce – yum!
Bánh Mì with Lemongrass Pork
Bánh Mì is Vietnamese for baguette. Almost all Vietnamese sandwiches are served on bánh mì with mayonnaise and other toppings, thanks to the French influence during the Indochine period. This was my first attempt at making a Vietnamese sandwich. I marinated the pork overnight with lemongrass, shallots, garlic, and many other spices and served it with pickled carrots and daikon (radish), cucumber, cilantro, chili peppers, and mayonnaise. Yum! I found this recipe on Rasa Malaysia, where I find most of my Asian recipes.
Coconut Quinoa Spinach Salad
I love a good salad and Sprouted Kitchen’s Coconut Quinoa + Spinach Salad is delicious! So many flavors – raw spinach, quinoa cooked in coconut milk, shallots cooked in coconut oil, pistachios, pomegranate, and a lemon-thyme dressing. Fresh and perfect for the hot weather we’re having right now in Belgium! Although there aren’t too many ingredients it still takes time to make. First, I had to open all of the pistachio shells. Second, I never realized how hard it is to get all of the arils (the red drops holding the seeds) loose from the fruit. Normally I press the pomegranate for its juice and I wasn’t even sure you could eat the whole aril but luckily I have access to the internet and found out via Live Strong that not only are they edible but nutritious.
An American in Antwerp 