Cod fillet with brocolli and red pepper curry

Today I put myself to the challenge and tried my third recipe. My homemade veggieburgers and egg and spinach pasty were a big succes, now it was time to really put myself to the test: preparing fish.
I once made fish before and it turned out rock hard and tough. Wasn’t edible at all. This time I would do it a little different and look up to see how it’s done. In the supermarket I found four cod fillets for only 2 euro. At home I defrosted them in cold water before getting started. (I’m warning you, the picture does not do justice to how good it tasted!)

Cod fillet with dill and parsley:
4 cod fillets | dill | parsley | lemon | salt | pepper | flour | 1 egg | paneer | butter | oil 
– Put the fillets on a plate and put some seasalt, pepper, dill and parsley on them.
– Cut a lemon in half and drizzle the juice over the fillets. Leave it for 10 minutes.
– Put down three plates, one with flour, one with beaten egg and water, one with paneer/breadcrumbs
– Heat a fryingpan with lots of butter and a bit of oil (so the butter won’t burn).
– Place the fillets in the flour, then in the eggmix and last in the paneer.
– Place the fillets in the pan and fry for 10 minutes until they’re golden brown. You might want to add sliced lemons to get an extra lemon flavour or add a bit of garlic.
– Serve with a lovely dipsauce like garlicsauce of mayonaise.

Perfect Rice:
I always hate to cook rice, because with me it always turns out to be too mushy or overcooked. Today I made the perfect rice according to a simple  rule: 1 cup of rice = 1 cup of water. Put this in the pan with a bit of salt and drop of oil. Put the heat up with the lit on. When the water starts to boil, turn down the heat and let it boil for another 10 minutes until the rice is ready.

Curry:
2 onions  | 2 red peppers | broccoli | 3 cloves garlic | curry powder | 2 cups of cream | salt | pepper
I just thought curry would be nice with the fish, so I made a broccoli & red pepper curry. I chopped the onions, garlic, red peppers and broccoli into pieces. The broccoli I chopped into small pieces so I didn’t need to boil it before stirfrying it.
Put the oil in the wok and add the onion, pepper and garlic. Fry until the onions are a bit brownish. Add the broccoli and a little bit of water. Leave 7 minutes on low heat. Add the cream and the curry powder and mix well until you get a nice sauce. Add some salt & pepper and perhaps some more spices for more flavour.

I hadn’t plannend on posting this one here, so the picture doesn’t look too great (I’m not a food blogger) but I’m telling you (and so do my roommates, who are boys and have high standards when it comes to food!) that it really is delicious!

Enjoy!

Spinach & Egg Pastry

On my bucketlist are a few goals that have to do with cooking. Goal # 78 says ‘Try out five new recipes’. A few months ago I tried to make homemade veggieburgers for the first time, and I loved it! Yesterday our fridge was empty again, as it always seems to be lately. I didn’t feel like going to the shop so I tried to make something with the leftovers in the freezer & fridge. I ended up making spinach pastries, vegetarian, healthy and delicious!! Here’s the recipe!

Ingredients for 4 people:
– spinach, freak or frozen
– 5 cloves of garlic
– one big onion
–  pepper, salt
– butter
– 4 eggs
– pastry
– grated cheese / feta

Needed: Frying pan / pot / oven / baking tin

Recipe:
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
2. Boil the eggs and cut the onion
3. Fry the onion and the garlic and add the spinach. Add some pepper and salt.
4. Defrost the pastry and make four squares.
5. Add the spinach to the pastry, put the boiled eggs (don’t forget to peel them first :P) in the middle, add the cheese and fold them into a small package.
6. Put a little bit of water and butter on the pastry packages.
7. Butter the baking tin so the pastry won’t stick to it.
8. Set the timer to 20 minutes, the pastry packages are done when they’re nice golden brown.
9. Enjoy!

Nice with fried potatoes and a tomato salad!

Baking Challenge; Make a GIANT cookie

On a boring day like today I like to watch movies, play with my cat, be creative, clean up (LIAR!) or look through old photos on my computer. The last thing I did today, and I came across some fun photos of an even more fun challenge. A few months ago I told my friends I’d like to bake a giant cookie. They already think I’m a bit nuts so no one really questioned why. Instead they asked me when I was planning on baking one. On a random day in November I made my wish come true and started making preparations for making the biggest chocolate chip cookie I ever made. It was awesome and delicious!

• 550 gr. flour
• 1 teaspoon bakingsoda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 250 gr. butter
• 180 gr. sugar
• 180 gr. brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 350 gr. dark chocolate (chopped)

Here’s me waiting for my cookie to be ready. 

Preheat the oven 190 degrees Celcius. Mix the flour with the baking soda and the salt. Mix the butter with the sugar, brown sugar and vanilla essence in a bigger bowl until it’s creamy. Add the eggs and mix them well with the butter etc. Add the flour in parts while mixing. Last but not least, add the chocolate pieces.
Butter the baking tin so the cookie won’t stick to the tin. Put the dough in the baking tin. Because you’re making one big cookie you don’t need to make small piles. Make sure the dough is not too thick, otherwise you end up making a cake 😉
Bake 10 – 14 minutes until cookie is golden brown.

Yayy!! It’s finished!

I could definitely recommend it to everyone! 😀

My Bucketlist #76. Make a Pie ✔

I’m a bit clumsy when it comes to .. eh.. everything. This is also a reason for me not to cook or bake too often, because I always manage to mess something up. My pastas are overcooked, my rice is always mushy and I always seem to put in ingredients that aren’t suppose to be in there in such big amounts. Still, I do love to cook and bake, ever since I was little I’ve been asking my mum if we could bake cookies or if I could help her cook dinner. That being said, I hate to clean up afterwards. Cooking means you’re gonna make a mess and that’s often a reason for me to just have an egg sandwich dinner.
My bucketlist has a few food-making related items and baking a pie was one of them. One of my friends invited me for her birthday barbecue this week and I decided this would be the perfect chance to cross off item nr. 76 on the bucketlist: Make a Pie. And which pie is better to make when you’re abroad than a traditional Dutch Apple Pie? My mum makes the best Apple Pie in the world, her’s is as flat as a pancake, but everyone loves it and truely misses it when she didn’t make it at one of our birthday parties. I’ve helped her make it many times, but just in case, I looked up the recipe on the internet. It’s pretty easy to make and delicious! And since my homemade brownies worked out awesomely I decided to make this pie a go. Here’s how I made it:

What do you need:
* Oven (this is a pretty crucial item for baking a pie)
* Cake tin
* Bowl (to make the dough in)
* Cups (for the apples)
* Cutting plate
* Knife

Making the dough:

* 500 gr. flour
* 300 gr.butter
* 4 eggs
* 160 gr. sugar

For the filling:
* 8 apples
* big spoon of cinnamon
* Little bit of sugar

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius.  Make the dough by mixing the butter, sugar, eggs and flour together. Let the dough settle for a bit.

Peel the apples and remove the cores. Then cut the apples in small cubes.

Add the cinnamon and sugar to the apples to give them more flavour.

Butter the cake tin and spread out 3/4 of the dough. Now add the apples.

Use the last bit of dough for the topping, you can do it any way you like. In Holland we usually do it as it shows on the picture.
You can put a bit of eggyolk on top of the dough to make the cake look nice and brown. Now your Apple Pie is ready for the oven for about 55 minutes.

Tadaa! Delicious apple pie! Best when a bit warm with whipped cream! 🙂

Lots of love,smiles and happiness,

Evalina

Homemade Veggieburgers

Who said vegetarians can’t have an awesome burger? Ofcourse you can buy different kinds of veggieburgers in the supermarket, but if you want to be extra healthy (no preservatives and all that stuff) and spend less money you should make them yourself! It’s really easy and so delicious! Also for all of ya ‘meateaters‘ out there! 🙂

What do you need to make such an awesome veggieburger:
– 1 finely chopped onion
– 3 eggs
– 350 gram chickpeas
– 350 gram corn
– 350 gram brown beans optional
– salt
– cayenne pepper
– 60 gram chopped parsley
– 230 gram breadcrums
– 230 gram grated cheese
– oil

How to make them:

Put the onion, eggs, chickpeas, beans, salt and cayenne pepper in a mixer and mix the whole thing. Put everything in a big bowl and add the parsley, breadcrums and cheese.

Make as many burgers as you like.
Heat the fryingpan and fry the burgers until they have a nice brown color.

They’re nice on a burger with some lettuce, tomato and mayonaise, but also on the saide of your potato and vege.

Enjoy your delicious vegetarian meal!

Tomato and mozzarella salad on toast

Recently dicovered snack or side dish: Tomato and mozzarella on toast!

Absolutely fabulous! Healthy and jummie!

And also important: Easy and fast to make
🙂

So give it a try, below you can find the recipe.

How to make this awesome dish:

Step 1: Toast the bread. It doesn’t matter what bread you have, but if you want to go for the healthiest option then go for whole grain!

 
Step 2: Slice the tomatoes like the picture above

Step 3: Put some pepper & salt on the tomatoes

Step 4: Put a bit of parsley on the tomatoes for extra flavour.

Step 5: Olive oil. Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil. It’s best to use extra virgin for the best flavour.

Step 6: Mozarella cheese 🙂

Put the tomatoes & mozzarella on your (buttered) toast. Enjoy!!!

Bucketlist #77. Make Awesome Brownies ✔

What do you need:
* 140 gram butter
* 4 eggs
* 340 gram brown sugar
* 1 theelepel vanilla essence
* 150 gram cacao
* 140 gram flower
* 150 gram roughly chopped white & dark chocolate
* Salt

How to make them:
Pre heat the oven at 170 degrees. Melt the butter and let it cool. Beat the eggs and add the sugar. Keep stirring until it’s a nice and smooth mixture. Then add the cooled butter and vanilla essence. Sift the salt, cacao and flower and mix it all up. Add the pieces of chocolate at the end. Put the mix on a buttered oven plate. 35 minutes in the oven, let it cool and.. let’s eat!

Warning: These brownies are so good you might want to eat them all yourself!

Lots of love,smiles and happiness,

Evalina