The one with cheese and filo pastry

Last sunday I was craving for a little something to snack on. Preferably not too healthy, and easy to make. Oh, and something that didn't require a trip to the supermarket. As a cheese aficionado, I always have cheese in the fridge. I had some filo dough as well and thought these two might be a match made in heaven.

What you'll need:

• 5 sheets of filo pastry
• 10 chunks of cheese
• 50 grams of butter
• ketchup, or something else for dipping purposes

Preheat your oven to 180°C / 350°F. Cut the dough in half, and melt the butter slowly in a small pan. Remove the pan from the heat and brush the sheet of dough on both sides with the melted butter. Place a big chunk of cheese on top, and wrap it like it's a present.

Place them on a sheet of baking paper, and bake them on the middle shelf of the oven for about 15 minutes, or until they are golden and crispy.

 

I served them with ketchup, but I can imagine they might taste good with a mixture of crème fraîche, chopped up garlic and fresh chives.

More crafting and cooking can be found at the super duper fun Linky Party below!

The one with the couscous and pumpkin

What you'll need (lunch for four):

• 1 cup of couscous
• 3 tablespoons of roasted pinenuts
• half a cup of plumped raisins
• 1 cup of vegetable stock
• 3 big hands of fresh spinach
• half a pumpkin
• 6 big tablespoons of fetacheese, in cubes
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

What you'll need to do:

Start by making the couscous as said on the package. Stir fry the pumpkin for a couple of minutes in the olive oil and add the vegetable stock. Let it simmer until the liquid has evaporated and the pumpkin is quite soft. Take this of the fire and while it's still warm, add the spinach and stir with a wooden spoon. When the vegetables have cooled down a bit, add the couscous, together with the feta cheese, pinenuts and raisins.

We ate this dish lukewarm, but it can be eaten cold too. Enjoy!

The one with all the Oreo's

What you´ll need:

• 250 grams of (frozen) blueberries, defrosted
• 3 tablespoons of water
• 1 tablespoon of cane sugar
• 14 cookies
• 2 extra cookies for serving
• 1 litre of vanilla icecream

What you'll need to do:

Take the icecream out of the freezer, and let it soften a bit. Crumble the Oreo's, transfer the icecream to a big bowl and add the crumbled cookies. Quickly stir them through the icecream using a fork. Transfer back to it's original packaging, and put it back in the freezer. It needs a couple of hours there.

Slowly heat the blueberries, together with three tablespoons of water and 1 tablespoon of canesugar in a small saucepan. It needs to slowly boil for a couple of minutes, until the sauce starts to thicken. You can make this in advance, or right before serving. I made this in advance, so I used the sauce cold. But I think it might taste as good (or maybe better) warm!

Crumble the two extra cookies. Serve in a bowl or glass, first add the icecream, after that the sauce and as a finishing touch some cookie crumbles.

Have you discovered any new recipes? Do you have a sweet tooth and do you like desserts as much as I do? If you're in need of more kitchen-inspiration, more recipes are over here. 

The one with the things I liked this week (part 49)

Temperatures are dropping, so a hot cocoa was in order. This week I received an order from Etsy shop Atéa Lane I've ordered packaging supplies from this shop a couple of times now, and Kay Elisabeth always adds some paper goodies to my order. My friend Mandy went on a shopping spree a while ago and got me some nice extra warm socks. Hooray for Mandy, and warm socks. Gift wise it was a very good week, because I also got a new cookbook.

A cooking experiment took place last weekend, not from the new book, but a recipe I pinned a while ago. Contrary to most pinned recipes, this one actually got cooked. I really had intentions to cook healthier in the new year. But when Jamie Oliver tells you to eat pasta with cream, mascarpone and parmesan cheese, you listen. At least I do.

Also, Zara started it's sale after Christmas, and it came to mind that the last addition to my wardrobe was on a day when I was able to sit outside in the sun. For at least 3 months I have been spending most of my spare time together with a blanket and hot water bottle on my couch, so I thought a little something for my closet was allowed.

The one with the brussels sprouts pesto

As most kids, I used to dislike brussels sprouts when I was young. Fortunately for me, my mom also didn't like these miniature cabbages, so I didn't have to eat them very often. A couple of years ago, I discoved that they can actually taste pretty good! They are quite the healthy guys, containing vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid and dietary fibre. Also, they contain sinigrin, which is believed to protect against colon cancer.

What you'll need (dinner for 4)

• 350 grams of brussel sprouts
• 2 (small) cloves of garlic
• 6 tablespoons of roasted pinenuts
• lots of extra virgin olive oil (around 1/4 cup)
• pasta for four
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 60 grams of grated parmesan cheese for the pesto, plus extra for the pasta.

 

Wash the brussels sprouts, remove the bottoms, the outside leaves and slice in half. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, add the sprouts and cook them for 3 minutes. Take them out of the pan, into a colander and let them cool down. If you're in a hurry, you can rinse them with cold water.

Prepare the pasta, as said on the packaging. While the pasta is cooking, Toss together the brussels sprouts, garlic, the pine nuts, and grated cheese in a blender, and mix until it's smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the pesto to the pasta and serve with extra cheese on top.

 

More recipes can be found over here

The one with the baking experiment

 

Last weekend I experimented with some baking. I didn't use a cookbook for this one, but took my grandmothers 'normal' cake recipe, and added some tasty extras.

Here's what went in it:
- 200 grams of butter
- 3 free range eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 cups of cane sugar
- 8 chopped up dates
- 50 grams of chopped up dark chocolate
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
- a pinch of salt

Here's what I did:
I started by preheating the oven at 170 ºC. I mixed the butter and sugar in a large bowl with the hand mixer, till creamy. Then I added the sugar, baking powder and a pinch of salt. After that I mixed the flour in, bit by bit. With a wooden spoon, I stirred in the chocolate and the dates. I poured the batter in a buttered caketin and baked it for about 50 minutes. The last 15 minutes I covered the tin with a sheet of tin foil.

This is how it tasted:
Not to toot my own horn, but it tasted pretty good! Next time I will add more chocolate and dates. 

I love the pretty packaging of the dates, and the fact that they are lucky!

Have you baked something good lately?

The one with Nigella's almond cake and the high tea

Last weekend was high tea-time with a couple of girlfriends. We all made something, and I opted for Nigella's 'easy almond cake'. It wasn't very difficult to make, but easy, no. The cake has marzipan in it, and it was hard work to mix it in with the rest of the ingredients. The cake isn't exactly healthy, so the workout for the upper arms was very welcome. Instead of the vanilla extract I added lemon zest. It was worth the effort, and like Nigella's other recipes, tasted very good. The other goodies are the result of my friends' cooking experiments.

'easy' almond cake

brownies with walnuts and pear

bread with guacamole and wraps with hummus

cinnamon pull apart bread

tarte tatin with patato and onion

The one with the cauliflower

A very deliciously looking cauliflower-soup caught my eye on Pinterest. It didn't taste half as good as it looked. Normally, I don't say no to a second bowl, but with this one I did. I didn't use the whole cauliflower, so the rest of it was turned into a salad the next day. This one did taste well. I tossed in some lettuce, arugula, red bell pepper, radishes, danish blue cheese and a mustard-honey-dressing.