This is a recipe for a quick, dry, risotto as I don't like my risotto wet.

This is what you need (serves 4):

400 gram boneless chicken or chicken filet
500 gram frozen peas
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
Risotto rice
2 chicken stock cubes
Pepper

Cook the risotto rice in chicken stock - you can use one of those cubes. Steam the boneless chicken in a little bit of chicken stock, add some pepper and put the lit on. When the chicken is done cut the chicken in small pieces, chop an onion and press two garlic cloves and put back in the pan with the chicken and the frozen peas. Drain the rice and toss in the pan with the chicken, onion and peas. Stir well and you're done.

We should eat fish because fish is high in protein, vitamins, minerals, and omega 3 fatty acids, and can reduce some problems associated with PMS, memory loss, cardiovascular functions, colon cancer, and stroke. I try to cook something with fish twice to three times a week.

My 'fish dish' is really simple (as is all my cooking) and serves two.

Put two pieces of salmon in a baking dish, season them with black pepper and sea salt. Now you want to toss a whole lot of 'flavor makers' on top, here is a list of things you should chop:

cut one red union
two garlic cloves
one lemon
fresh thyme and rosemary

Season the prawns with fresh parsley, sea salt and grated garlic. Poor some extra virgin olive oil over the whole dish and put it in a pre-heated oven on 200°C for 45 minutes. Do not cover the dish with anything to get a nice roasted effect.

Serve with some new potatoes and a fresh kitchen sink salad.

Oven Temperature Conversions

This is a real simple way of putting something delicious, pretty and quick on the table. This is what you need to do;

Buy a simple cake from the supermarket or bake one yourself, slice the cake in 3 layers, mix the whipped cream with sugar and strawberries. Paste between layers and put in the fridge to keep it stiff and take out once you want to serve it to avoid the layers to collapse. You can also add some fromage frais (quark) to keep it stiffness. And for the finishing touch, sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.

I have a bit of a strawberry thing and lately I've been making lots of desserts whit strawberries in them.

Today I made some strawberry pastries using frozen puff pastry.

What you need:

Frozen puff pastry
1 egg
Crystal sugar
Strawberries

How to prepare:

If the pastry isn't already a square, cut a bunch of squares. Whisk the egg in a bowl and paste some on the pastry. Dice strawberries and put a tablespoon in each pastry square. Fold them so you get a triangle. Paste egg on the outside. Sprinkle crystal sugar over the egg and put in a preheated oven at 200°C. Bake until they are brown - aprox. 15 minutes.

Please do not fall of your chair, you're not losing your mind, you haven't stranded on a different website that looks at lot like mine. It's true and yes ... I did two posts in one day ... it's almost scary.

I just want to tell you about what's going with the house and me and the garden and the mess and the really filthy cat, who's turning my bedding black right this second. We're fine, all is fine and 8 months after we've started this project we're still married and quite happy with one another, we still don't want a baby, I still want a dog, Bo still doesn't - we'll have rabbits instead and next year, when the back garden is done, we'll have chicken. We thought we have done so little but when one of my mum's friends told me how impressed he is by how much work we've done and quoted this amazing line I'm going to tell everyone because it's so good; "you've done an awful lot of work but because you still have to do an awful lot of work it seems you haven't done nothing" Brilliant! This man is brilliant and I'll start to phone him weekly for words of wisdom. Last night they cleaned up the whole front garden and now I have to decide what to do with it, the hard task. We have a fantastic working kitchen and all my pots and pans and things are in place an already cooked some delicious meals. only we need doors, quite a lot of them. The kitchen cupboard, Bo made, needs doors and the toilet needs a door. Also the kitchen doors need to be fixed and I have to make curtains When all that is done my kitchen will be revealed on an amazing website for the first time. I'm really excited!

PS: click on the image and it will take you to Flickr where most questions will or are be answered.

Today I felt like some good carrot cake and made some Martha Stewart carrot cake cupcakes using the Japanese cupcake liners Marné sent me for our annual Christmas swap.

Regular readers know that I do not extremely stand out for my excellent baking skills but I keep practicing. Of course I read the instructions wrong and didn't fill the liners with enough batter so I ended up with teeny tiny cupcakes. Being inventive, and not want to waste perfectly tasting tiny cupcakes, I made cupcake sandwiches instead. I smeared cream frosting on one and stuck the other one on top and believe me, it's delicious!

Jugs by GreenGate
Mushroom bucket from Velda

Thank you so much for the your comments on my previous post. I really enjoyed reading them all, they are extremely therapeutic. I'm so chuffed about the comments I get in general, they are so long, heartfelt, sincere and intelligent. It feels like a have a whole bunch of new friends I can discuss things with and I don't even know you all.

I just feel like hugging my screen each time I get a lovely comment and I sometimes feel quite frustrated that I can't do anything back. So I baked you a heart shaped pear pie.

This pie is really easy to make, just follow these simple directions and you'll be ready to stuff your face in no time.

Preheat your oven to 180 °C (350F)

Peel the pears, toss them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

To make a perfect pie crust follow this recipe:

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Bake for an hour

Serve with whipped cream, vanilla, cinnamon or pear ice cream or if you want to go nuts serve all on on big plate. Make sure the pie is hot for the extra yummy factor.

Enjoy!

The dish is by Emile Henry and the tea towel by CK.

A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SENT ME LOVE MAIL, IT MADE MY MOTHER WEEP!!

So what's up?

I took a little unannounced blog-o-holiday because I needed one. I got a bit fed up with some e-mail I received, as you may know I'm quite sensitive about my e-mail, so I just didn't feel like updating. I don't like it if people ask me bluntly "are you going to post something new soon?" or push me to do something. I'm not good at dealing with that.

But I'm back celebrating the last month of the summer we probably never going to get and that makes me happy. It's not been a bad summer for me personally and I'm actually really happy for people who plan their summer holidays in March because they get their money's worth. It's such a waste to leave the country to spend two weeks on a French campsite when it's tropical hot at home. At least now they're able to say "oh we had such a lovely weather, I heard that it rained here most of the time" - arrrghh!!!

I've been playing around in the kitchen, mostly working on my baking. I baked blueberry muffins with blueberries I picked from my own garden.

I've also made a mucky mat from Cath Kidston oilcloth.

It's really useful because I can roll it out put all my mucky baking stuff on it, wipe it clean, roll it up again and put it in the kitchen drawer.

I've decided to start a little shop and sell useful kitchen stuff I use myself from CK scarps. Watch out for that. Oh and aren't you proud of my muffins?

Oops I forget to tell you where I got some of the items. The jugs are by GreenGate, the muffin liners I bought at the Hema, a Dutch department store, the pictured DVD is The Royal Tenenbaums and the mucky mat is by me soon available in The Yvestown Shop.

This is easy, you can try it at home!

I can't bake but I love to decorate. So when we were invited to come over for dinner at my friends house last night I wanted to get her kids something. I made these from pre-made cupcakes, ready made icing and used my food coloring paste and decorations to do the rest.

I started off the fancy way trying to make pretty swirls but it made a hell of a mess and the icing went too fast. In the end I just picked a knife and smeared the icing on top of the cupcakes. It was done in a jiffy and the ooh's and aah's when the kids opened that tin were absolutely worth all the mess that I made in my kitchen.

Try it, it's a great, cheap and simple gift to give.

Click here for a larger image

Easy peasy this noodle soup

To put in the soup:

• egg noodles
• chinese cabbage (paksoi)
• celery
• 1 egg for 2 people, 2 for 4 people etc.
• chicken filet
• vegetable stock

• soy sauce
• nutmeg
• black pepper

Stephanie from Creature Bug tagged me and when we're talking food ... I'm in!!!

"Name five foods, dishes or otherwise, that were a part of your childhood, and that you sometimes miss when nostalgia gets to you..."

1. Back in the eighties it wasn't common yet that both parents worked but my parents did. I grew up with the same nanny for 11 years who cooked, cleaned and was always there for me when I got out of school with biscuits and tea. My parents always arrived home at six and we always shared a meal with the whole family every night. There was one night that was special and that was Bakker Bart (Bakery Bart) night. It's a chain of bakeries in The Netherlands and they are to die for. My mother worked in the city as a teacher and, I think it was on Thursday, she'd pick up all sorts of delicious bread at Bakker Bart and a variety of fresh fish at the market. Our table was packed with sliced bread, buns, rolls, pigs in blankets, fish and fish salads and we could pick and mix. I LOVED IT!!
2. The Surinamese chicken pie I've made recently I loved as a child. My mother isn't such a cook so we only got a chance to eat it at parties. I remember my cousin making them in little cups. Me and my sister were always having a close watch so that the pies wouldn't go fast because food that was left over on one of my mother's party was OURS!!
3. Remember Sherbet Fountain? Love it, can't get it here anymore!!
4. Now that I'm talking sweets. We used to have these people selling sweet in their hallways. You used to buy them for 5 up to 25 cents a piece that way you could collect a good filled bag of a mixture of sweets for about a guilder (woo the good old days) Because of stupid new laws and tax laws people can't sell in their own homes anymore.
5. We used to have Sunday outings which started with breakfast on my parents bed and sips of coffee with lots of sugar and milk. After that we would get in the car and drive to a castle, museum ... something cultural. We would end the day at a restaurant and me and my sister could pick the restaurant. My sister always picked something fancy (she still does) and I always picked something rustic with lots of grilled meat, country potatoes, deer heads hanging over fireplaces and warm woolly rugs on the floor. Those places are vanished now as people in The Netherlands care more about how beautifully their plates are decorated and how hip the restaurant is. Less is trendy!! One can get the rustic atmosphere at a pancake restaurant but they're always packed with screaming kids and well, they only serve pancakes!!

1. Jes because I know she works hard in the kitchen too
2. Dawn because she's a kitchen princes
3. Bea because I love ... I LOVE!! German food
4. Samantha because I miss sponge cake with syrup
5. Leslie because I don't even know if she eats at all!!

1. Cuisine et Compagnie
2. French Word-A-Day
3. Cucina Testa Rossa
4. Creature Bug
5. Yvestown
   

My mother is originally from a country in South America that used to be a Dutch colony before 1977, Suriname. My mother isn't such a kitchen princes but she's excellent in organizing parties. I learned a lot of the Surinamese kitchen by peeking over my cousin's shoulder who always catered my mother's parties. And when I received my first Surinamese cookbook (the only one) I was so excited that I couldn't wait to start experimenting.

This is my absolute favorite dish. It takes forever to make but trust me, you'll gain a lot of friends serving it!

For the stuffing:

• 500 grams Chicken filet
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg
• butter
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1 large union
• 2 tomatoes
• ½ a pot of peas
• ½ a pot of carrots
• parsley
• 3 boiled eggs

• 500 grams flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 200 grams butter
• 2 battered eggs
• a dash of milk