This and That

A few weeks ago I ordered new sunglasses. Between the Carnaval holiday and the shop being remodeled, it took awhile for them to come in. I finally got them this week! I guess there is some strange irony in getting new sunglasses in a country that has more rainy grey days than sunny ones, but every now and then there is a nice day. Plus, they'll come in handy when I go to Utah next month! Excuse crazy hair, I cycled through a tornado to pick these up (okay not really, but it was windy).

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Today we went to the thrift store and I was able to find a new (to me at least) food processor! It's obviously seen a few years pass in it's life, but it seemed to come with all of the blades that it would've come with when it was new. Martijn cleaned it up a bit for me and chopped an onion to test it out. This won't replace Little Choppy but I've had my eyes out for something a little bigger for awhile now. If my mom's Cuisinart would work here, I'd probably have kidnapped it. She's lucky we run on a different voltage here.

I also managed to find another JAJ Pyrex dish to match the yellow and orange one that I found a few months ago. It's the smaller dish and the lid has a bit of damage, but it's orange AND yellow. How could I resist?

Witness Protection

The ground level in our apartment building was remodeled last year and a new intercom/doorbell system was installed. When they were doing this, we filled out a form to get our new nameplates made. Not only did we have to wait 3 months to get them, but here is what they looked like:

I think we got put into witness protection because they not only flubbed up my name (which is pretty common here since Dutch words don't have double consonants at the end), but they gave Martijn a completely NEW last name. I wonder what sort of secrets they thought we needed protection for having.

De Genneper Watermolen

This is the Genneper Watermill (De Genneper Watermolen) which sits a little less than a mile away from my house.

The earliest writings referring to the mill date to 1249. Originally it had two wheels, one for grain and the other for oil. The mill is also featured in three paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

This mill has burned and been rebuilt several times over the past 750ish years or so. The most recent major renovation was in the 1960s, but in 1998 the roof burned off so there were some minor changes made. The wheel used to have a little roof over the top of it, but that wasn't replaced after the fire.

Currently the mill houses a feed shop on one side and a great place to buy flour on the other side (fitting for a mill I suspect).

I've found some great things here. I like their Super Volkoren bread mix a lot, and it works great in my bread machine. I was happy to discover that they have cornmeal there since that was proving to be a rather tricky item to track down. They also have small chocolate chips which a lot of people say they have trouble finding. I haven't bought any because I think they're a rather dear price at €5.95 per kilo. In addition to the aforementioned items, they also have several different kinds of cake mixes, spices, and dried fruit to add into your baked goods. Their website seems to have vanished, but if it reappears I'll amend this to add the info.

Baked Falafel

I love chickpeas (kikkererwten in Dutch- which translates literally to "frog peas"). I will just sit and eat them plain I think they're so good. Since that's not such a complete meal idea I'm compelled to find good ideas for things to actually incorporate them into. I discovered baked falafel sandwiches one day as I was perusing the interwebs and decided to give them a try. I've not actually had "authentic" (deep fried) falafel so I don't know how similar it is, but this tastes pretty darn good to me!

Baked Falafel

You will need:

2 cups cooked chickpeas (about 1 cup dried or 1 large can)
1/2 cup onion, chopped finely
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt (you can omit this if you used canned beans)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup fresh parsley

Combine all ingredients and mash together with a potato masher or a big fork. You can also do this step in a food processor but take care not to over "process" as the falafel balls get really crumbly and hard to work with if it's chopped too much. The texture should still be rather coarse, but make sure all of the ingredients are incorporated together and mixed well.

Since the pitas I put these into are usually rather tiny, I use my tablespoon measuring spoon to form small domes that I then gently flatten a bit. If I had larger pitas I would make larger balls because the small ones are tricky and tend to crumble if you're not careful. I'd recommend 1/8 cup to 1/4 cup size balls. Whatever size you decide to make, go ahead and roll them into balls and press them flat on your cookie sheet.

Brush a bit of olive oil over the top of each falafel. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes, flip the falafels and bake another 20 minutes. If you've done really small ones like I usually do, I'd cut the cooking time in half. Otherwise you'll end up with little blackened discs and a sad face.

Serve in a pita with some lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and top with some homemade tzatziki!

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Tzatziki

The finished product of this doesn't really photograph well (as evidenced by the above picture of it on the pita sandwich), so you can look at this nice picture of ingredients instead!

You will need:

1 cup yogurt (use your own, or a nice THICK Greek yogurt)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup seeded and minced cucumber (this was about an 8 inch chunk of cucumber)
1/4 tsp salt, more if you decide it needs more.

Mix all your ingredients together well and let sit for a few hours in the fridge. Taste and add more salt if desired.

I know that many people put mint in their tzatziki, but I prefer it without.

Homemade Yogurt

Sometime last year I found this little yogurt machine at a flea market in Germany. It sat on my shelf for awhile before I finally got brave enough to give it a try. I bought yogurt starter from a health food store in Utah, but you can use unsweetened unflavored yogurt with live cultures if you can't get your hands on a starter. I plan on making my next batch with some leftovers from my first batch.

This was a little bit time consuming because you need to bring the milk up to a high heat, then let it cool a bit and keep it at a consistent temperature for several hours afterwards. Luckily you don't need to babysit it the whole time, but you will want to have a thermometer to keep track of things. The yogurt machine is basically a little incubator. It keeps it at a consistent temperature. If you don't have a yogurt machine, I understand a heating pad placed under your container(s) and a towel on top will also work.

You will need:
4 cups milk (I used 1.5%)
1/3 cup powdered milk (from reading it looks like this is optional, but it will make for a thicker yogurt)
Yogurt starter or 1/2 cup pre-made yogurt.

In a heavy bottomed pan, slowly heat the milk over a low-medium heat. Add your powdered milk. You will want to bring the milk up to a temperature of 170 F (77 C) without it boiling. My thermometer is on a probe so I could hang it over the edge of the pan to keep track and I've also seen them with clips that hang on the side of the pan. Once you hit 170 F (77 C), remove from heat and let the milk cool. This time your aim is to cool the milk to a temperature of about 110 F (44 C). You can put the pot in the fridge so that it will cool faster, but I just let it sit out until it was cooled enough.

When the milk is cool enough, add your yogurt starter (or pre-made yogurt). Mix well.

Pour into your containers. As you can see in my picture, I have 6 little containers so I split the amount of yogurt between each cup. I don't see any reason that you couldn't just use one big jar.

You want to keep your yogurt warm (110F or 44C) for 4-8 hours. As I understand it, the longer you leave the yogurt the thicker and tarter it will become. I kept mine in the yogurt machine for about 5 1/2 hours and then put it in the fridge. Let the yogurt hang out in the fridge overnight and it'll be ready to eat the next day.

You can add your goodies into the yogurt before eating. This was pretty good plain, but I did add some sweetner and raspberries to one of the jars I ate.

Menu Plan Monday - March 2, 2009

click the banner and "Menu Plan Monday" for more menu planning ideas

Last week went pretty smoothly.  I didn't make the won ton tacos because I had less leftovers than I had anticipated.  I also ended up making bourbon chicken (watch for that recipe this week) and fried rice.  It's one of Martijn's favorite meals and he was having a bit of stress so I thought he'd enjoy it. 

This week:

Quinoa Mushroom Soup and Melt Sandwiches- I have this bag of quinoa that's been sitting on the shelves for months.  I look at it and put it back but THIS WEEK I SHALL CONQUER THE QUINOA! 

Pasta with Tuna and Tomato Sauce (recipe is in Dutch)- This has both broccoli and tuna fish in it and as luck would have it both broccoli and tuna fish are on sale this week!  I'm going to leave out the capers though, I really find them dreadful.

Fabulous Freezer Chicken Drumsticks - I have some of these in the freezer from the last time I made them.

Chicken a la Mayo - I'm going to try this but sub yogurt for part of the mayo. 

Fish Sloppy Joes - We haven't had these for quite a while and they sound tasty.

I'm not sure if Martijn will be having his not-always-but-usually-weekly
dinner this week and if he doesn't we'll probably add on something easy
like roasted chicken wings.

I'm really terrible with planning side dishes.  I usually toss in a steamed veggie of some kind, but I'd love to hear what your favorite (easy is a plus too) side dishes are.  I need to stash some ideas in my recipe files!

A New Challenge

I've been toying with the idea of trying to do a post a day again like I did in November for NaBloPoMo. I figure since we're beginning a new month today that March is as good a month as any to take the "challenge" again.

I had added a nifty little "Followers" widget to my sidebar, but Google has made some changes that I am not really happy with so I've removed it for the time being. If you have a blogger account you can still follow me by adding me in your dashboard. If you don't have a blogger account, you can add my RSS feed to your feed reader of choice by clicking the button in the sidebar. Make sure you click on "Posts" and not "All Comments." Otherwise, you'll only get the comments and none of the witty posts that I so often write (uh... just pretend with me, okay?).