Pia here, popping my head into the (blog)house kitchen to let you all know that Yvette’s cookbook called HOMEMADE will be hitting the shelves in August and I am soooo excited about it! Yvette has been working tirelessly on it for the past few months and I have been fortunate to see snippets of her work along the way. Not only has she written all the recipes, styled all the shots, and designed the whole book, she has also done all the illustrations. She’s a champion. And I’m a very proud friend.

I’m also excited to let you know that bookstores around Holland are now stocking a free mini booklet of Yvette’s upcoming book! How cool is that? Below is a sneak peek of what’s inside the sneak peek booklet, check it out…

Yvette’s husband photographer Oof Verschuren took all the gorgeous photographs, click here to see bigger shots of the booklet on Yvette’s blog.

Okay, that’s my (blog)house kitchen news. Over and out.

xx

PS oh! and yes, I meant to tell you, it IS all in Dutch. But who knows, perhaps there will be an English version to follow.  Maybe if we all ask nicely?

Hello People!

I just posted some photo’s of very dutch recipes with a modern twist on my blog, as I just cooked them for a dutch magazine called Margriet.

Pia really liked them and asked me to translate a recipe for you to read here in her kitchen. So of course I’m more than happy to do that.

These are little semolina puddings, that we treated as ‘Creme Brulée’. Semolina pudding is a quite old fashioned Dutch dessert. Usually it’s served with a red berry sauce. Now I liked this one, it had a kick to it, that came from the star anise: a spice I particularly like. Well here it is, do try it, it was delicious!

Spicy Semolina Crème Brûlée
For 4-6 people (depending on the size of the dishes)

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

500 ml liters milk (about 2 cups)
200 ml cream (about 1 cup)
1 / 2 vanilla pods, cut open and with the seeds scraped out
1-2 star anise (and more to garnish)
1 lemon (preferably organic), grated
75 g semolina
50 g sugar + extra for the crispy top

Tools needed: small heat resistant dishes or cups, crème brule burner… torch – burner ? Or a good grill.

Pour the milk and cream in a saucepan. Add the vanilla (pod and seeds), star anise and grated lemon. Heat just up to the boilingpoint and then allow to simmer on low heat for about 15 mins. Remove vanilla pod and star anise. Sprinkle the semolina in and the sugar, stir well. Bring to the boil.
Let the mixture stand over low heat, stirring regularly, until the pudding is as thick as custard. Pour the semolina pudding in the dishes and allow to set, put it in the refrigerator to cool completely.
Just before serving, sprinkle with sugar and heat it up with a crème brûlée burner for a crispy caramel top. Garnish with star anise and serve immediately.

………………………………………………………….

credits: Saskia van Osnabrugge took the photographs and Judith Baehner was the prop stylist.
Gees van Asperen wrote the recipe and I cooked it.

Hi All!

Long time no see, you might have thought. Yes, true: I have been busy. Busy with a lot of things, but most of all with my book! Yey, you have read that right, I am going to work on quite a huge volume, so I will be found behind my computer and at the drawing board more and more these coming months. I’m really looking forward to that. I will post some exercises I’m doing now and then. Everything must be practiced of course. So you will be my guinea pigs, if you like!
I’m so lucky to have a boyfriend who is the wonderful photographer Oof Verschuren. He took the picture and I cooked this recipe as I am trying to lose some pounds (which is not working by the way, I don’t know how Pia can indulge herself on all that chocolate all the time and still stay so pretty and slim). Anyway, I was looking for something light, but also fit for Autumn and filling enough for a dinner, without being too heavy, with potatoes and so on. This is one of my all time favorites, my mum used to make it in Ireland, It’s quite old fashioned, but I think good things survive time and still stay on top! I combined the dish with Gremolata, a classic Italian ‘pinch of parsley’, which goes very well with the meat.
Hope it gets you cooking too.
have fun,

Yvette

Dear people,

In between a lot of things I was doing today, I got an e-mail from a very good friend telling me he has a new exhibition coming up. The mail-message also showed a lovely painting he made of the Irish countryside. Being born in Ireland, it kept my thoughts occupied all day long. So I decided to give you an Irish recipe for Brack, to get it of my mind. Brack is an Irish cake: I could eat the whole thing all by myself. Without any help.

I got this recipe from our old neighbors and I still make it now and then. Even in our restaurant it’s often on the menu.I made this one in the picture for Margriet Magazine. Louis Lemaire took the picture and Judith Beahner was the prop stylist.

Please try it!

love,
Yvette

Hello all!

Here I am again, hope you all are doing well, I am!

This was my lucky week, not only because it was lovely weather over here in Amsterdam, I also spent a great weekend in my apartment in Paris too!

I do that often of course, but I’m always hard at work over there. Now I got to enjoy Paris: in the sun on my bike, or picnicking under the Eiffel tower with a bunch of friends. Verrrry relaxed!

When I returned to Amsterdam I received superduper good news! I had a few presentations the week before and everything went really well! I’m walking on air at the moment, I can tell you that! So I decided to give you a festive recipe, something for celebrating summer and happy moments, like the ones I had this week.

Cheers!

love Yvette

{**Pia’s note: please click on the image for a bigger size, print it out, and pop it in your recipe folder! Thank you Yvette! }

Hi dear bloghouse readers,

Welcome in Pia’s kitchen: where I promised you last week I’d prepare another Rhubarb dish for you. I haven’t taken a picture of the rhubarb in our garden yet, but I made you a drawing instead…

And a recipe, of course, for a rhubarb compote: so yummy! Serve it chilled with hot custard; serve it hot with cinnamon ice cream; or at room-temperature with chilled HANGOP. This is a dutch desert that everyone should have eaten once in his life – I think – so I’ll give you the recipe for that too. ‘Hangop’ means ‘to hang up’, and thats exactly what you have to do with it. Anyway, I suggest strongly to try it out!
( psst: Pia and I are secretly working on a project where this would fit in perfectly, so now you know: still keep it as a surprise for the others…)

I just did a story about ‘local food in season’ for Elle Eten (Elle’s Dutch food magazine) and of course I included these recipes. They are my favorite food! Saskia van Osnabrugge took the picture and Annemiek Paarlberg did the styling, I did the food, but I guess you knew that already.

Good luck!

love,
Yvette

Rhubarb compote with Verrry Dutch: Hangop
for 8, preparation: 35 min (plus 1 night)

The sweet and sour compote works really well in combination with the fresh and creamy taste of hangop.

For the rhubarb compote:

1 ½ kg rhubarb, well cleaned and cut in pieces of about 1 cm
750 g sugar, or more to taste
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cardamom pods
2 vanilla sticks, halved and seeds scraped out
3 clementines or 2 oranges

For the hangop:

1 liter yoghurt
1 liter cream
the seeds from 1 vanilla pod
the grated peel of 1 lemon
100g icing sugar
(30 min plus 1 night period)

FOR THE COMPOTE:
Fill a large baking tin with the rhubarb, sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla pods and seeds, mix well. Half the clementines, squeeze them over the rhubarb and tuck the peel in too. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for about 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 ° C. Turn the rhubarbmix over so now and then. When cooked, take out of the oven and leave to cool completely overnight. This also marinates your compote, but you can eat it right away if you cant wait.

FOR THE HANGOP:
Meanwhile, spread a clean tea-towel out over a sieve. Put the sieve on top of a bucket or big bowl. Pour the yogurt in it and cover with a sheet of plastic film. Put the whole thing away in the basement or in another cool place in your house for a night or even longer.
The following day: beat the cream with the vanilla, the lemon-zest and sugar. Mix the yoghurt from your sieve (it will be stiff, like fresh cheese!) carefully with the whipped cream.

TO SERVE:
Remove the spices from the compote. Fill eight glasses halfway with the compote and spoon a big dollop of hangop on top. Serve immediately: you will be thrilled!

HI dearest (blog)house readers,

As I am a great fan of rhubarb and it’s in the shops right now, I’m giving you a simple recipe for little tartlets with rhubarb and ricotta.

I have another nice recipe for rhubarb coming up, but still have to translate it in English, so I will post that one in a few days.

There are so many things that you can do with this vegetable, I can’t even start to sum them up. I am so lucky to work in a beautiful vegetable garden and of course we are growing our own rhubarb in it! I’ll take a picture of it and post it with the next recipe. Here is a picture of the garden, I took it a few weeks ago. Isn’t it lovely?

So,inspired as I am to grow the things I like to cook, I will let you know if something new will sprout out of the soil and into my head: be prepared! Pia, we have a lot of work to do here!!

I wrote the recipe all over the next picture – we worked on this recipe a while ago for a Dutch magazine called Margriet Magazine. Eric van Lokven was responsible for taking the photograph.

I hope you enjoy making this recipe!

Yvette