Pinterest.

By now the whole world is addicted I think. Probably one of the best quick applications to create a … digital scrapbook. I am a complete FAN. You will not believe how much time I can spend on Pinterest. If not online then using the iPhone app. Spending so much time on Pinterest might explain why I spend so little time on the blog, but as long as I get my food addiction (and not only) daily I am happy.

My current Pinterest loves covers decoration inspiration, DIY and hacks, photography inspiration (and the chance to discover some great food photographers) and of course … food. The visual impact of food is not something to be underrated. Simply browsing through photos I got to discover some great new recipes and some great party inspiration. Plus with the winter holidays coming closer I am sure that Pinterest will only become busier and more a source of inspiration.

Do you Pinterest?

It’s been so long I almost (almost!) forgot I have a blog.

What have I been doing since … well July it seems? A series of things:

• working. Lots.
• pinning. Lots.
• more working.
• travelling.

But here I am, back for at least today, blogging. Won’t be too long as a very sunny day is awaiting. However, as she is back and I absolutely loved her first series ‘Baking Made Easy’ and the book I thought it might be a good time to talk about Lorraine Pascale. I know, not the most technically difficult and sophisticated chef but that’s just it: I somehow don’t have time anymore for difficult. I love the idea of cooking or baking something that won’t need ingredients from Nepal and 1 week to simmer. Or maybe it’s just the fact it’s finally summer and we much rather prefer to be outside

Baking Made Easy.

Last minute invitation to a bbq. Local market just coming to an end. What should we bring? Dessert. Hmmm. The perfect excuse to use LP book and make a pear tarte tatin. Simple, easy and delicious. You will have to trust me on this as the time to take photos was limited so an iPhone photo has to do.

Pear  Tarte Tatin (serving 8 to 10)

1 quantity puff pastry (and yes, shop bought – see above time problem)

100gr butter

100gr caster sugar

5-6 large and equal pears, peeled, cored and halved

plain flour for dusting

finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 200C, gas mark 6. Melt the butter and sugar in an ovenproof frying pan over a low heat (I used the same deeper pan I usually use for quiches). Once the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved, turn up the heat and let it boil. The mixture will look all bubbly and oily, but keep the heat going until you get a honeycomb colour. 8  to 10 minutes should do.

Remove the pan from the heat and carefully lower the 1/2 pear in, cut side down. Seriously: carefully! The butter/sugar is very hot. Return the pan to the heat and cook for further 5-6 minutes, spooning the caramel over the pears. Remove pan from heat and arrange the pears cut-side up – I used the pasta tongs to put the pears in (and it worked!).

Roll out the pastry and cut out a circle big enough to cover the pan. Sprinkle it with lemon zest and place the pastry over the pears. Tuck the edges in and give it 20-25 minutes in the oven. Remove from the pan, and let it cool. Then (good tip from LP) tip the pear tarte tatin above the sink onto a larger than the pan serving dish.

And voila. Your very own effortless and quick pear tarte tatin. We had it with left over green tea ice cream and everybody loved it. Now I can’t wait to try something from her new show and book. Although there are plenty recipes more to try from Baking Made Easy.

Anything you cooked from LP and loved?

Coming back to Belgian fries …

Actually more to do with a lot of travelling and a lot of in-flight and/or in-train reading, amongst which Metropolitan, the Eurostar Magazine. And the interesting article on ‘Slow Fast Food’ on the current debate about listing la frite Belge on the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List, very much alike to the French gastronomic meal

I personally can totally see this given that indeed la frite Belge is unique. The sheer number of fritkots is a good indication of the loving relationship to the fries in Belgium. But then there is a whole lot of other Very Belgian specialities one could consider.

Any thoughts on this?

Of course there is a lot to say about Malaysia.

But for the moment life back in Brussels brought us the new i-application Fritkots Bruxelles. In search of the best Belgian frites? Then this application is probably right up your street. Have to admit have not yet tried it out yet (still suffering from roti canai & co withdrawal symptoms) but will do so and eventually report back.

In the meantime I have been busy Pinteresting (not sure this is a word … yet) so some foodie inspiration.

1. La moleculaire 2011 – is molecular gastronomy back? Was it ever out? We only tried it once at a cooking course – never so at home.
2. La nouvelle ripaille – the new ‘feast’ : cooking with offal and cheaper cuts. As boudin noir is a national dish not sure this is a snobbish trend … but it is at no. 22
3. Le fond des pots – pantry cooking for friends. Or more accurately, ‘left overs’ cooking.
4. Le retour du bouillon – the return of stock. But not stock as we know it. This time around served as sauce in chefy dishes. and sometimes even advertised by chefs.
5. Les confettis de legumes – vegetable confetti?!
6. Les néo-nems – after néo-beurre (no.12) now the néo-nems. Light and easy to make nems: crab/avocado/mango. What is néo and/or snobbish about these?
7. Les pieds nus sous la table – “In my house it’s clean enough to eat on the floor” so off go the shoes and we eat bear-feet.
8. La granité de légumes – interesting … vegetable granitas made of cucumber juice, gaspacho, etc
9. Les vinaigrattes hype – trendy new combinations for our summer salads (passion fruit/ ginger/ olive oil/ fleur de sel) or winter salad (pomegranate/ xeres wine vinegar).
10. Les fils de la cremiere – going ‘local’. Getting to know you butcher (in case you wonder, Frank), your baker, your fishmonger, etc
11. Le bon zeste – … zesting your limes, your lemons, your oranges, your grapefruits …
12. La cuisine coréenne – the new buzz? Korean food. Which is great. What would be even better? If the resto.be website would list more than 2 Korean restaurants.
13. Les salés – salted cupcakes.
14. Les conserves chic – using tinned food to create great toast.
15. Les mini-cocottes – serving food in mini plates/ mini cocottes. Not really my thing but very big on the FR ‘Un diner presque parfait‘ and NL ‘Komen Eten‘ version of Come Dine With Me.
16. Le lard sucré – bacon with a sweet twist: drizzle maple syrup on.
17. Le resto ou il faut réserver – I assume this is a temporary no. 37 as The Cube restaurant will close on the 3/07. However if you do want to spend a lot of money then this is your chance.
18. L’extincteur fashion – pop colour fire extinguisher? Why not. I’ll go for the green one.
19. La cuisine péruvienne ou sépharade – discovering and/or cooking from the Peruvian and Sephardi cuisines.
20. Le no. 7 – the owners of Easy Tempo seem to have opened a new restaurant ‘Le Numero 7′. Something to try out soon in our quest for Brussels top 5 restaurants.

Hope you enjoyed these 40 snobbish dinner details put together by elle belgique. I am not sure they are either snobbish or have all to do with dinners, but interesting to discover some and question other.

Do you have any snobbish pet-peeves when it comes to dinners?

Before starting and to avoid being sued for plagiarism please note this is by no means my idea but that of elle belgique. published in March 2011 I found the article to be thoroughly fun to read which is why I saved it. Forgot about it. Found if tucked between flight details and Kuala Lumpur tips in my agenda. Decided it is time to attempt translation and share it with you.

The article it entitled ’40 snobisme pour diner chic’ which I guess would translate to 40 snobbish things to do for a fancy dinner party.Voila, the first 20:

1. Le mix high et low tech – maybe doesn’t need much translation as such, but seems that bringing together high-tech kitchen gadgets together with low tech (rustic?) mortal and pestle is no. 1
2. Le plus croquant – all about the grainy and the crunchy. Nutty vinegraittes, seeds in salads, let it all go … nuts.
3. Les algues en enveloppement – using algae in everything and with everything.
4. Le fumoir – now this is something I would like to own. Problem is the space. A professional smoker for fish and/or meat.
5. Les assiettes creuses – deep bowls and dishes to display food restaurant style.
6. Les cristaux d’huile – oil crystals. Coming in all flavors possible oil crystals seem to be the next big thing. Really?
7. Les biochips – or otherwise called vegetable chips. I didn’t realize they are considered to be snobbish. Maybe the Airfryer suggested to make these at home might be. Beautiful though.
8. Le home made – notice the ‘le’ in front. Other than that self-explanatory.
9. Le world shopping – again, notice the ‘le. On a side note I wonder if it should not be considered French snobbish to keep on using English terms? Copenhagen – Noma. France – Espelette chillies. You get the idea: food visits when abroad or food shopping souvenirs. Which is something I always love doing.
10. L’apero chic – Milan or Barcelona style aperos (aperitif) in Brussels are the latest rage. And in all fairness combined with the amazing weather we had aperos have never tasted and looked better. Soon to start again? The Aperos Urbains.
11. Le jardin japonais – less to do with a garden (jardin) and more to do with Japanese style serving: square plates, Bento boxes, etc.
12. Le neo-beurre – eh? Not sure that simple flavored butter is really ‘neo’ but it does make it to 12. The latest recipe I discovered is for Umami Butter delicious:days.
13. Le petit electro pop – joining the pop colour revolution the pop colour kitchen gadgets. KitchenAid wins hands down. Although I have to say I am starting to fall in love with Bodum products. A lot.
14. Le sirop de Liege – well … need I say more?
15. Les sucres aromatises – there was the flavored salt revolution. Now on to flavored sugars – violet, cinnamon, rose.
16. La nouvelle etiquette – mix and match of old and new traditions. Inherited silver cutlery with trendy new (cheap) dishes. Lace table cloth with pic-nic style dishes.
17. La junk food chic – the new and good fast food. Trendy hamburgers (my favorite spot – Houtsiplou), bagels done NY style (my favorite place – APDM)
18. Les perles de saveurs – I admit, I didn’t know this one. Mini gel bubbles tasting of sea, lemon juice, wine etc. A nod to molecular gastronomy perhaps?
19. La coupe au carré – presenting food in … cubes. Kind of works, but I do wonder if it is necessary?
20. La revanche du tapioca – classic (for some), seems snobbish and new in Belgium. Reference is made to tapioca pudding with coconut milk. One of my favorite blog recipes is over at La Tartine Gourmande.

These are the first 20.In the coming days I’ll post the remaining 20.

Do you think of them as snobbish? Or is this more a cultural thing where Belgium thinks they are snobbish? Or maybe they are not snobbish at all. What would you consider snobbish dinner ‘dos’? It would be very interesting to see if snobbish translates the same the world over.

Actually there are two things I would like to tell you about: Swing’n'Cook and Groupon. Both in Brussels. Not much in common as such but interlinked.

Swing’n'Cook. Another cooking course/ class in Brussels. Some emailing, some checking of dates and 5 of us (girls power only) decided to sign up and go for Swing’n'Cook. None of us really had any idea about the place, the teacher, or really what level the course would be at. But as we are a pretty open minded crazy bunch off we went.

Florence welcomed us – bubbly and fun and somehow I felt I am back to being … 7 and in school. Blame it on the language barrier, blame it on the fact I had a busy week … but somehow I felt we have to … behave.  Introductions were made to the other people in the class (a total of 10) and we started. The class? French appetizers.

If I were to stop now and ask you what do you think of when I say French appetizers … you say?

Well you might be closer to French appetizers than I was. Because everything we started cooking from that point on was a big surprise to me (on many more levels than one) and had nothing to do with what I consider French appetizers to be. To set the scene, picture this: a group of adults between 30 and 50 all gathered to cook French appetizers. And now picture this: the class started off with … boiling an egg. O-K. Then off to chopping leeks. Again, O-K. Next up? Mixing cheese with thyme. Somehow there and then some of us lost it. Next came cleaning mussels (!), mixing the hard egg yolks with mayo and thus making an egg stuffing and so on.

All in all there was very little cooking going on if you ask me, but it was not all bad. We had tons of fun. Florence is great and probably shines with children. Seriously. The class we went to was fun but in reality I took very little away from it and would not recommend it to people I know in terms of value for money. Meaning to people over the legal European drinking age of 18. I’ll explain: if I were to have children who just start to get interested in cooking this is exactly the place I would send them to. Florence has the style and patience (God, did she have patience with our non stop giggling – merci!) that would be great with kids. Plus what can go wrong when boiling an egg? And I am sure many kids will simply beam with pride when making stuffed eggs and leek soup back at home for their parents.

Now you probably wonder what does all this have to do with Groupon? That’s up next.

For more cooking courses in Brussels please check this post. Know or have been to some which are not listed? Please let me know and I will update the list.

2011 update

… as it is really warm in Brussels these days, and I assume many will be firing the bbq tonight. So I thought I’ll re-post this simple, delicious and famous by now recipe (Jaden, thank you again for taking it up in your book!). Bananas and chocolate on the bbq. There have been many variations on this since so I hope you will enjoy it and let me know how it tasted

More foodie life in Brussels updates coming soon. Now off to enjoy the rest of this sunny Sunday …

2008 original post

I am still in complete and utter shock. Not only at how easy this (bbq’ed) dessert is but that I have never, ever tried it before. And I consider myself a foodie? Pfff…

(Sorry, if you already had these bbq’ed chocolate bananas before … then you might want to stop reading now. Because I am just starting to rave!)

We first tried these chocolate-bbq’ed-bananas in Champagne. Instant amazement. Instant satisfaction. BBQ perfection. Easy to make. Straight forward ingredients. And they take no time to make. Hello? What more would one want? What struck me most was they are so very easy to make, and obviously the combination tastes divine – how come I never thought of it? Was I living on a different planet all this time? How come every other bbq’ing person I know in Brussels never heard/thought of it? Do we know the wrong (BBQ) people? For a moment or two I felt that we have wasted years of BBQs. Years we didn’t know of this dessert.

Which left only one option: We made up for it ever since. Every time we have a BBQ, or are invited to a BBQ, we make these chocolate-bbq’ed-bananas. The upside of this? We ‘wow’ everyone as no one seems to have either had or heard of this BBQ dessert in Brussels. We’re like the BBQ-dessert-queen&king around town.

What’s more about these chocolate bananas is that they are not only dead easy to make, I have now started to have my own ‘range’. Let me explain. (You see, with practice, comes wisdom!) I tried this dessert with very ripe bananas, but bbq’ed they go way too mushy for my taste. I also tried them with black chocolate only, but that ended up being too bitter. So now my winning chocolate-bbq’ed-banana dessert is: take a firm banana, slash it in the middle with a knife, and then stuff (alternate) black and milk chocolate squares, in the middle. Place the banana on the BBQ while you have that last bite of meat, that glass of red or rosé, and then finish your BBQ with the ‘roasted’ chocolate-banana. You will have the most divine, gooey, lush dessert. Melted chocolate in the middle, baked, warm banana around, all held in a hot, black pouch (skin). De-li-cious!

Can one live on bbq’ed chocolate and bananas alone?

These chocolate-bbq’ed-bananas are also my contribution to the Monthly Mingle event, this time hosted by Live to Eat.

Our lives are so NOT what they used to be in 2009/2010. We are not talking big changes as such, just more work, part time living in Brussels, attention given to decorating the apartment and less so to food. And so on.

Of course we do eat. We even decided to give ourselves a push and with 2 other couples got a whole dinner – challenge – theme going. Something along the lines of Come Dine with Me but with a theme  (more on that eventually). The excuse? We did not have the time to see each other so this ‘forced’ us to schedule dinner dates. Sad, sad, sad

Back to the sunny chicken recipe. A very quick one which was entirely inspired by last week’s Saturday Kitchen. Surprisingly enough besides the chicken we had all the other ingredients in house. Even a jar of preserved lemons. Not sure why I bought them when I did but this recipe was good as any to use them.

Funny things preserved lemons. Somehow more bitter than fresh ones, but I do see how they work so well in this recipe. The chicken was tender, and tasted great. Perfect for a relaxed dinner at home. We served it with mash – I have to admit our pantry doesn’t stretch to quinoa. Although we will have to give it a try to see what the fuss is all about (it’s a very ‘trendy’ pulse if you ask me).

So here it is courtesy of Saturday Kitchen – recipe for the lemon and honey spatchcock chicken with quinoa and broad bean salad the perfect mash.

Seems 2011 started without me realizing it – or without me realizing there is still a blog in my life. A blog I miss but that I will slowly get back to. Lots of changes in 2010, more to come in 2011, but all in all a shift from only food to food and travel to more travel and beautiful things.

In the meantime I am absolutely in love with Pinterest so you can check out there what I have been looking at, getting inspiration from, wishfully thinking of.
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