Mango tiramisu

A nice evening with some sun between the days of rain means eating outside! Altough that it was a bit cold,  so we were sitting close to each other and wearing thick sweaters (cozy!), it was nice to spend dinner-time in the garden. It was mothers day so we had to come up with a lovely dessert. No raspberry tiramisu today, but a new -try out- recipe: mango tiramisu! So fresh and perfect for spring days!

What we need for 5 portions:

1 ripe mango

250 gr mascarpone

250 gr whipped cream

the zest of an orange

some lime juice

150 gr ladyfingers

optional: some yogurt (to make it a bit more fresh)

5 jars

To do:

Beat up your cream together with some lime juice. 

Then fold in the mascarpone and add, if you like so, again some lime juice. You can add to this mixture some yogurt as well, to make it a bit more fresh.

Crumble the ladyfingers and put half of them on the bottom of your jar.

Pour over half of you mixture. Now put on some orange zest and half of the mango pieces. 

Repeat this one more time the same way.

And ready is your delicious, fast, summer dessert! Enjoy!

Spring and vegetables

The weather isn't that nice this spring, but when you take a look in our orchard you can tell that it's almost summer. Our appletrees are amazing! They are in bloom and have these cute pink flowers. Some of them still closed, other ones wide open. It's just an amazing view..

Our greenhouse is making progress! In one month (photo 1 to photo 2) the lettuce has grown like weeds, and we can almost plant them outside in the garden. 

Beside the lettuce we have beetroots, carrots, radishes, courgettes and peppers in our greenhouse to make them ready to go outside. The potatoes, onions and artichoke are already standing in the garden. Now it's waiting for them to be ready to be prepared and eaten! Mjum! 

We do also have some non-vegetables in our greenhouse: herbs! We've started with mint and basil. They need a lot of warmth and can't withstand rain, so we keep them inside. After quite a long time they have finally started to grow! See down here: our little basil plants! (:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lovely chocolate chip cookies, made with our KitchenAid (and our hands, the ingredients and the oven offcourse!)!

When you don't have much at home but you can't go to the supermarket, and you do want to make something delicious, fast and something with chocolate: try this!

You will probably have most of the ingredients at home. And perhaps some pieces of chocolate left? (although it is hard to eat only a bit of chocolate and leave the rest for an other day or time..) I hope you do, so you can make these in a few minutes and eat them straight away from the oven. (mmm, so nice, soft, warm and delicious!)

What you need:

This makes about 14 cookies

150 gr unsalted, soft, butter

125 gr light brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1egg yolk

300 gr flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

300 gr chocolate chips/chunks

And what to do:

Preheat your oven to 170 C.

Put you butter with the sugar in a bowl and mix this together.

Pour in you egg, your egg yolk and the vanilla extract and mix this until you have a creamy mixture.

Into this mixture goes your flour and baking soda. Make sure you don't overmix this. Stop when everything is just mixed up. 

Now fold in your chocolate pieces and done is the mixture!

With an ice scoop you can make perfect sizes. Just fill it up and squeeze it, so the mixture falls out. Push them a bit down until you have the thickness you like.

Bake them for about 15-20 minutes, until they are a browned on top and a bit soft inside.

Let them cool a bit, but they are irresistible when they come straight out the oven! 

Enjoy!

KitchenAid IT IS!

Yay Yay Yay Yay!!

Look at this! We finaly have got a KitchenAid!

We are amazed, stunned, overwhelmed, happy and full of joy! We always wanted to have this machine, but we didn't know which one to buy or where to get the best one. We went to hundreds of stores to stare at these lovely colours and amazing machines for hours, but still didn't know which one to buy. Finaly, after a long, long time, the time was there: we were going to buy one!

As a surprise for Margot I bought the yellow one -which she would die for!!- on my way home from the south of Holland (also with the asparagus story). Back home I couldn't wait to show her our KitchenAid, but I waited until we were going to eat with the family. And what a surpise! She was so happy! We unwrapped it together and explored it the rest of the evening. And -offcourse- made plans straight away to bake some nice cookies, cupcakes and whip up some cream. After the test it was clear: our machine is fantastic!

We are going to use this one a lot!

Finally! It's asparagus time!

The asparagus season has started a few weeks ago, and that means we can finally eat this lovely meal again! Everywhere along the road you can see - and buy! - them, so on the way from the south of Holland to our home we stopped somewhere and bought 2 kilo's of fresh asparagus.
The same evening - offcourse - we prepared them and enjoyed it with the family. However, we thought it would be nice to post this recipe for you. Read on and discover!

You don't need a certain amount asparagus for 4 or 6 people (or more or less). You can choose your own amount, with what you feel comfortable. We love to have about 4 per person. 

We used, for 6 persons:

2 kg asparagus

1 kg small potatoes

6 eggs

500 gr ham cubes (smoked)

125 gr butter

To do:

Cut your potatoes in the size you like. Put them in a preheated oven (180 C) with some oil, salt and pepper. Keep you eye on them and toss them now and then. They need to stay there for about 30 minutes, or until they are softened, crispy and lightly brown.

Peel the asparagus until there are no tuff pieces left.

Put them straight standing in a pan with boiling water, with their tips just above the water. Let them cook for about 20 minutes, or until they are soft and flexible.

In the meantime you can boil your eggs. When you like them to be a bit soft, take them out after 10 minutes or so. Otherwise you can let them boil a few minutes more.

Now melt the butter in a saucepan. When it has melted completely, pour in your ham. (Make sure that you don't bake the meat, because you want this to be a warm buttersauce with heated ham cubes). When the sauce is warm you can peel your eggs and cut them in four pieces (or other sizes and shapes) and warm them up in your sauce as well.

Now put your potatoes on your plate with the asparagus and pour the sauce over. Serve -and eat (: - immediately.

Enjoy!

Homemade pesto

PESTO. Who doesn´t likes it? 
It's one of our favorite go to ingredient with pasta, bread or pizza. 


Today we made it ourselfs again for a lovely pasta pesto with broccoli, peas and parmesan cheese. Who know's, maybe we will share that recipe sooner or later! For now, let's move on to the pesto!


You will need:


1/2 clove of garlic
salt and pepper
basil, about 3 handfuls
lightly toasted pine nuts, about 1 handful
parmesan cheese
olive oil
lemon


To do:
Pound the garlic with a pinch of salt and the basil in a pestle and mortar. 

Then add the pine nuts and pound again. 

Put the mixure in a bowl and add half of the parmesan cheese. Stir gently and add a bit of olive oil.

It needs to bind the sauce and make it a oozy consistency.

Keep adding cheese and olive oil untill you are happy with the taste and consistency. 

  

If you want to, you can squeeze some lemon juice in the pesto but it isn't essential. 

Simple and delicious. Enjoy!