The way the Dutch grill, or barbecue, is by lighting charcoal under a rack and roasting several [...]]]> Dutch people have told me that the way I grill is all wrong. There’s no charcoal in my grill, my food is properly cooked  and has a nice color. So I must be doing something wrong, right?

The way the Dutch grill, or barbecue, is by lighting charcoal under a rack and roasting several kinds of meat over that. The result is burnt meat with a raw interior. You eat outside with sides of salads and bread and sauces, preferably embellished with ants and sand.

Now that the weather is getting nicer, I’m grilling more than I did. It’s just more comfortable to stand outside now. We still eat inside though, from actual china with silverware (no paper and plastic) as around dinnertime it’s starting to get chilly outside. And because we prefer not to eat ants. It’s strange, I know. But that’s just who we are.

Last weekend I decided to finally smoke something on that big fancy grill of mine. I’d bought some hickory chips and found a suitable aluminum bowl. I soaked the chips and placed them in the bowl, directly over the flames of my grill. I placed a lightly seasoned piece of chicken breast on the other side of the grill, so it wouldn’t cook quickly and close up to the smoke. I closed the lid, kept my eye on the temperature once in a while and just let it go.

Since my grill is in essence a grill and not a full-on smoker, it doesn’t render an overly smokey product. Especially since it took a little longer than I had estimated. So about 10 minutes before I wanted to eat dinner, I moved the chicken closer to the fire. Still not on top, but close enough to get some extra heat and seal the deal.

The result was a lightly smoked chicken breast flavored with a hint of mixed seasoning, and a subtle smokey flavor. It was moist and wonderful. No blackened raw product, but tender moist fully cooked white meat with a slightly tanned exterior.

I served the chicken with a nice fresh spring salad. Tomato, red pepper, red onion, lots of cilantro and some pink sea salt and olive oil scooped over some young leaf lettuce.

We ate at a nice set table. Our food wasn’t hazardous to our health, not raw, nor black, and not embellished with ants and sand. We loved the subtle taste of our chicken and the strong and powerful taste of our fresh spring vegetables.

So please, charbecuers of the world, tell me, what exactly did I do wrong?

I guess it [...]]]> I can hardly believe that it’s 4 weeks ago today that we actually moved. Time surely flies by.
It feels like yesterday that we first went to look at the house, then took care of all the paperwork, then closed on the house, worked on it and moved.

I guess it can’t have been yesterday, as there’s no way you can do all that in a day. A week though, that’s more like it. Not a month since we’ve moved.

The house is nowhere near done. We still have more stuff to move in from storage (we wanted to wait with that until most boxes were cleared out), we still have some painting to do (mainly hallways). Art needs so be hung (And figured out, what goes where).  We’ve still got ways to go b efore it’s finished, but we’ve made good progress.

We have lights everywhere. The closet is fully functional and clothes are unpacked. The kitchen only really needs a bigger table. The second fridge works like a charm. My great-grandma’s closet has found it’s place (And is filled with glasses and bottles of wine and liquor). The admin-room and the crafts room have been painted and shelving systems and cupboards have been put up. Most of my crafts-stuff has found a home even.

And most important, we have a name plate on our door.

L claimed that the name plate didn’t have anything to do with owning the house. And I’m sure legally he’s right, but emotionally, that’s when the house was really, utterly, completely ours.

We’ve found our routines, I’ve started cooking again. We’re able to keep our kitchen looking nice, just because there’s room to place things. Sure, I still want my nice grocers cupboard, at some point, because it looks pretty and it would give me the opportunity to spread some things out even more. But it’s not a necessity, because everything has it’s place.

What’s funny is how you keep finding new things you really enjoy or appreciate. The lazy-suzan-cabinets I have, for instance. In the old place I had a cupboard that just went around the corner and you’d have to sit on the floor and remove half the contents before you could reach something. Now the corners have a turning system, which works wonderfully. I have 2 of them, one keeps my pots and pans, the other keeps containers for leftovers and baking stuff (pie pans, cake pans, muffin tines, a turntable, you name it.
I’d figured it’d be nice not to have to reach behind things, but I never realized just how much I would love that system.

Another thing I love is the bathtub. That’s one I knew I loved though. We didn’t have a tub at the old place. Heck, I haven’t had a real tub in any of the houses or apartments I’ve liven in in Holland, not since birth. But I do so love soaking in a bathtub. And I’ve done so quite a few times already. The sauna isn’t used as much as the tub, but then again I didn’t expect it to be used extremely often. So far we’ve used it twice, and I anticipate us using it about once a month. And that’s fine. It’s nice to have a sauna, really nice, but I really don’t need to sit in it every day.

All in all, 4 weeks later, you could say we’ve done a lot. Especially considering we both have full time jobs, so there’s no time to work on the house during the week. Slowly but surely we’ve found (And are still finding) our new routines. And most importantly, slowly but surely it’s growing from ‘our new house’ to ‘our home’.
As Dorothy has told millions and millions of viewers, “there’s no place like home”.
I’ve found mine!

Thursday was moving day. At 8am the movers arrived at our old house and after a cup of coffee they started loading [...]]]>
As I’m writing this I sit at my kitchen table, in my new kitchen, with a stew cooking on the stove behind me. It’s wonderful.

Thursday was moving day. At 8am the movers arrived at our old house and after a cup of coffee they started loading our 120 boxes and some loose things and furniture.

Around 2 pm all our boxes were unloaded and we (and the movers) were sitting in our new backyard to rest a bit.

the move went super-smooth. At some point we started helping a tiny bit, but not even that much. IT was mostly us standing on different floors telling them ‘this goes there’.

The first thing I started unpacking, was the kitchen. At the same time L started working on computer and media stuff, so we could sit down and watch tv later that night. I got about half the boxes unpacked that evening and after that I just couldn’t do things anymore. I sat down on the couch, L joined me and we had a drink and watched some tv.

Saturday morning I went on unpacking the kitchen and started giving things more final places. It all worked out. Every cupboard is filled now. There aren’t any empty ones left (even though this kitchen is way bigger than my old kitchen) but that’s okay. Everything is nicely spaced out. No more lifting a stack of bowls and plates to get to that thing you need. Eventually we’re planning on buying a nice, old-fashioned, cabinet, in which we’ll have room for some more stuff. Also, later this week (probably) we’ll put shelves up in the pantry/laundry room we created, which means my stock-supplies move there and suddenly I should have some spare room in the cupboards.

I love love love my new kitchen. It’s just so spacious and nice. There’s room to move around. We can both stand there and walk around without bumping into one another. We don’t have to ask each other to scoot over to make it past the dishwasher. It’s just great.

While I was finishing the kitchen, L finished the bookcases. We have half a wall in our living room filled with bookcases. He even unpacked, sorted and placed the books already. Next Saturday my late grandma’s antique cabinet will arrive and moves into the living room as well and then we’ll be able to completely finish unpacking/decorating that room as well.

Then there’s our bedroom. That still needs a lot of work. We did put the shelves into the walk-in-closet today and I started unpacking the boxes of clothes. However, I just discovered I don’t have enough hangers, so I quit that and started cooking instead.

I love, love, love that I get to cook again. Since the reunion dinner, I hadn’t really done much cooking anymore. At least no chopping and adding tons of different fresh ingredients. With the closing on the house and then packing and moving, we just ordered in or got microwave meals. I made the occasional simple dish, like the chicken adobo, but that didn’t involve that much chopping either. I’ll tell you though, I really missed it!

So tonight, I’m making a stew. It’s fairly simple, but has tons of fresh veggies and a nice chunk of meat (which will be cut up after cooking. And I’ll set the table, with actual place mats and such and we’ll have the first fresh-cooked dinner in our new house.

It’ll be wonderful!

[print_this]New-kitchen stew (recipe feeds 4)

• big chunk of beef (brisket, rib roast or such, about 500 grams)
• 6 tomatoes
• 1 big onion, chopped
• some garlic (to taste), chopped
• 1 red, 1 green and 1 yellow pepper, chopped
• your favorite stew/steak seasoning to taste
• a pinch of salt (pink himalayan preferred)
• 1 bouillon cube (or enough powder to make a quart)
• far to fry in (butter, oil, lard or a combination)
• flour for dredging and thickening
• A good pour of red wine (optional)
• water

Dredge the beef with flour and a bit of the seasoning. Place your fat in a Dutch oven (I use a combo of butter, lard and olive oil for flavor) and let it melt. Place the beef in the pan and brown it on both sides. Add the onion and the garlic. When the onion turns slightly glassy, pour in some wine (optional) and let it simmer for a minute or 2. Then add enough water to mostly cover the beef.

Get the liquid to a slow boil and add the green pepper and 2 of the tomatoes. Add the bouillon cube and let it simmer for close to an hour.

Taste the sauce and add salt to taste (the amount really depends on your seasoning and the amount of liquid you needed to cover your beef, if your seasoning has salt, wait until you serve to check it. You might not even need to add any, I used a salt free seasoning, so I needed a good pinch.)

Add the rest of the tomatoes and yellow and red pepper. Let it simmer for another 30 minutes or so, until the meat is very tender. Remove the meat and cut it into smaller chunks. Add the meat back into the pan.

In a small bowl combine 2 to 3 tablespoons of flour with some more seasoning and a some of the liquid from the pot. Mix well to avoid lumps. Add the flour mix to the stew to thicken it. Cook it for a couple more minutes, so it thickens and serve with some nice crusty bread.

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