The months in [...]]]> Dutch weather is among the most unpredictable things in the world. It gets annoying, really. Between the end of February and the middle of May you can never tell whether you’ll be needing warm mittens or skimpy dresses. There will likely even be days where you’ll need both.

The months in which you have no idea what to wear are the same months I need to start my seeds for my garden. After last year’s tomato debacle I haven’t given up. I actually got even more enthusiastic, buying a miniature windowsill greenhouse and lots of seeds. Instead of buying seedlings, I decided to grow them myself. I also decided to plan my garden differently and to diversify a bit. I started reading up on things and learned scary words like cotyledons.

It’s all for a good cause though. With a little bit of luck and a bit of assistance from the weather gods, we will likely hardly buy vegetables this summer. Everything should be obtained from either our own garden, or through trading with other people’s tiny urban gardens. My friends who grow lettuce will like zucchini, and I can definitely use some salad greens later on.

On March 12th I planted my first seeds. I filled the window box with three types of tomatoes, artichokes, 5 different colors of bell peppers, some chili peppers and eggplant seeds. A little bit of luck gave us some sunny days which made the tomatoes sprout quick enough. The artichokes soon followed and then I waited. Every day I looked at my box and saw the tomatoes getting bigger and bigger, the artichokes grew and besides that, nothing. I’ve never been a patient person, so I’m sure it went much faster than I thought, but really, it felt like the other veggies, the peppers and eggplant, just wouldn’t grow.

Eventually they grew. The eggplant unfortunately lost it’s battle between the repotting of everything else, followed by drying out and getting too wet. When that box isn’t completely full anymore the water balance gets really iffy, I tell you. However, I managed to save my peppers and they are thriving in various cups and bowls now.

Yes, I got a little over enthusiastic, resulting in a shortage of pots and a funny sight of plants in cups, mugs and bowls. It looks festive enough though, and as long as my veggies have more room to grow, I’m okay with washing dishes a little more often.

By now the second haul is well underway. My 4 species of squash are growing so well that the lid was pushed off (and now they live in yet another array of cups and mugs). The second try at eggplant is proving to give me much nicer looking seedlings. The artichokes have been planted in the garden, as well as a couple of the tomatoes (They have grass jars over them right now, to protect them from possible frost.) The other tomatoes are still hardening day by day and will be planted soon.

In the mean time I’m trying my best to find suitable homes for a lot of my seedlings. I only have room for 3 more tomato plants, while I still have 12 left to plant. I can only manage 4 or 5 squashes and I have a whooping 24 in total. If I still want to plant my chicory and rocket I can only handle 3 or 4 eggplants, 2 chilis and 5 or 6 bell peppers, and yes, there are more of those too. Having nursed them from seed, I don’t want to just throw them out.

I can’t wait until the weather evens out a bit. That crazy unpredictable weather should soon give up on the risk of frost and give in to my drive to grow my own food. Within a month or so I hope to be eating the first bites of home grown squash and herbs. And soon thereafter tomatoes and greens and peppers and maybe even artichokes. I honestly can’t wait!

Please note my latest creation, moussaka stew.

If you like eggplant, cheese, potatoes and ground beef, there’s no going wrong with moussaka. [...]]]> Leftovers and stuff that needs to be eaten or tossed in the fridge often lead to somewhat creative new dishes. Ot at least for me they do.

Please note my latest creation, moussaka stew.

If you like eggplant, cheese, potatoes and ground beef, there’s no going wrong with moussaka. If you still have a big chunk of stew meat, eggplant, a package of passata and some pantry staples, you can make moussaka stew.

Unfortunately I didn’t write up the exact recipe. I never thought it’d turn out this good. It was literally just some stuff that needed to be finished. The approximate recipe is as follows.

 

[print_this]Moussaka stew

• some stew meat
• an eggplant
• a package of passata di pomodoro, tomato sauce
• some potatoes
• garlic and onions if you have them
• some parmigiano, grated
• flour for dredging
• olive oil

In a Dutch oven or other heavy bottomed pan, brown dredged stew meat in some olive oil. Add onion and garlic to cook them a little. Add the passata di pomodori and let this simmer long enough to get the meat cooked and tender. In the mean time cut up the eggplant and place in a colander with a generous amount of salt sprinkled over to pull out the bitter juices. Peel your potatoes and cut up in stew sized chunks. About 30 minutes before dinner time, add the potatoes to the stew (make sure they’re fully covered with sauce, so they can cook, add water or a diluted beef broth if needed.) 10 to 15 minutes later rinse the salt off the eggplant and add the eggplant to the stew. Cook until the eggplant is tender and the sauce has thickened. Sprinkle a generous amount of parmigiano into the sauce, stir well and serve. Yummm, moussaka stew!!!

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P.S. Laurens referred to this stew as spezzatino. It totally reminded him of the spezzatino his mom used to make. A stew with potatoes and peas. He missed the peas, but still liked the dish :-)

I told him and he still liked it - though he thought his joke was even funnier.

 When we made my [...]]]> “You defrosted this very well”, my dad joked, when he started on his ravioli. He had seen me take a bag of ravioli from the freezer. He didn’t realize I made it myself and froze it myself.

I told him and he still liked it - though he thought his joke was even funnier.

 When we made my in-laws’ anniversary gift, we made quite the amount of extra ravioloni. I’d frozen them, so they could keep them, and so they wouldn’t stick together. We brought them 45 pieces and I had about the same amount left.

When we invited my dad for a nice dinner, we decided on pasta first and then a steak and grilled veggies. And since I wouldn’t dare to serve guests packaged pasta (I’ve told too many people that fresh pasta tastes so much better), I was glad I had some really nice ravioli in the freezer.

I chose to cook the napoletana, with a simple tomato sauce (a couple of cubes of frozen sauce from the soup base with some passata di pomodori).

And my dad thought I’d defrosted our dinner well.

For our secondo, the second course, we decided to grill some eggplant and steaks. The new grill that was delivered on Monday, came with a very nice, heavy cast iron griddle. I’d tried it, and it fit perfectly on the wok burner of my stove. Instead of standing outside in the slight drizzle that seems to be going on continuously this season, I decided to try out the new griddle.

The steaks had perfect grill-marks and were cooked to a perfect rare. Warm enough to be tasty, and a perfect mix of cooked outer layer and pink inside.

My dad said he was willing to pay good money for a steak like that in a restaurant.

All in all it was a nice meal!

Last summer, in Colorado, I went to a farmer’s market. Everything was fresh and wonderful. It was a Sunday morning and I couldn’t [...]]]> It’s amazing how used we get to unripe, not so fresh vegetables. Especially during the ‘off-season’ vegetables just aren’t that great. And the old-fashioned produce stores seem to have disappeared.

Last summer, in Colorado, I went to a farmer’s market. Everything was fresh and wonderful. It was a Sunday morning and I couldn’t have been happier with the quality of all the foods that were for sale there. Not just the veggies, but also meats, breads, pasta. It was all amazing.

We do have farmer’s markets (or at least something like that) in Amsterdam. However those markets either aren’t in my neighborhood, or are on weekdays. Which is when I’m at the office and unable to go there.

When we moved to our new home, I was researching the area a bit. Since we’re the last urban street and behind us there’s either industry and the airport (a little ways back though!) or farmland. I read about a ‘care farm’ not even 5 minutes away from the house. Now this ‘care farm’ as they call it, is really a produce farm. It’s run by a foundation that helps people with social/emotional or mental difficulties. A team of social workers/farmers guides the people who need some special care while they take care of the produce they grow. Everything they grow is fully certified organic and seasonal. They exchange some of their veggies for meat from a nearby organic farm.

They have a farm store. There they sell the produce they grew and some extra’s. They sell the meat they’d exchanged (which is, like everything, subject to availability). On Saturdays an organic baker brings some bread, which they sell as well. They import a few things they can’t really grow themselves, all organic.

I’d been meaning to check out the farm store. Last Sunday I finally did. And I wasn’t disappointed.

The vegetables were all so fresh and ripe. Even though there isn’t that much in season, they still had a nice selection and everything looked and felt good. Ripe and fresh. L actually mentioned we should eat the veggies quickly, because they were at their prime right when we bought them. I agreed, however, there’s no way I’ll cook up a weeks supply of veggies in one night. They deserve better. And since they’re so fresh, they’ll still be tasty in a couple of days.

I can’t believe it took me so long to finally visit the farm store. Yummmm, fresh veggies! I love it!