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!

I was able to rescue a small bowl full of half ripe tomatoes and put [...]]]> Summer in Amsterdam lasted about 2 days. Strike that, we had 2 summers this year, both lasting about 1 day. It caused the sad demise of my tomatoes, which I told you about before.

I was able to rescue a small bowl full of half ripe tomatoes and put them in the window sill. Helping them ripen by gaining every tiny little ray of sunlight available. Once they were ripe, I ceased the moment to make my roasted tomato sauce.

Tomatoes and other veggies before they became sauce.

I usually try to make a batch large enough to last me through winter. This time the sauce won’t go that far, but at least it’ll last me a little while. Since I hardly ever use it as is, I can stretch it quite far. The fact that it’s so concentrated, and roasted, makes it versatile and easy and healthy enough for a quick weeknight meal, but flavorful and special enough to also use in a special dinner. I’ve been known to add broth to it and make a very tasty tomato soup. My 4 year old cousin who despises vegetables or healthy food in general was happy to eat many bites of pasta with this sauce because it really is that good (and to the unsuspected viewer doesn’t look like it’s almost 100 percent vegetable!)

I loved making this sauce with veggies from my garden. Despite the fact that it isn’t much, I know I’ve put them to good use. And every time this fall and winter, when I eat sauce, I will remember the fact that I actually grew food myself. That really is something too, at least for a city girl like me.

Vegetables in the casserole dish, ready to be roasted.

Needless to say, I love making this sauce. I freeze it into ice cubes -sauce cubes – and add it to whatever sauce or dish I’m making which can benefit from the taste of home-made roasted tomato sauce.

I’ve made many variations of this sauce over time. Sometimes I add carrots, Sometimes regular onions. The only constant really are the tomatoes. The other constant is that it’ll be the best sauce you’ve ever tasted!

Vegetables in casserole dish, after about 45 minutes of roasting.

Roasted vegetables done and ready to be processed into sauce.

The roasted vegetables going through the food mill to become sauce.

Roasted tomato sauce put in a cutesy ice cube tray to be frozen for later use.

After putting the roasted vegetables through the KitchenAid food mill and re-processing the discarded scraps, this little dry heap of skins and seeds is what's left to toss.

I’ve been sick this last week. While I was trying to deep clean my marble kitchen floor out of the blue I suddenly got this terrible throat ache. Literally while I was cleaning. A day later the violent coughing and fever started. I sincerely despise these late-season flues.

Being sick means [...]]]>

I’ve been sick this last week. While I was trying to deep clean my marble kitchen floor out of the blue I suddenly got this terrible throat ache. Literally while I was cleaning. A day later the violent coughing and fever started. I sincerely despise these late-season flues.

Being sick means I don’t really want that much food. And whatever I eat needs to be easy. No hours in the kitchen as all I really want to do is lay on the couch and be miserable.

So this week has been filled with easy-peasy dishes. I’d simply put some steaks and peppers on my stovetop grill, or made some easy chicken soup. And I made this potato salad. Quick, super easy, and even my flu-ridden tastebuds recognized that this was tasty.

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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?