So I decided on a different review. My last year in food. And no, I’m not even going month by month, but I’ll give you the top-10 most visited blogposts on here, and then I’ll add my own top 5 in addition to that.

10: Chicken in puff pastry

This is an insanely easy recipe that renders a very nice simple dinner. I don’t make it all that often, but whenever I do it’s an instant hit!

9: Candy bar ice cream

I love love love making my own ice cream, I started doing that for the first time this year. First without an ice cream maker, but after 1 batch I gave in and bought myself a machine. And some candy bars. The result was this candy bar ice cream, that’s just wonderful on any warm day when you’re craving chocolate.

8: Gratin Dauphinoise

A classic. Everyone who’s not lactose intolerant and doesn’t absolutely hate potatoes, needs to make this. It’s deceivingly simple. The only thing it really requires is a little time to sit in the oven. It’s good with everything and anything and makes your dinner instantly fancy!

7: Pierogi

Making pierogi was a daring cooks’ challenge which I finished about 3 hours after the challenge was posted. I’d only made pierogi once before, with my friend Amber. I forgot how easy and scrumptious they were. I altered the recipe just a tiny bit, to make them seem more healthy, like a full meal in a little dough pocket. The result, whole wheat pierogi to die for.

6: Cantuccini

These cantuccini  resulted in a multi-post day. At first I thought I’d totally screwed them up and failed miserably. I went on baking them, as I wanted to find out what the end result was. Boy was I glad I did. Even though they weren’t the pretty, small cookies I wanted (I’d just made them too big) they were very very tasty.

5: Lard

Lard, oh lard… Lard seems to have made a total comeback this year, and I took part in the craze. Why fill your body with chemically enhanced fats, when you can go all natural and produce tastier results. The featured post was the first time I rendered lard, I recently rendered a second, larger, batch and don’t think I’ll ever be willing to go back to the nasty stuff in the blue package!

4: Pasta with ham and peas

I never would’ve thought that such a simple ‘let’s see what I still have laying around in the fridge’ recipe would become so popular. But it did. I guess people just love their easy peasy comfortable food, that tastes great and looks good!

3: Gelato alla nocciole or hazelnut ice cream

This was my favorite ice cream last summer, no doubt about it! It tasted amazing. It was a very light ice cream, in texture and taste, yet very sweet and nutty. The reason I tried this recipe, was because it used egg whites as well as yolks. With the amount of ice cream I’d been making, I was drowning in egg whites. I was happy to find a recipe that didn’t render me more whites, and even happier that it became my favorite tasting gelato.

2: Angel food cupcakes

The ton of egg whites that the ice cream left me, was sitting in the freezer taking up space. Something needed to be done, and the only surefire way to get rid of a ton of egg whites, is by either making meringues or angel food cake. I decided on the cake and made cupcakes out of it. The result, the egg whites had left my freezer, and now a dozen cupcakes inhabited it. But not for long!

1: Swiss roll ice cream cake

Does this surprise you? The number 1. With the ice cream recipes in this list and the angel food cake? Ofcourse not! The swiss roll ice cream cake was a daring baker challenge. It took forever and a day to make, but it was surely worth the time. 2 kinds of ice cream, caramel sauce and chocolate-angel-food-cake-whipped-cream-swiss-roll. What’s not to like?  Apparently you, dear readers, agreed, as this is the post that, by far, received the most visitors in 2010.

My personal top 5, in no particular order, as it’s hard enough to choose just 5 posts on here.

Ginger snaps
The last post I did before this roundup, so I knew it wouldn’t make it into the list. But it so deserves it’s spot. Laurens filmed me while making ginger snaps and spent hours editing the prepping, 10 minutes of baking and cooling them into a less-than-1-minute-film. It was my first ‘cooking video’, so it holds a special place in my heart. Especially because both the film and the cookies turned out awesome.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igXt8Z8CAD4&hd=1[/youtube]

Pasta
My very first blog post here. And an important one at that. I love making pasta and there are many Italian (pasta) dishes featured on this blog. The basic though, is learning to make good quality pasta. This is the accomplishment I like most in this year. Laurens gave me my pasta rollers for Christmas in 2009. I made my first batch of pasta in januari and failed miserably. Then I tried again and it turned out okay. And then I tried again and again and within a couple of weeks making fresh pasta hardly took more time than boiling up some store bought. The taste is a big difference though. Homemade pasta is awesome!

Almost Cinnabons
Cinnamon rolls, yummm, is all I have to say about this. And I love showing you my nifty little trick making the casserole smaller. A tight fitting casserole is the trick to the best tasting rolles, they ooze together and make them gooey and wonderful!

Poached egg
One of my favorite posts because it makes me want to scream ‘I did it’. Poached eggs had always given me trouble. Granted, I’d only tried twice. And then, suddenly, I tried again and it worked. Such a proud moment in the kitchen!

Tiramisu
Just look at that picture for a minute will you? This was one of the first posts where Laurens and I really worked together to make the photo’s work. In our overstuffed-thus-tiny old kitchen, we’d walk around each other, re-positioning ourselves, so the pictures would work. Before that it was basically cook, serve, picture, eat. The pictures turned out beautifully and the Tiramisu was delish. What more do you want?

So there you have it. There are tons more posts I could write about, recipes I loved, photo’s that turned out beautifully, food I want to eat every single day for the next 2 years while I gain 3 million pounds. I’ll leave finding them up to you though. And if you find your favorite recipe on here, just visit it, let me know. The review next year might just turn out completely different because of that!

For now, I sign off, wishing you a wonderful, delicious, creative, inspired, food-filled new year!

Now I shouldn’t whine. After August 31st I will have an awesome kitchen as well. It’s large and beautiful and has everything I need. Except for the baking station… with the flour/sugar drawers.

I already told L that I want those drawers too. We will have to remodel the kitchen a tiny bit, can’t we just include those drawers in there.

I included bribes like ‘baking every day’ and such, but L didn’t seem convinced.

So this morning I told my co-worker about the awesomeness of PW’s kitchen and drawers. I told her I’d checked about 3 million kitchen websites and none of them offered them. And then my wonderful wonderful co-worker said “oh, but they have those old fashioned cupboards that have those, they’re called ‘grutterskasten’, check furniture stores instead of kitchen stores”.

So I did a google search on grutterskasten and kruidenierskasten and there’s a whole giant massive collection of different types and styles of those cupboards.

So now I want a cupboard like this!

Or like this!

There are so many possibilities!!!

I’ll just have to go measure the empty wall space in my kitchen (I know exactly which wall I can use) and then I can go pick one up!

Soooo excited!!!!

(Which one is your favorite???)

A while ago I saw a post on one of my favorite food blogs about an eggplant and brie dish. It looked like a sort of crossover between a tart, a pizza and a sandwich, which the author had bought at an airport in Canada somewhere. It looked really good! When decidign what kind of snack to make for us, the eggplant-brie-tartlet sprang to mind. Okay, no brie, and no idea what exactly was in it, but I figured I could come up with something tasty.

The end result: eggplant and cheeses on puff pastry. What a treat, and so simple to make too! It literally took no effort, which is good for a snack like that. Something you can prepare, pop in the oven and then get yourself ready. Ofcourse I didn’t get ready, but looked at my creation through the oven door window.  Seeing them puff up was fun. Eating them even more fun!

Eggplant and cheese snack (recipe makes 3 large pastries)

• 3 small squares of frozen puff pastry (about 12×12 cm, defrosted)
• 1 eggplant
• grated cheese (I used both parmesan and a simple Dutch cheese)
• mixed italian seasoning
• salt (for preparing the eggplant)

Prepare the eggplant by slicing it, putting it in a colander over a bowl and sprinkling a good amount of salt over the slices. Leave it to stand that way for at least 20 minutes, longer if possible. The salt will pull out the bitter eggplant juices that make it spongey. You can literally see the moisture dripping out. Each drop that leaves the eggplant, makes it tastier when served!
Wash the eggplant, to clean off the salt, then dry them off by squishing them between paper towel.
Cook the eggplant slices on a hot grill or griddle (I use a stovetop grill-pan, it leaves nice brown stripes on the vegetable.) Sprinkle some italian seasoning once you’ve turned them once, turn them once more after that.
Lay your squares of puff pastry on a cooky sheet. Lay one slice of eggplant in the middle, add a little cheese on top, add the next slice of eggplant, some more cheese and continue until you’re out of eggplant (about 3 or 4 slices of eggplant per piece of pastry.) Top with some more cheese and a sprinkle of italian seasoning.
Pop the cookie sheet in a pre-heated oven (about 200 degrees celsius) and bake them until the pastry is puffed and brown, and the cheese has melted.

You can also make smaller pieces, with less eggplant and cheese, and serve them as hors d’oeuvres at a party. They’re small elegant and a nice treat for vegetarians too!