A little story to start with:
My mother has always been a good, though somewhat traditional cook. And when I grew from girl to young adult, she wanted to teach me how to cook. She would have done the same if I was a boy, I'm quite sure. But cooking to her, just as ironing, was an essential skill. Unfortunately... cooking didn't work out very well. I could get the highest grades in school, read out books in mere hours, but to follow a simple recipe seemed beyond me. I didn't have the patience or the touch for it.
She worried much of how I would do when I went to university, and when I came home in the weekends, she gave me little portions of home made frozen food. Strange thing is that, while I was away underneath her wings, I watched BBC television to ameliorate my English. And one of the things I liked following were cooking shows. In there, famous chefs, whipped up meals in 30 minutes live tv. No popping things in the oven and then showing the finnished meal. No... everything before your very eyes. They didn't have recipes, because they didn't know in advance what they would be cooking that day.
I became inspired enough to start cooking myself and developped a style of my own: simple ingredients, short cooking time, and very little preparation time. Cooking is a very daunting thing to start with. People expect you to know what it means if you have to 'blanch' the tomatoes. -which does not mean paint them white- or 'braise' the chicken....
So for all those that are starting out. Or for those that are like me: busy, but still liking good healthy food, I'll share some of my recipes, and hope to hear some of others.
Garlic soup
(a very simple winters recipe)
Take a bulb of dried garlic, and take 6 to 7 parts (cloves) from the bulb. Peal the papery skin off them. chop two of them very fine.
Take one big or two medium onions. Cut them very fine (or let a foodprocessor do that).
Take a package of smoked bacon strips and open it. (alternately, you can take a side of bacon of course and cut it into match like strips).
Put the bacon, the onions and the garlic in a cooking pot. Add a bit of oil or butter if necessary, depending on the fattiness of the bacon. (just look in the pot, if things seem to start sticking to the bottom, you need a bit of extra grease)
When the corners of the bacon turn darker, and the onion seems transcluscent, add hot water to the pot. Half a liter. Then when it starts boiling: another half liter. Add a stock cube for herbal stock. Chop the rest of the garlic rather rough, and add it to the water as it is boiling again. Stirr now and then. Add some chives or parsley if you want.
The short version of the recipe:
Take onion, garlic and bacon, according to personal taste. Chop them and put them in a cooking pot, till the bacon starts to colour. Add hot water, about a liter, and a herbal stock cube. Chop some more garlic and add. Finish with herbs as to personal preference.
My mother has always been a good, though somewhat traditional cook. And when I grew from girl to young adult, she wanted to teach me how to cook. She would have done the same if I was a boy, I'm quite sure. But cooking to her, just as ironing, was an essential skill. Unfortunately... cooking didn't work out very well. I could get the highest grades in school, read out books in mere hours, but to follow a simple recipe seemed beyond me. I didn't have the patience or the touch for it.
She worried much of how I would do when I went to university, and when I came home in the weekends, she gave me little portions of home made frozen food. Strange thing is that, while I was away underneath her wings, I watched BBC television to ameliorate my English. And one of the things I liked following were cooking shows. In there, famous chefs, whipped up meals in 30 minutes live tv. No popping things in the oven and then showing the finnished meal. No... everything before your very eyes. They didn't have recipes, because they didn't know in advance what they would be cooking that day.
I became inspired enough to start cooking myself and developped a style of my own: simple ingredients, short cooking time, and very little preparation time. Cooking is a very daunting thing to start with. People expect you to know what it means if you have to 'blanch' the tomatoes. -which does not mean paint them white- or 'braise' the chicken....
So for all those that are starting out. Or for those that are like me: busy, but still liking good healthy food, I'll share some of my recipes, and hope to hear some of others.
Garlic soup
(a very simple winters recipe)
Take a bulb of dried garlic, and take 6 to 7 parts (cloves) from the bulb. Peal the papery skin off them. chop two of them very fine.
Take one big or two medium onions. Cut them very fine (or let a foodprocessor do that).
Take a package of smoked bacon strips and open it. (alternately, you can take a side of bacon of course and cut it into match like strips).
Put the bacon, the onions and the garlic in a cooking pot. Add a bit of oil or butter if necessary, depending on the fattiness of the bacon. (just look in the pot, if things seem to start sticking to the bottom, you need a bit of extra grease)
When the corners of the bacon turn darker, and the onion seems transcluscent, add hot water to the pot. Half a liter. Then when it starts boiling: another half liter. Add a stock cube for herbal stock. Chop the rest of the garlic rather rough, and add it to the water as it is boiling again. Stirr now and then. Add some chives or parsley if you want.
The short version of the recipe:
Take onion, garlic and bacon, according to personal taste. Chop them and put them in a cooking pot, till the bacon starts to colour. Add hot water, about a liter, and a herbal stock cube. Chop some more garlic and add. Finish with herbs as to personal preference.
**
yummmmmmy so good on chicken and pasta.
