Cheese-onion bread

When I have a holiday coming up for which I have to drive far to actually reach the accommodation, I always start thinking about the food that you can buy on the road. Memories will come up immediately of disgusting pre-packed almost wet sandwiches with cheese looking like plastic and tomatoes tasting like water. Also being car sick (which I did not grow out of unfortunately) and not able to read while I sit ‘shotgun’ doesn’t help either for a nice driving experience. However this year when I started to organize our drive to Austria, I thought of my blog and cae up with the idea of making a cheese onion bread for lunch. Cheese onion bread doesn’t need anything else and you can keep it covered in aluminium foil for a long time to keep it fresh! I found this nice recipe which I wanted to share with you guys 🙂

Ingredients
45 g. of butter, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 7-10 g. of dried yeast, 1 onion, 450 g. of flower, 1 teaspoon of musterdpowder, 180 g. of Gouda cheese or Cheddar if you like (grated), 1,5 dl. of milk, 1,5 dl. of water, salt and pepper.

Preparation
Melt a knob of the butter in a pan and bake the chopped onion until it is goldenbrown. Let the onion cool off for a while. Put the flower in a bowl and add the yeast, musterdpowder, salt and pepper. Add the cold onion and 3/4 of the cheese to the flowermix and stir gently it until it is mixed. Make a small hole in the middle of the flowermix and add the milk. Knead the dough and add some water if it is too dry. If the dough is well mixed and shiny, put it in a bowl under foil and let it rise for 60 minutes.

After 1 hour you can take the dough out of the bowl and put it on a flower-covered workbench. Knead the dough again for a few minutes. Take an ovendish and cover it with the olive oil. Make 11 balls out of the dough and put 6 of them in the dish. Cover the dough balls with some melted butter (as you like). Put the rest of the dough balls on top of the other 6. Cover the top also with melted butter. Protect the dough with foil and let it rise again in 45 minutes.

Meanwhile you can preheat the oven on 190 degrees. After 45 minutes sprinkle the bread with the leftover 1/4 of grated cheese and let the bread cook in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

Dutch Peasoup with an Italian Twist

Last week I was in the Netherlands for my new job and I realized that I had missed the winter conditions so much! Here in Rome it’s just around 13 degrees and this weekend it was raining constantly. But, even though I am complaining right now, in 2 months the weather will definitely be much better!! Anyway, I got this amazing cookbook of Sophie Dahl from the girlfriend of my brother over christmas, and one of the recipes is a perfect example of the situation I am in right now. A peasoup with homemade pesto! When I told my boyfriend, or ‘fidanzato’ in Italian which sounds more mature than boyfriend :-), that we were about to eat peasoup, he looked at me almost disgusted! The peasoup that we dutch people are supposed to eat when we go iceskating outside, is not an extremely delicious dish.. however, this recipe of Sophie Dahl made the whole memory of thick and not so tasty peasoup go away!! And please, make the pesto yourself, because it’s soooo good..

Ingredients

For the pesto: 1 hand of fresh basil (only the leaves), 1 clove of garlic, a few tablespoons of pine nuts, 4 tablespoons of oliveoil, 25 g. of grated Parmezan cheese (Grana Padano for instance), salt and pepper. For the soup: 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 small onion, 2 small zucchini chopped in pieces, 8 dl. of chicken or vegetable stock, 450 g. of peas (from a can or from the freezer), 1 large hand of rucola.

Preparation

Add the ingredients for the pesto together in a bowl and blend them until you will get a smooth sauce. You can also make it a bit thinner with some water. Flavor it if you’d like. Then, add the olive oil in a large pan and add the chopped onion. Wait until the onion is soft, then you can add the chopped zucchini and stock. Let it simmer for about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the peas and the rucola and heat the soup until it cooks. When the soup cooks, let it on the fire for about 3 to 4 minutes until everything is soft. Take the blender again and blend the soup until it is smooth. Let everyone add the pesto to their soup themselves. Buon appetito!

Pasta alla Norma

After three fantastic weeks with family for christmas and friends for new years, normal life has begun again this past monday. I have never liked the weeks after the holidays, because you have to put the christmas tree away and now I have to miss everyone again. But, I will also be starting my new job next week! So this will be very exciting 🙂

Because the past few weeks have been so busy, I did not have the time to write about food. However I did eat fantastic meals! In my upcoming posts I will feature some of these great experiences.

But for now, a post about healthy vegetarian pasta to forget the voracious diners! This pasta was recommended to me by the lovely wife of my landlord. When we went to pick up her mother from the train station, they immediately started talking about food and recipes after they greeted each other. Oh how I love Italians! Although I had just eaten, the recipe sounded delicious, so here it is :-).

Ingredients

2 onions, 1 cloves of garlic, 1 large eggplant or 2 small ones, 2 cans of tomato pulp, 300 g. of whole-wheat (here is the healthy touch!) spaghetti, 1 hand of basil.

Preparation

Cut the onions and garlic. Put some olive oil in a pan and bake the vegetables until they glaze. Meanwhile cut the eggplant in small pieces and and them to the stir. Cook some water in a pan and add the spaghetti. I added a little guy called ‘Al Dente’ we got as a present! He starts to whistle the Aida after 7 minutes, so we know the pasta is ready 🙂

Serve the spaghetti with the sauce and a few leaves of basil. Buon appetito!