chickpea cumin salad with bacon | in my Red Kitchen #lactation #galactogogues #breastfeeding #salad #chickpeas #chickpea #bacon
by Ellen Bannink -

Chickpea cumin salad with bacon

chickpea cumin salad with bacon | in my Red Kitchen #lactation #galactogogues #breastfeeding #salad #chickpeas #chickpea #bacon

– Click here for this recipe in Dutch -> Kikkererwten komijn salade met bacon –

Chickpea cumin salad with bacon
Nowadays there is a lot needed to get me into blogging again. Life with a 9 month old baby is very busy, our week is filled with swimming lessons, mommy & me class, playdates, physical therapy and of course just housekeeping, grocery shopping and cooking. I am especially keeping myself occupied to create recipes for a baby which I prefer to serve unprocessed foods, rather than to create recipes for adults. Let alone testing, writing and photographing such a recipe.

In other words: it’s not so easy

Grilled goat cheese sandwich with bacon and dates - it's a scrumptious sandwich! | in my Red Kitchen
by Ellen Bannink -

Grilled goat cheese sandwich with bacon and dates

Grilled goat cheese sandwich with bacon and dates - it's a scrumptious sandwich! | in my Red Kitchen

My husband doesn’t like goat cheese. Poor me! I know, i know… I shouldn’t complain because I can cook something with goat cheese for myself and give him a substitute.
And sometimes I do that, but it is more like a salad or pasta topped with goat cheese, or this sweet potato and kale mash. I give him bacon or prosciutto and I get to eat all the goat cheese, yay!

by Ellen Bannink -

Sweet potato and black bean quesadillas

Sweet-potato-quesadilla-1-inmyredkitchen On Mondays  -after a scrumptious weekend filled with brunches, cocktails and grilled chicken- I’m always craving healthy foods. Kale, quinoa, sweet potato, lentils, chickpeas, avocado, black beans… you’ll name it and I’ll eat it.

I start my week with juices, smoothies, green tea and salads and on Friday that’s slowly transforming into fried eggs, waffles, ramen, caffe lattes and pizza. It’s all about balance right?

Black lentil salad with goat cheese | in my Red Kitchen
by Ellen Bannink -

Black lentil salad with goat cheese

Black Lentil Salad with Goat Cheese | in my Red Kitchen

People often ask me if there is anything I miss from the Netherlands. I have to disappoint them (and you), because I don’t. Of course I’m happy when I stumble upon typical Dutch products in LA, like appelstroop, stroopwafels or beschuit. And the Christmas Stollen and bitterballen I made myself where also to die for.

But really missing those things? Nah… And you know why not?

by Ellen Bannink -

Thai shrimp coconut soup and a cookbook giveaway!

shrimp-coconut-soup-3-inmyredkitchen

If you browse through my recipes you see a mayority of Asian recipes. Kinda weird if you know that I’m a 100% Dutch girl, with no foreign roots. I also grew up in a small town in the east of the Netherlands, near the German border with no oriental influences at all over there.

I do have a Chinese aunt, she married my Dutch uncle almost 12 years ago when I was 20. She taught me some of her recipes and three years ago I travelled with her to her home town in China for four weeks.

by Ellen Bannink -

Vietnamese spring rolls with black pepper tofu

I love these fresh Vietnamese spring rolls. Sure, I also love them fried but a fresh one is healthier and quicker to make.

Springrolls p

If you go to a Dutch market you will definitely find a food truck that sells fried Vietnamese spring rolls. It was always a treat if my mom bought these for us on the market on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays you have the afternoon off at elementary school, so when we came home at 12.30pm my mom sometimes bought us fried spring rolls and fresh steamed baozi for lunch.

And still, every time I eat a fried spring roll

by Ellen Bannink -

Kale salad with mushrooms

As you could read I had dinner at Hinoki & The Bird two weeks ago with three other foodbloggers from LA. I already raved about the great food so I won’t start over again.

Instead I got inspired by this great kale salad that I HAD to make a kale salad myself. Normally in the Netherlands kale is eaten as a ‘stamppot’: you boil potatos and let the kale steam on top of it. Then you mash it together until it looks like this. I don’t like this ‘boerenkool stamppot’ that much, but it turns out I do like raw kale!

Kale salad p

 

Hinoki & The Bird served a very delicate kale salad,

by Ellen Bannink -

Green Frittata

Sometimes you know you need to step down for a moment.

Just take a step back and rest or change something in your way of living. After all these hectic months of saying goodbye to our live in Amsterdam en figuring out how living in Los Angeles works I finally feel we have settled in.

Life is never boring at the West Coast, unless you lock yourself up every night at your house 😉

Frittata P

 

But since my life finally has become more relaxed I have time to think about my way of eating again.