by Ellen Bannink -

Stuffed Zucchini

I never really liked vegetables. Growing up I remember I always picked out those tiny bits of onion in the pasta sauce. And vegetables always had to come with some kind of sauce for me to like them. Well ‘like’ them… I mean to eat them.

I also remember trying zucchini as a child. A friend of my mom had homegrown them so she gave some to us.
I didn’t like it. Well in fact I didn’t like them at all. I think they tasted like nothing and the texture was way to ‘snotty’.

Stuffed Zucchini p

 

Oh my, I shouldn’t be telling this to you.

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 -

review: Hinoki & The Bird

I totally love the idea of Meetup.com! I found this website while I was looking for other foodbloggers in LA. So when Christine from Feed My Sole organized a Four Course Prix-Fixe Dinner at Hinoki & The Bird I immediately rsvp’d YES! Back in Amsterdam -while we already knew we would be moving to LA- I started to follow Hinoki & The Bird on Twitter and I really wanted to go there for dinner. So this was my chance!

And it was also a chance to do something social for myself since we’ve arrived in Los Angeles. It was so exciting, but I also knew I needed some time with like minded foodies 🙂
Hinoki & The Bird is a Silk Road-inspired restaurant which just opened 6 months ago in January. I got attracted by the Asian/Californian menu, like the corn soup with cilantro and hijiki (seaweed). It’s sounds great to me!

I'm a total sucker for delicate cutlery and tiny flowers.
I’m a total sucker for delicate cutlery and tiny flowers.

And wow, the whole experience at Hinoki & The Bird was stunning. The food was great and well balanced and the service was also perfect. Really friendly staff, the way it’s supposed to be!

by Ellen Bannink -

Coconut fudge popsicles

You can barely call this a recipe. It’s so simple, just 3 ingredients in popsicle molds and a few hours in the freezer. I always liked chocolate but weird enough I don’t like chocolate ice cream, chocolate pudding or chocolate sauce.

No, give me a box of quality bonbons or a cup with hot cacao on a cold winter day and I’m a happy girl 🙂 But nobody is giving me a box of chocolates nor is it winter at the moment. Even better! It’s summer and I’m enjoying it. So I grabbed my bike and bought dairy-free fudge popsicles at Wholefoods. They were only 80 calories (yep, I started counting those again) but they also screamed ‘ASPARTAME’ all over them. Yuk!

Popsicles p

by Ellen Bannink -

Zucchini Cake with Coconut Cream

Last week my Dutch blog (inmyredkitchen.nl) had a special post. Although I started blogging in May last year, on July 13 I was ready to share my recipes with the world. I still remember sitting in my living room while my sister was visiting. She encouraged me to post a message on my facebook wall to announce that I had started blogging. I was so nervous to post a message about it, but I also felt kind of proud of my ‘baby’.

taartklaarplaatje-jpgversie

So to celebrate this ‘Blogoversary’ I teamed up with Corona, a talented illustrator and also an old friend of mine. I baked a zucchini cake with coconut cream and she made this beautiful illustrated recipe.

by Ellen Bannink -

Corn chili skillet

One of the great things of living in California are jalapeños. Spicy, green, fresh and fiery jalapeños.

Believe it or not but it is impossible to find fresh jalapeños in the Netherlands. Unless you grown them yourself of course. I was about to start a jalapeño project this year, but then P found a job in Los Angeles so we moved.

Corn chili skillet P

 

And I bought a jalapeño plant in LA! So I’m harvesting like crazy now, and we have to eat a lot of spicy Mexican food.

by Ellen Bannink -

Chicken Madras curry

– Click here for this recipe in Dutch -> Kip Madras zonder pakjes –

I’m always a big fan of homemade food so when my brother sent me a picture of the dinner he was cooking at that moment I made a promise.
A promise to do a post on Chicken Madras curry. So here it is.

Kip Madras p

This curry is a populair dish in the Netherlands and it all comes from a package. These kinds of packages all go under the name ‘Wereldgerechten’ which means World Dishes. There is Italian lasagna, Mexican burrito’s, Indian chicken tandoori, Greek kofta, Morrocan chicken tajine, Spanish paella, Japanese teriyaki and so on.

This is the picture my brother sent me, Chicken Madras that comes from a box.
This is the picture my brother sent me, Chicken Madras that comes from a box.

And I have to admit, I also used to prepare those Wereldgerechten quite often.

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.

by Ellen Bannink -

Pasta sauce

– Klik voor het recept in Nederlands -> pastasaus –

Always make sure to have some portions of this pasta sauce in the freezer. It can save lives.

Because it’s the best pasta sauce in the world, believe me!
This pasta sauce recipe is an easier version of the classic Italian bolognese sauce, which includes carrots and celery.

Pasta sauce p

 

Once in a while I’m craving real tomato sauce but the storebought pasta sauces were always so dissapointing to me 🙁

by Ellen Bannink -

Chicken Meatballs

I bought a bike last week! It’s so nice to ride again, I didn’t ride a bike for 8 weeks, the longest since I’ve learned to ride. So that would be 27 years or so 😉 The weather is so good here, and I enjoy to do some grocerie shopping with my new minty-green cruiser.

bike

In Amsterdam I used riding my bike all the time. I didn’t even had a driver license until I was 29! So yes, that’s just 2 years ago 😉
In Amsterdam you need a bike, you can’t live there without having one. Owning a car isn’t necessary, to be precise it’s only annoying. You need a parking permit and even then it’s hard to find a parking spot. In the city centre (where we used to live) the streets are narrow and you’ll get easily stuck in traffic.

Chicken meatballs p