by Ellen Bannink -

Sweet potato and kale mash

Sweet Potato and Kale mash | © in my Red Kitchen

It’s hard to break from those bad holiday eating habits, isn’t it? You probably have some leftover cookies at home, or delicious marshmallows to go with your hot chocolate.

I know all about it. Even though I kept on hiking and juicing in between the holidays I gained some weight again. Not fun!

So to force myself to break with my new habit of eating some chocolate after dinner or go out for hamburgers I did a juice cleanse this week. This really forces me to eat healthy the days up to the cleanse.

by Ellen Bannink -

Food Truck Tuesday – slow cooker chicken tikka masala

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala - in my Red Kitchen – Click here for this recipe in Dutch -> Kip tikka masala –

One of the best things of living in LA are the food trucks! My love for food trucks started almost two years, when we were in LA for vacation. P had to work that day and he took the car so I walked to the beach to sit there and read a book. On my way back I noticed I was a little bit hungry and right at that moment there it was: a food truck!

I stood in line and ordered a quesadilla. But then the lady in the truck asked me what kind of quesadilla I wanted. I panicked, looked at the menu but it was all in spanish so I ordered

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 -

White chocolate limoncello truffle cake

White-truffle-cake-4-inmyredkitchen

– Click here for this recipe in Dutch -> Witte chocolade truffel cake met limoncello –

Oh. My. God. I think I’ve never been more pleased with a dessert than this one. Maybe it’s because I don’t do a lot of desserts. Maybe it’s because there’s alcohol involved. Maybe it’s because there are strawberries involved. But… maybe it’s because this one took a lot of test rounds before it was blog worthy.

The most important thing I found out:

by Ellen Bannink -

Spritsen for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

Spritsen-1-inmyredkitchen
I didn’t had to think about it when I read about the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. Of course I’m participating in this! Who doesn’t like cookies? I love every part of it: baking them, eating them (still warm out of the oven? yes please!) and handing them out to friends to surprise them.  fbcookieswap2013_white

And of course I’m participating in this cookie swap with some typical Dutch cookies!

by Ellen Bannink -

Lamb stew with porcini

Lamb-stew-inmyredkitchen
After a delicious first course we serve this Lamb stew with porcini as the main course for Christmas. It’s an easy recipe and it can easily be prepared the day before.

Earlier this year -back in Amsterdam- I bought lamb steaks. I thought. But it turned out to be lamb shoulder. And, as we all know, you can make some delicious stew with lamb shoulder.
So I did. I tossed some ingredients together and made a delicious lamb stew. If only I wrote down the recipe or remembered what ingredients I used to make this…

by Ellen Bannink -

Creamy sunchoke soup

Sunchoke-soup-inmyredkitchen

Two weeks (and a little bit) until Christmas! Waaaah, time flies! This will be my first Christmas in LA and -even though it’s cold lately- the weather will never be as bad as in the Netherlands. Christmas and sun, that sounds like the perfect combination to me 😉

This week I’m going to give you a full Christmas menu, first course, main course and dessert.

A while ago I promised myself to start cooking with ingredients I’ve never cooked before, like parsnip,

by Ellen Bannink -

Persimmon oatmeal bread

Persimmon-cake-inmyredkitchen
Every weekday morning our alarm goes off at 8am. Some times I’m already awake but most times I’m still in a deep sleep. Between 8 and 8.30am I’m trying to wake up by reading the news, checking my Facebook time line, liking a lot of photos at my Instragram feed and reading my email, all on my iPhone.

At 8.30am I kick P out of bed; he will take a shower and I will also get out of bed and put on my bathrobe and slippers. I walk to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast for P. Breakfast is a bowl of yogurt with fruit (at this moment pomegranate, oranges and grapefruit) and home made granola. I make it easy for myself because