Friday Food | Christmas Brunch

Friday Food | Christmas Sangria

Friday Food | Good family food

Friday Food | Chickpeas and pasta

Friday Food | An everything soup

Friday Food | Pear & Goat Cheese

Friday Food | Yoghurt sweetness

This would be my Easter Brunch

Happy Easter everyone! 

favim.com

Hope you will receive lots of chocolate eggs and other sweets with an additional lovely brunch or dinner. It's a way-back tradition that my mom makes a huge brunch or dinner for the family after the Easter hunt in our garden. And with huge I just mean ginormous ;-). My closest and oldest friends know how the kitchen rolls at la casa Dewitte; that are endless dishes with - in my opinion - yummy food! 

I'm hoping that in the future I can treat my mom and others to a lovely brunch as well, but maybe less big... Ok, hold on. What am I saying?!! I caught that overload cooking virus already.   

Anywhooo... I was thinking about lots of different salads and other stuff I would make and looked up some pictures from Pinterest just to give you an idea. The "recipes" next to the pictures are my own :-). Besides tasty dishes the typical pistolets and koffiekoeken have to be part of a great brunch with different cheeses, ham, salami, marmalade to make your sandwiches complete. And to be honest, you can have the following dishes for any kind of brunch or family/friends get together!

Have a look and tell me what you would like to have as an option on the buffet table ;-)!

Greek salad

This one is a MUST on my brunch and although I like the authentic salad paysanne I'm going with a twist: 

- lettuce (I prefer a soft mixed variation)
- different kinds of tomatoes (colors and size)
- cucumber 
- red onion
- scrumbled feta cheese 
- crunched bacon bits
- olive oil
- pepper and salt 
- balsamico vinegar
- fresh mint leaves

Bake some stripes of bacon until they're dark brown (but not burned!). Let them dry on a  piece of paper towel. As a finishing touch you crunch the bacon in your hands and sprinkle it on your salad. 

While the oil of your bacon is still hot in the pan, add the balsamico vinegar (be careful). Just make sure not to use all of the oil of course, we don't want a lot of greaseness, just a little will do! And sprinkle this also on your big bowl of salad. Finish off with a some olive oil, pepper and salt.

Grilled Zucchini Roll-ups

- zucchini (as much as your table needs) 
- peppers you get in a jar (that are soaked in oil) 
- chilli pepper 
- garlic
- olive oil
- oregano 
- pepper and salt 
- goat cheese

For the marinade: chop the chilli peppers as small as you can and the same goes for the garlic. Add them to a bowl with olive oil, pepper, salt, oregano and other dried herbs of your choice! Slice the zucchini in thin long slices and marinade them. 

Grill them and let them cool off for a little while. Then add the goat cheese and pieces of pepper and roll them up!

You can also put some basil in the rolls (found that on Pinterest). I would personally also add some pepper and other herbs to the goat cheese and mix it up well before adding it to the rolls. 

Pancake galore

A brunch means in Sabrina terms a mix of sweet and salty stuff on the table, so here you go :-). 

- everything you need to make pancakes (favorably little ones)
- strawberries, blueberries, bananas, pineapple
- sugar (white/brown), maple syrup
- whipped cream

Go crazy with this if you want. Make tons of little pancakes. Slice all of the fruits you would like to have in different pieces. Present them all in different bowls next to the whipped cream, maple syrup and sugar. Nothing more to say to that I think ;-). Everyone has choice of different supplements = happy people!

An alternative is to make your pancakes salty and then you can serve it with feta cheese, tomatoes, smoked salmon, chives, goat cheese, ...

And if you're a waffle-lover, no need to hesitate then ;-)

Fruit salad

My ultimate favorite fruits are melons and watermelon and these are in my opinion also super nice to add to a big bowl of fruit salad!

- watermelon
- different melons 
- pomegranate 
- grape fruit
- oranges 
- strawberries
- bananas
- apples 
- lime juice 
- mint leaves

Most simple thing anyone can make, right? Just slice everything in different pieces. 

Once I tried to make it very pretty like the picture here (for the melon, watermelon and grape fruit) but that took a lot of my time I didn't actually had... If it's for a small group, you can have a go at it ;-).

As finishing touch I would add a little lime juice and a bunch of mint leaves, gives it a fresh taste!

Pasta salad

I'm a huge pasta-lover so a pasta salad seems appropriate for a brunch/late lunch, no? 

I would opt for several cold pasta dishes (for veggies, meatlovers, etc...).

- pesto genovese
- allumettes de bacon/prosciutto
- cherry tomatoes
- garlic
- olive oil/pepper/salt/chilli pepper powder/...

- black olives/feta cheese/red onion/pepper
- cherry tomatoes/cucumber 
- olive oil/pepper/salt/dried herbs/...

- tuna
- red onion
- corn 
- red beans
- mayo/lime juice/pepper/salt/chilli pepper/...



Ok, I seriously can go on with other ideas such as fruit-granola parfaits, grilled asparagus sprinkled with goat cheese and walnuts, frittata, quiche, muffins and sooooo much more...

Have a lovely sunday and enjoy it to the fullest!

Love,
Sabrina, x.

Onion Delight

Onion truth.

No better smell than some butter and onion sizzling in the saucepan to stir up an appetite. And definitely no better 'boerenkost' than straight from my grandmother's kitchen. As I mentioned before, one of my favourite meals: onion sauce with meatballs! A real authentic poor people's meal from back in the days when sushi was still inconceivable. Although a lot less meat was involved back then, but I just need my meatballs people!

Ingredients:

• 1 egg/person
• potatoes
• salt 
• butter 

Meatballs

• 200g of minced beaf/person
• 1 raw egg
• pepper & salt
• nutmeg
• bread-crumbs 

Onion sauce

• 1 big onion/person
• pepper & salt
• vinegar
• 1 beef cube
• Maizena binder (dark sauces)

 
Let's cook!

1. If you keep eggs in the fridge, get them out so that they can warm up to room temperature. I'll explain later ;). 

2. Add all the ingredients for the meatballs together and get your hands dirty. Knead until you have a tasty mixture which you can turn into meatballs (see picture above). About three meatballs per person will do.

3. Peel the potatoes, chop them in half and boil them in water. Add some salt to it.

4. Start making your onion sauce. Put a big chunk of butter together with your chopped up onions in a heated pot. Enjoy the delicious smell heading your way! 

Fry the onion pieces until they become soft and translucent. Then add a bit of water until you cover the bottom of your pot and add the beef cube. Put the lid on your pot and let everything cook for about ten minutes.

5. In the meanwhile you can bake your meatballs in a large saucepan. 

 

6. Boil the room temperature eggs in water with vinegar and salt. These tricks should help the eggs not to crack or to keep the content spill to a minimum. To end up with soft-boiled eggs, let them suffer for four minutes. After the torture, scare them with cold water. Hell's kitchen indeed!

7. Add a splash of vinegar and some seasoning to the onion sauce. After that you can thicken it with Maizena binder until you're satisfied. 

8. Peel the eggs, be careful not to break them until they are near your plate.

9. Put all of your cookings on a plate and dinner is served! 

Maybe I should follow my own recipe, that way I don't forget stupid things. Most of the time potatoes :D.

Bon appetit!

Naomi, x.

PUMPKIN soup!

Autumn days are here!  I absolutely love the beautiful scenery and the coloring of the leaves. It even lets me forget (if only for a second) the awful cold temperatures that come along with it. 

So what better way of spending a lazy Sunday afternoon than enjoying the autumn view from inside your (warm) house while making a delicious PUMPKIN soup! As easy as can be, healthy, diet friendly and ECO-friendly since pumpkins are autumn vegetables! 

So here’s the recipe: 

What you NEED:

1.    Pumpkins ( off course! ), Use 1 and 1/2 

2.    Potatoes, 4 big ones (the more, the thicker the soup will be)

3.    According to flavor: onion, tomatoes, any vegetables you like (I didn’t  add complementary vegetables)  

4.    Bouillon

5.    Water, 2.5 L if you want a thicker soup (a lunch replacing soup), if not use 3-3.5L

6.    To add extra flavor at the end, some cream and/or parsley

What you DO: 

Chop all the vegetables in big chunks, as we will mix afterwards there’s no need of spending extra time cutting them in little pieces! Stove for about 2min with some olive oil. Add water and Bouillon. Let it simmer for about 30-45min. Mix, add some salt/pepper/cream/parsley/croutons according to preference. And as for the most important part of the entire recipe sit back, relax and ENJOY!  

Maximum result, minimum effort!

Pumpkins

The Ingredients

Et Voila

Greetings! 

Elke, x.