Royal April 30, 2009
Posted by tuimeltje in dinner, food.Tags: festive, soup
2 comments
Today it’s Koninginnedag, the celebration of the Queen’s birthday, which means that I’ve seen an overwhelming amount of orange with the occasional flecks of red, white and blue, of course. As my wardrobe is entirely devoid of orange I did not join in, so I’m making up for it online.
Oh, yes.
Most of the morning was spent in a relatively small fisher’s village next to my city of birth, where things are celebrated with some more enthusiasm and patriotism (both 1st and 6th of the national anthem and the provincial anthem were sung) than you might see in larger cities. Not that nothing is organised in larger cities, mind. I remember very well the decorated bikes and the sundry games (spijkerpoepen!) I played to be rewarded with a brightly-coloured candy stick or lollipop.
And the freemarket. That’s always fun. Mostly kids selling their old toys or playing whatever instrument they can get their barely-trained hands on, but sometimes there’s good stuff to be found there. I’ve not been in a few years, but this year I went near where I live. I bought me a puzzle and some Tartex, considered buying a medical encyclopaedia from the 1970s, and if they’d already had the cables and such, I’d most likely have bought a laptop.
Might still do that next week, once the cables and such are in.
Anyway.
Your exposure to orange isn’t limited to me brushing up on my extremely basic coding skills to give you headache-inducing letters. As I can’t be bothered to show any patriotism, community spirit, or conformity by wearing something orange, I figured I could share my culture and heritage and whatnot through food. Orange food.
Carrot soup.
Carrots aren’t particularly Dutch, as far as I know, though I suppose it’s more indigenous than many of the things easily found in supermarkets these days. But they sure are orange.
While I can find various soups when going through old posts, I can’t find any soups that are specifically carrot soups. A few contain carrots, and a few are orange due to liberal use of things like pumpkin or red lentils, but I couldn’t find a carrot soup.
Odd.
I’m sure I’ve made one before, and I really thought I’d posted about it.
Oh well. It doesn’t really matter now, you’ve got pictures of it right here.
Basically, what I did was do the dishes that have been in my kitchen for some weeks (yes, weeks. I’ve hardly been home these last few weeks, remember?), get my large pan, pop a good many cumin seeds in it, chuck in two chopped onions, then either nine or twelve scrubbed and roughly cut carrots (II stopped counting at some point. You can just go with whatever amount you find appealing, really), some water, a bit of garlic powder, some kentjur powder, and a miso bouillon cube. I let that heat up until the carrots were soft enough to purée. After puréeing it and adding a bit of water to make it more soup-ish and less mash-ish, I added a nice bit of lemon juice. I also added a little bit of salt and tamari as the I’d kind of skimped on the bouillon cubes.
I would’ve liked to have added some ginger. I love the carrot-ginger combination, but as you can see in the picture, the little bit of ginger I had left was all wrinkly and wooden. No longer suitable for consumption, that bit. And what with this being a national holiday and all and me forgetting to buy it earlier, I didn’t have anything fresher, so I used the kentjur as a substitute. Not quite as nice, but better than nothing.
Apparently there’s some comedian somewhat confused about Dutch holidays and trying to figure out Koninginnedag. Go watch!
No More Rube April 24, 2009
Posted by tuimeltje in home grown.add a comment
There’s more rhubarb. Unprocessed as of yet, but there’s more rhubarb.
My grandma gave me some again when we went to visit her again this week.
This time however, we didn’t visit to celebrate.
This time we visited because my granddad had died.
I again took my grandma out to see the garden. Not to let her show me around but so she could see the apple trees.
My granddad had been asking if they were blossoming yet. but as she’d not gone outside during those last few days, she had been unable to tell him.
They were blossoming.
Beautifully.
Rube April 13, 2009
Posted by tuimeltje in dessert, food.Tags: vegetables
2 comments
You know what? You’re going to get a proper food post, pictures and all.
This weekend we celebrated my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary, and after the get-together at the party centre my parents, one of my siblings and I stopped by my grandparents’ house to drop off some stuff.
They have a lovely garden and while they’re no longer able to maintain it themselves, they take much pride in it still so I love to ask them about it and get the tour whenever I visit. For as long as I can remember, and probably a long time before that, my grandparents have grown edible things in their garden. Their old garden had a little greenhouse, fruit trees and bushes, and a few beehives. Their new garden doesn’t have quite as much as the old one, and currently doesn’t have quite as much as it once had due to changed dietary habits, but it still has some fruit trees and bushes and a few rhubarb plants.
When my grandma was giving me the tour, I noticed the rhubarb plants. Not being 100% sure they were rhubarb, I asked my grandma for confirmation, which lead to her telling me to yank out a good few stalks to take home, and make sure to take the nice and thick ones.
I’m not sure I’ve quite got the hang of the new image gallery feature here, but you should be able to see the loot on one of the pictures. There’s another picture of the chopped up rhubarb in the pot, which just looked so pretty! Reminded me of some kind of sweet, with it’s slight shine.
There’s also a picture of the rhubarb greens. I considered making something with them, but then I read that they’re supposed to be poisonous so I gave it a miss. Now I’m just sorry I don’t have some kind of compost heap I can chuck them at.
I boiled it down, which was quite quick and made the flat smell lovely. As you can see on one of the pictures, I let it boil a little too much. It looks pretty, though. With all those stalks, I had expected a fair bit of rhubarb mush but it ended up being just two of those little containers. I don’t have time to eat any of it now, so I stuck it in the freezer for later use. What I did do was pour a bit of the juice/syrup in the smoothie I was making siince I didn’t have any other juice or notmilk. Though I only put in a little bit, I could taste it quite well.
This whole rhubarb adventure made me a lot happier than I expected and makes me wish I had a garden of my own. Those things are probably very easy to grow.
Alive April 13, 2009
Posted by tuimeltje in administrative.2 comments
All,
I know I made a few promises earlier that I didn’t quite manage to keep. Apologies. I’m still alive, but have been rather busy these last few months. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely (well, apart from that bit around the time I broke up with the Belgian boy) and am now hanging out at a hospital back home. I kind of don’t want to leave anymore.
In a few weeks I’ll be at a hospital closer to my flat which, along with my newfound singlehood, will make decent vegan cooking and sharing the pictures much easier. And enjoying what other people are sharing. I’m rather missing a bit of vegan community at the moment.
So until then, enjoy yourselves and do some lovely vegan things.
Twigs and Tofu 