Jyothi

I love simplicity, specially when I am cooking our daily dinner I love things things that are healthy but do not require hours of preparing.

This dish we eat often when the melanzane’s or eggplant are cheap.

I use about 2 melanzane’s about 4 tablespoons of oil, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 cans of peeled tomato’s, salt, pepper and basil.

Cut the melanzane in dice size pieces, cover them with some salt and let them stand for an hour or so. Rinse

In a big pan fry the melanzane with the garlic in the olive oil. When they start to get some color, after 10 minutes normally, add the cans of peeled tomato and let the lot simmer for another half an hour. Stirring it occasionally. At the end add some fresh basil leaves and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot with fresh bread.

Peach and Amaretto Semifreddo, originally uploaded by Daniele Muscetta.

My creation for desert on christmas dinner.

Ingredients for 6 persons

1 big can of peaches
750 grams of marscapone
150 grams of sugar
100 ml milk or cream (i used milk)
50 grams of amaretti crushed

Mix de marscapone with the milk and sugar untill it is smooth.
Cut all but 2 halves of the peaches in little pieces.
In a glass (i used wine glasses) put a layer of the marscapone mixture, then you sprinkle some of the amaretti crumbs on top.
Then you put the little pieces of peach in the glass and then an other layer of marscapone.

Put the glasses in the fridge for atleast 2 hours. Before serving sprinkle some marscapone crumbles on top and decorate with one or 2 slices of peach ( the ones you did not cut in little pieces before).

You can also do this with fresh peaces but they are a bit hard to get in december

Originally uploaded by Daniele Muscetta

Found the recipe on the internet, adjusted it a little bit because did not have all the ingredients in the house. They turned out pretty good, and are very easy to make.

Ingredients:

3 banana’s smashed
150 ml sun flower oil
1 egg
100 gr of sugar
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
1 theespoon of bakingpowder
250 gr flour

Mix all the ingredients untill smooth. Well doe not need to be perfect, but untill you can not see in lumps of flour anymore.
Fill the muffin cups and bake them in a preheated oven 200 degrees celcius for about 20 minutes.

Let them cool off a little, melt 100 gr of dark chocolat and cover them with chocolat and decorate the way you like. Let them cool down and completly and enjoy!

This pendant was given to me by a shaman artist when I was about 17 years old.
It happened like this.
Me and my parents where walking on a alternative market where different stalls where offering their services.
There was the tarot reading, Reiki etc etc.
There was also this little stall full with beautiful jewelry made by a shaman artist. And when I saw this
pendant I really wanted to have it, but no way I could afford it. They where asking about 150 guilders for it, which for a 17 year old is a lot of money. The artist saw that I really liked it, and asked if I wanted to hold it. I said yes. She told me to keep it in between my hands. A little later she asked me:” What do you feel?”

I told her I felt an energy coming from the bottom of my belly going up.

She was surprised and happy I could feel the energy from the pendant and she gave it to me as a gift.

I wore it for a few years and then I took it off, I can’t even remember why.The other day I found it again and felt that I should wear it again. So I cleaned it and now it is hanging around my neck once again reinforcing my inner strength.

Just a few weeks untill autumn officially starts. This weekend is the last weekend of the summer holiday of the boys. Monday they are both starting at there new school. I really hope they make loads of friends en feel good at school.
Also most likely i have found a job and will start working again. it really feels good to start doing something outside of the house/family again.

Some people use spaghetti or bucatini.
I do prefer short, raw pasta that collects the bacon pieces and the egg better.

This recipe is very simple, but timing is essential when making it.

Start by frying some bacon in olive oil. Don’t make it burned. Just cook it for a couple of minutes: it only needs to get pink and cooked, it does not have to be crisp at this point. So stop the fire and take the pan away not to make it burn.

Also, while doing the bacon this way start with letting the water boil and cooking the pasta.

At the same time prepare a couple of eggs like if you would do an omelette – it is not necessary to mix it very throughly – it is fine if the white and the yellow part of the egg are not mixed completely:

You can add a bit of salt and pepper to it.

At the same time, grate some parmesan cheese:

When the pasta is nearly cooked (half a minute before you think it’s gonna be “al dente”), turn the fire back on softly under the bacon, so the oil gets warm again. As soon as the pasta is “al dente” dump it quickly with the bacon and the oil, start mixing it so the oil makes it all aroound the pieces of pasta like a glue. Also dump the egg in the pan at this point. Just keep the fire low and keep mixing.

Mix the parmesan cheese too:

Just keep stiring, the egg needs to go everywhere and the past has to absorbe it a bit. keep stiring, don’t let it be stuck to the pan or form blobs.

Add freshly grated black pepper:

Serve and eat while it’s warm!
Enjoy

Ingredients:

A small onion.
a pinch of salt,
a pinch of pepper,
lemon juice (a couple of tea spoons),
one ripe avocado,
one cherry tomato.

put altogether and mix it all with a blender.
don’t forget to dip your nachos in it.
enjoy

I found this recipe searching for a good recipe for a cake without eggs. As my mother in law in allergic for them.

3 tsp lemon juice 
1 1/4 cup milk
2/3 cup sunflower oil
3/4 Cup sugar 
3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/12 tsp cinnamon powder
1 1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 1/2 cup grated carrots 

Preheat the oven on 170 degrees Celsius. Butter the cake tin of you choice. These ingredients are enough for a round cake of about 20 cm.

In a small bowl mix the lemon juice with the milk, let it rest for 5 minutes.
Mix the flower with the baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt, put aside.

In a big bowl mix the oil with the sugar, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the milk mixture, mix it again. Add the flower mixture and mix well so there are no lumps left. Add the carrots and pour the mixture in the baking tin, and bake for about an hour.

enjoy  

The first time I made this cake I made it several ones and made Lucas first birthday cake from them.

This is the applepie my granny always used to make when I was little. Now I make it for us or for when we are with friends. I added a bit of ginger to the original recipe. I love the combination of apples, raisins, ginger and cinnamon.

Ingredients

For the dough

240 gr flour
180 gr butter or margarine
120 gr sugar
1 tsp salt

For the filling

1 kilo apples peeled and cut in little pieces
50 grams of sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of ginger
100 gr raisins
lemon juice

2 spoons of milk
2 spoons of jam (ideally apricot jam, but here i used home made plum jam)

round cake tin of about 24 cm
preheat the oven on 160 degrees Celsius

Mix all the ingredients for the dough until you have a firm ball. cover with clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll about 2/3 of the dough out until it is about half a cm thick and put in the cake tin.

Mix the apples together with the sugar, raisins, cinnamon, ginger and lemon juice.

Put the apple mixture on the dough.

Roll out the remaining 1/3 of the dough and cut it in long stripes, put the stripes over the apples like a sort of net. Brush some milk over the dough stripes.

Put the pie in the oven and bake it for about 45 minutes or until it is golden brown.

Take it out and spread some jam over the top.

Let it cool down and enjoy

Before I had kids i used to listen to loads of music, always had the radio on. Or cd’s in the cd player and my Walkman with me with tapes. Then after Joshua was born I listened to some but not as much as i used to and I started more and more to forget to put music on. Then i had a job where there was always music on the background, then at home i was not very worried that it was quiet or that Daniele put on his cd’s. The radio i could not really be asked to listen to because half the songs where not my taste and i can’t stand commercials.

So the other week Daniele invited me to come as well to http://www.last.fm a type of radio station where you can make your own play list and on the kind of music you like they make suggestions of similar kind of music.

So i subscribed and for the first time in years i am listening to the radio again. Only this time it is just with the songs I like. And also found some old dutch songs that my dad used to sing when I was little……