Create with your hands
Create with your hands
Your daily bread should be nourishing and delicious, it should be wholesome and exciting, but most of all, easy and fun to make. The way I cook from scratch food, it’s easy and quick because as much as I love cooking, I don’t want to be cooking all day.
I love the moment you hold your produce in your hands and imagine all the dishes you can create from it. If you’ve been cooking from scratch food for long enough, you develop a sixth sense for knowing when something is ready. I often find myself already walking towards the oven right before the bell goes off without even realising. I’ve always relied heavily on my instinct while cooking, that is until my husband got interested in learning how to cook. He preferred to have detailed recipes, so I started to write down all the recipes for my dishes. Those same recipes I now want to share with more people.
So let’s create some delicious food together.
This homemade muesli is so simple to make and hardly takes any time at all. I made this sugar free oat muesli for my husband since he eats muesli for breakfast every day. He used to eat store-bought muesli, but since I made him this homemade muesli, he never wants store-bought again. He prefers his breakfast without any sugar, so this recipe is sugar free. Although when I have my muesli on Saturday morning, I add a small spoonful of sugar.
These rustic oats biscuits are so hearty and filling. The oats give them a natural sweetness, and the addition of a tiny bit of sugar makes them absolutely perfect. Because the biscuits are so filling, you won’t eat your entire bake in one sitting. Which is nice, if your kids also look at you with disappointment when they find out you ate all the biscuits the night before.
These sweet sesame squares are like tiny energy bars, they are very satisfying and filling. From eastern Europe all the way to parts of Asia, there are different variations on this sesame candy. They are slightly nutty and ever so sweet with that lovely honey flavour. These sesame squares are based on the Greek pasteli, they go way back in history.
This lovely vegetarian dish is one of my favorite childhood dishes, we almost ate it every fortnight. One of our dear friends was vegetarian and came for dinner every Monday evening. My mother, who grew up with the standard Dutch dinners of potatoes, veggies, and some meat on the side, found it challenging at times. So she tried her best to find as many vegetarian dishes as she could. Some were almost inedible, but most were just beyond tasty. And out of all those dishes, this broccoli gratin is my all-time favorite.
Maybe one of the simplest soups, but because of its simplicity, you want to take extra care when making it. Since the main ingredient are onions and you don’t add much else in great proportions, you can’t hide behind other grand flavours. So you want to properly caramelize the onions to get that delectable balance between savoury and sweet. To add just that extra bit of oomph, I like to add some Marmite, it seems to enhance the flavour of the onions.
This complete meal is based on one of my childhood favourites, well actually, the only difference is the meat. My mom used to serve it with a meatball for each of us. And a meatball is tasty but I didn’t have mince on hand, fortunately, I did have some nice pork chops. So, I marinated the pork chops and prepared the mash and beans. The beans we traditionally always cut as diagonal thin slivers, it’s a pain to do it by hand. And if I were to eat them on a more regular basis, I would definitely invest in one of my dad’s bean cutter things.
This delicious and nutritious vegetable and beef stew is sure to fill you up and make sure you will have your 5 a day. I made this stew, and everyone wanted seconds and even thirds, so no leftover stew for lunch the next day. But I didn’t mind because I wanted more stew as well, it was just so yummy.