Cosmo Cooking

There we were, on the last day of our stay in Paris we went to a cosy street-bistro in Montmartre for lunch. Inspired by a delicious bowl of salad, we tried to recreate this atmosphere. Luckily our basil plant has grown much into a little monster, thus we had to transform our hedge into an Italian speciality. Home-made pesto. When made by yourself, you kitchen should smell like a jungle of herbs.

Luckily we still had a very nice bottle from our former Parisian neighbours Marc & Emmanuelle, who have family that make this great Pineau des Charentes.

Ingredients

• 30 gr of basil
• 50

… Continue Reading

Hummus, Arabic: حمّص‎, stands for chickpeas, which is the main ingredient of this dish. In this recipe the basic recipe is presented and can be used to make many different variations. This spread is easy to make and is great in summer time when having a pick-nick or just as an appetizer. It takes maximally 15 minutes to make, but it’s every time a pleasure to make. The difficult part is only finding the Tahini (sesami paste) in your supermarket or Arabic convenience store.

The basic recipe is already good, but it definitely should be upgraded with a selection spices and … Continue Reading

Ah, it’s again one of those days when you just don’t want to leave the house. It’s winter, and the rain is beating against the windows. Now, a good way to make yourself feel a lot better is to trust the power of a hot chocolate… however, with a little spicy twist.

Ingredients

• 600 ml milk
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 chili pepper
• 40 gr of cocoa powder
• 50 gr sugar
• 80 gr dark chocolate
• 2 tbsp Amaretto (optional)
• 1-2 tbsp starch

Bring the milk with the cinnamon stick to boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for a few minutes. In the meanwhile, cut the chili pepper lengthwise … Continue Reading

This is the first recipe with meat in it. It might not be surprising when you realize that one of the authors is vegetarian. Cooking with meat gives another dimension and in terms of tastes, no soy burger or carrot soufflé has ever replaced for me the unique qualities of a meat product. In the future I should give more recipes with meat in it, but don’t be surprised what you can do without.

The following recipe is a recipe from Bali, an Indonesian island. Once it was a colony from the Netherlands. Still in the Dutch supermarkets you can find … Continue Reading

Fish in a package … a gift on your plate.

After being a week with my son and haven’t had any fish, once back I was longing to eat again a portion of Dutch fish. Cod is such a delicious fish that is not farmed, but caught in a fair manner.

Ingredients
For these cod packets you need for 2 people:

• 350 gr cod
• 1 onion into rings
• 1 clove garlic chopped
• 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• 1/2 lemon sliced
• 2 sliced tomato
• 2 tbsp dry white wine
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Tear 4 pieces of baking paper and put them double.
Fry the onion and … Continue Reading

This recipe came from my dear aunt. Although she calls it a strudel, she isn’t German. But that’s the beauty of cosmocooking. To dare to use ingredients from different countries and find nice combinations. So we mixed ricotta with feta, Parmesan cheese and dried apricots. This time the list of ingredients is a bit longer than usual. As you have to fold the mixture into small packages, she calls it a strudel, but we rather prefer to call it secretly Spanakopita.

Ingredients

• 3 shallots
• 100 g dried apricots
• 1 lemon
• 50 g pine nuts
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 300 g frozen spinach
• 1 egg
• 100 gr feta
• 200 gr ricotta
• 50

… Continue Reading

Courgette soup, a delicious soup. Good for your shape.

Ingredients

• 2 leeks
• 2 zucchinis
• 25 gr butter
• 1 l chicken stock
• green pesto
• Parmesan cheese

Fry two sliced leeks and two diced zucchini about 8 minutes in 25 g butter. Add one liter chicken stock (or vegetable broth for the vegetarian version) and cook about 20 minutes. Continue Reading

I love cinnamon, not only for Chrismas. Thus this recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 packages quark
• 1 bowl of yoghurt
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 bottle mango sauce
• 1 can blueberries

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Salads are great! Have a look in your fridge and take a walk through a shop with tasty food, the salad is almost ready!

Ingredients

• 2 red peppers
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 radicchio
• 1/2 lettuce
• 2 spring onions
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp chili balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp whole-grain mustard

In this case, take peppers, tomatoes, some leaves of a radicchio and some of a curled lettuce, furthermore spring onions. Cut everything as you want it. And now the dressing: take good olive oil, chili-balsamic-vinegar, whole-grain mustard, salt and pepper to make a vinaigrette and mix it with the salad. Then arrange everything on a plate and lust but not least “the … Continue Reading

The best way to obtain a good recipe is to get one of your friend’s favorites. Or even better, when your friend even got it from a good friend. When my friend started backing this pie, in fact he started with la haute cuisine expérimentale. Though he abandoned now the experimental adding of tuna to random recipes, you might find that this recipe is one of those classic recipes, of which the simplicity is its strength. I can almost refer to the Minimalist who is the expert in making beautiful things with a minimal amount of … Continue Reading