Ilse's Kitchen - culinary adventures of a girl who loves to eat

After a few weeks of spring/summer-come-early, the weather has turned this week and gone back to the Dutch standard this time of year: cold and grey. A typical soup sort of day - when what’s nicest to do is curl up under a blanket and warm yourself with a bowl of soup, spooning in the oozy goodness. This is that kind of soup. The bonus? To make it literally takes less than half an hour from start to finish. Ingredients (serves 2): 150g potatoes, finely diced (about 0.7cm cubes)  1/2 stalk of celery, finely chopped 1 stalk of leek, chopped (set aside a few rings of leek for the topping) 1 small onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 500mL vegetable stock 50mL whole milk 50mL cream 1 tbsp butter 1 bay leaf salt and freshly ground pepper To top: 50g salmon, chopped 1 tsp fresh chives, chopped a few rings of leek and a dab of butter (reserved from the leek above) a bit more cream Instructions: 1. In a soup pan, melt the butter and add the p...

Like all good traditional home cooked meals, you can make a Shepherd's pie in just about a million different ways, and everyone plus their grandma has a slightly different version. I am not going to tell you that some are better than others (although some undoubtedly are), but I will tell you this: without lamb, it ain't Shepherd's pie. All in all, it's a pretty simple dish - there really isn't very much to it. The things to watch for are mostly texture and proportion. The first time I made this it came out on the dry side and I overdid it with the potatoes. The second time I left too much juice in the meat which made it a bit too runny, which, although it tasted substantially better than the dry version, didn't serve very well. This recipe is somewhere in the middle. Not too dry, not too gooey, but oozing with lamby goodness. Another nice thing about shepherd's pie is that like lasagna, it's even better the next day - and it holds up very well when ...

It’s Saturday, and it feels like a real Saturday. No ‘have-tos’, just loads and loads of time for myself. Sleeping in, wearing my pj’s half of the day, Netflix and comfort food. Starting off with this twist on an Ottolenghi recipe to satisfy my weekend brunch craving.  Ingredients (serves 1): 2/3 leek, chopped into 1/2 cm rings 70g kale (I used the cavolo nero variety), chopped 40g feta, broken into smallish (1 cm) pieces 1 tbsp lemon (I quartered my lemon and used about half of the quarter), pips removed & chopped, including the rind and skin) 2 large eggs 100mL vegetable stock dash of cumin powder 1 teaspoon za’atar 1 tbsp butter 2 tbsp olive oil  salt and freshly ground black pepper Instructions:  1. Put the butter and half of the olive oil in a small skillet that you can cover with a lid. Melt the butter and when it starts to bubble, add the leek. Season lightly with salt, then sauté for a few minutes until the leek softens....

When I was younger I didn’t appreciate it much, but spinach has become one of my favourite veggies. It’s packed with vitamins - K, A, C, B2, contains magnesium and iron - in short, a pretty good way to get a lot of the things your body needs. And there’s so many yummy ways to use it - in green smoothies, as soup, creamed, in pasta or risotto dishes... the list goes on. Or like this, as a base for your eggs, like I did this morning. Enjoy :) Ingredients: 150g spinach 1/2 leek, chopped 1 shallot, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 2 eggs 2 tbsp cream 1 tbsp butter olive oil pinch of salt thyme, lemon zest and chili flakes to taste Sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese Instructions (serves 1): 1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 2. Pour the olive oil and butter in a medium sized skillet, and add the leek and shallot. Fruit for about 5-6 minutes over low heat, until the leek is softened but not browned. 3. Add the garlic and spinach and sauté for another 3-4 minutes...

As the world around me is locking down, I’m looking for ways to stay sane. There’s the books I haven’t read, and the movies I haven’t seen. And then there’s food, and this blog. A little for you and a bit for myself, I’ll be doing my best to provide you all with some comfort food in the weeks to come. Like this quiche. Recipe (serves 2): 225g puff pastry (I used a 275g pack of Backini fresh puff pastry) 2 cocottes, mini quiche tins, or mini pie pans (mine were about 12 cm in diameter) 3 medium-size potatoes 1/2 leek 1 large shallot 2 large eggs 60ml cream gouda cheese, grated (I used about 20g but seriously, you don't need measurements for this. Just do it to taste) parmesan, grated (enough to cover the top of both cocottes) fresh oregano 15g bacon (Serrano ham is nice too) salt pepper Instructions: 1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 2. Peel the potatoes and cut into slices about 3mm thick. 3. Bring a big pot of hot salted water to...

Ok, maybe 'healthy' is overselling it a little, but at least this version contains nearly all the food groups and definitely has more veggies than the average. I like to tell myself that makes a difference. Macaroni - with its fair share of cheese - has been in my family as far back as I can remember, but my mother knows better. She first made it as a student, when pasta was far from common at Dutch dinner tables. The instructions told her to prepare each of the ingredients, one by one. She followed them to the letter and served them all separately .   Luckily for us, her macaroni has come a way since then. When I left home, I took my mother's recipe with me and added a touch of my own here and there. The current version is a comfort food I'm happy to make in over-sized quantities and eat as leftovers for days. Ingredients (serves 2 with leftovers): 1.5 cups macaroni  1 red bell pepper 1 green bell pepper 1/2 leek 2 medium-size onions 150g h...