Back to......

So, yesterday, I went back to the daily grind. It's good to be using my brain again in a different way, and it's fantastic to have predictable cashflows again. I'm suffering some minor teething issues getting paperwork and kit sorted but mostly that's coz it's a new company in NL and lots and lots and lots needs to get done all at once. Here's to an exciting positive year.

Sadly, this does mean I won't get so much time crafting or online gaming anymore - but tbh, that's not the end of the world. I won't be giving up cooking though - I've really enjoyed my new forays into it and have recently been experimenting with 'deconstructed' cooking - mainly crumbles of various sorts. Must lay hands on some whole oats, because I can see acres of potential here - and even crumbles made with ground almonds or semolina.

On another area of food experimentation  - I finally got around to trying out some tweaks on my traditional lasagne. Yes, I know, the book chefs have been doing it for ages, but good ol' lasagne is such a mainstay dish it's hard to move away from the classic. The most successful suggestion was made by a norwegian friend - add layers of fresh spinach to it between the mince and bechamel layers : awesome result and much recommended. I've finally found a *good* dutch cheese for making it with - old gouda gives a fab taste, without too much grease, unlike a lot of the younger dutch cheeses.

With Hannukah just gone by, it seemed like a great idea to get the fryer out and some latkes on the table .....here's the recipe on epicurious which I based my end result on :

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Latkes-with-Lots-of-Sauces-51116000

A few lessons learned :
 - not all kitchen paper holds together with the onion squeezing, so muslin is a better idea
- be damn sure to mix and spread around the garlic in the potato mixture, because a wholly garlic latke is a bit of a shock!
- taking a shortcut and buying a ready made dutch apple sauce can be fraught with pitfalls : I ended up buying something that was more like an apple syrup/jam rather than the apple chunky sauce I envisaged. Actually turned out to be a superb mix after all!