Homemade Summer Sangria

Time to give a summer swing to that boring old white wine ! On a warm spring evening like tonight there is little that can beat this summer sangria. And guess what ? It only takes like 5 minutes to prepare.

Chop up some fresh fruit like strawberries, kiwi's, oranges or any other fruit you have lying around the fruit bowl. Pick some fresh pepermint leaves and put them in a jug together with the chopped up fruit. Now Add you chilled white (or rosé) wine to the fruit. To make it even more refreshing mic in some ice cubes or crushed ice.

Cheers !

Rustic tomato salad with boeuf de coeur tomatoes

One of the contents of the crate this week were coeur de boeuf tomatoes.

The coeur de boeuf tomato is not just a tomato with a special appearance, but it's also has delightful taste. With this tomato the ripening process of tomato starts at the inside going out. The fruit is ripe and tasty even though it still can be a bit green. It's is strongly ribbed, has sloping sides and is light in colour. The coeur de boeuf is not only perculiar for its taste, also the heart-shaped, light coloured appearance is characteristic and distinguishes itself by the full flesh and excess juice and acid content. Unlike traditional tomatoes, this fruit has an optimal flavour when most of the peel is still green. The Coeur de Boeuf has a fruit weight of 180 to 200 grams. This tomato is suitable for many uses.

For this rustic salad chop up some different types of tomatoes among them the coeur de boeuf, some red, green & red striped, yellow and purple cherry tomatoes, tasty toms, or whatever else kind of tomatoes you might have lying around.

Whack up a dressing of 3 parts good  olive oil, 1 part balsamic vinegar, drizzle of honey (to bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes) some sea salt and coarsely grounded pepper. The salt is a must, because it will help extract the juices from the tomatoes and mix in with the dressing. Chop up 2 or 2 spring onions into finely slices rings. Then cut some of the cherry tomatoes in halves, the larger ones in quaters and chop up the coeur de boeuf tomatoes roughly. Don't worry about it being in perfect shape or not. The rustic appearance of this salad comes from the different cutting methods and the uneven pieces of the tomatoes.
Now mix the tomatoes with the dressing. Tear up some fresh basil leaves and mix in.

Serve with some sour dough bread or a burgundy floor bread. Use the bread to dip in the dressing and juices.

Bon Apetit ! 

The Crate, fair food brought home

A few weeks ago we went to this market on Easter morning. Beautiful setting in the Frankendael Park in Amsterdam. It was a true feast to any foodie maniac as us. We got to a stand where they sold subscriptions to "the crate". A crate filled with all these organic and local produces such as vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, breads and so on. Foodie as I am, I just had to get me one of those subscriptions of course !! Only problem was they didn't deliver to our hometown... But... Goodness gracious me... They were willing to take a detour in order to deliver to us as well ! How awsome is that !!

So... this morning our first crate arrived. Present of the week to me ! This weeks crate contained:  

A green zucchini

A bunch basil

Coeur de boeuf tomatoes

5 kinds of cherry tomatoes (red, green, yellow)

Cucumbers

3 colors eggplants

Green chard leaves

New potatoes

Lollo Biondo lettuce crop

A bunch of fresh peppermint 

A bunch chervil

Gasconner beef burgers

rustic break bread 

homemade tomato ketchup

The crate comes with recipes for every item in the crate. You can choose to go for a (non)vegetarian 2 or 4 persons crate. In our case every other week delivered on Saturday mornings. I got to tell you people, do try this !! Seasonal organic and local. What else does a foodie want ?? 

I'll try to post some of the recipes I come up with using products from the crate on this blog. 

For more info check out http://www.dekrat.nl/