Liebster Award

A big thank you to Irene from  the blog Wandering Girl for awarding me with the Liebster Award. Thank you so much!

So what is this Liebster Award? This award is given to bloggers that are building their blog and have less than 200 followers. The word Liebster is derived from the German and means as much as favourite, dearest, loveliest.

It’s a kind of questionnaire that passes between bloggers to get to know them better.

Each nominee

– answers 11 questions created by the person who made the nomination.
– posts 11 random facts about him or herself,
– chooses 11 bloggers (with less than 200 followers) to award and ask 11 new questions.

So here are my answers and my 11 nominees :
11 answers to the questions from wandering girl
1. Your favourite movie
There are too many. Eat Drink Man Woman is my favourite food movies….

2. Your favourite artist
Changes all the time: recently I discovered the music of Hans Otte (classical) and Regina Spektor (alternative)

3. The best place to eat (restaurant, or other sweet spot)
A bbq lunch that was prepared for me on a beach off El Nido island, Philippines (the fish was caught on the boat ride there)

4. A memorable event in your life ?
So many – and whilst I am thinking about it I have to smile as they are all about love in some way (both enjoyment and loss)

5. If you had to eat only one more meal in your life, what would it be ? (and who would eat it with you ?)
As much as I enjoy food, if I  am honest for my last meal the food would be secondary, as long as it is a true feast with all the people I love, my family and all my close friends

6. If you weren’t doing whatever you do in life, what would you have done ?
My life feels so much “mine” that I really have no idea how to answer this question 🙂

7. What is your favorite cookbook ?
Finally an easy question, Ottolenghi’s Plenty

8. Something that upset you
Although it is a while back now, but somehow it stuck: the news of the girl that had been raped by her stepfather and was whipped as punishment for sex outside marriage. I was outraged and felt so powerless. The only thing I could think of was to signed an on-line petition. Amazingly 2 mln other people did and the sentence was overturned.

9. If you were rich, what would you buy (in priority) ?

A savings account for my nieces education
A17th century mansion in the centre of the city
A long long trip around the world
A piano for my father
A holiday house in southern europe
A racy car
10. your favourite blog ?

Deliciously Ella for its totally healthy and original recipes… But it is the blogs I visit regularly that are closest to my heart

11. Did you have trouble answering this questions (cause I had making them!) ?
Oh yes, especially the first few were hard hard work 🙂

 

11 random facts about me

1. I love hunting for recipes that not only taste delicious but that are actually good for me (partially to compensate for all those meals out ;-> )
2. I love the feeling I get when I hit the apex when I drive through a tight bend
3. I enjoy making the simple things in life special and celebrating the everyday  – whether it is with a home-made packed lunch for a road trip, or a heartfelt compliment
4. I try to buy organic food as much as possible
5. I love to travel – to explore new places, eat new foods and just soak up the atmosphere of a foreign place
6. The worst thing I ever ate was a stew of offal in fabulous Tanzania – I have no problem eating organs, but this was a tasteless stew full of rubbery …. bits….served up as a special treat. I guess some tastes have to be acquired.
7. Sometimes I wish I could play an instrument (though not quite often enough to learn)
8. I want to learn to dive
9. Ever so often I wonder whether I should get myself a cat
10. I want to fly in a glider plane
11. My favourite pieces of jewellery are those I inherited from my grandmother – the locket my grandfather gave her as a first gift and the bracelet my greatgreatgrandmother smuggled across a boarder under her corset for example

 

11  nominees
http://savoryandsweetfood.com/
http://afraevenaar.wordpress.com/
http://dawdlingdarlings.com/
http://appetiteforlifeblog.wordpress.com
http://veggiesonthecounter.com/
http://confetea.wordpress.com/about/
http://thesensitivefoodie.net/
http://dailyinakitchen.com/
http://sensitiveflour.wordpress.com/
http://foodconversations.wordpress.com

11 questions for the nominees

1. What is the most wonderful holiday destination you have ever visited?
2. Your favourite recipe?
3. If you could only keep one of your recipe books which one would it be and why?
4. Do you believe that human beings are meant to find one partner to share a life with?.
5. Why do you blog?
6. The most special gift you have ever given?
7. What do you spend most of your time on next to work, family, sleeping and cooking?
8. Do you enjoy your job?
9. Your favourite blog?
10. Your favourite restaurant?
11. Where would you live if you could choose anywhere in the world?

Salmon and Roe Appetizer

 

Pure and simple

One day a year the Netherlands turn into an Orange on steroids, we call it Queensday. That is until today we called it that: this will be the last Queensday for at least a few decades with a new king taking the throne.

Queensday is not so much a celebration of the queen as an excuse for a great party: when I was a kid it was all about selling old junk on your doorstep. Then it became about joining the thousands of people on the streets of Amsterdam drinking way too many luke warm cans of beer. Nowadays the perfect Queensday is sitting at a friend’s window looking out on the mayhem, enjoying  a lovely glass of wine.

The food that I associate with Queensday has also changed over the years: First I remember eating half of the cake I was trying to sell by slice. Then there were years of greasy shawarmas, French fries and burgers. And now I am nibbling on a few delicacies that have nothing more in common with Queensday than that they are ….orange.

These salmon bites take no effort to put together and make a great appetizer for any celebration.

Small tip: as only part of the salmon filet is thick enough to cut it into beautiful even cubes, have another recipe handy for the remaining salmon. Have some Salmon Burgers for lunch, for example.

 

Ingredients
a piece of thick sashimi quality salmon
Fish roe ( I used orange for the occasion, but black roe gives a very sticking effect as well)
Spring Onions

 

Recipe

1. Cut the salmon into even cubes.
2. Place salmon onto serving dishes.
3. Top each piece with a dollop of roe.
4. Cut the green parts of the spring onion into oval slices.
5. Top each cube with a few onion slices.

 

Tips & Variations

You could prepare the fish in a soy sauce marinade for an Asian twist

Serve with

• Bubbles 😉