Saffron Noodle Cake

I brought 3 cookbooks with me to Belgium. The first, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, next a binder full of my favorites, and last The Belgian Cookbook edited by Mrs. Brian Luck (thank you Secret Santa!). Slowly, the kitchen is getting set up. We have one pot, a cutting board, a big chef's knife and a smaller pairing knife, some flatware that has made its way into our place, and plates. We ate out a lot at first, which is a wonderful way to try the new places, but I missed cooking. My suitcases came here with 4 gallon-size ziplock bags of spices and herbs. It made for some good smelling clothes!

I was surprised at how simple, yet marvelous, this recipe is. I wanted to share. It comes straightout of Madison's cookbook (but you should buy it or check it out from the library).

Ingredients
2 T olive oil
2 pinches saffron threads
8 oz spaghetti or linguine
salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup parmesan, shredded
1 bunch green onions (about 4 medium sized ones with an 1" of the greens)
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1/3 cup basil, chopped
2 T butter

Directions:

1. Heat up the olive oil in a pan. Pour it out into a stainless steel measuring cup or teacup. Add the saffron threads and allow it to infuse. 
2. Cook the pasta according to package directions, and drain noodles and set aside. You should rinse the pasta with cold water so it won't be a huge sticky lump.
3. Combine the eggs through basil, the infused saffron olive oil, and the spaghetti in a medium mixing bowl.  Season with salt and pepper to taste. Meanwhile heat up half the butter in an 8" or 10" skillet over medium heat (I made this in a 6" saucepan), once hot, add in the noodle mixture and pat down until flat. Cook for 8-10 minutes over medium heat. 
4. Once golden on one side, slide the noodle cake onto a plate or cutting board, add in the remaining butter to the skillet, and slide the uncooked side of the noodle cake onto the skillet. Cook for 8-10 minutes over medium heat. Once done, slide onto a serving platter and cut into wedges. You can serve with some salad or cooked green veggies.
   

Leuven, Brussels, Cantillon

Pictures from Leuven's Covered Market, Brussels Central Plaza, and Cantillon Brewery:

Covered Market & Cantillon

Stroopwafels

It's tea time here, and to help with that I have been gifted with some stroopwafels from Ellen in The Hague. She and Silke visited Leuven last Friday and brought these delicious goodies plus a lovely cyclamen as a housewarming for us. Stroopwafels are hard waffles (similar to pizelles) but have honey sandwiched between them. Delicious!

So this past week has been a lot of fun. Last Thursday we played ultimate with a group here called Jet Set (but I think we played with their intermediate team called the Propellers). We went for practice and scrimmaged. I have never played on such mud-ridden fields and laughed about how many emails would go out on the Carrboro list-serve advising everyone to back off the fields in the condition these were in. The practice was run in English, and was similar to some of the Pleides practices in Chapel Hill, so lots of drills and techniques and general team building. Since it is a team, players are required to show up since we need numbers to scrimmage. Everyone was SO NICE and welcoming to us. It felt great to meet the ultimate community here, and we were invited out to a "ski" party this weekend, where everyone was supposed to show up in ridiculous ski gear, the more 80's the better. There are enough women that play since it's co-ed and a fairly diverse age group. We played 2 small fields splitting up the group into 6 vs 6, 1 sub each side. It was a fun, albeit, muddy game, which made pivoting extremely (dangerous) and difficult. My flicks were fine, and I got to handle a bit, throwing a hammer half-way up the field. I know, what was I thinking? I think Karl and I are going to play with them and try to head to some tournaments here.

Friday was sunny all day so it was my goal to spend the day outside. Ellen and Silke were in town so I met them at a Nepali/Indian restaurant called Namaste. Then headed over to a 2nd hand shop called the Spit. It's like PTA, or wherever you take items you want donated. I don't have a rack on my bike yet, nor a basket, so whatever I found had to get packaged very carefully in a side bag/purse. I like to think I'm not picky about furniture, but that place was a dump. I think the Ikea will be much nicer (and probably only slightly more expensive). Craigslist isn't big here so I'm wondering if there is some other web site that is similiar to Craigslist that would be good for furniture and other house things.

On Friday evening (Vrijdagavond) we ate at a vegetarian (vegetarisch) restaurant called Lukemieke. They featured a lot of organic or bio things, and had a fairly extensive menu. We got the meal of the day which started with a bitter greens creamy soup and sesame grated carrot salad. The main entree came with 5 sides. The most filling were a phyllo dough spinach and leek casserole followed with a lemongrass rice croquette, with sides of creamy saffron cauliflower, a beet, potato, and black-eyed pea salad, and finally a rather boring mixed salad (which was weirdly enough, shredded lettuce that you would use for taco filling), but was drenched in a flavorful olive oil. There wasn't much for protein in the dish, and I wish vegetarian restaurants gave that a little more thought (there is the nutritionist in me coming out).

Saturday morning (Zaterdagmorgen) in Leuven is wonderful! The main city square has a humongous covered market. Vendors include florists, olive vendors, cheese vendors, spring roll vendors, escargot vendors, fruit and vegetable vendors, and bread vendors. Karl found a wonderful coffeehouse called Cafe Onan so we have been getting some good coffee. The plan that day was to head down to Brussels and sightsee and visit the Cantillon Brewery.

I know that I keep writing about the bike-friendliness of this place, but I just cannot get over it. They have AN ENTIRE covered "parking garage" or "Fietsenplaats" for bikes. This covered area probably goes on for 1 mile...and hundreds of bikes. Not like 1,000 dollar road bikes either, i'm talking beaters, cruisers and in general bikes with crazy painted colors, and kid seats, and crates and just everything. And just to rub it in some more, there are bikepaths everywhere. Every road has a bike path and walking path. You can get anywhere and everywhere on your bike!

After securing our bikes in the fietsenplaat we got on the train to Brussels. Here we got off at the Central Brussels station, and walked into a central market area which led into some pedestrian paths. There was also a covered market here, but was closing down as we arrived. I think we were heading towards Grand Place or Grote Markt. After passing through some of the walkways (I think we were on the Rue des Bouchers), we came upon the Galeries St-Hubert which is basically a huge domed glass building with very nice shops inside. This building was put up in the 19th century during the time of King Leopold I (1847). From some of my travel books, I have gathered that this was designed in the Neo-Renaissance style by the Belgian architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar. Their are 3 buildings, called arcades. It is well known that Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas once resided within the buildings. Walking slightly further, we passed many modern day shops including some beer stores, specialty olive-oil stores and candy stores. The candy stores look like they are straight out of Daigon Alley from Harry Potter.

After a snack of curry frittes - we set off for the Cantillon Brewery. The brewery is located near an ethnic neighborhood. So you pass a bunch of warehouse looking shops and some Indian/Pakistani/African stores, and then when you feel like you're lost, you stumble right upon it. Cantillon is over a hundred years old, and the building is as much. They brew lambics, I think one of a handful (or maybe one of 2) within Brussels to brew in the true lambic style. The tour itself is self-guided, and most of the staff are either family members, or probably family friends. They must get a number of tourists becaue they always ask if you understand that the beers are fermented and so on and so forth. Lambics are a helluva beer. They are remarkable and probably medieval if not somewhat ancient in the process. True fermentation. They brew during the week and invite you to come back to watch the brewing process, but on a Saturday, they were fielding questions and serving some of their famous Guezes.

As a self-guided tour, you receive a small pamphlet and go through the brewery. The smell is amazing, similar to white wine fermentation at a winery (mom and dad just like the smell at Chateau Michelle). First you visit the Mashing House where you see the mash tun and big old equipment. This isn't a fancy new place, so the age of the machinery becomes quite charming.
The next room, is up some narrow stairs into the hop boilers and crushing machines. The hop boilers are are huge tanks with large red coils snaking through them. The wort is heated through steam circulating through the red coils. They have added in a 10,000 L stainless steel tank as a hot water reservoir. They add 3-year old aged hops for qualities of preservation. From here the wort will travel to a large and shallow copper pan. This pan holds up to 7,500 L of wort. Basically this maximizes cooling and allows the wort to come in contact with the air. The pan is basically on the top level of the building (3 levels), and contains rafters to circulate air. Cantillon utilizes the weather and the local ecosystem (they will never remove cobwebs or spiders, and they have a brewery cat that was lounging on some grain bags) for it's beers. They brew from October until about mid-April. To get the wort chilled, they cool it overnight and open the rafters. This allows inoculation of wild yeasts (Brettanomyces, Bruxellensis and Lambicus) that occur in the area, and causes spontaneous fermentation. Their are up to 86 known yeasts that are present in lambics! I'm not sure how long the wort is allowed to sit there, but it is then moved into a huge stainless steel container, which allows the brewer to control temperature and sugar content (I think a cooling tun).

Next the wort is placed in oak or chestnut barrels. They tell you that during the first days of fermentation it can get pretty violent as CO2 escapes, and some of the wort spills out (the actual brochure states bunghole). In about a month slow fermentation begins in the barrel, and after this point the barrel is closed/sealed, and allowed to mature for THREE YEARS! I think you can drink it after 1 year, but it's weak. The Guezes and fruit lambics are what I found the most interesting.

Gueuze is a lambic that contains a blend of 1, 2 and 3 year old lambics. Basically the brewer is the taste-tester and judge and figures out what blend of these will make a Gueuze. Usually out of 10 barrels, half of them will be picked.

For the fruit beers, they take fruits like cherries (kriek), raspberries, or grapes (the wine making kind), and macerate (again a word in the brochure) it into a 2 year old lambic. It takes about 3 months for the fruits to macerate - where the beer takes up color, taste, and sugar from the fruits. Then they add in a young lambic and filter and bottle the beer. The fruit lambics made in this way are not anything like a "lambic" that you may have tried that are marketed and sold as Framboise in the states. I'm not putting these down, I just want to make the distinction, that this is a time-old tradition that is probably the closest thing to how beers were once made. They are pleasingly acidic, but pick up the fruit tannins or phytochemicals for the taste and character, so they can have a bitter finish. I really enjoyed the raspberry one (Rose de Gambrinus) , and picked up the Saint Lamvinus which contains lambic and merlot grapes - Sara this is the one that you had tried that had grapes on the cover - and a bottle of Vigneronne (which is made of white muscat grapes). Touring the brewery felt like a field trip. They had some Slow Foods stickers up on the wall and you can see photos of past Cantillon family members that headed the brewery. It was just quaint and fantastic.

We each brought back 3 bottles, including several beers which we had picked up in Brussels including some fancy olive oil and white truffle salt. This made for an interesting bike ride home as we were literally balancing all our bought goods off of each shoulder (Karl's being a backpack and probably more efficient).

I think the plan is to visit Bruges this weekend - we have snow in the forecast for the next 2 days, and rode through some flurries just yesterday evening. All in all, we are staying warm and quite happy.

Pictures will follow this post - I am multitasking the remaining adapters.

Compost and Bike

Dinner (curried egg salad sandwiches)

My very nice and new bike

what you can compost

Compost bins
(this makes me very happy)

emo bike shot

starbucks via

I must say that I miss coffee. Seems absurd to be thinking of that being in Europe! But - the coffee, or, what remains of it's fine meaning in my brain, is too strong (wtf - i know), lacks body, and depth, aroma, flavor, acidity, all of that fine stuff. I think they must use some universally bad espresso roast, because it is everywhere, and it's all bad, at least around here. We managed to leave with a stockpile of the instant Starbuck's Via. This is my plug to Starbucks - yes it is good, yes it convenient, especially when you can't get any coffee. And yes, I miss Starbucks latte's. That's right, I said it, it needed to be said. In the states, you could probably stand at any street corner, hurl a large rock in any direction, and hit (probably a Starbucks) a coffeehouse. I guess in the states, trends sort of manage to reach all corners of the US, like taco-trucks, coffee, kateplus8 haircuts, tapas, good beer etc, and I feel that in Europe those kinds of trends would tend to cross borders. I mean this place has pac-northwest weather, it seems like the weather and coffee would be a marriage made in heaven.
Still need to get a press pot and bean grinder, and now also a good online coffee service. So all you Americans drinking good coffee, send me some good vibes when you are drinking a delicious cup o' joe.

So here's an update on how the week is gone:
This week, I've gone shopping twice. The shops are just lovely, and it's not contrived like a Southpoint feel or a mall-feel. You walk everywhere, and when tired you can just plop into any Leffe cafe for a beer. I found a vet for Dudley, I think I signed up for health insurance (which is govt-run btw - probably more on that later) and we applied for our Belgian ID cards. There is a large community garden that is called Het Open Veld (The open field), which is volunteer run and operates like a CSA. I found it on this wonderful blog. I will post pics on that once I visit, I'm really excited about checking it out. There is also an organization through KU Leuven which sells veggie bags for 10 E. I haven't found anything that is nutrition/public health related as of yet, but I did find an Indian Students Association so I can keep up with the holidays and garbas.

There is a grocery store here called Delhaize which is the same logo as Food Lion in the states. Except the Food Lion in the states sucks. Delhaize is like the Whole Foods/Weaver Street Market of Food Lions. The produce section was huge, and they tended to have fresh markets where you could get meats and breads. Basically you can get anything. Most of the servings are smaller, but you can still buy everything. Marinara sauce comes in like 8 oz glass jars, and instead of like 3 brands of mayo, there are like 16. I found a bag of tortilla chips that was among the "ethnic" foods section, complete with tortillas, taco shells, and fajita seasoning. It's funny to see the differences.

The bikes are stereotypically "Dutch" bikes and usually are beaters, except for the KU-Leuven bikes, which would be like UNC subsidizing really nice Trek Hybrids for all their students. Out of necessity, and because pretty much everyone bikes here, the chains are covered and the wheels have covers or rainguards, so you can pretty much bike in any kind of weather. The lights for the bikes are auto-charged as you cycle. It is remarkably easy to get anywhere by foot or bike here. There was so much on the Built Environment in all my coursework at UNC, and here I am living in a built environment that makes being physically active a daily and necessary routine. And I am eating way more than I normally would (frites, belgian waffles, the pastries, etc) but haven't gained any weight from it (at least yet, right!?) I mean even the bikeways have Frittur places located on them!

Yesterday we played badminton with some of Karl's friends in the department, and held our own pretty well (I think Sara and Nathan would really appreciate the set up of the courts - being that there aren't strings coming out of pots). We were playing fairly competitively and there was good turn out! I was trying to explain the beerminton version to which several replied, "you cannot bring drinks in here!" Guney if you are reading this, there is a badminton net stashed somewhere next to the raised bed - I think rackets and birdies too.

Tonight, we'll go and play some ultimate - I'm very excited about that. More later!

Pictures from Leuven

Living in Leuven

Khavanu has relocated to a new continent: Europe! Talk about food and drink! I may have to stop cooking all together. We are now in Leuven, Belgium - which is near Brussels. It is a really large city, that has one of the oldest and probably largest universities in the Low Countries - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven or KU Leuven. We have been here one week and there is so much to take in. First off, I miss Chapel Hill and Carrboro, but this is a place one could very easily get used to living in. We are in Vlaams-Brabant, which is Dutch speaking, and as of yet, my Dutch classes have been useful in reading street signs and menus. I tried to speak in Dutch or Flemish to the patisserie lady but she just responded in English. Oh well.

I say the transition has been easy mostly because Karl was here for at least one month previously, and secondly, the Belgians are some of the friendliest and nicest people. They aren't snooty about the language, they speak English so it's easy to communicate with them, they are more than helpful when you act like an American foreigner - I mean Belgians are like the Southerners of Europe. Overall, people have been polite and nice to us.

Back to the patisserie lady...across the street from our apartment is a patisserie and bakery. They have amazing pastries, tarts, cakes, breads, infused oils, and lovely chocolates. This week we bought some multi grain bread, 7 grain bread (that came out of a vending machine once the bakery had shut down), plum croissants, and a chocolate and vanilla cream croissant. You can buy 2 wonderful pastries for under 2 bucks. This may be the bain of my existence and waistline.

One block over is a grocery store called GB Carrafour. It's similar to a Kroger's or Harris Teeter. They have a decent produce section, and a great dairy section. Which sucks for me being a lactard and all. I think they had half of aisle just dedicated to butter! I bought some full-fat European yogurt, and chocolate mousse - both divine. They had ready prepared Meditterranean and Thai food. Since most of the labels are in Dutch or French it is a bit harder to decipher the ingredients or preparation methods. I think "bio" means organic. Eggs are in containers of 4, 6, and 12 and are on the shelf. Haven't bought much else other than some cheese, and soymilk, canned tomatoes and beans, and kitty food and litter. The nutrition labeling system is fairly easy to understand. It is made up of a bunch of highlighted circles which highlight fat, carbs, and protein, sodium and vitamin and mineral content. I bought a bag of frozen soup vegetables, and this mix included onions, parsnips, cauliflower, peas, green beans, carrots, and leeks a definite step up from frozen peas and carrots. It could at least make a decent mire-poix. Also there is some potted herbs including parsley, basil and catnip. I saved two cans to pot them in. The first being, of course, basil - and the other catnip for Dudley!

Belgian waffles are something unclassifiable. Steaming hot, cake-like, but soft as a pancake, with caramelized sugar coating the outside? Drool. I am not surprised that I wasn't a huge fan of the oversized ones dripping with corn-syrup varieties back in the states.

What good would the first week of living here be if we didn't partake in Belgian beers? Thus far I have had Dekonick, a generic grocery store brand Carrefour Gueuze, Westmalle dubbel, Gueuze Girardian, and Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, Duvel, and a Kriek MAX. The Cantillon Rose and the Kriek MAX have been my two faves thus far. The Westmalle is just delicious. I think we are making it our goal to visit at least 1 brewery per month here. I think the first will be a trek to Cantillon in Brussels. Of course, InBev is located in Leuven, so Stella Artois is everywhere. Come and visit us!

Next up are Belgian Frites. They are ubiquitous and delicious. I haven't had them out of a cone yet, but I have had them with almost 4-5 meals so far. We had them along with a fried veggie burger with curry sauce.

We tried our hand at some Belgian cuisine at a place called the Nachtuil sp? (night owl), and tried some amazing croquettes (of course served with frites!), and a tomato stuffed with nordsee shrimp. The meal was rounded out with plenty of frites, bread and drinks.

Other meals included some quattro formaggio pizza, a vegetarian Indian thali complete with mango kulfi and some hot samosas! It seems like our first introduction to lovely Leuven is all about good food, which is something that I could easily adjust to!

more on gardens, composting, and recycling later....
tot ziens!