Lifestyle

Recipe: Ferrero Rocher Cake

Ingredients:

200 grams of fine ground hazelnuts
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of baking powder
2 table spoons floor
3 tablespoons caster sugar
5 eggs

Chocolate Cream:

3 tablespoons of Nutella
A few waffle cookies
200 grams of dark choclate
200 grams of butter
Ferrero Rocher chocolates

1. Sift the flour and cocoa powder in a bowl and add ground hazelnuts and baking powder. Put in another bowl, combine the eggs and sugar and beat it until a thick, frothy mass is obtained. Fold in the flour mixture gently by. Grease a 20cm cake tin with butter and top the bottom with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 180 ° C.

2. Fill the tin and put the form in the middle of the oven and bake for about 40 minutes. When the cake is baked, let it cool down for a while.

3. Now you can make the chocolate cream. Melt the chocolate au bain marie. Break the waffle biscuits into small pieces and set aside. Mix the butter until creamy and mix nutella and melted chocolate through. Add the waffles. Cut the cake horizontally through the middle. Spread the inside with chocolate cream. Coat the cake with remaining chocolate cream.

4. Sprinkle the top with coarsely chopped hazelnuts and decorate cake with Ferrero Rocher chocolates!

Recipe: Raffaello Cake

Ingredients:

5 eggs
180 g cake flour
150 g sugar
7 g vanilla sugar
Coconut flakes
400 g white chocolate spread
Two coffeepoons baking powder
500 ml unbeaten whipped cream
Raffaello chocolates and strawberries as decoration

1. Beat the sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs in a bowl, until it gets really creamy. Do this for 10 minutes. Add the flour and baking powder. Pour the mix in a greased cake tin and put the tin in the oven for 30 minutes (180 degrees).

2. Beat the whipped cream with two tablespoons of sugar and also add two tablespoons of coconut flakes. Put the cream in the fridge to keep it cool. Melt the white cholate spread (au bain marie). When the cake is baked (use a toothpick to insert the center to check if it comes out clean), turn the cake out onto cooling racks to cool.

3. Cut the cake in two or three layers. Spread the the first layer first with the melted white chocholate, then the whipped cream. Put the second layer on top and keep spreading.

4. When the layers are covered, spread the whole surface of the cake with the melted white chocolate. Add the coconut flakes on the cake. Decorate your cake with the Raffaello choclates and strawberries.

Enjoy!

Nailart: Glitter & Jewels

This easy nail tutorial glams up your nails instantly! All you need is a nice pastel colored nail polish and a glitter nail polish. First, paint two pastel layers on the top of half of your nails. Then paint the glitter coat on but paint two-third of the nail. Do this again but then take the top of half of your nail. At last, put one-third of the glitter coat on top. You will create this blending effect with every kind of glitter nail polish. Tip: Change the lilac color and take a nude base with silver glitters for a more subtile and romantic look!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this easy tutorial and give it a try!

New York: Bodhi Tree

Located in Central Village Noho is a petite restaurant called Bodhi Tree.. I thought the food here was Thailicious! I have a weakness for the combination of Asian food & pretty places. Affordable and tasty, take a look at the pictures (and menu) to decide if this is something for you:

New York: Luke’s Lobster

When you’re in New York, you can’t miss out on the Lobster Roll! Luke’s Lobster is located at Amsterdam Avenue and is known for their good lobster rolls. They also sell shrimp rolls if you’re not in to the lobster thing.

You can order only a lobster roll for 15 dollars. You can also choose the meal for 18 dollars which includes a lobster roll, pickle, drinks and chips:

Recipe: Couscous Tuna Salad

It’s getting hotter, finally! With this weather, some delicious salads with fish would do more then fine. Sitting at your balcony sipping on a glass of wine or a fresh home made Ice Tea, sounds good right.. This recipe is easy and quick, so you can relax more and enjoy the sunny days. You can also make variations by adding pangafilet instead of tuna steaks. My dear friend Zinaida came up with this recipe, she keeps coming up with salads/healthy food that her daughter of 4 who doesn’t like vegetables actually gratefully eats!

Ingredients:

Tuna steaks / pangafilet (one for each person)
Leaf lettuce with baby spinach (80 gram)
Goat Cheese with honey (125 gram)
Green olives
1/2 bag of couscous (a 400 g)
Pine nuts
Cherry tomatoes
1 Carrot
Olive Oil
1/2 Onion

1. Chop the carrots to small pieces and prepare the cous cous. Add a spoon of olive oil on the cous cous.

2. Move the cous cous to a big plate/bowl when it’s done. Cut the cherry tomatoes into half, add the carrots and tomatoes to the cous cous. Also cut the onion into small pieces and slice the goat cheese. Roast the pine nuts and also add them to the plate. Season the pangafilet or tuna steaks with salt and pepper, grill them for a few minutes.

3. Place the salad on top of the cous cous and mix everything.

4. There’s no dressing needed further. Just put the tuna steak or pangefilet on top of the salad and enjoy!

New York: Madison Sq. Eats

Madison Sq. Eats is a food festival at the Madison Square Park. The most popular chefs and well know restaurants in New York are bringing their dishes to this market. There are so many different cuisines like Italian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Mexican and Portugese food. Also the most delicious pretzels, macaroons and ice cream sandwiches are available. This is definitely something you shouldn’t miss out on when you’re near the neighborhood! Also a good idea for lunch during work. Check below when this market is open and more pics of the amazing food stalls!

When: MAY 2 – MAY 30 & SEPTEMBER 5 – OCTOBER 3, 2014
11AM – 9PM DAILY

Fresh Coconut Juice!

Shrimp tacos

Summer rolls! One includes goat cheese, lentils and beets. The other one has corn, coconut and curry!

Famous Roberta’s pizza! Roberta’s was openened in Brooklyn in 2008. This is one of the most well known restaurants in Brooklyn. In 2012, the couple behind Roberta’s opened their now Michelin-starred 12-seat tasting restaurant Blanca.

New York: The Mermaid Inn

My friend took me to the Mermaid Inn last Tuesday and I was already excited because of the name! Between 5 PM and 7 PM, it’s happy hour which means the oysters will be sold for 1 dollar each! Look at the pictures and stop by there whenever you’re near!

The staff was friendly, the vibe was good and the food was nice. You’ll get chocolate pudding after your dinner from the restaurant. With the bill they will give you a fortune teller fish which predicts your mood. Sitting outside and watching people during the oysters is a must!

A sneak peek of the menu:

New York: Chelsea Market

If you’d like to try a lot of different kinds of food at one place, the Chelsea Market is definitely a great idea. This indoor food hall is located in the Meatpacking district. The building used to be a biscuit factory. That’s why the market has an underground vibe with lots of nice food, drinks and more.

The market is open every day. From Monday till Saturday starting from 7 AM to 9 PM. Only on Sundy the market starts at 8 AM t0 8 PM.

The nice thing about the market is that you can get a preview of all the things inside. Check out the pictures below of the variety of food and spices:

The cookies from Eleni’s inside the market are playful and unique. They’re nice as a gift, also sold as a set in boxes. The cookies are shaped and colored as rainbows, taxi’s and other sweet things. Not only does she sell the cutest cookies but also the coffee is worth a try!

There is a nice Morrocan store inside as well with magical lamps and carpets. I liked the art work on the walls a lot. If they were sold as postcards, I would grab a few to enlist them at home 🙂

Enjoying Eleni’s New York coffee on the way back!

Maenaam Thai Restaurant

When it comes to food it´s definitely something my boyfriend and I always agree on, we love Asian cuisine! Thai food is nice and it seems difficult to really mess these dishes up! I never had bad experiences with Thai food, so I had good expectations when we were trying a new restaurant called Maenaam Thai in Amsterdam. This restaurant is located at the Spuistraat, which is 2 minutes walking from the famous Dam Square. It’s also 5 minutes walking from the restaurant to Central Station. So this was an ideal place to grab food before we had to catch our train for a 2 hour ride to see my parents 🙂 Little detail: Maenaam ( แม่น้ำ ) means river in Thai.

A few pictures of our dinner:

Tom Kha Koeng

In my opinion there’s no other soup that can compete with Thom Kha Koeng. This is because I prefer soups with a coconut milk base. This soup contains coconut milk, prawns, mushrooms and coriander.

Plaa Shoe Shie

Fried fish in a red curry sauce with coconut milk and sweet Thai basil. The fish was fried pangasius fillet, normally we prefer other fish than pangasius, but this main course with white rise was tasting ok.

Phad Thai Kai

Pad Thai are typical Thai fried rice noodles. I took the pad thai with vegetables, egg, tauge and chicken. I like taking Phad Thai as a side order next to white rice.

The dish I liked most was the Tom Kha Koeng. This soup was delicious and I can recommend this as a starter. The menu is not expensive, average as other Thai restaurants I know. Starters are around 5-7 euro’s and main courses are around 14-18 euro’s. I have seen lots of vegetables sculptured into various animals like swans of flowers. But I’ve never seen an onion carved into a flower as a decoration on a plate. I found this quitte original 🙂 There are no desserts on the menu, but we had 2 scoops of vanilla icecream with almonds and whipped cream. Staff is friendly and mostly English speaking.

When: MAY 2 – MAY 30 & SEPTEMBER 5 – OCTOBER 3, 2014 11AM – 9PM DAILY

When: MAY 2 – MAY 30 & SEPTEMBER 5 – OCTOBER 3, 2014
11AM – 9PM DAILY