GREEN MATCHA TEA AND BANANA SMOOTHIE

Green, sweet, smooth, and with a subtle bitter green tea flavour - my favourite breakfast treat these days. I have been making smoothies for a long time.  At the beginning mostly with fruit, on the basis of apples and orange juice, and then adding different fruit for different flavours on a daily basis. Then I discovered rice milk that I prefer to the acidic packaged fruit juices. Until I received a new kitchen machine with a coffee grinder, and now I grind good quality oats into fine powder and add it to the rice-milk based smoothies. This way I have a full breakfast, plus the added oats makes the smoothies even

WILD ASPARAGUS AND GOATS CHEESE TARTE

Wild asparagus - almost too beautiful to eat! You want to put them in a vase and just admire them instead. They look a bit like Hyacinths in green and apparently come from the same plant family. I just happened to spot them while shopping for vegetables. There was only one bunch left, and it had my name on it  ;-)  Apparently they are quite common here in Belgium and also France, but I had seen them for the first time and never eaten them before. Wild asparagus is a lot more delicate and mild than normal asparagus and I wanted to make them taste in their own right and keep their beautiful look. In the end I decided to make a simple tarte, adding just a little goats cheese and a small amount of

AUSTRIAN 'OBSTFLECK' - APRICOT TRAY BAKE

A quick and easy every-day cake, delicious, fresh and light, and best with stone fruit such as apricots, plums or cherries. Or even with grated apples. It's the combination of sweet and fluffy cake and lightly sour fruit, plus the fact that there is actually a lot of fruit, that makes this such a great summer cake. I always find that apricots, or 'Marillen' as we call them in Austria, are something so typical for Austria, just to think of the famous Marillenknödel (apricot dumplings) or 'Marillenschnaps', an apricot-flavoured brandy in a

MALTESER TRAY BAKE

EUPHOOOOORIAAAAA!!! :-) What's more seductive than Maltesers and Chocolate? Maltesers AND Chocolate AND Digestive biscuits ALL IN ONE BITE!  :-)  And I am sure the piece in the picture had two eyes, winking at me, saying 'Eat me, eat me'... Needless to say I did, right after the picture was taken... I had this as dessert for the first time a couple of weeks ago at my friend Helen's in England - thank you for an unforgettable evening and weekend - and was immediately hooked. But would I have to dedicate this post to somebody, it would have to be not only to them, but also to Ali & John B., and they would know exactly why :-)  I've been dreaming about this cake ever since, and finally 'gave in' when I needed a last minute contribution for an invitation last weekend. 

SAUSAGE AND PORCINI SAUCE

Comfort food at its best :-)  I believe this recipe is an adaptation from the Italian 'Pasta alla Norcia', a dish traditionally made in Umbria/Italy with Umbrian pork sausages and mushrooms or black truffle. This one's with Porcini mushrooms instead of truffles, but due to the strong taste of the porcini and sausages and the white wine, it is fantastic in flavour and a perfect companion to fresh HOME-MADE POTATO GNOCCHI. I slightly adapted Signor Caldesi's recipe using less oil but more white wine, as I really like the flavour of white wine in food and it also cuts through the richness of the sauce. I used single cream rather than double cream and added a pinch of nutmeg to go with the earthy flavours of