Nom nom nom tag

Uhm what?! Well… The nom nom nom tag is a list of questions for food bloggers, and when they answered it they should pass it on to other food bloggers. So it’s like a chain letter, but then fun. Because it’s about food and you get to know the person behind your favorite food blog.

Simone (Simone’s Kitchen) tagged me in her nom nom nom tag (Dutch only) and now it’s my turn.
Let’s go! (& I promise to keep it short 😛 )

What kind of food do you like that others don’t like (& vice versa)
Wow that’s a hard one! I do like some weird combinations like raisin bread with liver paté and I also like eating a traditional Eastern Dutch liver sausage and blood sausage. But I don’t like liver when it’s baked or something. Only as paté or that sausage I grew up with.
What I don’t like is raw tomatoes by itself. I do eat it on a sandwich or cut in really small pieces in a salad or something. And cooked, but not raw. I tried it again last week, I bought sugar plum tomatoes and I had a hard time eating just one of them. Yuck! But as soon as I add them to a salad I suddenly like them! I also don’t like bell peppers and olives, not even cooked. So that’s why you don’t see much recipes on my blog(s) with bell peppers or olives in them.

If you could create & name a sandwich, what would it be?
I really like goat cheese but since P doesn’t like it I hardly ever buy / eat it. I did post an amazing grilled goat cheese sandwich with bacon and dates which I love. Ugh this is hard, I really like grilled (cheese) sandwiches but I banned them from my weekly lunches so I hardly eat a sandwich. I do enjoy eating a ‘snickers’ sandwich though: One slice of white bread with peanut butter, one slice of bread with nutella, put them together and grill them. One of my besties from Amsterdam made it for me once. Uhm, this isn’t really an answer to this question right? 😉
Oh wait, what do you think of this: egg salad made with organic eggs & the best mayo there is, with truffles, arugula & pancetta or bacon. I would call it ‘truffled up’ or something!

In which restaurant could you eat daily?
Sugarfish! That’s by far the best sushi place in LA. Their menu is limited and I like that, we always order the same (Nozawa Trust Me menu) and the food is very consistent. It’s worth the 1,5 hour wait! 😉
But to be honest I think I enjoy the great diversity of food in LA too much to eat at the same place every night. If I didn’t like cooking so much we would easily go out for dinner every day, that’s possible in LA!

What do you prefer to make (and actually too often)?
Another hard one. As a food blogger I’m contantly trying new recipes for my blog so I hardly cook a dish too often. On weekends I like to make pancakes for breakfast but most of the time we eat yogurt with granola or we go out for brunch.
But my favorite is to bake bread, small buns like hamburger buns or garlic knots. I like to play with my food 😉 and I love it that you combine just a few ingredients and that the dough grows if you did it right 🙂

What’s on your baking bucket list?
A layered cake with fondant! A simple vanilla cake with white chocolate butter cream and a raspberry mousse and champagne filling.
And yes, that was actually my wedding cake and it was so so so delicious! I didn’t mind there was so much left! Wedding cake for breakfast for weeks! Too bad I couldn’t save a piece because we moved out of the country six weeks later. But I really want to recreate this amazing cake that was made by a dear friend. She’s coming to LA in a few weeks so maybe we should make it together!

What do you prefer: cooking, getting food delivered or eating out?
Eating out, getting inspired and then trying to recreate it at home! I love to cook but I also enjoy eating out. P never cooks so on weekends we eat out, it’s his turn to ‘cook’. And that’s no punishment in LA 😉

What is your food obsession of the last weeks / days?
Paleo and Whole 30. I’m contantly looking for a way to eat & live healthier because that makes me feel better but most of all it’s so frustrating for me to live healthy and not lose any weight and still be ‘too fat’. I lost about 20 lbs over the past year but I want to lose 20 lbs more. What I like about the paleo template is that it’s all about eating real, whole unprocessed foods. That’s already what I tried to do for years but paleo goes one step further because you also can’t eat grains, beans, sugar and alcohol.
But that step is also the thing I don’t like about the paleo lifestyle. So on week days I try to eat paleo as much as possible (okay, I already failed this week…) and in the weekends I go out for food and order the healtiest choice.
I really need to take care of myself so I can get rid of the frustration that I won’t lose any more weight. As long as I live healthy right?

What’s your favorite dessert?
Lemon meringue pie and snow shaved ice cream (I can’t chose!). I hardly ever order dessert (see previous question) and luckily P doesn’t have a sweet tooth. So after dinner we sometimes go to Balconi for coffee (for P) and a matcha soy latte (for me).

Are you allergic to anything?
Not really but I found out that I get acne from dairy. So I stopped drinking milk (I drink soy lattes now) and eating yogurt. I still eat cheese and butter though, and cream was already something I never bought. Finally, ever since puberty I’m nog acne-free!

Can you share a useful cooking tip?
Buy a shower cap and use that to cover up bowls, for example for rising dough or marinating meat. It’s one of the first things I replaced after moving to LA 😉
And another one: if you want to freeze some soup you can use a ziploc bag for that. Place the bag in a bowl, pour one or two portions of the soup in the bag, close it (leave the air out) and lay it flat in the freezer. That way it saves space! For defrosting you take the bag out of the freezer, cut it open, break the frozen soup and warm it in a pan. Easy does it!

So that was it!

I always like to read and fill out lists like this and to learn something more about the person behind the blog. But passing it on is a lot harder! I’ve experienced this before with the Liebster award because all Dutch food blog already received it at some point. That’s why I post this Nom nom nom tag on my English blog, because I want to pass it on to my American food blog friends!
So Maryanne (The Little Epicurean), Elizabeth (SugarHero!) and Amy (Very Culinary), I would love to read your answers to the questions above!