Garlic and black pepper croutons, it's great to always have some on hand!

Garlic and black pepper croutons

Garlic and black pepper croutons, it's great to always have some on hand!

Last weekend I went shopping with a friend, I left P and his mom at home and she left her husband and her cute toddler at home. Girl time!

I wasn’t really planning on buying something because I want to save up some money for when one of my sisters is coming to visit next month. She will be staying here for six (6!!) weeks and we have a lot of fun thing planned together: Disneyland (because that really รS the happiest place on earth I recently discovered), roadtrip to San Francisco (and back over the PCH – yay!) and a visit to Las Vegas (finally!).

My friend had some birthday money to spend so I just followed her around in the stores. Ok, and even though I was planning to buy something I did buy a cute cardigan and a new pair of sunglasses at LOFT (they were both on sale, does that count?) ๐Ÿ˜‰

At one point we stopped by Sephora. Yikes! Those places freak me out, I feel so out of place there.

Black lentil salad with goat cheese | in my Red Kitchen

Black lentil salad with goat cheese

Black Lentil Salad with Goat Cheese | in my Red Kitchen

People often ask me if there is anything I miss from the Netherlands. I have to disappoint them (and you), because I don’t. Of course I’m happy when I stumble upon typical Dutch products in LA, like appelstroop, stroopwafels or beschuit. And the Christmas Stollen and bitterballen I made myself where also to die for.

But really missing those things? Nah… And you know why not?

Bean and prosciutto salad

Last week I went to Downtown to meet Christine of Feed My Sole. I met her at the dinner at Hinoki & The Bird a few weeks ago, Christine is the organizor of the Meetup group for Los Angeles Food Bloggers.

deviled eggs
Christine made some deviled eggs, they where great! The recipe will be on her blog soon, make sure to check it out!

Christine lives in an amazing loft appartment Downtown. I loved it, it has brick walls and her kitchen is great – it has a concrete counter. Beautiful! Especially for taking pictures ๐Ÿ˜‰

Also that part of DTLA looked great, with hip eateries and boutiques. I have to come back for sure!

It was a great day: we cooked, made photos, ate, talked and had a nice time. All my favorites in one day!

The results of a day full of food blog cooking

I decided to make a salad with beans and prosciutto.

Dutch Potato Salad – Huzarensalade

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting on the balcony, with my laptop working on a blogpost. Suddenly I heard somebody calling:
“Hello!”

“Hello!”

“Heeelllooooohooo!”

I sat still and looked around. There was nobody I could see from where I sat. So it sure wasn’t for me. I wasn’t expecting visitors and nobody could see me from down the street because we have an enclosed balcony.
So I ignored it.

But then, a week later it was the same voice:

“Hello!”

“Helloooohooo!”

“You, on the balcony!”

From where I sat I couldn’t see any other neighbors on their balconies, so maybe this person wรกs calling me after all? But how could he see me? Strange!

Huzarensalade P

 

So I got up and looked down.

Kale salad with mushrooms

As you could read I had dinner at Hinoki & The Bird two weeks ago with three other foodbloggers from LA. I already raved about the great food so I won’t start over again.

Instead I got inspired by this great kale salad that I HAD to make a kale salad myself. Normally in the Netherlands kale is eaten as a ‘stamppot’: you boil potatos and let the kale steam on top of it. Then you mash it together until it looks like this. I don’t like this ‘boerenkool stamppot’ that much, but it turns out I do like raw kale!

Kale salad p

 

Hinoki & The Bird served a very delicate kale salad,

Salmon sushi salad

Don’t you just love going out for some sushi? But be honest, how many times is it a disapointment? The rice is tasteless, the roll isn’t firm enough so it falls apart halfway to your mouth leaving soy sauce stains on your white shirt, or the salmon taste like water.

Salmon sushi salad p

Personally I like the salmon sushi rolls the most. With fresh salmon that is, without the cream cheese. Typically American, who made that up?! That’s not a very Japanese combination, isn’t it?

Did you ever tried to make sushi yourself? Well I did and it’s a hell of a job and leaves you with enormous amounts of sushi.