Chili con Carne

We stay in the winter dishes: this one is another famous one and easy to make: Chili con Carne
Ingredients:
500 gr brown beans in pot
1 big onion
1 red capsicum (paprika)
6 roma tomatoes (without peeling and cut to pieces, with liquid)
2 tl capsicum (paprika) powder
Butter
300 gr minced meat
Chilipowder, this is a mix of capsicum (paprika) powder, kumin (komijn of djintan), coriander and cayenne pepper
Salt (to taste)

Preparation:
Put the beans in a stainer (vergiet) so the liquid can go out.
Cut the onion and capsicum to small pieces.
Smother (smoor) the onion with the capsicum powder in a few spoons of butter.
Add the fresh capsicum pieces and bake a few minutes.
Add the minced meat and bake until it it light brown.
Add the tomatoes (with liquid) and bring to cooking.
After cooking, put fire low and stil until you have a thick sauce. It must be not too thick, but also not soup, somewhere inbetween.
Add the beans and heat the dish.
Add the chili powder and salt to taste.
Serve with white rice.

Colder weather: colder "winter" dishes

It is getting al little bit colder in Holland, I don't mind, I can start again with the real winterdishes I didn't cook for 6 months now.

Sauerkraut "Alsace" style

This is a very typical dish they eat in the French Alsace, it is a region that was at first part of Germany, that's why they have still some German influences over there.

Ingredients:
1 kg of fresh "sauerkraut" (zuurkool), not this pack from the grocery store, no, you need the fresh stuff from the vegetable shop, tastes much better.
Butter
2 leaves of Laurel (laurierblaadjes)
10 pellets of black pepper (zwarte peperkorrels)
10 dried genever berries (gedroogde jeneverbessen)
2 dl white wine (The Alsace Pinot tastes best for this dish)
200 gr sausages (a can will do) (knakworstjes)
200 gr sauerkraut speck (dutch: zuurkoolspek). The butcher knows what to take.

Preparation
Preheat the oven at 200 degr. cent.
Cover the sides of a large ovendish with butter.
Melt 3 el of butter in a pan, put the molten butter in the oven dish.
Put the loosened sauerkraut in the dish.
Add the laurel leaves, crushed (with side of big knife) genever berries, and the crushed pepper pellets.
Add the wine and the sauerkraut speck.
Put the lid on the dish and put it in the oven for 1.5-2hrs.
In the meantime, cook the sausages 10min on low fire (otherwise they burst)
Add everything togeterher and serve with cooked potatoes (and the Pinot wine, of course).

Traditional dutch pea soup! (Dutch: snert or erwtensoep)

This is a very tasful (at least for most Dutch people) typical Dutch dish: Traditional Dutch Pea Soup (also known as "erwtensoep" and "snert").
Here are the necessary ingredients:
* This is a recipe for a big full pan of peasoup. Look at the big pan on the right, you really need this size, otherwise cut the ingredients in half.
1 turnip - rooted celery with leaves (knolselderij with groen)
2 leeks (prei)
1 big winter carrot (winterpeen)
1 pack of split peas (spliterwten)
4 middle sized potatoes
800-1000 gr pigmeat (rib/ham)
2 dutch smoked sausages 275 gr each
salt and pepper to taste
For together with it (typically Dutch): pumpernickel bread (roggebrood).

Preparation:
* Please note: wash everything extremely well, otherwise you will get sand in the soup, and you will not like that (believe me, I've been there before).
Wash the turnip very well and cut the rind (schil) off the turnip. Cut a little bit more than necessary.
Cut the turnip into dice and wash them very thoroughly.
Wash the celery leaves very well and cut them into very small pieces.
Wash the leeks very well and cut them into rings, wash them again after that.
Take the peelings off the potatoes, cut them into dice and, again, wash very well.
Wash the split peas very well.
Was all vegetables together very well again. You don't want the sand in there.

Next, put all the vegetables into the pan, together with the meat (don't cut the meat yet, leave the sausages out, they will come later). Take a very big soup pan.
Add water until everything is under water well, leave 1cm under the top of the pan.
Bring it to cooking with the lid on. Cook it for 1.5hrs with the lid off.
Not this low fire, like with cooking broth (bouillon trekken), no, quite high fire.
It is very likely that somewhere in this process you will get green "smurry" on your stove, this is normal and unavoidable, don't care about this.
Take the meat out after 1.5hrs, and let it cool down for 30min.
Cut the meat into small pieces and take the bones out.
The soup must now have its thickness (must be thick, after this point it won't get much thicker).
Be careful that the soup will not burn to the bottom of the pan, otherwise, add some extra water to prevent this, otherwise the soup gets too thick. It must just not burn to the bottom of the pan, than it is perfect (at least, for me).
Put the meat back in the soup.
Wash the sausages under hot water from the tap and cut them into slices, put these slices also in the soup. After this, the soup is ready.


If you want it for next day, the soup must rest in the fridge for 1 night. Look out for freezing because the potatoes don't like that.
The next day you need at least 45min for heating it up again, point is: the soup burns to the pan fast, so it must be heated very slowly. No problem, just a matter of taking enough time for this.

Serve with pumpernickel bread with ham or dutch "katenspek".

Boerenkool met worst

This is a typical Dutch dish, "boerenkool met worst", translated something like farmers cabbage with sausage.
recipe
1.5 kg potatoes, was very well
250ml water
1 bag of "boerenkool"
salt
1 rookworst (special kind of sausage in Holland)
1 dl milk
40 gr. butter
Clean the potatoes, cut each potatoe in 4 parts and wash them very well.
Take a very big pan, put the water in together with the potatoes.
Add the salt (I like it with a lot of salt). On top of that you put the boerenkool.
On top of the boerenkool you put the sausage. Wash it fist under hot water.
Cook for 30 minutes (low fire)
After that, use a "stamper" to mix everything, add the butter and the hot milk.
I like it together with mayonaise, but not all people like that.

Driving home on my VFR, still nice weather in november

Instruction bike!

This is the bike that Marion is using to get her motorcycle driving license.

Back from Guadalajara

This is the Boeing 737 that brought me back from Spain.
There was much rain in Spain. I also included a movie of life at an airport. Most people always say: nice job, you travel a lot, but it always these airports that are so very boring, and the waiting, and waiting, and more waiting, and delay, and more delay, that is really what I hate about ALL airports.

Nice places in Guadalajara

Yesterday I saw a few nice places when I was walking through Guadalajara after dinner.

View outside the hotel

This is outside the hotel, I'm waiting for a co-worker from the factory to pick me up. It will be very quiet today in the factory, because today is a public holiday in Spain and most people have a holiday.

To Guadalajara Spain

Today I went to our factory in Spain. I have to assist with the transfer of a product selection machine. Because of very busy traffic on the roads I had to get up at 4.00hrs in the morning.
This is the Boeing 737 that flew me to Madrid.

Dit heb je gemist!

Our CD, Playing for the love of LIVE

Annemiek and Patrick rehearsing "Loving Whiskey"

Rockband The One

The One Live in Diessen!

This is our Rabbit, Snoopy!

Paperwork paperwork!

Last days I had to go through an enormous amount of paperwork.............

Autumn in Holland!

Been very very busy after my return from China. After one week also sick at home (when I coughed I barked like a small dog).
This weekend we made a nice walk through the forest.

We're going back home!

This Boeing 777 from China Southern flew us back home from Guangzhou, over Beijing, to Amsterdam.

Restaurant kitchen in Guangzhou airport hotel

This is the kitchen of the Guangzhou airport hotel. See the chicken and the pigeons hanging ready to be prepared by the cook. We ate some very nice thick Chinese soup here.

BBQ in Qingxi dormitory

Because of the moon festival the Taiwanese arranged a nice barbeque with beer.





The Taiwanese enjoyed the pig-ears very much, but I didn't like...............

Working in Qingxi

Last days we were working in our own factory in Qingxi. Yesterday we visited a nice foot-massage saloon, never done this before. Was really nice. Tonight, because of moon festival, we will have a BBQ at the dormitory in the factory where all Taiwanese guys stay.
Here we are all sitting together in the office.

Travel from Zengcheng to Qingxi

This morning we went from Zencheng to Qingxi with the guy that always brought us to the factory.

Chinese Pagoda

You cannot get it more Chinese than this: a pagoda on the other side of the river with (if you look very carefully) a fishingboat in front of it.

Chinese fisherman

Here's a Chinese (hobby) fisherman, looking over the river towards the bridge that we crossed everyday towards the factory.

Chinese restaurant

Tis is a "real" Chinese restaurant, look in the bottom of the windows, you can choose between chicken, dog or crab. (P.S. we didn't eat here.....)

Finally, at last: the kiln is running!

Finally, at the end we got everything in working order. There are still many things that have to be improved, but the Chinese can do that themselves.
This project really was "blood, sweat and tears" for the Chinese (not for us!)

Chinese motorcycle taxis near the factory

Here's a picture of Chinese motorcycle taxis near the factory.

The kiln is running, we celebrate with good Chinese Oolong Tea!

The kiln is running, so we decided to celebrate it with some fine Chinese tea.
Here you see the tea being prepared the Chinese way:

They first put the pot with hot water on the stove (with flame). To the right is a kind of double-layered dish. First they clean the small glass teacups, the teapot and the glass teacan with the cooking water. After that they put the fresh tea in the teapot and pour the cooking water over the tea, it must also run over the outside of the pot. It doesn't matter, the double-layered dish hold the spilled water. They then put the filter on the glass pot, and pour the tea in it, so it is without tea leaves. From there they pour the glass tea can into the small glass cups. And now and then the girl comes back to pour extra water in the teapot and pour it back in our cups from the bigger glass can. We also had some mooncake on the side (because it's almost moon festival). This is the Chinese version of "coffee with cake" (koffie met gebak).
This is me enjoying a real good cup of tea (in the back are the boxes with moon cakes):

The kiln is finally running a full test cycle!

Today the kiln finally is running a full test cycle. The Chinese temporarily put a jack-up cilinder under the point of the broken cylinder so they could close the kiln and start it up. After work I tried to call our normal driver that takes us back to the hotel, but since it's a national Holiday today (1st october) he also had holiday. Therefore we took the motor taxi back, very nice.

Today was only waiting, waiting, waiting!

Today we wanted to start the kiln again, but the hydraulic cylinder that has to push the kilncar in the kiln was leaking very badly. The repaired one came back very fast, but had a different connection adapter. We had to wait the whole day for the adapter and at the moment we were about to go home it finally arrived. They put the repaired cylinder back, but then discovered there was almost no oil left in the hydraulic pump. It took about half an hour before they finally came with the oil to fill it up. But then the repaired cylinder was ALSO leaking very badly. This was it, we went home to the hotel, but of course our 1800hrs taxi was already gone. We tried to get another one, but that's impossible in that part of the town. So we decided: let's go with the motor taxi's. I liked it, at least we rode on a motocycle in China again!

Burnout of kiln completed!

Today was the first day we actually could "do something useful" around here. Today we did what we wanted to do on Friday. I must saw things were not too bad, considering the situation around here with this particular machine......

Things are starting to work around here!

Cooler installed back, and (still) not leaking. Fans have screened cable now, so no noise on the temperature measurements. Tomorrow we'll try to start the burnout again. This time will have more effect than the previous attempt!

Today was not so hot as yesterday

The burnout didn't run fine, too much noise from the unshielded thermocouples. However, both newly installed analysers in the gaspanel are working and I could repair preheater 5. They are also assembling the repaired cooler again, and hopefully tomorrow we can start testing it.
The best thing today was however, that it was not so bloody hot as yesterday! Still very hot, but not SOO hot.

Things are getting a little bit better!

Today was the first day that we saw a point of light: the 13kW recirculation fan came back and now we have it running. Tomorrow we will start with the burnout of the kiln.
Today was also VERY hot. It was more than 30 degrees, but because the electricians had to work on the power they had to shut it off in the factory so all airconditioning and cooling fans shut down. At a certain moment, when I was working upstairs in the controlroom, I thought and felt that it was 40 degrees............I put a towel in my neck, and every 10 seconds I had to wipe my head off. After that work it took about 2 hours before my t-shirt was dry again, but then again: maybe I lost some pounds.........I have to, the food in the hotel is too nice.

The hotel is completely full!

Because of many weddings (because of the moon festival, of course) the hotel is completely full. Therefore the girls put us in the "Jasmine VIP room", that was the only one left, we didn't care of course.
Here we are sitting with the two of us on a Chinese "turntable". Normally you can sit at this table with 10 persons. We ate nice barbequed honey pork with singapore noodles and chicken (bones) with mushrooms. Together with a few bottles of Tsingtao of course.

Moon cake!

Here it is, the famous moon cake. It is a big holiday festival for the Chinese, same as our christmas. During this festival the Chinese eat "moon cake", you can buy it anywhere in the streets, packed in luxurious boxes. And the good stuff is not cheap: 20 euro's for a few cakes.
Next week, when there is full moon, you will see young couples sitting together and looking towards the moon. It is a real love festival. Also when you cannot be with your lover, you both have to look at the moon at the same time, and then you will be a little bit "together" (because you both look at the moon of course).

Replacing the old analysers in the gaspanel

I have to make something new out of this old "shit. Look at it, obviously somebody was trying to make it airtight again. They used the paste you normally use for putting glass in a window. What a mess! It will never go to the low percentages we need! It will always leak.

Chinese Motorcyles!

Here's a row of Chinese motorcyles on the street:
There are many many different brands. The real ones are Honda or Suzuki, but you also see many different Chinese brands. The only thing is that the "japanese" bikes run more nicer than their Chinese copies.




And when it's broken, or when you have a punctured tire, you go
to the repair shop around the corner on the street:

What do we do? To McDonalds (bwah!) or Teahouse?

What do we do? To McDonalds (bwah?). You can find McDonalds (or KFC) anywhere in China.






Nooo, we go to a nice and comfy teahouse:









We went to the "Easy Way Boba Tea House" and had some nice fresh spring rolls with Jasmine Tea drawn from fresh jasmine flowers.

Today we have a day off

Today we have a day off. We're more or less stuck because there are so many things broken now it makes no sense to go on before at least the most important parts are repaired.

Things are still not really improving

Things are still not improving here. People are still working very hard on repairing the broken heat exchanger. And today, also the big 13kW fan broke down. This also must be completely rewound. But don't underestimate the Chinese........they get some things done quicker than we can in Europe. Well see what happens on monday........Anyway, here's a nice picture of the garden in the hotel, walking home through this garden after work makes us happy again. Also, there are some koi fish, check them out. The food in the Zengcheng hotel is pretty good, yesterday we ate a nice Sichuan dish with very nice singapore noodles and some fried mushrooms, all very nice. This keeps us going here!

Things are not improving around here

Today began with a big leaking heat-exchanger (for people that know this machine: after opening valve D, the fresh air input for mode 4, a big gush of water came out). Also the powersupply is not right, they connect all neutrals to the earth here, and say that must be done because of government regulations...........Anyway, if there really was an electrical earth here this should not be a problem. But the earth they have is also.......floating.........They better hit a big pin deep in the ground otherwise it won't work. But we will go on and see what we can make of it.

Working working workin

Worked all morning on a malfunctioning 1600A mainswitch. Of course you could not reach it easy because it was 4 meters high, and those Chinese ladders........are built for people of 75kg max............they fall apart when I climb on them (I'm 80kg).
Therefore they arranged a 10Ton (!) forklift with a platform of 3x3mtr for me. Nice and easy.
Also put 400V by accident on my oscilloscope........but it still works. General rule: never connect anything in China to any wall socket, unless you measured it with a multimeter and confirmed that it is really the voltage you need.

The famous Mandarin Fish

Today we ate the famous Mandarin Fish, one of our favourite chinese dishes. It was very nice. This one was braized in soy sauce. Taste was really good.

Trip to Zengcheng, Guangzhou

The trip went fine. The people arranged a very nice (Chinese) hotel for us. We even ate nasi here, that's something they don't have often (maybe many Dutch people visited this hotel before us..........).
Here's a picture of the Boeing 777 from China Southern that first brought us to Beijing and from there to Guangzhou. Nice airplane, I even find it slightly nicer than a 747...

Gearing up for the trip to China

So, today was very busy assisting the guys in China with the repair of their measurement equipment. Finally, after 8 hours of struggeling, we got the thing working again! My planning was to prepare easily for the trip to china next 3 weeks, but like always, something gets in the way and I have to do it in 10 min. iso. 4 hours. But I don't care, I'm happy that the equipment in our China factory is up and running again, that's most important.

Powerloss measurement equipment

Cool, the company that delivers me very special HF amplifiers for our powerloss measurement systems put our system on their website frontpage. Check it out at www.tcpowerconversion.com

Rehearsal with the band

Yesterday was a very intense rehearsal, I had to tranfser 45 songs to a bassplayer that will fill in for me during my trip to China next 3 weeks. On the 23th we have a gig, but I'm pretty sure he knows all songs by then..............

Cauliflower curry

Cauliflower (bloemkool) curry. Super taste vegetarian dish.
Ingredients:
4 el arachide oil
1 big cauliflower, in roses
1 onion, in half rings
2 toes of garlic, pressed
1 tl djahe (ginger powder)
2 potatoes, cut in small blocks
1 tl ketoembar (koriander powder)
1 tl cumin seeds (Albert Heijn)
1/2 tl cayenne pepper
1 tl koenjit (kurkuma)
1 tl garam massala (see below how to make the mix)
1 can santen (coconut milk)
salt
pepper
1 green lemon (limoen), 1/2 part: juice, 1/2 part, cut in slices
fresh koriander, cut in small pieces
fresh mint, cut in small pieces
1 pack of basmati rice

Preparation
Important: read very well, everything is a little bit time-critical
Heat 2 el oil in a pan and bake the cauliflower 5 min. Add potato blocks and bake 10 min on middle high fire. Roast the cumin seeds in a dry pan for 1 min.
In the meantime, heat another pan with 2 el oil, add the onion, garlic and djahe. Bake softly for 10min. Add cumin seeds, ketoembar, cayenne pepper, koenjit and garam massala. Bake 2 min.
Add cauliflower, potato blocks, lemon juice and santen. Bring to taste with salt and pepper. Close the pan and let it cook on low fire for 10min. When almost finished: add the fresh koriander and mint, and garnisch with the slices of lemon.
Serve with basmati rice, cooked with 1/2 tl koenjit and 1/2 tl garam massala.

Garam Massala mix: enough for about 5x cooking, depends on the dish
2 el djintan (kumin powder)
4 el ketoembar (koriander powder)
2 el kardemom powder
1 el black pepper
1 el cinnamon (kaneel)
1 tl tjenkeh (kruidnagel)
2 tl nutmeg (nootmuskaat)

Vietnamese beef with citronella, vegetables and peanuts

"Vietnamese complete dish", very good taste.

250 gr rice noodles (conimex), cooked according to instructions on pack
500 gr beef, cut in 2x3cm slices, 2 mm thick
2 pieces of sereh (citronella), washed, crushed and cut in very small parts
2 toes of garlic, cut to small pieces
2 el fish sauce (Albert Heijn)
1/2 tl trassi (shrimp paste)
1 tl sugar
salt
white pepper
1 onion, cut to small thin rings
50 gr unsalted roasted peanuts, crushed in mortar (vijzel)
3 el arachide oil
5 drops of sesame oil

Salad
8 leaves of lettuce, washed
1 carrot, cut to small thin rings
10cm of cucumber, cut to very thin slices
50 gr tauge
2 el fresh mint, cut to very small pieces
1 tl fresh parsley, cut to very small pieces

Sauce
3 tl sugar
2 tl wine vinegar
1 tl lemon juice
3 tl fish sauce
1 red pepper, cut to very small parts
1 toe of garlic, cut to very small parts
3 el arachide oil
5 drops of sesame oil (Albert Heijn)

Preparation
Beef
Make the marinade for the beef. Put in a bowl the sereh, garlic, fish sauce, trassi, sugar, salt and white pepper. Stir well. Add the beef and leave for at least 20min. Stir in the meantime.
Put the pan with water and salt for the noodles on the fire.
Salad
Prepare the vegetabels. Put the lettuce in a bowl. Put the carrots, cucumber and tauge each on a separate plate. Mix the mint and parsley and put them on a separate plate.
Sauce
Prepare the sauce, put the sugar in the vinegar and the lemon juice. Stir well. Add fish sauce and 9 tl water. Put pepper and garlic in mortar (vijzel) and ground well. Add this to the sauce and stir well. Add 3 el arachide oil and 5 drops of sesame oil, stir well.
Noodles
Prepare the noodles, cook them according to the instruction on the pack.
Prepare the beef
Heat the pan with 3el of arachide oil and 5 drops of sesame oil. Fruit the onion rings until glazy. Add the beef and bake at high fire for 3min. Add 5 el water and bring to taste with salt and white pepper. Put a part of the crushed peanuts on top, and garnish with parsley.

Penne al forno with salad

Penne al forno
300 gr. penne
1 big onion, in snippets
2 toes of garlic, from the press
3 el olive oil
300 gr. minced meat (beef)
2 dl broth (beef)
1 kg roma tomatoes, without skin and in small pieces
1 tl rosemary
salt
pepper
1 el flour or maizena
butter
parmegian or pecorino in small pieces
Kook the penne 7 min in water with salt and a little bit olive oil. After cooking, cool down with water.
Fry onion and garlic in hot oil. Add minced meat, stir until it is a little bit brown and completely fallen apart. Add broth, tomatoes, rosemary, salt and pepper. Put fire low and leave for 30 min. Add flour and bind the sauce. Preheat oven to 200 degr.
Take oven dish and put button on the inside. Put a layer of penne on the bottom of the dish and add the sauce. Add a layer of cheese, the rest of the penne and at last, the cheese. Put in oven until top of dish is light brown.

Salad
1 lettuce, leave taken apart, washed and dryed
2 tasty tomatoes, cut in 4 parts each
olive oil
vinegar (little bit)
1 tl herbes de provence
1 toe of garlic, cut in half
pepper
Rub the inside of the garlic in the salad bowl. Add lettuce, tomatoes, herbes de provence and stir well. Add olive oil and vinegar and stir well. Add pepper to taste.

Curry chicken with sambal green beans

Curry (kerrie) chicken
400 gr. chicken fillet in small pieces
3 roma tomatoes, without skin, in small pieces
1 red pepper, cut to very small pieces
2 el curry (kerrie)
1 dl ketjap manis
1 tl sambal oelek
2 onions, cut to small snippets
2 toes of garlic, from the press
arachide oil
Fry the onion in 2el oil, add garlic. Stir. Add chicken and fry until light brown. Add curry and bake a little bit on low fire. Add pepper with tomatoes. Bake a little bit. Add ketjap and sambal. Put fire low and cook for 30 min.

Sambal green beans
250 gr. green beans (sperziebonen), cleaned, cut in halves
2 toes of garlic from the press
1 tl sambal oelek
1 onion cut in thin rings
1 tl djinten (kumin)
arachide oil
Fry the beans 5 min on high fire. Add onion, garlic, sambal and djinten. Bake another 5 min while stirring well. Put fire low and let beans cook for another 15-20min until ready. Beans must be crispy.

Nice together with white pandan rice and prawn crackers (kroepoek).
Selamat makan

Famous Chinese dish: Singapore Noodles

Another very tasty recipe: Singapore noodles.
Ingredients:
3 spring onions (lenteuitjes) in small rings
1 red chillipepper in thin rings without seeds
2 red paprikas in long thin strips
1 onion in thin rings
1 toe of garlic cut to fine pieces
15 leaves of basil (fresh)
300 gr thin egg noodles (conimex or soubry)
300 gr chicken fillet in stips of different sizes
5 el chicken broth from tablet
4 el unsalted peanuts roughly cut
2 el arachide oil
1 tl djahe (ginger, conimex)
2 tl curry (kerrie)
1/2 tl cayenne pepper
salt
pepper from the mill

Cook the noodles with salt according to the instruction on the pack.
Heat up the oil in a large pan and bake the chicken light brown.
Take the baked chicken out of the pan.
Bake in the remaining oil the chillipepper, garlic, djahe and onion for 4 min.
Add paprika and spring onion and bake for 4 min.
Add curry and cayenne pepper and put chicken back in pan.
Add the noodles and the broth.
Heat the whole dish on low fire an extra 5 min.
Bring to taste with salt and pepper.
Before serving, add peanuts and trim with basil.
Nice with prawn crackers (kroepoek).

Back to basics!

Back to basics! Got this Suzuki Alto from the car workshop today. 1000cc with 600kg! It has 4 wheels, a steering wheel, an engine and brakes, that's about it. Everything looks and feels about the same as a mini cooper back then! I will be happy when I get my carina back tomorrow!