Busy Sunday

Yesterday morning, a glorious sunny day, the first true spring day (20 degrees!), I found myself sauntering along the Albert Cuyp Markt—3 or 4 blocks of vegie/fruit, cheese, charcuterie, cheese, poultry, fish, and clothing vendors. Part of the pleasure of the market is the people watching, and the snatches of overheard conversations in that awful Amsterdam working class accent, lunch a sandwich from Tjin's Exotic Broodjes, poking into the Pittenkoning (one of my favourite kitchenware stores), and just reveling in the sun.

Needless to say, I came home with some goodies and today I spent the day cooking. I've cooked for the week and that has included:

• Fish Pie, based on several recipes and trying to scale it down to a two-serving version. Not entirely successful, but there's a lot of promise and I want to work it out into something that really works.
• Apple-Cranberry-Custard pudding. What would I get if I topped apple and cranberries, plus brown sugar, lemon, orange peel, cinnamon and black pepper (!), poured a sauce of egg, milk and some Birds Eye custard powder over it, and baked for half an hour? This was an attempt to cut some fat by using a custard instead of a crisp topping. It proved to be quite tasty, but may need even more custard. 
• Osso Bucco, from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Similar to one in our family cookbook, but without the porcini. 
• Hummus, based on Jane Brody's version in Good Food Book. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough lemon juice, so I used apple vinegar, lemon peel, and sumac to get the balance right. I'm really liking what sumac does to it.
• Red Pepper and Bean Spread, based on one from Smitten Kitchen, but with more garlic, quark instead of cream cheese, and red pepper flakes and sumac (instead of lemon juice) to punch it up a bit.
• Moroccan Roasted Vegetables from Moosewood New Classics for a couple of lunches this week.

It was a lovely day!