Today is the day.

On the Bluest Monday ever as indicated by the formula above, I turned 40. Yep, I hit the big Four-O alright!

That’s all of me as an 18-year old with 22 years of life experience; old enough to recognise mistakes all life’s stupidity I have made since the coming of age, yet still young enough to brew some more mayhem before I turn vintage! I’m a retro and I call it the art of learning. 

Still. What the hell is Blue Monday?!

Swear to God, it’s a term I have never heard of until today. It only became known to me when Silver Bullet translated what the Radio DJ said about today being the gloomiest day ever.

In the office, Blue Monday which occurs typically on the 3rd Monday of January for countries in the Northern Hemisphere became the main topic of the day. It’s a term used for the prediction of the gloomiest day when unhappiness peaked due to post Christmas bills, debts and the wearing off of the holiday buzz.

The term was coined by a Dr Cliff Arnall back in 2005 by using the above equation. This year, it happened to fall on January 16 and it is considered the gloomiest, bluest and most depressing of all the other Blue Mondays with the added factors of Brexit, Trump as well as the deaths of celebrities and childhood heroes. 

Hmmmmm. See! I’m still learning and as blue as this Monday had been coined to be, I am far from depressed.

In fact, this Capricornian Fire Dragon albeit feeling a little aged and tired, is still feeling sharp, fine and full of spirit. Step on my piddly-little dragon tail and I’ll bloody whip-lash your ass off. It’s true.

And it has to to be. My birth month and my horoscope say so. Especially since Facebook has been hounding me with ads since about a month ago, following me around and trying to entice me to click on T-Shirts that scream “ME”:

 My birthdays have always been a low key affair. I’m not so big on the entire hoolabaloos; dinner with family and a small gathering with friends are just sufficient.

With none of my friends to celebrate with this year, we kept it really simple; a home-made cake from Silver Bullet, lots of kisses from the kids and a visit from my in laws. 

Every year, I always make sure that it is the day that I stay away from work. Not this year. 

Unlike my previous employers, organisations in the Netherlands do not grant an additional birthday leave. So this year, I went to work.  Already last week, my colleagues who keep yab of the team’s birthday, reminded me that I’ll need to celebrate it the Dutch Style.

That means, like every other Dutch person celebrating their birthdays, I have to bring my own birthday cake or little treats (traktatie) for my own party for my colleagues.

Not that I would mind but having lived in Asia for all of my life when I get pampered on my birthday with people buying me lunch, dinner, birthday cakes and treats, this was new to me. 

But , take heed. It’s the Dutch culture.

Here, the birthday person is expected to bring something lekker. Buy or make, it doesn’t matter. Then expect that you (and your family members) are going to get congratulated the hell out by (almost) everyone accompanied by the famous 3 Dutch kisses.

The Dutch are big on birthdays. Not celebrating it is practically unheard of and today, I had my first taste of yet another Dutch hospitality in the office. Not only because it was my birthday, but for the fact that the big four-o is considered to be special:

All I did was go to the bathroom for 10 minutes and within that time, my team mates bombarded my desk with what you see above. They also stuffed balloons into my bag and presented me with a sashay with the big Four-O on it along with a bunch of flowers as well as presents.

What a treat! Especially since I still consider myself as a newbie in the organisation. 

So. Blue(st) Monday? Nah! That Arnall guy and his formula, is (excuse me) just BS.

What this is really is the true meaning of the real life, Dutch Style. I guess this is where life begins – at the end of your comfort zone. 

If you love cooking, fun, and a challenge, this free recipe and cooking game is for you!

So says my lovely, multi-talented culinary dynamo friend Jas Brechtl. She’s got me contemplating a commitment for a while now when she recently announced that she’ll be hosting Recipe Showdown from January 2017. 

The concept of Recipe Showdown is pretty similar to our Monthly Mystery Munchies (started in 2015) where the host site for a particular month sets the key ingredient/food product that participants must use.

The key difference is that this is properly rooted to a game that exists in the region of former Yugoslavia on the blog called Kuvarigrice.  

While our Monthly Mystery Munchies is a small yet fun affair between just Gen @Eat, Play, Clove and myself done on the 1st Friday of every month, Recipe Showdown will be a larger affair to anyone who wants to participate. It is a month-long participation with official rules and the host will announce the winner on the first of the following month who would then be the next host. 

Another great way to push my culinary boundaries! That sorts of seal the deal to join in the fun and I thought I would do that by complementing one of my weekly Fabulous Friday Flavours with Recipe Showdown. 

Jas kicked off January with an ingredient which I don’t quite like to eat and never used for my cooking: Gorgonzola Cheese!

That’s blue cheese, mind you. The kind with a taste that bites and to me, smells like feet! It would be one of those cheese I would say Thanks and NO THANKS to and please get that vile, viney, mouldy thing out of my face.

But I did say I’d rise up to push my culinary boundaries. So, with Pinterest as my source of inspiration, we bought the milder Gorgonzola for my experiment. I then covered my nose and gagged my way through while making my batch of Savoury Thyme-Blue Cheese-Fig Cookies.

This was such a pleasure and surprising easy to make: From dumping flour, butter and Gorgonzola all dumped into a food processor before mixing with thyme and then knead to form a dough… to that satisfying feeling of making your very own fig-cinnamon jam to pair with the savoury blue cheese base.

Whatever ill-feeling I had of the dreaded Gorgonzola before dissipated when I took my very first bite of the cookies when it came out of the oven. It was soft, crumbly, saltish yet sweet and fruity all at the same time. It had a little “bite” which I can’t quite explain.

My only gripe is the not-so-uniformed size of the dough and how messy each cookie looked after I splatted the jam on it. There’s definitely going to be another round of this and next time, I’m going to work on the shape and the mess!

Thanks to Jas, this is a keeper.  While I would still NOT eat blue cheese just like that, this is a classic case of without this challenge, I would still be your ardent nay-sayer of Blue Cheese in whatever shape and/or form. 

Savoury Thyme-Blue Cheese-Fig Cookies

2017-01-09 05:54:12

Yields 30

A deliciously buttery, crumbly cookies made with thyme and blue cheese topped with home-made fig jam bursting with flavours of lemon, honey and cinnamon

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Prep Time

45 min

Cook Time

8 min

Total Time

1 hr

Prep Time

45 min

Cook Time

8 min

Total Time

1 hr

For the Cookies

1. 1 cup self raising flour
2. 115g butter, room temperature
3. 115g Gorgonzola Cheese, cubed and crumbled
4. Ground Black Pepper
5. 2 tspn thyme

For the Jam

1. 250g dried figs
2. 1 cup granulated sugar
3. Half cup water
4. 1 quarter cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
5. Half tspn honey
6. 1 tspn vanilla extract
7. 1 cinnamon stick

Instructions

1. Pre heat oven to 180 degree Celsius
2. Mix flour, blue cheese, butter and pepper in a food processor
3. Once the dough is mixed well, transfer to a bowl. The dough will be very sticky at this stage
4. Add in thyme and knead to a ball. Use more flour if necessary. It should be a little sticky, but not too sticky
5. Roll up into a long cylindrical shape and wrap with baking paper
6. Leave it in the fridge to cool for about 10-15 minutes
7. While the dough is cooling, heat up a deep pan and mix fig, water, sugar, lemon juce, honey, cinnamon stick and vanilla extract.
8. Mix well, caramelise the mixture till it is reduced down to a sticky, qooey, jam-like liquid.
9. Add more water if it gets too thick and let it reduce down again. Watch that the caramel don't burn or you'll end up with a very bitter jam.
10. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes; Let it cool once you are happy with the texture and consistency
11. While simmering the jam, remove the cooled dough from the fridge. Cut rounds of the dough. Place them on a baking tray
12. Then cut the into circular pieces
13. Using the back of a spoon, make an indentation in each cookie to place the jam
14. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes
15. Remove and cool completely

Notes

1. The thyme is optional. You can replace it with Rosemary if you like or not use any herbs at all. Using honey for the jam may dilute the taste of the figs, so do not overuse it and you can omit it if you like.

Grubbs n Critters http://grubbsncritters.com/

1. The host site for a particular month sets the key ingredient/food product that participants must use. The ingredient is given on the 1^st of the month. (The first game will start here on January 1^st)   
2. Any time during that month, participants make a dish with the given ingredient and publish the recipe on internet with a link to the homepage of the game (this page), and a link to the post in which ingredient is given (host site). 
   • The participant who has already published a recipe with a given ingredient, regardless of the date, can use it to share, following the same rules (link to the host site and the game homepage).
   • Participants have to e-mail the host page the following information:

            – Name
            – URL of the page where the recipe was published
            – Photo of the finished dish

3. The host site will publish all submissions with links in a post at the end of that month and select a winner/new host site for the next month. The host site can, if they wish, send a small gift to the winner.
4. The host site will share the post on their social media.
5. Re-entering the same recipe and repeating the host site is allowed after 2 years (subject to change).

 
Here’s the deal:
The game homepage (this page) will keep a running list of all host sites and ingredients, hence the rule to link here (so we can keep track).

To more success from #RecipeShowdown! Don’t forget to submit your recipes to allthatsjas1@gmail.com with the subject line Recipe Showdown January 2017 and share your creations on social media using hashtags #RecipeShowdown & #allthatsjas