Cup cakes sunday!

Dear all,

How are you? It's been a while, I know but a lot has happened. I got a little bit overwelmd by life the last few years and i reached a breakpoint in may this year. I had to take things slowly and I'm recovering :)


But today I felt like I needed to make some bakkery. And this the result!Hope you'll enjoy!
My sister gave me this book (it was in a set, you know with some cups) for Christmas 2 years ago and I have to say tha't's a very nice book, well explained and it tastes sooooo good!

My magic little cupcake book!

 

                                                     Part one: the cakes

                                          Part two: the frosting!! I added some purple color!

 

One of the things i like when i'm cooking is that I can totally forget about the rest of the world. And usually it tasts good ;)

I'm busy redefining myself which is fun and quiet scaring at the same time. I hope i will presenting you new things i made, not only in the kitchen but also in the house!

See you soon!

 

Special up-date for Delphine:

 

 

It doesn't show how tasty they are! Even the cats have tried them and kept likking their faces afterwards:)

 

 

My frosting was not very solid, it would be better next time.

Miss P: Are Television executives missing a trick?

Miss P: Are Television executives missing a trick?: If Maslow is to be believed, (and all conventional wisdom suggests that he is), then three of our most basic human needs are to feed, hou...

Look what i've found!!

As you may know i love cooking and i love trying new recipes. I also read a lot of blogs from all over the world and one of my fav is Picky Palate. She has always great recipes and it all seems yummy. But in the US they use other kind of measurments, cups instead of gram of ml.

But look what i've found!!:

Yes, cups!! Here at our supermarket!!

And i wanted to use them right away!! so i decided to try a recipe i received by mail.
I have register at a website where you can have one time pen pal. It's called Postcrossing. You send  a post card to a stranger and you get postcard from a stranger in return! I receiced one with a recipe for a pie.

And this is the result!!



I think it's nice! We are going to eat it tomorrow as my mom is at my place this weekend!!
I'll let you know ;)

Cooking wednesday: Couscous salad with smoked chicken

Hi there!

I'm back, it's been a few weeks since i wrote something but it was kind of busy here ;)
Tonight i have made a couscous salad from the Light Koken magazine of July. It's a magazine available in Holland, with only healthy and skinny recipes which fit all kind of diet (low carb, diabetic...). I like it very much, they write about food but also mindfulness, sport, different diets available and so.

So for tonight i choose to make the Couscous salad with smoked chicken. The original recipe is for 4 persons but as i'm alone tonight I only used the half (i can take the leftovers tomorrow for my lunch).

The ingredients:
100gr of couscous
25 gr of dried raisins
1 big spoon of cashews
75 gr of mais
1/2 cumcumber
1/2 oinion
1 coffee spoon cinamon powder
1 coffee spoon curry powder
50 ml skiny yoghurt
salt and peper

1. Cook the couscous as mentioned on the package. Then add the raisins.
2. Meanwhile, combine the chicken cubes in a bowl, the cashew nut, corn, the cumcumber cubes, onion, cinnamon, curry and yogurt. Mix the cooled couscous chicken mixture. Transfer the couscous salad to taste with salt and pepper.

Then it's time to (guilt-free) enjoy!

Meanwhile in the garden the raspberries are growing (thanks Jacco and Gerda ;) )

Cooking wednesday! potatoe & fennel casserole

Hi there!

As i told last week i wanted to use my free wednesday as a cooking wednesday.
I was already think about it all week: what should i do?? So far i only placed baking things so i decided to make a dish this week.
But then, what kind of dish? I bought the Jamie Oliver magazine monday and there i found it!!
A potatoe fennel casserole! i love fennel, it's fresh and i like the anise taste of it.

We are lucky to have our own dutch version of the Jamie Oliver magazine. I love Jamie Oliver, he's cute, british, can cook and give you the idea that's easy :) I have quite a few of his books but i haven't tried one of his recipes until now.

Of course i had to make some adjustments as i couldn't found some sort of cheese. I also halved the ingredientz, the recipe is mad for 8 person but still it tasted good!

so this is what's needed:

- 1 fennel
- 450 gr sliced potatoes
- 100gr parmesan
- 50gr rasped cheese
- 2 steaks ( added to complete the meal)
- 1 oignon, sliced
- 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
-1 branch of thyme
- 35 gr of butter
- some olive oil




Here it's how it goes:
- start the oven on 180 degree
- cook the sliced potatoes for 3 minutes
- slice the fennel in thin slices and cook it for 2 minutes
- in a frying pan fried the thin sliced garlic with the butter and oil until it's golden
- put a layer of potatoes (about the half of it), then the half of the oignons,the half of the fennel, the thyme, the cheese and the garlic
- put another layer of potatoes and the rest of the ingredients.
- on top of it put some rasped cheese
- foil the dish with aluminium foil and set in the oven for 30-45 min (according to your oven)
- then take the aluminium foil out and set it again in the oven to let the cheese melt and gril.

Enjoy!!

if you have a good tip on the recipe, let me know ;)

Cooking wednesday: the start of it!

Hi there,

Sinds last week i worked less at the office which gives me some time to discover what my hobbies are and experience it.
As i like cooking in general and baking in particular, i've decided that i will have a cooking wednesday!!

Starting today, which is also my birthday!! YEAH!!

And last time i asked you what your favorite birthday cake was and i had no answer!! :( Which didn't help me make a choice for today.

So i baked all my favorites:

- the chocolate cake, the strawberries cake and the cheesecake!

what's your ultimate birthday cake??

Hi all!

It's almost my birthday and the last two years i've always make a cheesecake, the years before it was always a chocolate cake.
But this year i want to try something new!

So i was curious to know what's your ultimate birthday cake!!
Let me know and inspire me!! :)

Raspberry muffin à la Coeur de sucre

Delphine from Parfums de Gourmandises has a theme for the month of May: Cupcakes May.
She has already made 3 differents cupcakes for this month and i was charmed by her Raspberries cupcake.

Here are mines:

I've made them for Hubby and i but also for my friend who's jut became a mother. She liked my cupcake ;)

As i will have some free times coming weeks i hope to post more often on what i've baked, cooked, sewed and gardenned ;)

See you very soon!!

Last chapter on garden construction and more....

Our backyard is ready!!! Last weekend i've planted all my tomatoes, cucumber, eggplants, letuce and strawberries in my veggie garden.
Monday Hubby and I also placed the bright white gravel which is the finishing touch of our backyard.

We are happy!!

Last month Hubby and i went to Italy for the first for the holidays and we had found a nice  (as it seemed) hotel in Toscany. Our destination was Montecani Terme, north of Toscany  and later on we would drive southern to Chiancachino. The nature there was beautiful as it was green and all was blooming

 But we had to acclimate to different way of living, like lousy breakfast in the hotel, the different kind of coffee and that in Italy a lot of things are a bit hidden. But the coffee is really good there and the food and gelato's are great!!

And we were lucky to have sunny weather!!

Ciao!!

Let me introduce you to...

Zuko and

Hercules

The gardenning adventure is going on....

H. and I decided to let someone do the big job in the garden and we also changed our ideas about the style we wanted.

No, the veggie garden has not disappeared!! but the pond becomes a long term project.

That's how our backyard looks like after one day of labor:

a juicy news

Last week i ordered a juicer! I read a lot about how healthy it is for you to drink fresh juice of fruit but also from vegetable. I decided to give it a try as it's very difficult sometimes to eat enough vegetables

so this is how it looks like:

Nice isn't it??

so yesterday, after the gardening, after the  cookies, i made some fresh juice.

3 stalks selery
grapes
2 pears, doyenne du comice

And the result is.....Green!

Delicious chocolate chip cookies

Yesterday, after my work in the garden, i still had need in cookies.
so i went to my favorite cooking blog, parfum de gourmandies and check if Delphine also had a nice recipe for cookies.

And of course she has ;) I made her peanut butter with chocolate chips cookies (recipe) and they are really yummy!

The spring has arrived in my front yard!

We had a lot of nice weather this week and i was looking forward to gardening this week. But Friday the weather turned around and it was very cold and cloudy. When i woke up this morning i saw a little bit of sun and it was windy.
Though i decided to go to the gardening shop and i couldn't resit to buy some flowers for my garden ( not knowing exactly where i''ll be putting them :S)

this is what i bought today:

- a peony
- a rhubarb
- strawberries
- a butterfly bush
- a rose

And i'm very proud of the result:

What do you think of the result??

there is always hope

one of my favorites people at the moment is Nick Vujicic.
He is sooo inspiring and i'm going to start ready his biography tonight!

cheesecake (de)light

A few weeks ago i tried a recipe for a "light" cheesecake and it was surprisingly delicious!!

Ingredients:

75 gr margarine

150 gr digestives

2 eggs

250 ml skinny yoghurt

30 g creamcheese (light)

1 spoon flour

juice of a ½ citroen

25 g strawberries

30 g sugar

1 Preheat the oven to 200 ° C. Grease the edge of the baking sheet in. Crush the biscuits in a food processor finely. Add the butter and blend briefly until the butter running well blended. Spoon the cake mixture in the bottom of the springform pan and press with the back of a spoon well.Turn after baking the temperature back to 150 ° C.

2 Separate the yolks from the whites. Mix the yogurt, cream cheese, egg yolks, flour and lemon juice together. Beat the egg whites with the mixer, gradually add the sugar and whisk the whole thing about 1 minute brisk. Mix the beaten egg whites lightly into the flour-yogurt mixture. Mix ¼ of the yogurt mixture with the raspberries and mix with hand blender until a smooth mixture.

3 Pour the white protein yogurt mixture over the pie crust and pour the raspberry mixture. With the help of a teaspoon of streaks in the batter so you get a marbled effect. Bake the cheesecake in the oven about 20 minutes. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature, then turn it in the refrigerator. Remove the cake pan only when the cheesecake has cooled completely.

And this is the result!!!

Bewerkingen ongedaan maken

New plants in the garden

Tonight i was in the mood to work a bit in the garden. The weather has been very kind the past few days and it's very nice to  be outside after a day at the office.

In the backyard i plant 2 vines, given by friends

At the frontyard i plant also 2 kiwi plants (also given by friends)

 

 kiwi plant 1

 

kiwiplant 2

it doesn't look nice yet but hopefully we will be albe to eat some kiwi soon ;)

My Yogi told me...

Each morning I drink a cup of tea of Yogi tea http://www.yogitea.eu/en/.

On the leash of the tea bag there is a quote. Mine today says:
"Whatever you do from the hart is absolutely effective"

So true....

First draft of the vegetables'garden

Here are the first drafts of my plan for the veggie's garden

Hopefully within a few months i will be able to harvest:
- strawberry
- eggplant
- paprika
- zucchini's
- tomatoe
- carrots
and more.... YUMMIE!!

In memoriam Casper Milka Boomsma

When my boyfriend's cat died in oktober 2010 we decided to adopt a british short hair kitten.
He came very quickly into our home and our hearts.

Unfortunately three weeks ago we found out that he was very ill and wouldn't live long.


With a lot of pain in our heart we let him go friday afternoon.

Casper oktober 2011

Feb 2012

Mister Winter has come

See at In the garden how cold it is and how the garden looks like ;)

the start of everything

We moved to our new home last august. We were first very busy with the inside of the house.
we decided to wait for spring 2012 to take care of the garden.

Well, this is our startpoint

We have a lot of ideas:
- the "island"in the middle should become a terrace
-  a pond around it
- a veggie garden


We will see what 2012 bring to us