Montag, 31. März 2014

Garden update

Hi all,

I just want to give you some heads up about the garden.
As you can see below our garlic and radishes are already quiet big. We have a big helper here scanning the bed every day :)













If you do a closer look - like really close, you can see a little bit of what I expect to be a carrot seedling. It is tiny and I only spotted 2 of them so I really hope the others will join. Unfortunately the onion play death, they have not shown up yet. But I am still positive that they just need a little more time.
We will see.





Also inside our plants became quiet big in the past weeks.
You see here different sort of tomatoes, egg plant, chili and bell pepper. In the little green house we started courgette, squash and some salad.






So, that was a short update. I will keep you in the loop.
Next week we will get new garden furniture so I can enjoy the sun even more.

Have a great start in the week,
Susann

Sonntag, 30. März 2014

Crocheting Hammock for the cats

Hi all,

during the past few weeks I was busy with crocheting a new hammock for the cats. So they would have something new to lay in and sleep. Well what else do cats the whole day, right?

So today I finished this project. As I see so many things all of the time that I want to make I really need to be strict to myself to just finish one thing AFTER the other :) So I am also super happy now as I can go on with something new. I still could do a second one but this is maybe for later. I have so many things in my mind. Finger puppets and a blanked for the soon to come niece bay shoes for a friend who is also expecting, a blanket for me and so on... 

But now, here the finished hammock :)






Enjoy the rest of the Sunday,
Susann

Freitag, 28. März 2014

Cuddeling in black and white

Hi all,

today only a very short post with a few pictures of our little monsters here. They have been so sweet the past days.

I am happy that I was able to capture this moments.






I hope you did enjoy,
Susann

Donnerstag, 27. März 2014

Soup of the week: Leek Soup

Hi all,

now that I have a new blender I can make fantastic soups again. So I thought I would reuse the category "Soup of the week" again.
I might not add a soup every week but liked the title so I will keep it like this.

And guess what? For my first soup I don't even need a blender :) I made a fantastic leek-cheese soup with croutons from spelt bread.
I love to use leek especially in the colder period of the year. I have the feeling it adds extra energy to the food and I just love the taste of it.

Here is what you need:


  • 600g leek
  • 4 spoons of butter
  • 1 big spoon of flour
  • 100ml dry white wine
  • 1l veggie fond (find here the self made receipt)
  • 80g grates cheese
  • 100 cooking creme
  • salt, pepper and nutmeg
  • 2-3 slices of bread (in my case - spelt bread)
How you do it:

Clean the leek and cut slices. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the leek for a few minutes. Sprinkle the flour over it and mix it with the white wine. Add the veggie fond and let it cook for about 5 min. Add the cheese and the cooking creme and let it cook again for 5 min until the cheese is molten. 
Spice it with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

For the croutons:
Cut the bread into small cubes and fry them in a pan with some butter. Add some salt and pepper or garlic. Fry them until they are crunchy but what out, they can burn very fast.

Put the croutons on top of every plate of soup.





I hope you will enjoy it.
Many greetings,
Susann

Donnerstag, 13. März 2014

Veggie Fond - self made

Hi all,

today I want to share my receipt for a veggie fond with you. As I cook a lot of soups I use a lot of veggie fond. But I don't like the powder or cubes you can buy and the veggie fond you can buy is quiet expensive.
So I decided to make it myself.

Basically you can use all different kind of veggies. Just what you can get cheep at the period of the year.
I used the following:


  • 1 chili
  • a mix of 3 different onions
  • 1 big carrot
  • 1 big fennel
  • 1 celery
  • 1 bunch of parsley
  • 3-4 l water
  • eventually pepper and salt
I chopped everything and put it in a pot and cooked it everything together for about 1 hr. You will see that the water gets a little bit less. Put everything through a sieve.
I filled in hot twist off glasses and there I can keep it a few weeks.


Let me know what kind of veggies you use.
Many greetings,
Susann

Dienstag, 11. März 2014

Building a new garden bed

Hi all,

we had such a great weather this weekend that we even could enjoy breakfast outside. But first things first. Before that I had a nice morning walk with Floris.










So I decided to work in the garden for a while.
We built a new garden bed. It is bigger then the year before and as we have a small path in between all parts are better to reach for me.
It was so much work. We filled it with 35 25l bags of fresh ground. But it was so worth it. I think is looks amazing. I put already the first seeds in the ground. Onions and Carrots.

I also cleaned out the front year. I want to plant one pumpkin plant this year and needed some space. It was really getting ugly so I made it nice again. I do need to take some pictures in the sunlight tough.
Also I planted 2 more Hydrangea plants.




And look how big my Tulips are already!


So, I hope you liked the few pictures. I surely enjoyed my weekend even though I was exhausted last in the evenings. But I think it was worth it.
Have a great time,
Susann

Donnerstag, 6. März 2014

Mushroom cake

Hi all,

I would like to share a fantastic receipt with you. I've go it from the magazine "Vegetarisch Fit".
It only contains vegetarian receipts and I buy it from time to time.

What you need for the dough:


  • 250g flour
  • 125g butter
  • 1 egg
  • a pinch of salt
What you need for the filling:

  • 500g mixed mushrooms
  • 1 onion
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 3 spoons of butter
  • 2 eggs
  • 200ml cooking cream
  • salt, pepper, nutmeg
  • 100g grated cheese
How you do it:

You start doing the dough with mixing all the ingredients together until the has a nice texture. You cover it with kitchen foil and let it rest for 30 min. Then roll it out and put it in a cake pan, leaving about 2cm of an edge. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and let it bake for 10 minutes.

In the meanwhile cut the garlic and the onion, clean the mushrooms and cut them as well. Melt the butter in a pan and add first the onions and garlic, later the mushrooms. Leave it there for about 5 min and put everything in the pre-baked cake. Mix the eggs with the coking creme and cheese and add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Put it over the mushrooms and bake it for anther 30 min.





I hope you enjoy it!
Susann

Dienstag, 4. März 2014

Gardening 2014 - getting started

Hi all,

I mentioned it before: I stared with the first seeds. YES, I could not wait.
I bought a 2nd green house for the window and this one I use for flowers so far.
Now there are growing - hopefully - pansy, violets, marigold and lupines.

In the one I had before I put some chili, tomato, egg plant and celery.
So - now I need to be patient. Not really a strength of mine hahahaha

But luckily the seeds shoot out the ground. I can nearly watch them grow.
Here is what I have so far:









In the meanwhile I measured the garden and made some drawings on how I want everything.
Probably I will start the remodeling soon. Or better, I will have to start soon :)

I keep you posted.
Many greetings,
Susann

Sonntag, 2. März 2014

Spring is coming

Hi all,

it's been a while since my last post. My garden was still in the winter sleep and I didn't want to bore you with only food or crocheting. But now you have to go through this again ;)

As the title already says, spring is coming. How did I found out? :) First, there is no snow. Also it is getting warmer and the days get longer. Aaaaaaand the first flowers pop out the ground. And they are fast!
I can't believe how much is going on outside already. Here some pictures for you:















Here something I also want to show you.
I started a new crocheting project - crochet along. It's pretty cool, you get pattern every week and start crocheting a blanket. At the end of the year you are done, learned a lot of stitches and I improved my crocheting skills a lot I hope.




Jolanda from here is one of the organizers and started translating the patterns from English to Dutch.
I started a little late so I had to catch up a little. At the moment we are at week 9 and coming Friday we will get the next part. I am nearly done with week 8 now.

So, this was the first post for now. I am about to prepare some more for the next days. I made a lot of new reciepts and would like to share these with you. Also I put the first seed in the ground- well in my little green houses. But more about this later.

Many Greetings,
Susann