Lemon Curd Recipe For Josée

Ingredients

Grated zest and juice of 6 lemons

400 g white sugar

150 g softened butter

5 eggs, beaten

Method

Heat the lemon zest, juice and sugar gently in a sauce pan. Stir until sugar has dissolved.

Add the butter, while stirring until melted.

Au bain Marie, add the eggs to the lemon mixture, stirring all the time, gently, for about 30 minutes, until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.

Do not boil as the mixture will curdle.

Pour into warm sterilised jars and seal. After cooling keep refigerated.

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Nederlands

Ingredienten

Geraspte schil & sap van 6 citroenen

400 g kristalsuiker

150 g zachte boter

5 eieren, geklopt

Methode

Verhit op een zacht vuurtje het citroensap en schil met de suiker, roer tot de suiker is opgelost.

Voeg de boter erbij en roer tot deze is gesmolten.

Au bain Marie, de eieren bij het citroenmengsel voegen, en zachtjes blijven roeren (ongeveer 30 minuten) tot het mengsel glad is en aan de houten lepel blijft hangen.

Niet laten koken anders gaat de curd schiften.

Giet de curd in gesteriliseerde glazen bokalen. Sluit af en laat afkoelen.

Bewaren in de koelkast.

Our new home !

Especially for Phyl & Dawn, a few photos of our new abode.

Easter Brunch

Beautiful table decorated by my mother.















I prepared the Eggs Benedict (with smoked salmon) on homemade muffins.

Made an assortment of buns. Here, brioche-style easter bunnies, some with sultanas, some with chocolate chips. Served them with homemade jams.















After a walk, we were ready to attack the Pavlova.

Easter fun at mother's home.

We've spend Easter Sunday at my mother's home.

My little nephew, Mathias had his first taste of gathering easter eggs. He never knew what he was supposed to do, and at first he picked them up and went in the direction of the chicken coop, as if he was going to bring them back to the chickens.

He also went straight for the little ones that were wrapped in bright coloured foil and left the chococate ones behind, or for Tara, my mum's dog.

Days like these makes me feel really happy to be surrounded by my family again.

Here are some pictures of the happenings

Here my brother, Rijkaard, showing his son how it should be done.

Pick up the eggs, put them in the basket.....

However, Mathias has other ideas and he tips the eggs out of the basket.....

Mummy, Joelle, to the rescue and they put all the eggs in the basket again.

Ooops, Tara has found an easter egg also.

What a year it has been !

Not exactly my favourite one !

It has been a long time since I last updated this blog and for that I want to apologize.

As from my previous post you can see that we moved from France back to Belgium. I have had the greatest difficulties to adapt to life here again.

First of all, our lovable dog, Kerel, died rather suddenly on the 7th July, kidney faillure. Why, we don't know, as he got the finest dog food we could afford. It was devastating for us, and fellow pet owners will know what the feeling is like.
All of our six cats adapted very well to life in Belgium, so no problems there.

Another thing is, that I didn't fall in love with the house, nor the area. In fact, I started to hate the house so much it left me feeling numb and depressed. I hardly cooked a few meals, all other times we had take-away chippy, pizza, kebabs. It all resulted in me having put on more weight, and it has also given me a health scare (blood pressure very high, to the extend that my heart muscle is already enlarged). That's me on medication and a low salt diet and leaving out saturated fats (damn, and I so love salted butter).
I disliked the place so much that we started house hunting almost immediately after we moved in. After viewing many, many properties -sometimes losing the will to live- we found a great place (for Belgium) and we moved in on 17 th, January. .... to be continued.
I do enjoy seeing my family and relatives on a regular basis, though, and it was lovely to spend Christmas with them again.

On the move.....again !

Yes, we didn't expect this to happen so soon. After all it's only four and a half years since we first arrived here in France.

But things happen and we decided to move back to Belgium after more than 12 years. At some stage Bert will need surgery as the cartilage has all but disappeared from between his neck vertebra es. His mother passed away, just before Christmas, which also made us re-think our future. I have started to miss my family, relatives and old friends too much and I would definitely like to see more of my new nephew, Mathias.

We therefore made the decision just before the New Year to move back home. We bought a little house in a village, called Geetbets. It is about 20 minutes by car to my mother's place, apparently just the right distance.

Since deciding, we have already packed half of our belongings and dumped them on my mum, well not literally, she has a hangar/garage where we were able to store things. Our house here in France is on the market, but we will arrive in Belgium with the rest of our stuff on May, 4th.

So here are a few photos of the new place for you to sample, while I get on with the packing.

And then there was Mathias...

My very first nephew, my mother's first grandchild, my brother's first born.

He was born on the 20 th September 2007, weighing 3.820 kg and measuring all of 50cm.

I would like to congratulate my brother, Rijkaard and his partner, Joëlle.

They have a very beautiful, gorgeous, scrumptious baby boy. Needless to say that I have already fallen in love with him, and I haven't even seen him in real life yet, because of distance.

Update on the Summer kitchen

Look at this. These pictures have been sitting in the 'Draft - section' of my Blog since the 30th May. It is about time I put them out there for everyone to see the work that has been going on during the summer.

Here, Sarah and Friedel, unloading rocks to go under the concrete floor.



Ezra and Andrew mixing concrete

Andrew, smoothing out the surface

Catpaw prints, as always. Now, it wouldn't feel like home if we didn't have catpaw prints in every bit of concrete we pour.

Friedel and Andrew, leveling for the barbecue to sit.