Green Olive Tapenade

So simple to make, I'm almost ashamed to admit it.  Full of natural umami, it is a great ingredient to use in a variety of dishes. 
I like to spread some over my homemade pizza base, before I add the passata di pomodoro.  Also lovely on bruschetta, a spoonful in your pasta, as a seasoning for soups, salad dressings ....

ingredients
300 grs pitted green olives
1 tin anchovy fillets
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 small chillies
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

preparation
Put everything, but the olive oil, in a measuring jug.
With your hand blender, blend until you get a smooth-ish paste. 
Lastly stir in the olive oil.

You can store in a glass jar with screw top lid in the fridge for about a week. Pour some olive oil over to seal off.

Eh ?
Of course you can use your food processor! What a question ! ;o)  Pestle and mortar should also do the trick.  Heck, you could even use a chopping board and sharp knife.

Patricia xxx...x

Rhododendrons

Ever since the time we lived in Ireland, I have a love - hate relationship with rhodos.

I hated them, because they invaded Killarney National Park  and beyond, showing no mercy for indigenous plants and trees.

I love them, because come May, they will bloom in al their glory and delight me with an abundant display of colour.

Now, in our own garden, well established rhododendrons show off their lovely flowers and atract all the bees from the neighbourhood.

 You can't but love them !

Buzz, buzz, buzzing !

 One of my all time favourites (I have many) is the Foxglove.
The picture below shows some that grew wild last year in the woodland just 'behind' the fence.
When they appear in our garden, I nourish them (psychologically - they don't need to be wrapped in cotton wool) and I abide my time until they grace me with their beauty.

Where ever you may be, I hope you enjoy the late spring flowers as much as I do.

Patricia xxx...x

Garden Impressions

It looks like everything in the garden needs seeing to, all at once.  And I have been trying to keep up.
Turning the attention to the vegetable garden.  it certainly looks like a blank canvas now, but I have been sowing lettuces, chard, peas (mainly for pea shoots), carrots, parsnip, radishes, beetroot, runner beans ......

 In a couple of months time the soil won't look so bare and our raised beds will hopefully be choc-a-block full of greens.

The  greenhouse is doing it's job nicely, even if it is standing halfway down the woods.

 I harvested the rather slender leeks, but left a few to go to seed.  The flowers are beautiful and the seeds will be collected for the year after.

When we first moved here, just over 2 years ago, this garden had plenty  of high beech hedges, some azalea and a few rhododendrons.  That is not a lot to provide colour or to attract beneficial insects.

This has already changed, as one of the first things we did was cut back the monotonous drone that were the hedges.  Not all, just the ones that were most oppressive.

Now there are lots of other plants growing in between, like honeysuckle, broom, rowan and I even discovered some hawthorn. 

They can all stay as it will be more pleasing to the eye, says I.

We also stocked up a border with herbaceous plants.  It might look a little bleak still, but come summer it will be ablaze with colour.

Gardens full of colour are not fashionable at the moment, here in Belgium. The trend is to grow only white flowers and everything green needs to be trimmed into a regimented shape......

.....Not in this girl's garden. I love a good variety of structural plants and colourful flowers.  An abudance, a jungle like feel .....

My favourite vistas in the garden. 

Above : a collection of different shapes  and colours of leaves and flowers.  The rowan blooms will turn into bright orange berries later in the season.

Below : an azalea that I uncovered last year, a young American oak (which I should be cutting down, but I don't want to), willows (salix) and rhododendron together, looking very dramatic.

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed being led up the garden path.

Patricia xxx...x

Have a Sunny and Happy Easter Weekend

I'm Making Roman Blinds. What a slog ! Quick Preview.

This is not my first attempt.  I've made a couple of roman blinds before.  Now, they were for separate rooms, for small windows, in a country cottage.
The ones I am making now are for our sitting room, with 6 large windows, so they have to be a bit decent and straight. 
Gosh, I didn't want to do this job - it was not in my freshening-up plan for the sitting room - but the old ones had shrunk so much after washing them that there was no other option.

I just wanted to post these pictures here, to give myself a pat on the back.  Please don't hold back, you can all give me a pat on the back and give me the motivation to finish the sodding blinds.

Yep, still need to finish the hem, but that is no work at all.

Also, I have a striped pelmet in mind to tie in with the rest of the new scheme.

Hey, and I pre-shrunk the fabric !

Thanks for giving me a pat on the back.
Patricia xxx...x

So, we went to Ireland

... at the end of February , for 3 nights/4 days.  If you want to be in the Southwest of Ireland and your plane lands in Dublin, that of course means you have to drive a long way by rental car to where you want to be.  Sneem, Co Kerry, in our case.
It gave us 2 full days to visit only some of our  friends and have a jolly knees up. We also went to have a look at some properties, nothing definite as yet.  We'll keep our eyes peeled.

We arrived back home on the Monday night.  Tired, but happy to have seen some of the friends. 
Tuesday, took down the roman blinds in the sittingroom, sneezed and sneezed some more -- very dusty -- washed and air-dried them.  Took out the off-white emulsion and started painting the walls.
Bert was due in hospital for surgery on his foot on the 15th March and I wanted everything freshened up for his revalidation at home, you see.
But something went wrong ! On Thursday 3rd I came down with shivers, fever, achey bones ..... flu.  Don't really know how, but I managed to finish the painting and ironed a few of the roman blinds, only to come to the conclusion that they had shrunk.... a lot, in the width.
Oh, I might as well fall to pieces right now and die a slow death of flu. I felt anxious, needed to be in top form to take care of Bert when he had his surgery.  On Monday the 14 th, Bert decided to call the doctor as the fever was still rampant (39.8 C)
Decision was made to phone the surgeon and postpone Bert's op (that is now on the 3rd May).  I got some much needed sleep and rest, Bert finally realised that I also needed food - yes, my stomach thought that my throat had been cut, many times.  I got some echinecea, antibiotics (yes, I know, but desperate times...)
By Wednesday, the fever went, but I still felt weak 
Now I'm back in the land of recovering flu sufferers.  Bert went to Ikea to buy fabric for new roman blinds and that is what I am about to start with, filled with trepidation, but I suppose it will look much beter than the shrunken ones.

Murphy's Law, sod's law, I don'tknow.  What do you think ?

Thanks for reading
Patricia xxx...x

Natural Garden Fences & Devides

Our house is set in a 3000 sqm garden, surrounded by woodland mainly. Needless to say that come autumn we have leaves galore to rake. 
Now, we are not the sort of people that would love living with a regimented, pristine and super tidy garden. 
We like using what nature gives us for free and things that don' t look out of place in this setting.
These are just a few of the examples what is possible.

In the pictures above you can see how we made cilinders from wire mesh, which we can fill with leaves or other garden clippings. It is not that it will compost very quickly, but it will compact together nicely and break down over a longer period of time and it can be filled up again in the next year.

We have several of these babies dotted around the property and they make a great winter home for hibernating hedgehogs, little field mice, shrews and even toads or frogs.

Above you can see our wall of branches and twigs. There  were some spruce trees standing there, getting too big for their boots, which we cut down, but left a height of 150/200 cm trunks. In between the trunks we stacked loads of branches and twigs from clearing the woodland.

Another lovely home for wildlife.

Now in the picture that follows you can notice a project that is still very much a work in progress. 

We made 3 terraces next to the house, where there was just a slope before. Bert erected the retaining walls with plywood (not my ideal) and I used the stems of young trees that needed thinning and slotted them in place behind the uprights that Bert placed in front of the walls.
On these terraces I can now start planting shrubs and flowers and even vegetables. 
Once finished it will look great, don't you think ?

Thank you for reading.

Patricia xxx...x

Chicken Pie, an ode to British Cuisine

Yes, I am the biggest fan of British cooking and here is the recipe for my chicken pie, covered with yet again, mashed potatoes.
Normally, it would be topped off with pastry (flaky, shortcrust or puff), but I didn't fancy making any, due to many other jobs that needed doing about the house.

Ingredients  This was plenty for at least 4 portions

• 3 chicken filets
• 2 ltr organic chicken stock
• 4 carrots, peeled and chopped into large chunks
• Florets of 1/2 brocolli and 1/3 cauliflower
• Frozen peas, 200 grs
• Butter 100 grs
• Flour 100 grs
• Tarragon, 1 tbsp
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• Seasoning to taste (salt, black pepper and nutmeg)

Preparation

• Put the chicken filets in a pan and cover with stock.
• Bring to the boil and cook for 2 minutes.
• Reduce heat and simmer for another 8 minutes.
• Take them out with slotted spoon and set aside.
• Bring the remaining stock back to the boil and add the carrots, cook al dente, drain and repeat with the cauliflower and brocolli.
• Cut the chicken in chunks of 2 cm, arrange in an oven proof dish.
• Add the vegetables and lastly the still frozen peas.
• The stock will be used for the sauce. At this point, while it is still hot, add the tarragon to the liquid.
• In a pan, melt the butter and stirr in the flour.
• Add  part of the stock and reduce heat.  Keep stirring to prevent lumps.
• Keep adding the stock and if the sauce gets too thick, you could add some extra milk or water.
• Bring to bubbling point for at least one minute and keep on stirrrrring.
• Stirr in the sourcream, season to taste.
• Distribute over the chicken and vegetables.
• After it has cooled down slightly, top off with a layer of mashed potatoes.
• Bake in the oven ( preheated 200 ° C) for 35 to 40 minutes approx.

Enjoy !
Patricia xxx...x

Pan-fried Cod, Mashed Potatoes, Sauteed Leeks and a Wannabe Beurre Blanc Sauce

Sharp flavours that make my taste buds tingle.
I used homegrown leeks, the size of spring onions, but that didn't take away from the taste.

ingredients for the leeks and sauce. (serves 2)

• 6 of the finest leeks (or 2 of a normal size)
• 30 gr butter
• 100 ml chicken stock
• 1 or 2 tbsp capers
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Seasoning : salt,black pepper and nutmeg

preparation

• Clean the leeks and slice in rings
• Sautee in a little of the butter
• Add the chicken stock and simmer for another minute or so.
• Scoop the leeks out of the stock (or drain them in a colander)
• Reduce te stock a bit more
• Add the lemon juice and capers.
• Take it off the heat and stirr in the rest of the cold butter, bit by bit.
• Add seasoning to taste

For the fish

• Use cod or other white fish filets from a sustainable source (+/-200 gr per person
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• Vegetable oil (I used Olive oil) and yet another knob of butter.

• Dry the fish thoroughly and coat with the flour.
• Season with salt and pepper
• In a pan heat the oil with the butter.
• Pan fry the fish for about 2 to 3 minutes on each side,depending on the thickness.

Scoop some mashed potatoes on your plate

Arrange the fish on top (that is something my husband will never understand)

The leeks (that you kept warm) can also be arranged in a delicate manner (or not)

Scoop some (a lot) of the sauce over the fish and let it drip onto the leeks.

Finish off with a good few turns of the pepper mill.

Let the taste buds tingle

Patricia xxx...x

A Springlike Day

After busying myself with some bookkeeping  this morning, I just had to join the dogs out in the garden and sniff the crisp springlike air.

Now, what mischief can we get into ?

Don't ask, it's just a piece of an old blanket.

Nice new hairstyle you've got going there, Sam.

And then I spotted the wood pigeons up in a nest in the tree.  Surely, that is way too early ?

Patricia xxx...x