Carrot Cake

The first time I had carrot cake, must have been in 1995 in Killarney,  Ireland.   Hermans Continental Coffee Shop, a tiny place with about 4 tables and a counter full of baked goodies, located in the Innisfallen Shopping Center. 

Even though the baker, himself, was German, the women serving in the café were full Oirish colleens and it was a quirky kinda place, that we visited every trip to Killarney, after that first time.

I cannot remember, however, if I consciencely chose carrot cake or if I just pointed at what looked interesting at the time.

A good slice of moist, dense texture, with the right amount of  cinnamon, pecan nuts and the most beautiful orange specks of grated carrot.  It was nothing like the cakes I knew from my neck of the woods, that are usually dry, overly sweet and to my mind, uninspiring. 

The cake was in two layers, filled with cream cheese frosting, flavoured with lemon zest.  The frosting was also spread, in a rustic kind of way, over the top and sides.

While living in Ireland, there was no need for me to bake Carrot Cake, ever, because the numerous tea & coffee shops did all the work for me and what I liked most about these places, was that cakes and scones would be homemade and they all looked so rustically gorgeous.

Now, I am dreaming away to The Riverside Café in Sneem.  A lovely mug of strong tea, sugar bowls on the tables, also large jugs of the best milk with a help-yourself-attitude.

Okay, back to the here and now. 

Don't know what happened, but about a month or two ago I suddenly thought about Carrot Cake and I was going to make one

I didn't have to look long on t'internet to come to my favorite website for baking.  The trusted  The Joy of Baking website.  I have used it before for other baked treats and it is very, very good.

So here is the recipe for Carrot Cake , but as per usual I didn't follow it to the letter, I added grated apples that came from our small tree in the garden.  No, just no ! No pineapple !

For the lovely people in the choir I will translate it 'roughly' into dutch.

Worteltjes Cake   Nederlands recept

 

Chestnut soup and recipes for disaster

Next week will be the first aniversary of my participation in the choir Cantate from Aarschot.

http://www.cantate-aarschot.be/

It took me a while to get back into singing after a break of about 6 years, but I enjoy it tremendously. Meeting people and singing together is fun !

One of the issues I have, is that because I spend a lot of my days on my own, with Bert only joining me after his work day and as we all know, he ain't no great conversasionalist, I tend to go beserk when I go to the choir practice and I talk, talk, talk to anyone catching my eye.

Not only do I talk incessantly, but I also show signs of hyper-activity. I start flapping, laughing, joking, acting clumsily, just being an embarrassment, really.

So yesterday evening, the choir had a concert, titled No Depression In Heaven and we performed songs from The Great Depression in the US during the 1920's - 1930's, together with Norbert Detaeye, who is a fantastic jazz-pianist. After the concert the choir had organised a drink and a Bowl of Soup, for which I prepared a Smooth Chestnut Soup.

As I like helping out where I can, I joined a chore group in the morning to prep everything for the reception.

It all looked very pretty, with Lena's gorgeous little flower arrangements and all. Glasses were set out on tables to serve from, beers in the fridge, soups (also included here were Jos's Pumpkin Soup & Tineke's Tomato Soup) in the fridge. We had sweeped the floors, laid nice tablecloths etc. . Perfect !

When we were about to leave, I just kept on rabbitting and not looking where I walked, I ran into the table with the glasses on !!!

The Sound of Breaking Glass ! The feeling that goes through your entire body, filled with dread, humiliation, not knowing if you want to cry or start laughing hysterically.

Lucky for me, my singing companions haven't lost patience with me, ....yet, so they started cleaning up all the mess and in the end only four glasses got broken, even though it looked like the whole shebang got blown to smithereens.

Okay, I can live with one public embarrassement a day, but not two !

This is what happened when the concert had finished. People were already leaving for the reception, still plenty around to notice what I did next.

The venue being a 'modern' church from the 60's/70's, I walked down the steps from the altar and tripped ! No I didn't fall with my knickers on show ! I gripped one of the gold-sprayed aluminium banister uprights of the pulpit instead. Only, it came loose at the bottom end.

Can't really remember what happened after that, it's a bit of a blurr, only know that some sympathetic choir members helped me to regain my balance and tried to slam the upright back into place.

How do you brush yourself off and walk away with your dignity intact, after such a stint ? Should I lock myself up and let someone else throw away the key ?

No, I think I should just take a deep breath before I go and mix with people, take a step back and relax instead of being like an uncoiled spring once I leave my own four walls.

I can but try.

Chestnut soup

I will say this again. This recipe is only a general guidline and if you want to add a bit more of this and less of that, it will still make a fantastic soup.

Ingredients

A splash of olive oil, you can use butter if you like

2 or 3 onions, peeled and chopped

1 or more cloves of garlic, peeled, roughly chopped

3 carrots, chopped

1/4 celeriac, chopped

fresh sprigs of thyme

1 bay leaf

3 liters of vegetable stock ( I admit using stock cubes - organic from Kallo)

About 250 grams of roasted and peeled chestnuts

Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Heat the oil in a pan, sautee the onion & garlic.

Add the thyme, bay leaf, carrots, celeriac and chestnuts.

Sautee for 5 more minutes, before adding the stock.
Let it come to the boil and let it simmer till the vegetables are soft.

Take of the heat and fish out the woody thyme stalks and bay leaf.

Blend with your handheld blender until the soup is smooth and velvety.

Season with salt & freshly ground black pepper.

I did make an extra topping for the soup based on Delia Smith's recipe for bacon and thyme croutons.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/soups/chestnut-soup-with-bacon-and-thyme-croutons.html

I fried in olive oil some smoked lardons, onion, croutons, loads of fresh thyme, some extra chesnuts (roasted, peeled and chopped), when cooled I added oodles of freshly chopped flatleaf parsley.

Add as little as a tablespoon on top of your plate or bowl of soup. Autumn (or fall) on a plate.

Note : You can also add a splash of sherry, port, brandy or whatever tickles your fancy, to the soup. It gives it another dimension.

As a gesture of gratitude to the choir members for putting up with me this last year I'll be baking a 'carrot cake' for the next choir practice. They won't know what hit them. First chestnut soup, then carrot cake, whatever next !

Nederlandse versie van dit recept

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

What a life !

Here, it isn't possible to walk through the garden without a cat trying to block your way by throwing themselves in front of you. Like Gabrielle, on the photo below, throwing me off balance.

Here, it isn't possible to repot plants without a cat confiscating your pot before you had a chance to put a plant in it. Like Finian (below). Here it is also dangerous to prepare plant holes in the garden, before you know it one or other cat has used it as a toilet. It is extremely efficient in the cat's mind that you make a hole for their benefit.

When you think you've seen it all, forget it, look up and you will notice Juniper on top of the skylight, wanting to get in that way.

However annoying they might be from time to time, I can't help but loving them to bits.

Summer Scenes

Summer scenes ?

The weather has been apalling, even here, in the south of France, but we have to try and make the best of it. At least the grass hasn't turned yellow yet and we don't have to water the veggie garden too often.

I haven't been updating my blog lately, due to a lot of work in the garden, housework and taking care of holiday guests which often includes serving evening meals.

I did take a few summery(ish) pictures however and here they are.

What better to put in a birdcage but plants ? Here Nasturtium.



Accross the road a beautiful summer meadow.

The grass has been growing and growing, we couldn't even get through to the cherry trees.


That was until almost 2 weeks ago a neighbouring farmer, finally came to cut the hay - 2 to 3 weeks later than normal.


Monsieur Brousset and his son do this every year and they can have the hay to feed their cattle during the winter.

So when the weather finally cleared for a couple of days, there was a hive of activity in the area and you could hear the buzzing of tractors from dawn till dusk.

That is that for another year and I for one am happy that the hay has been harvested, so that I can stroll through the garden once again without being afraid of encountering a snake (eek!)

Strawberries, Strawberries ! Fresh Organic Strawberries !

Still not tempted ? Then scroll down and look at the amount of fresh yummyness I picked today.

We started off last year with 10 strawberry plants that my mother brought with her from Belgium. Now the whole raised bed is covered and more. I must admit that they are getting a bit crowded and in late summer I need to find another place for them in the garden that will give them more space so that the fruits can enjoy the full sun and develop even more flavour.

I think I know what we will be having for dessert tonight.

Strawberries and cream.... or , I still have some gulab jamun (Indian dessert) and we could eat them with that.... or, vanilla icecream and strawberries.....or, ..........

Blackboard

Unfortunately, I might not be able to add recipes to my blog for the next couple of months as my schedule will be rather busy, with the garden, the holiday cottage and the guests. I do not know if many of them will have evening meals, but we've had a few so far. Here's a taster.

sushi

miso soup






Sarah & Ezra plating up

I will however, keep you up to date with projects, garden progress and miscellaneous drivel, not forgetting lots of pictures.