Fresh eggs from my best friend's farm.
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Showing posts with label Kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kitchen. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Apples
I am always looking forward to the apple season. The joy of cooking applesauce and pressing apple juice. There is just one slight problem.....there are no apples this year. I harvested 1 1/2 apples (as in 1 whole and one half apple.....) from our two apple trees. The really, really wet spring was followed by a period of extremely dry weather. My husband, who is a farmer's son, said that this happens sometimes. That is how nature works and there is nothing you can do about it.
It bought some apples and made some applesauce, but it just isn't the same.
Don't you just love my Bonne Maman jam jars!
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Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Bouneschlupp
Ask a Luxembourger about Luxembourg's national dish and they will tell you about "Bouneschlupp". It's a green bean soup and every family has its own recipe.
I never made it myself (I'm a bad cook), but when my sweet neighbour gave me a kilo of green beans I decided it was time to change that.
And you know what? It was really good! I couldn't quite believe it myself.
Of course I wanted to give you the recipe but I am just too tired to translate it properly. When I googled for an English recipe I found this funny post dedicated to "Bouneschlupp".
Gudden Appetit!
I never made it myself (I'm a bad cook), but when my sweet neighbour gave me a kilo of green beans I decided it was time to change that.
And you know what? It was really good! I couldn't quite believe it myself.
Of course I wanted to give you the recipe but I am just too tired to translate it properly. When I googled for an English recipe I found this funny post dedicated to "Bouneschlupp".
Gudden Appetit!
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Plastic
I don't like plastic and I like quiet colors for my home.
I prefer to use preloved objects to keep small treasures and crafting supplies
... such as old wooden cutlery trays,
... old wooden boxes,
... old leather collar boxes,
... and old cookie bins.
But I made an exception last week and bought this colorful set of plates, granola bowls and cups for the six of us. I'll tell you why.
Except for three bedrooms upstairs, our whole house is tiled. I really like my tiles because they are so easy to clean. The only disadvantage is that every time something falls on the floor, it breaks into a hundred pieces (four kids and a cat!). I stopped counting how many sets of crockery we dropped over the last 20-something years. This meant that we never had matching plates and cups, they were all single pieces from different sets. Last year we decided to buy plain white IKEA plates and bowls. They were cheap and we could easily replace them because we have IKEA just around the corner. What we didn't know was that the plates didn't fit in our dish washer. Isn't that strange!? I really don't understand why IKEA sells plates that are too big for a normal dishwasher! One day I took them all to the recycling center. I started searching online and found RICE from Denmark. Unbreakable, dishwasher proof melamine and the colors make me happy. Every family member chose his/her favorite color. I am excited that it really works for our family. I should have done this years ago. I used to have cups and bowls and plates all over the house. The children took a clean plate for almost every slice of bread. Dirty plates were left all over the place and it was always "someone else" who put them there. Now that everybody has his/her own color, they search for their plates instead of taking a clean one from the cupboard. And if we find a dirty plate, bowl or cup, we always know "who did it". I just don't know why it took me more than 20 years to figure this out.
... such as old wooden cutlery trays,
... old wooden boxes,
... old leather collar boxes,
... and old cookie bins.
But I made an exception last week and bought this colorful set of plates, granola bowls and cups for the six of us. I'll tell you why.
Except for three bedrooms upstairs, our whole house is tiled. I really like my tiles because they are so easy to clean. The only disadvantage is that every time something falls on the floor, it breaks into a hundred pieces (four kids and a cat!). I stopped counting how many sets of crockery we dropped over the last 20-something years. This meant that we never had matching plates and cups, they were all single pieces from different sets. Last year we decided to buy plain white IKEA plates and bowls. They were cheap and we could easily replace them because we have IKEA just around the corner. What we didn't know was that the plates didn't fit in our dish washer. Isn't that strange!? I really don't understand why IKEA sells plates that are too big for a normal dishwasher! One day I took them all to the recycling center. I started searching online and found RICE from Denmark. Unbreakable, dishwasher proof melamine and the colors make me happy. Every family member chose his/her favorite color. I am excited that it really works for our family. I should have done this years ago. I used to have cups and bowls and plates all over the house. The children took a clean plate for almost every slice of bread. Dirty plates were left all over the place and it was always "someone else" who put them there. Now that everybody has his/her own color, they search for their plates instead of taking a clean one from the cupboard. And if we find a dirty plate, bowl or cup, we always know "who did it". I just don't know why it took me more than 20 years to figure this out.
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Friday, July 6, 2012
Soy and almond milk
My first homemade non-dairy milk: one bottle of almond milk and 2 1/2 bottles of soy milk. It was so much fun and really easy to make. And the most important thing: the kids love it. I add some honey or a little bit of chocolate. Next week I am going to try to make rice milk. Let's see how that works out.
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Monday, July 2, 2012
Making my own soy milk
I thought about this for weeks and I finally decided to give it a try: making my own soy milk. I received the Soyabella soy milk maker this morning from Germany and my beans and almonds are already soaking. The kids are used to drink soy/rice milk from the grocery store and they are really excited to see all these beans and nuts waiting for further processing on the kitchen countertop.
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Rhubarb
I love the first rhubarb of the year!
We planted some new plants last year and they have become really LARGE.
I peeled 6 lbs this afternoon.
My father is visiting from Holland and I want to make a rhubarb pie for tomorrow.
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Monday, April 30, 2012
A give away!
Today I am offering you a really cool give away.
I love Heather's blog and when she posted about her new online workshop "30 Day Vegan", I knew this was exactly what I needed to focus again on healthy living and food this springtime. I hardly eat any meat at all, but I know that we are still eating far more animal foods than we should.
Heather had this fun "pay one get one free" option and I am offering this workshop to one of my readers for free (worth 49$)! This would also make a lovely Mother's Day gift.
For all the details, please click on the image.
To participate, just leave a comment below.
The lucky person will be chosen by random generator on Friday 11th.
Good luck!
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Smoothies
Strawberries, black raspberries, cherries, black currants, red currants, apples, oranges, lemons, mandarins, pineapple, bananas, zucchinis and honey.
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Monday, December 12, 2011
Brownies
Last weekend my son came home from Germany and he brought with him the best brownies I have ever eaten. I ordered them here. Unfortunately they don't ship outside Germany.
This one was my favorite: cream cheese. So yummie!
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Monday, November 14, 2011
Tiramisu and apple sauce
Youngest son preparing tiramisu for his brother's birthday, it is his favorite dessert (and mine too).
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Sunday, September 25, 2011
Nuts and berries in honey
All kind of nuts and dried berries in honey. We warm it slightly and eat it with very thin slices of goat cheese.
Love the autumn colors!
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Saturday, August 6, 2011
A splash of colour
Outside it is so rainy and grey that we really needed a splash of colour. We decided to bake muffins. The kids always love to decorate them.
There was even an 18-year-old involved!
I have to admit, they are not perfect, but don't they look beautiful?!
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
Decluttering the kitchen
We have a rather small kitchen and I desperately needed more storage room for the six of us. As least, that's what I thought! But instead of taking the old kitchen out and buy a new one, I started decluttering the place, like I did in the rest of the house. I first started to use the empty kitchen window sills. I bought 18 large Ikea glass jars. They were just the right size and I love the look of them.
They contain almost all my dry food.
Leaving me with an almost empty drawer!
I also found some surprises. These bottles had "tax-free" labels, so they must have been bought when I still worked at NATO and that is more than 15 years ago.
Then I started to sort out the kitchen equipment and tools. I threw away everything broken, incomplete or not functioning and I only kept what I really needed.
Look how much space there is still left in my drawers.
Half of my cookbooks had to go. I only kept the ones I am actually using. Most of the recipies come from the internet anyway.
All the space I have created!
Conclusion: we don't need a new kitchen, one day of decluttering did the job!
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