Foodie Friday Sad food

Can you make sad food??
Lately I have been making it for my father in law.
He was in the last stages of Alzheimer disease and he could not eat much any more. Chewing and biting was no longer possible.
So I did what I do best. I made him some nice food he still could eat.

I pureed banana's, kiwi's, pears,stawberry's and so on and mixed it with some special baby cookies or with curd cheese. Especially for him I sifted out all the seeds from the kiwi and the strawberry.
I also made him some mashed patatoes, mixed with lovely carrots or broccoli. It was real tasty food.
He enjoyed this food for two more weeks and on Thuesday night he closest his eyes and died in his sleep.
Making this food could have been a joy since I almost could make the same food for my little granddaughter. But now she will neve know him....

So yes, you can make sad food.

3 or more tabacco jars

Why I have 3 jars or boxes related to smoking I don't know. Nobody smoke's in the house.
But my father and brothers and my grandfather where smokers.
This first box was an Ebay find. I stumbled on it and it was almost to be sold but nobody seemed to want it. I was struck by it from the moment I layed eyes on this battered old thing.
It has so much charm. I guess it must be from the early Victorian times maybe 1840 or so?? Don't ask me why but it has that feeling over it. It is a dog kennel with a little copper dog in front of it. The box is made of wood and decorated with metal studs.As you can see,it is really battered and brused. On the inside you can see remnants of the foil that traditionally covered the inside of sigar boxes and it also has the dividers for the sigars.

Don't you find this box as charming as I did when I first saw it???
The second tabacco jar my daughter and I found it at an antiques fair. My daughter absolutely wanted it but she could not afford it, since it costed almost 150 dollars. But I also was charmed by it and so it went home with us. I know why my daugther wanted it. As always it was because there was a cat on it.
Once again it is a dogkennel and two little dogs lay at the door of there kennel that is overgrown with ivy.

But aldo it is a dogs kennel the cat is master of the roost by proudly sitting on top of the kennel. The back of this box is plain but at the side you see two ivy bushes.

Are'nt they sweet little puppies?

My third tabacco jar is once again a dog kennel. In our country I olden days you often saw dogs who had an old beer or wine barrel for a kennen.
This ceramic jar comes from a little ceramic factory that once existed in the town where I was born.My grandfather, who's father worked as a blacksmith in that factory had a tabacco jar like this. These jars come in two sizes and in two colors, green and golden brown.

We never knew a lot about that factory, even the city had little or no interest. After my grandparents dyed and the house was cleared we found several things from that factory but nobody wanted these object because they where oldfashioned. I took home a pair of candlesticks because I found them very charming and an old flowerpot. My mother took home three majolica plates with grapes. How ever took home the tabacco jar I do not know.
But the fact of the matter is that after a while my joungest brother began to have an interest in this factory and started collecting the stuff. I found this tabacco jar in Antwerp in a tiny antique store and my brother was very jalous of it but he took revange and now is an authority on the subject. He has a major collection, hase founded a collecters group and is staging exebitions on the subject of this majolica factory.

You now can understand why this little bulldog in his barrel means so much to mee. Want to see more of this factory ? Here is the link http://www.hasseltskeramiek.be/

Hope you enjoyed my stuff and....sorry for the dust!

Xmas in July and Foody Friday

in July!

What a fun idea it this.Whilest it was raining today I got in the Xmas spirit and looked at all my old Xmas pictures.
In Belgium we have not a lot of Xmas traditions since up to a decenia or so agoo, Xmas was mainly a Christian holiday. We had a tree with some ornaments and a festive meal and that was it. Now a days with all the influences trought TV and internet and so, Xmas trees and all the decorations are becoming more and more popular.

So I am just going to show you a lot of pictures of my trees and tablescapes. I don't do a lot of other decorations since this is difficult to manage when you have like me a lot of cats. No family pictures either I'm afraid. Since I am cook and host I don't take pictures at that moment.

Because it is also Foody Friday I am putting a recipie for Chocolate Truffles at the end of the blog.
Since Belgium is know worldwide for its very good chocolates I thought this was appropriate. Sadly there are now pictures of them but believe me these truffles are devine.

My first nativity set. I still love it after all those years.People think I am crazy to have a mouse and a cat nativity set but what the heck...I like them!

Xmas trees of the last 4 years

2008

The Bird tree

In 2008 I wanted a non traditional tree with dry branches witch I adorned with 70 white glass birds, some clear glass balls and some pampilles. There where also a lot of tiny snowballs on nylon threads and of course some white lights.

2007

The Snowflake Tree

I was very, very pleased with this tree and it is still one of my all time favorites. On Ebay I bought from a Canadian lady about 170 handmade snowflakes and it made a fabulous Xmas tree. Some clear glass ball and about 600 white lights finished it off beautifully. In the top stood my little Steiff snowman!2007
The Red Roses and Cardinal tree

Sadly I have no really good pictures of this tree. It was fabulous but very hard to take good pictures of. One of those trees I truly was proud of. For the first time ever I bought all new things. The ball I bought on sale. The birds I bought on Ebay and the rest, like the red glass hearts and the velvet balls I bought localy.

2006
The White Tree

Full of white balls and all my mainly white glass figurative ornaments and once again all white lights.

Some of my tablescapes from some years back

2008
2007

This was certainly 6 years back
Of my very best tablescapes, I sadly have no good pictures

Christmas and the cats

When you have cats and love them, Christmas with cats is fun to experience. We have laughts a lot with the fun things they do once the Xmas tree is up. I only have glass ornaments and never, ever will buy plastic ones, just because I have 11 cats in the house. Only kittens will try to climb the tree. My big Maine Coons love to sleep under the tree since I always put a fleece as a tree skirt under it.
I must admid, I am at home all the time and at night the cats don't sleep in the livingroom. So that helps a lot. On the other hand I put unbreakeble things and bells at the bottem of the tree. So I can hear when they are in the vicinity of the tree. Here is an impression of a Xmas with the cats!

BlumaBlue admires the White Xmas tree

Gulara, 12 weeks old is the one and only cat ever to climb the tree!!

The cat Xmas tree. Not meant for the cats but it a tree and decorations with cats.

I collect glass cat ornaments. The old fashioned kind.

In 2008 I designed this Cattery Chrismas tree with wood ornaments I bought at Ebay.I painted them in a greyish/blue color and made some shading on them. Later I gave the ornaments to my daughter since she said that she could not have a Xmas tree because of her 4 cats. This tree is fun for the cats since they can play with the ornaments, sleep under it and if somethings fall out, nothing gets broken.


Koko half asleep under the Cattery tree.



Biggles and Caitlin are garding my Snowbabies collection

Pregnant Poppy sleeping under the Red Roses Xmas tree.

Chocolate Truffles Recipie

This is for a lot of truffles but I assure you, you will need them becauste they are delicious.
Put them in a nice box and you have a perfect gift.
One again my recipie is in metric so please trow it trough a converter program.
You need:
200 grams of real unsalted butter

1500 grams of very good (at least 50% cacaofat) dark cooking chocolate

1 liter of single cream.

real Dutch cacoa powder

Put a pan on the heath and poor the cream in it and let it come to the boil.
Chop the chocolade in small pieces and let it melt aux bain marie and then stirr the chocolade in the cream away from the stove. Chocolade may never cook or become to hot!
Put away in the fridge until the next day. The next day you heat the mixture gently and add the soft butter.
Put in the fridge again until the chocolade mix is hardened.
Then,with a small spoon, you scoop out little balls and quickly roll them in to long our round chapes and dust them with real Dutch cacao powder.

You can also roll them in chopped pistachio nuts, slivered almonds or coconut. You can also give them something extra by adding a small amount of cherry of raspberry liqueur.

While forming them, your hand will get messy real quick. Dust your hands with cacao powder or powdered sugar to prevent the chocolade clinging to them. When your hands gets to dirty wash them and then cool them in cold water before starting again. Or you could do it with plastic gloves.The forming of the truffles is a big job so let your bigger kids help.

Put in a nice box and give them to friends and family.
Enjoy!!!

Anne-Fleur's room take 2

As you can see our granddaughters room is still not decorated. I have been busy in the week that my husband was out of the country but it all took much more time then I thought.
Clearing up 4 bookcases full of books, putting them in another place, sorting out the books and putting them back was a big, big job.
The week after my husband came back it was very hot here in Belgium and when it is hot, I can do nothing! I can't stand the heat. Never could, not even when I was young. When everyone was at the beach I was reading a book in our holiday apartment.
So the work stopped for a whole week.
Now the books all have their place and I just need to put one spare bookcase in the cellar.
Today I stripped the brown wallpaper and tomorrow I hope to get the new wallpaper on the wall. I must pull myself together to start because it all makes such a mess.
By the end of next week I want the room to be finished. I just have to keep going on and just do it!
As you can see the bookcase is filled with all childrens books. I have been collecting Pop-up books for years and have over 100. There are also some books from when I was young and some from my children.
I also collected some picturebooks about ....cats.
All those books are in the bookcase so Anne-Fleur can start whenever she 's ready for it!

Three or more Tuesday Curtain weights

Some 15 years agoo I stumbled on these very heavy things. I had never seen them before. The man in the store told me that this are curtain weights.

I have never seen them in action because they must be more then 100 years old. He told me that in olden days curtains where so heavy and high that people could not close them. So a sort of system was installed with a double row of heavy cords and at the end you could hang one of thesevery heavy weights . By hanging the weights, this would then pull the curtains open....
It is hard to discribe it but I hope you cam invisage something by my discription.

I started looking out for them to see if I could find more. The very first ones I found in later years where almost always the tassel shaped ones. I have 2 more tassel shaped ones then you can see on the picture but I have no place to hang them and one is even missing the eye to hang it. They all differ slightly.
Later I found the two hands holding grapes. But the most special ones are the bird ( a simple dead one or is it the Holy Ghost) and the portrait of the man.
I have never curtain weights shaped like these again.

Now, I no longer look for these weights because I lack the place to hang them but I still find it an interesting collection. Have one of you ever seen them before??

Bleu is going away today..

Tonight, we are bringing Bleu to his new home. 'l Heure Bleue is a Maine Coon kitten we bred out of mom Patchwork and dad Usquebaugh. His new owners had been on vacation to Indonesia so Bleu had to stay two weeks longer the he normally would have done.

Like all my kittens he loves quilts!

He has been a pleasure to have in the house. He was the only one in the litter since his little sister died at birth. So he had mom all to him self and that resulted in a very wel fed kitty. He is now 2350 kilo and only 14 weeks old.

How proud he looks in this picture!
It is a bit sad to let him go, not because he is not going to a good home but because in that new home he will not have any animal friends in the beginning. We never had to bring a kitten of us too a home where there where not other cats or dogs. I am so afraid he will be so lonely in the hours his new tin openers will be at work. I hope he will not be sad and miss his new found girlfriend, Lily to much.
A final cuddle in the Loyd Loom chair.

Lily is our new girl. She is born on the same day as Bleu and she will be our new breeding girl once she is old enough.

Lily is a gourgous little mouse. She weights a lot less then Bleu but she has had 6 brothers and sisters in the litter and mom was in heath again very soon after she gave birth. So Lily had to fend for food a lot more, as did her brothers and sisters. But she has been gaining weight a lot since she is here. It will be a goodbye for her too. The fact that Bleu was here made the transission to our house much easyer.
Little Bleu will not have this... I can't think to much about it because it makes me sad. He will adjust to being alone very quickly I hope and I know his new parents are very much in love with him and will give him lots of cuddles and take good care of him.

Bye, bye little men Bleu...... See you soon when we come to visit.

Foody Friday mozzarella and advocado salad

It's friday again and we had a hot week here in Belgium.I did not do a lot of cooking this week so I'm serving you up another recepie of the kennel club lunch. It is a refreshing salad of mozzarella and advocado.

For 4 persons you need

2 balls of buffalo mozzarello

2 ripe advocado's

1/2 of a red chilipepper finely chopped

4 spring onions chopped

some fresh basil leaves

dressing

1 clove of chopped garlic

some seasalt

fresh black pepper

1 TS white wine vinager

4 TS olive oil

1 ts not no strong musterd

Put in a jar and shake well

Slice the mozzarella and the advocado and put on a serving dish. Drizzle the dressing over it and dress with the chopped chili, the basil leaves and the chopped spring onion.
Let it stand one hour before serving and give crusty bread with it.

Enjoy and see you next week.