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.

Foody Friday Gorgonzola Pasta salad and Limoncella strawberry's

I promised you a very good salad last week and here it is.
It is a pasta salad with a very special cheese sauce. The sauce is made with gorgonzola a famous soft Italian blue cheese. Combined with grapes and orange juice it give's a very special taste to the salad.
Here is the recepie
This salad is enough for 8 people to lunch on or for 12 to 15 people if you have a buffet of some kind.

750 grams of small butterfly pasta shapes

4 oranges

300 grams of gorgonzola

140 ml of cream

250 grams of blue seedless grapes

250 grams of green seedless grapes

125 gram of chopped hazelnuts or macademia or pecan nuts

1 bunch of selery sticks

150 grams of rucola leaves

First boil the pasta in boiling salted water and drain.
In the mean time you mix the nuts with the grapes and the celary that you cut in small chuncks.

Remove the rind of the cheese.Put a saucepan on the heat and boil the cream with the cheese and the grated rind of one of the oranges and the juice of all the oranges.

Let the cheese melt in the orange juice and stirr until you have a smooth sauce. You need freshly squeesed orange juice for it. Season with pepper and a bit of salt. I put the sauce trough a fine sive to remove the 'blue' parts from the sauce. You could that do before you add the grated rind of the orange, otherwise the orange rind gets sifted out too.

Let the sauce cool down a bit but don't put it in the fridge because it will sett.

Half an hour before serving mix the cheese sauce with the pasta and toss the rucola leaves also under the pasta.
You really must add the sauce at the last minute otherwise the sauce is totally absorbed by the pasta and the pastasalad becomes too dry.

Limoncella strawberry's

Limoncella is the very fragent Italian lemon liqueur that will give that extra fresh and sumery taste to your strawberry's.

This is such a simple recepie but every time I serve it is a big hit.

For six to 8 little glasses

400 grams of strawberry's chopped in small pieces

1 small bunch of fresh basil leaves

50 grams of icing sugar

15 cl of limoncella

20 cl of water

Boil the water with the sugar and when it becomes a sirop add the limoncella.
Take from the fire. Let it cool down and put in the fridge to let it get cold.

Half an hour too 1 hour before serving pour this sirop over your strawberry's.Snip the basil in small pieces and sprinkle over the strawberry mixture.

This is also very nice to take on a picnic or to a lunchon or so. I made it all in individual portions and brought it like this to the kennel club grounds.

Quilts for a good cause

Since this year was my last year of teaching patchwork and quilting I asked my lady's if they would like to make some quilts for a good cause. The quilts would go to very sick children and institutions for troubled children. They also could make some quilt for the LQOL cause. The LQOL ( little quilts of love) quilts are given to mothers who lose their baby's in a miscarriage or have still born baby's. This cause is still very new in Belgium and a lot of lady's can't get there head around it that some women will be very pleased to recieve such a little quilt in their hour of grief.

Omdat het het mijn laatste patchwork lesjaar was had ik m'n dames gevraagd om iets te maken voor het goede doel. Hier in België is dit gegeven nog vrij nieuw. Deze quilts zullen naar zieke kinderen gaan of naar tehuizen voor kinderen met moeilijkheden.
De dames konden ook LQOL maken.Dat zijn quiltjes die gegeven worden in het ziekenhuis als een aanstaande moeder bevalt van een dood kindje of bij een miskraam. Het is allemaal nog heel nieuw in België dit gegeven en sommige mensen kunnen hun hoofd er nog steeds niet rondkrijgen dat zo'n quiltje troost kan brengen op zo'n triest moment. Dus er is nog wat werk voor de boeg om het goed van de grond te krijgen.

Two special lady's took this on board and surprized me with some beautiful quilts. These are the six quilts Nadia en Nicole made. Nicole made two and Nadia made four. Nicole also made 10 LQOL. They are all handmade and handquilted and measure 100 X 150 cm.
Dear Nicole and Nadia, with this blog entree I want to honour you, for your efforts.
Twee heel speciale dames deden bijzonder hun best. Nicole en Nadia maakten samen 6 quiltjes voor zieke kinderen. Nicole maakte de bovenste twee en Nadia de onderste 4. Nicole maakte daarinboven ook nog 10 LQOL. Alles is volledig handgemaakt en handgequilt. Ze meten ongeveer 100 X 150 cm.

Lieve Nicole en Nadia, heel hartelijk dank voor deze bijzondere inspanning.Met deze blog entree wil ik jullie in de bloemetjes zetten.

I also want to thank the other lady's who made the LQOL. I can't show them all. It would be to much.
Ik wil ook de andere dames bedanken die LQOL maakten.Ik kan ze hier niet allemaal tonen, het zou te veel zijn maar ik zorg ervoor dat ze op de goede plaats komen en ik stuur jullie nog foto's door.

Foody friday lunch

Hello Foodies all around the world. As promised I will tell you about the lunch I made for the 25 members/co-workers at the local dog club championship.
My son and his girlfriend met trough their dogs. Now they go together to a dog club where he is a dogtrainer and she is the secretary of the club. They have their annual club championship on the second weekend of june.
Last year there was a discussion about the lunch for the judges. Normally these men got lunch in a local restaurant but that took about 1,5 hours and costed the club about 200 euro's.
That is a lot of money to feed 4 people. My son, with his big mouth said, I can do that for the same price or less....
Next I knew about it was that he was on the phone to tell what he had done and asked what can I give these people to eat for that amount of money.
Me with my big mouth said, I can feed 20 people for that amount....And the rest is history of course.
Last year I fed about 30 people for that money and it was a big hit in the club. So of course this year the same question came...

The menu this year was:

Patato crips with spicey tomato chutney

Pork terrine with apricots and cumberlandsauce

Mozzarella with advocado's and a spicey dressing

Meat from the barbeque

Roasted tomato's

Green salad

Pasta salad with gorgonsola dressing

Green bean and tomato salad with a lemon dressing

Patato salad

Gardeners salad

French baguettes

Muffins with buttercream topping

and last but not least:Limoncella strawberry's

With all that I even came under budget!

Are you hungrey yet???

Here is the recepie for the pork terrine.
I can cut about 25 thin slices out of it.

You need:

About 25 to 30 thin slices of bacon

1 kilo of minced meat. I used 50% pork and 50% calfsmeat

1 pork tenderloin about 300 grams

2 spoons of brandey

10 to 14 half dried apricots

1 TS chopped fresh parsley

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 garlic cloves

100 grams of unsalted pistachio nuts

A terrine form that can hold about 1,5 kilo.I used a tin bread form.

Some butter , pepper and salt

Soak the tenderloin overnight in the brandy, the chopped thyme and the choped garlic.

The next day you take it out of the marinade and chop it in big chunks.

Take the form and butter it well and dress is with the slices of bacon. They have to overlap the form so you can close of the top once it is filled.
Combine the minced meat, the tenderloin, the parsley and the roughly chopped pistachionuts add pepper and salt to taste and mix well.If you want to know it the mix is seasoned well you can take a small amount, roll it in a ball and boil it till cooked. Taste to see if the seasoning is ok.

Put half of this mix in the baking tin and then lay a double row of the apricots on it.
Fill the tin further with the rest of the mix.

Now you take the overlapping pieces of bacon and close the top of the terrine with it.

Put a double layer of alluminium foil over the top and sides of the tin.

The oven must be preheated on 180°C. Take the deep baking tray of your oven and fill it with boiling water.
Put the baking tin in it and bake for 60 minutes.

Once the terrine is baked you take it out of the oven and let rest for a few minutes. Than you drain of the excess juices.
Let it cool down and put in the fridge.

Once it is totally cold (best is next day) you remove it from the tin. Once again remove all jelly and faton the outside but leave the bacon.
Slice in thick of thin slices and serve with a green salad, French baquettes and Cumberland sauce.

Cumberland sauce is made like this:

8 tablespoons of redcurrent jelly

1 small onion very finally choped

1 TS of grated orange rind and 1TS of grated lemon rind

juice of one orange and one lemon

1ts dryed ginger

2 TS red wine vinagar

12 TS red Port wine
Cook everything together in a saucepan and thicken with cornstarch. Taste and when it is to sour for your taste you can add a bit of brown sugar.
The sauce is delicious with all cold meats and can be kept in the fridge for weeks.

Sorry that the pictures are not that special. I did not have time whilest preparing all this to make 'beautiful' pictures.Nevertheless I hope you enjoy this recepie.

Next week a few more recepies of the "Dogclub lunch".