Hello Everyone!
We all love a lasagne from time to time, don’t we?
The courgette roll ups recipe I’m sharing with you today is a great alternative. It is a veggie dish (as long as you don’t put any met in your sauce) and a gluten free one.
I hope you’ll like it too.
Happy cooking!
xxx
Ann Continue Reading »
Hello Everyone!
In a previous post, I told you about my first own toy design: the Eye Eyes.
Today, I’m telling you what materials I used to make them.
xxx
Ann Continue Reading »
Hello Everyone!
I have been an Anglophile ever since I had my first English lesson back when I was 11 years old. Love every aspect of it: the language, the food, the drink, the cakes, the landscapes,…
In hindsight it is quite ununderstandable that it took me 35 years after my first English lesson to finally try sticky toffee pudding. I had it as dessert in a restaurant in Camden and…
Yes, I loved it and had a go at making my version of it at home. My version is more of a cake, which is eaten cold, not warm, with warm sauce. That’s very practical to eat over several days and (sometimes) share with friends and colleagues.
Here’s the recipe. Why don’t you have a go at it?
Happy baking.
xxx
Ann Continue Reading »
Hello Everyone!
I have knitted as long as I can remember. My grandmother taught me. I used to go to her place regularly at the weekend and we would knit together.
I hate knitting projects I don’t see progressing. Knitting all evening on what is to become a jumper and not seeing what I’ve done by bedtime is not for me.
Very soon I started making dolls and animals. My first one was called Mags, because at that time I had the hots for Mags Furuholmen, band member of the group A-ha! The band member left my life a long time ago, but the doll stayed with me for more than thirty years. It lived on my wardrobe with a nameless bear, one of my first dolls and my laughing Elmo. Until he got hurt by a friend’s little girl who came over for a visit.
OK, back to the knitting. Making dolls is all good and well, but what to do with them (I knit an average of 80 dolls per year)? Getting a second flat to store them? No way! But I couldn’t keep them all for myself either, so I made some for friends’ children and for children’s organisations.
Give or take twenty years ago, I started to donate them to the “Kinderkankerfonds” (Children’s Cancer Foundation). They are located at the University Hospital in Ghent and run the department where children with cancer stay. There is room for thirty children. Downstairs they have a cosy room “De Living” with cosy seats, a kitchen and a craft’s table for the patients’ sibings to relax in and be close to their relatives.
Once a friend suggested I’d sell my dolls (you pay and you get the doll) and put them up for financial adoption (you pay and the hospital gets the doll). I have done so for a good many years now and every year I don’t only take the financial adopted dolls to the hospital but also the remaining dolls and the money I collect.
I have always had great admiration for people who come up with various patterns. So much so, that last year, I took it upon myself to create my own. And the Eye Eyes were born!
They are a colourful bunch of cheeky girls and boys with a rotten tooth and many eyes. They can come in whatever colours you like.
I started with three basic patterns but soon got a taste for it and also made children and baby Eye Eyes, Christmas Eye Eyes, Candy Cane Eye Eyes, an Eye Eye Witch and Wizard, a bride and groom Eye Eye and some football mascot Eye Eyes (in the colours of Belgium’s opponents in the Worldcup 218).
All patterns I’m happy to share with you over the coming weeks and I hope you’ll enjoy knitting them as much as I do. And if you could donate them to a charity of your choice, that would be the cherry on the cake.
But I’m keeping you in suspense a little longer, as in this post, I’m introducing you to some of them now. My next Eye-Eye posts will be all about the materials used and assembling and finishing them. To be followed with the pattern for each of them over the coming months.
Happy knitting.
xxx
Ann
As you can see they come in all different sizes and colours. You can make them as you please.
Some of them are dedicated to a time or year:
Or to a special occasion:
Eye Eyes are also perfect made in team colours. Here are some I made during the Football World Cup this year:
Hello Everyone!
Pinterest has often helped me getting new recipes. I also found inspiration there for these tarts.
The recipe mainly uses shop bought ingredients but there’s still quite a bit of work involved. But the result is magnificent, even when mine didn’t look as picture perfect as the ones I took my inspiration from, but I got some Ooohs and Aaahs when I showed my pictures to friends. My sister, a very fussy eater (sorry sis) liked them very much. That surprised me a lot.
So why not have a go at them too?
Happy baking!
xxx
Ann Continue Reading »
Hello Everyone!
Now that summer is here, I thought it was time for a new salad dressing recipe.
Very easy and quick to make.
Why don’t you have a go at it?
Happy cooking!
xxx
Ann Continue Reading »
Hello Everyone!
I know it’s bang in summer, but I HAVE to post this soup recipe.
It calls for asparagus and you may still find some even though the season for them is (nearly) over. After years of only eating it in restaurants, I finally got to make it just before summer.
Cream is often used in white asparagus soup, but I didn’t think it needed it. It was just delicious as it was.
I hope you’ll try this recipe too!
Happy cooking!
xxx
Ann Continue Reading »
