Cooking&Baking Challenge - Session 7 : The Recipes!

The Challenge is starting again!

Here are the recipes from this month:

* Me: Aligot 

* Ben: Dinner Rolls

* Elke: Quarkkäulchen

Who is in for next month? Recipes are to be shared on February the 28th :)

Cooking&Baking Challenge - Session 7: Quarkkäulchen (Guest Post)

I am happy to share the recipe sent by a new participant to the Challenge, thanks a lot Elke!

 

Sächsische Quarkkäulchen

 

This is a very traditional dish served in the eastern part of Germany, in the federal state of saxony. I tried to translate it but without a lot of success ;) Quark is the german word for curd cheese and käulchen is the form of the dish - at least that's what I think.

But anyway...let's get started.

You need:

500g curd cheese

600-700g potatoes

2 Eggs

appr. 200g flour

raisins - if you like them....we don't, so we didn't use them

For the dough you need to boil potatoes with their skin on the day BEFORE you want to serve the Quarkkäulchen. So cook the potatoes and peel their skin of while they are still hot - when they are cold, it doesn't work. Then mash them how you would to mashed potatoes and leave them in the fridge waiting for what will come the next day.

On the next day add the other ingredients...curd cheese, eggs and flour and prepare a dough.

 And now comes THE secret for good Quarkkäulchen. The amount of flour you have add is an approximate value. It has to be enough to become a dough but not too much because then the Käulchen will be like leather and not very nice.

Then heat some oil in a pan and put the dough in. The easiest way is to get the dough with a spoon, put it in the oil and then flatten it using the same spoon. It's a bit sticky, but the taste it's worth the pain. ;)

Turn the Quarkkäulchen around so that the whole thing will be really nice and brown outside. 

Use all the dough and then serve it with apple sauce and/or sugar.

 

Our four year old loved them so much he ate 5 or 6 of them all by himself. Another funny thing is to try to see different shapes in the Quarkkäulchen - so it's also a fun meal for the kids.

ENJOY :)

Cooking&Baking Challenge - Session 7: Aligot

Here is my recipe for the January Cooking Challenge! A recipe from the southern part of Central France: Aligot. It is a delicious mix of cheese, garlic and mashed potatoes!

Aligot for four persons

Ingredients:

* 1kg potatoes

* 400 gr Tomme (French cheese)

* 200gr crème fraîche

* 2 garlic cloves

* salt, pepper

Preparation:

* Boil the water

* Peel the potatoes and the garlic. Cut the potatoes in large pieces and put them in the boiling water with 1 garlic clove for 20 minutes.

* In the meantime, cut the cheese in thin slices.

* After the 20 min. take the clove out, mash the potatoes with a bit of the cooking water in order to obtain a nice consistency.

* Add the crème fraîche with a wooden spoon.

* Put the potatoes back in the pot without the water. Warm it up on low heat and add quickly the cheese while mixing vigorously. The aligot then forms a sort of "ribbon" when you let it run from the spoon.

* Add salt and pepper

* If it is not tasty enough, you can crush the second garlic clove and add it to the aligot.

Bon appétit!

 Even our 1yo enjoyed it ^^

Terrarium

I have talked about Pinterest before, haven't I? Well, one of the many marvellous things I have noticed on there is the Terrarium. I loved the idea of making a mini garden in a vase (although originally I wanted it in an over-sized fish bowl).

One needs:

 

* Moss

* Cactus soil
* Stones, pebbles, beads
* Plants

* A nice transparent container.

Starting with a generous layer of moss, you then add the pebbles and stones on top of it.

Then you need to add your soil and your plants. Et voilà!

It made a perfect Christmas present for my parents-in-law who love plants :)

Cheese plate

I was born and raised in France. My children are only half french, but cheese and bread is an essential part of our food life (especially since my husband is a cheese-lover too!). I have been sewing a lot for N. and T.'s kitchen but so far they only had one box of small cheese pieces.

This weekend I finally got round to making them four pieces (decent pieces) of cheese:

The orange one is a "Mimolette" (one of N.'s favourite), the yellow is an "Emmental", we also have a "Brie" (I am glad I thought of keeping a label) and a "Bûche de chèvre cendrée" (a goat cheese roll with ashes - my personal favourite). The smallest one belongs to another box which I made a while back: Roquefort cream cheese! Yummy!

All four new cheeses fit in a small box which I found on Saturday :)

I need to get on with making some bread now!

A travelling doll house-pouch

Do you remember me showing you this image some time in November last year?

Well, that was for this project found via Pinterest (no surprise there, is it) - a mini doll pouch. I did not have a pattern but I found the idea absolutely brilliant! The lady who invented it is a Genius!

With many mistakes, I still managed to get it done for my niece as a Christmas present. 

Tadaaaaaaaa:

I love that space to tidy everything in! This way (in theory at least) the child does not loose the small elements when going around.

Let's take a closer look at the small elements:

A mini tutu (pink!) with elastic band so it can be put on and off rather easily. 

The tiniest teddy bear I have made so far.

Same again, this is the smallest ball I have had to sew.

And my baby boy, big fan of balls, tried to steal it!

That's it for today. I think my niece really likes her new toys, and I will probably make Little N. the same thing for her third birthday :)

It is winter for the dolls too!

Both my children have dolls, although for now only my little girl takes her doll for walks outside to the park, I thought I'd make a fleece suit for both dolls. 

Very simply, I drew the outline of the dolls for the back part (leaving generous space and adding another centimeter when sewing), then for the two front pieces, I used the same size from the shoulders down making sure to have a large overlap.

For Little N.'s doll I drew the headline far too close to the head and could not get a fitting hood. I therefore did a suit without hood (which does not matter since she - the doll - has a hood on her jumper!). The overlap makes it easy to dress and undress the dolls and the suit can be closed without a button, zipper or whatever other closing system ^^

We finally have snow and cold, so at least the dolls are ready to brave the outside weather!

Felt food and another tea set

I try to keep making felt food, for my children, my nieces and for friends who ask for their children and relatives. It isn't always easy with my two little ones, especially since little N. tries to steal the objects as soon as I am done with them!

It is still a lot of fun to work with felt though, and I have big plans for the next months!

 I have re-styled my beans and tomatoes. I tend to prefer them like this, especially the tomatoes, they do not require any glue anymore!

What's your opinion?

Challenge: Un mot, des titres - Session 21

C'est à nouveau le moment d'écrire un article en français et de partager une lecture! Toujours avec le Challenge de Calypso, le mot ce mois-ci était: Pierre. 

J'ai choisi Pierre et Jean de Maupassant. Mon billet va sans doute être un peu court, mais ces derniers temps je ne passe pas beaucoup de temps sur l'ordinateur. Mais commençons déjà par un petit résumé de l'histoire.

C'est une histoire de famille, un famille qui s'installe au Havre. M. et Mme Roland ont deux garçons, deux jeunes hommes, Pierre, l'aîné, et Jean son cadet. Il semble toujours qu'il y ait de la jalousie et de la rivalité entre eux. En tout cas du côté de Pierre qui semble parfois à la limite de la haine vis-à-vis de son frère. Ils sont physiquement et mentalement très différents.

L'un devient docteur en médecine, l'autre devient avocat. Au Havre, Jean rencontre une veuve, Mme Rosémilly, dont il va finir par demander la main.

L'événement clé de l'histoire c'est le décès d'un ami de la famille, M. Maréchal. Celui-ci lègue toute sa fortune à Jean. Cela aiguise bien entendu la jalousie de son frère, et suite à plusieurs remarques de personnes telles qu'un pharmacien ou une serveuse, il va concevoir des soupçons quant à la légitimité de son frère. Pour quelle autre raison Jean recevrait-il un tel héritage?

Pierre va donc se mettre en quête de la vérité - sa mère est-elle une femme adultère? Comment son père a-t-il pu l'ignorer? Son frère Jean est-il donc illégitime? Et ce sont finalement ces questions qui vont le ronger, au point de peut-être même oublier la jalousie qu'il entretenait vis-à-vis de son frère.

 Je n'ai jamais été une très grande admiratrice de Maupassant. Je l'ai souvent trouvé lourd, sombre, difficile à aborder. Mais j'ai trouvé que ce roman se lisait relativement facilement. Je ne sais trop que dire de plus sur cette oeuvre, est-ce que je l'apprécie? Je n'en suis pas certaine, mais je la relis quand même parfois... Pourquoi? Je ne sais pas! Peut-être que les disputes et jalousies fraternelles sont un sujet que je connais ayant moi-même des frères et soeurs, et du coup je me sens plus proche des personnages? Je dois avouer que je ne sais pas expliquer mon attraction pour ce livre.

Je le recommande toutefois à tous ceux et celles qui liront mon article. Faites-vous votre propre opinion de ce roman et dites-moi ce que vous en pensez!

Felt Chocolate-Strawberry Cake

Back again with something new in my daughter's kitchen! I experimented for Christmas! Although she rather likes it and does bake a lovely cake now, I am not satisfied with it and will need to re-think my pattern and the way I make the cake. It is far too plump and the different layers do not sit nicely on top of each other.

I guess we all make mistakes, especially when trying something new!

To make a chocolate-strawberry cake, you need: a chocolate base

Then a layer of strawberry cream

Cover it with melted chocolate

And top it up with a delicious strawberry

Bon Appétit from N.' kitchen!

 I liked the idea of stacking elements on top of each other with velcro band rather than having the four cake pieces attached to each other. A little less stuffing will probably help already, and I am even considering replacing it altogether with a piece of foam. Let's see how it goes in the next weeks ;)

House-shoes

What would be Christmas now without my "famous" house-shoes? ;) My youngest brother was quite desperate, his house-shoes from last year were completely unwearable, he had used them so much that the sole was just a series of holes! So he asked me to make him another pair. And while I was at it I made one from the same fabric for my son who had outgrown his previous pair.

One is size 21 and the other one is size 32!!

 

  

One has anti-slide drawings, the other one not.

 

 It is always nice to see my lovely boys (brother and son) wearing their homemade-shoes, favouring them to the bought ones!