Spiced Mustard Pickle (Piccalilli)

In the midst of moving-house, busy busy busy! But here is a recipe that I made two years ago and which I have been wanting to share for a little while already. For my wedding I received as a present a cooking book "Delia's Happy Christmas" (here) it is full of lovely, yummy recipes! And I got on making chutneys, minced spices, everything I miss from England. Among those things : Picallily Sauce (or whatever it is spellt). 

Here are a couple of pictures which I took during the cooking. Two remarks: it takes a little while and do not breathe over the steaming vinegar unless you have a cold ;-)

Get all ingredients ready - I did not have enough cucumber so I added some gherkins

The spices

This is the moment you should stop breathing!

Don't forget to keep the liquid

It does not look too yummy, especially in a blue bowl but nevermind

Ready to be put into jars!

 If you would like to try it yourself then check out the website (Click here for the recipe) and enjoy! In my opinion it can be eaten with anything.

Red fruits Mille-feuilles with its white chocolate mousse

In 2007 with my husband (then boyfriend) and I decided to try making a new dish every Sunday. The idea was to avoid routine, discover new recipes and tastes. Unfortunately it lasted only for a month or two. Now we still try to make new things but not on such a regular basis. Have you seen the film Julie and Julia with Meryl Strip? I definitely recommend it! In this film Julia Powell decides to cook and bake all the recipes of her favourite cooking book (Julia Child's) in one year and she blogs about it. We got Julia Child's Cooking Book for Christmas 2010 but not the time to take up such a challenge ;) - Maybe one day though we will manage to challenge ourselves to do more cooking and baking (I usually do the baking and my husband the cooking).

Anyway, I will just present you the first recipe that I experimented in 2007 (I do not remember where I got the recipe from... somewhere online on  a French website, but I am giving you the translation).

Red fruits Mille-feuilles with its white chocolate mousse

(Serving four)     
            
Preparation time:     30 min
Baking time:              10 min
Resting time:             2 hours           
 

Ingredients :                     
* 25 cl liquid cream

* 150 g white chocolate

* 1 egg                        

* 3 cl white rum                     

* 250 g puff pastry                 

* 250 g fresh strawberries                     

* 150 g white and black currants         

* 50 g powder sugar                   
 

Preparation :         

            
* Whip up the cream into chantilly and put it in the fridge. Break the chocolate in small pieces and melt it in a double-boiler or in the micro-wave.

* Put the egg in a bowl and whip it on top of another double-boiler until it has a cream-like consistency. Take it off the hob and carry on whipping to cool the cream. Mix together the melted chocolate, the rhum and then the chantilly. Put about two hours in the fridge.

* Pre-heat the oven (200°C or 170°C if you are using a fan assisted oven). Butter the oven dish. Unroll the pastry on a floured working area. Split the pastry in 12 squares without (!) cutting it completely. Place a grid on the pastry and put in the oven (mid-height) for 10 minutes.

* Wash and dry the strawberries, cut them in halves. Wash the currants and mix them with the 50g powder sugar. Then put it through a sieve. Take the pastry out of the oven and cut the 12 pieces.

* On four plates place a piece of pastry, cover with chocolate mousse and then some strawberries. Cover with another piece of pastry, again with mousse and strawberries. Finish with a piece of pastry. 

 








* Sprinkle generously with powder sugar and serve with the currant coulis.

Bon Appétit!

Remark: I do not remember why I did not make the currant coulis, it probably tastes lovely! And my mousse was far too liquid. In my defense though I have to say that we did not have really decent cooking stuff back then.

Jewels

Nothing very new at the moment, just trying to slowly work on the Baby book project which I started when I was pregnant but it is rather long (a lot of hand embroidery). Moreover we are in the process of moving house, so in the next month or so I will probably only show you things I have made some months or even years ago.

To start with: jewels. This is something I started doing when I was about 10 years old, more or less successfully (usually not even daring giving it to someone!). But those two sets were made for my sisters:

 It was no big deal really since the only thing I really made was to assemble the earrings. Unfortunately also some of the small stones of the green set broke, I will have to make a new earring at some point. But I don't even know if my sisters ever worn them ;)

The part of the set I prefer is the necklace stone, especially the green one, it looks amazing!

I think the next post I will try to write will be about food. It has been too long since I've had something about cooking (actually nothing at all except for the green crêpes I believe).

Best toy in the world!

Every parent knows that when making a present to a baby the toy itself is not going to be of interest to the child... What matters is the wrapping paper and the colourful strings! Nevertheless we always give them presents (which they enjoy only when the papers and strings are thrown away). And this is how for Baby N. first Christmas, I bought and made her some toys but ended up making an extra one on Christmas day after she had (with our help) opened her presents:

 A shiny paper, two ribbons, two minutes of my time and we had a happy Baby N.!!

Happy New Year 2012

Happy 2012 everybody. May this year be filled with health, success and happiness!

Art ?

Don't worry, the title isn't a real question. It is more of a joke. But I often wonder what is the definition of "Art" when I sometimes see so-called paintings which look more like children drawings... Could we all be considered as artists? 

Anyway, made this for a friend as a Christmas present:

Very simple: a white canvas, black acrylic paint, a golden permanent marker, a stencil (home-made in this case), a knitted cord, a thin flexible wire and some glue. 

I considered varnishing the canvas before fixing the CD and the cord, but several persons told me it looked good without... so be it!

What do you think of the result?

Christmas presents: more scoodies!

Ever since I discovered this blog explaining how to make scoodies (see my previous post here) I resolved to make some more as Christmas presents.

 

* Two for my niece and her mother, and for her father I made a scarf:

Mr.X does not want to be recognised

The scarf of the smaller scoodie (although not as small as I wanted it to be) is a lot shorter than the adult sized one. One simple reason: I think that for a small child running around, a knot under the chin is probably safer than turning the scarf around the neck several times and risking the child to step on the scarf if it undoes itself.

* One for one of my brothers:

The scarf piece again is different because at his school scarves are not allowed (apparently the children could strangle themselves and each other while playing...), so I made it shorter and closed it with Velcro® bands (allowing width adjustments). The buttons are just decoration. Red of course for it is his favourite colour!

* Another one for myself... can I consider it as a Christmas present? ... hmmm why not! I needed it to match the colour of my winter-jacket. The red one matches my autumn coat.

Winter is not very cold yet... Was it to allow me enough time to finish everything?

Fingerless Gloves

Another experiment with knitted cords... Fingerless Gloves (the idea was taken from that book which I received for my birthday). One of my sisters is a big fan (or at least was two years ago...) of fingerless gloves, so I seized the occasion of Christmas to make her a pair. I just hope she does not find them too horrible. Even if she does not like them, they can be useful as Baby N. loves when one moves hands around while singing! So with those colours she will be over the moon.

At first they were plain but then I thought it would be nice to add a little something on top.

 

They are not completely identical, I tend to find the left one better shaped. So in the future I will need to improve the cylinder I used to make them (a piece of cardboard) and to be really careful to have the same thread tension everywhere.

Still not getting many feedbacks... What do you think of them?

Joyeux Noël! Frohe Weihnachten! Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas to you all!

Keeping Baby warm outside - Part 2

I have been wanting for a while to make something warm and cosy for the push-chair in winter (although up to now we haven't really needed it). I started last month but with all my Christmas projects I just kind of left it aside... And then my mother-in-law came to help and in two afternoons it was done! I did about one third of the work, she did the other two thirds : the hardest bits!!

 A big thank you to her!!  

Vielen Dank H. für deine Hilfe!!!

Two layers of fleece and in between the thick cotton which I have been using for the coat extension as well as for the sleeping bag (by the way, that makes the sleeping bag pretty heavy!). Two large zippers and some time... Baby N. will hopefully be warm enough when the harsh cold and the snow come.