30 August 2010

Monday Mood

Next Sunday I'm off to France to be creative for a week with a group of fellow ceramists, silver clay, glass bead, soapstone artists, and even a welder. Got a busy week ahead since I want to make more for the fair which takes place the day after I'm back from France in Lommel, Belgium. (They used a picture of one of my bowls for their  advertising poster which made me really happy.)
But first France and to get in the mood, an all French mood board today.


Whimsical Woman with bird on her head

Head over to Fleurfatale's blog if you want to see more mood boards.

29 August 2010

Happy Stats

Last week I skipped the happy stats, was too busy preparing the BBQ for the family (20+ people), but I can now add this event to my happy stats as it was a great succes. Anyway here the stats for the last 2 weeks.
  • Sientje trying to catch rain drops. 
  • Wonderful BBQ with good weather, good food and good company.
  • Sending packages all over the world.
  • Receiving a lovely message from friends whom I send a surprise gift.
  • Successful fair yesterday in Hasselt in many ways: meeting fans, meeting others crafters, a visit from Mitsy from Artmind and nice sales to top it off.
  • Lovely day in Zeeland with hubby, eat lots of seafood and went on a very windy boat trip:


28 August 2010

Sweet Saturday - Plum sauce

Stewed plums - Plum sauce
Gestoofde pruimen - Pruimen saus


  • 4 large plums or approx 250gr - 250gr pruimen of 4 grote pruimen
  • 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon - 1/2 theeleepel kaneel
  • 1/2 teaspoon of ground star-aniseed - 1/2 theeleepel gemalen steranijs
  • 2 tablespoons of sugar - 2 eetlepels suiker
Peel and half the plums, remove the stone. Mix in the sugar and the spices and stew for 10-15min in a pot on the hob or in an oven of 180°C. Serve cooled with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or yoghurt ice, also nice with couscous and such.
Pel en halveer de pruimen, verwijder de pit. Meng de suiker en de kruiden onder de pruimen en stoof alles in een oven van 180°C of op het fornuis. De stikjes mogen zacht worden, maar niet volledig verdwijnen. Laat afkoelen. Heerlijk bij ijs, slagroom, griekse yoghurt, maar ook bij couscous. 

26 August 2010

My Creative Space

Today I'm getting ready for Saturdays fair. I hope tomorrow the weather will be better so me and hubby can enjoy the last day of his holidays together. The preparations involved besides pricing, packaging, something with plums too:


I made ...... (you'll get to know what this Sweet Saturday) as a give away to the persons who come to the Hand-made in Belgium-fair in Hasselt and who buy over 30 euro of my creations for as long as my stock of this plum-recipe lasts.

21 August 2010

Sweet Saturday - Plum cake

Plum under a Cake
Pruimencake

  • about 1 kilo of plums - circa 1 kg pruimen
  • 3 tablespoons of sugar - 3 eetlepels suiker
  • 1 sachet of vanilla sugar - zakje vanille suiker
  • 4 tablespoons of water - 4 eetlepels water
Cake:
  • 125 gr sugar - 125 gr suiker
  • 125 gr soft butter - 125 gr zachte boter
  • 2 eggs - 2 eieren
  • 125 gr self-raising flour - 125 gr zelfrijzende bloem
Preheat the oven to 180°C - Verwarm de oven voor op 180°C

Half the plums and take the peel partly off, put these in a buttered baking tin. I leave a bit of peel on cause it gives such a nice colour.
Make a syrup by boiling the water, sugar and vanilla sugar down. When you draw a stripe in it and it stays for a bit it is ready. Pour this over the plums.

Halveer en ontpit de pruimen en neem meeste van het vel eraf. Laat een stukje eraan, dat geeft een mooie kleur. Leg de halve pruimen, vel-kant naar boven, in een ingeboterde bakblik. 
Maak een siroop van het water en de (vanille)suiker. Deze is goed zodra, wanneer je een streep trekt, deze even op de bodem van de pan zichtbaar blijft. Giet dit over de pruimen.



Mix the soft butter with the sugar, add the eggs and than the flour. Spoon this over the plums.
Mix de zachte boter, suiker, bloem en eieren voor de cake en lepel dit beslag over de pruimen.

Bake at 180°C for 25 minutes until golden brown.
Bak 25 minuten op 180°C tot mooi goudbruin.



Enjoy!!
Smakelijk!!


18 August 2010

My Creative Space


Today I'm doing a bit of everything. Sunday we have the family over for a BBQ, so the house, garden and garage need to look sort of OK. At least it is dry and sunny so I can do some work in the garden, it has gone rather bushy in places. Than there is a lot of the stuff in in the garage that needs to be sorted. I started making boxes for different purposes by labelling them. In my atelier is a fridge which will be handy near the garden, so need to get that looking sort of presentable too and the fridge cleaned and filled. Of course while I'm there I cannot resist fiddling around with some beads I made. Made some pictures of new items while the sun is out. So basicly running from here to there and finishing nothing yet. Well still have 3 days......

16 August 2010

Monday Mood

Reading the books of the dragon Temeraire by Noami Novik at the moment; finished book 3 last night. So happy when the postman brought books 4 and 5 this morning.



See more moodboards here.

15 August 2010

Happy Stats

This week was the first week of holidays for my hubby. We already had decided not to travel far this year as we did not want to leave the 2 little kittens alone for too long. So we had a lovely week doing some day trips on the Harley and me also preparing for the fair.

  • great day trips on the bike, with no rain luckily
  • preparing for the fair, making lots of new jewellery 
  • finished 7 story bowls too, some for the shops that sell my work, some will appear on etsy
  • visit from my sister with her baby girl
  • meeting fans at the fair, always a bit shy with so much lovely comments

14 August 2010

Sweet Saturday - Plums in puff pastry

Another recipe with plums:
Nog een receptje met pruimen:



Pie with plums and hazelnuts - Taartje met pruimen en hazelnoten
  • puff pastry (I use the ready made ones from the supermarket) - pak kant en klaar bladerdeeg
  • 1kg plums (firm)  - 1 kilo (stevige) pruimen
  • 50 gr melted butter - 50 gr gesmolten boter
  • 50 gr sugar - 50 gr suiker
  • 50 gr of ground almonds or a mix of almonds and hazelnuts - 50 gr gemalen almandelen of amandel/hazelnoot mix
  • 1 egg - 1 ei
  • 1 dessert spoon flour - 1 eetlepel bloem
  • dash of amaretto - scheutje amaretto
  • crushed hazelnuts (I used the sugared ones which you can buy to put on ice cream) - hazelnoot stukjes (ik heb de gesuikerde die ook wel over ijs gestrooid worden genomen)
Roll the puff paste into a low pie dish and prick with a fork holes in the bottom. Mix the melted butter, egg, sugar, flour, ground almonds and amaretto and poor on to the base. Half the plums and make 2 small slices in the back so the peel will come off in pieces when you eat it later. Arrange the plums, skin side up on the mixture. Sprinkle with a handful of crushed hazelnuts and bake for 20-30 min in a (preheated) oven of 180°C.

Rol de lap bladerdeeg uit in een ondiepe taartvorm en prik gaatjes in de bodem. Mix de boter, ei, suiker, bloem, gemalen amandel, amaretto en get op de bodem. Halveer de pruimen en maak 2 kleine inkepingen in de achterkant, zodat het velletje in stukjes gaat, dat eet gemakelijker. Rangschik de pruimen met het vel naar boven op de mix. Besprenkel met de stukjes hazelnoot en bak 20-30 minuten in een (voorverwarmde) oven op 180°C.

Enjoy! Smakelijk!

9 August 2010

Monday Mood

Ik ga op vakantie en ik neem mee:
I'm off on a holiday and I'll take with me:
(Well, I'm not going far or long, but hubby is off from work for 3 weeks, so we'll be in holiday mood)




8 August 2010

Happy Stats

Here we go:
  • lovely day in Leuven meeting friends and finding a new (to open) shop to sell my items
  • loevely meal at favorite Indian restaurant in Antwerp: Saffraan
  • making lots of new things in porcelain
  • went to see this circus, loved it!

7 August 2010

Sweet Saturday


Used some of the last cherries we had ourselves this year to make:


Cherry Clafoutis
  • 1kg cherries
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 125gr sugar
  • 1 sachet vanilla sugar
  • 75 gr melted butter
  • 75gr flour
  • 125 ml milk
  • 125 ml cream
  • dash of amaretto

Butter a baking tin or dish. Put the cherries in without their stems all around the bottom of the tin.
Mix the egg, egg yolk and sugar until it's white and foamy, add the melted butter and flour followed by the milk, cream and amaretto. Poor this mixture over the cherries and bake for 30°C in an oven of 180°C.

Remember to warn beforehand that the stones are still in the cherries. 
But they add to the flavor, so worth it ;-)

Enjoy!

6 August 2010

My Creative Space


Making bowls, brooches, buttons, ....... for upcoming fairs and shops which sell my items, 
while Max is keeping a close eye on things. 

4 August 2010

1 bag 3 occasions












 chic                                                                      casual                                                                      funky

Do you like this bag? I got it from Karuski, this is a one off, but she has this model in other fabrics too. I asked for an extra brooch in red, so I could adjust the bag to the occasion. Once I had it at home I found that the red puppy brooch I got from Mitsy (Artmind) goes very well with it too. So one bag tree styles for tree occasions and I did not even try a brooch made by myself for my bag yet ;-)

1 August 2010

Plums


My brother has an orchard in Zeeland, the Netherlands, with plums, apples and pears. It was my dad's before and it is nice to see that the land stays in the family even though it is tough making a living in agriculture these days. In a few seconds a years work can be destroyed. Spring frost can freeze all of the flowers so you're left will nothing or very little and just have to wait till next year. Hail will damage the fruit so that it is only good for making apple sauce at best or go to waste at worst. Rain will make the plums crack if it falls in big amounts at the wrong time of the riping stage, so you can't sell these anymore.
But when the harvest is good ad the prices are right you can make up for the bad year.  Of course working outdoors in each season is a reward too.

I was just at my brothers when a large batch of plums was collected. The scent in the barn, when full of freshly picked plums, is intoxicatedly good. By the time I thought of the idea for this blog they were gone, but imagine the collection of containers with full crates instead of empty ones. These are ready to be filled the next day. Each container goes on a little wagon and several wagons make up a little train that is pulled through the orchard so there can always be empty crates near the pickers.



The plum pickers use buckets which they wear on their shoulder to collect the plums. They look at the color and they feel the softness to judge if it's ready to pick. The older trees are taller and they use step ladders to get at the higher plums. Also if the weather is warm, as it should be in this season, you're always nicely in the shades of the trees when picking.


Once the bucket is full they are carefully emptied into the crates. The plums have a layer of wax on them, which gives them a lovely satin/silk finish. Some people think it's residue or put on by the fruit grower but it isn't, it's natural. You can eat them like that or just give them a polish if you prefer them looking that way. I think it's a bit like with white and brown eggs, one of those other misconceptions. You hardly see any white ones any more, cause brown ones look more healthy and free range by themselves, but they're just laid by brown chickens. I feel sorry for the white chickens and that their eggs are liked less just because they're white. 


Anyway once the plums are picked they are sorted into big ones, small ones, good ones and bad ones (damaged or too ripe). This is done by emptying a crate onto a rolling platform. One person is emptying crates while two others stand on each side and sort the plums into other crates according to size and goodness. Then the crates with the sorted plums go to the auction to be bought by traders and from where they go to supermarkets and so on. The plum season has just started, but there are different varieties ripe at different times, so you'll find the in the shops for a good few weeks now. 
So go get those lovely fresh plums :-)




Happy Stats

The weeks just fly by, I can't believe I'm sitting here again at my desk writing my happy stats. Is it really Sunday morning..........

  • supply shopping with my sister
  • seeing my niece, who's now 7 months and grown so much since I last saw her
  • making lots of desserts
  • my jewelery now on display beside my bowls at mix-art
  • a picture of one of my bowls is used for the advert of ceramic market Lommel (B)