Pagina's

25 februari 2012

Chicory - smoked salmon quiche


This week I made a really yummy quiche: with smoked salmon and chicory…


What do you need?


- Chicory (witlof)


- Smoked salmon


- Puff pastry (bladerdeeg)


- Eggs


- Cream


- Pepper and salt for seasoning


- Butter


- Honey


- Grated cheese if you like cheese


What do you do?


Cut the chicory lengthwise in two, then into cm big strips. Melt butter in a pan, throw in the chicory and let it stew for a few minutes, add some honey and seasoning and stir well, stew for a minute more. Put the chicory in a strainer and let it cool down and drain well. We don’t wan to much liquid in our quiche!


Put the puff pastry in a quiche or pie tin, poke it well with a fork to keep it from puffing too much while baking. Dress the puff pastry with smoked salmon, put in the chicory and make sure it’s kind of evenly spread out.


Pour the cream in a bowl, add one egg per 100 ml cream. Wisk well, season with pepper and salt (easy on the salt, smoked salmon adds a salty flavour!) Pour the mixture over your chicory and salmon. Depending on the size of the tin and your quiche use less or more cream and eggs…


If you like some cheese, put the grated cheese on top now.


Preheat your oven (about 180°C), put in the quiche and bake (about 40-45 minutes) until golden brown and the quiche is firm and not runny anymore.


Enjoy!


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(I didn’t have a round tin, so a square one also does the trick)


Love, Zjizjipke!

19 februari 2012

Change of plans…


Happy Sunday to you all!


For today I wanted to show you some pictures of my hyacinth, nothing gives one more hope for the coming spring than those colourful flowers with their delicious perfume, don’t you agree?


And sometimes you can even hear them grow :-) Mine made a sound today while unfolding some leaves! Nothing like the slowly growing orchids I have, they’re really quiet and secretly grow their gorgeous flowers, so you’re surprised by another flowering branch lurking from below a leaf… Faithfull bloomers all of them!


So, I hear you say, where are those photos you made? Well, that’s the change of plans for today. My camera just died on me while taking them :-( Hopefully it’s just a little hiccup and he will resume his faithful tasks once again, but if not, I will have to make do without new pics for the moment…


But for now, to please everyone's need for colour an beauty this time of the year, I‘ll throw in some photos I made last year on an orchid show…


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The one above smells divine! One of the few fragrant species… I bought a baby plant, she’ll be giving flowers soon I hope!


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I have plants in similar colours as the one above and below, only with fewer flowers! Maybe someday they’ll be just as pretty and abundant!


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Love, Zjizjipke!

12 februari 2012

Tutorial: square for blankie n°2…



I’ve been making more squares for blankie n°2, the counter stops at around 80 for the moment… It seems like I made hundreds already, but then you start counting… Oh, so few?? Oh well, keeps me busy in front of the TV :-)

For those who are interested, I’ll post the pattern! Maybe somewhere somebody already made squares this way, maybe not… I kind of made up this square using individual rounds from various patterns, so if I’m not the first: sorry!

Pattern:

Chain 4 and join into a ring with a slip stitch or use a magic circle and work round 1 into the circle. (I‘m using the chain 4 method)



Round 1: Chain 3, crochet 11 dc's into the ring and join to third stitch of beginning chain with a slip stitch (slst). Cut yarn and pull through. You’ll have 12 dc’s now, in a circle.



Round 2: Join the new colour, ch 3, crochet 1 dc in between 2 dc's of the previous colour. Keep crocheting 2 dc’s in between 2 dc spaces, so you’ll end up with 12 pairs of 2 dc’s. Join to third stitch of beginning chain with a slst. Cut yarn and pull trough.



This will be your result so far:



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A circle in two colours.



Round 3: Join new colour (white in my case) ch 3, make the first corner (dc1, ch2, dc2) in a dc from the previous row, crochet 5 dc’s in 5 dc’s from previous row, make second corner (dc2, ch2, dc2), dc5, third corner (dc1, ch2, dc2), dc5, last corner (dc2, ch2, dc2), dc5 and join into third stich of beginning chain with a slst.



Round 4: Still in white or if you want in a new colour, ch 3, make first corner (dc2, ch2, dc3) into the gap you created making the first corner from the previous row, 8 dc's in 8 dc’s across to next corner, *make corner (dc3, ch2, dc3), 8 dc's , repeat from * 2 more times, join to third stitch of beginning chain with a slst.



And you’ll end up with a square looking like this:



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Tuck in those annoying ends and repeat process a lot…


The dutch version will come soon, for the moment you could use my translation spreadsheet!


I would love to hear your comments about my very first tutorial!!



Love, Zjizjipke!