Button art that's full of heart

We had a busy day today! We are building new gates over the next few days so we did the final shopping run to collect all the bits we needed to complete them. W acquired a biscuit maker - we will have to wait and see how well it works out, but he's super happy with it at the moment. IDD, who is acting as coach and mentor for the week, also spent a happy couple of hours drooling over toys whilst they chose what they needed.

I wanted to unwind a little after such a busy day and decided to do a little button art. I have a large collection of buttons from various car boot sales and elderly relative hand me downs. In today's world I rarely replace or change large numbers of buttons - and i wanted to find a good use for them.

Starting equipment is my trusty Dremel glue gun , an art board from a pound shop, an ikea Ribba frame, and a bundle of buttons. I had to wash my buttons, as they had about 20+ years of collected dust on them, but once dried, they gleamed beautifully.

I marked out the edges of the mount onto the board and drew a light heart form in the centre of the square. With hindsight I should probably have just marked the corners with dots to help centre the image as the marks really didnt want to come off. I then played around for about half an hour with different combinations of buttons to work out the best pattens and how to fill the spaces most effectively. Having found a pattern I liked, I then proceeded to glue down the buttons, one at a time. Inevitably there needed to be some improvisation as the buttons didn't quite glue where they had originally been.  In my collection, i have some beautiful floral buttons with raised backs - I decided to use these to make a second level to the button art, covering the white spaces and giving depth to the design. With a glue gun, this is super quick - glueing down can't have taken more than 20 minutes.

Once the design was complete and the glue had cooled ( it doesnt take long!) it was time to assemble the art board into the picture frame. Et voila! Button art heart in no time at all. A lovely quick project for when you have an hour to spare. It's a bit like mosaic'ing with buttons!

I'll update this picture once I've had the opportunity to take a picture in daylight - promise!

Spiced poached pears

We are at the end of the pear season, but a number of the farmhouses near by still have cooking pears for sale on their honesty stands. I can't resist a bargain ( apparently a very dutch trait!) and I snagged a bag full of pears on a recent trip out.I have to admit I thought they were eaters and had a bit of a shock when I took a big bite out of the first one! Nonetheless, when life gives you cookers - let's make delicious desserts!

I decided to try my hand at making poached pears with a spicy christmas twist to them - and promptly ran into the challenge of needing red wine for all the recipes. I don't tend to drink much wine, so I don't often have a spare opened bottle kicking around so I improvised.

Koggenland Poached Pears 

6-8 large cooking pears
4 heaped spoonfuls of white sugar
4 heaped spoonfuls of dark moscovado sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
6 cloves
1 inch knob of fresh ginger
1 spoonful of 'appelstroop'  - apple molasses ( use apple spread jam or molasses instead)

Peel, quarter and core the pears. Rinse quickly and then put into a pan on a gentle heat. Cover the pears with water, add the sugars, spices and 'appelstroop' and stir gently. Simmer very slowly for about 30-45 minutes, or until the pears are soft & gently colored.

I keep my pears in clip jars - if you plan to keep them for a long time you need to sterilize the jars by placing in boiling water in a saucepan for about 5 minutes. As they don't last too long around our house, I just pour in hot, cool with the lid clipped down to form a seal, and keep in the fridge. They are lovely warmed through and served with yoghurt or cream. W loves them for breakfast as topping for his porridge. Or you can serve them as a side dish with pork based main courses. However you eat your pears - I  hope you enjoy them and they bring back a whisper of summer!

Dutch pea soup - Rae's way.

Winter's here, and the temperature is dropping. We've had frost on the cars, and the constant rain and storms is a dead giveaway that we are well into the cold season. I love the comfort of a large bowl of steaming thick soup and the Dutch have their own national speciality that fits the bill perfectly. It's called 'snert' or 'erwtensoep' and is a thick pea soup that is absolutely perfect for winter weather. It also freezes very easily and is great for microwaving for lunch at the office - something that is incredibly useful for me, since I find I'm usually starving 5 minutes after the usual Dutch cheese sandwich.

So let's kick on to Rae's Dutch pea soup :

2 large onions, chopped coarsely
1 large leek
1 celeriac
3 potatoes
2 carrots
2 celery sticks
2 rosemary sprigs
1 smoked sausage
200g of bacon bits
2 fatty pork shoulder steaks, bone in ( or more if you want a more meaty soup)
500g of dried peas or split peas.
salt & pepper to taste


The traditional smoked sausage used in the Netherlands is 'Gelderse Rookwust' from the province of Gelderland. It's tied in a loop and is very smooth in texture. If you can't find a good quality smoked sausage you could replace it with frankenfurters or something similar.


It makes life so much easier in the kitchen if you do the majority of the preparation before you start cooking - at least enough that you have a sense of 'flow' rather than a start stop feeling. I start with the preparation of the vegetables : all peeled & coarsely chopped in chunks. The celeriac is a really important vegetable in this soup - it brings a depth of flavour that would be otherwise lacking  Then the meat needs to be diced and the onions chopped into chunks . Keep the bone pieces, they add flavour and can be picked out at the end.


I soften the onions in olive oil until they start to look a touch translucent, then in goes the chopped pork steaks and the bacon bits. Hold on to the sausage, don't add that just yet. Once you've tumbled the meat once or twice in the hot oil and onion mixture, add the peas,and bring it to the boil for a couple of minutes. Skim the top, then add the chopped vegetables and water to cover. I add 2 rosemary sprigs at this time to give just that extra little flavour. You can also add a stock cube if you are concerned that the flavour isn't rich enough. Bring it to the boil and turn it down to a beautiful slow simmer for about 1.5 - 2 hours until the vegetable and peas are melting into a beautiful soft mush. Check at half time and season to taste with the salt and pepper.

When the soup gets close to mushy and thick, keep a close eye on it - this is the time it's most likely to 'catch' and burn on the base of the pan. Add the sliced smoked sausage in the last half hour and stir in gently. Serve it with fresh bread chunks slathered with butter.

I always make far far too much ( these quantities will serve a large family, and have leftovers) and then I cool it in freezer boxes for taking to work or for a quick easy dinner.

Eet smakelijk! as the Dutch would say. Bon Appetit!

Plans, plans, plans!

Super excited !

We got post this week that had me jumping all over the scenery with happiness. About three weeks ago we had the architects in to measure up the house, as a preliminary for making plans for the major renovations.

They've finally sent back the 3 D diagrams of the house - with the main frame accurately mapped out which is fundamental to deciding how to build the rest around it. In addition to the actual plans they have also created some 3D diagrams that show exactly what the house looks like now :

The front or BDM  (births, deaths & marriages) door as we call it, is on the side of the house opening onto a small hallway.To the left is the kitchen and to the right is the mudroom, The kitchen has a lovely patio door and we love sitting out in the sun for breakfast on summer days. Past the kitchen is the living room with the conservatory jutting out into the garden. Our neighbour Frank was born in this his house, and he told us that the conservatory was built for his grandfather - who was farming cows here and broke his hip, causing him to be bedridden for in excess of 6 months, so that he could watch the world going by. To make sure the cows were properly looked after, he apparently asked his sons to drive the cattle past so he could see how well they were doing.

 I love the round windows in the living room - they give it an almost nautical feeling. The side patio door open out onto the main garden view - we've done so much work to do in the garden already this year, that it's going to a wonderful view in the summer. The rest of the windows along that side of the house are the bathroom, utility room and our bedroom - we have decided not to use upstairs until we've completed the renovation.

The back of the house has our favourite room the craft/computer room. That said - we've not actually done much on the computers, beyond link them up. Well - one of them. Mine still isn't cabled and I really should get around to it some time soon! It looks out towards the stables and down towards the fields. I don't think we will be able to see the fruit trees in blossom sadly, as they are behind the stables.

Here's the last view - and it's one of my favourites. As you can see, we still have the old barn doors leading into the mudroom. It's part of the character of the house and makes me happy every time I see them. W has always had a hankering to be farmer, and this is a reminder that dreams can come true!

The last picture that I want to share is of the 'vierkant' - the four post frame in the centre of the building : I tried really hard to describe the construction in an earlier post and hopefully this will make everything clear! Its quite fascinating to see the bones of your home in such graphic detail - here's to it remaining strong for another few hundred years.

We've been running around all summer doing stuff that was supposed to be just getting us into the house as 'liveable' - this is the starting blocks of the transformation!

Holding back the flood - part II

What a week!

We have had one success : the field drain is working nicely and the fruit trees are no longer standing in their own personal swimming pools. It's still pretty damp out there, but hey, this is Holland. It rains. And there is water. Lots and lots of water.

We've had chaps out to estimate for all sorts of work : we need to replace the gutters along the rear of the house, dig out the concrete around the mudroom entrance and lay drainage, get damp coursing injected into the base of the house to stop the rising damp, and we still haven't managed to work out why we have no electricity running through the top of the house. I'm hoping for a visit from the electrician tomorrow otherwise there's a good chance that our visitor at the end of the week will be wandering around in the dark at night.

Put all of this on top of the fact that it's been madly busy at work with a couple of late nights in the office, and I've been sadly lax in blogging. Most nights have been a case of get home, collapse into bed, and sleep.  It has made me think about frequency of blogging.  I know it's a key measure of success for a blogger - can you keep up a consistent stream of information for your readers? I'm planning to aim for 2-3 times a week - and if there is more, it's a bonus. I'll try and get something every weekend and once or twice during the week.

So, still paddling in water, but slowly making progress out of the flood!

Holding back the flood - part I

Life in a Dutch farmhouse definitely seems to consist of spending a lot of time battling water - and the knock on effects of too much water.

Earlier in September, after a lovely dry summer, we had more rain in the space of 4 days than we normally have in the whole month, even here in North Holland. Within a few hours we started to see water running into the living room through the ceiling and racing upstairs saw water pouring across the bedroom floor. We spent the evening dancing in the rain on the conservatory roof, unplugging gutters and drains, bailing water that was pouring down the thatch onto the flat roof. It slowed the flood - but didn't cure the issue completely. We  thought we'd identified the issue as being the old flat roof on the living room conservatory, so we called out a roofer to replace it. The next day W went climbing about in the attic to look for any other traces - and sure enough, there was another large pool of water - so we called out the thatcher to have new thatching above the windows. I was so relieved -  we thought we had resolved the issue.

Until about 4 weeks later, when again, we had water running across the floor - this time from a leaking pipe on the radiator. Ok, not so bad, simply call out the plumber to have a look and get new pipes in to replace the old worn ones, because we didn't have the time to do it ourselves. I don't mind learning on the job as we do DIY and have the time to do it , but learning whilst there is a continuous flow of water across the floor, no hot water, and the boiler is on the blink  - and we have to be in the office, isn't my favourite.

As the rains deepened, we realised that the gutters across the back of the house are not tilting properly, causing water to run down the brick walls, and soak into the plaster  - it's still an ongoing issue. And yesterday, we realised that the plaster in another room is soaking wet ( and now has not-so-pretty newspaper print all over it!). I think we have rising damp in that room - and W & I have jumped another hurdle - how to explain rising damp to each other when you don't share a common language in DIY jargon!

This weekend was the fields being flooded and I covered that in an earlier post. Today we've lost the electrics in the living room and the kitchen - shorting in the rain. I think the next few days will see a lot of running around to and sort this all out! I've entitled this part I, in the hope that I can soon publish part II which is all happiness as we've turned back the water still currently encroaching on our home.

Kale chips - savoury heaven

I've always had a passion for savoury, far more than sweet flavours. Here in the Netherlands, I find I really miss English junk food - salt & vinegar or roast beef flavoured crisps are just so much more addictive than caramel waffles or chocolate. And neither paprika flavour or plain salted crisps hold a candle to the rich flavours I miss. And whilst junk food isn't too healthy , it is quite addictive.

Kale chips are my answer to that craving - and they are just awesomely tasty! They are also incredibly easy to make.

Grab yourself some kale next time you are out shopping for food. I tend to use packets of ready sliced and washed because it's quick and easy - but it's simple enough to slice the kale leaves into fine shreds. I'm looking forwards to next year when the vegetable garden is growing well, and I can pop out and grab my kale fresh from the garden. You then need to coat the leaves with a film of olive oil. This is simultaneously the easiest and hardest part. You don't want to drown the leaves in oil, but do want to ensure that they are thoroughly coated. So, add a small slug of oil to the leaves in a bowl, and get in there with clean hands and massage the oil all over them. It's great for ensuring they are evenly coated and also gives you silky smooth moisturized hands as an added bonus.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree centigrade whilst you spread the leaves out thinly on a shallow baking tray. Sprinkle over with salt and pop into the oven to crisp up. I struggle to get the timing perfect when I measure by the clock - somewhere between 10 -15 minutes. I find it best to keep a close eye on it, and ensure to whip them out as they start to go crispy, and just the first tips go dark.

I love using kale chips as flavouring and toppings on dinner dishes. They are wonderful sprinkled on thai green curry, or macaroni cheese. They are wonderful to roll cheese fondu dipped bread chunks in for that extra little zing on your fondue bite. Give them a try and tell me what you serve them with !