Fair trade and organic

I'm not extremely passionate about this kind of product, but when the price is round and about the same as the normal stuff I do choose Fair Trade, Bio, Eco or Organic products.
I found some Organic Forest Fruit Jam and some Fair Trade chocolate in my grocerystore on sale. With 35% off it became affordable for me. So this cake is filled with a layer of Forest Fruit Jam and with a layer of Fair Trade Chocolate Mousse. Mmmm...

By the way, the chocolate didn't taste different from normal chocolate, but the jam was gooooood!

By the way II: I just read that the Jam can't be names "jam" because it's without sugar. It's called "Fruit Spread"... Even better!

We don't feed our children...

... that's why they attack us, when we're eating a sandwich:

Sharing the recipe: Ham 'n Leeks-pie

To make this easy peasy yummy pie, do this:

Get the following ingredients:
- 2 to 3 leeks (depending on how big they are), rinsed and cut in small rings
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups of grated cheese
- 3/4 cup of ham stripes/cubes
- 1 cup of milk
- puff pastry (don't know the amount; take enough to cover the bottom and sides of your pie-dish)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 356 degrees (Fahrenheit, 180 degrees Celcius.
Heat a skillet with a little butter or oil. Toss in the leeks and ham stripes and toss them around untill the leeks are a bit softened.
In the meanwhile mix together the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and 1 cup of grated cheese.
Cover the bottom and sides of your pie-dish with the puff pastry (which isn't non-fat; if you want to make it a bit more healthy you'd better use a short crust pastry recipe. Jamie Olivers is quite good: www.jamieoliver.com ).

When the leeks/ham are softened, then spread it over the puff pastry covered bottom of the pie dish. Then poor in the egg-mixture and make sure the leeks/ham are all bathing in the egg-mixture. It doesn't have to cover the leeks/ham, but has to be all over the dish.
Now sprinkle the other cup of grated cheese over the leeks/ham/egg-mix. And then it's all ready to pop into the oven for about 30 minutes or untill well risen and golden brown.
Get the pie out of the oven and let it sit for some minutes. It won't stay as high as it is when it comes out of the oven, but that's ok. It will still be fluffy and lovely!

Enjoy!

(If you want to experiment with the taste of this pie, think about adding fresh or dry herbs to the egg-mixture.)

Spring in the pan...

When I was preparing this simple ham-and-leeks pie this afternoon I noticed that the colors of the ingredients had such a springy look! Lovely...

(Here's a shot of the pan, one from the pie before baking and one after baking. You don't want to see a shot of the pie at this moment...)

Yummy Valentine's weekend!

Just finished this cute Valentine's Days Gift Box. Made of cake, filled with truffles and cake balls... Oh yummy! Another idea by www.bakerella.com

Actually I made 2 of those, so if you are able to pick it up tomorrow, you can get yourself a yummy Valentines Day treat...

My mirror image

Cake balls

After a few days of not baking something started to itch. I just had to do something culinary creative. So I decorated some cake balls. Gonna munch 'em down in a few minutes... Note the red inside; it's Red Velvet Cake. (Recipe by bakerella.com)

Carrot cake

Ok, I’ve been talking about this before, but since it’s become such a steady part of my daily life I want to share it with you: the carrotcake-recipe I always use. Actually it’s Jennifer’s bananabread recipe, but I substituted the banana’s for shredded carrots and it turns out perfect every time! Here we go:

Basic ingredients:
1 cup sugar
½ cup vegetable oil or softened butter (I always go for veggie oil)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda (not baking powder!)
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour (I always take at least 1 cup of whole wheat flour, sometimes 2 cups)
½ cup milk
2 cups of shredded carrots

Besides these basic ingredients I have several variable ingredients, to end up with different flavors. You see, I’m eating a slice of carrot cake every day for breakfast, so it’s nice to have some variety. Believe it or not; it gets me through the morning; just one slice!

Variable ingredients (spices):
star anise (ground)
mixed cookie spices (a certain mix of cinnamon, cardamom, etc)
cinnamon
cardamom
ginger (fresh or dry ground)
cloves (ground)
Variable ingredients:
Orange zest (grated)
Raisins
Nuts (chopped, like walnut, pecan or hazelnut)
Apple

Mix all the ingredients from the basic list together (in the order as stated above). Then add some of the variable ingredients and don’t hold back. Just mix and match, taking the spices with at least ½ teaspoon per choice, some will even need a whole teaspoon to work it’s wonder.

When you’re done mixing and matching, put everything in a greased cake pan and bake it in the preheated oven at 325 degrees (about 160 degrees Celsius) for at least 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

I’m always open to new varieties, so if you have an idea; let me know! I will be using up those carrots in my fridge one of those days, so…

Man oh man!

What a week it's been. Due to our car breaking down and bad snowy weather we just spent 7 days at the inlaws in Germany. We should only stay for 4 days, but it became 7 days. We had a good time, but for months I'd been looking forward to a whole week at home, off from work, just doing stuff I'd usually don't have enough time for. So I was very very very very very dissapointed (yes, I cried) when it turned out we would be going home on Wednesday, in stead of at Sunday. Now I only had 2 days left; not enough to do all these things I wanted to do. First thing I'll do when I get back at work is plan another week off in the very very very very near future. :-)

This is partly what I've been busy with today; cleaning up all the mess we brought home. This is what my hallway and stair looked like this afternoon (all this stuff needs to be brought upstairs for storage):




And wow, men will never change... Marc just passed all this, going upstairs, empty handed... (keep smiling)