KissKus

Walnut & almond paste cookies

I made some cookies today. And I didn't use a recipe. I know... daring!!

I'd read about baking with apple sauce instead of butter and I wanted to see if that really worked. It did, although the structure of the cookie did change because of it. I simply replaced both sugar and butter by apple sauce. I figured I could leave out the sugar too, as that was already in the apple sauce. I also added walnuts and crumbled almond paste.

They turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself. The structure is a little dough-y, not exactly light, so I may try and work on that some next time. Although, a positive side to a chewy cookie is that you don't tend to eat so much.

I also made three loaves of bread. I've been keeping that up since the beginning of this year and I still enjoy doing it.

Kip in de hoed

Today's dinner was Kip in de hoed (literal translation: Chicken in the hat).

The recipe (in Dutch) can be found here.

Three out of five of our family members think this is a delicious dish; Simon has even requested this as his birthday meal for two successive years.

I've been making it for at least 10 years, maybe more and it always works out. The combination of chicken and cherries may sound a bit unusual, but -unless you are a vegetarian- it's worth a try!

Party food

We celebrated Michel's birthday today. Very nice day with friends and family.

Graham crackers & s'mores

For years I've been looking at photos of delicious looking s'mores. This typically American treat is something that we don't have in Holland. So I reckoned: why not make my own?

While searching for recipes I noticed Graham crackers being mentioned in all of them. Another thing we don't have in Holland. So I found a recipe for Graham crackers... I'm not sure whether they turned out the way they were supposed to, but all in all the s'mores turned out quite yummy and of course super calorific :)

A dirty dessert

We all know Pinterest, right? And we all know that from the 100 things that you pin you will only actually make about three things in reality? Well, one of those three things that I made was this:

we planted a very dirty dessert!

I can't actually find the original pin right now, but in my mind it was pretty similar to what we created... and if not, then I think they turned out rather good anyway!

So how to make these desserts? First make chocolate mousse, crumble Oreo cookies without the white middle stuff on top and then stick in your mint leaves.

The children loved doing this (and so did I).

Homely snaps

We're all back to our normal routine. While I mourn the end of summer -although the weather is still really nice- I do find enjoyment in our daily activities at home, school and work.

Some of yesterday's snaps:

Tomato soup (it was good!)

Kneading

A little break with my girls. They look adorably ridiculous sunning themselves!

The final result. That should be enough for this week!

Sweets

Judging by these photos it seems as if we are eating ourselves a way through this summer that feels an awful lot like autumn... and I must admit that that is a little bit so :)

A summer evening

Friday evening we went out to celebrate the children's excellent school reports. Tradition is that we go to Weesp to have ice cream.

It was a beautiful sunny evening.

Nr. 1, 2 & 3 stood still long enough for this photo (only just)...

And then we had ice cream!

Nom nom nom :)

Back with cake

I'm back!

I had a little Typepad trouble, but it's all fixed now :)

Let me get back into the groove by showing you the fantastic princess cake that Michel made for Amber's birthday! It turned out so well and it tasted great too. Plus Amber really liked it... win win win :)

Sunny Queensday

What a great day. A perfect Queensday.

The weather was so unbelievably nice! We haven't had a very good spring yet and I want more of this warm, lovely sun, please!

The free market in our town was massive and we all had a really good haul.

Some of the vintage fabrics...

I hit the ribbon jackpot <3

Not pictured are books, a teapot, a tray... etc etc

When we were tired from the free market we went back home where we spent hours in the sun: reading, eating, drinking. Dinner outside in the garden... yes, a perfect day.