Converting to 'Speltotto' - ditching 'the white stuff'

Hello everyone,

This is just a very quick post about 'Speltotto' - a word that I believe was invented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstal (HFW as he's called in our house). It is a 'risotto' made by using pearled spelt. I have been wanting this make this for A-GES.... And now I have! Last night. And it was absolutely delicious! The kids loved it too - not unimportant. Think we have been converted...

I personally stopped making (white) rice risotto a while ago because I started to feel completely 'blocked' inside afterwards. Sometimes for days. In other words, my insides/digestive system no longer agreed with this white business. I always cook brown (basmati) rice for any other rice dishes and we eat rye, wholemeal or spelt bread - sourdough too. Question is of course, have I unlearned my body to eat 'the white stuff'.......? I don't know. But what I do know is that I prefer to listen to what my body tells me - which is to not block the system please ;). And since spelt is much easier to digest for us human beings, I really wanted to give that a try.

Here's a bit more from WIKI on spelt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt

So. Pearled spelt. Asked my husband to bring some Sharpham Park spelt from the UK a while ago (you can read about them here: www.sharphampark.com). And last night I finally decided to be brave enough to open the pack and try it out...

I read the recipe on the pack and I also read the HFW recipe. Because they were actually quite similar to how I used to make my rice risotto, I decided to mix it all up and come up with the following (a success):

This served the kids & moi and we had enough left over for the kids' lunch boxes today. I'd say this makes 4 portions for normal eaters - with a salad on the side it would be enough. If in doubt because you've got big eaters in the house, use 400g spelt and a little more stock for 4.

Ingredients
a slug of olive oil
a knob of butter
300g pearled spelt
a slug of white wine or dry vermouth
1 liter chicken (or veg) stock
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small leek, finely sliced
few hands full of fresh spinach, washed and cut if large leaves
1 cup frozen peas
-----basically add any green veg you like -----------
a handful of freshly grated parmesan, plus extra for on top
2 tbsp mascarpone or cream cheese
flatleaf parsley, chopped
salt & freshly ground black pepper


Cooking method
Heat olive oil & butter in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add diced onion and garlic and sweat until translucent. Add the spelt, stir well and make sure you coat all the kernels - like you would with risotto rice. Add the white wine or dry vermouth and reduce. 
Now start adding the stock, ladle by ladle. Let it reduce before adding the next one, and the next one, etc. etc. Make sure you keep the heat to medium. The spelt should start to soak up all the liquid and soften/cook. Mine took about 25-30 mins. Add salt & freshly ground pepper and taste. 
Then add the veggies. I added the peas first (in their frozen state), then the spinach, then the leek (both uncooked). Keep stirring well and continuously throughout the entire process. It might get a bit wetter again from the veggies so again let it reduce. At the end I added a good handful grated parmesan (as I always did with my rice risottos), the mascarpone (for a more calorific version - it brings out a lot of the flavours is my excuse!) and the chopped parsley. Taste again and if happy: serve on hot plates (nothing worse than a dish like this arriving on a cold plate (in fact it would be a CRIME ;)!) and sprinkle over some extra parmesan and black pepper.

ENJOY!! We did.

Would love to hear how you get on and what other varieties you have come up with!

Bon appétit!!

Love,
Bee X

Challenge 3: A Lovely Bit Of Crumpet....!

Hi there all you foodies and other interested folk,

It's time for challenge number 3: CRUMPETS!

Who doesn't love 'a good bit of crumpet'? Innuendo aside, I think most of us do! My family and friends always used to take stacks of crumpets back home when visiting us in the UK. These days we eat them for breakfast on all our Birthdays. And a bit more often than that...
This had to be on the list of my 2013 Personal Baking Challenges. Having only ever bought them (Marks & Sparks are the best I think, then the Waitrose buttermilk ones) I was keen to finally make them myself.

Then, somewhere along the way, there was Peter Cook from Prices the Baker's in Ludlow who was raving about making 'real crumpets' with a sourdough starter (although a little fresh yeast is added too). He offered to send me his recipe which I very gratefully received and used as the starting point for this challenge.


To be able to make the sourdough based crumpets, I had to create a white sourdough starter. So far I only had 'The Beast' (my 20 month old rye sourdough starter).
My first attempt failed. I called her 'Snow White' and that was clearly a very bad idea..... The prince didn't come along to kiss her and wake her from her 'eternal' sleep.......and that was the end of her ;). But I don't give up easily so on I went. Second attempt. Using part of the 20 month old 'Beast' to get the ferment going. Why didn't I think of that before......?! Thanks Lauren!! That worked a treat. 'Lady Galadriel' was off on a flying start and a new white sourdough starter was born. I kept that going for at least two weeks before I used it for the crumpets.

To 'compare' (if that is possible with two such different recipes) I decided to make a yeast version as well as Peter's sourdough one and chose good old Mrs Beeton's recipe for that - which I found out is remarkably similar to Delia's...

Last Saturday was the big day and for Peter's recipe I had to start activities the evening before. I mixed together:

400g  Premium Number 1 Flour (12% proteine) - I used strong bread flour
10g    Salt
5g      Sugar
10g    Veg oil
200g  White Sourdough Starter
5g      Fresh Yeast
200g  Milk
200g Water

Once mixed well, I covered it - I always use the hotel shower caps which my husband loyally brings with him every week ;) - and put it in the fridge overnight. Bubbles had already started to appear when I took it out of the fridge and after leaving it for another 3-4 hours at room temperature in the morning it looked like this:

I then dissolved 10g of bicarb in 110g of water and vigorously stirred this into the batter using the strong rugby arm of my husband :-)! He likes to get involved. The batter became quite a bit thinner which worried me at first but it later appeared that there was absolutely nothing to worry about! Leave it stand for another 25 minutes to let the bicarb do its work before you then cook on a griddle in greased rings.

I used this waiting time to put together Mrs Beeton's batter.

As a 'griddle' I used my large Le Creuset Braiser. The crumpet rings I bought from www.bakerybits.co.uk - they come in a set of three.

I oiled the braiser (and kept oiling it as I kept going) and the rings well as I was a bit apprehensive about it sticking to the rings or the pan (how wrong I was - they came out so easily). So off I went.... first three crumpets in:

Waiting........

 First holes appearing.....

Holes everywhere.......rings off......

........turn (after ca. 10 mins).........

..........FISRT CRUMPETS READY AND LOOKING AMAZING!!!

Big applause for Peter Cook's recipe! Colour, texture, 'ease of baking' and most of all 'presence of lots 'n lots of holes' all got 10 out of 10! On to a bit of tasting of course...... Proper butter & home made jam:

.........verdict: YUMMIE!

The only thing I'd say about the taste is that you can taste the bicarb a little bit - not always a nice flavour... I emailed with Peter about this and reducing the bicarb of course means running the risk of losing the much wanted holes. I might experiment with it next time and see whether 8g instead of 10g of bicarb has a significant effect on the appearance of holes or not. Another thing I might try is half bicarb, half cream of tartar - tip from Vanessa Kimbell.

Anyway: a very clear success! Definitely!

On to Mrs Beeton's crumpets.

Needless to say that the batter is of course much quicker to make. Just quick action yeast to get things going initially and then the bicarb at the end. Huge bubbles appeared and the batter was thicker and somewhat gloopy.... As a result it was less easy to handle when it came to putting it into the crumpet rings. Not a good start Mrs Beeton! In the braiser, things were comparable. The rings came off very easily. The holes appeared in the same time - perhaps a little earlier. But when done, they were crispier on the outside (not really what you want crispy - especially not if you'd like to keep them and toast them at a later stage), doughy on the inside and generally just the wrong texture/structure. Not like 'real' crumpets as I've known them for the past 15 years.

A few of hers:

So! I will make Peter's crumpets any time (and the whole family would love me to!) but I might experiment to reduce the bicarb flavour. Will keep you posted!

I hope that this has inspired and encouraged you to get going and make your own crumpets, because believe me.......the ones in the shop are nothing like it.....! Not to mention all the additives and preservatives you are consuming when eating those. I am aware that you'd need a white sourdough starter. But perhaps this is a good excuse to get a small one going in a Kilner jar. You can then bake a whole range of healthy goodies :).

Next up in the 2013 Personal Baking Challenge List might be Ciabatta......! Not an easy dough to handle I know (very wet and sticky) but I am determined to crack it. Other fantastic 'realbread' friends from the UK will feature for sure. You know who you are :-)!

I hope to keep inspiring you. Get crumpetting :-)!

Love,

X Bee

Challenge 2: One a penny, two a penny....next year more!

Dear foodie friends and other interested bun peepz,

As announced in the previous blog post, Challenge Number 2 on the 'Personal Baking Challenges 2013' list was Hot Cross Buns. 

With Easter well behind us now, I will share with you my experience with two very different recipes. One is a yeast recipe. The other one a sourdough.
I'd say, forget about the cross and bake them all year long ;-)! In Holland we call that 'krentenbollen' (currant rolls). They're sold all year long. Not a cross in sight. Go for it!

So. I had never made hot cross buns before. And of course, with my rye sourdough starter 'The Beast' sitting on my kitchen top all day long being active but lazy, I was particularly interested in making both sourdough hot cross buns and yeast ones.

A search for recipes in books & magazines and on websites & blogs resulted in the following choice:

- The Guardian's Felicity Cloake's 'Perfect Hot Cross Buns'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/apr/21/cook-perfect-hot-cross-buns
I chose this one because Felicity had already compared several recipes (Nigella, Dan Lepard, etc) before putting this one together. I then changed a few things again to Felicity's recipe.

- 'Spiced Stout Sourdough Hot Cross Buns' from 'Lauren Bakes'
http://aslaurenbakes.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/spiced-stout-sourdough-hot-cross-buns/
This one appealed to me because it was an adapted recipe from Dan Lepard's Spiced Stout Buns - using a sourdough starter instead of yeast, the photos looked promising and I thought it was great to go with a recipe by another sourdough enthusiast.


SOURDOUGH

I baked them all on Maundy Thursday, but started the preparation process for the sourdough hot cross buns on Wednesday evening:

  
I mixed the sourdough starter, the Guinness and the spices with some of the flour the night before.

The fruit for the sourdough buns was soaked the night before as well.











On Thursday morning I added the other ingredients and formed the complete dough for the sourdough hot cross buns:

A lovely dough to make and very easy to handle I thought. Lots of resting and proofing of course. It's sourdough! Then shaped them into buns and let them proof one more time:

I was pretty much feeling under the weather that day and decided to bake them perhaps slightly too early. Next time, I will definitely make this stage a longer one. Lauren says 3-4 hours. I think you can easily leave them for 5. I guess it also depends on your sourdough starter.

After a day and a bit of dedicated sourdough hot cross bun work, the finished product looked like this:

I chose to brush them with an apricot jam and hot water glaze rather than the sugar and water one. They looked absolutely amazing.......

More later about the taste test ;-)! 

YEAST

Whilst the sourdough version was rising for the first time on Thursday morning I made the dough for  'Felicity's 'Perfect hot cross buns'. Having read the recipe several times, I decided to change a few things:
- rather than just currants, I used half currants/half sultanas (just currants too dry)
- rather than putting the fruit in dry, I (hot)soaked them in blood orange juice
- I added a diced apple to get a bigger/more refreshing fruit flavour
- I brushed them with apricot jam & hot water rather than sugar & water

What I really liked about this recipe is the use of saffron as an ingredient. Brilliant! Fragrance, flavour, colour. A real special addition to an otherwise relatively 'plain' bun.
The big difference with this recipe compared to most other hot cross bun recipes is that it doesn't add a mix of different dry spices directly to the dough mixture. Instead, the spices are left to infuse in hot milk for an hour. 

So. Off I went with the second recipe.

This dough didn't need as much rising and proofing as the sourdough because of the added (fresh) yeast so I was able to shape and bake these before the sourdough ones. In that respect these two recipes were good for using simultaneously ;-).

The shaped yeasty buns with their saffron yellow colour, at start of last proofing session...

.........just before they went into the oven.......

........and the finished products..............

TASTE

And now for the taste test............

That was an interesting one. And I can hear you thinking "comparing apples and pears"...

But, like with the Madeleines in the previous blog post, in the end you want a nice hot cross bun. That's really all there is to it!

In our 4-member family, the sourdough hot cross bun won it (3-1) against the yeasty bun. The child with the sweetest tooth preferred the yeast version. Although that might not be the reason why. We think that you do have to toast the sourdough hot cross buns to get optimum flavour.....but then........isn't that what we always do with our hot cross buns....?! Toast them and put some proper butter on them! Or even (slightly) salty butter is what I like ;-).

Felicity's yeast version became drier sooner. It felt like you had to eat them (or even finish them) the same day to really enjoy them.

My personal verdict is this:

Lauren's sourdough buns I am definitely making again. They were great! Felicity's yeast buns I will probably replace by another yeast version. However, I will keep her saffron idea in mind to add to whatever the list of ingredients will be in the new recipe I will try next time.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading about this challenge. Do have a go yourself! As I say, forget about the cross and bake them all year! Add nuts, or any other (dried) fruit you fancy. Make them with wholemeal grains and have a very healthy lunch box treat for your kids (or yourself for that matter!).

NEXT CHALLENGE

Next up will hopefully be the crumpets! My rings have now arrived and I am on my way with a white sourdough starter which I have called 'Lady Galadriel'. The Crumpet Challenge will most likely be a sourdough vs yeast comparison too. The wonderful Peter Cook from Price's bakery in Ludlow has been so kind to share the recipe of his sourdough version with me so that's definitely going to be one of the two.

I look forward to the next challenge. I hope you too!

All the best for now and keep baking,

Bee X

Personal Baking Challenge Number 1: Madeleines

Dear foodies and other lovely people,

As you might know from my previous post, I have set myself a number of baking challenges for 2013. They are things I have never baked before and have always wanted to try out. The list is still growing since I wrote about it last time (bit worrying that..!) but I have now started with the first challenge: Madeleines! 

I won't bore you with the history of Madeleines but give you the Wiki link instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_(cake)

Last summer I bought a Madeleine tin in France, which was starting to burn a whole in my 'baking cupboard'... So 'Madeleines' had to be the first challenge! I quickly bought another one here in Lier last week so that I was able to make two batches of 12 at the same time.

Doing a bit of 'research' and reading several different recipes for Madeleines I noticed that there are some very different approaches - both with regards to the ingredients and the process. 

Ingredients
Some use self-raising flour, others plain flour and baking powder. Some use whole eggs, others whole eggs plus an extra yolk. Some add lemon juice (and quite a bit too!), others vanilla extract. Then there's the 'Commercy Madeleines' which contain orange blossom water. My father sent me a recipe from 'THE Blue Family Folder' by the Roux brothers, Albert & Michel, which contains soft brown sugar rather than caster sugar. Some even use icing sugar.
What ALL of them use though......is melted butter! The butter is melted at a low heat and slightly cooled down before use - added as the last ingredient.

Process
The process is possibly even more important than the (different) ingredients. There are two differences here (I wanted to test how significant these difference are):
1. To let the batter rest in the fridge (preferably overnight) vs. using the batter straight after putting it together;
2. To bake at a high oven for a short time vs. a lower oven for longer.

Having taken all of this in, I was keen to try two very different recipes and processes. Now, of course this could lead to comparing apples and pears I can hear you think.... But in the end, we want a good looking and great tasting Madeleine - 'no matter' how we get there!
So, I decided on Annie Bell's recipe from her fantastic book 'Annie's Baking Bible' (worth buying for other reasons too!):

The other recipe I chose is from 'Larousse Gastronomique' (the 'Classic' rather than the 'Commercy' one):

Annie Bell adds vanilla extract, suggests to put the batter in the fridge (a few hours - but preferably overnight) and bakes at a high temperature to start, to then lower the temperature whilst baking (from 220'C to 200'C to 170'C - all in 10 minutes).
Larousse adds an extra yolk and the juice of half a lemon (of which the latter makes the batter considerably thinner!), uses the batter straight away (no rest in fridge) and bakes at a lower temperature (180'C) for longer (20-25 minutes).

I made Annie Bell's batter the day before and put it in the fridge overnight. Next morning I baked Annie Bell's Madeleines and in the afternoon made the Larousse batter and baked them straight away. 

The most important part of the challenge - apart from making Madeleines that taste great - was to create what is called the 'bosse'. The little dome on the top of the Madeleine. 

Leaving the batter in the fridge helps to create 'la bosse' is what they say. Let the result speak for itself in the photo below (Annie Bell left, Larousse right):

To double-test and prove that indeed leaving the batter in the fridge overnight helps to create 'la bosse', I then made the Larousse Madeleines again - but after leaving the batter in the fridge this time. The result was this:

Compare this to the one above on the right and I think it's pretty clear that leaving the batter in the fridge overnight creates absolute first class looking Madeleines! I still used the same ingredients as in the first Larousse trial and also stuck to their temperature (180'C) and baking time (20-25 mins) although after 15 mins they were definitely done.

So oven temperature and baking time difference don't matter that much, interestingly enough. It is the temperature of the batter that matters most! Cold batter going into hot oven = Madeleines avec la 'bosse'!

This was enough of an experiment for me to take note of the main success factors here. Although I will still be making the 'Commercy' recipe from Larousse and the Roux brothers recipe my father sent me. That's mainly because I want to do some more 'research' on flavour/taste.

So what did they taste like?

Interestingly, initially my husband and I preferred Annie Bell's Madeleines when it came down to flavour and the kids preferred the Larousse ones. But after having baked the Larousse ones the second time (after batter in fridge) the flavour of these had grown on us... The funny thing about the flavour of the Larousse Madeleines though was, that the juice of half a lemon went into the batter but you couldn't really taste that in the finished product. My taste buds are pretty well 'developed' I think and it was odd to not detect the lemon flavour after baking.

So.............here endeth the Madeleines experiment for now! If you decide to make them (and why wouldn't you :-)!?), then I suggest you definitely leave the batter in the fridge - preferably overnight. The timing of which is perfect if you want to make them for 'elevenses' the next day!

I will test the other two recipes in the next few weeks and then publish my own recipe - adapted from the ones that I have tried - on the blog. Something to look forward to :-).

My next challenge is most likely going to be Hot Cross Buns - simply because Easter is now getting so close and I am getting a bit annoyed with myself buying the Waitrose ones every week (husband brings them over!) whilst I could be making them myself! Baking guilt... ;-)

Watch that 'Hot Cross Bunny' space :-))!

Love,

X Bee

Challenges for the year

Dear foodies & other lovely people,

A very Happy New Year to you - if that's still allowed! Thought I'd still get it in on the last day of January.... ;-).

January used to be a detox month for me. Not so this year. I have decided that January is in fact the worst month to do a detox and that the end of the winter, say March time, is a much better time to be cruel to yourself and 'starve' a little. By then, temperatures are up, we are more active outside and most of all, we are starting to eat lighter food. It's in season and therefore readily available. No more heavy sluggish food! I guess lent wasn't invented for nothing around that time of year, religious reasons aside.

So. No detox. Plenty of rich winter food. Especially during the cold snow spell in the past few weeks. And I have never been so relaxed in January as a result of it!

What I have been contemplating in the meantime is the challenge I'm going to set myself this year. I need challenges. Probably like most people. And this year, I am looking for baking challenges. No surprises there then!

You might think that they're complicated ones... Au contraire! I've made a list of 'basic' things which I STILL have not baked at home. Not once. And since I'm a bit of an autodidact, I am definitely going to "try this at home". The film Julie & Julia has most likely triggered this. If you are a foodie and you haven't seen this film yet (Meryl Streep is in it - another brilliant reason!) then do so. You won't regret it!

Right. My baking challenges. Here goes...
Ready? Set? Bake:
- Brioche
- Tarte tartin
- Lemon meringue pie
- Puff pastry
- Yorkshire puddings
- Baguettes
- Crumpets
- Muffins (the ones used for eggs benedict; not the cakey ones)
- Summerpudding
- Stollen (Easter in this case)
- Millefeuille
- Chocolate fondants

This list is not yet complete. But I would like to achieve at least the above. And 'achieve' in this case means that it has to be good. Not just 'a' product. But of good quality too. And don't worry, enough critics around. With me probably being the worst one... I will keep going until I've achieved the right standard. That's the deal. The deal between me, myself and I.

So! You can expect me to report on this regularly from now on. I can't wait to get going.

I will do this on top of the usual baking and cooking which I normally tell you about on the blog. So there's more to look forward to than just the challenges above.

And of course spring is around the corner so I will start to talk about the garden as well. All the bulbs are coming up already and I personally can NOT wait to see all the flowers in full glory.

That's it for now folks! I'll be back more regularly than I have been in the past few months. Look forward to it :-)!

Love,
X Bee

Reunited

Dear foodies, families and other readers,

Rather than catching up with you again about the past month or so, I would like to share with you a very personal story about my love for food.

I think it has been since the age of 8 that I was able to hold a pan and tried to cook, or bake for that matter. There are some very strong memories left in my 40+ year old brain which I hold very dearly. Like making French toast for my little sister on Saturdays. Or making sate sauce with dad once - an enormous volume of it as we kept adding ingredients because the flavour wasn't right according to us. Baking Dutch apple pie and shortbread cookies on a regular basis. Moving on later to making big pots of Nasi Goreng for the whole family on Friday evenings. And so on...

Both my parents always showed a love for (good) food and both have had a big impact on my love for food as a result. 

In the earlier part of my life, it was my mother who was my biggest inspiration I think. She was always at home and she was a very creative cook as I call it. The 'let's open the fridge and see what we can make of some of the food in there' sort of cook. That's the kind of cook I have become too. She is also the one who has brought the food history into my life. Her family were bakers. Her dad, then her brother, and now my cousin have run the Lexmond Bakery in Hillegersberg, Rotterdam. I think that even her grandfather was. Am not sure how far back it actually goes. I am planning to catch up with mum's oldest sister early in the New Year to see what she can tell me about it.

Dad was a business man and started to cook later in life. I call him 'The Surgeon'. He has the patience of a saint and is able to carry out the most precise jobs in the kitchen for hours.. I have huge admiration for that as I am not really like that I have to admit ;-). He is a brilliant cook and has created 'Michelin star quality' food for family and friends many a time. He also knows a lot about wine. When I was in my twenties, I cooked together with him a lot. Started washing up and cleaning vegetables... Then 'worked my way up' as it were. That sounds a bit 'cheffie' perhaps but it has taught me lots of different processes and it also helped me to appreciate the products we cooked with.

Five years ago, 8 years after mum died, dad left the farm that had been our family home for 28 years. The farm was where the high times of cooking, baking, loads of dinner parties, growing organic vegetables, fruit and herbs, etc. took place. When dad left the farm, it probably felt like the end of an era. Lots went into storage as he moved to an apartment in town. Come to think of it, it was probably a turning point for all of us. He is now coming to the three of us for nice food ;-)!! My younger brother and sister love cooking too so he can't  go wrong really!

My life was taking place in England for 13 years until we moved to Belgium last year and so with dad's 'stuff' going into storage 5 years ago....a lot of my 'stuff' went in with it.
Last weekend, my husband and I finally rented a van and drove to dad's self storage unit to pick up everything that I was still separated from..

And together with all my children's toys, tennis rackets, vinyl records, teenage books and all sorts of other things from the first 30 years of my life....I brought back with me the biggest treasure there was to find amongst all the furniture and boxes of 'stuff': mum's 'Margriet Kookboek'!! 

'Margriet' is a bit like 'Good Housekeeping' in the UK. They published a cookbook (first print 1953) that became the main source in the kitchen for many housewives in Holland. My mum's 14th print version is from 1964. You've got to love the illustrations too :-)! 
Here it is......

From this book, I have baked lots of things on many occasions when I was young. Amongst which the French toast for my little sister, as mentioned earlier. This book means the world to me. It resembles my love for food for as long as I can remember. The smell of the book. The pictures. It all brings back so many memories... Absolutely wonderful!

And so by being reunited with the book, I feel reunited with mum again as well. I connect with her regularly at lots of different levels. But this is a very special link.

From the storage also came with me a biscuit tin with cookie cutters in it. When I opened it I found this Christmas cookie cutter: 

It wouldn't surprise me if this cutter came from my grandad's bakery. In Holland around Christmas time they sell all butter 'shortbread-like' cookies in this shape with shaved almonds on them. They call them Christmas wreaths ('kerstkransjes'). I will be making these this week for sure!

It has been an interesting year and I have loved setting up my blog and sharing my love for food with you. In 2013 I will keep building on the food history in my family. I am planning to give this more direction and carve out something that I can grow with all the energy and enthusiasm I have in me.

I wish you all a very Happy Christmas. A time to truly connect with family and friends. To take time for each other and relax. To enjoy home made food, to cook and bake together. Or simply, to enjoy what someone else has been cooking for you!

May 2013 bring lots of inspiration for you - in the kitchen, the garden or any other 'place' you feel most happy.

I am leaving you with this Christmassy 'Mother & Child' painting by my late mother, Theresia Maria Kooijmans-Lexmond.

Love,
X Bee