Totally Forgot about the candies for the Trick or Treaters

I totally forgot about the candies! our little neighbour rang this evening and we didn't have any treats to give him and his friend. I gave some business pens.  How can I forget!? all the anglophone blogosphere is about Halloween.  

In my defence we don't really celebrate Halloween here, only la Toussaint (All saints), which is on November 1st.  They even have a day off tomorrow.  And lucky for the Frenchies the Holiday falls on Thursday and this is their opportunity to get Friday off as well, so a 4 day weekend.  Gosh! so of course, all the highways will be jam-packed tomorrow, they all heading South of France.  As for us, we will be going to the Netherlands.  Since we are d trying to save up for our trip to South East Asia this December, we won't be going anywhere too far this time around.

Happy  Halloween!.  Make sure to donate to Unicef and stock up on treats!

Brioche aux pommes

We drove by every week near an apple orchard.  I have always enjoyed fresh apples, I don't eat them off season.  I bought 3 kg of cox apples from the orchard but they weren't really good, but they are fine for cooking.  I miss the lobos and Mc Intosh from Canada.

I've done a batch of rolled brioche with those apples.   I was tired of making tarts. 

I got the recipe from this blog : http://www.mykitchensnippets.com/2012/10/cranberry-and-apricot-rolls.html

You must try this!

Have a great week!

Guess who's back?

I've been a bad blogger.  I just don't have anything "blog worthy" to write about.  October has arrived without notice.  We had some pretty warm days a few weeks ago, but now it's raining all the time.  Since we are working on roofs, it is hard to work without being annoyed by the bad weather.

On a totally unrelated subject, two of the male cats are back at the farm.  The "hot" season is gone, and there's no more female cats to chase.  They could disappear all summer long.  They come and they go, I have to let them be.

                                Toby!  I wonder who's feeding him when he's off for 2 months.

Now on the the last subject, I've been scrutinizing the web for months now, to get the best rate for 2 tickets for Thailand.  The prices are pretty steady since May, so I had to buy them on October, or the prices will go up just before Christmas.  It's gonna be a long ride, 11 hours of flight.  I won't be sticking around Bangkok for long, my real destination is going to be my birthplace : C.a.m.b.o.d.i.a!!! I haven't returned since I left 34 years ago.  I'm sure it's going to be an emotional journey.  We'll be going at the end of December, so for now, we must save up every little penny!  

 I wonder if it's necessary to get some vaccines before going there? if anyone has an answer please let me know.

             

Festival de la bière artisanale

As I have already mentioned before, I live in the French Flanders, in the North Region.  We are very close to the Belgian border, so beer is part of the culture.  We didn't have much to do on a Saturday, so we went to beer festival at 2 km from our village.  The weather was nice and warm so it was really pleasant.

 

Festival de la bière artisanale, Micro brew beer Festival, at Ste-Marie Cappel, France

 

Houblons in French, Hop flower

 

 Hop vines are hung all over the village for the festival

Hop flowers, it really smells like beer

 

 Hmm fries!  To sponge off the beer you need fries.

                                                                  Municipal garden at Ste-Marie-Cappel

The festival was well organized.  We had to buy a small beer glass and we got 3 vouchers for 5 euros, you get to taste 3 micro brew beers from producers.  So people would not get drunk.  I shared the glass, I'm not a beer fan, but overall I really enjoyed it.

Busy week

The company is missing employees these past few weeks.  One has left for good, one is on vacation and another one is on a building site.  We don't even consider hiring people.  We have placed an add and some of the candidates were already demanding (a car for work, and high pays) . So for now, we are doing multiple tasks.

I had to climb on the van yesterday to put some woods on the top of the roof of the van, and shamefully I had to get off without being able to stay up there more than 2 minutes.  I was dizzy.  So The Husband had to climb and managed to attached all the wood strips after 15 minutes.  We also went to the gym afterwards, so the next morning our muscles ached.  I realized how hard the job is for the rest of the employees who have to mount solar panels of roofs and lifting the heavy materials everyday.

I also managed to cook a little this afternoon. Pumpkin cake.  The hardest part was to grate the raw pumpkin.  

I used "potimarron", which is a pumpkin with a light chestnut taste.  It is small, maybe 2 kg, so I used half of it.

Use your carrot cake recipe.

Here's mine:

125g of yogourt

3 eggs

 250 of sugar (brown or white)

 375 g of flour

65 g of vegetable oil

1 table spoon of baking powder

half pumpkin finely grated

You can add cinnamon, and other spices if you like, but I find they overpower the taste of the pumpkin, so I don't add any.

Combine eggs, sugar and yogourt together, and add the flour and the baking powder.  Then add the oil to the mixture.  Add the grated pumpkin at the end.

Bake at 200°C/400°F for 40 minutes.  

Use a baking paper, it can be sticky.

I find this it's a great way to eat pumpkin.