Jyothi

Well I have a pair, well actually they are called Woz? and are made in Europe, and cost about half the price. In the end i choose for a blue pair, because it goes with a lot of cloths. I have to say they are really comfy. I even took wore them for a walk in a forest, nearly mountain climbing and no sore feet what so ever……  so when we can afford it i would not mind having another pair in a bright color.

Ingredients

250 gr flour

200 gr margarine cut in little pieces

8 teaspoons of icewater

pinch of salt

1 1/2 kilo apples

80 gr sugar

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1 egg yolk

baking tin of 30 cm

Mix the flour,salt and margarine then add spoon by spoon the ice water until you can make a firm ball. Wrap the ball up in cling film and leave it to rest in fridge for an hour.

While the dough rests peel the apples and slice them in thin slices, mix them with the lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and ginger.

Preheat the oven on 200 degrees Celsius.

Butter the baking tin.

Take about 2/3 of the dough and roll it out big enough to dress the baking tin and dress it.

Put the apple mixture in the dressed baking tin.

Roll the remaining 1/3 of the dough out to make a lid and close the pie with the lid.

Roll up a little piece of aluminum foil to make a kind of chimney out of it. Place the chimney in the middle of the pie.

Decorate if you like with left over pieces of dough. Brush the cake with egg yolk and place it for about 45 minutes in the oven.

Enjoy.

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 shallot chopped

pinch of chili pepper

150 gram frozen spinach

150 gram frozen chicory

3 eggs

250 ricotta (I used the one from sheep milk)

salt and pepper to taste

ready made puff pastry (I know i am lazy)

baking tin

Defrost the spinach and chicory.(I usually defrost it for about 5 minutes in the microwave)

In a pan glaze the shallot and add the chili pepper.

When the shallots are glazed add the spinach and chicory and stirfry for about 10 minutes or until all is cooked.Take of the heat

In a bowl mix the eggs with the ricotta until it is smooth, add salt and pepper to taste.

Dress the baking tin with the puff pastry, the left over bits you can use to decorate the pie.

Mix the egg/ricotta mixture with the spinach and chicory and after all is mixed transfer to the dressed baking tin.

Decorate with the leftover bits of the puff pastry.

Bake in the oven on about 180 degrees  for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

My mother in law for the first time offered to babysit on my husband birthday. So for the first time in 2 years we could go out together. As the weather gods might have heard that because all hell broke loose, there was a thunderstorm and if it was not raining it was hailing.

We went out anyway and we we had fun. It was so nice to be out once again with Daniele and just have a beer and a chat. Think we both really needed that.

Now it is sunny again and hopefully spring really starts this time.

Daniele saw this shop on the airport in America, and it made me very curios what they where so went surfing the net. They are some rubber Dutch wooden shoes. I love them , I want a pair for this summer as bright as possible.

The other day I saw a Dutch documentary called Beperkt houdbaar (short expiry). Which talks about the beauty industry and how women are being talked into looking like something that is impossible the natural way. How the models in magazines are being photoshoped in such an extend that nothing is the way it really is, and how women mirror themselves to those and try to achieve that “look” through plastic surgery and anti wrinkle cream. I got shocked by the amount of work perfectly healthy and normal looking women got done to there body to be able to look young an “fresh”.

So I have been thinking as i am a bit heavier then i should be, why is it that i want to loose weight?

Is it because of what the rest of the world expects me to do?

Part yes, my mother in law keeps mentioning that i should loose some weight and she notices every pound that i gain or loose. But she is very worried about her looks and spends fortunes on antiwrinkle cream and goes to the hairdresser every other week. 

Other part i just want to be able to buy cloths that i like, and unfortunately in Italy that is only sold in small sizes.But i could make the cloths myself. 

And then an other part is for my health just recently my father and grandmother are started having heart problems and in many ways i look a lot like them. So from a health point of view i really think i should.

Then the stretch marks on my tummy, i can actually say i am not ashamed of those, they are the marks of my 2 boys and worth every single stretch and then some.

So for my health i will loose some weight but for the rest i think is stay the way i am. Atleast i am real and not fake and if other people prefer fake let them have it in the end they end up wanting real things anyway.

When I was in school like most people I had to read Dutch literature, and write essays about those books. Maybe I read the wrong books but the books I read I found them very hard and actually boring. Maybe I should try to read some of those books now I am older maybe they will make more sense. Who knows.

I love to read. But books that talk about all the psychological problems of the main character and of loads of sexual relations between people and about cheating for me are just not interesting. I read to relax or to learn something new.

There are also some books that I have read recently that I found interesting. One talked about the consequences of industrialization of the milk farms in a small village in the east of Holland. Hoe god verdween uit Jorwerd

And another of black prince that was given as part of a deal to the king of Holland in the 1800′s and how his life was. De zwarte met het witte hart .

Now they are having a competition in holland of the best book, http://www.hetbesteboek.nl. And i read about half the books that are in teh final selection and i can not remember much of what they actually talked about. That is how big an impression the made on me. I am curios the see who wins and would love to read something of Kader Abdolah ,because i think his view on the world/life might be intresting.

Daniele is in America for a week for his work, today is the second day and I will be glad when it is finished. Then the normal week start and it is a bit less hard. I really do not like it when he is gone in the weekend.

Today I had a very nice day with my mother in law and the kids eating pizza on the beach. The kids had loads of fun splashing in the sea and running around in the sun. But still miss my husband I prefer to spend my days with him. Well the kids are really tired and sandy so will put them in a nice warm bath and after dinner to bed early.

Daniele is crazy about photography at the moment, and he really has a good eye for it as well. The other day he showed me the following site http://www.lomography.com/ is about people nuts about old Russian cameras that are now being reproduced and improved.

So surfing that site I found the following camera http://shop.lomography.com/colorsplashcamera/ I think it is really cool and am thinking of asking it for my birthday which is still very far away…..:(.

I finished the book i was talking about a few days back. I actually understood the whole story and liked it alot.

My mother on law already gave me a new book to read, “The Anger of Aubergines” from Bulbul Sharma. Wich is a mix between a cooking book and a novel, two of my favorite things, cooking and reading,mixed in one book intresting