Homemade paletas

Paletas are popsicles from Mexico. They have their own name because they are different, these are made from pure fruit and/or fruit juice, yoghurt, milk... not your basic water-sirup blend.
Recently I bought a book by Elisabeth Johansson on homemade ice-cream and I used one of her recipes to use some fresh fruit.

Blueberry-strawberry paletas (12 pieces)



- 300 ml of water
- 40 grams of granulated sugar
- 2 spoons of honey
- 200 grams of blueberries
- 200 grams of strawberries

Mix the water, sugar and honey and heat untill boiling.
Let it cool down and divide between two bowls.
Mash both fruits and add each to one bowl of water-sugar-honey mix.
Add the blueberry mixture to your popsicle mold and put in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
If the mixture is more set after the 30 minutes, gently add the strawberry mixture to the mold. The two should still be seperate in the popsicle, not as one mixture.
Put them back in the freezer for a night.

Your homemade paletas are done!

These kind of popsicles have less sugar and additions which makes them healthier and they are easy and fun to make. Go ahead and paletas!

Love,
Noes

Ice, ice baby

The sun is out, the temperature goes up... we are getting ready for summer! While hanging around in the sun all day, you might be in need of something cool.
Try this: home made popsicles
What you need:
- a regular or immersion blender
- a mould for popsicles
- your favorite ingredients

Fruity

Strawberry, melon, lime, pear, kiwi... when you are making popsicles with fruit you can go all nuts mixing it up. Blend them seperatly and layer the flavors or just keep it simple and use your favorite fruit. For a little something extra you could add some mint leaves or forget the blender, chop up your fruit and fill up the mould with sprite.

Creamy

Rather add something more? Try yoghurt or even cheesecake!
You can also cover your fruity popsicle with a layer of chocolate when it's all done.

Specials

And what about your favorite drink? Champagne, mojito, margarita or limoncello. Sounds delicious to me!
One thing you do have to keep in mind while making this kind: The higher the alcohol percentage, the lower the temperature of your freezer must be. Really high percentages won't turn into ice, so take that into consideration while shopping for ingredients.

For the little ones

Simply freeze sprite with gummibears to create this fun popsicle!

I can't wait for the real summer days to come. What will you be making?

Love,
Noes

City seeing: Utrecht

Spending time at the very center of our country: Utrecht, a little bit of everything.
There are many options to fill your time with when you visit Utrecht, in between those you should definitely pay a visit to Daen's.

Just as Utrecht itself has a lot of diversity, so has Daen's. Fashion, coffee, wine, food, hotel that is how they summarize themselves.
Last weekend I explored the coffee and food aspect. And while you are there anyway you can't help but to look around and notice the influence of fashion even within the cafe.

Washi taped pictures on the wall, it's all the rage. We know that from personal experience.

Wise words.

Clipboard menu. Very stylish and very delicious content.

Freshly baked carrot cake. It was either this one or key lime pie, decisions decisions.

Apart from this delicious cake you can also enjoy a nice lunch or some appetizers with a glass of wine. After a moment for yourself you continue next door for Daen's fashion.
Be sure to pay them a visit when you are in town.

Daen's
Korte minrebroederstraat 13-17
3512 gg Utrecht

Love,
Noes

Last minute snack

We probably have all been in the situation: It's weekend, stores may be closed but you get a call from friends or family that like to come over.
Do I have anything to serve as a snack?
Home made or fresh baked goods are the most popular but you're not always prepared for that.

From now on, you will.
Make sure your freezer always provides puffy pastry (bladerdeeg), grated cheese, ground beef and have an egg, salt, pepper, sesame seed and/or poppy seed in stock.

Let's get started!



First of all preheat your oven at 220 degrees and lay out a few slices of the pastry to get on room temperature.




Slice 'm up, lay them out on a baking tray coverd with baking paper and cover the top with some egg. The egg is to let your topping stick and to let your snack have some more color after baking.




Sprinkle your chosen topping. I have the sesame and poppy seed combined with some coarse salt and the others are topped with grated cheese.

Option two!



Lay out the pastry (sticky side up) and cover about half of it with the cheese and some pepper (optionally).




Cover one side with some egg, fold and close by the use of a fork. This way the pastry will stick together and it also looks neat, doesn't it?




Cut up into smaller pieces.




Again, cover the top with some egg and the leftover cheese.
Bake for about 20 minutes and you are done!

Puffy pastry is ideal to have in stock for these kind of 'events'. You can fill or cover it with anything you like and it's probably the easiest thing to do.
Have a good weekend and don't forget to stock up your freezer.

Love,
Noes

Little things

Blogger Emily from Cupcakes and Cashmere can be an inspiration for many things. She has many DIY ideas, fashion and make-up tips and yummy recipes but today she inspired me with something else.
Regularly she posts a blog under the name of 'Five things'. In this blog she simply shows and names five things that make her happy.
And be honest, it really is that easy. Pretty flowers, something new after shopping, a good time with friends, your pet, a good meal, anything can make you happy.

Fifi Lapin

Her latest book is 'The wonderful world of Fifi Lapin: Style secrets of a furry fashionista'. How fun is that?
It's not in the regular book stores here but I found some possibilities for online shops so I'm secretly hoping this one will be under the Christmas tree for me.

Treasure hunt
This one is the catch of my latest 'treasure hunt' aka vintage shopping. I personally am not a fan of all vintage items but I do love furniture a lot. This one was hidden away, all kinds of Christmas decorations stacked on top of it, but that didn't keep me from finding it. Lovely isn't it?

Cutie
My sisters pet rabbit Nacho is the cutest thing in the world. Who wouldn't love a face like that?

Home made

Home made pizza. I love pizza as it is but as many things, home made is often the best. I'm baking one as we speak and the entire ground floor of the house smells so good, I'm hungry!

Hart of Dixie

A series with a fun storyline, starring Rachel Bilson and this guy... instant success! I started watching it because of Rachel Bilson, but when the character 'Wade' came into the picture, it was settled.
His name is Wilson Bethel, obviously he is drop dead gorgeous (you should see that crooked smile) and he's young! Not a George Clooney hot but 'Oh boy he's hot' .
Spoiler!
He and Zoe (Rachel Bilson) actually get together in the series at some point, yay! Don't we all wish we were her?

I hope you are all gonna make pizza, be nice to your pet and watch Hart of Dixie right away. Enjoy!

Love,
Noes

Spinach and cheese pasta

Now that I have more spare time, I like to experiment some more with recipes.
Last night is was time for the spinach and cheese pasta I found a while back and since it was a success I'm sharing it with you all!

As a main course for 6 people you will need:
- 500 gr of pasta, rigatoni or conchilgie for example.
- 2 ts of olive oil
- 75 gr of butter
- 75 gr of flour
- 700 ml of milk
- 200 gr of Gorgonzola cheese
- 600 gr of fresh spinach
- 2 cloves of garlic
- italian herbs
- 250 gr of ricotta cheese

1. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.
2. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package.
3. Heat the butter in a pan and add the flour. Bake it about 5 minutes while stirring, it looks a little like dough now. Add the milk and get it to boil while still stirring. Once the sauce is thickened you add the Gorgonzola and salt and pepper to your taste. Again let it softly boil for 5 minutes.
4. Heat the olive oil in a wok and add the spinach in shares with the garlic. Keep heating it until it reduces, add salt and pepper to your taste.
5. Mix the spinach with the pasta and put it in an baking dish. Add the cheesesaus to it and mix again.
6. Add the Italian herbs, some pepper and salt to the ricotta cheese and spread it on top of it all.
7. Bake it for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Love,
Noes

Food lovin'

Photography.
Some love it for fashion, for scenery, celebrities or maybe art.
I love it for food!

Gosh I love it so much. Not because I just want to eat it all, sure who wouldn't, but because it's just so damn pretty. It makes sense, what you see is what you get. There's no secret there except the recipe.
It doesn't need make-up, it's not complaining or will be late.
You make decorate your cake the way you want, style the table, set up good lighting and you are ready to rumble.
I won't judge other opinions, I know several who have a different taste for photography, but regularly those don't make sense to me. I don't understand the message, reason or style. Or I just don't like it.

Me and food, we don't fight. We love each other.

For the record, all these photographs are from Pinterest. Unfortunately none are made by me, but aren't they gorgeous?
For anyone writing a cook- or baking book.. Just make an amazing cover and add some great photographs inside and I'm sold. I will definitely buy it.
In fact, hand me a book with these amazing photographs and leave out the recipes. I will still buy it.

My compliments to Jamie Oliver, Mia Ohrn, the Hummingbird Bakery, Peggy Porschen and Leila Lindholm. Your cookbooks have done exactly that and not only are the photographs amazing, the recipes are too.

Yep. Food styling and photography done right make me the happiest girl in the world.

Love,
Noes

City seeing: seaside shopping

What better way is there to spend your day off than getting on the road and just visit another city than the usual?
Especially with the amazing weather we've had here the past days.

My day off, Wednesday, was spend in lovely Middelburg.
Some highlights:

HoneyPie

Cute, fun, delicious, making-me-jealous.

We went here for some tea, cake and ofcourse sightseeing. The teashop has pretty wallpaper, only the prettiest floral teacups, the most famous Dutch mushroom (red with white dots) in almost everything and a display like a candyshop.

 An all time favorite, a familiar friend. Dille & Kamille, who could ignore you?

From an old friend to a new friend, Beadle.

As soon as you enter the shop you'll want to buy everything, trust me. I was able to controle myself and bought the thing I loved most, a gorgeous necklace to which the owner (really nice and so creative) added a few pretty things for me.

She sells jewelry she designed and made herself but also tons of different beadles and beads to make something yourself, so very tempting.

As there is a time for shopping, there is one for a break with some lunch. Outside in the sun.

Apart from these highlights, the city has many more things to offer such as well known names in fashion, shoes, electronics and others included in bigger city centers.

A thing not every center is able to share is the iconic sight of the town, especially looking like this at the start of spring.

It was the perfect day off, away from the daily routine and surroundings. The first day being able to wear sunglasses all day long, stroling around town and not thinking about time.

Middelburg, you are lovely.

Love,

Noes