28/07/2011

Mini Tomato and Feta Frittatas


Yesterday I made these delicious mini frittatas for dinner. A frittata is simply a baked ommelete, and very easy to make. I found this recipe (click) for a tomato and feta frittata on a blog called Food Coma, and thought it sounded really good. But since I don't have an oven safe pan I had to find a different solution. The recipe for mini frittatas from the June/July issue of the Dutch version of Jamie magazine inspired me to make mini frittatas in a muffintray. I also adapted the recipe from Food Coma a little, because I don't have any cups to measure the ingredients. Here is my adaptation to the recipe, it will make about 6 mini-frittatas (enough for 3 -6 people, depending on whether you are having them as a main dish or a side dish). I made 5 with tomato, feta and green scallions, and one with just feta for my brother. 

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 eggs
2 green scallions (for the Dutchies: bosuitjes)
1 Tasty-Tom tomato
100 g feta
salt and peper

You can add less or more garlic, scallions, tomatoes and feta, depending on your taste.

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius, and grease (do this well, it will make it much easier to take out the frittatas once finished) 6 holes of a muffintray. In a pan, saute the garlic in the olive oil for 1 minute over medium heat. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs + salt and pepper. Chop the green scallions. Add the garlic and green scallions to the egg mixture. Pour some egg mixture into each hole that you greased in your muffintray. Cut the tomato into pieces (they don't have too be too small) and crumble the feta. Add tomato and feta (again, don't make it too small) to the egg mixture in the holes of the muffintray. Put the muffintray into the oven and bake for about 12 minutes, so that the frittatas have turned golden-brown. Let them cool a bit before taking out of the tray.

I served these mini frittatas with Turkish bread and a simple salad with tomatoes.

If you don't like tomatos or feta, you can add other ingredients, such as mushrooms, ham, bacon, other types of cheese.

Are you going to try out these mini frittatas?

27/07/2011

Yay!

Remember I blogged about Daily Noted's give-away last week? The winner was announced today, and I won! I'm really surprised, especially since it was the first time I joined a give-away. Thank you to the girls from Daily Noted!

I won four Safari nailpolishes, a bag of fimo canes and two nailpolish wheels! A great prize, because a girl can never have enough nailpolish, and I didn't have any fimo canes or nailpolish wheels yet. Once I receive the prize I will dedicate a blogpost to it and let you know what I think of the products.

24/07/2011

Some new things

Yesterday I met up with 2 good friends, Kim and Yolanda (I hadn't seen her in 3 years! And Kim had never met Yolanda before.) in Utrecht. We had a lot of fun, and of course we spent most of our time shopping. I think we spent about 45 minutes in the H&M, and in the end we all bought the same cardigan, but in different colours. I bought a light blue one, Kim a dark blue one and Yolanda a pink one. Now we're cardigan triplets! Here are some pictures of the things I bought (and got).








The cardigan that I bought. It looks a bit weird on this picture, but I couldn't be bothered to do all the buttons.










A white singlet with black stripes and bows. Also from H&M.









A present from Yolanda, two photoframes and Autodrop (candy/liquorice in the shape cars). Yolanda put pictures of the three of us in the big photoframe, and wrote next to it that we could use it for the first picture of the three of us together.






I also bought caramel tea at the Xenos, but I don't have a picture of that. And Kim gave me and Yolanda chocolate muffins, but we ate them straight away so we don't have any pictures of those.

Did you go shopping or get any presents recently?

22/07/2011

David & Goliath

"We make stupid stuff, so you don't have to."

David & Goliath is a brand which was founded in 2000. They make different items, including clothes (ranging from sweaters to pyjama pants), with a sense of humour. The items have prints of well-known David & Goliath characters, and often also have funny sayings, for example: "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.". The brand focuses on girls and young women, but they are also starting to make things for men.

I really like the range of characters and sayings that are printed on the different items sold by David & Goliath. Sadly there is no David & Goliath shop in The Netherlands. So when I was in London, I just had to go there! I ended up visiting both the shop at Covent Garden and the one in Carnaby Street, because at Covent Garden they didn't have the items I liked in my size. Both shops are amazing, so if you are ever in London (or any other place where there is a David & Goliath shop), walk in, even if it's just to laugh at the funny items they sell. You can see the items I bought in London in my England shoplog, which you will find a few posts down. 

Here are some more items that I like:












 What do you think of David & Goliath? Do you have any David & Goliath items?

21/07/2011

Tea Tree Oil


Tea tree oil comes from a tree, the Melaleuca alternifolia, which only grows in Australia. This oil can be used to treat skin problems, something which the Aboriginals have already known for ages. The oil has many powerful sides, it for example kills bacteria and works as a painkiller. I have been using products containing Tea Tree oil for about 5 years, and at the moment I wouldn't want to use any different products for my face. I initially started using it as a treatment against my acne, but the products are still very useful when most of your acne has disappeared. The brand I use is called Courtin, and they have many different products containing Tea Tree oil, ranging from a face wash to foot cream. Of course there are also other brands selling Tea Tree products, I have seen some products in The Netherlands at Kruidvat, The Body Shop and De Tuinen.

My daily Tea Tree product ritual, which I would recommend to anyone, with or without acne:

Night (before I go to bed)

- clean face with the hand and face wash
- apply 24 hour cream (a day and night cream in one!) to face
- put a dab of pure tea tree oil on pimples (don't put it on your whole face, because it will dry out your skin! Also do not use it when you are going into the sun because, in combination with sunlight, it will bleach your skin.)

Morning (when I come out of the shower)
- apply 24 hour cream

These three products (the hand and face wash, the 24 hour cream and the pure tea tree oil) are the ones I use most. I really like the smell of the products, but for some people it takes a while to get used to it. My favourite product is the 24 hour cream, because it makes my skin really soft.

Do you use products containing Tea Tree oil, or did you ever use them? And what do you think of them?

Daily Noted's Give-away!



Daily Noted is one of my favourite blogs. It is run by 7 girls, and they each have their own day on which they post an article. This means there is a new article every day! The girls write in Dutch, but I think it's worth it to look at their blog even if you don't speak Dutch. I think the blog is very original, because the articles are not just about one theme, they are very diverse. So if you don't know Daily Noted yet, just go have a look!

Yesterday, Daily Noted started a give-away (<- click) to celebrate the fact that they have more than 100 followers (quite amazing because they only started a bit over 7 months ago) and 50,000 pageviews. And the prizes in this give-away are quite amazing! You can win 2 nail wheels, a bag containing about 500 fimo figures and 4 Safari nailpolishes.

I joined the give-away, are you going to join it too?

20/07/2011

Blueberry Muffins



This afternoon I made some delicious (well actually I haven't tasted them yet, but I already made them before and they were delicious) blueberry muffins! And it's actually quite easy to make them, here is the recipe:

According to the book I used, this recipe will make 12 muffins. I got 18 out of it, so I think it really depends on the size of the holes in your muffintray.

Ingredients
115 g very fine granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemonpeel
300 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 whisked (not sure whether this is the right word to use, but just whisk/mix them with a fork) eggs
2 1/2 dl milk
115 g butter, molten
1 teaspoon vanilla-essence
350 g blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius, gas setting 4. Put 12 paper liners in a muffinplate.

Use a spoon to mix the sugar, lemonpeel, flour and baking powder in a middle-sized bowl. Use a mixer to mix the eggs (remember to whisk them with a fork before doing this),  milk, molten butter and vanilla essence in a different bowl for one minute. Add the dry ingredients to this mixture, add the blueberries and use a spoon to mix everything. It is allowed to be a bit lumpy. Put the mixture in the muffin shapes.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes. Take the muffinplate out of the oven and leave it for 5 minutes. Take out the muffins and enjoy!

Source: 500 cupcakes by Fergal Connolly

If anyone wants the Dutch recipe, just ask, and I will copy or scan it for you! :]

Are you going to make these muffins?


19/07/2011

Posting comments

Hey,

I have a small problem and I hope one of my readers can help me!
I can't post comments to blogposts on blogger/blogspot, not even on my own blog... Everytime I want to post a comment I need to pick an account to log in with, so I pick my google account. Then I get redirected to the Blogger homepage to log into my google account (eventhough I was already logged in), and once I've done this I return to the comment. I then have to fill in a verification code, and when I click send, I get directed to the Blogger homepage where I have to log in again... And this is how it goes on, so I cannot post comments at all...
Can someone help me solve this problem?

x Loes

18/07/2011

England :]

Here are some pictures I took during my holiday (which was a busy one, because I was doing a university tour) in England!





Taken from the boat from Dunkirk to Dover.















A street in St. Albans, I thought the houses were adorable!















The ruins of a Roman theatre in St. Albans.











A house by the ruins of the Roman theatre. I thought it had a kind of magical touch.











Royal Holloway, University of London in Egham (a small town close to London). What a gorgeous building!

















Royal Holloway again :]
















Windsor Castle. We didn't go in, because it was really expensive. But it was nice from the outside as well :]


















A really long road (or whatever you want to call it) by Windsor Castle.














Lady Margaret Hall, the college I visited at Oxford. I love the gardens surrounding the building!










Corpus Christi, the college I visited at Cambridge. Again, an amazing building.











People punting on the Cam. We got lots of offers to go punting as well, but we didn't go because it was raining and we were busy with other things.

















King's College London, located right next to Waterloo bridge on the Thames <3















King's College London again.

















The Thames and the Big Ben.













The Big Ben again, we just finished dinner and the light of the sun was gorgeous!














The London Eye. The red box/cart/whatever made taking pictures so much more interesting :]













The London Eye and the Thames.















Enjoying the sunshine on Trafalgar Square!















In M&M World on Leicester Square, what a crazy store!











Sorry for the huge amount of photographs, but I didn't want to leave any of them out. All photographs (except for the ones with me on it) were taken by me. Please do not use them without my permission.

Which photograph do you like best? And what did you enjoy most when you last visited England?

17/07/2011

Shoplog England

I spent the first week and a bit of my holidays in England, and of course I did the necessary shopping! I didn't spend much time shopping for clothes, because my brother (who says I've been in a clothing shop for hours when, actually, I've only been in there for 15 minutes) and dad were with me and my mum. But I still bought some nice things. Here are some pictures:




David & Goliath pyjama pants! The left one has hearts in different colours/styles and the right one has little big bens, red busses, guards and clouds (I just had to buy this one!).





 



Two David & Goliath T-shirts, with London theme of course :]











Poster of the map of the tube (ignore the books, I had to make the poster flat xD).











Bag with I <3 London, for the schoolbooks that don't fit in my normal schoolbag, and tea in little red bus tins.


 






Close-up of the tins with tea. The left one contains 'London tea' and the right one English Breakfast tea.




 




Book with high tea recipes <3
And the book 'Make The Most of Your Time on Earth' with 1000 travel experiences in many different countries.





 




These cupcake cases are so cute, I just had to buy them when I saw them :]






 
Some books to help me prepare for university and some to help me with my extended essay. From left to right: a book with poems by Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca (including English translations!), a book with Spanish short stories (again with English translations), a book on how English became the world's language, a biography about Kazuo Ishiguro, an autobiography of Evelyn Waugh (I'm doing my extended essay on 'The Remains of the Day' by Ishiguro and 'Brideshead Revisited' by Waugh), and a book on linguistics. I think you can guess that I want to study something with language and linguistics?



I always send cards to my friends when I am on holidays, and I also always buy some for myself. This time I bought two in Oxford and one in Windsor.






 

After a lot of problems (I ordered it from Amazon.de but they sent me an e-mail twice saying that it would come 2 weeks later, and I searched for it in music stores in The Netherlands but they didn't have it anywhere) I finally got my copy of Dirty Work, All Time Low's new album! :]








Some magazines! Seventeen (an american magazine, which you've probably heard of in ANTM), National Geographic Traveler and Jamie (Oliver) magazine :]





Besides this we also bought a box of cadbury roses (amazing chocolates!), but I didn't take a picture of those. And my brother got a ferrari from my dad. Too bad for him it's a model xD

What kind of things do you buy when you go on holidays?

05/07/2011

Baking inspiration

I'm starting to love baking more and more, especially cupcakes are fun to make. What I love about baking is that you can use your creativity, especially when decorating (cup)cakes and cookies. You can use many different materials, colours and shapes to make it look exactly the way you want it. I haven't decorated that many cakes yet, so I only have a bit of experience with fondant and icing, but I want to enlarge my knowledge and skills of baking and decorating. Here are some pictures that inspire me when it comes to baking, doesn't everything look so yummy?






















Pictures were found on weheartit.com

Do you like baking?