Hasselt

Today I headed into Central Station with my Go Pass in my hand and no idea of where I wanted to go. I ventured upon two very lost looking boys from Flanders and helped them find their way to the tourist area of Brussels (Grande Place, Mannekin Pis etc). They recommended I check out their home town of Hasselt, the capital of the Limburg Province. So essentially we swapped cities for the day. And I must say, it was very nice. The town is quite affluent with some wonderful boutiques.

On the way home in the Metro there was sudden blast of fast tempo music. I looked around to find a Morrocan man with a karaoke machine stored in his granny shopping trolley singing "La Bamba" in the most apathetic way possible! Sometimes Brussels really is the most surreal of places!

Market Place

Irish Times Pub

Hasselt's Version of Manneken Pis

Pretty Purchases

Storage Boxes

Soap Dish

A bientot,
Niamh

Weekend with Kate

This weekend my friend Kate came to visiti from Ireland. She has family living in Belgium who took us for a shopping trip in Holland on Saturday. In a very strange way, it was nice to have some proper adults around- regression to a more child-like irresponsible state is something I do very well and quite readily. Kate bought a very cool dress called the "Fatal" which can be folded and adapted to form multiple new dresses. All the permutations!

On Sunday, it was just myself and Kate. We went for a walk in the snow and then headed into Brussels for lunch and some shopping (and yes! the stores were open). Afterwards we returned to my apartment and made Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Olive Oil cake. It has a great texture and contains no butter and only a small amount of flour. I mean it's so healthy it's practically a vegetable... Maybe. The recipe is here:
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/CHOCOLATE-OLIVE-OIL-CAKE-5551
We also tried to make vanilla icecream but the eggs scrambled. Boo. This was followed by a screening of "The Life of Brian". Yay! What a great weekend.

Pictures from our walk

Tourist Chocolate

Tourist Pictures

Town Hall- Star in the Centre of Brussels



Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Olive Oil Cake



Lovely new ceramic frying pans from Holland

A bientot,
Niamh x

Homemade Pizza

This weekend my ex-boyfriend joined me in Brussels for a fun weekend of touring museums, watching Monthy Python and (best of all) cooking! I neglected to take photos as we were having such a nice time. However, I really wanted to share the recipe of the homemade pizza we made together.

Pizza with Rocket and Parma Ham

Ingredients:

• 500g strong Italian 00 flour
• 15g fresh yeast
• 10g salt
• 50g olive oil
• 320g water

Instructions:
Crumble the fresh yeast into the flour, add the salt and mix, then put in the liquids and mix into a gooey dough. Then knead it for up to 25 minutes. The dough is kneaded enough when it starts to form a skin. When it gets to this stage put it into a floured bowl and leave to rest for an hour or so. Put on the oven to gas mark 9.

After the hour take it out and divide it into 3 pieces (you get 3 bases with the quantities above). You roll it out into pizza bases at this stage, but its best not to use a roller as such. Instead I use the palm of my hand to spread out each piece of dough, and then stretch it after that until its a decent size. You should aim to have the edge of the rolled out pizza dough slightly thicker to get a nice crust. When its rolled out you can cook it immediately by putting the base directly on to a hot pizza stone.

For the final product, cook them at gas mark nine until the cheese starts to brown.

For toppings, I really like salami and jalapeno peppers. There's also the classic Parma ham /Parmesan/rocket which we used to make a lot. And finally pesto, chicken and pine nut works well.

A bientot,
Niamh

Cycle Tour of Brussels

Today I joined my friend from the Craft Workshop for a cycle tour of Brussels. We started off in Porte de Namur and travelled around the city from Gare de Midi to Central. It was a wonderful afternoon without too much up-hill nonsense! It made me realise just how close everything is to each other in Brussels. And I managed to spot some rather nice looking cafes for future reference.

Villo

Street Art

Cool Art Museum

Comic Book Murals which appear throughout Brussels;
 often in less touristy areas so that people will visit those places

At Place Anderlicht we stopped for a bit of vintage shopping. I plan on retunring next month after I buy my sowing machine so that I can really delve into the world of clothes design and tailoring.

At the Vinatge Market

A bientot,
Niamh

Scrap Booking

I'm having a lovely day so far.. This morning I went to a "Brochante", or flea market, held in the parking lot of my local Supermarket! I bought a few bits and pieces for craft work and a French language copy of Madame Bovary. For the remainder of the morning I've been making a scrap book with all the tickets and souvenirs I've collected since moving to Brussels.

This evening I've planned to go for beers with a friend so I will need to wash all the PVC glue and oil based paint off my hands soon!
A bientot,
Niamh

Carnival in Tournai

Today I went to festival to Tournai, the second oldest Town of Belgium, to enjoy the picturesque medieval city center, the beautiful market place, the river Wescaut ("Schelde" in Dutch), some Unesco World Heritage Sites and...
The Carnival? Yes, the Carnival!
When nearly everywhere in the rest of the world the carnival season is over, the inner part of Tournai was closed for traffic to celebrate carnival. I had never attended any Belgian festivities and I must say the atmosphere was wonderful. Everyone participated and there way a never ending stream of merry people in exotic costumes! Check out the pictures below. The only question I have is where on Earth the Belgians get all the crazy outfits from considering the sobriety of their daily attire!

Tournai Carnival Spirit

Grande Place

Clash between two parade floats

The drums.. the drums..

The famous Belfrie

Hotel de Ville

Gas-masked Angel at Entrance of Musee de Beaux Arts

A bientot,
Niamh

Dinner for Nine

Yesterday I spent the day preparing a simply scrumptious meal for nine at my friend's home in Stockel. We convened early in the morning for brunch and grocery shopping. The remainder of the day was spent preparing in our respective homes and the evening was spent in good company with very good Irish whiskey.

The Table Arrangement

Last minute prep work

Enjoying our meal

For starters we had a selection of cheese, tomatoe crevettes and olive oil soaked bread. The olive oil was pressed from plants in the garden of my friend's grandmother in Provence. For the main dish, lamb tajine was served. I made the following three salads from the Ottolenghi Cookbook:

• Green bean, mangetout and hazelnut salad
• Broccoli salad with red pepper and garlic
• Quinoa and red rice salad

And also some delicious Strawberry ice-cream which received quite a few compliments.

Strawberry Ice-cream

Neuhaus Belgian Chocolate tofinish

A bientot,
Niamh x