A very late update on my Gift Exchange...

!! Please do not forget to let me know which cookies I should bake for my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies here (and if possible leave a link to the recipe) !!

This update on my gift exchange is long overdue....!!! Way back in July I thought it was a great idea to host a gift exchange and I asked whomever wanted to participate to leave me a message. Luckily a few other bloggers agreed with me and I got a little group together to swap gifts. I used Elfster to draw the tickets and asked everyone to send their gift by the end of August.

So about one week later I received a package in the mail from Marie of A Year From Oak Cottage, co check out her blog as she has the most amazing collection of recipes on there!!

Now on to the contents of my package... My cat Senna was very interested in the content of the box too!

The first item I found in my parcel was this box of chocolates, I liked them a lot! I almost forgot to share them with a fried that was visiting :)

Up next was this wonderful Earl Grey Tea



Then I took out these gorgoues items, I love the packaging as it is pink: my favourite colour! Great soap, bath powder and hand cream. The hand cream actually travels with me wherever I go now: it smells like roses and moisturizes my hands ultrafast without leaving some sort of film over my hands!



Marie also sent me the cutest little book on cooking I ever saw



But the biggest surprise of them all were these Rhubarb and Custard Sweets, I somehow imagined these to me soft sweet like a winegum of sort. Instead these were hard candies. I loved them!! The sweetness of the custard and the tartness of the rhubarb are balanced to perfection!!



Again I would like to thank all of the participants of my Gift Exchange and especially Marie for sending me such an amazing spread of gifts!!

Request for Cookie recipes!

Last week I have been busy for my blog: although I haven't been posting much , I have been quite busy preparing some posts that will be going up the next couple of days.

They will be about:

• A review of my Smulwebdiner @ Librije's Zusje
• A very late update on my Gift Exchange
• Fast Chicken Stroganoff
• Pasta with Balsamic Crushed Tomatoes
• Blueberry Crumb Cake
• Maple Syrup, Oats and Pecan Muffins
• Banketstaaf, a Dutch treat we usually eat at Sinterklaas and in some cases at Christmas as well

I am also going to do a series called '12 Days of Christmas Cookies', inspired by LunaCafe's extravaganze of Chistmas Cookies in 2008, where I will be posting a recipe and pics of cookies on twelve consecutive days. I'm going to bake 12 types of cookies and gift these to coworkers, family and friends. These cookies need to be tasty and not have a list of ingredienst that will cause me to go bancrupt. I already have some cookies in mind, but am open to suggestions. So please let me know if you have a recipe that you think I should definitely bake for my Christmas Cookie Extravaganza! Ow and links to the recipes would be highly appreciated!

Pumpkin Curry with Naan Bread

I've been such a slacker lately, I've been slacking all over the place: blogging, cooking, baking, cleaning etcetera.... Had a lot on my mind. But everything's okay now: the work situation has been sorted. On November 2nd I started my new old job... My contract at the job agency ended and was not prolonged due to the economic situation. However the company I was temping at was so content with my work that they offered me the position I was temping at for the last year. Big Yay!

On to todays dish: Pumpkin Curry with Naan Bread. This dish was featured on the recipe display at Albert Heyn, the supermarket I shop at. It's a vegetarian dish and I thought it would be perfect for this time of year, the recipe can be found here (in Dutch!).



This curry is quite easy to make and actually one fo the first dishes in which I got to use the stalks of coriander. The pumpkin I used had thin husk and it wasn't necessary to peel it, because the husk gets soft when you stew the pumpkin

This is a delicious vegetarian dish, it tastes really smooth and subtle. I expected it to have a bit more of a kick somehow. This dish contains 430 kilocalories per portion and 8,5 WW Points



Pumpkin Curry with Naan Bread
(4 portions)

1 small pumpkin (AH puur & eerlijk biologisch)
30 gram butter
2 onions, quartered
2 tbsp currypowder
200 ml water
15 gram fresh coriader, leaves finely chopped and stalks finely chopped but kept seperated
450 gram frozen peas
300 gram greek yoghurt
1 package Naan Bread Garlic & Coriander (Patak's 4 pieces)



Cut the pumpkin in half, remove the threads and seeds and cut it into pieces. Melt the butter in a pan and cook the onions for 3 minutes. Add the currypowder and pumpkin and stir fry for 5 minutes.


Add the water and coriander stalks, cover the pan and stew the pumpkin for 10 minutes. Add the frozen peas and yoghurt and bring to a boil untill the peas are warm.


Prepare the naan breads according to the packaging and cut them into long slices.


Serve the pumpkin curry with the naan bread and top with the finely chopped coriander.