Weather is miserable today and to be honest, for the last week. Rain and heavy storm and cold. Fields are flooding around our little village. At night I get the horses in, out of the wet field and on to the concrete. They don't seem to mind. Around 10PM they are already waiting to get in.

The weather is that bad that not even the dogs want to go outside but curl up on the couch or in their beds in front of the woodburner.

Approaching the festive season, I thought it's time to experiment with some vegan baking. No eggs and no "normal" butter.

Today I have a pear/banana/walnut up side down cake in the oven. Never done one before and it's a bit of trial and error I think. My neighbours will be my guinea pigs. They don't know it yet though :-)

I wrote down all the ingredients I used. If it's a hit I'll post it on here.

With the cake in the oven I can concentrate on my last Christmas commission. You can follow the progress on my FB page or my blog. Just visit my website and follow the links.

Just a quick note.

I'm very busy at the moment with my paintings. I have commissions to finish before Christmas and they have to be framed and sent to the client. This Saturday I will be going to my parents again. Hubby will look after the animals :-)

When I'm back I will up date my  blog. I have some nice new websites and apps too for you.

Talk to you next week.

Donna's soup (the recipe)

I think my husbands American Mam Donna won't mind that I share her Orzo Corn Soup recipe with you. I made some slight changes as I can't get any Orzo here where I live. You can easily replace it with brown rice.

Here we go:
1.5tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
vegetable stock. I use veggie stock cubes and 1.5ltr water
2 chopped onions
4  garlic cloves chopped (I love garlic, but of course you can use less)
150 gr brown rice
1 tbsp oregano
2 tins chopped tomatoes
250 gram corn kernels
salt
1 tbsp basil
pepper

Sauté the onions in the oil till tender and than ad all the rest of the ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15minutes (or more depending on the rice)
I easily forget the soup and it might simmer for half an hour :-)

This really is a very filling soup. Make it in big quantities and put it in the freezer. Enjoy.

The Asian Vegan Kitchen (a gem of a cookbook)

It was my birthday last week and I got a vegan cookbook from a dear friend.

I have already a few vegan cookbooks, but this one is a gem. It's written by Hema Parekh and covers more than 200 recepies from Asian countries.

Countries covered are: India, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia and Korea. I have seen already quite some lovely recepies I'm going to try. I'm familiar with the Indian, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian kitchen ,but the other ones are new to me, and let be honest... You can never have too many cookbooks.

Hema keeps it very simple. She gives a clear list of ingredients, and simple step by step how to do it. The pictures are very well presented and makes you want to create that dish. At the back there is a very helpful Glossary of ingredients in case you don't know what some ingredients are.

Almost all of the ingredients can be bought in a good stocked supermarket. I had already a look in my cupboard and fridge to see if I have enough to make a few nice dished. I'm going Burmese tonight: Curry with split pea fritters and rice.