'Super food' Dutch curly kale recipe

Its a funny idea that suddenly Curly Kale becomes a "super food" while growing up I have consumed Curly Kale since  I was a toddler and I am now 58 years old.

Curly Kale or called "boeren kool" translated "farmers cabbage", don't know why, is a staple food during winter time in the Netherlands.

The winters can be long and cold and not much grows in the bare soil over winter except curly kale and endive, also one of the healthy foods.

Curly Kale is packed with vitamin C and other goodies, so we eat this vegetable a lot during winter mashed raw with potatoes and bacon.

Isn't it great that my parents not only grew their own vegetables but also fed me this "super food" and they didn't knew then how much we now crave for all this amazing food been around for years.

Curly Kale growing in my garden bed

After picking the curly kale from the garden I mostly soak the leaves in cold salty water for a while, most bugs,like little snails, hate salty water so they pop up to the surface and I can get rid of unwanted extras. I don't spray, I rather put up with little bugs then chemicals on my vegetables.

Soaking in salty water to get the bugs out.

The winter in the Netherlands is cold and mostly this dish is served with extra protein, like sausages and bacon.

Frying the sausages and bacon.

 The bacon and the very fine cut raw Curly Kale are mashed through the cooked potatoes.

Steamed Curly Kale.

 My Curly Kale has been in the garden since autumn, because the flavour really intensifies and the leaves can get a bit tough, I steam the leaves for 3 min to soften. Also I remove the stalks.
Then I  mash the Curly Kale and bacon through potatoes and serve with sausages and applesauce. Yummy!

A plate with yummy food.

Shabby chic market at Beacon Hill Estate

Today another great Shabby Chic market at Beacon Hill in Richmond.

The forecast was not great, but the weather stayed nice till the end of the day and then the rain clouds came, but enough time to pack up the stall.

The gold coin donations paid at the entrance gate goes to a good course, helping young women in Asia to find new life out of prostitution, often caused by poverty.

A nice collection.

Roger,my friend helped me with setting up the gazebo and the stall.
Roger makes vintage coat racks and he uses old door handles and wardrobe knobs for the racks.
My grapevine wreaths all sold and I could have sold my tea trolley 3 times over and have commissions to paint chairs.

Rogers vintage coat racks with old door knobs

The shabby chic market is very popular and busy and has the same atmosphere as the Brocante markets in France.
Two lovely girls played the violin and the food is also divine.
I had a beautiful beetroot/carrot cake decorated with sugar pansies and great coffee.

Customers around my stall

A beautiful flower display

There is so much to see and buy, but because its very busy, I didn't have enough time to look around,but just enough to buy a little cardigan.

Another lovely stall

The next market will be the end of November and this is a Christmas market, so as soon as I am in our new house and boxes unpacked I better start making Christmas gifts in Shabby chic style.

Knitted cupcakes and flowers

Today in the village we held our yearly Garden Club Flower show.

The weather was not great, a very cold start with lots of rain, also our voting day, but lots of visitors came and had a look at the Spring Flower displays.

I booked a table for some of my shabby chic recycled pieces and also craft items.

My knitted cup cakes were a good talking point,one lady asked me if the real cupcake was inside,so the look on her face when I told her that inside was only stuffing was slightly interesting!

Knitted cupcakes

 Of course we had a little cafe with lots of homemade baking and hot drinks and this was a great place to catch up with some of my friends and people from the village.

Little decoupaged tins

 Later in the day the rain cleared and that was good for packing up.
The end of a nice day in Mapua.

Decoupage and transfers

The Garden flower show