Traditional Belgian dish - chicon and ham rolls

I made this dish last night so thought I'd take a few shots of it and post the recipe here. It's one of my favourite dishes, more a winter kind of thing, but I indulge in it all year round.

The main ingredient is chicon, or witloof chicory*, which are pretty difficult to find in the U.K.. They're slightly bitter, so if you're not a fan of artichokes and Brussels sprouts, stay away from them ;)

* Witloof Chicory (also called French or Belgian Endive) are blanched, tight heads produced by forcing (or growing in the darkness) the big mature chicory roots in forcing structures. See picture further down.

I have tweaked the original recipe - which uses lots of butter and cheese - to make a WW-friendly version, but if you're not on a diet, please indulge in the real thing as it is absolutely divine with the added ingredients ;)

Ingredients (serves 1)
(the reason I make this dish for 1 person is that my husband hates chicon, so I always make it just for myself)

2 nice big chicon
2 large slices of ham (about 30 g per slice)
200 ml semi-skimmed milk
2 level tbsp cornflour
150 g potatoes
1/2 tsp butter
salt, pepper, grated nutmeg
Optional: grated cheese


Preparation
Cut about 1 cm off the base of the chicon and cut out a small cone to get rid of the harder core. Don't wash the chicon before cooking, as this increases their bitterness apparently. If necessary, remove one or two outer leaves if not perfectly clean.

Melt a tiny amount of butter in a saucepan (about 1/2 tsp is enough), then add the chicon to the pan. The butter just gives them a really nice creamy taste, so I don't leave it out, but you could. Add half a cup of water and cover, leaving to simmer on a low heat for about 35 minutes (the softer the chicon become, the nicer they are). The water should just about fully evaporate - make sure they don't burn and add a little extra water if necessary.


I usually make this dish with mashed potatoes (simply cook the potatoes, drain the excess water and add a couple of tbsp of milk to them before mashing them up, then add salt and pepper).

For the sauce: put the milk on to boil and add the cornflour. Stir on a low heat for about 20 minutes, while the sauce thickens (this is a low-fat version of a white sauce. For the full-fat version, use an equal amount of butter and flour). Season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.

Take the cooked chicon and roll each one in a slice of ham. Serve with the mashed potatoes and cover with the white sauce.

Optionally, you can sprinkle the dish with grated cheese and put it in the oven to grill for a few minutes.

The low-fat version of this dish is 7 points (including the potatoes). Add extra points if you use butter in the sauce or grated cheese on top.

Bon appétit!

Recipe time - rice and tuna salad

I've never posted a recipe before, but this one is so yummy I thought I'd share it.
It's also very easy to make and great as a summer dish.
I made it today and for the first time I used brown rice instead of white and it works just great, much healthier too :)

Ingredients (serves 4):
180 g dried brown rice
1 small tin of sweet corn (140 g)
1 large tin of tuna fish in brine (185 g)
2-3 tomatoes or about 20 cherry tomatoes (love cherry tomatoes!), chopped
20 green olives, chopped
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped

Seasoning:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
salt, pepper, oregano, parsley, garlic, onion...

Cook the rice, boil the eggs, chop up the tomatoes, olives and eggs and, when everything's cooled down, mix all the ingredients together in a big salad bowl. Other ingredients are possible, depending on what you have handy: anchovies, bell peppers, capers, apples, nuts, cheese...

The salad itself is 4.5 points per serving, the seasoning 1 extra point, but it's possible to use lower point salad dressing if you want. I love my olive oil, so this is one thing I still indulge in :)

Enjoy!

Training, doubt and procrastination (again)

Yesterday I was thinking about a recruitment ad I saw for freelance English teachers at a language school and noticed they mentioned requiring a TEFL certificate. So I decided to look into how to obtain one and found a course in London which looks really interesting. It's a 1 month course and with the pound so low, works out quite cheap compared to other similar courses.

I'm thinking: if I can get a job giving trainings in English via one of the language schools in Brussels - a subject I obviously have an advantage in, it being my mother tongue - I can build up experience in training and move on to give other subjects that interest me maybe a bit more (the "personal development" subjects, like conflict management, assertive communication, etc).

So I took the plunge and sent off an application for the course. There's a 30 minute phone interview and if I'm accepted, hopefully I can get on the course that starts in March!!

Which also means I get to live in London for a month! I've got quite a few friends living there and one of them has already offered me a place to stay during the course, and I'm frankly quite excited about the whole idea :)

Bart on the other hand was a bit sceptical and put quite a damper on the whole project last night, saying he didn't see why I was taking a course in something that wasn't what I wanted to give trainings in initially. I don't know if he was being really short-sighted or acting like that because he's afraid of me going off for a month, but it made me second-guess myself for a moment and I hate that. It reminded me so much of my father, always destroying all my projects and making me feel inept and incapable of deciding anything for myself.

I also realised that it was no wonder I had such a hard time deciding what I wanted in life, after living for so long with someone who always decided everything for me and made sure I never got to choose my own path.

I actually found an interesting article on the website of Psychology Today, linking my father's attitude with my current tendency to procrastinate. It says: "Procrastinators are made not born. Procrastination is (...) one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling father keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances."

Anyway, I explained all this to Bart and I think we've sorted it out. Now to hear back from the school and see if I can get accepted... and we'll take it from there.

Brainwaves

Last night at dinner, a friend who has recently been promoted to head of marketing was explaining how she wanted to get rid of their current ad agency and how she would prefer to work directly with freelancers, but didn't have the time to do all the extra coordination.

Me being me, I didn't even blink at the time, and it was only several hours later, at around 1.30 a.m., lying in bed, that I realised I might have the perfect solution for her: I could coordinate her ad campaigns for her! Bart already has his company he uses for his freelance copywriting business, and I am after all an Account Manager, perfectly capable of managing my own clients!

I was so excited at the idea, I shared it with Bart and obviously neither of us could sleep after that. I immediately sent my friend an email, and she replied today, extremely enthusiastic!

So now I'm of course completely snowballing the whole idea, and thinking I could easily find 2 or 3 such clients and basically handle all their advertising needs. I have experience in enough different types of projects to pull it off... and we'd have a serious competitive edge, because as freelancers we ask for a lot less than ad agencies' normal rates. Of course we wouldn't be doing huge national campaigns, more like sales folders, maybe some mailings, brochures, etc... stuff the traditional agencies turn their noses up at most of the time.

So, anyway, I sat down this morning and decided to put all my ideas and options on paper. I used the mind mapping technique and thought the result was pretty neat:


I think a scenario is starting to form in my mind, but I need to let it sink in for a while... But I'm really excited!!

My Scanner Daybook - May 20th

My little coffee shop

My coffee shop would have sky blue walls, red and yellow tables, a light blue floor, and wooden misfitted chairs.

It would have big comfy sofas and armchairs.

It would have a bookcase full of books you could just pick out and browse through. You could even bring in books you've read and exchange them for books in the bookcase.

There would be paintings on the walls, each month from a different, talented, upcoming artist from anywhere in the world.
The paintings would be for sale and anyone who came into the coffee shop could buy one.

We would serve delicious coffees - lattes, espressos, cappuccinos... and teas with all kinds of different flavours - we'd have a glass cabinet on the wall next to the counter with all our teas in it and customers could pick the one they want.

We would serve homemade cookies, cakes (carrot cake, banana cake) and tarts (chocolate tart, lemon meringue) for morning or afternoon tea and tortillas and dips (homemade guacamole, mmmmh), raw vegetables, olives and other finger foods for a light lunch or appetizer in the evening.

There would be a big box full of games next to the bookshelf. Chess, checkers, card games... and guests could chill out and play a game at their table.

On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we'd get a jazz band or singer/songwriter in to play some music.

Every month, we'd have themed workshops, where people could come and paint, or knit, or make jewelry.

Ideally, we'd have a little garden out back where we could put some tables and chairs (those beautiful Moroccan tables with mosaic tops) on hot summer days. The garden would be full of fairy lights to give it a magical feel in the evening.

Instead of ordinary beer coasters, we could have blank cards where guests could draw something or write a thought. They would be pinned up on one of the walls and anyone who wanted to could add one.

We could develop our own line of postcards with some of the drawings or thoughts, and make badges out of them too.

We could design our own coffee mugs and tea pots, and give each one a different design.

The name of the place would be something relaxing and inspiring. Something simple. Like "Soul".

We would make our own cool website, where the past and upcoming artists' works of art would be displayed, and we could add cool new recipes on it, let customers send us postcards from around the world and advertise all the concerts and workshops.

Our clients would be mainly students, travelers, artists.

We'd let the guidebooks know about us, like the Lonely Planet and the Globetrotter, and hope they visit us and reference us.

We could have a big pin board where people could post all their ads for traveling companions or rooms for rent.

Planning

Well, I'm completely set on achieving my goal of changing jobs - and my entire career - by September 15th at the latest, just in time for all the courses starting.

Now to work out
a) what I'll do for a job while I'm studying and
b) how I'll pay for the courses with the wedding coming up and my bank account shrinking every month.

But I'm certain I have to get out of my current job and take the dive.
That's already a huge step as far as I'm concerned.

So far so good

Well, I've been quiet lately, which doesn't mean I haven't been busy.

I've taken a few steps towards finding out more about becoming a professional trainer.

I contacted an ex-colleague who is director of an agency who gives trainings on the off-chance he would accept to meet with me for an informal discussion, and he did!

I saw him yesterday and had a really good feeling about the discussion, as I felt I was really comfortable, just asking for information and trying to figure out the big picture, while he basically offered to put me in contact with one of their trainers, let me have a trial run in a fake training session so they could give me feedback and perhaps even put me on some projects if they think I have the potential.

Of course, it's going to be a huge leap of faith no matter what way I go about it, as I will have to quit my current job - there's no way in hell I can combine the two - and I wouldn't be able to work full time as a trainer from the beginning. I'd
also have to invest a lot of time and money in following trainings myself. Which I know I'll enjoy but leaves me wondering how I'll pay the mortgage at the end of the month.

Today was interesting as well as I was following a training for work on presentation techniques and got to see myself on camera as I gave a presentation. Damn, I desperately need to lose weight. Other than that I was pretty happy with the result. I also talked a bit with the woman who was giving the training, but didn't want to sound too enthusiastic or get too concrete as she is after all working for my boss, and as long as I'm not sure what I want to do I'd prefer he not know I'm looking around.

I'm pretty happy with myself for taking these (baby) steps, and at the same time extremely nervous and scared of the big unknown.

My Scanner Daybook - April 15th

This morning in the shower I imagined playing the stock market to make some quick money and fund my early retirement.

I have the idea that you can either play the stock market 2 ways: the scientific approach and the gut feeling approach.

Either you spend hours and hours studying fluctuations in the market, tracking historical movements in stock prices and applying complicated statistical models to diversify your risk and maximise your return (all things I learned during university but have since very much forgotten).

Or you follow your gut feeling, with minimal input, just some common sense. I definitely like this approach better and am sure the results can be just as good, if not better.

I mean, I'm sure if I was looking to invest 10 years ago, Google would have "felt" like a really good horse to bet on, and I'd be stinking rich by now. Something I'm sure no statistical model could predict. So the idea would be to identify the next Googles of the stock market and invest my money in them (not that I actually have money to invest, but I'm speaking theoretically here).

So, what would I look for? Companies just starting to make a name for themselves on the market place. Probably offering simple but effective products or services, usually creating a market for themselves by tapping into previously unrecognised needs. I mean, who can live without Google in today's world? When 10 years ago most people didn't even realise they could one day have any use for its functions.

Of course, that would imply some research, scanning the internet for articles, news, new trends and recently developed features. I firmly believe internet is the future and will see amazing developments in the very near future, so I'd probably investigate internet companies first.

I would also need to look into the best way to actually buy and sell. Would I have to pass through my bank? That seems so tedious and slow. I'd look into online services that allow small investors to manage their investments online in real time. Hopefully something like that exists and doesn't cost you a huge commission. It would be almost like a video game. Probably very intangible. Which would make it fun to do, especially starting with a small sum to limit the risk of losing everything I own :)

1000 things to do before I die

Another list. Here goes:

- Learn Italian
- Learn Spanish
- Play the guitar
- Play the saxophone
- Oil painting
- Mosaic making
- Study psychology
- Hang-gliding
- Speleology
- Horse riding
- Cooking classes
- Travel...
- Photography
- Learn to make websites
- Improve Photoshop & Illustrator skills
- Diving
- Palm reading
- Learn sign language
- Own a B&B in a house on the beach
- Accompany marine biologists on a mission to study whales or dolphins

My Scanner Daybook - April 4th

Does winning the lottery count as a project? Lol.
Well, I'm trying to imagine what I would do if I did win the lottery.

I think I'd stop working the very same day.
Pay back some or all of my mortgage (depending on how much I'd won).
Go travelling. Maybe a couple of months. Pick one or two countries I want to see - Australia and New Zealand so I could squeeze in some time with my family and give them some cash ;) - rent a car, stay in nice B&Bs. Go sailing, snorkelling, trekking, take loads of pictures.

When I get back, I'd probably want to follow some interesting courses - lots of psychology, some marine biology, a few arts & crafts classes. I'd check out local art exhibitions, maybe invest in a few pieces, decorate my home.

If I really won a lot of money, I'd look into investing it by buying a couple of apartments, fixing them up and renting them out.

I'd get someone in to redo all the electricity in our place and fix all the things that are driving me wild - leaky sinks, half-finished electric jobs, doors that don't shut properly. I wouldn't do it myself, though... years of living with a DIY dad who lived in a permanent building site make me cringe at the thought of working on my own place.

I'd like to try some new activities - horse riding, hang-gliding, try to get my diving certificate again - hopefully my ears will allow it this time.

Once a week I'd get a great massage and get pampered - I'm really bad at taking care of myself, so I'd pay someone super professional to do it for me, lol.

We'd go out for cooking classes in the evenings, or to the theatre. And I'd be on the lookout for residential weekends where you can learn a new skill - massage, screenplay writing, sailing.

Eventually, I'd want to find a job, but not full-time. Maybe 3 days a week giving trainings, and a few hours volunteer counselling.

I'd obviously be planning the next holidays, maybe Mexico or Vietnam.

After a while, we might decide to sell the apartment and move to New Zealand, where I can be closer to my family. We could buy a big house there and start a B&B. I would make the website and advertise on sites targeting the British and Belgian markets, offering a "home away from home". It would be on the beach, walking distance from a small town.

Wow, just did a quick search and came across this place for sale. It would definitely do the job:


I might like to get a dog (big dog, hate those small yapping ones!) and maybe a horse.
I'd also love to have a small boat and take people out for a tour of the area. Maybe go fishing.
I could teach French in a local school for adults, I'd create a really fun class, with loads of interesting exercises. And on the last day of the semester we'd watch a good French movie and eat croissants.

I'd want to be very active, go jogging on the beach every morning - that's what the dog's for! - and I'd love to take yoga classes again and maybe become a teacher.

11:21

My little house of ideas

Living room
Kitchen

A pot full of shells: we collected the shells off a beach in Normandy, thinking it would be nice to create a collage with them to hang in the kitchen. If I used a pretty thick and deep frame, I could stick 3 or 4 of them in a row and maybe find some pebbles that would fit inside the bottom of the frame.

Tea tasting: I bought a book about tea and a set of 3 tea samples when we were in Hong Kong last year. The little book was all about how to make good tea, the different types of tea and where they came from. The idea was to learn about teas the same way you can learn about wines.

Bedroom

My Nike shoes: bought in Barcelona last year, they're the kind you can hook up to your ipod and keep track of your runs with. At the time I was already sceptical I'd actually ever get around to using that function...

The Rasterbator: a really neat programme I discovered a few years ago and wanted to use to create a huge poster for the wall behind our bed. You upload a photo and the programme generates a "dotted" version of it, any size you like. Really cool results.

Office

My sister's saxophone: when she left on her round-the-world trip last year, I asked if she could leave me her saxophone. I've often wanted to learn to play.

Photo albums: I bought a really big photo album ages ago, wanting to make big print-outs of my most artistic photos and collect them in the album. There's also a cute album we bought in Thailand with a wooden elephant on the front for our best pictures from our trip. And the scrapbook Diana made for me when we went to France on our road trip.

Scanner and slides: I managed to reduce my father's huge collection of slides (I'm guessing several thousand) to about 250 that I kept. I wanted to scan them all as they are in poor condition, and use the photos to create a picture book. I also wanted to document my father's life in some way, so his stories wouldn't disappear with him, but it's such a vast task.

Psychology book: I bought what looked like a basic introduction to psychology, to see if it really was a direction I would be interested in as a career.

My bookcases: probably too many subjects to list. All things I was/am interested in: photography, wine, underwater archaeology, reiki, yoga, natural food, travel, hand reading... A lot of them unread.

My Scanner Daybook - March 30th

March 30th, 18:20

Sunday morning art workshops

A few days ago, a friend came over for dinner and we were discussing how little time we have to be creative, so I suggested we start our own art workshop. The idea would be to get together among girls - with any of our friends who would be interested in joining - at a fixed time every week. Sunday morning sounded ideal (except the getting out of bed part).

Hot chocolate and warm croissants from the bakery across the street.
We'd get together at my place around 10 a.m. and one of us (maybe in turn) would bring supplies and a "briefing". So, each week we'd make something new.

For example:

• Everyone brings a few of their favourite pictures. Someone brings different coloured papers, glue, glitter and stickers. Everyone makes a scrapbook page for their pictures.
• Sketching the view over the city
• Making jewellery using beads and string (I've got plenty left over...)
• A writing session on a particular theme
• Making a patchwork cushion cover

We could all have lunch together afterwards, each week a different salad recipe.

Maybe after a few months we could hold an exhibition to show off everything we'd made. We could invite other women our age to come and visit it, and maybe get them interested in the workshop.

We could create a blog dedicated to the workshop and post pictures. It could turn into a step-by-step guide of everything we create, so readers could reproduce things themselves.

... okay, wouldn't want it to develop any further than that, I don't think :)

18:43