Pumpkin Pie!

Another post so soon? Yes!
As I don't think I have time to blog tomorrow I wanted to post the making of our pumpkin pie now!

First we started out with the ritual slaughtering of the pumpkin!
After that we cooked the pumpkin together with my owner's not so secret ingredient: apples.

While the pumpkin and apple mix was cooking we made the pie-dough from flour, butter, water and a little sugar.

When the dough was ready we lined the pie-form with it. Then we put it in the oven for awhile.

When the pumpkin and apples were ready we mashed them to a pulp, but as it was very watery we then put it in a piece of linen cloth and squeezed most of the water out of it so we were left with:

A nice dry pumpkin/apple paste.

We mixed the paste with eggs, brown sugar, spices (nutmeg, cinnemon and gingerroot powder) and a little bit of Sherry.

And we put the mix in the pie form!
Now just 40 more minutes in the oven and what will we have: Pumpkin Pie.
Might not look as pretty as in the pic of the recipe, but tastes delicious.

Work

I noticed this weird drawing at work today. Looks like a weird llama or maybe it's supposed to be my collegue Frank the Sheep.

And a pic of Voodoo Bride and me at work especially for Eve and Sad Boy.

I got mail!

When I got home from work today there was a big envelope waiting for my owner and me! It was from Hammie and G. My brother Angus, Domo and one of the hippos were also very curious to see what I got.



A McPig charm!
I really love it! Thanks Hammie and G, it's so sweet of you to send it to me!

I tried if I could wear it as a necklace, but my owner told me I'd better hang it on the noticeboard next to the computer as I might lose it otherwise.

Hammie drew a really cool H in the letter that was with the package, it's a little hamster! Maybe I should try to make up an S that looks like me.

There was also lots of cross stitch patterns in the envelope for my owner! She's really happy with those, especially with the Dikkie Dik ABC as she knows lots of cat lovers who will love getting a stitched Dikkie Dik.
(Dikkie Dik is the main character of a series of children's books in Dutch by author Jet Boeke.)

While we were taking pictures of the things we got one of my housemates came to see what we were doing and he wanted to be included in my blogpost for today. So here is a picture of me and Knorrie, one of the pigs in our household who's not part of the McPig clan.

That's it for today!
Thanks again Hammie and G, we love what you send us.

Almost Halloween!

Just a few more days till Halloween!
My costume is ready! Arrr....

Oriental Warehouse and Surprise Egg

Yesterday we went to the Amazing Oriental Warehouse again. I just had to take a picture of this seaweed packaging as I really liked it.

They had Mountain Dew and I convinced my owner to get me a can as I've heard a lot about it but never drank it sofar. We also got a can of jasmin flavoured ice tea for free.
I must say I loved the Mountain Dew as it was cherry flavoured. I didn't much care for the ice tea I must confess.

At another store my owner got me a Sinterklaas Surprise Egg!
Sinterklaas is a dutch festival at the start of december where you give presents to each other, much like Christmas. The bearded fellow on the right is Sinterklaas (also know as Sint Nicolaas) and the fellow on his left is his sidekick Zwarte Piet (Black Pete).

(Now before anyone is going to shout things about me or dutch people being discriminating to certain people (And yes: I read cakewrecks, so I know how some people think): Sinterklaas and his sidekick Zwarte Piet do not have anything to do with excisting ethnic groups. It might be so that somewhere in a distant past someone did mean to connect Zwarte Piet to a group like that, but I can tell you that until I read the hubbub on Cakewrecks about certain Sinterklaas cakes I never made that connection myself and neither does any kid here in the Netherlands. Zwarte Piet is Sinterklaas' helper and a kind of magical creature just like Santa's elves. Ok! Glad I got that solved, so I can go on to the goodies that were inside my surprise egg.)

It got stickers, candy and a small toy inside!

The small toy is supposed to be the big bag of presents Sinterklaas brings when he comes over to the Netherlands. I hope we will be visited for real by Sinterklaas this year and that we'll get a bag with presents that's a bit bigger then this toy one.

Lots of Beautiful Nature Pictures!

After the birthday party on Saturday we spend the night at the house of my owner's mother, which happens to be the house my owner grew up in. It's in a small village between the cities Kampen and Zwolle and the house is next to the river IJssel. It's very beautiful there, so the next day we took a walk and made a lot of pictures.

Lots of green fields!
My owner told me she loved playing here as a child.

A meadow with some cows and trees.

And here I'm right next to the river IJssel!
It was a sunny, but windy day so there were lots of small waves on the water.



Taking a short rest, while sheltering from the wind behind the reeds.

My owner used to swim here, but even though I think it looks beautiful, I don't think I would be so brave to swim in a big river like this.

Hmmm.... clouds, sun and a beautiful river.

Yup, even more clouds....
Can't help it, I love them!

I tried to get a good picture of this grass, but the wind was too strong, the grass didn't keep in one place.

On our way back to the house.
The house is build next to a dyke (I'm on the dyke in this picture) that keeps away the water when the river gets out of it's bounds. My owner tells me that the green fields you saw in the first pic and the field with the cows get totally flooded at least once a year and if it wasn't for the dyke, her mother's house would also be flooded.

When we went back to Zwolle to catch a train to Groningen we discovered something really beautiful just next to the road and we had to stop to take a picture:

Vliegenzwammen!
(Fly Agaric or Fly Amanita).
According to my owner they are poisonous, so I didn't touch them, but I think they're very beautiful.

A trip to Kampen

I've not been posting for the last couple of days as I've been on a trip! My owner was invited to a birthdayparty and we decided to pay a visit to Kampen first, a city close to were the party was. My owner used to live close to Kampen and really wanted to visit some of her favourite spots again.

We took a train to Zwolle and there we took another train to Kampen.
Here we are leaving Groningen.

My first view of Kampen! It was cloudy and grey, but dry.

Kampen is a very old city and has a couple of it's gatehouses still standing. This one is the 'Koornmarktpoort' (Grainmarket Gatehouse). My owner told me it used to be painted white when she was a kid, but they restored it to it's original state.

As I was curious how the gatehouse would look with white paint I did a search on the internet and found an old picture of how it used to look.

And here it is in all it's current glory!

Across the street from the gatehouse there was this small statue of a boy carrying a fish.

There's an old story that the people of Kampen once caught a giant fish which they wanted to cook and serve to a visiting bishop. When they got the message that the bishop wouldn't be able to visit until a while later they were worried that the fish would not be good to eat anymore if they kept it that long. So they finally decided to put a bell around it's neck and they released it back into the river. They thought that when the bishop arrived all they had to do is stick their head under water and listen for the bell to locate the fish again.
Hmmm........ Something tells me they never saw that fish again.

I wonder if this is supposed to be the fish from that story, but according to my owner it was a different kind of fish. It looks big enough so maybe my owner is wrong.

Walking through the gate into the city!

When you come throught the gate this is the first thing you see: The Sint Nicolaas Kerk (Saint Nicholas Church) better known as the Bovenkerk (upper church). It's a really big church and has a very gothic look as you can see.

When it started to rain we took shelter in a comicbook shop and look what we saw there:

A Dunny!
I just had to get a picture of it to show Eve.

When it seemed like it was getting dry again we went outside again. Here you can see a typical street in Kampen with yet another gatehouse in the background. Not sure what the name of this one is though.

We had wanted to visit some more sites in Kampen, but it started raining even more at this point so we walked back to the station and from there went on to the birthday party. Maybe I'll get to visit Kampen again another time.

At the birthday party I met this rat! He was very friendly and we had a nice long chat.

After the party we went to the house of my owner's mother to spend the night. Tomorrow I'll post the pictures we took there.

Cool book (hopefully)

Those who know me will know I love stories and movies about zombies and other monsters. So when we were shopping for a birthday present for someone this week, I just had to get this for myself (luckily my owner agreed):

Haven't read much so far, but even if it turns out to be a crappy story I think this book is worth the money we paid for it just because of the cover!

I will review this book on my other blog as soon as we finished reading it.

A package! - A post from Canada by Moira

I got a package in the mail!!!
Well, actually my housemate did but I am sure it has something inside for me!

And I was right!! Meet my very own Voodoo Doll!!
She is adorable, but we haven't found out her name yet...we will though!

Look at all the goodies that were inside!
Thank you so much Carien, Eric, Sullivan and Coco! Miss you all!!