make | Mimimou

March 23, 2016

Mouthwash in a crystal bottle

What better way to spend a lazy sunday morning than walking around on a flea market, if possible abroad, like Paris or London? And how ugly that bottle of mouthwater looks in your bathroom, surrounded by your favourite perfume and shower lotion.

How about combining the two? What you get is a beautiful solution:

Rummage on a flea market until you have found a perfectly sized vintage crystal bottle, like the one they used to decanter liquor and perfume in
Clean it like crazy
Then carefully empty your ugly bottle of mouthwater in it and put it in your bathroom.

From now on you will smile every time you have finished brushing your teeth…

PS Thank you, Emily Henderson, for this wonderful idea!

February 16, 2016

Manicured hanger

This must be the easiest DIY on earth. Inspired by Sali Hughes and every perfectly manicured woman on the planet.

You will need: nailpolish in your favourite color (mine is Colour Lacquer by Guerlain in La Parisienne red), a plain white ceramic hanger with finger like hooks (you can find a similar one here), a steady hand.

With small strokes, paint a small nail shape, as if it was a miniature version of your little finger.

Let it dry.

Voilà!

And just because I love to gif…

Lovely items used: 1 Colour Lacquer by Guerlain in La Parisienne • 2 Ovenwant roze by Tas-ka • Koira Ja Kissa yellow tea towel by Lapuan Kankurit, designed by the amazing Japanese designer Makoto Kagoshima (check out his work!)

June 25, 2014

After-dinner coconut bombs recipe

Food is one of the nicest things of life. It’s something which fuels my curiosity, it’s what makes my travels worth while and also one of the main topics when I talk. As a child I used to devour my mum’s cookbooks and food magazines. As a student I owned just as many books about literature as I owned books about food. Since the last few years Ottolenghi has become my hero. Not just because of the richness of flavours, colours and wonderful combinations of vegetables which he is a master of. No. A very important reason why his cookbooks are always on the kitchen cupboard when I cook, is that he uses the food and spices that I already own and love.
I think it is very important to find inspiration that is similar to your style. That is also why I love food blogs. It’s so much easier to find someone somewhere who loves the food you love. My favourite blogs are David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl’s Green Kitchen Stories and Josephine Malene Kofod’s A Tasty Love Story.

I haven’t changed much to the original recipe. To me coconut is already very sweet, so I have omitted the coconut flower sugar but go ahead if you like it sweet. It’s a super easy and tasty ‘dessert’, I must have made it fifty times, especially when time was short. Use your imagination when creating your rainbow bombs or just whatever you have in your cupboard, as long as you have your coconut butter, you will be fine.

Coconut is very good for you, It’s packed with magnesium, selenium, potassium, zinc, iron, phosphorus and vitamin C and E. This makes it a great friend for your skin, it helps fight infection and a lot of other good things. The fiber and fat content helps stabilise your blood sugar, which makes it a perfect after-dinner sweet. Plus it is lactose free so perfect for those with lactose intolerance. And that is just the coconut… just add fruit and nuts, and you will be eating a sweet that is also sweet to your body.

recipe

After-dinner coconut bombs

12 portions (depending on the size of your tray)creamed coconut block

200 g creamed coconut (use the purest you can find)
1/2 pod vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract

Depending on the flavours and colours you want
1 tsp raw cocoa powder or 1 square of a chocolate bar (melted)
5 large strawberries, mashed (fresh or frozen)
banana, cut in very small pieces (ideal when using a frozen banana)
one or two mint or basil leaves, torn in strips
a few roasted almonds, mashed in chunks

 ikea ice tray with 12 shapes (or any other silicon ice tray)

Start by melting the creamed coconut on a very low heat. You need to be patient and stir continuously, or it will burn. Once it’s all fluid, add your vanilla and stir through. Pour in your tray for the first (white) portion of the bombs. It sets very quickly so you can also pour a little bit, put a small nut or strawberry in the middle, and then add some more (like a Ferrero Rocher). Divide the rest into as many portions as you need and mix. Place the tray in the freezer. After a minimum of 30 minutes your bombs will be ready.
They melt in your mouth, so you can either eat the bombs frozen or let them warm up for a few minutes before serving them.

PS Now rush to Josefine’s blog. It’s filled with an incredible amount of delicious recipes which are very easy too.

June 19, 2014

Star your day with a smile, eat granola

When you live in a big city, you start doing things which your friends who do not live in a big city, might regard as odd. In London my weekends were filled with farmer’s markets and swimming: I started my day at 6am with an hour swimming after which I rewarded myself with a big bowl of granola from La Fromagerie. Upon leaving the city, I begged them for their recipe, and upon this day, although I have tweaked it a lot since, I still make a big batch of granola two times a week. My boyfriend starts all his days with it, it’s so healthy and filling that it keeps him from snacking until 1pm.
As I make so much granola, I usually buy my ingredients from a miller; you can also get good quality nuts at a reasonable price from one of those lovely Arab supermarkets where they are sold per weight. It doesn’t matter which sweetener you use but do experiment with it, as it changes the taste of your granola. Family and friends usually prefer the maple syrup granola so I tend to use that. The only thing you need to keep in mind is the ration between your grain of choice, oil and sweetener. Other than that, you can go as crazy as you want.

Nuts, seeds & maple granola

5-8 portions

2 cups grains (I use a mixture of rolled oats and oat meal)
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup linseeds
1/4 cup golden sesame seeds
1/4 cup black sesame seeds
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup walnuts and hazelnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
xx yellow olive oil (do not use the green one)
xx a sweetener of your choice, like honey, maple syrup or agave
1 spoon cinnamon or allspice
1 cup dried fruit (raisins, figs, dates, apricot)

You can follow my measurements or, to make your life easy, use your baking dish as a guideline. Make sure you have two fingers thick of grains. Then add the seeds and make sure they cover the top of your oats/spelt/barley/quinoa. Grab two handfulls of nuts of your choice. Add the coconut and cinnamon. Drizzle the mixture of oil and maple syrup. Mix everything gently and make sure you have covered every little bit with some of the honey and maple syrup.
Put in the oven for 12 minutes. Take it out and mix it again with a fork. Put back in the oven for another 10-12 minutes, until your oats are covered in a golden glow and you can hear the nuts ‘pop’. Transfer quickly to a storage pot and add your dried fruit. Give it a good shake and start your day with a smile.

May 20, 2014

What to do with a carrot?

Yes, you can prepare it in many splendid ways, like Green Kitchen Stories’ baked carrot cake oatmeal, Aida Mollenkamp’s delicious carrot hummus or a simple carrot juice with some grated ginger. It’s supposed to work wonders on your skin too, just type in ‘face mask carrot’ on youtube and you will get hits like this. But did you know a carrot’s magic does not end there? If you live in a city you never stop wondering at the little glimpse’s of nature strength: this is what happens if you put a carrot’s discarded top in some water.
Isn’t it wonderful? It’s like a lesson in never giving up.

May 13, 2014

Where do I store all my fruit and vegetables?

Growing up in Italy, I was brought up with vegetables and fruit. As a child, I was thought how to to pick up the ripest tomatoes (smell) and the sweetest melons (smell, look, weight and tap). We were also supposed to know all different variaties of a tomato and which one to use when (salad, pizza, pasta).

With that background, it’s impossible to enjoy a cold and sterile Dutch supermarket so I feel lucky that Jan understands my need for buying 35kg of fruit and vegetables a week, at a wonderful Turkish supermarket called Helal et Gida. He has learned to pick the loveliest aubergines and zucchini, how to smell and look at things. How to lift 8 bags up to three flight of stairs weekly…

We only buy ‘products’ with one ingredient (except cheese, pasta and bread which are allowed to have a few more, but only natural ones) and make everything ourself. This is wonderful but it also requires a lot of space. After months of using pans and plates to spread out our weekly groceries, I came up with the idea of making a small vegetable stall for the kitchen. Jan loved it and we started designing.

The idea is very simple: get yourself enough crates to store your veggies, choose the length of your sides accordingly AND make sure there is enough space between the crates to take out a melon or a pumpkin, a wooden bar for bananas, a few boards for the bottom and wheels (it makes it so much more practical). How cute would this look in a Jamie Oliver or Ottolenghi restaurant, but more importantly, EVERYONE with children should have one. It’s so much more fun to choose what you want to eat when all is displayed in such an inviting way.

I have called it the Frutteria. In Italian you usually call a vegetable shop a fruttivendolo (frutta + vendolo = a seller of fruit); the suffix -eria means that it is a shop so I liked that option more.

Anyone interested can contact us but you can go ahead and make this yourself, I would love to see this in every household one day.

A few tips for everyone interested:

Recycle a magazine or use teatowels to cover your crate. It absorbs moisture and if you happen to miss a rotting apple, the wood from your crate is not infected.
We did not paint of varnish the frutteria as we wanted to keep a rustic look and it keeps contamination to a minimum
The part of the fruit or vegetable that is attached to the plant, always tells you the most about its freshness. Keep those visible and choose accordingly
If you want to make sure you get enough vitamins, minerals and other good things from your food, vary in color.
Keep the frutteria out of the heat or sunlight, it helps keep it all fresh
An old farmer on Tenerife taught me to keep your potatoes in a towel, they do not like light (well, actually they do but it turns them into a plant)
Anything leafy should be eaten first
Melons can ripe after picking but will rarely get sweet. Choose the right one by smelling (should smell sweet), touching (never soft, never hard, always a bit elastic), looking (no weird patches and around its leafstalk you should see a small crack) and tapping (it should be heavy and give a muffled sound).

July 29, 2013

Make: Kokedama

Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s Little Prince came from a planet scarcely any larger than a house. He shared his little planet with good plants, bad plants, a couple of vulcanos and one beautiful rose.
The image of this small asteroid covered in green with one magnificent flower sticking out of it, has always made me smile: wouldn’t it be magical to live on such a planet?
One day, while on an urban exploration of Amsterdam, there it was, my first string garden: a little ball of soil, covered in moss, with one, tiny plant growing on top. I wrote about the moss ball, or Kokedama as it is called in Japan, in a previous post but I have waited the whole winter before venturing on making one. In the end I even turned this event into something special by inviting friends and teaching them too how to add a bit of magic to the world: because that is truly what they do. That’s why I want to teach this to you too. (more…)

‘make’

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