<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[MiaDeRoca Magazine for Alpine Lifestyle]]></title><description><![CDATA[Articles]]></description><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/</link><copyright><![CDATA[Copyright MiaDeRoca Magazine for Alpine Lifestyle]]></copyright><generator>sNews CMS</generator><item><title><![CDATA[Mother&#039;s Day Gift Coupon]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Coupons for Mother's Day: craft quick Mother's Day gifts  Mother's Day is a great day to celebrate and to gift – on the one hand you do celebrate the person who is responsible that you are here and second it is a tremendous time to celebrate in early may (at least in middle Europe mother's day is on the second Sunday of May). Mother's Day is a great party in late spring: blooming bushes, lovely colourful flowers, cakes with the first fruits of the season – and if we are all lucky it will be sunny.
  
  Our Mother's Day craft idea consists of a free printable of mother's day coupons and a craft idea on how to gift the coupons or vouchers. You can use the free printable for many more occasions they make a great gift for father's day as well, or "I-will-support-you" coupons or "summer-vacation-starts-and-I-ll-help" surprise gifts.  


  Free Printable Mother's Day Gift Cards  
       Crafting Idea Mother's Day Gifts  

  Self made Mohter's Day gifts are the best and therefore kindergarden and schools are busily crafting in April and the beginning of May. No matter if your Mother's Day gifts are self made or self bought, you can always add this personal touch with individual vouchers or coupons, where you gift your precious time.
  
  Our free printable includes the following gift coupons:  
1x big smile  
1x hug  
1x breakfast in bed  
1x empty the dishwasher  
1x hang up the laundry  
1x shoulder massage  
1x vacuuming  
1x empty the garbage  
1x set the table  

       9 coupons as a mother's day gift  
  Here you can download and print out the   free printable Mother's Day coupons   (pdf).      

  Self made Mother's Day Gift  
  
We gifted our gift coupons as an everlasting flower bouquet. To do this you will need:
5 wooden skewers  
5 small flowers, like crochet flowers, you can as well use paper flowers or fabric-yoyos – a pattern for crochet flowers is included in our   crochet scarf kit Bella  
   
yarn matching the colours of the flowers  
gift coupons (see above)  
       Bind the coupons like leaves to the skewers  
  Open and print out the gift coupons and cut out.  

  We use woollen flowers for our never wilting bunch of flowers, because it is so easy to attach them to the skewers – pinch through several of the threads on the backside. If you have paper flowers or fabric yoyos use hot-melt gun to glue.  
  
Tie the yarn to the skewer a vie centimetres (1-2 inches) under the blossom, make a knot. You will tie the gift coupons to the flower with these yarns.  

  Roll one of the vouchers, use one side of the yarn and twist several times around the middle of the voucher and tie with a half bow. You will tie two vouchers to four of the flowers and on the fifth flower only use one coupon.  
       A pretty flower bouquet with coupons to gift time to your mother on Mother's Day  
  You can use the flowers as table decorations on mother's day and lay them on the table or put them into a vase. To keep the skewers in the vase we did fill the vase with ends of wool (in every household where people are knitting or crocheting in several colours you have plenty of wool ends – this is a decorative way to make use of them).  

  This craft idea is also a great way to gift money an ever-lasting flower bunch will help you gift  bank notes in a decorative way. Beside the coupons you could use gift certificates as well.          


  
  
	  
		You are looking for further idea of Mother's Day Gifts:  
	  
		        
		  Shirt made of organic cotton with imprint Goddess of Luck    

	  
		        
		  Fine Brocade Cosmetics Bag: Unikate aus Frankreich    

	  
		        
		  Special bracelet with marbles made of marble, stag pendant and heart box    
        
  You are in the mood of more crafting ideas with kids, have a look at Saras Blog and her   Craft Schooling Sunday  .  
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 08 May 2012 22:48:21 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/mothers-day-gift-coupon/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/mothers-day-gift-coupon/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Calendar Page May 2012]]></title><description><![CDATA[  Out calendar photo for May 2012 is a wonderful bright blue sky, a blue sky over the Mirabell garden in Salzburg. For all who ever travelled to Salzburg know that we are on top of the rose hill and have a look over Mönchsberg to Untersberg, looking to Bavaria. Yes, where the blue has its deepest shade of blue we are no longer in Austria, but loook at Germany.  
Mirabell garden is a place where you can stroll and gaze all day long. A garden with many different corners, arranged flowers and a big fountain in the centre.  

  Calendar Page May 2012  

         Preview Calendar Page May 2012: Rose Hill in Salzburg, Mirabellgarten  When beautiful roses are blooming that is also the time where the elderflower starts to bloom. In our recipe section you can find a recipe to turn this sweet small bloom into heavenly smelling   elderflower cordial  .  

  May is the time where you can still find some green, fresh wild garlic leaves and turn it into   wild garlic pesto  ,   wild garlic dumplings   or in a   green refreshing spread  .  

  Talking about spreads – in May picnic seasons starts and spreads are great for picnis. Either cover tramezinis with them or take the spread along to dip, we have several spreads in our   recipe collection  .  

  Soon the season of home grown straberries start, in the meantime you can stitch some of the delicious red fruits on tabel cloth or bags with our   cross stitch pattern strawberry  .  

  If you like to get crafty with your kids, or are looking for a quick and colourful craft project:   make some pinwheels   – you could even write the invitation to your next bbq or garden party on self made pin wheels.  

  All May Holidays 2012 in the Alps at one gaze:  
Tuesday May 1st: Labour Day  
Sunday, May 13th: Mother's Day  
Thursday, May 17th: Ascension Day   
Sunday, May 27th: Whit Sunday  
Monday, May 28th: Whit Monday  



  
  Print out your calender page for May 2012, here:   May Calendar Page   (pdf).  

  
  
	  
		Decorations and Gift Ideas in the amazing Webshop MiaDeroca:  
	  
		        
		  Small wild sow dish    

	  
		        
		  Use this lovely pink case for cosmetics or your pens    

	  
		        
		  Little white hare dish    

      
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2012 11:04:51 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/calendar-page-may-2012/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/calendar-page-may-2012/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Spooky Finger Food Flapi]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Quickly to prepare, yummy and cute: bat snacks  There are several occasions where you can serve this beastly snack, use it as finger food for Halloween, snack to your witches party, celebration of Walpurgis night or vampire party. The small bat party food can be used as appetizers or as nibblies you can even use the little Flapi snacks to decorate food – and remember, when bats are sleeping they are always head down.  
Our theme party right before Walpurgis night is a witches party, be it for children birthdays with the little witch and her Abraxas, Winnie the witch or Harry Potter's Hermione or if it is rather an Adult's party inspired by the bad witches from Roald Dahl, or the strong witches of Eastwick, the fantastic Morgaine, or the pretty witches and sisters from Charmed, the funny teenage Sabrina or the sweet bewitched Samantha or the practical magician Sally.  
       Ingredients for the cute bat snack  
  Recipe Bat Snack  

  What you will need:  
puff pastry or   home made quark flake pastry recipe    
  cookie cutter bat Ferdl    
feta cheese or haloumi - or other cheese that won't melt in the oven  
rosemary and sage  
a little bit of salt  

  We prepare our bat snacks Flapi with quark pastry.
Cut out the dough with the bat cutters, cut pieces of cheese 3cm long, 1cm wide and 3mm high. Before you start filling the bats, preheat the oven to 170 degrees centigrade.  
       Roll out, cut out and fill - that is even better with four hands. A recipe kids will love to help making.  

  When filling the Flapis we combined feta cheese with rosemary and haloumi with sage. You can either cut rosemary and cover feta in it, or top every piece of feta with 1-3 needles.  Roll sage leaves around the haloumi. Put some salt on the inside of the bat. Close the bat wings like a cloak or cape. Put the upper ends of the wings on top of the cheese. When using quark pastries you can put them together and roll them out again. If you are using puff pastry put the rest on top of each others and roll in one direction – if you just mix it you will loose the pastry-fat-layers and the flake pastry won't be flaky.  

  Put the bats on a baking tray. If you#d like to you can coat them with egg.  

  Leave them in the oven for 15-30 Minutes in the oven at 170 degree Celsius – the time depends on how thick the dough and how thick the Flapis are.  
       They are yummy when still warm from the oven but can be eaten cold as well  

  Vegetarian, Mediterranean Vampires are best served with a blood red dip or a haunted morass sauce.  

  For the blood red dip used sieved tomatoes some oregano and chili peppers.
For the haunted morass sauce use sour cream, 1-2 table spoons pumpkin seed oil and 2 table spoons of chives.  

  You can fill the Flapis with all kind of goodies like minced meat or small sausages or a mix of feta and bacon. As the dough is not salty, use some salt when making or serve with a well seasoned dip.  

  If you are looking for a recipe of quick salty snacks, cut out bats and sprinkle grated cheese and salt. By the way World of Warcraft Fans will appreciate real bat bites as well.  

  You would like to get more recipes and inspirations for food for birthday parties or magical snacks: Have you already seen our   dragon soup for dragon parties and Halloween celebrations  ?  

  
  
	  
		Find Ideas for Witch's PArties, Halloween Celebrations and other Party Inspirations:  
	  
		        
		  Bat Cutter for Biscuits and Snacks    

	  
		        
		  Cookie cutters witch hat and broom    

	  
		        
		  Cookie cutter with stamp set for name tags    

      ]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:53:48 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/spooky-finger-food-flapi/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/spooky-finger-food-flapi/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Quark Pastry Recipe - Quick Puff Pastry]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Quick quark pastry, sinple puff pastry - three ingredients to baker's paradise  This quark pastry recipe is a quick and great alternative to flaky pastry and puff pastry. In our family it is also called "fake puff pastry" or basic flaky pastry. And the best thing about it : it is so easy and uncomplicated to prepare, you have to mix three different ingredients. And the pastry is very versatile, you can use it to make Strudel, give it a fruity-sweet filling or a savoury spicy stuffing.   My aunts used to make this quark recipe, when we had family gatherings – rolled it out, cut it into stripes, some paprika and caraway on top and into the oven. Yummy nibbles – and so 70ies.    

  Basic Recipe Quark Pastry  
       Step 1: roll the pastry    125g of flour  
125g butter  
125g quark  

  Either you need more or less weigh in grams or ounces, it is rather easy to vary this recipe, as you need as much flour as you need butter and as you need quark. The typical size of quark here is 250g so you can of course use this as your basic measurement. You can freeze the dough you will not use and take it out when there is a family gathering or a football match on the TV and make some yummy snacks, nibbles or finger food. The measurement as mentioned above is fine for a middle sized strudel or a baking tray full of nibbles.  

  Preparing the pastry is as uncomplicated:          Step 2: fold a third  mix by hand or use a food mixer. Cut up butter in chunks, to make it easier to mix.  

  Depending on how much time you have at hand, you can now leave the pastry in the fridge for 30mins. Or – you can make sure to have an extra flaky and fluffy dough, by folding it.  
That's how we made it: roll the dough, fold the upper third down to the middle, fold the lower third up, and then fold again the right side to the middle – giving you 6 layers. As you saw in the picture make it quick and easy, no perfection needed here. Let it chill for 30mins, we recommend to cover the dough.  
After cooling the fake flake pastry you can roll it out and use it as you like. If you cut it out, you can put the leftovers together and roll them out again.  
       Step 3: fold the lower part up  
  A quick and easy recipe – that means you can make this together with your kids or leave it completely up to your children to make this.  
  
  If you are on vacations in Austria and your apartment or chalet kitchen has an oven – than this is a perfect typical Austrian recipe. You can knead it by hand, to roll out the dough you don't need to have a roll pin, but can use a clean bottle (well, clean from the outside, the wine is allowed to stay inside).   You can either make a strudel filled with seasonal fruit or a spicy version with minced meat or broccoli and cheese.    
       Step 4: fold again in halfes, let rest for half an hour  
  If you are rather up to a nice Chalet evening with friends, make some finger food – with this   recipe for cute and spooky nibblies  .  
Snacks with chill-factor are perfect for Walpurgis night, Halloween and of course with parties and sorcerer-themed celebrations – our recipe is perfect for kid's parties, so it won't be too spooky.  
        
  
  
	  
		Equipment for Baking - you can find great baking supply in the MiaDeRoca Shop:  
	  
		        
		  Small blue rolling pin    

	  
		        
		  Cookie Cutter Owl    

	  
		        
		  Bars roller for strudel and pies    

      ]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:06:19 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/quark-pastry-recipe-quick-puff-pastry/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/quark-pastry-recipe-quick-puff-pastry/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Parsley Pesto]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Parsley Pesto - quick dish full of vitamins  We love pesto made of herbs: fresh herbs, which are full of healthy stuff and at the same time a great quick meal – no matter if you prepare the pesto a la minute or have it already made and take it out of the fridge. Boil water, add pasta. At the table everyone is allowed to serve themselves the amount of pasta, pesto and cheese they prefer. This dish does fill you well  and gives enough power for the rest of the day – be it for whatever work has to be done or to finish homework and get prepared for the next day at school – perfect family meal.  
In spring we love to have   wild garlic pesto  , in summer we prepare basil pesto and during the year we serve pesto with parsley, in between we stir up chives to make a yummy green pesto, or use olives, dried tomatoes, chilli and many other ingredients which can be cut up or grounded.  If you want to   decorate your pesto jar prettily, find inspirations here  .   

  Parsley pesto  

         Ingredients for Pesto with parsley    Serves 2:    
1 handfull of parsley leaves  
40ml oil  
10g walnuts (about 2-3 halves)  
a pit of lime or lemon juice   
salt  
grated aged hard cheese  

  Start with pulling the parsley leaves from the parsley stems, put it in a high dish, or as we mix it in a stable beer mug, add some oil and nuts and blend. Add oil pit by pit until you have a creamy texture. Season with lemon juice and salt to taste. Those who prefer their nuts crunchier can add them when finished and blend only or lit, or chop them with a knife and add to the finished pesto.  
You can later use the chopped stems and add them to soup or stew.  

         My preferred bowl to blends herbs for pesto: a high beer glas - for thos who know beer from Salzburg, its this damily-owned brewery near the lakes  Those who have read other MiaDeRoca recipes and have tasted them know that we love garlic and like to use it in out kitchen. This pesto recipe is without garlic, on the one side parsley is a strong medicinal herb and is also referred to as natural antibiotic, on the other side the taste of parsley should not be covered by other ingredients, but supported.  

  When cooking we like to use regional products – when making this parsley pesto you can do this too. Many different edible oils are produced in Austria like oil made out of sunflower seeds, corn and walnut oils, but rarer ones as well like oil out of flax and hemp seeds. As you only need a small amount of oil and you don't heat it, take one of the hight-quality oils from the higher price ranges. There are may walnut trees growing in Austria and we are lucky to know some walnut tree owners where we can go and pick walnuts in autumn. The grounded cheese can of course be Parmigiano or Pecorino, but you can use local aged hard cheese as well.  

         Ready to eat: Parsley Pesto  You can serve this parsley pesto to spaghetti. With home made pesto you have also a quick meal at hand. You can always vary the base to your parsely pesto and use it on fried or grilled courgette, in winter have it on sunchoke or other storable vegetables like turnip-rooted chervil.  

  When preparing the recipe I used this amount three times, which made up for 160ml. I put a lid on the parsley pesto and stored it in the fridge – in the MiaDeRoca fridge. By the time I wanted to do the pasta-shooting I saw that the pesto has vanished from the jar. I was told that it was spread on freshly baked bread – you can see this parsley pesto can be used as vegan spread as well. Maybe the parsley pesto was the reason how the whole team did get through the last wave of flu without any harm.  

  Perhaps I will be able to add a new nice picture of a parsley pesto dish during the next week, if there ain't none you know that our team is vitamin empowered.  

  Are you looking for a special recipe? You have had a great dish on your last summer trip to Salzburg, or the dessert on your skiing vacations in Stubai was delicious or the cake you had for tea in Bozen is unforgettable and you would love to cook, bake, make that yourself? Write us an e-mail or leave a commentary! We love to prepare regional dishes and are always searching for new delicacies and titbits.  

  If you like Pesto as well, tell us which is your preferred one or if you wish to have a certain pesto recipe we could provide.  


  
  
	  
		Green, green, green is not only our Pesto, but many more things in the MiaDeRoca Shop:  
	  
		        
		  Cuddly Edelweiss Cushion Edelgunde    

	  
		        
		  Kit with wool and pattern for felted handbag    

	  
		        
		  Wall decoration: a deer head all in green    

      ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 01 Apr 2012 18:21:49 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/parsley-pesto/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/parsley-pesto/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Colourful Easter Cards]]></title><description><![CDATA[         DIY idea make colour Easter cards using cookie cutters  You are planing on having a family meal for Easter and are looking for nice invitation cards? Or, your would like to send individual hand made Easter Greeting Cards to your loved ones? These Easter Card Idea will be a quick and colourful craft to send Happy Easter.
    This card is a perfect card for invitations. With this crafty idea who have got a theme right at hand for your table decoration to lay out the Easter table and for your Easter cake and even for your appetizers.  
 Have a go.  
    

  Creating Easter Cards  

         Use cookie cutters as stencils to draw a rabbit or carrot shape  You need:    
several sheets of coloured drawing papers, scissors, glue and as stencil cookie cutters with an Easter theme – you have got all  what you need to make these Easter cards.
  
  As stencil for the sweet rabbit card we used the standing Easter bunny cutter (from the   Easter cookie cutter set  ), for the vegetable bed Happy Easter card we used the carrot cutter (from the   vegetable biscuit cutters  ).  

  The base of our cards is coloured drawing paper in DinA6 size – its easiest to cut our if you use a normal post card and draw around it. That is easy for kids to do as well.  

         Draw a line to mark the size of the bed  Put the biscuit cutter on an orange drawing paper and mark the outlines with a pencil. Cut along the lines.  

  Before you glue the carrot onto the card you will need some soil for the bed. We took the card (a green one) and marked how hight the soil should be, grab a ruler and cut out the rectangular shape.  

  To avoid marks of pencils on your card, just turn around carrot and soil and glue them. Those who like to could add a sun to their card, either paint it or use some coloured paper for a round ball and some rays. Our little artist wanted to have some earth worms – the organic garden does of course need some of this little soil enhancers.  

         Add some funny earth worms cut out of pin paper  Use a stick to glue all the decorations on the card – if the little fingers are adding to much of the glue, self made crafts don't thrive for perfection, the love can be seen anyway. We did put the Easter cards into self made envelopes – and this is a diy idea we will show you another time.    

  How you can use this crafting idea for table decorations?  

  You could turn the cut out carrots and rabbits into name tags, or make cookie place cards. Cut out cookie dough with rabbit cutter and stamp the name of the guest on it (use   cookie stamp set  ) or use food colour to write names on the baked cookie.
  
         Ready to be sent - colourful Easter greeting cards  For cake decorations colour some almond paste or Marzipan with brown (add some cocoa) for the Marzipan rabbits or in orange (with some carrot juice) for Marzipan carrots. And if you wonder how we decorate the starters using our cookie cutters – you can use the cutters to cut out slices of cheese, maybe you have some orange cheddar at hand for cheese carrots. Cutting out cheese in funny shapes, that is a trick we have already used for our popular   dragon soup  .  
   Are you in the mood for more Easter crafts with your kids?  
>  Add some fresh green to your Easter table:   cress eggs    
>    Easter egg holders  , free printable  
>  Gift home made jam and pesto in   decorated jars    
>    Serviette rings for Easter   with rabbit and Easter eggs, template to print out   



  
  
	  
		Seasonal Easter Decorations and Gift Ideas in the exceptional Online Shop MiaDeroca:  
	  
		        
		  Easter cookie cutters bunny, tulip and butterfly    

	  
		        
		  Perfect Playground Carrier Bag with Rabbit illustration by Nathalie Lete    

	  
		        
		  DIY KIT for exceptional Easter gift wrap carrot    

      
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:47:57 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/colourful-easter-cards/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/colourful-easter-cards/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wild Garlic Pesto Tags]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Decorating pesto jars - with mathicng tags  Maybe you have not yet read it in this magazine, that's why we mention it again: we like to gift home made pesto, jam and marinated feta. Our friends, relatives, hosts and hostesses  do enjoy these little presents. We take care that not only the ingredients are convincing, but that the look of the jars is already an eye candy, that's why we decorate them –   here you can see how   we do that.    
When we make quite an amount of preserved foods, we like to use matching tags. Here we have made tags for wild garlic pesto to print out. I f you don't know our legendary wild garlic pesto yet: here you can go to the   wild garlic pesto recipe  .  
  
       Open free printable, cut out labels, glue, add - smile  
  

  Wild Garlic Pesto Tags Template  

  That's how you do it:  

click on   the free printable for wild garlic pesto tags  
 – print it out,  
cut out and glue the double sided tags together, use a puncher to punch a hole and tie it as a tag to the jam jar – oh, pesto jar - of course.  

  The single labels can be glued directly on the jar – if you used an ink jet printer use a dry glueing stick or transparent foil, to make sure that the ink does not dissolve.    
       The pesto jar is decorated with a muffin baking case, here you can find the   how to  ,   
  


  We are always happy to hear from you.  
If you like to, you can send us pictures of your decorated pesto jars and send a picture to our facebook page   http://www.facebook.com/MiaDeRoca   

          
    
  

  
  
	  
		You can find Individuals Products and Original Gifts in our MiaDeRoca Web-Shop:  
	  
		        
		  Small Stag Head use as wall decoration or key board in black or white    

	  
		        
		  Cookie cutter in Weisswurst shape, perfect for a Bavarian evening    

	  
		        
		  Art Design Bag from France - hare and forest animals    
      ]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:07:02 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/wild-garlic-pesto-tags/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/wild-garlic-pesto-tags/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Calendar Sheet April 2012]]></title><description><![CDATA[  April 2012, this month is all about Easter this year – the great spring celebration. Sometimes we get snow around Easter in the Alps – but still Easter is a holiday to celebrate as much as possible outside. The perfect Easter Day is when the big Easter egg hunt can take place outside. If we are really lucky even the Easter Sunday afternoon coffee can be enjoyed al fresco. For the Easter time pastel colours and strong colours, especially greens is what we long for, we like them to be accompanied by yellow, orange, light blue and pink.  

  Easter – Party for Spring Colours  

  Spring Colours on the Easter table, a good starter are colourful Easter eggs. The Easter DIY craft sets by MiaDeRoca are of course as well in Spring colours. Be it the   felted carrot wrapper   in yellow and light green or orange and meadow green or the   bunny case for iPhones and Smartphones  . The carrot case would be the perfect gift wrapper and the rabbit smartphone cover and exceptional Easter bunny gift. By the way the carrot gift wrap keeps your gifts perfectly save in unpredictable April Easter weather – if cold and snow prevails it will keep Easter gifts save and warm and even protect them from humidity, when it is a hot day and the sun on Easter Sunday casts its rays through leafless bushes, it will protect the chocolate Easter bunny from instantly melting.  

         Preview Calendar Sheet April: Easter Preparations and Crafts  
In preparation of the Easter time we added several new recipes and some crafting inspiration in March. A recipe, several have asked for, has been already written up back in February. This recipe is perfect for Spring, and will make a lovely dish, even during lent:   wild garlic pesto  .  

  Wild Garlic pesto and many other home made pestos are great hostess gifts or little presents for many other occasions. You can add special value to this gifts, when you decorate them nicely. Some inspirations on how to decorate food gifts are collected over here:   decorating jam jars  .  

  This year wild garlic season comes very late to the Alps. Some regions in the South Tyrol, Northern Italy, Slovenia and the East of France are luckier as their milder winters lets nature recover earlier and you can find wild garlic at the end of February. Especially of wild garlic fans and wild garlic pesto connoisseurs we have designed wild garlic pesto tags – which are   available to download  . These pretty tags can be printed out and used to glue to the wild garlic pesto jar or bind it to the pesto lid – how great this looks can be seen on our photo for the April calendar sheet.  

  Speaking of crafts, that is not all concerning March, this year we show you some sweet Easter cards. These cards can be used as invitation for Easter brunch or sweet Easter greeting cards. When you use these cards as invitation for Easter celebration you can set the decoration theme for your Easter table. The picture of our April calendar allows a first glance at the crafting idea. Soon we will give you the DIY tutorial. In the meantime have a look at our other Easter crafting inspirations.  

   >  let vitamines grow in a pretty way:   cress eggs    
>    Easter egg holders  , pattern to print out  
>    Serviette rings for Easter   with rabbit and Easter eggs, template to print out   

  April holidays 2012 at a glance:  
Sunday, 1st of April, Palm Sunday  
Thursday, 5th of April, Maundy Thrusday  
Friday, 6th of April, Good Friday  
Saturday,, 7th of April, Holy Saturday  
Sunday, 8th of April, Easter Sunday  
Monday. 9th of April, Easter Monday  
Monday, 30th of April, Walprugis Night  

  Here you can download the April calendar sheet:   Calendar Sheet April 2012    

  Find free printable calendar sheets monthly at MiaDeRoca - to not miss one calendar, click "like"   on our facebook page  , or   subscribe to the RSS-feed   of this site.  

  
  
	  
		Easter decorations and gifts in the fantastic webshop MiaDeroca:  
	  
		        
		  Easter cookie cutters: Easter bunny, flower, butterfly, hare    

	  
		        
		  Organic cotton bonnet with rabbit ears    

	  
		        
		  Small white bowl with white rabbit on the lid    

      
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:30:30 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/calendar-sheet-april-2012/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/calendar-sheet-april-2012/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Decorating Jam Jars]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Decorating jam jars - turning home made food into great hostess gifts  Homemade jams and chutneys, and home cooked pestos – these are culinary delights to spoil your loved ones. And they are great hostess gifts and small presents when seeing relatives, visiting friends or want to light up the day of one of your colleagues. The delicious home made food n the jam jar can be decorated – with colourful lids, decorations, jam jar labels and tags.  

  In this report we have collected ideas, inspirations, tutorials and patterns on how to decorate, embellish and sweetly package jelly and jam jars. These are great ways to turn delights to the palate into a feast for the eyes.   ]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 10 Mar 2012 12:42:22 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/decorating-jam-jars/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/for-children/decorating-jam-jars/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fresh Feta Cucumber Spread]]></title><description><![CDATA[         Deer Watching differentely: the deer is watching what we are doing, and realizes that the olives are getting less from photo to photo. This never happens with garlic...    
  Recipe Feta-Cucumber Spread  
  Ingredients:  
1/2 cucumber  
1 piece of Feta (200g) – you could use any other white cheese or cottage cheese  
1-2 cloves of garlic  
10-15 Manzanilla olives or other green olives, as you like it  
1 twig of rosemary   

  Cut the cucumber, and the olives, I did crumble the Feta with a fork, cut or squeeze the garlic, take the rosemary of the twig – I usually crush a little by hand. Then put the whole mix into a high bowl, take your hand blender and produce a nice smooth texture. We also tried this spread with Quark (or Austrian Topfen) instead of Feta, works fine as well. You can make this recipe without garlic, if you have meetings the very day.  

         Frittata with potatoes and onions, served with cold cucumber sauce, beetroot-celery-Chutney and whole grain bread  


  The red chutney you see on the picture was made of beetroot, celery, radish, apple and cucumber. Yes, this mix was a mix for delicious juices – add some lime to the juice for extra zest. We took the veggie-fruit leftovers, added a little water, some preserving sugar or jam sugar (the less sweet the better, we use a 3:1 sugar which means it needs 1 part sugar for 3 parts fruits or veggies) boil and stir for a few minutes. To make it nice and spicy we added 1 tablespoon of vinegar (be careful to not use too much), fresh chilli peppers, ginger, salt and Garam Masala. We used the hand blender to create a even texture and filled it up into jam jars.  

  This quick chutney is a great host or hostess gift – use a nice jam jar, decorate the jam jar, maybe add a nice tag and we like to use a matching cookie cutter – this is how you will get an individual little gift. We choose the cutter according to the theme of the meeting or invitation, or we match it to special hobbies of our host or hostess, sometimes we just keep it seasonal. We will provide decoration tips for culinary gifts in jam jars soon in one of our next articles.  


  
  
	  
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]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:15:00 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/fresh-feta-cucumber-spread/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/fresh-feta-cucumber-spread/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Quick Dill Quark Spread]]></title><description><![CDATA[         All the ingredients for our dill-spread  We usually have warm cooked meals for lunch and dinner, it is not common in our household to have a cold dinner – in Austria to have cold platter regularly for dinner is typical for many households. But we prefer the quick meal for lunch, like a hot soup and sandwiches, or a quick Tortilla de Patatas with spreads or veggie sauces or some salad with slices of bread topped with spreads – the typical bread that holds the yummy topping would be brown bread, sometimes pumpernickel or toast or the typical Austrian bun: Semmel or Semmerl.  

  When you visit Austria or the Southern parts of Germany like Bavaria and the Black Forest you can get spreads accompanying a snack, the typical "Brotzeit". Brotzeit literally means "bread time" and is in certain way similar to the British tea time, but consisting of bread and bacon, cheese, spreads and pickles to top the bread.        Im Handumdrehen ist der leckere Kräuter-Quark-Aufstrich fertig, mit ein paar Radieschen dekorieren - und genießen!    
  

  Wash the dill and cut it, press or cut garlic or, cut chilli pepper. You can either cook and cut the egg, I usually fry it quickly and cut it into dices. Add mustard and quark, mix it and season with salt and pepper. Enjoy!  

  This spread is whipped up in no time, you can use it to accompany baked potatoes or as a dip for vegetables or sauce for bbq, for picnicks we like to fill slices of tramezzini bread with different spreads.  

  Have a try on our other bread spreads from our recipe collection:
  Liptauer     
  Kartoffelkas - Potato Cheese       
  Wild Garlic Spread      
  Herbed Spread      
  

  
  
	  
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]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:28:17 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/quick-dill-quark-spread/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/quick-dill-quark-spread/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[March 2012 Calendar Sheet]]></title><description><![CDATA[  2012 started with lots of snow and coldness in the Alps, end of January and the beginning of February it really turned very cold and in many areas lots of snow came down again. Real winter indeed. Our picture for the calendar sheet March is from the archives of last year – as the best thing about March cannot be seen below an evening sky, we chose a photo from the afternoon: green meadows and blue sky,  finally the colours came back and we don't have to glance at colourful beanies, striped tea mugs and brightly coloured ski suits for some colour therapy.  

  Don't get me wrong: I love winter, we all love snow and real winter hast to be cold and harsh at times. But as much as we like winter, we love spring and the change of seasons. Nature changes all the time, although we sometimes don't see it, as most thing that happen, happen under a high wall of snow. But when the snow slowly melts, than we can see the first early bloomers greeting us.  

  Usually in February, but sometimes in March we are already there and the snow has melted and the lawn still in brown-green starta to soak in the late winter sun, than the growing and germination takes place. The biggest change you see is on the ground, where brownish colours vanish and the green takes over, in between some colour from the first flowers – and, we never get tired to remind everyone the first wild herbs are growing, like wild garlic or ramson, which give us many vital necessities from vitamins to micronutrients for a powerful start into spring. By the way, this year we started early to add another of our very popular wild garlic dishes to our recipe collection:   wild garlic pesto, a delicious spring recipe.    
  March 2012 Calendar Sheet  

   ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:26:30 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/march-2012-calendar-sheet/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/march-2012-calendar-sheet/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wild Garlic Pesto]]></title><description><![CDATA[  Fresh herbs for cooking is a pure delight: put some parsley on top of the potatoes, use some chives for the salad dressing, top the vegetable soup with cress and basil to the tomatoes. As the herb garden is not always at hand during the year and maybe sometimes not growing as much as you would love to, you can help yourself with herbs in oil. This is a method to increase storage life for herbs and you can create a great dish with these herbs: Pesto.  
  
We love to serve dishes with different kinds of herb pesto on a regular basis. Our friends and relatives like to get these vitamin bombs in a jar as little gifts. You can of course use your herb pesto for pasta and noodles and nothing else, but these grounded herbs can be used to spice up dumplings, burgers and soups as well.  

  The most important equipment for a pesto: a hand blender.  

  The typical classy pesto is a basil pesto, Pesto alla Genovese, with basil, pine nuts, olive oil and Parmigiano or Pecorino. In summer we love to prepare fresh basil pesto, harvesting our basil plantation – I call it plantation, because you need a fair amount of basil. Up to know we were always lucky that basil used to grow and sprawl in a lovely way on our wind-protected balcony. We are fond to have diversity in our basil: besides classy green basil, we have red basil and some other rarer types of basil. Especially kids love to find out how these different types of herbs feel, smell and taste.
  
  Wild Garlic Pesto Recipe    
	    
	  Amazing Green on the plate: fresh wild garlic as pesto for spaghetti with Parmesan.    


  Our herb Pesto season starts with a very special pesto: wild garlic pesto. Winter in the Alps is sometimes harsh, long and sometimes rather dark. When the days start to get longer, the snow slowly disappears and hoarfrost does not greet you any more from lawns and car windows, than it is time to look at the edges of meadows and forests. We don't look for colourful blossoms, where snowdrops and spring snowflakes are nearly gone and first primroses and crocuses stretch their necks towards sun – we are looking for green leaves. Yes, we have to admit: boring green leaves are what we are striving for, yet for us it is the culinary herald of the new garden season. Soon, very soon we are able to leave aside stored vegetables when eating regional fruits and vegetables. Not very much long until we can pick parsley and chives from the garden, harvest elderflowers to make cordial and jelly and soon there will be the first berries.  

  For the time being we concentrate on the green leaves, which make collecting easy, as they come in great quantities – but as it is with fungi, be careful at picking the right ones – some hints concerning harvesting wild garlic can be found here:   Wild Garlic Spread Recipe    


  When preparing the pesto you can either make loads of it or start with a small quantity, like a handful of wild garlic.  
The main idea of wild garlic pesto is similar to basil pesto: herbs in oil + nuts + cheese.  

  The   ingredients   for the wild garlic pesto:  
wild garlic  
peeled sunflower seeds  
sunflower oil  
mature hard cheese – like Parmesan or very ripe Emmental cheese  
salt  

  Wash the wild garlic and dry gently – you might want to use a salad spinner. Use a high bowl and insert wild garlic up to two thirds, insert some oil and start the milling with the hand blender. Add more and more oil and the wild garlic that is left. You could of course cut the wild garlic with a knife and use a mortar – but this fine herb oxidises rather quickly and it changes its taste and changes the colour and turns brown. That's why we put the wild garlic leaves directly into the blender and cover it in oil, so that no oxygen gets close to cut wild garlic and its fine ingredients.  
I you want to store your wild garlic you can do this with this oil-herb mix and it can stay in the fridge up to one year. For a long storage life cover up the herbs with oil.  

  Why we don't use olive oil: 1. this special recipe is very regional, a fact we love and 2. olive oil will turn cloudy and solidify in the fridge. Those who love olive oil can use it for wild garlic pesto as well, but rather use it it up straight away and don't store it. Instead of sunflower oil you can use rapeseed oil as well.  
In our recipe we don't use pine kernel – as the intensive taste of wild garlic with its garlicy note covers up and you would not be able to distinguish fine pine nut taste. The small crunchy sunflower seeds accompany wild garlic very well.  

  The peeled sunflower seeds and the grated cheese can be added directly to the herb-oil mixture or you can add both ingredients separately on your pasta when serving.   

    
	    
	  Decorate the jar you filled your wild garlic pesto into - delicious for the eye and the palate    Those who love to give wild garlic pesto to friends as give-way: we recommend to  gift the herb-oil mixture in a jar and pack the cheese and sunflower seed separately. Without the cheese the herb mixture will perish much later – theoretically the oil-herb mix stays fine in the fridge for until the next wild garlic season. So far we could not test the storage life as we always used up our wild garlic-oil stock much earlier. If you want to decorate the gifted wild garlic pesto prettily, have a look at our   decorating jars inspirations  .  
We made pretty   wild garlic pesto tags   for you as free printable.  

  Those who are new to pesto or wild garlic will prefer the herb-oil mix as well as they can use it up pit by pit – adding some of the green oil to salads or using a little of the herbs for a nice cream soup, or test one of our other wild garlic recipes:
  Wild garlic spread    
  Wild garlic Spätzle    

  Wild garlic is also referred to as bear's garlic, ramsons, wood garlic, bear-paw garlic, broadleaved garlic or buckrams, botanically correct it is "allium ursinum".  

  	&nbsp;  

  
	  
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]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:11:25 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/wild-garlic-pesto/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/wild-garlic-pesto/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Calendar Sheet February 2012]]></title><description><![CDATA[  February is a short month and the shortest month of the year, in 2012 February will be a bit longer due to 2012 begin a leap year and February getting 29 days instead of 28. There is one more aspect that makes this February a little longer and more intensive: more than half of this Feburary is located right in the so-called 5th season: carnival – or how it is called in German Karneval or Fasching. What means lots of parties (in Austria they are called Gschnas) and balls – great costumes, colourful decorations, adorable party gowns and beautiful dancing dresses – February is going to be colourful, despite its white and grey weather.  

  Romantic Winter Evening  

  So we chose a colourful picture for our calendar sheet February – a colourful sky to be precise. Yes, the days are still short in the winter month February, but occasionally sunny and if your are really lucky your can get a beautiful sunset and afterglow. Matching February which is not only themed by carnival, but also by a very special for lovers, we chose a romantic and pinkish afterglow: red and pink stripes on a blue and dark-blue sky and twilight. The trees around the houses hold up their empty wigs and branches free of leaves. Valentine's Day 2012 will be a Tuesday.  

   ]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:54:05 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/calendar-sheet-february-2012/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/calendar-sheets/calendar-sheet-february-2012/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dragon Theme Party - Dragon Food Decoration]]></title><description><![CDATA[  Dragons are popular amongst kids and teens for quite a while, sure, in the last years several books and even films have put some extra fuel into the hype like Eragon, Dragon Rider, Dragonsdale, Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher and of course movies like "How to Train Your Dragon" with the little hero Hiccup. Of course there are several dragon classics like the funny dragon Elliot from the Disney movie Pete's Dragon, or the tiny Grisou, or Fuchur from the neverending story and Tabaluga.  


  
  
	    
	  The sweet sweet dragon cutter Lutz, a funny little drago with dragon tale and wings looks great in Salami and Mozzarella.    In Kindergarten we heard marvellous tales of dinosaurs and soon knew who to distinguish a t-rex from a brontosaurus, and we where baffled by three year old kids who where able to say triceratops without flaws. But soon the dinosaurs where substituted by magical dragons, and for many years and several children's parties if there where dragons involved nothing could go wrong. When we start a children's party we usually start with lunch and despite all the kids classics in party lunch like pizza or wieners we liked to start healthy. A simple decoration idea and some involvement helped to make it a good start. Our dragon decoration at the lunch table does not need crafty talent and lots of preparation, most work is done by the kids themselves and they used to have fun doing so.  
  The lead part for our dragon soup is played by the   dragon cookie cutter Lutz  .  

  We love the funny shape of this dragon cutter and we love it because it is so versatile – not only for biscuits and cookies, As dragon riders, dragon trainers and dragon knights can't only eat sweet things during a party and most of our dragon parties took place during carnival (or Mardi Gras) what means plain winter, we choose to start the party with something nutritious and warm. The dragon's soups ingredients would please a dragon as well as its riders.    
  
	    
	  An enchanting creature: the body made of, scales made of red and green Pesto, the flames this dragon is breathing made with red basil.    
  Dragon Soup  

  You need:  
soup cube (without glutamate)  
carrots  
onion  
seasonal vegetable – in Winter in Austria this is cabbage, kale and celery  
1-2 Mozzarella or slices of cheese  
Salami (or any other sausage)  
some sorts of Pesto like green (Genovese Pesto) and red (Tomato Pesto)  
some leaves of herbs  
bread  

  A day before the party, I start to "flatten the mozzarella" – the typical mozzarella is a soft ball. In this dish we need this lovely white cheese to cut dragons out of it. If you would slice it in its original round shape you can 1-2 dragons out of it. If you flatten it what once was a ball is now something you can cut out slices and later cut out dragons of these slices. If you Mozzarella comes in bags, put the bag behind the bottles, if you get them open, put a mug on top. You can of course take Mozzarella which is already shaped as a block or get some sliced cheese.  

    
	    
	  Made of Salami on cheese cloud - what a yummy cloud dragon.    We usually cook the soup the very day of the party – you can of course prepare it the day before, store it in the fridge and heat it when the guest arrive. We use seasonal vegetable, in winter that means vegetable that can be stored. We like to use many different vegetables, on the one hand your soup will taste much nicer, we call this a full and round taste – the next advantage lies in the fact, that with many different ingredients it is not so easy to detect single types of vegetable (e.g. if one of your guest happens to dislike carrots). Of course we ask in advance our little guest and their parents if there are allergies, intolerances or severe dislikes to certain foods.  

  After cooking the soup, we take out all the vegetables again and sort them into different post – one for carrots, one for onions, one for the green stuff.  

  As soon as all our dragon tamers are around the table they get plates or boards and are aloud to cut and decorate their dragons. They made do as they like and will like to eat.  

  
Each one can decide if they would prefer cheese or salami (you could even cut out bread), and can decorate their dragons with herbs and pesto – herbs make great wings and sometimes even flames. The dragon is allowed to take a rest on top of the soup or on a slice of bread.  

    
	    
	  With cheese dragon and sausage dragon you can turn a vegetable soup into dragon food.    We make sure to have some more cutters, e.g. for sensitive damsels and vegetarian squires, for kids who don't like to eat a dragon, they can cut out a carrot or a horse shoe, or dragon shoe.  

  When kids are allowed to prepare their lunch they are usually more willing to try something new. If they prepare their lunch it gives the lunch a little bit of adventure. As everyone is allowed to choose what vegetables to put into their soup none has to eat vegetables he or she does not like.  

  Those who love to cook with kids can bake real dragon cookies in the afternoon – or if you like crafts without messy flour, you can cut out modeling clay with the dragon cutters and each of the kids can make a dragon pendant. These dragon pendants can be painted or adorned with glitter and they can be bag charms for the kindergarten bag or the school bag – and you have wonderfully combined the guest gift and crafting.  

  


  
	  
		Cutters for Cookies, Cake Decorations and to decorate theme parties:  
	  
		        
		  Cookie cutter set vegetables with carrot, corn, chili and funghi    

	  
		        
		  A games evening with eatable jigsaw pieces can be made easily with jigsaw cutters    

	  
		        
		  Biscuit cutter dragon for the perfect dragon party    

      ]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:47:28 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/dragon-theme-party-dragon-food-decoration/</link><guid>http://www.miaderoca.co.uk/food-recipes/dragon-theme-party-dragon-food-decoration/</guid></item></channel></rss>
