by Helen | Jun 19, 2023 | Lifestyle
I’m so glad summer is here for lots of reasons, but one of the main ones, is that our food intake changes. Gone are the stews and heavy soups of winter, which are delicious, but can be just a bit too much on the comfort side of food. Over the past couple of months, these have been gradually swapped out for much lighter meals, which are also generally now eaten outdoors, rather than in front of the fire, watching TV. A delicious summery savoury tart was the order the day recently – very few ingredients and so easy to make, you literally don’t need a recipe for it…
what you’ll need
- one packet of filo pastry
- jar of basil pesto
- cherry tomatoes
- feta cheese
- fresh thyme
- chilli flakes
- salt and pepper
I suppose you could definitely make your own filo pastry, but when you can buy this frozen and just roll out, when needed, why bother? I like cooking when it’s uncomplicated and faff-free, and to me, making your own pastry, is neither of these. And, unless you are a pastry maestro, I’m guessing it tastes just as good as home made. On this occasion, we used a jar of pesto, but this is one thing I usually don’t mind making, as it’s all just blitzed in the nutri-bullet.
what you’ll need to do
- roll out the pastry into an ovenproof dish/tin – keep it on the paper it’s rolled in too, as this is OK to go into the oven and it makes slicing and lifting the tart very easy, Prick the pastry all over with a fork;
- Dollop big spoonfuls across the pastry – leave a little in the jar for later – and smooth out so that the base is covered;
- Slice the cherry tomatoes and feta and squash down into the pesto;
- Sprinkle with the fresh sprigs of thyme, olive oil and chilli flakes and season with salt and pepper
Cook at 180° for about 25 minutes. Slice and serve. What could be easier?
by Helen | Jun 13, 2023 | Slovenia, Travel
Slovenia has just 47km of coastline on the Adriatic Sea, but it certainly makes the most of it. Three seaside towns – Koper, with its medieval core, Izola, known for its good restaurants, and glorious Piran – are full of important Venetian Gothic architecture, and have clean beaches, boats for rent and rollicking bars. That said, the coast is overbuilt, and jammed with tourists from May to September. If you’re looking for solitude, head for the hinterland to the south or east where ‘Slovenian Istria’ still goes about its daily life.
Lonely Planet is spot on about the Slovenian coastline, especially the bit about “Slovenian Istria”. When we drive to Italy – the big supermarkets in Trieste are as close as the ones here in Istria – we often take the longer coastal route, because it is stunning. It’s also so much easier now that Croatia has joined the Schengen Area, as we now just drive through what used to be the manned border points – this all became a bit more stressy after Brexit, but since 1st Jan, our journeys into Slovenia are a joy. The towns on the Adriatic coast – Portoroz, Piran and Izola, as well as the main port of Koper – are all beautiful. Very Venetian, unsurprisingly, as this area was under Venetain rule for many years. Cobbled streets, cplourful houses, loggias, and salt pans. Yes, that’s right – salt pans, established over a thousand years ago, and still being worked, with a very beautiful salt spa in the heart of the Sečovlje Salt Pans.
We’ve rarely stopped here though, as we’re normally on a mission – supermarket, IKEA, diy store etc. But at the weekend, after days of rain, the sun returned and we decided to stop off at the beach on the edge of the of the Strunjan Landscape Park, unique due its location by the sea. As with lots of “beaches” around the Gulf of Trieste and the northern Adriatic, these areas are normally pebbly or man-made concrete structures. Forget your fine sand. But, and this is a massive *but*, the lack of sand does NOT, in any way, put people off sunbathing. You’ll always see, throughout the season, hardy sunbathers, often lying on the concrete on nothing more than a beach towel. The thought of it makes me shudder!
So, on Saturday, when we decided to make a post-Koper detour to Strunjan, I was delighted to find more comfortable options were available. The car park is almost on the beach, fringed by pine forests and along the very lovely front are two or three bar/restaurants with outside seating. An area with sunbeds is also available, slightly away from the bars. This little bay is just so pretty, surrounded by forested hills, a view of Piran across the bay and lovely villas dotted across the hills. The water was clear and turquoise blue, with morning swimmers and paddle boarders enjoying the warm sunshine. A couple of snazzy, but understated cream and navy blue yachts, were moored up just off the coastline – these always make me want to just sail away…
We’ve had some very awful weather recently, with torrential summer rain and thunderstorms which have been accompanied by fierce lightning. We did manage to squeeze in an hour of hot sunshine at the beach, before the thunder storm clouds rolled in again. By the time we got home, the storm had passed, leaving behind some pretty dramatic cloud formations, wrapped around the pink Palazzo in Oprtalj. Which looks stunning at any time of year and in any kind of weather.
Thankfully, the very dramatic weather seems to have retreated and we are back to normal with our summer weather in Istria – hot, sunny, humid and when a cool breeze drifts by, you are very grateful for it. And with these increasing temperatures, I think we’ll be forcing ourselves to spend quite a bit more time by the Adriatic. Although not on a concrete sunbathing platform…
by Helen | Jun 13, 2023 | Lifestyle
It’s definitely red pepper season here, as supermarkets are bursting with them. We picked up a big bag of them recently and made a super spicy chilli at the weekend, full of these flavoursome ruby red vegetables. But there was still an excess of them and rather than letting go off – which often happens – I decided that a soup was the order of the day, for a meat free Monday meal. Soup is so, so easy to whizz up and everyone will have their own favourites and ways of doing them, but this was so delicious, I just thought I’d share what was used to enhance the flavour.
Firstly, the remaining peppers (of which there were quite a few – maybe seven or eight), were roasted in an oven proof dish, with olive oil, salt and pepper, until charred. To speed up the charring, they were blitzed under the grill for a final five minutes.
A large white onion was finely chopped and sauted with a little olive oil until translucent and soft in a large pot. Once it had softened down, the charred roasted peppers were added, along with a few whole garlic cloves, half a jar of sun dried tomatoes and vegetable stock.
This was simmered for about 30 minutes and then blended until completely smooth and creamy using an immersion blender. Plenty of black pepper was added at this point, but only a pinch of salt, as there was enough saltiness from the stock, sun dried tomatoes and pre-seasoned peppers. Once blended to a creamy consistency, the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon was stirred in, to give it a little bit of a tart taste, and to balance out the sweetness of the peppers and tomatoes. It could easily be served just like this, straight from the pan, but a dollop of Greek yoghurt was added and drops of basil pesto – perfect for dipping big chunks of nutty bread into.
what you’ll need
- red bell or pointed peppers (we used 7 or 8)
- 1 yellow onion
- half a jar of sundried tomatoes
- 4 garlic cloves peeled and whole
- 1 fresh lemon, squeezed to get all of the juice
- vegetable stock (how much depends on how thick you want the soup’s consistency to be)
- salt and pepper to season
- olive oil
- basil pesto
- Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche for topping
by Helen | Jun 12, 2023 | Lifestyle
We decided this summer, with the garden revamp and everything, to replace the wooden sun loungers. Bought when we first moved in, we committed the initial rookie error of never oiling them, and then after the first year, left them outside over each winter. I did try to make them look better, first by spraying them an anthracite grey, then when this weathered, painting them with the same pale blue sating wood gloss that we did the external wood work in. This was possibly their best phase, looks-wise, but years of neglect had made them a bit rickety and far too squeaky.
These were given to a neighbour, as we’d found what we thought were better sunbeds – the wooden, curved crocodile sun loungers. Obviously, not the real deal as these are monumentally expensive – we found our crocodiles in Kaufland, one of our big, local suerpmarkets, which usually always has good summer bargains. Anyway, these looked a lot nicer, and so were purchased.
These have been OK, but not the most comfortable, especially as pads have been difficult to find – the beds don’t go flat, the curve stays, and so these pads from Jysk were the best we could find, as they had flexibility. Although again, not very comfy as they are quite thin. So, this year, I have made a determined effort to get it right. If both the front and rear gardens were being completely redesigned, I wanted to have sunbeds which would last and would be comfortable – and my mind kept returning to those retro, white, plastic beds, with big arm-rests, which you usually hire on Greek beaches. However, it would appear that these are made out of some very special plastic, because the online prices were extortionate. I had to go online, as they also seem to be as rare as hens’ teeth, and nowhere seemed to stock them here. Eventually I did find a UK company which would ship to Istria, but without shipping costs, two of these were £216.00!
Luckily, in hindsight, I received an email saying that the seller was going to have to cancel my order, as the shipping was just too costly. But , as so often happens, good things sometimes come out of disappointment.
At the end of last week, on a trip to Spar, another of our big, local supermarkets, lady luck struck. There, right by the checkouts, were a big pile of exactly what we’d been looking for – and at the bargainous price of €37 each! The car was too full to get them home immediately so we returned over the weekend – and I am right when I say they are as rare as hens’ teeth. There were three left! Two were snapped up immediately and are now sitting pretty in our front garden…
Properly retro and despite them being plastic, they are SUPER comfortable. Spacious and with arm rests at a very good height. Yesterday, summer returned to Istria, with a vengeance – it was very, very hot and these beds were just the ticket. I can’t deny that some afternoon snoozing may nave happened, as I drifted off, on my very own Greek beach, in Istria. And, of course, more trips to Spar are needed, as I now have to have another two, for the newly created rear garden. Especially at those prices!
by Helen | Jun 8, 2023 | Renovation
With a reliable builder finally working with us, we’ve decided that we can’t let him go to waste, and so are adding jobs to his ever-growing list. The weather has been pretty dire the last week or so – rain, thunder and lightning – and so work on the rear garden and window etc has stalled, as he hasn’t been able to get a long, dry run. So, we discussed the construction of a wall in the front garden, and because this is a smaller job, to our delight, he dropped off the concrete blocks on Tuesday morning, and built the wall yesterday!
We decided that, with the house going on the market, we needed to make it VERY clear to potential purchasers, that the piece of land, which is under the green wall, and so technically within our garden, doesn’t actually belong to us. It belongs to the abandoned house. Totally ridiculous, as it can’t be accessed, apart from through our garden – and we definitely won’t be giving anyone access rights. So, since we moved in, we’ve looked after this little piece of land, and currently, it’s looking very gorgeous. Levelled, geotex laid and fixed and covered in white pea gravel. It was on two levels, because it had been used as landfill, presumably when our house was first “renovated” by the people we bought it from. We never tackled this area, simply leaving it as two uneven and pretty unfinished levels and it never looked good. But, we’ve finally done it. All of the big stones have been removed and it’s been dug out and the soil redistributed, so now it looks like a finished area – especially as it’s now covered in beautiful white gravel.
So, absolutely no-one else uses it or has ever tried to access it, in all the time we’ve been here. A handful of the co-owners (there are 25!) live nearby and must be aware that we’ve maintained and improved it, so we’re all good with keeping on doing that. But, we wanted to be absolutely sure that anyone who comes to view the house, knows from the get go, that this piece of land does NOT belong to us. And, this is where the wall comes in.
The wooden beams were placed to prevent the stones from falling, as the patio is slightly higher, but they also mark out our boundary, so it was easy for the builder, as he already had a concrete base, once the stones were raked back, on which to build the wall.
Rather than just have a low wall, at the same height all the way along, we decided to go for something a bit more unusual, and have it raised, in steps, towards one end.
The wall now needs to be rendered and painted white – which we thought would happen today. But then we realised that today (8th June) is Corpus Christie, and so a public holiday in Istria. So no builders today. One step forward and all that!
Those stepped bricks are going to prove handy when we need a bit more height to cut back the vines, which can overhang. But even better than that, as practical as it is, is that they will also become “shelves” for various lanterns. Which of course I now have to and buy, as none of the lanterns we already are anywhere near suitable…
by Helen | Jun 7, 2023 | Renovation
So, finally, the whole of the front garden area – the piece we don’t actually own, but care for and improve – and the concrete patio, are now covered in a thick layer of beautiful white pea gravel. Six cubic metres have been wheel-barrowed and distributed and raked and smoothed over, and are looking absolutely fantastic. The front of the house is gradually undergoing a very dramatic transformation – and it just makes us question why we didn’t do this a very long time ago, instead of spending a fortune on ill-fated projects. Still, I suppose you live and learn.
The small pool has been relocated to under the living room window, so completely tucked away and private, seen by no-one. It’s also now out of the sun, so in a lovely, shaded spot. We’ve planted up the area under the green wall with potted plants, and added the redundant shutters from our house to the lower windows of the abandoned house, which we’ve exposed by cutting away the vines.
The concrete patio has now a total makeover. With new furniture and a bit of a change around, as well as lots of new bay trees planted up for privacy, it’s looking like a proper garden now, rather than something which will make do, until we get around to tackling it. Three palettes have been painted white and made into a table, now looking very pretty, sit amongst the potted olive trees and turquoise 70s retro satellite chairs.
I’ve also been searching and searching for those lovely fringed Bali sun umbrellas, but not finding much that would give me a lot of change from the €300 mark, I’d given up on my Balinese dream. Until I spotted them in my new favourite store – Jysk. €37! Two purchased on the spot. And, although I know the ones costing a few hundred euros will undoubtedly be better made and probably more sturdy, but our two beauts will definitely see at least this summer out. The colours are perfect too – pale blue, white and soft grey.
Today, summer seems to have returned. All building work – rear garden, French windows and balcony and steps – has been held up because of the rain, but today the builders are back. And whilst the rear of the house is a priority, because we currently have gaping hole in the living room wall, covered with plastic sheeting, they are working in the front garden today, constructing a very lovely stepped wall. All to be revealed very soon…
by Helen | Jun 7, 2023 | Lifestyle
If you’re a fan of a dahl, and also a fan of not using lots of pots and pans and creating lots of washing up, this is the recipe for you. It uses one pan or casserole dish, a chopping board, a bowl, a knife, a spoon and a masher or a blender. Plus, whatever you choose to eat this delicious dahl off. Easy to hand-wash, but if put in the dishwasher, you wouldn’t even notice you’d made a meal, the clear up is so quick. The recipe is from this book :
…and is very, very easy.
what you’ll need
- cherry tomatoes
- 140g red lentils
- 3 tsps nigella seeds
- 500ml boiling water
- 1 heaped tsp sea salt flakes
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 heaped tsps ground coriander
- 2 heaped tsps ground cumin
- glug of olive oil
- 1 lemon, juice only
- coconut cream (if from a tin, use only the solid part, and discard the water)
what you’ll need to do
- Put the cherry tomatoes in an ovenproof/casserole dish. Add the lentils, water and nigella seeds.
- Dress the sliced onion with the cumin, coriander and olive oil and scatter over the tomato and lentils. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with a tight lid and cook until the liquid is absorbed. (This was about 45 mins and then a further 10 mins on the hob).
- When most of the liquid is absorbed, whisk/mash the lentil mixture so that it becomes more mushy. More like a dahl consistency.
- Then add the coconut cream and squeezed lemon juice.
- Give it a final stir and serve with warm flatbread, or naan bread or rice.
The recipe doesn’t state what the garnish is – chopped coriander, maybe? – but we didn’t have any, so no garnish on ours. However, the taste wasn’t affected in any way, especially as the lemon and coconut cream gave it a creamy taste, with a bit of sharpness. Really, really delicious.
by Helen | Jun 2, 2023 | Renovation
We’ve thought long and hard about how much current renovation we want to do in our Istrian stone house, as it is imminently going on the market, as we have plans for a whole new adventure. However, with the demolition and clearance of the small stone cottage behind the main house, and the construction of our beautiful new, white, rendered garden wall, we have to think about the practicalities of the access to the new rear garden.
Currently. to get to get to the rear of the house, you have to walk along the newly gravelled side access road. Not a huge problem, and this road is only used by us and one neighbour, but it still doesn’t feel quite right that there isn’t an access from the house. So, at the start of this week, we discussed with our builder the possibility of enlarging the living room window which overlooks the rear of the house, and installing French doors, and having a concrete platform and steps down, into the garden, built. Not much ever happens here very quickly – you have to have lots of patience – so we were expecting a good few weeks to pass before we even got a quote for the work. How wrong we were on this occasion!
Quote in the next day. Agreed. And, Wednesday evening spent moving furniture away from the window and re-configuring the living room, so that plastic sheeting could be put up, for the work to commence the next morning…
Very little happens quickly here. It’s just something you have to get used to. Days can often drift by between discussing a job and it actually starting. It all usually depends on availability of materials. Or what other jobs the builder may have committed to. Or the weather – sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold, sometimes too windy, sometimes there may be a threat of rain. Or it’s a public holiday – and if that falls on a Wednesday or a Thursday, definitely discount the next couple of days, as a long weekend will always be had. Or the builder just goes AWOL. They always return, just maybe not when you expect them. So this speedy turn of events has taken us by surprise. At the beginning of the week, we still had a wall and a window and only the start of a plan. Now we have a huge hole in the wall. Although, we have to say, it has been the neatest demolition job we’ve ever experienced, with not a speck of dust inside the house, although much Istrian stone once again, back in the garden…
Our job this weekend is to begin the sourcing of the French doors. We’ve been scouring the internet and know exactly what we want – the challenge now is to find somewhere that sells them, and help us to realise something like the beautiful image below…
by Helen | May 31, 2023 | Lifestyle
We do love our tea in this house, but we like tea which is very uncomplicated. I have bought leaves and strainers – and even went so far as to bring back rose petal from Morocco – but the just ends up sitting in a pretty containers and the various strainers just take up room in drawers. A glass teapot, with an internal strainer, sits unused in a cupboard because it’s all a bit of a faff. As much as we like a good cup of tea, we’re not afficionados and so usually just hang a teabag (Earl Grey – always) in a cup and do it that way. When we want to do it properly, sometimes the beautiful grey Le Creuset teapot comes out. An absolute bargain from TK Maxx many moons ago, but again, a bit of a faff as it’s big and usually sits on the worktop, half full of cold, stewed tea until we admit defeat with it. The photo above is what I’d like to every afternoon, but blimey – those leaves and lemons would do my head in. First world problems, I know, but with our new garden, thoughts have been turning to lovely accessories which don’t cost the earth. And that includes a faff-free teapot for breakfast, which can be enjoyed under the new sun umbrellas on the recently pea-gravelled patio, on the new table. This kind, below, but probably a lot less expensive. And, maybe not black.
A trip to my current, favourite store – Jysk – once again delivered the goods. Exactly what I was looking for, in the right colour and at very much the right price. Duck egg blue and just €10 for the teapot – with a tight fitting lid and a spout that doesn’t leak. It’s also perfect for two earl Grey tea bags, so no fuss with loose leaves, either. The two little matching cups came were just €4 each, making a perfect breakfast set for two. And, completely dishwasher safe, too – the handle isn’t wooden. It’s hard coated plastic but looks wooden, which is a nice design detail. The table cloth is also from Jysk – a beautiful marl grey, slightly creased, linen – perfect for those of us who hate ironing.
The front garden is finally becoming a space we are really growing to love. Hopefully, this summer, we’ll really get to use it as an additional living space and take advantage of the seating/relaxing areas we’ve created. As well as the hidden away new area for our tub pool – a completely private little corner, that absolutely no-one can see. Perfect for a bit of skinny-dipping, too…
by Helen | May 29, 2023 | Interiors
Previously, we thought our house and garden were the best they could be, and were definitely ready to sell. But, they weren’t. We weren’t looking at our house through the eyes of a buyer. We were looking at it through our eyes, and of course, we thought it was the most beautiful house on the market, because it’s ours. We live in it full and we invest a lot into it. But, now starting to look at properties ourselves, we’re seeing things differently. When we look at properties, initially online, rightly or wrongly, we tend to reject any immediately, which are so stamped with the current owners, that to change to our style would take too long and would incur costs we wouldn’t really want to incur.
The ones we save and go back to, time and time again, are the ones we really see ourselves in, immediately. The ones which are immediately beautiful, but also are more neutral. Less cluttered. Easier to imagine what we could do to put our mark on them. And so both inside and out, this is what we’ve been doing with out house. Without stripping it of our identity completely, we’ve pared it back, especially inside. Hopefully, taken the overwhelming “us” out of it, and provided a background which potential new owners can really start to visualise themselves in. So, what have we done to prepare our home to be listed?
- The Hague Blue Farrow & Ball kitchen walls are now a soft pale grey, complementing the concrete style kitchen units;
- The dark feature wall in the living room is now a very soft pale blue;
- Lots of our accessories have been put away into storage, creating a feeling of space. A de-clutter is very cathartic;
- Cushions on the two sofas have been reduced in number and the same pale grey linen cushions now cover them all – no different shades/patterns/textures;
- Rugs in the living room have been laid now downstairs in The Snug – much better as this floor is concrete (albeit painted) – and the rugs soften it. In the living room we now have all jute rugs – neutral and calming.
- In the Well Room, the concrete table, with its resin finish, has been sanded back and painted in a white satin finish;
- The dark Hague Blue floor has gone, and it’s now white. The dark blue rugs have joined the living room rugs in The Snug, and more jute rugs have been laid in this room;
- The exposed well chamber, covered in safety glass, which we loved but felt could perhaps be an initial shock for others, has now been covered in a lovely round creamy/vanilla faux sheepskin, with tall, structural plants in hessian baskets, sitting on top;
- All internal woodwork – window frames, doors, door frames – are being painted white. The soft blue, which we have loved, was beginning to look like it needed a refresh, and wasn’t really working for us anymore. It’s proving to be a long job, changing the colour of the woodwork, but the results are speaking for themselves;
- Both sets of stairs were painted dark blue – these are now both white, as is the floor of the upstairs landing;
- The bedroom floor of the main bedroom and the bathroom floor are white now – we’ve got rid of the blue;
- In the main bedroom, we had beautiful faux vines wrapped around the beams. Again, we’ve loved these, BUT we realised that they were actually distracting from the height of the room – it has a huge, soaring apex ceiling – and also covering up the beautiful beams, which have been painted in a very soft, pale grey;
- All bedrooms have been de-cluttered – nothing feels impersonal, we still feel that these rooms are ours, they just feel more breathable;
- The Snug has been reconfigured and a utility area now housed much more effectively behind dark velvet curtains – the perfect place for these, as they had become too dark to be hung elsewhere;
It seems like an awful lot that we’ve done – and, it is! – but we think it’s work that is absolutely necessary. Not only do we have a “new” house emerging, to live in and enjoy whilst we’re still here, but we think it definitely is going to be more appealing to people who are in the market for a holiday home. (Some of the photos below were taken before the work had finished – further paint coats have been applied where necessary etc…)
We certainly feel that our home now has more of a light and airy feel, and we’re delighted with the rooms are being transformed. As we work inside, the work continues to the rear of the house as our new wall is constructed. Today is quite a monumental day, as the render is being applied – and we are crossing everything that another builder comes this week, with his digger, so that the different levels can be formed for our zoned garden.
So, we may seem a bit mad, doing all of this work when the house is ultimately going to go on the market and a new owner may change everything, anyway. But selling this house, is not like selling houses we’ve sold before. This house will sell to a particular kind of person at a particular time of year – and we have to do everything we can to achieve the outcome we want. Crossing our fingers, we get there…
