Back from Vacation.... Zucchini Soup Recipie

Back from vacation and the garden is overgrown.
What to do with zucchini that is as thick as your fore-arm?
I don't know what I did with my camera so the date is not correct.

Anyway, I was in luck because Dorri had a recipe and had writtren it down for me.
I will translate it from Dutch:
For eight people, (invite friends because it is really very tasty)
Courgette soup (courgette is the French word for zucchini)

• Three pounds of courgettes (zucchini), seeded.
  
• One pound of potatoes
• One onion
• Two pounds of chicken breast
• One stick of butter
• One little jar of green olives with pimento
• Half cup of cream
• One quart of chicken bouillon

Cube the zucchini, potatoes and onion. Put them into the melted butter in a great big pan. Add the bouillon, put the chicken breast on top and bring everything slowly to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes, until meat is cooked. Take out the chicken and puree the soup with a mixer. I do not own one so I mashed it with the tool I make mashed potatoes with....it worked fine.
Cut the chicken in small pieces and return it to the soup. Slice the olives and add them with the cream to the soup.
Bring to a boil and add salt and pepper to taste.
This soup is really delicious! Enjoy.

Second Week of My Field Trip Abroad

Well, I've been up to quite a bit this last week. Here's a photo-impression of a few of my activities:

1. I attended my granddaughter Dana's riding lesson:
2. I visited with my sister in-law, Joan Herweijer, a sculptor:

3. I attended a country fair where lost and dying arts were demonstrated, this is a wooden shoe maker making a pair of miniatures:
4. I went with Dorri to the Saturday market in Harderwijk and arrived home laden with flowers:

A Day on the Heath

Today we spent a wonderful day on the heath…. the Hulshorsterzand.

After breakfast this morning Dorri packed a picnic-lunch and we were off.

About six kilometers from where Coert and Dorri live we went to a heath that Coert helped restore (by clear-cutting 18 acres) some ten years ago.

I had a wonderful time just setting up my easel and painting for a few hours.

While I was busy Coert and Dorri were either taking walks in the area or reading in the shade. Dana & Christiaan were busily working on their paintings.

With the heather in full bloom I was reminded of how much I love this landscape..... to see the horizon and all the colors in between.
See the pictures below (click on them for full-sized image):

My First Week in Holland

During this last week I have been observing (and enjoying) the typical Dutch atmosphere.

I have been to Friesland with Dorri to visit her mother enjoying the landscape on the way. One of the excursions on this day was to a distillery in the town of Sneek where they produce the regional “bitter”.

I went swimming with my grandchildren, Dana and Christiaan, went out to dinner with my brothers and spent quite some time on the bicycle on our trips back and forth to Harderwijk…. Averaging ten to 12 kilometers a day.

Today, Saturday, is market day in Harderwijk. We all went to town with saddlebags. Coert even had a little trailer so their dog Esra wouldn’t have to run all the way.

Luck would have it that today was the annual “Flag-day” for the traditional fishing fleet.

The whole harbour was full of old fashioned fishing boats, people in traditional dress, stands showing and selling the lost arts of basket weaving, net-making, broom-tying.

I think the pictures below should be self-explanatory by now: