Pork loin à l'orange

This recipe has no story at all. Just found something very similar on the internet and modified it (as usual) to fit my taste buds and my limited available time. Just to give some anecdote anyway, I can tell you that not everything went as expected when working towards this course... The meat had originally to cook for about 4 hours in the oven at 100 degrees. I actually came home less than 4 hours before the dinner and found this recipe. Wanted to go shopping in a hurry when I realized the kind of time pressure I had. But got stuck in front of the internet instead. Took myself out somewhat 2,5 hours before dinner had to be ready (-1,5 hours behind budget), went to the shop and did not find the necessary piece of meat. Went to the next shop, which luckily had it, otherwise I would have had to add 30 minutes to get the next potential place that could have had it in. In a hurry I found it, paid and got home. Just to find out I left the meat and the spices at the cashier. Calling the shop, I found out they found the spices, but someone had stolen my piece of meat. So I had to go back and buy a new one. By the time I was home, I hardly had 1 hour before the dinner. And nothing prepared. So 200 degrees it was and a cooking time of one hour made it. Maybe somewhat drier but who cares. Nobody had to starve at the end anyway.

Ingredients
800 g pork loin (in one piece, with some fat coating)
1,5 teaspoon grill spice
1 pressed garlic (solo)
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1 orange
0,5 teaspoon cinnamon (you can leave it out. Gives somewhat a special taste you might not want)
Grounded white pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil

2dl whole milk
2dl cream (38-40% fat)
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1,5 tablespoon orange liqueur (e.g. Cointreau or Grand Marnier)

Instructions
Mix the grill spice, pressed garlic, grated zest of the orange and if you want the cinnamon into a paste. Rub it in on the pork loin as evenly as possible and place it in a oven-safe dish. Sprinkle the olive oil over the meat.
Place it in the oven. Ideal temperature seemed to be 100 degrees but 4 hours were required. With 200 degrees less then one hour will do. Temperature should be under 80 degrees Celsius when you take out the steak from the oven. Whatever temperature you decide you go for in between, keep the meat under 80 degrees. The lower the temperature, the more tender the meat will get, but the longer the baking time will be.

When it is done, take it out of the oven and let the meat rest during the time you are cooking the sauce.

Take 1,5 deciliters from the juices that came out of the meat. Cook it with the juice of the orange until the quantity is reduced to half.

Mix the corn starch with 1dl cold milk. Mix it in the juice. Add the remaining milk, the cream and the soy. Add the orange liqueur and cook at a high temperature until the alcohol has vaporised. Make sure you keep stirring the sauce with a manual beater just to make sure the sauce won't stick. If you have a pot with antiadherent coating, it will be much easier to keep the sauce from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Slice the meat thinly and put it on a serving plate.

Serve with baked broccoli or sweet potato chips or whatever comes to mind.

Chocolate gelatine cheese cake

This recipe was published by a very old pen pal of mine (not referring to her age but rather to the amount of years we have known each other, of course!) from Finland. She is genius when it comes to anything that has to do with foods and baking! And I got to steal it with pride.

I actually made this recipe in a modified form for New Year's Eve dinner to celebrate the new 2013 year coming together with friends. That explains the decoration I guess... :O)

Ingredients
Cookie bottom
15 Oreo cookies
50g unsalted butter

White chocolate filling
200g white chocolate (probably better with 250g or even more)
200g Philadelphia cheese
4 sheets gelatine (I would try to reduce it to maybe 3,5 or even less next time)
300g whipped cream

Dark chocolate filling
200g milk chocolate (probably better with 250g or even more)
200g Philadelphia cheese
4 sheets gelatine (I would try to reduce it to maybe 3,5 or even less next time)
300g whipped cream
According to the original recipe also add a bag of Fazer Marianne crushed bonbons. They seem to be some mint chocolate bonbon of some kind. Me not liking mint chocolate and not having a clue of where to get those, I actually left that detail out.
(or actually leave this out or reduce this to a half amount)


Instructions
Put the sheets of gelatine in cold water to soften up.

Mix the Oreo cookies with the melted butter until fully blended. Put it in a spring form. If you want your life to be easier, cover the bottom of the form with plastic film. Put the form in the fridge until you do the rest of the cake.

Whip the cream.
 
Melt the white chocolate. Mix in the Philadelphia cheese. Add the gelatine to to mixture. Add half of the whipped cream. Start by putting in it some heaped spoon of it and mix it well to give the basic mixture some "air" and the add the rest mixing from bottom down not to loose the air from the cream.

Put the white chocolate mixture into the form and put the form back in the fridge to cool down and get somewhat more stable before adding the next mixture.

Melt the milk chocolate. Mix in the Philadelphia cheese. Add the gelatine to the mixture. Add the other half of the whipped cream as for the previous mixture. If you have those, also add the crushed Marianne bonbons.

After removing the spring form 31/12-2012

Add in the form and put it in the fridge.

If you want a clear cut, it is recommended to put the cake in the freezer for some time or at least prepare the cake the day before serving otherwise it will not be "hard enough" to guarantee a reasonable look.
If you remove it from the refrigerator, it is a good idea to actually warm up the sides of the cake with your hands before removing them. It makes your life much easier!

Decorate as you desire. My friend did a wonderful decoration with not sure what with Santa and Christmas tree. I obviously kept it simple due to my limited craftmanship and only used some melted white chocolate to write something and to sprinke out some white decoration. In order to make it easier on myself I actually used a sharp knife to write the words on the cake and then when over them with the white chocolate later. Then I did not have to think how to write with hot chocolate, which in my opinion is not that easy (unless you are Montersino, as the guy can do anything....).


To be modified until next time
The cake was good, but I personally felt it was very very very much to melt down after a full dinner. So I probably think next time I will try to do less of it and furthermore make some changes to make it more exciting. The original recipe probably was  more exiting in itself given the Marianne bonbons which I left out. But without them, it can be a little, well, let us say boring.
Following alternatives may be viable and triable:
- Only use the white chocolate mixture and skip the other one. Or make only half of the other one just to top the whole a little and give it some color. But all of it was really too much. The cookies at the bottom were good, but too little compared with the cheese cake part. Reducing or eliminating the darker chocolate mixture will rebalance the proportions.
- I personally think little less gelatine might also do some good. Let us try to eliminate 0,5 or 1 sheet of gelatine next time from each mixture.
- I also thought the white chocolate taste was a little too subtle so next time let us add 50g more (or maybe even 75-100g, who knows)

Bigné alias Vanilla petits choux

These small delicacies are sold at any pastry shop in Milan. They are my favourite mignons and I could eat tons of them. They are called bigné.

You can actually get different variations of it with different fillings, among others you can buy some with chocolate fillings instead and glased with sugar. But the simple ones with vanilla custard are definitively and by far my all time favorites.

Petits choux to be filled 30/12-2012

Ingredients
Petits choux
Vanilla custard
Powdered sugar (if you have it, you can have "vanilla tasting powdered sugar")

For the recipes, follow the links above! 30 petits choux or some more will require vanilla custard made of around 0,5 liter milk+cream.




Instructions

Put the vanilla custard in a decorating bag with a decorating tip with a round hole. Stick the decorating tip through the bottom of each petit choux as far up as possible (might require a decisive insertion) and make sure to fill it completely by pulling out the tip slowly while the choux is filled.. Sometimes, this process might create some "leak" somewhere else in the petit choux, but that is no drama really. Just remove the exceeding amount of cream that has leaked.

Bigné with vanilla custard 31/12-2012

Sprinkle the vanilla flavoured powdered sugar over the petits choux before serving.

Vanilla custard

In Italy, you can get the most delicious vanilla custard at any patisserie. I have been trying to reproduce the same effect for ages. And never succeeded. But today I think that I kind of know the answer. When you try to do your own vanilla custard, you always use the real ingredients: egg yolks, sugar, cream, milk.... But I think the pros do not use all those eggs as it would be much too expensive to do some little amount of custard. So my guess is they use some other emulsifier instead. I think the vegegel from Dr. Oetker's is a very interesting kind of product that gives a texture similar to the purchase cream.
In the meantime, until I get to test my theory, here is the recipe with original ingredients.

Ingredients
400g milk
100g cream (38-40% fat)
150g egg yolks
150g sugar
17g corn starch
17g rice starch (I could never find this so I used rice flour instead)
1/2 vanilla flower

Instructions
Whip sugar and egg yolks. Add starches and vanilla flower powder.
Cook milk and cream. When the liquid is boiling through in the mixture above and then whip it up neatly for about 1 minute. If you wait too long to whip, the eggs might scramble up themselves giving an omelette taste to the custard (believe my word... :O( ) resulting in a less smooth custard and a less enjoyable taste.
You will notice that the whipped mixture will actually float in the liquid keeping the whole from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Note: do not use flour as an emulsifier as the flour can make the custard liquify. Also the rice and the corn starch give different texture so it is good to mix them it seems (I have never tasted how the custard would taste with only one of those actually, but well, I simply follow the recipe.). And by the way, next time I might give it a try to actually use the vegegel from Dr. Oetker's I think. That texture reminds me of both vanilla custard from Royal my mom used to do for me when I was a child and the custard you could find in the purchased petits choux.

Petits choux

Blurred baked petits choux 30/12-2012

This dish is actually very famous in Italy. Every patisserie in Milan offers these fantastic mignons and out of any mignon, these are my favorite. In Italian they are called bignè.

I have tried to make them at home when I was a little girl with hardly any positive result. Now I got the urge to give it another try. Found the recipe in my Montersino confectioner's school CD and thoughts might even try it for this year's New Year's Eve dinner.

Ingredients
165g Butter (unsalted)
185g Water
175g Flour (weak, with as little proteins as possible, and very refined)
Pinch of salt
25g Whole Milk
270g Eggs

Instructions
Put water and butter in a big pot and bring to boil and melt.
Important tip: make sure to put butter in small pieces in the pot so it melts before the water cooks. If it is not melted by then remove from the stove and make sure it does. The reason is you do not want too much water to vaporize as it would modify the proportions in the recipe.
Add flour.
Important tip: make sure the water cooks up thoroughly before pouring in the whole flour at once.
Mix with a wooden spoon with a very quick movement until the whole dough detach from the pot.

Dough out of the Kitchen Aid treatment 30/12-2012

Put in the Kitchen Aid using the butterfly mixer.
Add the milk while mixing.
Then add a few eggs at the time until absorbed. Check before adding the last egg that the dough is not too soft. The dough should look somewhat as custard. It might be even necessary to add some additional egg to reach the right dough.
On a baking plate distribute melted butter. Then dry it up with paper as the utter needs to be as little as possible in order for the guys to be able to grow.

Piped dough ready to bake 30/12-2012

Pipe the dough with a round pipe making sure that the starting point is the plate and going up  (not from the top as you would expect.
Important tip: do not use baking paper under them as they need to stick to the surface in order to grow properly in the oven.
Bake at 220 degrees Celsius until golden.
Important tip: use oven without ventilation for a professional result and an even surface.




Note to self: CD 10 - Pasta per bignè

Profiteroles Tiramisù

This recipe is also out of Luca Montersino's CD series. My favourite pastry cook really! Not sure if it has anything to do with the fact he is actually the only patry cook I know, but, well, who cares!

For some interesting reason, the cream to be used on the outside actually tastes like tiramisu' cream! Incredible!

This recipe is also suitable for pregnant people it turned out yesterday, as it does not contain any raw eggs at all!

General ingredients
18 petits choux
Coffee chantilly for the filling (see below)
Mascarpone glaze (see below)
Cacao powder

Ingredients for the coffee chantilly filling
250g cream (38-40% fat)
125g vanilla custard
 2 gelatine sheets
25g espresso coffee
2,5g additional instant coffee powder

Ingredients for the mascarpone glaze
125g mascarpone cheese
125g cream (38-40% fat)
75g vanilla custard
40g powdered sugar

Instructions for the coffee chantilly filling
Put the gelatine sheets into cold water for about 5 minutes to soften up. Whip the vanilla custard out of the fridge in order to make sure it becomes smooth. Warm up half of it in the microwave. Add the gelatine sheets to the custard and keep whipping until the gelatine has melted completely. Mix on the side the espresso with the instant coffee until the instant coffee has absorbed. If you want, you may add some sugar, but the original recipe does not count for that (I did use some though as my coffee was not that good. Probably, if I were to redo these, I would add somewhat less sugar, but still a little). When smooth, add the cold custard to it to cool down the mixture a little. In the meantime, whip the cream. Add a heaped spoon of whipped cream to the mixture to make sure it gets somewhat fluffier. The cream will not keep its fluff, but it does not matter. On the other side, the mixture will become easier to mix to the remaining whipped cream. Put the mixture into the remaining whipped cream and only mix from bottom up slowly and smoothly not to loose the air from the cream.
Put in the fridge to chill.

Instructions for the mascarpone glaze
Mix the mascarpone, the custard and the sugar together untill very smooth. Whip the cream on the side to semi-liquid status (not too hard, to be on the clear side, so you can dip the petits choux into it without any major difficulties). Add a heaped spoon of lightly whipped cream into the mixture to get some air into the mixture. Do not bother if you loose the air from the mixture. Then put the mixture into the remaining whipped cream and stir from bottom up smoothly to maintain the air in the glaze.

Assembling instructions
Put the coffee filling into a decorating bag with a decorating round tip. Stick the tip into each and every petit choux so far into it as possible. Fill as much as possible by slowly extracting the tip from the petit choux as it fills. Let it cool down in the fridge.
Then roll the filled petits choux in the glaze until fully covered with it. Serve on a plate and sprinkle cocoa powder at the top of it.
If you have some glaze left after the procedure above, it can be served in a bowl on the side. Or simply lick up the bowl... it is too good to throw it away! But that is my humble opinion... :O)

Crème brûlée with raspberries

This dish is my favourite dessert ever. I am though not sure this is the correct recipe. Mom needs some recipe though and I promised her I would post it on the blog for her to use. Do not count with any picture though and especially do not count with a recipe warranty (if you ever have that on this blog to be honest...).

Ingredients
5 egg yolks
3/4dl sugar
1 vanilla powder
3dl cream (38-40% fat)
1dl milk
Cane sugar or regular sugar
2dl raspberries
2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions
Whip egg yolks and sugar. Add the content of the vanilla flower, cream and milk. Put it in the fridge overnight.
On the next day, turn on the oven to 100 degrees Celsius.
Put the mixture in suitable pot and have it in the oven for about 1 hour.
When you take it out, it probably won't be "hard" but it will get its texture when cooling down.

In the meantime cover the raspberries with the sugar. The sugar will melt and that is when the raspberry mixture is ready to use.

Before serving, powder the crème brûlée with sugar and then use a burner until the sugar melts and you get a crispy surface. If you do not have a burner, put it in the oven on the top floor with grill functionality turned on. Keep continuously an eye on it not to get in trouble. I repeat: Pay very much attention as it can easily burn.

Serve with the raspberries.

Panna cotta

Panna cotta is definitively one of my favorite desserts. You only need very small portions and you are happy at the end. But I would not complain if I had to deal with two small portions (or three for that matter) to be honest.

Gingerbread pannacotta with Dr. Oetker's vegegel 25/12-2012

I have here two alternative recipes: one very good with regular gelatin and one less good and very unlike panna cotta but still edible based on Dr. Oetker's vegegel.

Flavours

Gingerbread taste 25/12-2012

Saffron taste:
- 1 bag saffron (0,5gr)
Gingerbread taste
- 0,5 teaspoon dry ginger powder
- 1,5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- optionally 0,5 teaspoons ground cloves
Coffee
- 2 teaspoons ground coffee
Vanilla
- 1 vanilla flower to be cooked in together with the milk and scraped at the end before adding the gelatine

Original recipe

This recipe is very simple and quick to prepare even though it does take time to settle in so prepare it at least 4 hours in advance. But you can prepare it some day before also. Furthermore, in order to avoid it being too hard when eating it, it is highly recommended to put it at room temperature at least half an hour before eating it.

Ingredients for the original  recipe
5dl cream (35-40% fat)
2,5 sheets gelatine
0,5dl sugar
Flavours (see below)

Instructions for the original recipe
Put gelatine sheets in cold water.
Cook cream and sugar. Add gelatine and stir until melted.
Add flavours.
I actually think it becomes quite neat if you put the mixture into small glasses and eat it from there. It is, of course, far more traditional if you instead use a number of small cocottes, wet it with water and pour the mixture into 4 of those. Then whenever ready to serve, you will have to turn the cocottes up and down and serve it on a plate with some decoration (e.g. Lingonberries, raspberry or whatever). For the Vanilla flavoured panna cotta, it is highly recommended to also serve some kind of sauce, e.g. raspberry sauce.

Going veggie

This thing does not give any optimal results and whatever you try, there is no way to get the texture nor the taste of a traditional panna cotta. But the stuff becomes edible anyway, so if you are putting a lot of importance into not eating animals or your guests do, then you might either choose another type of dessert (which to be honest would be my first choice given the results) or try it this way.

Saffron pannacotta with Dr. Oetker's vegegel 25/12-2012

 
Ingredients for the vegetable one
4dl cream
1 bag Dr. Oetker's vegegel
0,4dl sugar
Flavours









Instructions for the veggie recipe
The instructions here are quite unsure.... To be honest I haven't got the "solution" to this problem yet.
But well, I can tell you what I did and what the result was.

Mix 1dl of cream with the vegegel. Cook 3dl cream with the sugar. Add the flavours. Mix the whole together. This is indeed a tricky process as the mixture kind of "thickens up" while working with it, which is suboptimal. The mixture is very prone to "chunking up" and becoming unsmooth.

It is also necessary to work quickly when putting the mixture into small glasses.

I tried to also use a hand blender to mix it up and "break" the chunks. The taste becomes somewhat more "smooth". I actually loved the texture, but it did differ from traditional panna cotta. But on the other side, also the non-mixed one did differ. So... basically, whatever you do, you will never get a real panna cotta out of this vegetarian stuff.

Inverted cake pops

I have been looking at all those recipes of cake pops and been rather impressed by the idea of making a dry cake much softer with cream cheese.
Plus I have been very impressed by the idea that they are often covered by white chocolate, which I love.
So what a dear combination. Had to try them.

What a better occasion to do so than for the traditional yearly pre-Christmas party with the same group of friends?

Inverted cakepops forgotten in the fridge... 25/12-2012

Thought I should bake the cake in advance, but the whole day yesterday turned out to be more of a pure chaos than a preparation day... Started the night in the ER, slept the whole morning until one o'clock, ate and stressed to the pharmacy to buy necessary stuff for my puffy eyes, ran to the Christmas concert and concluded with a nice and cosy Indian style dinner with my dear friend! Or no... Not really... Concluded it with a shopping tour at the local ICA to buy stuff for my cake pops and meatballs.

Baking started far too late anyway this morning. Thanks to the whether Gods, it was -16 degrees Celsius outside so the cooling down went quick: I simply dumped my cake on the balcony in the snow and it cooled down all right... :O) And so did the small cake pop balls... :) Quick! Happy no chick'ns were around just then....

Inverted cakepops in action 9th of December 2012

Matilda took this picture as I had no time to do so myself before leaving the house. So now my blog can be proud to present a pro picture.... :O)

Just as a comment: I am not sure about the concept. It tasted more like a "chewed cake" somehow. No, not so sure it was as I expected it. Plus it did not get to be a real cake pop but rather an inverted cake pop as the stick was over it rather than where it should have been. And I think the chocolate I used was far too dark. Probably it would have tasted better if I had had some milk chocolate or white chocolate instead...

Ingredients

2 eggs
2 dl sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 dl flour
65 gr butter
 1 dl milk

200gr cream cheese

200gr dark chocolate (but I rather recommend white or milk chocolate instead)
Some decorating white (or if using white take dark chocolate for decoration)

Instructions
Turn on the oven at 175 degrees Celsius (same temperature with and without ventilation). Butter up the pan and also put some flour at the bottom. I personally forgot but it was hell to get it out of pan later.
Mix the eggs and sugar to a fluffy mix. Mix together the flour with vanilla sugar and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients into the fluffy mix and add the very soft (or even melted butter) as well as the milk into the mixture.
Bake the mixture for about 40 minutes with the cake at the bottom of the oven.

Cool down the cake.

Mix the cake with cream cheese. I even added some cream cheese frosting, just to add some additional taste (it sounded very boring without any such sugary mixture...)

Do small balls out of the dough. And chill for a while.

Then melt the chocolate and make sure that you drop into it all balls.

If you asked the pros, they would say stick the pin somewhere so the guys can stay. But that I did not bother. I put them on a pan and was happy with it... Decoration was done with some toothpicks for the first batch as I had no time to find the beaks for the suitable tool. But then after I came home I found the beak and used it for further cake pops.

What to say about the guys? Not sure. Probably something needs to be done next time to give them more taste. Still not sure it is a good idea to just mix the guys up that way. Mh... I'll have to think about it a couple of times before deciding how to approach this recipe again! Anyway, I did not enjoy them this time.... :O(

Hey, baking is a bitch these days.... :O(

Baking is like diving

Baking is like diving... You either do it rather often or you don't for everybody's safety....
The last two baking sessions went to hell!

2012-11-24 Lingonberry squares

First one I tried to bake pretty traditional Lingonberry squares that I had done quite a few times before rather successfully. But this one time, it just became a dry brick with far too much sugar. Last time I tried to eat one up, I was forced to throw half of it away as it was sooo dry and soooo sweet I could not even swallow it. That is how you find out whether your guests are really polite... If they eat up, they have been well trained... :O) My guess for this serious baking failure is probably due to the fact that I baked the squares a little too long and had disproportionally much sugar compared to berries. Next time, I'll add up more berries. Fact is I did not have enough berries at home when I was about to bake. So maybe the real problem is my unstructured handling of shopping lists before baking rather than the baking itself! Also a further issue is that I probably made the dough simply too thin! But this is only a wild guess.

The baking session from today was also a safe bet that went bad: typical cupcakes half of which were white chocolate chips and half were Nutella cupcakes.

2012-11-24 Nutella muffins

The Nutella cupcakes follow the same recipe with the only difference that instead of spreading in white chocolate chips in the muffin mould, I did spread a click of Nutella instead. And to say the least: It is extremely unclear how long time those small guys need to bake. I have completely forgotten! I do have a time for the big ones, but the small ones... those were not really done... Well, well... Next time maybe I will be more "inspired" somehow? And some cream cheese frosting might cover the taste of those half raw muffins?! Or will the tastes collide?!

2012-11-24 White chocolate chips cupcakes and Nutella Cupcakes

And by the way bad baking sessions: next time remember not to use lactose free cream cheese for the frosting as it gets far too fluid!

Thank God, the looks do not always correspond to the taste. So here you get some little little picture. Which did not turn out as bad as you would have expected from such disastrously tasting stuff... :O)

Just some comment after having actually eaten the cupcakes in their final state. Indeed, they turned out more edible than they seemed to be after the first one I ate. So cooling down may have helped! Or maybe it was the frosting covering its taste?! :)

Lingonberry squares

I tasted Lingonberry squares for the first time when my colleague baked them for a Friday coffee break when I still worked for the Quality Assurance department back in the very very old times.
They were sooo good! I just had to have the recipe. Recipe was actually available to all of us in "Sju sorters kakor" and was actually called "Syltrutor" which means Jam squares.

Being no friend of jam and supersweet stuff, I have decided to swap the lingonberry jam with some real lingonberry. 

2012-11-24 Lingonberry squares

Ingredients
 Dough
270gr flour
130gr caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
150gr butter
1 egg

Topping
250gr lingonberries or more 

Crumbles
60gr oates
120gr caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
50gr butter

Instructions
Turn on the oven at 200 degrees (or 175 degrees with ventilation).
Mix sugar, flour and baking powder. Add butter in very small pieces and mix together. Add the egg and mix to get a well mixed dough.

Use a 20x30cm pan and put butter on in to achieve an even baking result.

Cover the pan with the dough. Add the lingonberries.

Mix oates, sugar, vanilla sugar and butter and distribute it evenly over the lingonberries.

Bake the cake for about 20min.

When cooled off, cut in squares.

Mauritius

Winter 2005 - Approximately 8th November - 23rd November based on the dates of the pictures taken

Honeymoon with my Janne

It was definitively a dream island. Ideal for a honeymoon. Idyllic place with very respectful people that do not push to get tips (not even allowed in hotels to avoid bothering the guests) but are very helpful anyway.
Not the cheapest place on earth, but honeymoon is honeymoon....
The sea is wonderful and it is an island in the middle of the see. Nothing else around but sea, far far away.

We stayed a total of two weeks split in two different hotels. And when I am saying we were staying at two different hotels, we do mean we were staying there nearly most of the time, apart from some excursion downtime and some excursion around the sightseeing places in Mauritius. One of the places was the one with coloured sand.

Some kind of vulcano, as the island seems to be a vulcanic one if I remember it correctly...

 Not much action there though as you can see... :O)

A sugar plantation was a typical stop, remembering so much of the special muscovado sugar comes from exactly Mauritius. A "chicken" farm with different kinds of chickins of which this one was rather cute but definitively the least coloured of all there.

Legends
Legends was a newly built hotel with Feng Shui style and theme. It was very beautiful, clean and well thought through. It was the hotel we loved. Everything was very "zen" over there. Our room had "water" theme. And a bath tub with a view over the sea.
The whole place was lovely and our room had a view over the sea.

Fresh flowers every day.

Of course, the honeymoon dinner on the beach was included.

Beau Rivage
This was back then a few years older than Legends and had no theme. It was still a five star hotel though so they were taking very good care of us. The guys went around on the beach and cleaned our sun glasses... Hehe... so no "salami slice" feeling on them against the odds and the sunscreen...
Having been around longer, the place had a rather lush garden to be in Africa and the view from the room was very green.

And the never missing pool...

So yes. We loved this idyllic place! And we loved it even more as it was our honeymoon! It comes very highly recommended from us! :O)

The best Nutella muffins ever....

My friend Rebecca has been baking very good Nutella muffins for a long time I think. But one day, she found out she needed them to be egg and milk free. At the end of the story she found this wonderful recipe.

I have not baked them myself yet, but I have definitively eaten them and I could also have eaten more (not without consequences though... :O) ). But she does say that they were very easy to make and also resulted in a dough that also was easy to handle.

The best Nutella muffins

Ingredients
3dl (180gr) flour 
2dl (170gr) sugar
1dl cocoa

1 teaspoon bicarbonate
1 pinch of salt
2 1/2dl hot water
1dl oil
1 teaspoon vinegar
Nutella

Instructions
Turn on the oven to 225degrees.
Mix all dry ingredients. Add all fluid ingredients and mix. Put some of the dough in the forms and then put in Nutella. Cover with more dough.
Bake in the middle of the oven for about 12-15 minutes.

One thing though to remember for future usage: The small guys can be little sticky so it might be a good idea to use paper forms when baking them. They will not need to "break" while trying to take them out of the pan.

Cup for daddy...

And this is also the third try for daddy's cup (which shows my talents... :D ).

First one seemed to leak (leak, yes, you heard right...)... Second one was too heavy and it could not be used for drinking as it caused serious drooling (according to daddy at least). So now third try. Unfortunately, the teacher happened to think the blue colour I used last time was not much enough for further glazing and she mixed it with some yellow stuff. Still the quantity available was ridiculous after the addition also. But, hey, yellow and blue are daddy's favorite colours as they remind of the Swedish flag. So said and done.
Due to the lack of glaze, the result was not ideal, but, hey, again, yellow and blue can never be wrong. Or? :O)

 This time it was a thrown cup. The other one I did by hand and was much taller and thinner. From the above, it looks more straight than from the side really. And with some suitable lighting, you do not even see the flaky colouring... :O)

 But if there is drooling involved this time also, I will start worry if it really has something to do with the cup... Right, daddy? :O)

Cup for Mom

Have tried before to create some cups for Mom with the desired size. Mom got some cups with a form she seemed to like a lot from Janne's mom some months ago. So I thought, let us do them similar so she might like it. And let us concentrate to make the cup straight as we know out of experience that "straightness" is an attribute that Mom values a lot... :O)And the below was the result of my full focus!

Also as for my previous present to Mom, the clay was not ideal and the choice of colour very difficult. But well, this was what came out. I decided to use the same colour, as I believe that it is often a good idea to have objects that are somewhat the same style on rather than having disparate things all over.
Here are some pictures to show the colours.

 

So let us see what Mom thinks! :O)

Pot for Mom

For Christmas, I tried to throw something nice for Mom, but it turned out to be an ugly pot. Or at least so thought Mom... She felt it was not straight...

So well, let us not give up and the first thing I tried to throw after Christmas break was a straight pot for Mom. This was the result of the activity. 

Unfortunately, my first choice of clay with some sort of "life" in was not available. Everything that was available at that point in time was white clay. Not sure what happened, normally there is much more to choose from. But not this time.

  

And just to make sure, look at the next picture. Definitively as straight as my untalented ME could go. Don't you agree? Anyway, I am rather happy of the result somewhat!

Mom does not like "uniform or boring colors" like everybody else does nowadays where the trend is "all white" and if they go wild, it could go "somewhat beige" or, at its wildest, "grey"....

So the base white clay I used was not helping my final result very much. Until I found a metallic brown colour in a bucket. It was not one of the colors we were supposed to use for some reason, but the teacher was nice (as usual) and I was allowed to use it anyway. It is a rather strange colour that can go from dark dark brown where it is very thin, to nearly dark orange with a metallic touch where it is at its thickest. Also hints of green are there... Wondering where they come from. Check it out!

  


Interesting colour. We cannot know if it is something for Mom, but it is definitively neither boring nor white/grey/beige...






Let us hope this time the little production is somewhat more appreciated... :O) It might as well go along with the cup I made for Mom.

An early Spring portrait...

Well, calling mid-April early Spring is sure a little of a stretch case, but well. It seems not to be behaving better than this this year. Snow one week ago does impact the course of the seasons.... April has always been a wild month among the years...

2012-04-14 Maureen tulips probably

My favorite tulip is starting to show. Today, I had a round about and sprayed it with stinky stuff to scare the bambies away! Let us hope it works! There were some tulips in the corner flower bed that had been chewed on brutally by some undesired animal. Those seemed to be beyond repair for this year. But well, there are more years to come....

2012-04-14 Our chicken...

This guy is currently wondering why we have left him out there during Winter time... But on the other hand, I guess he was fine:

2012-04-14 And its chicks...

He did have company after all!!!!

2012-04-14 Corylus Avellana 'Contorta'

Also what seems hopefully dried out after a long Winter turns out to have life in it! Our Corylus avellana 'Contorta' gives its best sprouts now! Actually, it does have its charms at Winter. Who needs leaves to be beautiful?!

2012-04-14 Salix caprea 'Kilmarnock'

Definitively not this guy, even though those fluffy things do have something :O)

2012-04-14 Salix caprea 'Kilmarnock'

One might wonder if it is the tree which is not straight, if it is the ground or even if it is the camera... Well, we'll never know... Not by looking at this blog anyway!

2012-04-14 Who remembers what this is?!

This little guy did survive even though the rule of thumb says if you plant a conifer late in Automn it won't make it through the Winter. It turns out the Winter was mild and it was well worth saving the huge amount of money it would have costed to purchase this little thing in Spring... Sometimes, you are lucky!

2012-04-14 Rhododendron catawbiense 'grandiflorum'

Sometimes the ground around you is just simply not good enough and you will stop growning. That is when you need to dig more and put more of the necessary soil around the roots and then it will start growning. This guy requires peat but was dug in too little hole with it. The rest around it was regular soil so it actually stopped growing. It was a pain to dig and stuff, but at the end of the story, when the whole work was done, it was worth it! Look at this rhododendron thrive.

2012-04-14 Azalea Japonica 'Rosalind'

And the Azalea is still around, even if it still is a little dry in some spots! The leaves are so beautiful because of the colour and of the shape!

2012-04-14 Some undefined rhododendron/Azalea

Very similar to these very small guys. I wish I know what sort these guys really belong to! I wonder how difficult it can be to actually tag them correctly before putting them on display... but, well, 'cheap' and 'beautiful' trumps the 'undefined' part of them.... It is the positive part of having a peat flower bed. You can find a lot of place for these kinds of plants!

2012-04-14 Magnolia Stellata

And finally, also the magnolia stellata survived it seems. And it seems it is even flowering in its first year! Crazy! I was expecting no flowers for years... Ok, let us admit, I was actually hoping for plenty of flowers the first year even though it was not really very realistic. Let us see how it looks like in a week or so!

2012-04-14 Cute magnolia tree?!

And sometimes things seem hopeless. You look at it and see no life. It seems there is nothing to do. You keep looking and looking... believe there is nothing to do. But truth is, as long as there is a good soil and good stable roots, they seem to make it at the end, even if the start is preeeetty slow! And when the sun shines again, then you know everything will be fine sooner or later! Let us hope sooner rather than later though... :O)

2012-04-14 Blueberries 'Goldtraube'

And sometimes, hard work brings its fruits: adding new fresh soil beds for good fruit! And here are some reasonable amounts of blueberries now on its way. Patience is very much required!!!!! But I do know they will be there sooner or later!

2012-04-14 Sea-buckthorn

These stingy ones are growing and growing for every year! Wonder really how big it will become! In their third year they are far taller than I am...;O)
Will they ever be able to cover the ugly thujas from the neighbour?!

2012-04-14  Physocarpus opulifolius  'Diable d'or'

At least at summer, we do know that these spireas are doing a great job at it! I do know it looks pretty tame right now! But I swear it will do its job in a month or so! Ok, maybe two.. I do not remember the exact timing for its flourishing right now!

2012-04-14 Lilacs

And also looking forward the lilacs to bloom. Their looks and their smell drive me crazy! Could sniff them non stop! Dear dear lilacs! To flower they will need some cow crap. Wish my daddy was here... He loves distributing cow crap... NOT... :O)

2012-04-14 Prune tree?!?!

Prunes anyone?! Or it might take some more years before the enjoyment comes?! That is the issue with new trees. They take ages to give fruits! Let us keep the bambies off this time!

2012-04-14 Professor Sprenger Flowering Crabapple

This apple tree won't give any edible apples but who cares: nobody in the household actually even likes apples from apple trees... But I would expect humongous amounts of flowers from it this year! Wonderful tree really it seemed in the plant nursery last year!

2012-04-14 Cornus Alba 'Elegantissima'

And the cornus alba is always late at start! And needs cow crap... Daddy?!?! Where are you when we need you the most... ?! :O) 

2012-04-14 Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace'

Or the Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace' that seems to become larger and larger. Last year all branches froze down and it had to start from scratch. It did reach well over my head during the last summer. And this year it seems to start from where it stopped growing last year. I guess, this plant is also going to become huge this year! 

2012-04-14 Rhubarb

And sometimes you do mistakes, you just don't dig enough. You have stones where you plant your plant. They will grow, but at some point, they will stop growing. Just like these rhubarb plants! Then you will have to do something radical. Take it out of its hole, and doing it you will sore its roots. And you feel "oh my dear God, what have I done", "How could I ever cultivate something with all those stones..." and swear you'll never do it again. You are scared it will not make it, but see here! 



It will need some serious amount of cow crap to be able to give at its full potential. Daddy?! Where are you?!?!

2012-04-14 Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'

And here again... When all hope was nearly gone and I thought this little tree won't make it, here it goes! But now! Let us not forget to water it next time!!!! It does need continuous amounts of water I would believe! Maybe some cow crap?!?! Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' should be growing 1-2 meters I believe!

2012-04-14

 

And there are plants that seem to grow in Winter... Do they really or is it just a feeling?!










 
And once again, no matter how hopeless it seems when you see everything around you is dry and has no sign of life. You do know that as long as you have good roots and soil, watering and fertilizing will repair it all. Sometimes you need to do a big effort to repair rookie mistakes, but they will be worth it! You do know that sooner or later it will start blooming again. It was a long Winter, but now the early Spring is here.



And soon the blooming part of Spring will be here, too! Bigger and greater than ever before!