Easter decoration

We've just come home from an Easter market here in Munich. It was really nice, the sun was shining for the first time since weeks and there were little vending tables with homemade jam, braided buns with raisins, pottery and painted Easter eggs. I've bought some Easter eggs which I've hung in our green bamboo at the entrance:

During Christmas I decorate the entire apartment but during Easter I only decorate a few places like the entrance. Of course you can also paint the eggs yourself in the colour you like and then speckle the egg
by using a toothbrush. Dip the toothbrush into the paint and lightly splatter and dab around the egg and let it dry.

Have a nice sunday!

Isabell

Bad Windsheim

We've been in Bad Windsheim today and this is a very cute little town with a thermal spring and a lot of stud work houses, west of Nuremberg. There is a document from 741 that proves for the first time the existence of the town. The name 'Windsheim' means 'Home of the wind', and 'Bad' means 'Bath', which indicates that there is water (river, thermal spring...)  close-by, that's nearly the same for all the German cities with a 'Bad'.

Now we're back and we will just relax a little. Have a nice evening!

Kram,

Isabell

Easter eggs - sunny side up

I found a nice recipe in a German magazine for Easter cookies, that look like eggs or fried eggs sunny side up. Why not baking cookies for Easter as well? And it's a good present if you're invited somewhere for Easter. I will bake them as soon as the fasting is over, because this is too seductive otherwise :), but I think they will be perfect for my Easter brunch.

Here is what you need:

300 g flour
100 g powdered sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 sachet vanilla sugar
200 g cold butter in pieces
1 egg
5 drops of rum essence
1 ecologic orange
150 g mango jam or apricot jam


Mix the flour, powdered sugar, 1 pinch of salt  and 1 sachet of vanilla sugar in a bowl. Add the butter in pieces, the egg and 5 drops  rum essence and the orange zest of the ecological orange and kneed until smooth. Wrap with plastic wrap and put it into the fridge for 1 hour. Roll out the dough and cut out cookies that have the shape of an egg.

Cut a circle out of half of the cookies to make a window for the jam filling. Use baking paper for your baking pan and place the cut out cookies on it. Put the baking pan with the cookies in the fridge and preheat the oven to 160°C (approx. 320° F) bake the cookies for approx. 15 minutes and let them cool.

Boil the mango or apricot jam (you can vary the filling, if you like the colour to be red: red currant, raspberry and cherry. for two minutes. Cool to lukewarm. Turn the cookies that do not have holes over so you have the bottom up. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon jam on each cookie. Top with a cookie that has a hole and put powdered sugar on top.

I'll definitely try that recipe.

Have a nice evening!

Isabell

Bali

I can't believe it, we have just booked our flight to Bali! I'm so happy, I can't tell you how happy I am. We're going there in the beginning of April for almost 3 weeks. We will fly to Singapore first and have a stopover there. I've already been in Singapore, but Tim hasn't been there yet, so I'm looking forward to showing him everything and then afterwards we will go to Bali.

Picture: http://us.123rf.com

They said in the news today that this winter was the darkest (95 hours sun) since people have started to calculate the sun hours per day. No wonder that I look forward to going to the sun, the beach and the sea:

Picture: http://ilove-indonesia.com

Kram,

Isabell

Fasting

I like sweets very much and I eat a lot of cakes, cookies and chocolate, especially in the evening. But once a year during the fasting period, I abstain from all these things. The first 2 weeks are the worst, because you see all these nice things in the supermarket and your body is used to get sweets. It's strange  but it's the same symptoms like as if you are depending on smoking and you quit smoking. I can even be in a bad mood these 2 weeks and then after these 2 weeks it's just getting better, I start to eat fruits instead and when the fasting period is over on Easter Day, I don't need sweets anymore. Quite the contrary, the first time I eat chocolate after 40 days I find it too sweet. Of course I start eating it again, but I feel somehow healthier after the fasting and I'm happy that I made it, which gives you a good feeling. A lot of my friends have started to use the fasting period to abstain from Facebook or TV and they told me that it is a good feeling too, because all of a sudden you have much more time for yourself. I think it's good to abstain from something that you like or spend a lot of time on, just to see that you have the self-control and can make it and that you appreciate things again in a different way.

Inviting friends

I've invited friends for dinner today and I've made beef roulades. I've invited 10 guests and I don't have big bowls, so I used the small bowls I have and placed them all over the table. At first I was a little bit unsure if it was a good idea, but it was very good because I didn't had to stand up all the time and everybody was able to take as much as they want.

I served "Knödel"(dumplings) made of potatoes together with the roulades: 

It was a very nice evening and I'm happy that everybody liked the food and seemed to have had a good time. I'll wash the dishes now and then just go to bed, I'm very tired.

Kram,

Isabell

Painting from Luis de Dios

You might have seen parts of this painting on my photos, as it's hanging above our fireplace. It's from the Spanish artists Luis de Dios:

I like his art and it's a splash of colour in our grey-brown-white furniture world. Luis has created many different other paintings, here are some more examples:

Photo: minispace

Photo: ION

He has a style that is different to anything I've seen before and he's really a great artist. I hope to be able to buy a new picture soon. :)

Have a good evening!

Isabell

Snowboarding in Austria (Hochfuegen) - Marendalm

It was so freezing cold today and it snowed a lot in the mountains in Hochfügen and the worst thing was that there was a lot of fog and you didn't see the piste. So I had to go very slowly which is quite tiring for the thighs, but good for training and shaping the body :). As our friends and Tim wanted to go for another round, I decided to go inside in the "Marendalm"which is an alpine hut and looks typically for the Alpine region:

And here in Austria they have a drink that is called "Almdudler", which is a herb lemonade and tastes very special, you should definitely try it, when you are here for holidays.

Sorry for the bad pictures, but it's too dangerous to take the camera with me when I'm snowboarding, because I still fall much too often. :)

Have a good sunday!

Isabell

Snowboarding in Hochfügen

I'm currently in Hochfügen for Snowboarding, which is a really great ski and Snowboard region. As it has snowed the entire last week it's a lot of fresh snow, which helps a lot of you fall :). I didn't take my camera with me here on the mountain, but it looks like this picture :

Picture: mtb-news

Will get back to you with more pictures!

Kram,

Isabell

Die Häschenschule

One of my favourite books when I was a child was "die Häschenschule" from Albert Sixtus which is a very cute book, that has been written in rhymes and has these beautiful pictures from illustrator Fritz Koch-Gotha . The book cover shows a rabbit named Fritz, who is in trouble with the school master, because he was pulling a classmate's ears during music class.

Picture: amazon

The book tells the story of two young rabbits as they go to their Rabbit School. Here they learn everything a good rabbit must know: which vegetables and plants are best, how to paint Easter eggs  and to run fast to escape from the dangerous red fox.

Picture: amazon

The book also shows a lot of silhouette pictures, like the one shown above, I copied them on coloured paper and used them last year to decorate white Easter eggs. Looks really nice!

Kram,

Isabell

Lent lilies - Osterglocken

One of the signs for Spring and Easter for me are lent lilies. This flower is one of the first to come when the snow starts to thaw a little. You know that I try to have flowers all year-round and bought these, but I must admit this flower is only beautiful but doesn't smell very good. I think that's why it's not a typical flower you find in bouquets, because after some days it's really an awful and intense smell. These flowers are nice to look at- outside!

Kram,

Isabell

Easter Bunny - DIY

Today when I came home I had a good mind to do crafts and I need some decoration, as I'm planning to invite my family to an Easter brunch. So better start early... I found these nice Easter Bunnies on the internet :

Picture: fotolia

and used them as a model for my own template:

I use a thicker white drawing paper and copy the Easter bunnies, but you can of course also print them and use these as a template.

Then I choose a wrapping paper which I like and fold it

so that I can cut out 2 mirror inverted bunnies at once:

After that I use a glue to glue the 2 pieces together and put a toothpick in the center:

Now I can use them to decorate the food for the buffet, or of course you can also tie a bow under it and write the names of the guests on it. Or use different animals, egg-shaped patterns with one colour or multi-coloured... 

Hope you like it!

Isabell

Leilas guldkant på vardagen - Leila Lindholm cookbook

It has been years that I've been in a library, I think the last time was when I was 15 years old... at that time it was the only source were you could get information because internet didn't exist at that time. It's so strange to think about it, now that we all are used to internet and how easy it is to get everything we need within minutes. So it was a kind of a childhood feeling that came up when I entered the library.

It's a special smell in libraries, don't you think so? 

We have a library which is close-by and I finally managed to go there and register. I was surprised, they really have everything: magazines, movies, audio books, video games, games and of course books. I like to listen to audio books when I sit in the train on my way to work, so I borrowed different audio books. Very close to the audio books they had cookbooks and I was very happy to see Leila Lindholms book : "Leilas guldkant på vardagen" or "Kochen mit Leila" in German:

Photo: amazon

She has great recipes and I will of course try some of the recipes and show you :). 

Have a good day!

Isabell

Spaghetti with king prawns

I try to eat fish or shellfish at least twice a week and this is a very good recipe, which is heathy (except for the crème fraîche) and tastes very good (because of the crème fraîche :)) . My friend Tina cooked it for me, when I visited her for the first time 10 years ago and I have since then cooked it very often myself.

This is what you will need for approx. 3 persons:

· 250 gr spaghetti
· Ca. 150 gr king prawns
· 1 shallot or little onion
· (1 garlic clove)
· 1 little zucchini
· ½ – 1 container of crème fraîche
· beef or vegetable stock
· salt and pepper

Boil water and put in a little salt for more flavor, add the spaghettis and let them cook until al dente.
Chop the shallot or onion into cubes and fry until they become lucent, if you like garlic chop into tiny cubes and add the the onions. Add the king prawns and fry until they get a rose colour. Chop the zucchini into small cubes and put it into the pan as well, deglaze with the stock and add the crème fraîche. Let it boil up a little and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with spaghettis.


Enjoy!


Isabell