Munich

It has been a while since I've been able to blogg. I've spent so much time in the new job everyday that it's almost the same like in the old job, but this one is far more interesting. After work, when I come home I fall asleep immediately and wake up again the next morning back to work. But today I was able to leave the office a bit earlier and I showed our guests Munich and I also wanted to show you what I saw today in the evening:

Have a lovely evening!

Isabell

Christmas vs. Easter

While waiting for spring and summer, I already search for Easter decoration. I have at least 3 boxes of Christmas decoration standing in the attic, but almost no Easter decoration at all. As I was in Bali last year during Easter, I would really like to invite my entire family to an Easter brunch to our home this year, with tasty dishes and Easter egg hunt for everyone. The first thing which I like and which is on my "maybe" list for the future Easter Box is the table runner to the left with the rabbits:

Photo: impressionen

Photo: impressionen

It's a very very sweet image, which I wouldn't choose for normal decoration but I think it's very nice for Easter.

Kram

Isabell

Tiredness

Normally I'm a very active person but the last weeks with the new job, a booth, a European meeting of all entities and having a cold for the second time now within 4 weeks and still going to work every single day makes me feel so tired. I can't keep my eyes open when I come home from work, it's unbelievable how hard it is. I would need a summer break, with nothing to do, just breathing the warm air the scent of fresh green grass and silence ( only the sound of birds and the leaves in the wind is allowed :)) Do you feel the same at the moment?

Photo: winendine.se

Kram and have a nice evening!

Isabell

Waiting for spring

I don't know how you feel, but I'm waiting for Spring to come. As much as I love Christmas, but  during February at latest I get the feeling that I have had enough of the darkness (which even candles can't change :) ). Normally Tim and I fly away during March to escape from winter but as I have started my new job I can't. Tim will fly to the Canary Islands mid of March, but I will stay here. I guess that's the reason why I wait for Spring to come even more this year….

Photo: agnesmatre

Saffron cardamom bun - Leif Mannerström's recipe

This weekend I've been longing for something with saffron and cardamom and I found a recipe from Leif Mannerström, who is a famous chef in Sweden with these 2 ingredients. So I had to try these :)

100 g butter
1 g saffran
5 dl milk
50 g yeast
250 g curd cheese
2.25 dl sugar
1 msk cardamom
0.5 tsk salt
1.5 l flour

1 egg

Melt the butter and add the milk. Pour mixture into mixing bowl and allow to cool until “finger-warm” (still quite warm, but just cool enough to touch). Stir in yeast and let sit for 10 minutes. Add sugar, salt, curd cheese, cardamom and saffron.

Mix 7 dl flour into liquid. Add enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough (just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Don't add too much flour as the dough gets dry). Put the dough to a large bowl and cover it with a clean towel and allow to rise until doubled, approx. 1 hour.

Take the dough after 1 hour and knead two or three times on a floured surface. Take small handfuls of dough and roll into buns. Place on a baking sheet that is covered with a backing paper and cover with the towel again, and let rise until doubled (approx. 1 hour).

Brush buns with beaten egg, and bake in preheated 225 °C oven about 6-8 minutes, just until brown.

Hope you like it too!

Kram,

Isabell

Tidy up!

After this long winter and darkness, we had a real spring day here in Munich today. The sun was shining and Tim and I went for a long walk. I've worked from morning till evening this week and when I left in the morning it was still dark and when I left the office it was already dark again. So you can imagine how good it was to feel the sun today. When I came back I suddenly felt I need to tidy up the apartment (I blame it on the sudden energy from the sun ;) ). But what I recognized is that our bed linen always looks so wrinkled, no matter how hard I try to make it look good. I've decided to buy a bedspread which will make that the bed will always look perfect with just a little effort :).

Photo: H & M

Looking forward to showing you the pictures!

Kram,

Isabell

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins receipe

When I was in Texas I've had a lemon Poppy Seed Muffin every morning together with a cup of coffee. I miss that very much now, these were very good! So I'm currently trying to get a good receipe for it, I found one from Leila Lindholm, which I would like to try this weekend.

Photo: photobucket

These are the ingredients:

3 eggs
200 gr sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
100 gr butter
100 ml milk (full cream)
200 gr flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 pinch of salt
lemon zest of 2 lemons
lemon juice of 1 lemon
40 gr poppy seeds

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Stir eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar and heat the milk, let the poppy seeds soak in the warm milk. Melt the butter and add to the poppy seed milk. Mix with the egg/sugar dough. Add flour, backing powder, salt and the lemon zest and juice.

Fill into the muffin forms and bake in the middle part of the oven for approx. 15 minutes.

If you like to add a frosting:

60 gr soft butter
300 gr icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1/2 lemon
100 gr cream cheese

Mix these ingredients and add on top of the cooled muffins with a piping bag.

Let's try it on the weekend! :)

Isabell

Fort Worth, Texas

Sorry for my long absence. I've been sent to a training in Dallas in Texas for my new company. It was a challenge because of the time difference and of course the training itself was very intense. I just came back tired (14 hours of travelling) and also happy to be able to have made this experience and to see a part of Texas. These are some pictures from the sightseeing in Fort Worth, where I saw the Stockyards :

But also downtown Fort Worth you could see a lot of nice buildings :

Hope you have a nice evening, I'll go to bed and sleep a little bit.

Kind regards,

Isabell

A weekend in the mountains

Tim and I just came back from a very nice weekend with friends in the mountains in Austria. They have a mountain shelter which is very basic but so cozy. Even if it doesn't look like snow we were able to go Snowboarding as well, which was a little bit higher in the mountains. It feels so good to be outside and have the fresh cool air of the mountains.

And to have this view in the morning when you wake up:

 And of course breakfast, which is very important for me :)

Have a lovely sunday evening!

Kram,

Isabell

Hot springs

One of the best things to do during winter is to go to hot springs. The cold air is so fresh and the hot water keeps you really relaxed. We have hot springs very close to Munich and I prefer to go there in the evening when it's dark outside and you can watch the stars. I'm going to go there tomorrow and I'm so much looking forward to it- especially as I got a massage as a present there, too.

Photo: Urlaub Bauernhof 

Kram,

Isabell

Sunday, Sunday

Best and at the same time worst day of the week. In Munich all of the shops are closed on sundays, so everything is really calm and you can dare to have a walk in the city center- which I normally really avoid due to the crowds of people. Sleep until 9 am and have breakfast in one of the many cafés, meet friends or invite friends for dinner, visit art exhibitions, go to a museum or cinema… and the return home for tea and bake a cake… perfect.

But in the evening on sundays, I know that it's the last free minutes before working again monday morning. My new job is really good and I like working, but I sometimes wonder if it doesn't have too much meaning in our life. We spend more time with our colleagues than with our family and partner during the best years of our life. I just sometimes wonder...

Bye, bye Christmas

Today I've put away all the Christmas decoration. It's always a sad day for me and every year I ask myself what will happen during that year until I open the boxes again. At the same time it also feels good to do a pre-spring-cleaning and to tidy up. After I've put away all the decoration, it still has to be cozy and a lot of candles, and I need softer colors live lavender, rose, gray and white.

Photo: Living at Home

Pineapplesalsa with Chocolate Fondant (Leila Lindholm's recipe)

This year I don't want Christmas to stop at all, I still turn on the lights in the Christmas tree and in every candle holder when I get back from work. And everyday I watch a Christmas episode of one of the Swedish cooking series, so yesterday it was Leila Lindholm's turn and I saw a fantastic dessert she made which I want to share with you and which I would like to try this weekend:

Photo: leila.se

For the Chocolate Fondant you need:

2 eggs
1 dl sugar ( for dl please refer to my post about Swedish measuring cups)
100 g butter
1/4 dl milk
1 dl flour
½ dl cocoa

For the Pineapplesalsa you need:

1 fresh pineapple
1 bunch of mint
2 msk light muscovado sugar
(2 msk white rum)

vanilla ice cream

Chocolate Fondant

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6/400ºF. Stir the eggs with the sugar ( but it should not be fluffy). Melt the butter gently in a saucepan add the cold milk. Sift the flour and the cocoa over the egg-butter mix, add the butter-milk mix and stir until you have a smooth mixture, fill into a silicon muffin baking tray and put into the freezer until frozen.

Place on the middle shelf of the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes, remove from the oven, run a knife round the edges, invert and tip out on to serving plates.


Pineapplesalsa 

Peel and cut the pineapple into 1/2 cm pieces, chop the mint and add to the pineapple together with the moscovado sugar and the white rum into a bowl.

Serve with the warm Chocolate Fondant and vanilla ice cream.

Bon appetit!

Isabell

Happy New Year 2014

Happy New Year 2014 to all of you! 

This year Tim and I have celebrate New Year's Eve at home and I can tell you this was really the best decision ever. I'm always a little bit scared to have drunk people in crowds and fireworks rockets flying around in all directions. In Germany New Year's Eve is always celebrated with a lot of fireworks rockets, I had a nice view from our window to see all the sparkling and glittering colors - and felt safe at home just watching it :)

I will start my new job tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it and at the same time I'm feeling a little bit nervous what it's going to be like and if it's really better than the old one? What will my new colleagues be like? Keep your fingers crossed for me ;)

Isabell