Saturday 30 November 2013

Roll on Christmas

So it has started. Even though we're not "allowed" to play Christmas music at home before the 1st of December, Little Miss M. and I did exactly this today. How else can you get into the spirit when baking gingerbread? The dough was mixed yesterday evening and this afternoon we spent a couple of hours singing and baking. 


It may have looked fairly tidy to start with but it didn't take long before the work top turned into a winter wonderland.


Having accumulated a good amount of shapes we made pigs, hearts, men, women, pixies, squirrels to name but a few. Having a big kitchen with good size work tops was heaven as we could really spread out and not have to move things around all the time.

For the last few years I've had problems with the gingerbread not going hard. I've had to experiment with degrees and timing and this year they started off staying soft so I had to put them in for quite a bit longer at a lower temperature to avoid them burning. It worked out alright in the end. Phew. 


We made closer to 300 gingerbreads in 17 different shapes. That'll last us to Christmas and a little beyond I hope. 


They're now stored in the usual tins ready to be eaten. I think we'll have a few tomorrow with some mulled wine as it's the first of advent. Mmm, I can't wait!

Mrs. M.

Sunday 17 November 2013

Maggie O'Farrell



Image from http://www.maggieofarrell.com
I've just finished reading Maggie O'Farrell's After You'd Gone and I absolutely loved it! It was one of those books you want to go on forever. That's not the first time I've felt like this reading Maggie O'Farrell. I read The Hand That First Held Mine a couple of years ago and thought it was wonderful. I must have lent it to somebody because I can't find it anywhere and since I keep my/our books in alphabetical order (something Mr. M. finds weird) I should have easily found it, had it been there.

I really love reading and have resisted a Kindle for a long time. However, since we have no space for any more bookshelves and the bookshelves have no more space for any books, I gave in and was given a Kindle for my birthday. The first book I downloaded was Instructions for a Heatwave by no other than... Maggie O'Farrell. What a brilliant book! Then a colleague of mine lent me My Lover's Lover and I was really excited about reading it. Hm. I didn't really like it. How disappointing. I had by then already downloaded After You'd Gone and decided to read it straight after my disappointment hoping that My Lover's Lover had been a blip. And I was right. It was just as wonderful as the other two books I had really loved. 

There are two more books by this brilliant author that I haven't read yet. I will have a little break from her so that I can look forward to two more, I hope, fantastic reading experiences. 

Mrs. M.

Sunday 10 November 2013

Another autumn Sunday

So what do I do when I don't have to go to the allotment on a Sunday? Well, there's plenty to be getting on with in the M household. I have what feels like a thousand projects going on at the same time and not enough time. Even if I woke up to a clear blue sky and sunshine, the allotment was not on my mind today. 

I downloaded a skirt pattern from here a while ago. Today was the day to copy it out. 


I don't have a big enough table so the floor had to do. Luckily, I have teenage children who don't emerge in the kitchen until half way through the day. 

I bought the fabric from C&H Fabric a while ago. It's soft and lovely and I can't wait to turn it into a skirt.


Well, that'll have to be next weekend's project as the Little Miss and her friend wanted to bake cupcakes not long after I had finished cutting out the different pieces. No problem. Mr. M. and I went shopping for some lovely toppings and voila, here is the result.



The recipe is from here and they taste divine!

That was my Sunday and it's not over yet. Mr. M. and I are meeting Mr. and Mrs. G. in the pub later on to enjoy an evening of quiz entertainment. Mr. M. is sure we'll win first prize. Who knows?



Mrs.M.


Friday 1 November 2013

We went on a trip

Yes we did. We went on a little trip to the big shop with 4 letters in yellow and blue today. It was only Mr. M. and myself so we took the opportunity to have a coffee and cake as well. The coffee was nice but the cake was way too sweet. Never mind. It's nice to have a coffee just the two of us. 

As usual, we ended up buying more than we had set out to but everything we got was needed. I wanted some kind of basket arrangement to put on the wall just inside the garage door. I thought it would be a good idea to keep potatoes, onions, vegetables etc there as the garage is fairly cold in winter. We found exactly what we wanted and put them up more or less straight after we got home.


So far I've only put the potatoes and some broccoli and salad onions in there. The onions are in a very nice plastic tray that we picked up for nothing at the local farm shop. So far we've picked up 3. They'll be very handy next year when we, hopefully, have a lot more onions from our own plot. 


Next to the trays you can spot 15 bottles of "julmust" that we also bought today. The big shop no longer have a lot of traditional Swedish food, which I think every single Swede living abroad close to one of these big shops is hacked off about, so I was surprised to find this traditional Christmas drink. Hey ho, we are now prepared for a traditional Christmas meal as we also got some pickled herring, meatballs and crispbread.  All in all a very successful trip!

Mrs. M.