Vanille Krapfen - my downfall

It's Karneval time here in Germany and these are made just for a few weeks around this time. They vary from baker to baker but are always delicious - deep-fried doughnut puffs filled with creamy vanilla custard. They are so light and yet so fattening, so evil and yet so moreish. I bought 10 (bad decision), only 9 made the journey from bag to plate and I dread to think how many there will be when Stuart gets home this evening. It's like one of those old-fashioned murder mysteries where people are getting killed off all the time. And then there were two...

Chestnuts

Bought some really good chestnuts a few days ago at a market stall. I have a passion for chestnuts and managed to gather about five kilos from the park and the trees along the river (Rhein) in the autumn. I also collected walnuts. I would take Logan, our border terrier, out for a walk and just fill up my pockets every time. Then they became super-abundant and I took a plastic bag with me. Among other gatherers I met someone I called Walnut Man who was ignoring chestnuts and just going for walnuts - we had a short-lived 'nut' relationship whereby I would hand over any walnuts I'd got that day and he would throw up his giant heavy stick into the nearest chestnut trees and fill up my bag for me. A strange little friendship - I wonder if I will see him next autumn. I used some chestnuts to make and freeze stuffing for the Christmas turkey, puree for soup and I roasted and ate the rest, mmm! I am roasting some now before I sit and watch another episode of 'The Wire' borrowed from a friend and I shall think back to those golden autumn walks and exchanges with the Walnuss Mann.

I love Thursdays!

Because Thursday is a non-work day. Because Thursday is our quilt group day. Because anything we eat on Thursdays is calorie-free and guilt-free. Mind you, two people are avoiding desserts at the moment but I don't feel guilty because I shall start cutting down in February (oh dear, that's next week). Well, we are going to a Burns Night dinner this Saturday and February starts the next day so that's okay. We are only six/seven people and we take turns to host the group and cook lunch. The Spiced Carrot soup was really good, it never fails. The cookies I had not made before and did not have quite enough cranberries for the recipe so I added some chopped hazelnuts to make up the amount. I've passed on the recipe to my daughters because these cookies were so buttery and melty/chewy.

I was expecting to help Gay handsew the binding to the group fundraising quilt which will be raffled. The money raised will be donated to the local church to fund the youth mission trip to Romania. Every year a group of high school students go to a country where help is needed and they work (very hard) but have a lot of fun as well. In the past they have helped to renovate buildings for orphanages, refuges, etc. They learn a lot and, as I said before, my daughters both came back exhausted but happy and wiser. Well, Gay had finished everything all by herself, sore fingers and all. Here's the finished quilt:

It is made from some African fabrics that Gay had bought some time ago. It is not the sort of quilt I would make for myself because the colours would not go with anything in our home but it has been fun to make and is going to make the winner very cosy.

I really need some help with how to get photos uploaded in the right order with paragraphs of text. Anyone out there who knows a quick way, please give me a tip or two. At the moment, I'm moving them about in a time-consuming and probably dinosaur-like way. Can someone bring me up to date?

Lazy Sunday

What Lazy Sunday means is that I still haven't uploaded any photos. And I wanted this to be a quilting blog. I'll get there eventually but having a blog is still so new that I have no routine for posting. I felt guilty yesterday because I was cooking for friends coming to dinner and felt the blog lowering over me as though I had let it down. I have now had a talk with myself and decided it will be a journal, not a diary, so I can post or not post and feel fine about both.

The dinner went well. I cooked: cheese pastry tartlets filled with balsamic caramelised onions and topped with grilled goat's cheese (these were good but the caramelisation took ages and I had hoped they would taste sensational - they were just nice), then salmon with a honey and coriander glaze and jasmine rice with ginger - this was light and healthy after all the meat-eating we've done over Christmas and New Year. The glaze did slightly burn, though, and the syrup that had to be made from the marinade was too strong and sickly sweet so we used very little of it. The ginger rice was good and I would do that again. We finished with an easy dessert - Mars Bar mousses. I had seen several recipes for this and they were all very different so I picked the one with no cream. I sometimes find chocolate mousse too dark and intense and these made a sweeter, fudgier version. Two of our friends, Austrian and German, are moving to the beautiful island of Sylt (North Germany) to take up a new job and this was a little celebration/goodbye dinner. The six of us had a lovely evening and spent a nice long time over cheese, fruit, eiswein and port.

So now you know why today was Lazy Sunday. Work tomorrow morning if it doesn't snow heavily tonight. Photos soon.