Twist on Tour

The BBQ we were supposed to have at Louise's turned out more like cake fest! The BBQ was light up but not much went on it. Everybody baked lovely stuff, it was great.

I didn't take pictures of the table covered with food, this one was taken just at the beginning...
Choux, lemon tart and rhubarb trifle from Louise (who made great salads as well), pear and chocolate tart from Diane (check her blog for more pictures and more details about this event), and a caramel flan from me.

Andrea made, amongst other things, some chocolate covered strawberries,

and I baked curry and onion cakes and pesto muffins (recipes below)


And of course, the reason for all this was that Laura and Peter, from Twist Fiber Craft, were coming to us instead of us having to go to Newburgh!


They bring all their lovely stuff and some new yarn as well: hand-dyed Shetland wool...yum yum, fabulous colors, I couldn't resist, of course!

I bought that one (250g, enough to knit a big cosy shawl to wrap myself in during winter)

and turned it into a ball in the evening:


Recipes

Pesto muffins
Mix 2 eggs with 4 table spoons of milk and 2 table spoons of olive oil. Add 4 table spoons of pesto and 3 table spoons of pine nuts. stir in quickly 150g of self rising flour.
Bake at 180˚C for 20-25 minutes (individual cakes).

Curry and onion cakes
Cook 2 sliced onions in a pan with some olive oil.
Mix 150g of self rising flour, 3 eggs, 13cl of milk, 8cl of sunflower oil, 1 spoon of curry powder and 100g of grated mozzarella. Add the onions.
Bake at 180˚C for 20 minutes (individual cakes).

Caramel Flan
Prepare a caramel with 6 table spoons of sugar, 2 table spoons of water and a tea spoon of vinegar. Pour it in a flan dish.
mix 6 eggs and 1 l of milk and pour it on top of the caramel.
Bake in a bain-marie at 180˚C for 50 minutes.

Jacket

Just a quit post to show you my latest knitted things.
I finished this baby jacket (size 2 years), I just need to find buttons (These ones are cute but they are just for the picture, plain ones will be better). I was thinking 3 blue and 3 white buttons. I'll see what I can find in the shop.

I've got 2 more lots of this cotton yarn (yellow/orange and green) so I will probably knit 2 more jackets.

I've made good progress on Stephane's jacket too (although I am not knitting that much at the moment because my hands are sore...too much knitting...oops). I am half way through the second sleeve and then I will knit the collar and the sides for the zip. Then the most difficult part will probably be to find the zip...

On Sunday, Louise is organizing a special event at her place:
Twist on Tour.
Peter and Laura, from Twist Fiber Craft, are coming with their van full of goodies (I better not forget my credit card) and we are having a BBQ!!!! I can't wait!

Isle of May

On Sunday we went to the Isle of May.
The weather was very overcast but not too windy. However, the sea was a bit rough and several person were sick during the hour trip to the island (to be honest I wasn't feeling great either). So they supplied us with pills for seasickness for the return.
We spent 3 hours on the island. We saw a lot of birds and a lot of puffins! they are so cute.
Last time we've seen puffins, it was in our plate in Iceland....
I wasn't very organized for that trip. I took only the digital camera (with its 3x zoom) instead of the pentax SLR and its 28-300mm lens. Anyway, we enjoy ourselves and I manage to take some pictures of the puffins and other birds.
There are several colonies of Grey seal around the island as well and we saw them from the boat.

Stephane looking for puffins:
Puffins:
Another one:
More:
Shags:
A Razorbill:Eiders (male and female):Guillemots:An Eider (nesting):Sea thrift in flower:Grey seals:On our way back, some people (including Stephane) saw a whale (I didn't, I was trying not to be sick so I was kind of sleeping).

House of Dun

After the run, The weather was so nice that we went to the House of Dun near Montrose.
We didn't visit the inside, we had a nice walk in the woodland instead.

Monikie 10K

On Saturday Stephane was running 10km in Monikie to raise money for Diabetes research campaign.

He finished 19th out of 201.



While he was enjoying his run, I was enjoying a cappuccino in good company...

Perfect!

On Tuesday, I came back home at 4.30pm (I was at work at 7am) and I decided to try to make some bread again. Thanks to a lot of people who gave me advice, I mixed the flour 2/5-3/5 (white-wholemeal) and otherwise, I followed (more or less) the recipe on the yeast box:

200g strong white bread flour
300g strong stoneground wholemeal bread flour
1 tsp salt (it is far too much, I'll cut it by half)

1 sachet Hovis bread yeast

Mix all the ingredients together, add 300ml of warm water, knead well for 10 minutes.
Shape the dough.
Cover with a clean, damp towel, and leave in a warm place until it double in size (it was 24˚C in the flat so I left it at room temperature). It says 1h30 to 2 hours on the box, which is true.

After 1h30:

I preheated the oven to 180˚C, and baked it in the oven at 210˚C :

The result was great (a bit too salty though), light and smooth (not sure if it is the proper word but I am sure you see what I mean). So, I started at 4.35pm and took it out of the oven at 7.45pm, so , we had diner with warm bread....hhhhmmm............
I finished the last bit at lunch time today. This is the problem with good bread, the life span is not very good...

This week the weather have been gorgeous, so I took this afternoon off. I am not sure what I am going to do, it is still a bit chilly (my thermometer tells me it is 12˚C just now), so I might just put some good music on, open the french doors, enjoy the view, and relax....

Onion and sunflower

Today we stayed at home.
The weather was supposed to be awful (it was in the afternoon) so we didn't planned anything. Also, Stephane had to cook for this evening (he is at a colleague's leaving party, hence, access to the computer... ;0)) and for tomorrow. They are mainly French people in his lab and they all love their food, of course, so they are taking it in turn to bring some homemade cooking every week!

I was awake 4 hours before Stephane (I am an early bird) so I had fun with some strips of paper:

Then, when he finally woke up, we checked the cupboard status to decide what to bake...

Obviously, the choice wasn't great so we went for some grocery shopping.

Under supervision (I didn't helped too much, I promised), he made an onion tortilla (for tonight)

and an almond cake (for tomorrow).

It looks yummy, and I am getting hungry... it is a shame, I won't be able to have a bite! :0(

Myrtle Leaf Shawl

My first lace project! I finished it on Tuesday evening. I was determined to get it blocked that evening so just before midnight, I was crawling on the floor to iron it as I haven't got enough pin needles (also, I didn't like the idea of having spiky bits around the shawl because of the needles).
It is smaller than it should be: 160x40cm instead of 190x60cm. I used 3.5mm needles, I should have used 4mm, it would have looked more open. But I am not going to knit another to check that! I think it took me at least 60 hours to knit this shawl.

Bread, Crepes and Crumble

This weekend I tried (again) to make some bread. I bought new yeast (Hovis fast action bread yeast for hand baking) and follow the instructions. The bread didn't have that strong yeast taste but it did not raise that much. I am using wholemeal flour so it might explain why. As I've got a fan oven, I dropped the temperature to 210˚C (instead of 230˚C) and got this:

It does look very compact on the picture (I guess it was really) but it wasn't bad. The crust was a bit thick. I didn't put enough salt so it was a bit bland but great with salted butter!

Well, this time it wasn't a complete disaster but I don't think I am ready to open a bakery...

Soon, it will be berries time in Scotland so I have to make some space in my freezer.

So, I made a red fruit crumble to use up the ones from last year.

Redcurrant, raspberries and blueberries...Yum!
For the crumble:
80g oat
80g wholemeal flour
80g demerara sugar
100g butter
50g coarsely grounded almond
I hope it will be good, I just made it up.

We are having birthdays party at work tomorrow (a lot of people were born around that time) and we usually all bake something so we have enough cakes for the entire week. One of the birthday girl requested some crepes.




the recipe:
250g flour
500ml milk
2 eggs
25g melted butter
mix the ingredients together. Leave it to rest for at least 1 hour.
Add a little bit of water if the dough is too thick then make the crepes.
They can be stuffed with whatever you fancy (cheese, ham, veg, jam, sugar, chocolate...).
If you like savoury ones, you can replace some of the flour with buckwheat flour.

Bon appetit!!!

At home

I am off today!
The weather is not great which is a good excuse to stay inside and knit. Yesterday (I was off in the afternoon as well) I finished the main part of my lace shawl and this morning I've started the border. I had to start 3 times to get it right...

This week, I've made some knitted brooches for a change:

and one of my colleague gave me 12 balls of this yarn (71% mohair, 23% acrylic and 6% polyester):
I don't know what I am going to knit with it yet. It is a bit bright for any clothing but it could be great for some home accessories...

I've turn the kitchen into a craft room just in case I have any inspiration for cards. Stephane is (hopefully) not coming back before 10pm, he is going to play table tennis after work.