Christmas market at Trapholt 2019

Today I went to the annual usual Christmas market at Tarpholt, which is an event I always plan to attend from year to year due to the high level of the various participating artists. As usual I was keeping a good eye to the various ceramics, which were a part of the Christmas fair.

At the stand of Lotte Kohl I located a "new" Christmas tree for my collection of ceramic Christmas tree, which plays an important role in my Christmas decoration. Besides from a new Christman three I also brought a a small flower pot as well as two Christmas gifts from my mother to me :-)

 

At the stand of Aoife Soden Glass I located as well as brought a glass vase, which also a holder for a candle stick.

At the stand of Tina Ferch I found this small collection of ceramic candle stick holders and vases. 

Finally at the shop of Trapholt I found and brought this candle and star shaped candle stick holder.

Knit poncho - part 2

I making progress on this knit poncho. The knitting of first part of the poncho went very smoothly. However, the second part of the lower part of the poncho I had to re-knit it for three times, as I could not get the shape right at all.

Luckily on the third attempt I got the shape right, so now I have merge the two lower parts of the poncho into one part, where I now knit the first part of the merged part in blue colour.

Shopping in Flensburg

Two days my mother and I went on a day trip to Flensburg, where I found various great food items and teas. As usual, when I am in Flensburg I always do some shopping in the German supermarket REWE, as they have some great food specialties.

So here brought various ready-to-eat dessert, cheeses, goat cheesed wrapped in bacon as an appetizer, pasta, dough for flammkuchen and some flavoured chai mixtures, which could be used for making chai ice cream.

I also found a goodie bag full of Italian food stuff.

I also brought some tea from a small tea shop located in Rote Strasse. Two of these teas as teas fitting for the upcoming Christmas time, as one tea is a Flensburger Christmas Tea, the second tea is Wintermärchen and final and third tea is one of my favourite tea type Earl Grey in form of Princess Grey.




Finally I brought two small portions of fruit liqueurs, one with pomegranate and the other with apple & cinnamon. And again a German version of German mulled wine (Punch).

Shopping in Carstensens Tehandel

Today my mother and I went on a tour to Aabenraa to look at the city center as well as have some lunch on this dark, rainy and very gray day.

A must do thing, when you are in Aabenraa, you really have to visit Carstensens Tehandel, which is an excellent tea shop.

Here I brought two teas for my tea cup. The first was off cause a Christmas tea based on black tea. The second tea is another black tea called "Miss Marples tea pie" for perhaps, when I enjoy the nice crime novel.

I also located some candies pomerans and sukat, which I plan to use for some upcoming Christmas baking, which could be something like these spicy scones with dried fruits or these kløben buns. Also a small glass of cherry jam found it's way to my kitchen.

Knitting book on dish clothes

Some time ago I discussed with a rowing friend of mine, that I had been buying some cotton yarn as preparation for the knitting festival in Horsens, and my plan afterwards was to turn this yarn into dish clothes. She mentioned, that she had a knit book with recipes on dish clothes, which I could borrow.

After I had a look at the many great looking knitted dish clothes I decided to buy my own version of this knitting book "strikkede klude fra A til Ø" by Gitte Gade. This means, that I do not have to make copies of the entire knit book, and I can knit my way through the book in my own pace.

You can see, how I progress on knitting the various dish clothes here.

Double knitting sample

At the knitting festival in Horsens in October I participated in a work shop on double knitting (besides from the work shop on Neverkont knit).
Double knitting is, that the pattern on the back side is the negative side of the pattern on the front side.

At the work shop I was knitting with two green colours, which were very close to each, so it was difficult to see the pattern. Therefore I decided to try this double knitting again, this time in two colour having some colour difference like this light and dark blue, and as you can see, it is more easy to see the pattern now.  lt to see the actual pattern.



This way of knitting requires a lot of attention, as the yarn is either behind or in front of the knit mask, so I am not planning to do any big knit project in double pattern. It could be interesting to knit a smaller shawl in double knit, as you when will get a shawl with two different colour schemes.

Mushroom soup

As comfort food for this gray, dark and rainy time of the year soup could be an excellent choice. I have found this recipe on mushroom soup in Tupperware folder (week 40-44/2019).

Instead of preparing it in the microwave oven I decided to cook the soup.
I also added into one onion to the soup, as well as doing the frying of both onion and mushroom in some butter at the start.
And I also increased the amount of cream from 2 dl to 2½ dl whipping cream, as 2½ dl whipping cream is the normally amount of cream to buy in the supermarket and I did not want to have ½ dl whipping cream standing in my refrigerator, where I forget to use it and afterwards through the cream out. This was my decision, you can take your own decision in your kitchen.


Any leftover soup can easily be stored in your freezer for later use on those days, where you have very little time to cook a meal.

Mushroom soup: - 4 servings

• 500 g mushrooms
• 1 onion - finely chopped
• 20-25 g butter
• 6 dl water 
• vegetable stock mixture for 1 l 
• 2½ dl dairy whipping cream, 30-38% fat
• Pepper for seasoning
• meat balls for soup - optional
• chives - optional

1. Clean and slice the mushrooms.
2. Melt the butter in the cooking pot.
3. Fry the onion and mushroom slices in the butter for 2-3 minutes.
4. Afterward add into the water and vegetable stock mixture.
5. Bring the water to the boil.
6. Let the soup simmer gently for 15-20 minutes.
7. Blend the soup into a homogeneous mass.
8. Pour in the dairy whipping cream and bring the soup to the boil.
9. Heat up the soup meat balls in the soup prior to serving.
10. Season with pepper.
11. Pour the soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with chives.

Cinnamon snails

For a cold Autumn Sunday it can be great to enjoy a cup of hot tea together with a freshly baked cinnamon snail :-)

A bun dough for these cinnamon snails I use this recipe on classic buns. You can actually make this bun dough, and when afterwards divide into to two portion. One portion for buns and the seconds portion you turn into cinnamon snails.

Cinnamon snails: - 20 buns

Dough:

• 650 g wheat flour
• 50 g sugar
• 120 g butter
• 25-50 g fresh yeast
• 50 g egg - or just use 1 egg
• 8 g salt
• 250 g milk

Remonance/filling:

• 200 g soft butter
• 200 g brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnmon

1. Weigh all the ingredients directly into the mixing bowl of the stand alone mixer. Keep salt & sugar away from the yeast.
2. Place the bowl on the stand-alone mixer.
3. Start knead the dough at speed 1 for 8 minutes.
4. Afterwards increase the speed to 4, knead for 2 minutes. Check the consistency of the dough. If it is not OK, when knead it at speed 4 for another 2 minutes. Again check the consistency. If needed, knead again for 1 minute and when check consistency of the dough.
5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place it on the kitchen table sprinkled with flour.
6. Let the entire dough raise for approx 20-40/60 minutes under a damp cloth. 20 minutes for 50 g yeast and 40-60 minutes for 25 g yeast.
7. Add the soft butter, brown sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl, mix it together using a cooking spoon.
8. Divide the dough into two portions. Roll each portion into a square size with a height of 5-6 mm. 
9. Spread half the remonance/filling out on one dough portion. Roll the dough together.
10. Slide the dough roll in a size of 2-3 cm. 
11. Place each dough piece with the filling facing upward in a muffin, as the filling will run away during baking.
12. Let the cinnamon snail raise for second time for approx 40 minutes under a tea towel.
13. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
14. Bake the bun at 200'C for 15-20 minutes.
15. Cold down the buns, before serving them with a nice cup of tea/coffee.

Knit poncho - part 1

At the knitting festival in Horsens this October  I brought some yarn for knit poncho, where the main colour is green (big surprise !)

And I have already been knitting the lower part of of the front side for this poncho so now I am busy knitting the backside of the poncho, before I merge these two side into one.

Mortens aften - type of food to enjoy

Today it is Mortens aften, which typical is celebrated in Denmark by eating fried duck served with plain as well as brown potatoes, pickled red cabbage and brown sauce. For dessert we will typical enjoy the very Danish dessert ris a la mande (rice porridge) served together with warm cherry sauce. The food is more or less the food, which we will eat as well on Christmas Eve, so the evening could be considered as trial run on cooking the food to be served for Christmas.

As inspiration for food to enjoy on this evening I would like to the following recipes with you. Another way to the enjoy the duck part could be this:

seared duck breast

And to be served together with duck you could serve this

all currant jelly

The jelly can also be used for adding some character to the brown gravy. 

And for the rice dessert (ris a la mande) the cherry sauce could be this version:

  

cherries in rum

Knit poncho

At the knitting festival in Horsens this October you could besides from participation in various work shops (Neverkont & double knitting) naturally buy yarn from a huge selection of various yarn shops.

I found this yarn in form of wool silk from Hjertegarn made from 75% organic lambswool and 25% silk, which is turn into a poncho in the main colour of darker green and various strips in two different colours of lighter green and medium blue.

Let's see, when the poncho will be ready, sometime during this Winter or first for Spring 2020 ?