two kinds

as of late i have been baking a lot of pies, mostly apple, but as you also learned two days ago, a quince pie...
of course there are ample recipes and ideas and "just make it" out there, and i think that's wonderful. my kids though, they compare them all. this one has more sugar in it, for that one you used honey not sugar. the one from grandma is sweeter and has a richer filling. and they have learned a lot, as they are able to distinguish between ground almonds and ground hazelnuts...
i'm glad they don't mind the unpredictability of my baking. i love the freedom to change and go with my ideas, where ever they lead me.


it's deep autumn, here in switzerland, the leafs are falling and the air is cool in the morning, it warms up when the sun brakes through mid afternoon. and then i love to sit on the bench and just take it all in. i guess i still like autumn, and the scents and smells in the air are very different and intense, that's what i love, the richness of the moist soil the leafs turning into hummus, the cycle of life moving forward.

quince :: turned out yummy

we were at our veggie farm and one f the jobs joel did, was to harvest all the quince. a lot, as you can see and it was a great joy to get all those fruit down from the tree.
it must be a quince year, this year...
we also got a big crate of quince fruit already, a couple weeks back, from a friend. i was able to bring all those fruit to my parents and they cleaned the fruit (those yellow pear shaped fruits are covered with some kind of hair or more like dust sticking to the skin). then the fruit has to be cut in small pieces and cooked. the cutting is the hardest job, as the fruit is super hard, i know people they do this part with an ax. for my part, i needed to cut just about 5lbs and that was quickly done with my good kitchen knife.
a long boiling is the next step, i used the pressure cooker and forgot for how long i left the cut quince boil, it must have been an hour or so. while cooking the color changes, no more pretty yellow, but a deep orange. so far so good, the juice as well as the fruit itself doesn't have a lot of taste but a strong flavor is in the air!

the next step is: pureeing...
then pushing the puree through a fine mesh sieve, as the quince has stone like particles in the fruit flesh, which one doesn't want in the food. i mixed brown sugar into the fruit puree and added some vanilla. all started to taste now much better and very distinctly like quince. (maybe you have tasted some quince fruit leather.... it is super yummy).
i pre baked a pie shell and filled a good amount (1/4") of quince puree into the shell. the fruit filling was topped with a mixture of heavy creme sugar and egg. and then baked again for about 20 minutes. all of this was done improvised, as i just couldn't find a recipe. not even some farmers baking or cooking book was able to give me a hint. so i used the idea of "schlorziflade" and translated it into something, which felt, it should work.

smoky fire :: convession

i wasn't there...
it's what joel brought me home, after yesterdays "let's make a smoke fire in the forest!", so the photos are all by joel and he deserves the credit!

it has been elias, after coming home from church lunch, he really wanted to go out to make a fire. it was a gorgeous day, perfect for a little stroll into the woods. though when they started talking about a smoky fire, i kind off didn't want to smell all of that. and there is a confession, i don't like to smoke out other people, i'm embarrassed and usually tell the kids, to please stop. no more smoke, not so large and high and to tell the truth, i wanted to go along, but they didn't want me along, exactly because of that....

i don't blame them and yes they had a wonderful time.
amos and i discovered a for us new game "phase 10", it's kind of an old game, but new to us, and it seems like one we will be playing into winter this year!

fall fires

a wonderful big fire it was, p grilled sausages and cheese for dinner and kept the fire going, it was wonderful, to be able to cook those chocolate filled bananas. they simmered just fine for a good 15 minutes and everyone loved the dessert.
such evenings are worth so much, good people in the house, around the fire. a full house playing card games and more, it's a rich life which i'm enjoying. there is of course a lot more to it, but those joy filled moments of being together make me happy. again and again, they prove to me, that life in community is not just hard work, but that it is really a blessing and a bit extravagant.
once more, i count my blessings, and the list is getting longer.

fall in the house

at the beginning of the week, i collected a big hand full of fall leafs, while running in the morning. i wanted to catch a bit of the beautiful colors as the leafs change. i frequently collected leafs in the past years, all kinds of little projects, sewing, stringing or what ever was on my mind. this year i wanted to try something new to me. waxing

i was not able to get the leafs dipped right away, so thy sat in a corner with a few books on top, to keep them from crumbling and folding up. yesterday was the moment, thea had the afternoon off and wanted to make something. how perfect the timing. i still had some old wax in one of my cupboards, it was not bees wax, but just some off white left over wax. though this was working fine, a big tin in a hot water bath and all the wax melted quickly.
thea loved the dipping, and found some pretty silk to tie the leafs onto. the hanging was quickly done, our big windows lend themselves for such decoration.

and when the sun is out, the colored leafs look even prettier!

tho be still

some days there is the wrong lens mounted on my camera, as i grabbed it, it already dawned on me, but i just didn't feel like switching. it was too heavy to short, without looking at what my hands were holding, i knew it.
there are many things going on in and around our house, too much! there is really so much going on in the garden as well as in all the other corners of my life. i didn't want to change the lens too. life is full too the brim, nothing absolutely overwhelming but full. it seems like the to do list is unending. often it is long and could grow beyond the sheet of paper it is written on, but right now it has many touching subjects and a few really implicit ones. some of them have to be done rather soon. maybe should have been taken care off yesterday!
and of course then there are people needing to talk and relationships to be tended, all a good and enjoyable part of my daily being.

though sometimes i need a bit of a stop, a moment of chill and nothing, maybe just still.
and that was last night, in the middle of our community evening with dinner and games and people, i took the liberty to go out in the garden and cook the bananas. yup, just be on my own with the fire, a good thing and a moment of still.

colors of fall

 

there was lots of rain and fogy fall weather this weekend, though this didn't keep us in.

a wonderful walk along out in the woods, discovering all kinds of things. the cows, going out onto the pasture was my highlight, lots of bells and a just plain wonderful to out there.

saturday night was music night. we went to chollerhalle in zug and enjoyed the outside track. there was a bit of session playing which was fun to listen and of course, joel had his flute and whistle right there. i'm not hopping along to all his session playing and really enjoy when i do. once again, it is exciting to watch, when people "speak" the same language. and doing so without words is even more impressive to me.

porridge for breakfast

waking up and realizing that's really cold outside. noticing that the heating kicked in and so i cooked a good pot of porridge. it has been many months since i cooked porridge, but it was as i remembered, everyone loved it! with berries and apple sauce, maple syrup or cinnamon...

and for the outdoors, it is time to put the bulbs in, lots of decorative leeks and some more paper whites. o am i already looking to spring. of course first should be winter and as it happened many times before, i will forget about my plantings and most every flower springing up in march until may is going to surprise me with joy.

the colors of atumn

at my sister in laws veranda...
how pretty does this look, just so perfect. i'm super excited about all her trials of dying wool. she is such a creative woman, brave to experiment with natural as well as other colors, trying to figure out what works best for her. she started to card and spin, and within a year got wonderful results, it's just a matter of time, to be brave enough and i will ask her for a few skins to knit myself...

our mantle has become an autumn "wardrobe", i love the pretty colored leafs of the bitter sweet bush as well as some really dark bordeaux wines. of course my fliepie of last year has come out again...

as if the week has more to give than i can take. my parents called this morning and wanted to come over for apple collecting. i kind of have given up for this year, as my week seemed too be too full to add one more chore. but it was all i needed. a quick call and there we went, the girls and i went to the trees and together with my parents we collected all the apples there were. four wooden boxes, not a lot as there was really just a hand full of belle de boskoop, the rest of it was the pomme raisin rouge kind. this one is a pro specia rara apple, not planted a lot anymore, but a wonderful apple for cider (be it sweet or hard). in a few days we will have the sweet pasteurized cider in our glasses, and o how am i looking forward to taste what we harvested this morning!

big scarf #III

and so it happened, i wanted to buy one more skein for the big scarf #II, but there was not one left at the wool store. it's now all unraveled and i will have to knit it all over, just 18 stitches wide, instead of the 22stitches and that will help me to get about 3 inches more and this will be long enough for a loop.
as i was in the store, i just couldn't walk out without some more wool in my bag.

here we go, a wonderful savanne XL. i wanted to the some baby alpaca as i did for big scarf #I, but there was not anything close to a warm mustard yellow available. so i went with this brushed XL kind of wool, adding a debby bliss angel (baby kid mohair & silk). so far elias' liked the color a lot and i guess that's almost all i need to know. as i'm sure he will like the #15 needle patent knitting...
it will be my vacation knitting for some long bus rides.

your read correctly, my vacation knitting. we are gone for the next few days. a few hours south to enjoy some sun and water in warmer areas of europe! we are all very much looking forward to go and enjoy and be gone for a while. bus ride and all, camping and swimming, the weather forecast sounds good, as soon as saturday has passed.

see you back here, later in october.