Buying a pumpkin

Pumpkins at our local farm in our village. You just pick up what you want and throw the money into a box. The Swiss are very trusting people because there is nobody to control if you pay the right amount or if you pay at all.

Lots of different varieties are available

The farmer has attached to each variety a short description telling to what the pumpkin is good for.

This pumpkins are for decoration only

I would love to by those big, hanging pumpkins. These pumpkins are all only for decoration.

Some more deco pumpkins

And yet more deco pumpkins

Excursion tip: Ballenberg

I could live in a house like this...

Some time ago we had to make a quick trip to Bern because I needed to apply for a new passport. Bern isn't exactly around the corner for us and because we anyway had to drive there we decided to make it into a nice tourist day by visiting the Ballenberg outdoor museum. Ballenberg is one of my favourite museums ever. The whole area is huge and so far we never managed to go through everything during one day.

The whole museum area is like a little Switzerland. It's organised so that you feel like walking from one village to another one. Each village presents the typical building style of a certain part of Switzerland. The houses are all original old houses historically protected and they have all been brough to Ballenberg from different parts of Switzerland.

...but I might need a bit moderner kitchen than this one.

Another old kitchen

Ballenberg is not only for those interested in old building styles but also for the ones who want to see the old handcrafts being presented. One can follow the work of saddlery, basket weaving, pottery, silk ribbon weaving among plenty of other things. As food people we were of course interested in skills like cheese making. Food in Ballenberg was also worth of tasting. Some good typical Swiss food. We gave a cold platter a try and it was delicious. All the meat and cheese on the board was produced in Ballenberg. All in all, you should really pay this "museum" a visit. By the way, the header picture of this blog, the one with the spice jars, was also taken in Ballenberg.

For hungry guests there a some restaurants. All the cold cuts and cheese on the bord are produced in Ballenberg

Cheese making

Some of the cheese were ready to buy

Cheese press

Grapes in "Tessin"

Landscape in Ballenberg

Happy birthday to me :D

I know, I had decided to only bake cookies for my birthday. But two days after my birthday I was off and my Hubby was off as well so I changed my mind and made a quick birthday cake for me ;): Chocolate sponge cake with blackcurrant mousse.

Cookies

Cookies in making

Some days ago I had a birthday. Usually at my working place one gets a day off on one's birthday but my chef had forgotton about it and thus I was working on that day. When he realised his mistake he did ask if I want to have it off but I said that it didn't matter because my Hubby was working the whole day anyways. I first wanted to bake a cake to bring with me to work but somehow I didn't have the desire for such a project. So at the end, after a long moment with a thinking cap on, I decided to do some cookies. That way I had something to bring not only to my working place but also to my Hubby's working place where I spent the evening while waiting for him to get ready with his work.

Oatmeal cookies

250 g butter or margarine

270 g sugar

100 g raisins

180 g wheat flour

240 g oats

2 tsp baking powder

1 dl milk

Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and smooth. Mix in all the dry ingredients. At last add the milk. With a small spoon take small lumps of the dough and place them on a baking sheet. Leave enough place around the lumps because they will spread a lot in the oven. Bake at 200 C for about 8 min. After baking let the cookies cool down a bit to harden and then move them to an oven grill.

Basic shortpastry dough for the Raspberry cookies

200 g butter

90 g sugar

1 egg (55g)

1 tsp baking powder

240 g wheat flour

vanilla sugar

raspberry marmelade

Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and smooth. Add the egg while still creaming until fully incorporated. on a slow speed mix in the dry ingredients until just incorporated. If you want to form the dough with your hands let it rest in the fridge. If you gonna pipe it, you can use it right away. Before baking, top the cookies with the marmelade and bake in 180 C for about 10 min. 

Chocolate cookies

 125 g butter

90 g  sugar

75 g fariinisokeri (refined sugar to which molasses has been added.)

1 egg (55g)

150 g dark chocolate chopped small

150 g  wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

You can follow the instructions of the basic short pastry dough.

From left to right: Oatmeal cookies, vanilla-raspberry cookies, chocolate cookies

Potato-Veg curry

Here is a recipe for the curry lovers. I learned to do this curry with an ex-colleague of Peter and mine. I want to let you know that all the measurements are roughly stated and I never measure the spices. I just estimate.

Potato-veg curry

1 tbsp fennel seeds

1 tbsp black mustard seeds

some (preferably fresh) curry leaves

2 onions roughly chopped

1 bell pepper roughly chopped
1 small zucchini roughly chopped

2 big garlic cloves

1 tbsp roasted curry powder

1 tbsp dried coriander

1/2 tbsp dried chilli flakes (use more if you want it spicy)

1/2 tbsp turmeric powder

1 tbsp garam masala

1 can (c. 250g ) chopped tomato
about 500 g potatos in big cubes

2 fresh tomatos in big cubes

salt

water as needed

about 2 dl coco smilk

Fresh coriander to decorate

Heat up some oil (and clarified butter) in a pot. Add mustard and fennel seeds and wait until you hear a popping sound. Add onions and bell pepper and saute for a while. Add the fresh curry leaves and other spices and again saute for a while. Give the lovely aroma some time :) Add the canned tomatos, tomatos and potatos. Fill in enouhg water to cover the potatos. When I do a curry with potatos I usually add the salt at this point. Otherwise I only season at the end. Let the curry simmer until the potatos are cooked. Add some cocos milk and serve with some fresh coriander. I have also done a fish curry with this recipe. For the fish curry I leave the potatos out and cook the basic curry only with some veggies. When I am happy with the taste (maybe about 1 hour cooking) I add some cubes of fresh fish  and only cook the curry for another five minutes or so until the fish is cooked. I serve the curry with some rice.

Cats, Cake, Cocos

Who would not want to be a cat?

Last Thursday I was on a  mood for baking. As it happened to be the last day of work for one of Hubby's colleagues I had a great reason for a cake. The whole day in the work I was thinking what to do until finally I remembered a chocolate cake which I hadn't done for ages. 

I first had a bite of this cake back in 2004 at the 18th birthday party of one my friends. She had made the cake with a recipe taken from one of the many Women's magazines in Finland. Some years later I thought of this cake but I had lost the recipe. I could, however, remember the name so after some googling I managed to locate the recipe again. I can't remember anymore that in which magazine the recipe was in but who cares because I have it now :) So here is the cake: Cake of two chocolates with lime-mascarpone mousse

The bottom of the cake is really heavy and cocolately with some cocos in it. The bottom is not baked through and that's why it's very moist and heavy.

The topping is fresh with a lovely lime taste.

My own addition to the cake were the cocosballs.