Work in progress

The past days we have been quite busy here. Finally, our new pillarbox is in place in front our our house. And I got down to do some work on the front lawn. So far the result is somewhat greener grass (compared to this), but if everything goes as planned, the grass seed I spread out will make the lawn a proper one before the end of this summer. At the moment Matts is working hard on our new doorstep - and it will be awesome. Even our neighbors have given Matts compliments daily these past few days...

Workman's beard

After being locked in in our living room for more than a week, Matts came out, looking like this... Pictures of our new, fabulous looking living room will come later on.

Birchermüsli

On Sundays in Switzerland, I sometimes went by Frei's in Brugg to buy home some bread rolls and their delicious Birchermüsli after going to church. Before we went to Poland, about two weeks ago, and the fridge was quite empty I finally made my first batch ever of Birchermüsli and it was delicious! I used this recipe as a template (but with fewer apples) and then added a nectarine, bananas, raspberries and some whipped cream to it as well.

The last piece of wallpaper

Finally, after nine days of hard work, Matts came to the last piece of wallpaper. After some additional painting, our living room is finally done - apart from the skirting that we haven't decided on quite yet. Tomorrow we'll clean our whole house from dust and bits of this and that that have spread all over the place and then it's time to re-furniture the living room. I sure look forward to it!

Muffins - again

We had some really small and tiny bits of rhubarb left in the garden and I decided to do something with it. I googled and found the recipe for these delicious muffins.

Rhubarb muffins with white chocolate and cardamom, 12 small ones

Rinse and cut 150 grams rhubarb and add 2½ tbsp sugar to them. Put aside. Beat 100 grams of butter with 1 deciliter sugar and ½ tbsp vanilla sugar. Add 2 eggs, one by one and then 1 deciliter milk. Mix 2½ deciliter flour with 2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp ground cardamom in a separate bowl before genlty mixing it into the butter and stuff. Add 100 grams white chocolate in chunks as well as half of the rhubarb and then distribute the batter evenly in 12 muffin cups. Spread the rest of the rhubarb on top and bake for approximately 20 minutes at 175 Celcius.

Simply delicious!

The Knivsta Hedgehog

Yesterday we got a visitor coming by after dinner outside. And today, the same visitor came once more - a hedgehog. This time I followed it to our flowerbed where it turned out to be a true epicure, enjoying escargot for supper...

Hard work

To strip the living room of it's wallpaper has taken days. But eventually it was time for Matts to apply the spackling paste, and after some polishing and painting (the ceiling as well as the walls under the windows) today was finally the day of hanging the new wallpaper. It sure looks fabulous and I can hardly wait until it's all done and we can move back into our living room.

Let your thoughts fly away

While Matts worked on the living room and Inga played in her baby pool next to me, I lay on the deck watching the blue sky and the swifts that flew by.

Taking the wallpaper down

This is what our living room looked like yesterday morning. But after lunch it all changed. We moved the table into the guest room, hooked down the curtains and pushed all the remaining furniture to the middle of the room. There they are now, covered in plastic while Matts works on the wallpaper. The wallpaper is an old structure one with small small bits of wood in it to give it structure. Probably very modern in the late 70s, but now, more than three decades later it's about time it disappears from these walls. Not the least since it's broken in one of the corners where the walls have moved. Luckily Matts is doing a good job, taking down the terrible wallpaper, inch by inch.

Raspberry-Chocolate muffins

Today I baked. It's my favorite thing to do in the kitchen, but lately I haven't baked much at all. This time I made a batch of muffins. So easy and fast to make, and nice to eat as well... I found this recipe in a book that I was just about to return to the library and they don't have much sugar in them. Originally the recipe said to use white chocolate, but since I only had dark at home I simply used that instead. That might be the reason why they aren't so sweet. Not that that is a problem in any way...

For 12 regular size muffins I beat 200 grams of butter with 1,5 deciliter sugar. Then I added 4 eggs, one at a time. I mixed 4 deciliter of flour with 1 tablespoon of baking soda and added that together with 100 grams of frozen raspberries as well as 75 grams of dark chocolate. After about 20 minutes in 175 C they were ready to enjoy.