Sound Garden...

Out of the Blue...

I'm a bit in the blogging mood/mode tonight so I just want to quickly add these awesome pictures of... myself! My dear friend Suna went for shopping and coffee with me on Tuesday... The last day of summer. On our way back home we spotted that fantastic blue door at Mariahilfer Straße and she told me to pose for a few shots... Those turned out really well even though I usually never do that and I'm not much of a great poser anyway. But judge for yourself!

Die Bruncher...

Slightly belated but... better late than never. An update about our Saturday Home Brunch. After a seemingly endless summer break with our delightful clique spread all over the world, we finally managed to meet for another famour At-Home-Brunch at Kerstin & Alex' place again. Even Vera and Chris stopped by from Vorarlberg (other end of the country) with their freshly extended family. Let's welcome our newest addition to the Bruncher family: Ella - 4 months old and the secret star of this happening, gaining most of our attention and most of our talk circled around her and toddlers in general.

Just for explanation: our illustrious circle of friends usally has the most enjoyable conversations about university in general and Slavonic studies in particular as we all got to know each in the first place at some Russian class at university (with the major exception of Alex who first joined us as Kerstin's sidekick but know has gained a profound knowledge on Russian language, the Vienna Institute of Slavonic Studies and its staff and pretty much all Slavonic-related rumours and gossip over the years)! Ella's still too innocent to be part of that but she's grow into it at some point. Haha! And she did really well for a first time...

As usual, we had way too much of everything! Even though our "meetings" start somewhere around 10 AM and usually last to 4 or 5 PM!

 Also as usual, we had a lot of healthy food first before the common Nutella and Macadamia Cream feast started! ^_^

My contributiuon to this event, also as usual... Cupcakes! Blueberry and chocolate, this time. And I so wanted to use my fancy cupcake wrappers!

Some fun with the Satananas... ^_^

No chance to come short of bread with this amazing giant pretzel...

As always we end up in the kitchen, cleaning up and distributing the leftovers...

La Cuisine... Apple & Pear Quiche

Fall has finally come. This usally means: lots of apples to "work" with. They are my favourite fruits and I just love all sorts of apple pie or strudel. Just 2 weeks ago I found the new Spar magazine Mahlzeit! in my mailbox and it reminded me that I haven't used my quiche form for far too long already... It added perfectly to the fact that I had some ripe apples at home that needed to be eaten... I rather frequently look for recipes to use up ingredients I've got at home already and I'm always happy to try out something new. This one sounded very quick and easy which was great because I did not have too much time that day... And it turned out exceptionally well. 

Apple & Pear Quiche

Pastry dough

250g finely ground flour

1/2 tsp salt

120g butter, room temperature

60g icing sugar

extra flour for developing

Filling

4 medium apples

4 medium pears

1T cinnamon

250ml whipped cream

90g brown sugar

2cl brown rum

3 egg yolks

1. For the pastry dough, knead all ingredients into a dough together with 3-4T cold water. Add extra flour if needed for texture. Roll the dough out onto a floured work surface. Put into the greased quiche form, slightly press and cut off protruding edges and put into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

2. Peel apples and pears, cut into halves and remove their cores. Cut into rather thin slices. Arrange circularly on the pastry dough (for this you sometimes wish for a 3rd hand - especially in the beginning of the outer circles... ^_^ ). Mix 2T  brown sugar with cinnamon and pour over the fruits.

3. Preheat oven to 200°C (392°F).

4. Mix whipped cream with the rest of sugar. Stir in rum and egg yolks and pour over the fruits. 

5. Bake on medium shelf for 40-45 minutes. You may cover the quiche with aluminium foil after 3/4 of baking time.

6. Let quiche cool off a bit and sprinkle with icing sugar. Serve still (luke)warm or cold with whipped cream.

Bon appetit!

The Breakfast Club...

Today I had breakfast with some good friends at the lovely Cafe Jelinek. Unbelieveably, I've been living only 10 minutes from there for over 25 years and never been there until about 3 weeks ago. They have awesome breakfast, a funny waiter and a charming old-fashioned interior. Plus it's only 2 minutes from where my grandfather lives so that made the Sunday visit at his place even more convenient...

Our conversation took the usual rambling-mode within minutes and I spent the better part of the morning laughing so hard that I could hardly eat... Topic number one: baby talk. Reason for that: presence(s) of my best friend Angelika, 9 months pregnant and now 3 days overdue and slightly annyoed with this ^_^ At this state you obviously can't do much but the (unborn) baby demands proper breakfast after all! Also, our friend Silvia brought her super-cute 4-week-old baby-girl Anna who behaved so well but entertained us by making funny faces in her sleep... Our jokes probably disqualified the rest of us as possible future babysitters... haha.

La Cuisine... Sweet Pepper & Ham Spread

Today I just had quick dinner with some leftovers from today's brunch (which is also the reason why I simply couldn't eat much anymore...). This spread was my first try and it turned out very easily and very tasty.

Sweet Pepper & Ham Spread

approx. 10 slices of bread
1 sweet pepper
2 cloves of garlic
160g turkey ham
150g butter, room temperature
250g sour cream
250g low-fat curd cheese
1T herbs (parsley, chives, cress, dill)
salt
pepper
cayenne
nutmeg

1. Peel garlic cloves. Wash pepper. Dice both of them together with the ham (and 1T capers, if you like them).

2. Stir butter until creamy. Add in sour cream and curd cheese. Add all other ingredients and season to taste with herbs and spices.

3. Goes with almost any kind of bread but I prefer fresh crusty bread. As topping you can use green asparagus, capers or  and/or cress. Or you can add extra ham... Just as you like it best.

Bon appetit!

Home alone!

What a better way to spend the evening than with my favourite cup of tea and some interior and decoration magazines about autumn looks for you home. Dreaming about my future home(s)... Comes in handy that dad is an architect! ^_^ Currently I'm all about country style and shabby chic...

Feeling of the Day...

[ via we ♥ it ]

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts.  

- Author Unknown

Shoemanic...

[ via HUMANIC ]

Wanna-have! Love the colour...

Feeling of the Day...

[ via lose the mask ]

Silences make the real conversations between friends.  

Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. 

- Margaret Lee Runbeck, Answer Without Ceasing

Sound Garden...