Filed under: Life in general
There wasn’t much knitting done in this house lately. Around Christmas I usually get busy with cleaning the house and baking cookies. There’s one type of cookies that my husband’s mother traditionally makes and they are a tradition in our house too. We always make them and than we also try some other recipes.
But what I really wanted to share with you was a photo of our cookie box which, I am sure some of my readers will recoginize. I am also sure we all share the same feelings about these particular boxes, or at least, about this kind of relics of our common past. I don’t know how old this box really is, it must be at least 20 years of age, it was made and bought in Yugoslavia, a country that does not exist any more.
What I feel is so special about it is that it was filled with sweets back than and that’s what we use it for nowdays as well, fullfilling it’s main purpose. Even though we live in a totally different world with many different values, the sweet message of the “Yu cookies” is still here, filling our new years expectations with new wishes and desires. And, you know, some of us still share those old ‘Yu values’ or maybe it was ‘Yu dreams’?
Yu cookies
Contents of Yu cookies, today
Filed under: Life in general | Tags: beans, fagioli, one pot dish, ričet, Slovenia, stew, susages
I just made ‘ričet’ two days ago, so here’s an ad hoc recipe:
Soak overnight about 1 cup (2,5 dcl) of dried beans (kidney beans? – I use this type) and 3/4 cup barley.
Chop one middle sized onion (cut in cubes) and 2-3 carrots (about 250 gramms, I suppose, cubes or disks will be fine) – fry these two together on hot oil for a couple of minutes.
Boil the beans in some water, drain them and add to the softened onion and carrots. Than add barley, add water (I’d say approximately 1 liter)), 2 bay leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, one – two medimum sized whole tomatoes (or 2 spoons of tomato paste), couple of black pepper corns, and I also added one stalk of parsley.
After it boils cook on low heat for about 45 minutes.
Than add some smoked meat – we usually put some good smoked sausages, but I guess ham or similar smoked ‘heavy’ meat would also do – you could add ham at the same time as beans, but sausages need a little less cooking. Simmer for about another hour, hour and a half.
This dish gets better after reheated two to three times, and the bigger qounatity you make, the better it tastes (at least that’s what people here say). I guess there are several different recipes about how to prepare this, and I really made it for the second time in my life, but it was good and tasty just as in the mountin cottage. :)
I complained about how grey and rainy it was in the past weeks and a colleague sent me photographs he took on a Sunday trip with his girlfriend. Those were not just any photographs – they went to an alpine valley of Tamar , that streches almost to the Italian border and is just a couple kilometers away from Kranjska Gora, probably the most famous Slovene ski resort. Those were photos for my sore, sun deprived eyes! At the time they were there the snow blanket was 1,5 metres thick, sun was shining, people looked happy… I couldn’t wait for the week to pass so we could do the same thing.
So, we did it. This Saturday.
Despite the fact that Tamara didn’t want to sit on the sledge and had to be carried for more than an hour it was more than worth it. After arriving to the cottage we had warm (and very sweet) tea, beef soup for Tamara, for us: jota and ričet, two traditional and commonly served dishes in Slovene mounting cottages.
It was a perfect day topped by a visit to our friends who spend their weekends in a small village nearby. I hope we can squeeze more of these in our life in the coming year. That’s my wish.
Filed under: Life in general | Tags: children, dress, embroidery, Japan, mushroom, tree
I don’t know if you remember one of the packages my friend Chie has sent me from Japan. There was this cute little book full of inspirational embroidery patterns. I even made a diary cover early this year using a drawing from that book.
Sometimes I get an instant burst of inspiration and I have to use it immediately. If i loose it it can happen that the momen is gone for ever. One of those moments happenede last week when I got an inspiration to do some embroidery on Tamara’s pink and boring dress. It took me about an hour to finish the job.
Here’s the result – I cannot say that I am not satisfied :)
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- The dress – front
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- View of the front (the butterfly is iron-on)
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- Flowers made with buttons
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- Flowers made with buttons
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- Detail on the back
Filed under: Living & crafting | Tags: crocheted flowers, girly hat, Malabrigo yarn
Thanks for all the nice comments on my last post. It’s great to hear from you all :)
Today I will just share photos of just another two girly hats I mentioned in my previous post. I made them according to a bit modified Drops pattern which is for now my absolutely favourite hat pattern. It’s simple and effective and the best part is you don’t have to worry about casting on too much or too few stitches for the decired circumference. Just – for now, I think I am a bit tired of “right” stitches :)
I also added a couple of crocheted flowers, I like those cute details in girls clothing.
The hats are made for two sisters, so they look the same
Crocheted flowers - I am not sure if I want to keep the pink one
For the hats I used Malabrigo yarn which Grasswire bought in New York and Drops Alapaca for the grey flowers.
And here are the links: for the hat, for the flowers (both: Garnstudio)
Hope you’re having fun preparing for Christmas. I just wish we got some snow but – nope. Just pouring rain for almost a whole week. Prospects for the coming week are not any better – it will rain until Thursday. Call this a winter!
