Rainy days

Autumn is here, with the cooler days (yay!) and the colourful trees (double yay!) and the rain (um... yay?).

Today was one of those days where it's either drizzling or pouring the whole day, so I decided to make the most of it. I played lots with Petike (I love it when he shrieks with laughter), I did some housework, and knitted a bit.

The knitting is one of the front pieces for a little Santa suit. I'm just imagining the cuteness to come!

In the end I decided that rainy days deserve a yay too.

I feel a crocheting coming on...

A while back I felt a sudden urge for crocheting earrings, and I made these ones:

The problem is that in the process of hunting down a pattern I wanted to try, I found this website, and this not to mention Pinterest... and I think that if I'm not careful, I'll have to start making them to sell to keep me in yarn money!

Things that are suddenly more interesting than earlier

It's funny how things change after having a baby, but also how they stay the same. For example, now I have a sudden interest in:

1. Babies (especially my own). I guess this is understandable, but I never used to be as interested in babies as I am now.
2. Sleep. That's also self-explanatory. Not just mine, Petike's too.
3. Nutritional information. I never used to scan food labels as carefully as I do these days.
4. Vaccines. Before I thought that people who didn't vaccinate (except where the child had a reaction to a vaccine of course) were just misinformed. Now I think that they're endangering my child. I guess my protective instincts have kicked in. Luckily, the anti-vaxx movement is practically non-existent in Hungary.
5. (Not an interest but) Suddenly farts are funny. They never were before.

Things that haven't changed:

1. Knitting/crocheting. I still love it, I just don't have as much time for it these days. That's improving though!
2. Reading. Now in digital format so I can bring it everywhere, but it's a life saver sometimes!
3. Games. Well... very rarely but when I have time I will happily lose some time in virtual land.

I'm sure that list will change later, as the little one grows and as life happens, but it's surprising how much interests change in just a short time!

Fixing a hole in knitting

In continuation of the whole moth issue, I was trying to find out how to fix (sometimes quite big) holes in knitting. I have two jumpers I knitted which is pure merino. This is apparently candy to moths and they gratefully dug into the buffet.

After washing all my wools carefully, I tried to google techniques for fixing the holes but I couldn’t find too much, so I kinda winged it. Looks like it worked quite well! Luckily I had some of the original yarn left.

Of course there’s another solution too, but it’s nowhere near as satisfying…

Moths!

At New Year ’s Eve I discovered I had a moth problem. This caused me to spend the next few days going through my yarn stash and looking at every ball of yarn to see how far the damage went, then bagging them up and spraying the bags with moth spray. NOT the way I wanted to spend the first few days of the year!

Luckily the damage wasn’t too bad, just a few balls of yarn to throw out, the rest could be salvaged. I now have moth repellents everywhere. The other day I thought I’d top up the spray in the sunshine (sunshine is good to kill moth eggs). I put everything outside in the 30C in the shade/ 40C in the sun temperatures while the baby slept, and went through the stash spraying into each bag again and checking for signs. So far so good!

The only problem now is… since he's seen the size of my stash, how to convince Peti that I don’t have enough yarn!

Blogtober!

So for the first time ever I will follow Blogtober and (do my damnedest to) post each day.

It’s been almost a year since my last post and I want to get into the habit of posting more often, but first a short recap of the year.

Of course what’s taken most of my time is a certain young gentleman who un-self-consciously demands me whenever he needs me – and I can’t help but run to answer. Who can when you get such a happy smile as a reward?

In April was his christening. We were so happy that so many of my relatives could come! I made a christening dress with the help of my mum and my good friend Erika, and all the Hungarians thought he looked like a girl. (“,) (It’s BLUE though!)

In May we had a visit from the Stockdales, which I’d been looking forward to for ages, and I think they liked it too, especially all the swimming pools around and the nice summer temperatures – apparently in UK it was raining buckets!

In July my brother Martin came with his kids for a week, it was brilliant to spend time with them! We went swimming almost every day, hunted for geological exhibitions, went to the zoo and had a very smoky barbecue. Sounds like summer holidays to me!

In end of July my dad came for a flying visit, and it was so special to me to see him playing with the baby! I now have some priceless photos and videos of them playing and cuddling. It warms my heart every time I see them.

At the beginning of August we went to “the Hungarian Riviera” – Balaton. We did a lot of swimming, sunbathing and playing with Petike, and with Peti’s mum, his sister and her husband, and Peti’s brother and his family.  It was wonderful!

In September was Petike’s first birthday. My mum came for the party and we spent five great days together, walking, playing, crocheting and chatting.

Which brings us to now, with an almost-alone-standing baby, autumn setting in, and plans for knitting and baking tasty stuffs in the cold and rain – if the baby lets me!

Tasty Hungarian Christmas cookies (Mazsolás Puszedli)

I've had a couple of requests for these cookies and they have such a Christmas taste so I thought it's a perfect blogging opportunity!

Enikő gave me some of these cookies 2 years ago (yikes!) so I asked her nicely for the recipe, cause they're addictive. They're quickly becoming a tradition!

Since I've made them a couple of times I managed to make some mistakes so I'll list them here for your entertainment and to stop you making the same mistakes. :-)

I'll give the ingredients in english and norwegian, and the rest in english. Hope it makes sense!

Notes: when it says 1 sachet/pakke, that is around 12 g or 2 tsp if measuring out.
English (norwegian) measurements:
tsp             ts
tbsp           ss

Pastry

Filling

Ingredients:
Pastry:
250 g honey (honning)
220 g sugar (sukker)
500 g white flour (hvetemel)
1 sachet baking powder (1 pakke bakepulver)
2 eggs
80 g butter (smør)
Spices (krydder)
- 1 sachet vanilla sugar (around 12 g or 2 tsp) (vaniljesukker)
- 1 tsp ground cloves (nellik)
- 3 tbsp cinnamon (3 ss kanel)

Filling:
120 g ground hazelnuts (malte hasselnøtter)
150 g raisins soaked in rum aroma (rosiner trukket i rom aroma)
120 g icing sugar (melis)

Icing/brushing:
1-2 eggs
~170 g glazing (glasur) - I would suggest making a little at a time so you don't have lots left.

Stage 1 - Making the dough.
First, assemble the ingredients. Nothing more annoying than getting halfway through and realising you forgot to get baking powder - not that I've done that of course.

Petike is supervising the baking

Heat the honey till it moves almost like water. Add the sugar and spices and leave to cool stir a bit once in a while to keep it from becoming a solid sugar-lump.
While it is cooling you can add water and rum aroma to the raisins and leave them to soak. The longer the better.
If you can't find pre-ground hazelnuts, now is a good time to get the grinder out. Remember that the volume will grow - use a slightly bigger bowl.
*Suggestion* - get the lumps out of the icing sugar before the next step - much easier that way, trust me. I tried both ways. Painful.

Petike decided that I'd gotten the hang of it and supervising was too tiring.

Add the icing sugar and hazelnuts together. Stir till they are evenly mixed. Leave to the side till the raisins are ready to party with them.
By now the honey/sugar/spice mix might be cool enough. You can test with a finger if it's around body temperature. If it's too hot it'll activate the baking powder now and the cakes will be flat later. They'll still taste nice but won't be as pretty. Yep, managed to do that too!

Next, add the flour and baking powder mixed together, alternating with the eggs and butter.
Stir it all together, the mixture should release reasonably easily from the pot. Leave in the fridge for 10 hours (or more).

Stage 2 - Making the cookies.
This is the part that takes the most time. In my wild and free single days (last year), I made a double batch and ended up spending about 3 evenings after work making cookies till late. I'm such a rebel.
Drain the raisins and combine the raisins and hazelnut/sugar mix. If you leave them for 1/2 hour or so the mixture becomes a bit sticky from the residual water, this makes it easier to use.
I usually leave the dough in the fridge till I need it as I find it easier to use when it's still cold, but it's your choice.
Roll out the dough to about 2 mm thickness. 

I use 2 different size cookie cutters, a 3 cm and a 4 cm one. Make smaller cut-outs for the bottom part, put as much stuffing as you can on it and cover with the larger cut outs.

Pretend you have an unlimited amount of stuffing and put as much as you can and still be able to tamp down the edges. I usually have lots of stuffing left. Actually this time I had to grind a tiny bit extra nuts (maybe 20 grams) and add a few more raisins, but it was a close thing. And really, it's worth it to have the cookies really filled!

I usually make a few shapes, then fill them and cover them. It's quicker for me anyway this way. If anyone has any ideas on how to make it more quickly please let me know!
When you fill a baking tray, brush with the roughly whipped egg, then put in a preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes on 170 C. It gets quite hard if you leave it too long so keep an eye on it the first time and take it out as soon as you can smell it and it doesn't taste raw. Make a note of the time for next time as you'll have the smell in the kitchen!
While it's still warm, cover with glazing. Leave to cool and enjoy!
These cookies last quite well as long as you store them in a cookie jar. The only problem is that they'll be eaten quickly :-)

Please let me know if you have any questions or if you have any tips on how to make the second stage go more quickly!

Lots of love, and Merry Christmas!

Eva