Halloween 2016

Happy Halloween!

This year's halloween is inspired by Pinterest. Am I addicted? Yes! So let's see what I found.

• Illuminated Jars 
  I got the idea, as often, while searching trough Pinterest when I saw this and that.

   

• Halloween Birthday cake
  (For my little niece, - she turned 4 on Friday - because my mum told me that I had to bring a cake especially for the kids. OK, nothing easier than that!) I was inspired by this cake

• Halloween Cookies
  I found these and these cookies that I wanted to try. But to be honest, they were a total fail so I haven't got photos from this desaster.

• Halloween wreath
  This one it totally inspired by myself (thrilling!) and a tip from hubby
  

Have a spooky evening
                             

Halloween Quilt

Happy Fall Y'all!

Finally autumn has arrived. So I thought it's time to do a quilt again. And because October is Halloween-Season at all, what could be better than a halloween quilt?

I bought these nice fabrics over at Dawanda* 

The back is a cotton duvet cover, I bought at IKEA*.

I designed the pattern with the super easy to use, free software from Pattern Jam.*

The result is a cozy Halloween quilt.

BTW: Did you mentioned the 2 little pumpkins at the bottom of the halloween quilt? These were 2 of this year's harvest.

Thank you for stopping by              

*All opinions are mine and I wasn't paid for it.

Canning, decorating, transforming and crocheting

Hi Everybody!

I had this week off and it was very relaxing, but also very busy. I had planned many fun things and ultimately all done. Finally I had enough time, to do all the things I wanna do. So here is a little summary of the things that I've done this week.

Autumn is canning time and therefore of course I also canned some things.

First I tried canning pumpkin puree because many recipes for e.g. pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread, requires pumpkin puree and you can't have canned pumpkin in Germany. At least I could not find one until now. So I made my own. I had 3 kinds of squash: Hubbard, Spaghetti and Pumpkin. Now I'm prepared for everything with pumpkin.

Second was trying a new jam. I had heard about zuccini-jam years ago and since that time I wanted to try it. So now was the time. I made a zuccini-apple-jam and what should I say except yummy?

If I did not  canned, I have done other things. Like to decorate the front door for Halloween,

transform an old suitcase to a cat bed

and I crocheted a lot. Here are the results:

    

Credit for the ladybug: The pattern is created by craftyshanna. You can find it on Ravelry.

Credit for the plane: The pattern is created by Angela Van Camp. You can find it also on Ravelry.

These three are my favorits:

The Unicorns were based on the pattern of Rachel Hoe. I have modified it according to my wishes. You can find the original pattern on Ravelry.

So you see, I had a lot of fun this week. Hope you had a fun week too.

                

Gobble gobble

Hi Everybody,

hope y'all had a nice weekend and enjoyed the last days of summer. Since Thanksgiving is not too far away, I thought it might be a good idea to prepare the turkey right in time.

Hope to see ya next time

          

Back-to-Work-Pie

Hi ya!

Everybody is talking about Back-to-School after the summer, but what's about Back-to-Work after the summer-vacation?

In our department, it's common to spend cake if you go on summer-holidays, but I decided I want to bring some cake, when I return from my summer vacation back to work. I brought an apple-pumpkin-pie to my colleagues because I had these wonderful pumpkins from my own garden. Some of my colleagues liked it and some... ok well.

If you like it not too sweet and you like to bake at it, here's the receipe:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Pie Crust:
2 1/2 cup  all-purpose flour
                salt
1-2 tbs     cold water
1              egg
2/3 cup    soft butter

(Makes enough dough for one 30 cm baking tin)

Combine the flour, salt, water, the egg and butter in a large bowl. If the dough is too dry add more cold water. Transfer the dough to a work surface, pat into a ball and flatten into a disk. (Although many dough recipes call for chilling the dough at this point, this dough should be rolled out immediately for the best results.) Lightly flour the work surface, then flatten the disk until nearly large enough for your baking tin. Put the flattend disk into your baking tin. and press with hand until it covers the form totally. You need an about 3 cm high rim. Now the dough could chill in the fridge until next step is ready to go.

Applefilling:
3            apples, peeled, cored and cubed
3 tbs      butter
1/2 cup  brown sugar
1/2 tsp   ground cinnamon

In a pan, heat the apples, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until the apples are tender and light golden brown. Put the apples on the pie crust.

Pumpkin-filling:
400 g     pumpkin puree (canned or fresh)
3            eggs
300 g     cream
1/3 cup  brown sugar
1/4 cup  maple syrup
2 tsp      pumpkin pie spice

In a large bowl, combine pumpkin puree, eggs, cream, brown sugar, maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice. Mix well, and pour onto the apples. Place pie on a baking sheet, and bake 20 minutes.

While pie is baking, make crumb topping:
1/2     cup all-purpose flour
1/2     cup brown sugar
6 tbs  cold butter
1 tbs  grated ginger (optional)

Combine flour, sugar, butter and ginger until they're nice crumbly.

Remove pie from the oven. Sprinkle crumb topping over pie. Then put it back to oven and bake another 30-40 minutes, until crust and crumb topping are golden brown.

I know it's hard, but please wait to enjoy until it's completly cool.

This was the second thing I made out of my pumpkins. If there are any questions about the receipe, please let me know.

Thank ya for visiting my little blog

                 

Pumpkin soup

Hi Everybody

recently I told you about my "big" pumpkin harvest. Here's the first product that I've made ​​from the pumpkins. Super yummy pumpkin soup, according to my mom's recipe.

If you'd like to cook at it, here is the recipe:

Ingredients (about 4 servings)

2          small leeks 

60 g     butter 

500 g   pumpkin (peeled and diced) 

300 g   potatoes (peeled and diced) 

¼ ltr.    water 

¼ ltr.    milk (whether 3.5% or 1.5%)

1 pack creme fraîche 

            salt and pepper

1 pack cooked ham

Preparation 
Peel, dice and wash the pumpkin and the potatoes and set aside.

Cut and wash leeks. In the meantime, heat the butter in a large pot. Sauté the leeks in the butter. Add milk and water and bring it to boil. 

Put in the pumpkin and potato pieces and cook until everything is soft (about 30 minutes). Remove the pot from the heat and puree everything. (Side note: Pay attention! Puree could be a total mess.) Finally, stir in the creme fraîche and season with salt and pepper to taste. 

Dice the ham and spread it on your plate, fill the soup over and enjoy.

Till next time

Autumn starts

Hi Everybody!

Surely you've noticed that it was very quiet here. This was because I wanted to finish some of my about 100 w.i.p. projects. 
I succeeded. Therefore, I proudly can present some things the next days. Today unfortunately I have to tell you that fall is within reach. Leaves starting to fall and (super important!) I harvested my first own pumpkins.

Now I'm thinking about, what to do with them. First will be to cook a pumpkin soup. What else can I do with them? Any ideas? Please let me know.

Till next time

               

The Voodoo Crew

Hi Y'all!

Hope you're fine out there. A few weeks ago I showed you a little bit of voodoo.
A collegue read the post and liked the puppet so much that she ordered a crew of voodoo dolls.

And that's not all! She has re-ordered 15 (in words: fifteen) pieces until christmas. She said she wanted to give them as a present for family and friends.

So, you can see, this gal has really a lot to crochet, the next time. But I have a few other things completed. I'll show you the next days.

See ya

              

Time difference and a promise

Hi Y'all!

Hope you don't missed me too much. I've taken a few days off from blogging so that I could make some crochet stuff done. 

First I want to show you a scary little man, but please don't be anxious. His name is Sam Hain.

Because he was a little too early, I've talked to him and asked him to come back again on October 31 to help me scare the people ;-) Of course he said: Yes, I do! So we will see him again in October.

But I'll be back again much earlier - I promise!