Tag Archives: photography

Consolation Bagels

30 Dec

Tomorrow I am leaving my whole family and going alone to CanadaJust the thought of an 8 hour flight alone is something that’s hard to get my head around.  I will miss them all terribly.  But I’m sure I’ll be able to enjoy myself as well.  A least a little bit.  Or maybe a lot.

There was a lot of protest from various family members for various reasons.  One being the fact I will be able to eat bagels every single day.  So to make them all feel slightly less slighted by the whole ordeal I made a huge batch of fresh bagels for them all this morning.

I made my usual recipe from Nigella Lawson’s book How to be a Domestic Goddess.  So easy.  And so delicious.

Recipe: Bagels

1 kilo strong flour

1 Tbsp salt

7g (1 satchet) dry yeast

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

500 ml warm water

2 Tbsp sugar or malt for poaching bagels

1.  Combine flour, salt and yeast.  Add sugar and oil to the warm water.  Make well in dry ingredients and add liquid.

2.  Knead dough for 10 minutes.

3. Put kneaded dough in oiled boil and cover with saran wrap.  Let sit for an hour.

4.  How punch down dough and divide into 16 pieces and form into bagels shapes.

5. Boil a big pot of water and add the sugar or malt.  Add batches of 3 or 4 bagels and boil for 1 minutes turning over half way through,

6.  Now is the time to dip bagels in any sesame seeds or poppy seeds or anything else you can think of.

7.  Bake in a 240 degree  (celcius) oven for 10-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Hipstamatic

30 Dec

After many wonderful years with my beloved old school nokia my husband bought me an iphone for Christmas.  I could have managed for another decade with my nokia but even my kids were telling me to enter into the new millenium (12 years late).  Over the last few days I’ve been experimenting with my hipstamatic app.  It’s fun.  I still prefer my good old fashioned camera though.

New Christmas boots.

Boxing day mini golf.

Milano-Genova highway on a sunny clear day.

Neighbourhood dog.

Bosco walk.

Miss Coco.

River Walk

28 Dec

Another vacation day, another walk in the woods.  These walks are amazingly beautiful and fun.  But the effort it takes to get this family of mine out the door can sometimes become exhausting.  It seems as though my kids would be content to stay at home in their pajamas (the same pair) for two weeks straight.  But once I get them out the front door they are running and skipping and enthusiastic to discover something new or some new place.

Since the kids got new rain boots for Christmas they were all very keen to try them out in a little creek just up the road from us.   So off we set.  Boots and all.

After a long walk up the river and a even longer walk in the woods we settled in a patch of sun and lazed and snacked on clementines.

Elfing

24 Dec

This year one of my daughters had the idea to do a sort of Secret Santa with the family.  We all drew names out of a hat and were told we had to make something for that person (without telling anyone who we have).  Some people’s gifts were done five minutes later.  Some were put under the tree exactly 5 minutes ago (on Christmas Eve!).  I was a bit behind schedule with all the homemade gifts for friends this year so I finished mine yesterday afternoon (in between parties and cleaning the house).  Here’s the result…

Christmas Eve Day Passeggiata

24 Dec

It is such a gorgeous day here in Italy.  Beautiful clear sky.  A warm foehn wind.  And breathtaking views over the mountains.  We set off this morning on a little walk through our town and local forest.

I have a feeling someone likes polka dots.

Abandoned villa down the street.

Is there anything sweeter than a Papa and his daughter holding hands?

Auguroni a tutti!

Creepy Pointsetta

22 Dec

Last night I was experimenting with my camera in the dark.  I put my camera on a tripod and got a little flashlight and put my time setting on 30 seconds.  This is one of the photos.  Kind of eery and Christmasy at the same time.  In any case I like it.

The Perfect Vanilla Cupcake

22 Dec

I have been searching for the perfect vanilla cupcake for decades!  Seriously.   I have tried out hundreds of different recipes trying to find a light and fluffy cupcake that isn’t too greasy or heavy or sweet or dry.  And today I have finally found it.  It’s from glorioustreats.blogspot.com.  They are still cooling on the rack as I write this so I haven’t frosted or decorated them yet.  But I can tell already that they will be delicious. 

{update}…I frosted them and tasted them and they are perfect.  Absolutely light and airy and tasty and not too sweet and not too dry and not too greasy. This is the cupcake and the frosting recipe from GloriousTreats.com.

Christmas decorations and a setting sun

20 Dec

Yesterday around 4:15pm I took some photos.  The sun was getting low in the sky and everything was starting to get that golden hue.

Camera Strap II

20 Dec

In the end I couldn’t resist making a camera strap for myself as well.  This time I used a beautiful cotton on one side and jean on the other.  I’m thinking this one is a little more unisex than the pink floral (not that my husband would care about hanging a camera with a pink and turquoise strap around his neck).

Now I’m off to a photoshop course.   Here’s hoping there’s a feature to sharpen up all my out of focus photos (if not I’m off to the eye doctor to see about maybe getting some glasses).

Camera Strap

19 Dec

Another one of my week-end sewing projects was to make some camera straps.  I thought a few photo taking friends would find it a fun gift to receive.  Who knows if they’ll ever use it but I had fun making them.  And what an easy and quick gift to make!  In 1/2 an hour it’s cut, sewn, ironed and wrapped.

Looks as though it’s time to clean that mirror…