Growing Amaryllis

We met up yesterday for our 'advanced knitters' group, this time at Katherine's place.  Her garden was beautiful, and she had taken on the subliminal suggestion for Coffee and Walnut cake.  With a great DVD giving us a master class on Fair Isle Knitting, it was a perfect morning.

Someone mentioned the topic of growing amaryllis so we have various discussions.  The main one being how tall they can grow.  They do need as much bright light as possible.  Even with that sometimes, well very much so in my case, you have to make a support of canes.

I bought this white one called Matterhorn from the local market a few weeks ago, and have kept it well watered.  It has three flower spikes, so it will have flowers for several weeks.  The flowers are also too large for the stem to support.

At Christmas I bought Izzi one to grow for herself, and she was really proud of it.

Pink Grapefruit Marmalade

This is the second marmalade made this year, with Lime being the first.  The lime marmalade didn't have a very good set so I had to be a little more careful this time.  I realised that I had probably used too much water.

If you cook the fruit in a pressure cooker first, you really need to use half the water given in the recipe for standard boiling.  It saves a lot of time, and there is much less steam in the kitchen, so I really favour the pressure cooker method, even though I do transfer the prepared fruit to my jamming pan where it is boiled up with the sugar.  If you are making a small amount with less than 1Kg of sugar, and do not have a jamming pan, it is fine to carry out the last stage in the large pressure cooker.

I had bought these lovely fresh firm grapefruits a couple of days before.  I had meant to have them for breakfast.  However I had one thing on my mind, and that is the forthcoming Kenilworth Horticultural Club April Show.  We had moved the Marmalade Competition from the September Slot.  My argument is that all the lovely fresh citrus fruit are available early in the year, and later in the year we are all busy making jams and chutneys, and also getting our plants, fruit, flowers and vegetables ready for exhibiting.  We'll see how it goes, there were some disgruntled voices.

As a committee member I really want to contribute and know that my lime is not really good enough, though I shall put a pot in 'to swell the numbers', but I wanted a better pot of marmalade to match up against other excellent preserve makers in the club.This is how the idea of the Pink Grapefruit Marmalade popped up in my mind.  The ingredients were staring me in the eye.  Having consulted my books and records, I found that it is about three years since I last made some.

Once cut up, I could see that the grapefruit were fresh, very juice without too much pith

often I cook the peel then slice, but this time I sliced first

the flesh was juiced up in the processor along with the lemons, but all the pips were first removed then tied in some muslin to extract the maximum amount of pectin during the cooking.  If you let the skins steep in the water and juice for at least a couple of hours before you start to boil, you get a softer result.  Sometimes I even leave it overnight.  This time I just got on with it, as I wanted to finish the process completely before getting on with some baking.

In record time I had the marmalade potted, the kitchen cleared, the labels printed and everything tidied up...

I am yet to taste it, and it is yet to be judged!

Skillingsboller

When I decided to catch up on my back list of bakes, the recipe from Jane Mason's book caught my eye.  Its nearly two years since our holiday to Norway, and I remember very well having a break in a beautiful traditional house in Stavenger where we had coffee and a delicious yeasted treat.

I have just read that these are called Norwegian Custard Buns, and have found pictures and recipes for these, so will have to try them soon.

Skillingsboller, boller is Norwegian for bun, is a little different both in construction and flavourings.  As it was Sunday and I was determined not to go to the shops, I realised that I would even have to make my own flaked almonds from whole almonds with skins on.  Its a little fiddly, and next time I make these I would definitely have some flaked almonds in the cupboard ready.

By creaming up the sugar, spices and butter with the hand mixer till soft and fluffy, it made it much easier to spread the mixture on the dough which at 60 x 30 cm took up a fair proportion of my kneading surface.  Mr S normally does not like cinnamon, but I do, and for the sake of the challenge did not want to substitute this for something else on this occasion.

Because you roll up the dough from the narrow end, you end up with lots of swirls...

After the last rest, they were brushed with glaze and had sugar nibs liberally sprinkled on top.  The two small ones are the ends of the long roll trimmed off...which being smaller, cool much faster, and are the baker's treat!

By this time with the drear weather outside, and the warm spicy smells in the house, tea time was being looked forward to.

I just had to have my weekly cup of tea...with this beauty.

And Mr S pronounced it delicious even after I confirmed there was cinnamon in the bun.  I think it is the balance with the cardamom in the dough, and the toasted almonds together with the slow rise, which make these buns a really delicious tea time treat.  I took one round for my friend Lita, who turned down coming round for after noon tea with us, as she was busy filling out job applications.

Last full day in Amsterdam

We were really getting used to the City Layout, the tram routes, where to walk, etc.  So on this day we headed for a couple of smaller Museums in the city.

We stopped off and had a walk through 'New Side' of the Medieval City, aiming for the Begijnhof, where the lay Catholic sisterhood sought sanctuary.  There are pretty houses around a calm green, which came with some early snowdrops and daffodils.

We then walked along the floating flower market and headed to our first Museum of the day: Museum Willet-Holthuysen.  It is fully furnished, and gives a great idea of life for a wealthy couple during 19th Century...just loved the pattern on the velvet settee

 Next stop was the Museum of Bags and Purses.  Vicki is a very high end handbag lover and has several, and I think she could not quite believe it when I said I was a one handbag lady!  This museum is a real gem.  They have some very early ones, and many of the top designers from the 20th and 21st century.  However for my knitting friends, and for those who knit with beads...here is a special kit

Afterwards we headed for the Hortus Bonaticus, but it was as if asleep ready to spring into life.  The glasshouses with their warm and humid atmosphere, felt like being back in Mauritius looking at the plants I grew up with.

However before we reached there, we stopped at a little pub which had been making this wonderful soup for nearly 50 years.  We were served by the daughter, the father made the soup, and the mother the excellent spiced apple pie.

This soup is made with dried green peas is just the thing for a cold day, and we certainly walked a lot...12.5 Km according to Vicki's gizmo and laptop!  Another soup which Vicki had during the holiday was mustard soup, so that will be another one to try.

I made a very large pot of this at the weekend, with dried peas, onion, celery, celeriac, carrots, smoked ham, pork, and smoked pork sausage.  So there is now plenty in the freezer ready to bring out for quick weekend lunches.

For our last evening meal, Vicki found us a place where we had couscous...

These were several days holidaying together with plenty of exploring and lovely art and architecture.  Thanks again to Vicki.

Beyond Amsterdam, a day trip to Harlem

I had thought the train travel was included in the ticket since two museums were shown on the back of the Iamsterdam map.  The train fare was fine, and we boarded the top of the double decker train.  We had great views and I loved the little 'village' of summer houses with small gardens where the city dwellers must escape to.  Harlem was a delight.  I felt so comfortable there.  Its only a short walk from the station to the old town.

There was this charming statue in the coutyard of 'sheltered housing scheme'.

The main square was magnificent.  We just had to stop and sit in the sun at a cafe.  We later saw a painting from the almost this same view, from the 17th or 18th century.

Sadly we arrived too late for a visit of the Cathedral which closes at 16:30.  

Before lunch we had made a bee line for the Teylers Museum.  Its round foyer lead to exhibition spaces

in the Exhibition gallery they had on a special water colour exhition..with a few delightful subjects a nice wooly one after my own heart.  This painting called Herder with Sheep is by Anton Rudolf Mauve.  He grew up in Harlem and I have since learnt that he was a great influence on the early Van Gogh.

High up on the wall of Painting Gallery II this charming daisy picture took my fancy.

In and around the old part of Harlem there are small streets with virtually no traffic, where the houses give straight onto the road, but non the less you cannot tame some gardeners

We had lunch in an old 'pub', which served a large selection of beers chalked up

There was a charming tilting bridge not far from Teylers Museum

After lunch we walked around the old part aiming for the Frans Hals Museum.  I could have spent a full day just here... here is a section of a large painting with a bread 'bucket'

and here a lady is making lace, whilst waiting for her customers to come for bread, having sounded the horn to announce that the bread was out of the oven.  In 1670 the bread looks not dissimilar from what I now bake!

This breakfast painting with explanation, alongside the audio guide is just one of the delights of this museum.

Outside on our way back I admired some pretty flowers outside a florist shop