Monday Moodboard "What do I know about Porto?"

Hello folks!

As I'm travelling again this week, here is the post about my next destination - Porto, Portugal.
What do I know about Porto?

Porto also known as Oporto, the second largest city in Portugal and located along Douro river.

Porto VII. by vlad

One of Portugal's internationally famous exports, porto wine, is named for Porto. My favorite porto is Ferreira Towny as min 10 years old but I'm going to try other porto wines and going to visit a wine cellar as well.

Vintage Porto Wine Print, Art Deco - Portuguese Poster by BelugaStore

In Portugal you can also see amazing blue-white ceramic tilework, called 'azulejo'. The way how you pronounce it ( [ɐzuˈleʒu]) is another thing I like about Portugal - portuguese language and how it sounds :)

Portugal Blue Azulejo Tiles Replica CHANDELIER EARRINGS PORTO Blue by Atrio

I promise to write a post about other stuff I'm going to discover about Porto, when be back
So stay tuned ;) xoxo

Rhubarb Berries Pie

   Hello folks!

Last weekend I was very pretty lucky as my friend brought me some rhubarb. So I bought some frozen berries and baked rhubarb berries pie. And I'm ready to share the recipe with you. It's not very difficult recipe and you won't spend the whole day with this pie ))))
   I've been cooking this pie with such dough for the very first time and it was delicious and tasty so I'm sure you can cook it as well )))

Ingridients:
25 g of fresh yeast
200 ml of warm milk
salt pinch
1 egg
200 g of butter (I used 180gr)
400 g of a flour
1 tablespoons of sugar
1 tea spoon of natural vanilla sugar or seeds of 1 pod of vanilla
Stuffing:
800 gr of a rhubarb
500-600 g of sugar
200 g of raspberry or other berries on your taste
For dough greasing:
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoons of milk

Rhubarb:
Clear a rhubarb of a thin skin and cut stalks on cubes with the party of 1 cm. Put in a pan, add sugar.
Boil thoroughly on slow fire until sugar completely be dissolved, and the rhubarb became soft. But it shouldn't be too soft. Set aside aside and let's cool down. Then cast away on a colander and leave while all liquid won't flow down.

 Dough:
Yeast fill in with warm milk and set aside for 5 minutes.
Chop the butter by a knife up to uniformly paste.

Add to milk with yeast the egg, salt, sugar, vanilla sugar and a flour. Add the butter and chop everything by knife. You can knead dough in a food processor with a nozzle "hook".

  

Collect dough in a uniform lump.

 In a deep and capacious pan pour very cold water and accurately lower dough, it under own weight will fall by a bottom.

Leave it until your dough won't emerge on a surface, about 30-40 minutes.

Preheat an oven to 180C.
Here you can see how I unfrozen berries - left them on the colander to get rid of juice.

Put the dough to the working surface which has been slightly powdered with a flour. Rub off a little paper towel and well knead. Don't add a flour, it has to remain quite sticky. (Don't have a photo as my hands where in the dough and I just couldn't make a pic :))

Ready dough lay out on a table well strewed with a flour, divide into two half, one of which slightly the bigger size.
The most part roll in layer 0,3 cm thick. Lay out in a form with a diameter of 24 cm so that edges hanged down.

Lay out all rhubarb stuffing without liquid.
Add raspberry or other berries over rhubarb and slightly powder with sugar. Tighten dough edges to the center, superfluous cut off.
Of the remained dough make a lattice and decorate your pie.
Grease a dough surface with an egg yolk with milk and put everything in in advance warmed oven for 30-40 minutes.
To ready pie let's stand in the form of 15-20 minutes.
To give to a table warm or completely cooled down.

Monday Moodboard "Thoughts aloud"

Hello folks!

Today I woke up in a perfect mood with sun in a blue sky and then my mood has changed suddenly..... When it happens I prefer to stay calm and quiet in order to become an angel once again )))))



Each and every angel needs to be in not a perfect mood - just to take some rest )))

Tribute to Raphael by QuentinDeschamps

Then all you need is to get rid of dark thoughts...

Shaking The Dark Thoughts Out Print by laurageorge

And then in one minute you are again yourself - sweet and lovely ))))

Elegant Champagne Bubble Dress by simplicitycouture

Monday Moodboard "Happiness is pies!"

Hello folks!

One of my favorite russian cartoon is about Junior and Karlsson. And one of the favorite moments is about a dialogue between Junior and Karlsson.
"Believe me, Karlsson, happiness is not pies... — You, what, went crazy? And then what is happiness about?"
And I chose this theme for today's moodboard coz my friend came to Moscow and brought me rhubarb. So this week I'm going to bake a pie with rhubarb and strawberry.

Kitchen Art, Strawberries, Rhubarb, Fruit Photo, 11x14 by artfulnotions

Cobbler in a Jar by ManmawsPastryShoppe

Personal Experience "Weekend in Halle, Germany"

Hello folks!

Last weekend I spent in Halle, Germany as was visiting my friend Katerina. We know each other for around 3 years and it was pretty exciting to come to her place, finally met her husband and spent some time together. We had a plan to felt a bag but weren't succesfull as the wool and the frame haven't arrived in time but we done a lot! Walked in a park, done some shopping, visited a local market, went to play a billiards and open a season with BBQ in the park.

So here are my impressions about Halle and Germany.

It wasn't my first visit to Germany but anyway it was different. First of all it was a small difference on the passport control - in Leipzig airport it's easier than in Berlin :) In Berlin I had a feeling that I'm going to enter trough '"an iron curtain" )))) Like they are not sure I have only tourist plans in my head ))))

I was a very very lucky as it was a really great and warm weather  - when I arrived it was around +22 or maybe even more and everywhere you could see trees with flowers. Can you imagine I even saw lilac!? (in Moscow it was around 0 and pretty cold when I was leaving)

The streets are clean enough and here is the key why it's that - when you buy something to drink you not only pay for the drink itself but also for the bottle and then you can return the bottle and get some money. It's 25 cents for a big plastic bottle and 8 cents for glass beer bottle. That's a really cool idea how to keep the streets clean! I wish we have the same rules here in Russia!

There is no need to talk about food but anyway - guys 0.5l beer bottle costs less than 1 euro!!!! and it's really good beer! And very tasty sausages!!! Plus in Germany it's easy to find turkish shops with turkish food and as I'm keen on turkish food I was on heaven ))) and bought my favorite black turkish olives. And we also have simits and baklava for breakfast. Baklava is not very very very healthy food but who cares when you are on a holiday )))))

A bit about public transport - it's only 11 minutes from the airport to Halle by train and in the city you can use buses and trams. For trams (maybe for buses too but not sure as we used the bus only one time) they use voice tapes from different people - so one stop can be introduced by a woman and another by a child. It's interesting and I've never heard about something like this before.

 Another thing I liked is that you can buy rhubarb on a local market and the price is not that high. That's not about that you can buy everything you want but about that in my childhood it was easy to buy rhubarb in Russia and we made some compots and pies etc but now I haven't seen rhubarb like for ages! And don't understand why it's happenning..... Rhubab is not something rare for the place I live in....It's not like some exotic fruits...

Another thing is a local chocolate! In my opinion it's more tasty than chocolate from Moscow. Right before the trip I ate a chocolate candy from Babaevskiy chocolate fabric and was sooooo dissapointed - it wasn't tasty at all (((( But this chocolate from Halle is really tasty and made from high quality ingredients. They even have marzipan chocolate candies that made with dark beer and even though I'm not in love with marzipan I loved them!

One more thing caught my eye and honestly I'm not sure that's a brilliant idea. A lot of people have bicycles and some people have a special baby carriage that hitchs to the bicycle, not in front but behind. In my opinion that's not very safety - you can't see your child as their are out of your eyes and plus a car driver can possible not see your child so it can be dangerous.

 Oh and guys I saw an amazing laptop! We visited Katerina's husband's colleague and first of all where impressed by a very comfortanble kitchen but then we saw the laptop! We (me and Katerina) like couldn't speak at all ))))) This laptop gives your an opportunity to change colors of the touchpad and the keyboard and also has another illuminations and you can change the colors as well! The trademark is Alienware and it made me to make a joke - OMG I met my relative!!!!!! That's coz a friend of mine is pretty sure I'm an alien coz I'm not like other russian people - I'm smiling and don't complain )))))


For me this trip wasn't like I was travelling for a long distance but like I was visiting a friend that lives next street :) And I'll be back for sure!

Monday Moodboard "Spring in Germany"

Hello folks!
I just came back from Halle, Germany yesterday. I visited my friend and we spent a really great time together. Not all planes where done but we done a lot! We where walking around the city and in a park that is close to her home. We went to a market in the city centre where you can buy some tasty food and buy flowers and/or some fresh fruits and vegetables. We spent some time with her husband's colleauges - went to play billiards and went to BBQ in the park. The weather was just great! Warm and very comfortable. It's spring in Germany! With flowers on the trees and with camomiles and dandelions in the grass. So here are few things I saw in Germany during the weekend )))) Enjoy!

Almond trees are covered by flowers

I even saw lilac flowers!!!!!

You can buy rhubarb on the market

I'm in love with ranunculus not less than with tulips