this neck of the woods

A current work in progress. I have grand plans for this to become one of two posters for my wall.. but I’ll see how I feel about that idea once I actually finish this one! Only about a thousand more spots to go!

I found this granola bar recipe over on Smitten Kitchen and decided to give it a go.. and I’m glad I did – they are seriously delicious! They did turn out a little bit crumbly (ok, a lot crumbly) for any number of reasons, but I think storing them in the fridge should do the trick. The recipe below is a slightly different version to that on Smitten Kitchen, because I couldn’t find some of the ingredients.. but this recipe is really flexible, so don’t feel like you have to stick to my recipe either!

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats processed in food processor until finely ground)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 cups (approx.) dried fruit and nuts chopped how you like it (I used: 2 cups mixed nuts (walnuts, pecans, blanched almonds), 1 cup mixed dried berries (cranberries, cherries, blueberries), 1/4 cup dried apple, 1/4 cup dried apricots)
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 g butter, melted
1/4 cup maple syrup (or honey)
2 tbs honey (the recipe asks for corn syrup, but I don’t know what that is – or where to find it in our local Germany supermarket!)
1 tbs water

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line and grease a tin (the one I used was 23cm x 23cm).

Stir all the dry ingredients together (including fruit and nuts) in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, vanilla, peanut butter, maple syrup, honey and water until it looks like caramel. Combine this with the dry ingredients and stir until it’s all combined.

Put the mixture into the prepared tin and press the mixture into the pan firmly until it’s well compacted (I used the back of a metal spoon to really compact the mixture and make sure it was all even).

Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, or until it’s browned around the edges and browning in the middle. The slice must then be completely cooled in the tin before being cut, and if it’s still too crumbly, put it in the fridge for another 30 minutes and try again.

This weekend gone (after much deliberation, cost comparing, and review reading – of course) we walked into our local camera shop, handed over a wad of cash, and in turn got to go home with the beautiful new Canon EOS 550d. It really is lovely. I’ve been using the 350d for just over 4 years now, and absolutely love it to bits – so I can’t wait to see how the 550d goes in comparison (the gigantic screen has already made the money worthwhile for me!).

Its first official outing was into the forest just down the road.. we had fun, but it was so cold that the outing didn’t last too long!

One of our on-going projects over the last couple of months has been slip-casting bowls. I think we now have about 6 bowls all made with this process, so we’ll take them off to be fired soon! We probably could have done a lot more bowls in all this time, but we’ve been pretty lazy with the whole thing really.. we keep forgetting about it!

Last weekend we took the opportunity to visit the amazing new VitraHaus, which is only about a 10 minute drive from where we live. It really was fantastic – so many chairs, so little time! I just wish they were a little bit cheaper.. or me a bit richer, because I would really like to buy one before we leave Germany. Naturally, it’s this one that’s had me drooling for quite a while now, but at just under €5,000 I’ll be lucky to own it at all in my lifetime. Instead, I have my eye on either this one with wooden legs, or this one.. and then probably trying to find a second-hand one at that :) Wish me luck! And go visit the Haus if you’re around – it’s well worth it!

One of our favourite parts of Fasnacht is the Fasnachts Feuer (fire), where a huge bonfire (of old christmas trees and crates) is lit to wish away the winter witch. Now days they have a dummy on top of the bonfire that explodes with fireworks to represent the witch, but apparently back in the middle ages they used to actually burn a person they deemed to be a witch.. I think I’ll settle for fireworks, thanks.

This year we thought we’d really make a night of it and went along armed with sausages and (thanks to Alex and Ally) smores – which are marshmallows melted on the fire, prized between two biscuits and a chunk of chocolate… incredible!

Like I said in the last post, we’ve been to two fasnacht parades this year.. one in Lörrach (with our lovely friend Emma), and one in Weil am Rhein (with Dave’s Dad). While the Lörrach parade was good, it now seems a little bit tame in comparison to the Weil am Rhein one.. as you can see by the photos. About an hour into our parade watching, I had a masked witch sneak up behind me and (once I’d noticed him) push me into the street and pull me to the ground while the other witches took my boots, drew all over my face with red lipstick, and shoved a huge amount of confetti down my coat. Meanwhile my boots disappeared down the street, leaving me to chase after them in my stockings. It was all in good fun – but I’m glad there aren’t any more fasnachts for a while!

The last couple of weeks have been Fasnacht (carnival) time here. After attending two parades, our apartment is inevitably littered from one end to the other with confetti that just seems to fall off us as we walk (out of pockets, hoods, bags, shoes, clothes, hair etc.) Here’s why…

A couple of weeks ago, we bundled ourselves against the cold and headed out on the town with a couple of friends for the Basel Museum Night (the one night a year that all the museums in Basel are open until 2 am, with one entrance fee). In about 5 hours, we only managed to make it to 3 museums (hah!) – our favourite of which was the Basler Papiermühle (paper mill). Contrary to what the name suggests, the mill doesn’t only make paper – it’s also a fully functioning letterpress printery.. they even cast their own lead letters! Totally awesome if you ask me :)