We Are Doing Fine

Hello dears! The time has gone so fast. Life is just way too fast too, many things happened, work, home, deals... We as well had really bad news about the demise of our family's (in Kazakhstan) best friend  in the early February. I was extremely saddened by this news, as so many childhood memories were linked to him and his family. I pray his soul rests in peace.
Just like everyone of you I suppose, I sometimes want to just stop and take a deep breath and reassure myself that everything is going to be just fine.
Well, let's see what we have been up to these days. Actually, nothing remarkable:) All the more enjoyable as little A is having vacations now and spending more time at home. So I have to invent various activities for him to keep him entertained (and busy too).
Here we did some yarn pasting, which in the end turned to a fun "yarn-spreading-all-over-the-drawing-room" activity, lol. Little A LOVES crafting a lot!

A couple of weeks ago we visited a garden and were surprised by the presence of the owls! Can you see its' round head and body? They were 2 or 3 of them, really cute, and little A was delighted to see real owls at last. So was I! Moreover, I never thought they lived in our hot climate here.

On weekends I usually take A out to the park. There we are free to do whatever comes in mind (after swings and slides of course).

Here is Little A's rainbow as he called when I asked what he drew on the sand :) Some school kids joined us for a spontaneous stone activity last weekend. The right most picture is what one of the boys made: sun and a flower. What made me especially happy is that the boys themselves came to us and started participating , gathering more pebbles, I could see they were very interested and curious.

When I get cravings of some homemade baked goodness, I start ... baking! So easy, nah? :)) I once again made the small apple crust pies.

 And just yesterday tried my hand on baked Indian samosas! All vegetarian :) They turned out really great this time, soft and tasty. Baked samosa recipe is from here.

I suppose that's all for today.. and oh yea! Forgot to say that we watched the Beauty and the Beast movie... I am still under its' spell! Such a beautiful movie, dynamic yet romantic... :) I can watch it again.

What I Ate on Vacations - Russian Dishes

Over last few weeks I figured out that this topic deserves a separate post. Though I thought I was done with my Trip Home series, there was something else to tell - food we had there. However not just any food I ate, but those home made dishes, which my Mum never fails to prepare great! Why I want to have a special post about food is also because it represents some traditional Russian meals, which are my and my parents favourite. May be they will tease your taste buds too :)

May be some of your heard or may be even saw Russian feast, table with different tasty dishes, with many drinks and many guests sitting and talking absorbedly. All this is true. Russian family gathering at the table is a long lasting event, during which participants try out the variety of food which was made by a hostess and a host (my parents and me a little in our case). Here is one of the examples of how we used to taste at my parents house. As you know my D's whole family went with us this time, and I was very happy that everyone liked our cuisine. My Mum managed to please vegetarians as well as non-veg and prepare whole meal for 7 adults! Thanks Mum and Dad :)So here you can see (from left to right): turkey with vegetables, buckwheat, fried champignon mushroom, vareniki (I have a recipe here), vegetable salad, and cooked vegetables, sour cream + wine and vodka you know :)

The mushrooms were a real delicacy of that dinner, and freshly picked up by my parents on the way from Borovoe resort. Aren't they great looking?

Besides food my parents had home made cherry kompot (stewed fruit).What else to say? Delicious!

What concerns me, I made my dream come true and did some baking in the gas oven. I made "Sharlotka" pie which is my Mum's preference too when you need fast and easy dessert to be made. I was delighted when preparing the batter and then putting into a from and then taking our the flavoured yumminess! This one was an apple one, with a pinch of sugar and cinnamon.

After 3-4 days I baked one more but with raspberries from dacha! I put some cinnamon on the top simply because I love how it smells. This baking experience was different also because of the baking paper I used for the first time and I liked it this way - the pie doesn't stick and doesn't get burned.

Oh well and this is some special morning treat called oladii made of accidentally soured milk, flour and some sugar. Fried on oil.. and eaten with home made strawberry confiture! This picture itself makes my mouth watering, I better finish this post asap :)!

I want to try to make some of the dishes in India too, just need to find equivalent ingredients and here we go! Many times after finishing such care-free post I think of how happy I am to be able to enjoy all these! Because the world gets crazy day by day, judging by the news we see on TV and in newspapers.

I hope all of you are safe and sound whenever you are and enjoying the weekend with your families. Many warm blessings to you, my friends!

Apple Pie, Cutie Pie and Holidays

Sometimes you have to follow your instant wishes. Like I did yesterday. I came from office with a big big urge to make something tasty, homely. It's easy when you have all the ingredients, lying on the shelves and waiting for you to pick them up and start preparing... an apple pie for example :)

This pie is my Mum's favorite recipe, and this is the first bakery I learned from her. Why I give such importance to it is because it was my fourth attempt of making cakes in the electric oven here in India. All the three cakes made before were tasty, ok, but I couldn't make them fluffy and the process used to take me up to an hour and a half! Yesterday was different, and manipulating with the oven temperature, I finally got it right! You know, it was an achievement for me and was the most happy person in the house, after my  husband, who was also happy to have this dessert with evening tea.

Today is 25th of January, Tatyana's Day (Tatyanin den') which is a Christian holiday named after St. Tatyana. She is considered to be a patron of all students. The Moscow State University, my Alma Mater, has a chapel dedicated to this saint, so the tradition has been created that this day is also called a day of our MSU.

Among other small news is that I was awarded...*blushing*, with the Premio Cutie Pie (there was some prophecy in baking yesterday) award this time by Ljubinka from Made By Ljubinka blog :) Thank you so much! It's an interesting award, as it is given to those using nice colors. Actually, all of us use colors, so may better to call this award a Colorful Blog award or something like this. Now I have to nominate 5 more blogs for the same, and this cute child will be on your blog's page :) It's difficult to choose, as everyone has loads of beauty and color in their blogs. But, I nominated these:

Jojo from Tahoma Beadworks and Photography 

Ali from Random Wooliness

The Sage Butterfly

Unn from TinsRose

Jenn from Color'n Cream

Such a cutie pie! :)

The post appeared to be quite informative, isn't it? I had one more thing to share but will tell about it next time.  Tomorrow's is the Day of The Republic of India, and most probably I'll be going with my D to celebrate it at his workplace.

Have a lovely weekend, dear friends, and thank you for your praising comments about my small projects!:) It means a lot to me.

Last Weekend of November

The days when we can relax, sleep as mush as we want, do whatever we want and eat what we want are called weekend!We had a great last weekend of November. I shall confess that I don't pamper my D with loads of delicious cooking, but I try to, at least when I have mood. Yesterday evening we had some chicken prepared in an electric oven. It was tasty and the curd marinate was great!

Today is a special day for me as it is my Dad's birthday, so  I baked this apple pie. My Mum likes to cook it and obviously, I got the recipe from her. Happy Birthday, Dad! :) I love you and miss you a lot!

 A Sunday morning was fruitful, literally. My husband noticed some citruses hanging on the tree, they were ripened and so tempting... he plugged them with a special metal stick with a wire hook and did as especially for photo shoot - with few leaves attached :) I couldn't resist taking the photos!

There was one more...  We tried one -  it was so sweet and smelled fantastic! Wish I could share with you.

Feeling a little bored at home, we went to the city's carnival which takes place every year. There are many things to see, to taste, however none of the events in the city is complete without the large number of people and for me this makes it a little not that enjoyable. Me and my D were surprised to see a performance by Polish society on the stage. The young boys and girls were dancing polka in traditional Polish costumes. It was amazing to see this in India :) Among the things which took our attention was this model of Punjab village's house, which represents women at daily work like spinning, cooking etc. A very nice view, isn't it?

Just to make the weekend post even more diverse - the picture of one of the carts (actually, rickshaws) in Christmas theme! Jingle bells...:)  

Later, after visiting carnival, we went to check out some store an stumbled upon a nice cozy cafe, where we had some coffee and then went back home. 

We and my parents-in-law congratulated my Dad again in Skype by lifting up a glass of wine, he was touched...

I am simply grateful to have spent such time with my D today... 

Have a great week ahead and let's see what the first weekend of December brings us!

 P.S. I am giving a link to the Linda's Snowflake Potholder Ravelry Pattern here. You shall really give it a try :)