Dinner in Hungary... plus other things

Tonight we had our dinner in Hungary since we are just about to leave. It's Hungary, so there seemed to be very little choice but to prepare Hungarian Goulash.



This recipe was particularly good, and I'm quite sure I will be making it again. (I linked to it up above.) It was one of those meals that everyone enjoyed, plus, aside from some chopping, it spends most of its time simmering unattended, making the house smell good. You just cannot go wrong with that.

Dessert was a little trickier. Since Hungary shares a border with Austria, the dessert realm seems to be a lot of tortes and cakes and cream and such. After some searching, I decided that making a raspberry-cream roulade (or Malna Piskotatekercs) would be the least labor intensive option. It was still a little more labor than I tend to spend on desserts. Well, it turned out to be well worth the effort.







This is a sponge cake which is spread with raspberry jam and then a whipped cream/cream cheese mixture with fresh raspberries on top of that. It is then rolled up. I decided to add the rest of the whipped cream and jam since I had a little left over. It was really, really good. G. has announced that she would like it for her birthday. It is definitely not an every day dessert, but I can see it becoming a popular birthday dessert.

And since I missed posting yesterday, I promised you other things as well.

  • This past week, I started some of the cold hardy seeds which can go into the garden early. 


I was pretty excited today to see that some of them have already sprouted.


  • L. has been complaining that the words were getting blurry when she was reading, so off to the eye doctor we went. It turns out she is mildly far-sighted (which was a surprise to her very near-sighted parents), so now she has a pair of reading glasses.

  • We celebrated A.'s 21st birthday. 

  • One of our activities for our Hungary study was to make t-shirts using Hungarian fold designs. Now, normally, these should be embroidered, but I've done that and didn't feel quite up to it again. We used fabric paint instead. Much easier.
Y.

R.

K.

H.

L.

G.
  • TM is going to be going with our church's youth group on a mission trip to Ecuador this summer. As part of a youth group wide fund raiser, there is a huge auction. Part of the auction involves students putting together baskets of stuff which are then part of a silent auction. This caught me by surprise last year, and we scrambled a bit putting something together. Filling a basket with nice things is not inexpensive. This year, I'm ready. I have a list of things I'm going to make to include in the basket which will be much more economical. Here is the first item I've finished... a patchwork pillow.
Front

Back
  • Last night, J. and I took TM and D. to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform. It was part of the boys' Christmas presents. It was a great concert and we all enjoyed it immensely. In the shuttle bus to the car (the CSO was performing in Wheaton, not downtown), an older woman struck up a conversation with D. about how nice it was to see someone without grey hair at the concert. 
See everyone back here on Monday... I hope... if time doesn't escape me again.



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