Sunday, July 20, 2008

Gallivanting around St Gallen and Mrs HBT's egg tarts

In May, my elder sisters came from Malaysia to visit with us for a couple of weeks. One of the places we went to was St Gallen in the northerly part of Switzerland. It's famous for its pretty decorated window frames (designated a World Heritage feature) in its old town.



One thing that I've noticed all over the little towns in Switzerland and Germany is the old-fashioned wrought iron hanging signs for businesses. They are lovely and detailed, diligently kept new and shiny with coats of gold and black paint.



While I'm awaiting pictures of sailing off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea, I'll post the simple but tasty egg tart recipe I've adapted from Mrs HBT's 'Hip Food' blog (her link is in the column at right).

Easy Egg Tarts

2 eggs
200ml milk (low-fat or full cream)
1/4 cup fine-milled raw sugar (or castor sugar)
1/2 sachet vanilla sugar (or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence)
1 packet of frozen pie dough
20g butter, half melted

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Beat the first four ingredients together. Generously butter two six-cup muffin pans with a brush. Roll out the dough to 3mm thin (or just unroll a pre-rolled one). Cut rounds of dough to fit halfway up the muffin cups.
Through a strainer, pour the egg mixture into each dough-lined cup, leaving 4mm of rim. (You'd be in Sticky City if it overflows.) Bake for 15 minutes. Turn up heat to 175 degrees for the lower part of the oven. Bake for another 5 minutes. Remove muffin pans. Let cool for a few minutes before gently loosening tarts with a small blunt knife. Cool tarts on a wire rack.


These easy egg tarts go quicker than Michael Schumacher before he retired. I can eat four in a row - easy! Thank you, dear Mrs HBT.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Switzerland's Fickle Summer

Yesterday was rainy and cool. Today's sunny and warm. Fickle, fickle summer here. So unlike the relentless dry hot winds of Croatia and the Adriatic Sea where my other half and I were for two weeks.

We drove home on Sunday under a deeply bruised sky that spelt the end of our vacation. How can one part of Europe be so different from another, just 800km away?

Today is a salad of catching up with email on a PC I'm not used to and a series of chores - to be dressed and blessed with a tea later in the company of two friends and their daughters. No access to photos that I can upload. Sigh.

Until my laptop is reconciled with the Internet...

My old living-room

My old living-room
In Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

A cherished dream

A cherished dream
To live on a pale beach by a crystal clear sea. (This was taken on the east coast of Johor state, Malaysia.)

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