Just Like Old Times

This week, my frustration level is so much lower as the Empress is back in town for the week. Yay to lunch-hours spent eating overpriced food in paper boxes and plastic containers...

...and trying on every single hat on sale before settling for one each:
Mine's the red sheepskin one. Mühlbauer rocks!

Weekend Kaleidoscope III

1. Mirrored in my Mum's glasses on the slopes of Bad Kleinkirchheim
2. Wörther See, semifreddo
3. Parental birthday pressies, unopened
4. Some of the pressies, including a print (that I had seen in the window of a gallery in KLU months ago when walking past with my Mum, writing down the artist's name and then completely forgotten about it. Thankfully, Mum hadn't...), a linen scarf hand-dyed and painted by my Mum, a voucher for a vacation in Mallorca (not the clubbing, but the sightseeing kind) with my Mum, a stone necklace with 40 stones and white coral by my Dad, jewellery (a necklace and bracelet) by my Mum, hidden by the joke-necklace of 40 gummy beans and a patchwork-cushion also made by my Mum.
5. The main course of my b-day dinner at a restaurant in KLU: suckling pig and parsley mash
6. Dessert: creme brulée - yum, yum!

Senior Citizen...

As of today, I am a member of the exclusive (?) circle of quadragenarians. This latinate synonym makes it sound even more ugly and geriatric than the literal "40-year-olds". Ah, well.

In honour of my officially turning ancient, my Mum (never one to pass up a bargain opportunity), with whom I went skiing yesterday spontaneously decided to buy two instead of one senior citizens concession ski passes yesterday, reasoning that nobody asked for an ID anyway...

What better symbol for waving goodbye to my youth than being a Seniorenkarte-holding member of society...

Vienna Landmark by Night

Interesting light projections onto Stephansdom - I like it!

Wishful Thinking...

Needless to say, my memory is selective. Rain? What rain? I'm of the "it's may brain and I dream all I want to" school...

(Faux) Diamonds are a Lunchbreak's Best Friend

When I was in town on Saturday afternoon with the PP's Sis, we walked past MAX, a nice and rather inexpensive jewellery store in Plankengasse and looked at its window display. The shop was closed, but I was determined to go back to try one of their super-dainty rings. Well, I couldn't resist. For lack of a knight in shining armour who forces diamonds upon me by the kilo, I have to a) buy it myself and b) go for faux. The ring (silver plated with rose gold and studded with zirkonia stones) cost all of €39. I'm wearing it on my right hand as usual and only put it on my left middle finger for photo purposes - I am right handed:

Once again without flash:
Perspective om the pics makes my finges look rather fat and stubby, where in actual fact I have trouble finding rings that don't slide off. I usually like big "statement" rings or wearing more slim rings together, but I like the look of this thin one on its own.

(DCCO) Double-Choc Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

I recently stumbled over an interesting sounding recipe via a new favourite blog of mine. I slightly modified the recipe (e.g. used less sugar), replaced the raisins with dried cranberries and added chocolate chips. As I had a guest who loves white chocolate, I used both dark and white, but personally, I don't like white chocolate much and only appreciate it for the nice touch of white colour it adds. I'm pretty certain that I'll make these again, but I'll probably replace the white for milk chocolate next time or only use dark chocolate.

This recipe is super-easy and quick to make. Depending on the size of your cookies, you will get 30-40.

Ingredients

150 g softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 seaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon (or less) salt
3 cups oats
1 cup cranberries
50 g chopped dark chocolate* or store-bought chips
50 g chopped white chocolate* or store-bought chips

* If I make the chocolate chips myself, I give them a bounce in a big sieve before adding them to the dough as fine particles might have a cocoa-powder like effect and "dye" the dough too brown, making it look a bit burnt.

Preparation

Heat oven to 180° (with your fan on. If you don't have a convection oven, you might want to set it to 200°).

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, then flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add oatmeal, cranberries and chocolate chips last.

On a lined baking sheet, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls. Gently press down each ball of dough with your hand or a spatula. The cookies turn out quite big - think "Starbucks-size". If you want smaller ones make sure to take them out of the oven a little sooner.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. When you take them out of the oven, the cookies are still very soft and appear undercooked. They will become firm (but remain nicely chewy) once they have cooled off, so don't worry.