Sweet

This week's word in Our Beautiful World  is

sweet

and was chosen by sweet  Wendy of WenSylvestre Mixed Media Art.
I have recently had a lot of people at home for dinners, lunches, brunches and coffee to celebrate our wedding and my birthday so I decided to give you the recipes of some sweets/pastries I made.
Key Lime Pie

I tried this first time in the States at Dede's,a friend's house and it was amazing!
I found Martha Stewart's recipe here.
But I am making it a little bit different!
So here is my recipe for a 40cm x 30cm pan.
2 packets of digestive biscuits
a big cup of melted butter
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
6 egg yolks
3 cans of sweetened condensed milk.
the zest of 6 limes
the juice of 6 limes
Turn the oven on at 200 degrees.
Put the digestives in the mixer and make them powder.
Melt the butter and add it to the biscuits along with the sugar, mix well and lay in the tray.
Mix the sweetend milk, the egg yolks, the juice of the limes and the zest of the 5 limes in a bowl and lay over the biscuits.
Put in the oven for 15 minutes. It shouldn't get burned or look wrinkled. It should stay even and soft looking.
Take out of the oven immediately,sprinkle with the zest from the 6th lime.
Let it cool and put in the fridge.
You can make it a day before the party.
I don't bake the biscuit as Martha says and I don't add cream on top.It is too much for me. You can also make it with lemons instead of limes but I love limes.

Puff Pastry with chocolate

This is so very easy.
You need two puff pastry pieces and some chocolate spread.
You put one pastry piece on the oven tray. Spread chocolate on top.Put the other pastry sheet on top. Cut any design you like and twist each piece twice. Spread some egg on top and bake for 10 minutes in 200 degrees. I made one as a Christmas tree for Christmas.

Red berry blue berry chocolate chip muffins

Copying my recipe based on my friend Marabeth's recipe from the States.

Materials
2 cups flour
Half a cup of sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
Half a teaspoon of salt
¾ cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil (or olive oil)
1 egg (or 2)

Extra materials
Chocolate drops, blueberries and redberries deep frozen.
Preheat the oven at the top and bottom up to two hundred degrees. Put a little vegetable oil in each muffin tray or a piece of paper.
Mix in a bowl all dry ingredients, in another all liquid materials. Add the dry materials in liquids. Mix well with a fork.
Add any other material that you want as chocolate drops or pieces of fruit.
Put a large table spoonful into each compartment of the muffin tray.
Bake for about 20 minutes.
It makes twelve cupcakes.

I have also made pavlova recently with meringues, cherries and whipped cream, so very easy also.

Now if you don't feel like baking you can still go to the pastry shop and buy some sweets. We tried Konstandinidis the other day and they were delicious although rather expensive.

Or you can even have some cupcakes from Terkenlis, like the ones Kikitsa brought me or petit four from Gatidis like the ones Evangelia brought me, or carioca from Papaparaskevas from Xanthi like those Elsa brought me, or chocolate biscuits in the shape of a heart like Lina's. They are perfect for a

sweet

Saint Valentine's morning.

 Or you can simply have some strawberries with whipped cream

and some sweet bubbly Araldica Moscato d'asti wine like this one that Christina brought us!It was so

sweet

and delicious!

We really enjoyed it!
Enough with all those

  sweet 

things . I think I need a diet!
Why don't you link something sweet in Our Beautiful World too?

Birthday girl!

Have a great month everyone!
Last week on January 28th it was my birthday! My 50th!
As it was an important number hubby and I had decided to celebrate it on the next day at a tavern with some friends but then we both went down with a cold so we didn't arrange anything or invite anyone!
By Thursday, the birthday day, we were almost ok but it was too late for invitations!
I didn't miss a day of school inspite my cold and on Thursday morning I made key lime pie for my colleagues at school who really loved it.

Suddenly a big bouquet arrived with hubby behind it who surprised me pleasantly! He had done that once again many many years ago!

After the first shock my 1st graders and hubby sang "Happy Birthday" to me and then he took the flowers home as I had more hours on my timetable.

Barca was really hungrily happily looking at the flowers when I returned home!

I spent the rest of the day answering the hundreds of wishes that by e-mail and on facebook I received and which were very very sweet!
Thank you everyone who took the time to send me a message with wishes. I appreciate it so much!
This card was from Angela in Canada and there are so many more I can't possibly show all of them but they are on my page on facebook.

And I thought my birthday was over!
The next day Friday 29th was EGST pie cutting meeting at Dimiourgies cafe in Kalamaria.

 Vivika of The Wandering Deer had organized everything.We gathered about 15 people and exchanged ideas and good laughs. We also made a small woven pendant.The pie was delicious but I didn't win the coin! I was very lucky though because one of the fellow Etsy friends gave me a beautiful handmade piece of art. You can find Manos' popRenaissance shop on etsy and his work is highly artistic! Thank you Manos for the gift!

On Saturday morning I attended the "Fairy tales around the world" performance with narrative and music at the local children's library. Maria Gkogka my old friend from the camp was the narrator and and Anastasia Alexaki and Olga Zerva the musicians. It was  a really beautiful performance!

On Saturday evening we had one more InMyCloset workshop meeting this time not in Anna' cozy kitchen but at Koumbi coffee & crafts. We had booked our places in this workshop a long time ago but till the end we didn't know what we were going to make. Anna had said it was a surprise! And indeed it was.
When I arrived at 7, the time of the workshop, everyone was already there and I was impressed by everyone's punctuality as usually I go first!
And guess what! It was not a "real" workshop! It was  a surprise birthday party for me!!!!!!!
I was so so touched by all the girls' thoughtfulness!
There was a delicious chocolate cake,

that was served in beautiful "English" dishes with assorted napkins,

there was a beautiful handmade card made by Kikitsa Stav, with a beautiful window open out to sunshine.

I really loved the interpretation she gave why she made the card like that . You can read all about it in her blog here.
There was a gift which I will spend in no time soon at IKEA.The girls know me so well!

But most of all there was so much care and love and friendship that I was very very touched!

 We had coffee and drinks and played board games and had a good laugh and it was fun!

Thank you Anna for organising all this.
And thank you to each and every one of the girls Kikitsa, Katerina, Evangelia, Elsa, Sophie, Eleanna, Nefeli, Angeliki and Vangelitsa who were present and Demetra, Christina and Christina, Efi, Lina, Martha, Vasso and Lia who couldn't be there!

They had all been organising this "behind" my back over on facebook, by privately chatting and managed to keep it a secret! How sweet is that!
The next morning Sunday 31st, I had one more surprise a birthday cake for me after our shadow puppet performance at Koperti from hubby and our best man and best friend Tassos, the school owner.

The weekend ended with a gorgeous sunset, a gift from the sky!

It was a great birthday! It's such a great feeling to be loved! Thank you everyone!