Apartment!

Hey y'all,

I want to tell you about our new apartment. Because it is so pretty, and so perfectly located, and so charming, and because we built so damn much Ikea furniture to put in it. Someone has to see all the furniture we built.

We are located here. It's a quiet little neighborhood just out of the center city and about a 10 minute walk from the train station.

Our apartment is a 4.5 room, counted Vaud-style. That means three bedrooms, a living room, and a hallway. Why the hallway counts as half a room? Dunno. But is actually useful, we have a nice little table in there to hold shoes, tools, laundry equipment, and extra cords. Here it is:


We also have a salon:


And a cute little bedroom:


We have another big bedroom that will be Jerome's office and a tiny bedroom that we turned into a walk in closet. Neither of those are really furnished, so I won't bore you with pictures.

But. But. The most important rooms are the sunroom and balcony. I don't have any pictures of the balcony because I am still working on building a little garden on the balcony ledge. I'll post pictures when it's done. In the meantime, pictures of the sunroom:




And this is how Ingegarde and I now spend our Sunday afternoons:


Yes, we need something on the walls to break up all the white expanses. And I need to make a little curtain to hide the front of the TV stand. And I need to finish my balcony project. But seriously, right now Ingegarde and I have some napping in the sun to take care of.

Recettes- Yogurt!!!!

Yogurt! I made yogurt and you can too! This is one of those facepalm moments, when I realized that I didn't need anything fancy to make yogurt, and that it's crazy easy, cheap, and healthy.

You need:

One little thing of yogurt. Any kind you like. The yogurt you make will taste like this, so pick your favorite, even yoplait or whatever.
Half gallon of milk. Whole milk is best. Trust me.
Glass pots. I just saved up some little glass pots from various sauces and things, and then washed them really well with soap and boiling water to get the sauce smell out. You can also buy the little mason jars people use for making jam.

That's all. Seriously!

Here's what you do:

Turn on your oven light, but leave the oven off.

Heat the milk just until it boils. This kills any unwelcome bacteria in the milk. Cover, and let sit until it cools down to somewhere around very warm. You should be able to put it on your wrist (like you would test a baby bottle) and feel the warmth, but it's not so hot that it hurts.

Stir in the little pot of yogurt. Mix well.

Ladle the milk/yogurt into your glass jars and put the lids on. Carefully put the jars into the oven, leaving the light on, and close the door. The light is enough to keep it warm. Leave in the oven for 4-6 hours, depending on how sour you like your yogurt. I did closer to 6 and the yogurt is good, but sour.

After 4-6 hours, take the pots out and refrigerate. They are ready to eat the next day! Now you have lots of little pots of plain yogurt! Put honey in it! Put jam in it! Put hot chocolate powder in it (yes, really)! Put sugar and a drop of vanilla extract in it! You can tell by my exclamation points that this is life changing, right?

And here's the best part: never buy yogurt again. When you get to the last pot of yogurt, use it to make the next batch. Just dump the last little pot into a new half gallon of warm milk and repeat the process. If you can't eat a half gallon of yogurt in the week or two that it will last in the fridge, just scale down. Use a quart of whole milk and a big spoonful of yogurt. Really like yogurt? Use two pots and a gallon of milk! The possibilities are endless.

In other news, we have the prettiest little apartment in Lausanne. I'll post pictures this weekend.