Faial weather and Toasted almond butter biscuits

Faial winters are usually wet and cold, feeling colder than the actual temperature because we have high humidity and makes it feel colder when everything is damp. A dehumidifier is a must if you have many treasures. Instead we have a Bullerjan wood burning stove, which dries the house out nicely and because of our limited space we have a homemade Molly maid that hangs high in the pitch of the roof, to dry our washing. Coming back to the humidity - natural fibres and dark colours are a no no. Summer time the wood burner is not running and if you have not worn those back leather shoes for a week they are growing hair on them. The two pictures below were taken last winter, we have not seen this weather so far, touch wood. Only yesterday and today have we had almost non stop rain.

Instead of loads of clothes in our cupboard we have what we need and wear what can be rotated weekly and when they have seen better days, they are

re purposed. Guess it is forced down sizing.

Today I made some toasted almond butter biscuits, really easy - here is the recipe if you care to try them.
50g almonds
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
50g icing sugar

pinch of salt

It is Raining Cats and D#%$ out there.

half a tsp vanilla
half a tsp almond extract
165g all purpose flour
extra icing sugar
Coarsely chop the almonds, then bake them until they begin to smell toasted, remove let them cool then grind them finer.

Bullerjan Wood burner

Cream the butter, sugar until combined. Then stir in the salt, vanilla and almond extract. Slowly add the flour and almonds. Work until you have a smooth dough. Roll the dough into a sausage, diameter roughly cookie size. Refrigerate for 30min, meantime preheat oven to 180c. Remove from the fridge cut into slices, place on ungreased baking try and place in the centre of the oven. Bake until lightly brown on top, Remove allow to cool, then dust with extra icing sugar.

These are our two Sweetie pies Chloe and Zac and the weather was way to mild for them to be staying indoors but they were popping in and out, absolutely soaked, so here they lie on our bed, spoilt all covered up. I also got to washing some pumpkin seeds from lasts nights supper and put them on top of the wood burner to dry.