FNSI and Pineapple tarts

Friday night saw me sitting at home sewing with my blogging friends on FnsI.

FnsI, hosted by Wendy

 

I had made this quilt over the whole year and I had received it back from the quilters about 3 weeks ago. It needed the binding sewn on. On Thursday, I machined the binding onto the quilt. On Friday night, I sat and hand sewed the binding. I was determined to get as much done as possible, but only managed 1/3 of the binding. However, I have since finished the binding and this is what it looks like on the bed in the spare room all ready for the guests just after Christmas.

Hexagon medley in Blues

 

I realise now that you cannot even see the binding in the photo-- believe me, it is there and my sore fingers testify to hand  sewing the whole thing.

 

 

I lived in Malaysia as a child, and loved the cakes and biscuits made there for the various feasts and festivals celebrated there. One of my favourites is the pineapple tart-- it has a pastry similar to short bread for the base and a pineapple jam topping. We adopted this as part of our Christmas tradition.

 

For years, my sister would come over and the 2 of us would cut the pineapples, grate them, squeeze the juice out and then turn the pulp into jam-- very time consuming and a sticky process. Then the following  weekend, we would all get together and make the tarts-- my children loved the get together when they were young and they were given different jobs to do-- and always managed to get some dough to play with. 6 years ago, my mum died and we made it just once after that. We thought that we would attempt it again this year. We had a lot more helpers this year--with extra ones including my husband, brother, 2 nieces, 1 niece's husband and the usual crew of my sister, daughter and myself. We also had this little chap watching-(ie when he was awake)- he is all of 7 weeks old.

My 7 week old grand nephew

 

 

I forgot to take photos of the jam making, (fingers would have been too sticky anyway), but here are photos of the tarts.

Tray waiting to go into the oven

 

Some of the cooked ones cooling on the wire racks

 

Close up of a pineapple tart

 

We made a total of 315 tarts, and we used 11 pineapples for the jam. At the end, we divided them all up and each family went home happily with their stash of the tarts.

 

We had so much fun together,we came to the conclusion that the tradition must go on and we will make it happen again next year.

 

I would like to thank everyone who visits the blog, and an extra special Thank You for the ones who take the time to leave a comment.  I would also like to wish all my blogging friends and visitors and their families a Very Happy and Blessed Christmas, and a Peaceful 2015.

 

Regards,

Yvonne