Sade’s Blog

I had a bunch of over-ripe bananas in the fridge, and rather than throwing them away, I decided to bake with them. I’ve made Banana Bread Muffins before, that were a bit on the heavy side, so I didn’t want to repeat that recipe. I looked for a Banana Cupcake recipe, since cupcakes are usually lighter than muffins. I found one I liked, but it was too heavy in the eggs department. I didn’t fully veganize it, but I cutted eggs in half. The resulting recipe follows:

Ingredients:

• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
• grated zest and juice of one lemon
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 cups self-raising flour

Make them:

1. Preaheat oven to 200C and line with paper cups two muffin trays (you will need 18 at least)
2. Melt the butter with the oil (microwave for 30 seconds). Let cool a bit. Meanwhile, in a big bowl, mix the bananas with the lemon juice and zest. Beat in eggs and milk. Add the butter-oil mixture.
3. Add nutmeg and sugar, incorporate well. Add flour and mix well, until incorporated, but not overbeating. Fill cupcake liners just a bit below the rim. Bake at 175C for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes clean but moist and top is light golden and sproungy.
4. Let cool on rack. Scarf them

Yield: 18 cupcakes, but don’t expect them to last long.

That is how a friend named the truffles I made for her.

Truffle-Bonbon

Ingredients:

• 240 grams milk chocolate
• 150ml crème fraîche or sour cream
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 4-6 cloves
• pinch salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4-1/2 cup bitter cocoa powder

Make them:

1. In a small saucepan, melt the crème fraîche. When it’s warm, add the spices and let rest for half an hour (also known as infuse). Remove the cloves, add salt, and reheat.
2. Chop the chocolate in small pieces and add to the warm crème, removing with a wooden spoon until it’s completely molten and shiny. Do this over a very low heat, and removing the saucepan often from the heat source. Add the butter and incorporate it completely. You now have a tasty ganache.
3. Line a 15×20 dish with baking paper so that the paper overhangs on the shorter sides. Pour the ganache in and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Lick clean your wooden spoon and rubber spatula once you’re done. Stick the dish in the fridge overnight.
4. When the ganache is completely cool and solid, remove it from the dish and put it on a cutting board, using the baking paper to move the ganache and as a base for cutting. Put cocoa in a deep dish. With a knife, cut squares of ganache, transfer them to the cocoa, and roll them around so they are completely covered in cocoa. Trasnfer to small baking paper cups for a nice touch. Return to fridge, and enjoy them by twos!

Yield: not enough :)

Yorkie recommended me some mineral makup when I was in the look for new makeup. Mine was old, and felt like a mask. Not really nice to wear. Anyway, she recommended me Everyday Minerals.

I checked them out, and found out they send you five samples for postage. So I tried them, because trying three foundations, a concealer and a blush for €3,20 ($4.95 for an international order) is damn cheap! I found my color, and didn’t feel the makeup while wearing it, which is a big plus. It also lasted all day long during a very warm day. I was sold.

I ordered a Personal Custom Kit (Full Sizes) and a Sample (so I could get a free blush because they had an offer). This was the 13th, I was afraid it wouldn’t arrive on time (that is, before friday), because I need-want it for a couple of weddings, and I’m leaving on a jet next monday and not coming back for about two months!

If you want to see the full size pics, click on them and you’ll end in the gallery. If you hoover over the pic there, you’ll see what each jar is.

Uh, yes, now my makeup bag is too small for these jars, dammit! I guess I’ll have to find something else *sigh* Wonder if I can find something tube-like where the jars fit and don’t get too shaked. A Pringles tube, maybe? But that won’t solve it for the samples and the eyeshadow.. mmmm *thinking hat on* I’ll keep you posted!

Brainz are fuzzy. Brainz have melted.

Today was the last exam. 4.5 hours (with break, 5). They changed the format from previous years, and published a model of the new format online a few weeks ago. The exam today was based on that model, but they didn’t give time enough to solve all the problems. Not even knowing what to do and plugging everything in the HP50g to do math fast, there was not enough time at all.

But, it’s done. I will take at least a couple weeks off now. Don’t want to know anything about university till then.

Anerriphtho kybos (or Alea iacta est)

Scared you there, eh?

I did not cut all my hair, just gave it a trim cause it was starting to get annoying (waist lenght!), and the ends looked dry and brittle. Right now it’s below my elbows, long hair, just not as long. Proof:

Pre-cut, it was waist length	Post-cut, it’s elbow lenght, better

Much much better now!

I promised some food pr0n a while ago.

Summary: Spicy Indian Rice with Toasted Almonds and Marinated Italian Tofu with Assorted Veggies, both recipes adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance. I made a list of recipes from the book I want to try, and I’ll cook my way (more or less, you know, can’t follow a recipe to save my life) through it. And probably I’ll do the same with other cooking books.

My brain feels like it wants to explode and then run out of my ears. Love the visual, eh?

The exam lasted about an hour more than I thought, because the teachers realized that it was harder than they initially thought, and added more time to try and let us imagine we can solve it. When they start adding time to an exam, bad juju.

Oh yes, also publications (aka, those paid to make copies) apparently can’t read and made 50 copies less of the exam than they asked. I don’t believe that. I mean, really, not seeing a 50 in there? I’m more in the “we never thought all 450 of the students would come and sit the exam so we asked for kess copies”.

The content of the exam was… rather not talk about it. I just want to forget about it, and start on the next one. Tired of it all. Burnt out. Meh.

Insert long string of very explicit very loud cursing here.

Suck.

These next three weeks are basically devoted to flattening my butt (more) studying (more) for exams, and then sitting those exams. And then hoping I have passed, because I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve sitted said exams, and it’s really getting on my nerves (and that’s being very very polite about it).

Anyway, I doubt I’ll post as much as I’ve posted these past weeks, not like it matters much, does it? I still have to post a couple pics of the last delicious meal cooked over at Jan’s. Maybe I’ll post some rant or so, when I need to yell or else my brain might implode-explode.

And I just noticed the spam counter has gone over the 20k mark. It only took 450 days… (No, I didn’t count them, I used this tool)

Silly meme that I found in Flickr, and I’m posting here just because.

1. Diana ……greek goddess of the hunt, 2. Chocolate Sushi, 3. Meta Arturo Soria, 4. 80 Red Roses,
5. Sean Connery Filmhouse, 6. water droplets in the shower - o.k. bokeh, 7. To relax on the meadow, 8. homemade matcha green tea icecream.,
9. don’t worry be happy new year, 10. Sign of Life II, 11. Eclectic, 12. Sade 13.09.2007

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys (mosaic).

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?¹
2. What is your favorite food?²
3. What high school did you go to?³
4. What is your favorite color?⁴
5. Who is your celebrity crush?⁵
6. Favorite drink?⁶
7. Dream vacation?⁷
8. Favorite dessert?⁸
9. What you want to be when you grow up?⁹
10. What do you love most in life?¹⁰
11. One Word to describe you.¹¹
12. Your (flickr) nick-name¹²

 
 
check out the notes:

About two years ago, Theresa showed me this nifty thing to make graphs out of your website, and I’ve re-run it today. Compare:

Site Graph for the blog, June 2006	Site Graph for the blog, June 2008