Category Archives: Cooking

Recipes and other cooking related blabbering.

Spanakopita!

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No, I’m not cursing in the title of the post :-p Spanakopita is a Greek spinach and cheese pie. Traditionally, the cheese would be feta (damn, what other cheese do you expect to find in Greek dishes!), but I had no feta, and wasn’t planning on going out just to buy it. So I did with what was in the pantry and fridge. You know me, following recipes is hard! The result is in the next two pics:

Spanakopita still in the baking dish Spanakopita already in the dish

Want the recipe I ended using (that is, my version)? Spanakopita recipe.

It seems like I only cook as of late, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not true! I’ve knitted some, slowly, and I’ve been working webdesigning as well. I finished a shrug (pics and specs up some other day) and am finishing the baby booties for friend’s spawn (pics up later as well). I also wound into balls two skeins of KnitPicks Gossamer in Rose Garden, that will become a (hopefully) light Clapotis.

On other news, Jan’s coming next thursday! Expect to see me not for a few days (-;

Book Junkie

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I love reading, love it. I used to read one book per week, now with university and work, I’m down to about a book every two weeks, more or less. So, I was running out of reading material, and after I asked Jan for a few books to read, I decided to order some other books. What did I buy?

  • The Secrets of Jin Shei, by Alma Alexander.
  • In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant
  • Empress Orchid, by Anchee Min
  • Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, by Isa Chandra & Terry Hope
  • Cocina Oriental (Asian Cooking), from IKEA cooking book series
  • Cocina Vegetariana (Vegetarian Cooking), from IKEA cooking book series
  • Cocina Festiva (Party Cooking), from IKEA cooking book series
Pile Of Books
(click the pic for a bigger view)

On top of that pile of books, my first Moleskine notebook. I fell in love with these expensive notebooks a while back, and finally I caved in and bought me a large blank one. It’s being used for random writing and doodling, for collage, for memories, that sort of thing. Where did I buy it? Altaïr bookstore stocks all the notebooks in Madrid! I’m pondering getting a City Notebook for Madrid as well, so I can note down all our finds.

On a side note, I have a five day weekend! The first of may is Workers’ Day, the second is City Holiday, and I’m taking the 30th of April off school (classes have been changed, anyway – so I’m not missing anything). Plans for this loooong weekend include: knitting, sewing (I have some pretty Ikea fabric to make a yoga mat bag and a weekender bag), studying (gotta boost up the study time, exams are coming up, dammit!), taking care of sweet bunny and pet sparrow, cooking, reading, sleeping, working on freelance project, and doing pilates (Yay I’m being a good girl and doing pilates and it shows!)

Recipe: Basmati Rice & Pomegranate Salad

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Basmati Rice - Pomegranate Salad

Ingredients:

  • 100 grams basmati rice
  • 2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 small spring onion
  • 1 slice smoked tofu
  • 6 cherry tomatos
  • salt, olive oil

Instructions:

  1. Rinse the basmati rice, bring to a boil enough water to boil it (about five times the rice’s volume). Add the rice to the boiling water, add a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of salt, stir, and let boil for 10 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, peel the carrot, cut it in half, and slice it in half moons. Clean the spring onion, cut it in quarters and then slice.
  3. When the rice is boiled, drain excess water, and put in a bowl. Add the carrot, the onion and the pomegranate seeds, and mix.
  4. Cut the tofu in 1cm cubes, heat a little oil in a pan, and stir fry until golden.
  5. Add tofu to rice, mix carefully. Season with some more olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Decorate with the cherry tomatoes. Serve.

Notes:
This dish can be served warm, as above, or chilled (or at room temperature). Makes a great tupper meal! (This is tomorrow’s meal for me)

Last day of vacation, cooking time

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So, today is my very last day of vacation, of the one week I’ve had after september exams. That’s a whopping whole one week of true vacation, without having to study or worry about exams or anything like that. On the last day of vacation, I decided to prepare a few meals that would only need to heat up or bake in the oven right out of the freezer.

The morning started killing a pumpkin and roasting it in the oven, then boiling and roasting its seeds with a bit of oil, worcestershire sauce and salt (mjummy!). Meanwhile lunch was cooking: a pot of lentils with onion, garlic, courgette and tomato, to which I added part of the roasted pumpkin at the end.

After lunch, I made a no roll pie crust, and a pumpkin pie filling, and baked it. Meanwhile (multitasking is your friend) I made lasagna with: onion, carrot, courgette, aubergine, blue foot and shiitake mushrooms, tomato and seitan, and assembled three of them with pasta and white sauce.

The only pic of all the cooking is this of the pumpkin pie (my first ever) right out of the oven:

pumpkin pie

Tomorrow, classes start at 8.30 *sigh* And I still don’t know in which courses I will enrole, so for the first week or so I’ll attend all of them and see which I like better for this semester. Wish me luck!

On the knitting end, the turkish stitch string bag is nearly finished, after having had to rip it off completely when I was a strap from the end. Just need to sew the ends in, and voi-là! Sorry, no pic yet :)

Back Home Again

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After those lovely forty five days with Jan, I’m back home to take exams, do paperwork, and go back to uni for yet another year ™. What have we done this summer, you ask? Well, 45 days seems long, but it definitively wasn’t long enough for us.

We had joined a group trip to Scotland, but for several reasons, it didn’t work out. That was my first week there, and instead we just had a quiet time at home, since Jan had the days off anyway.

We fancied a boat trip, and so we went to Overmere Donk, rented a slow boat, and had fun around. We also walked in the park by the lake, so pretty. Pitty the triathlon was so noisy and taking most of the routes!

We went to a friend’s wedding, that consisted of a civil ceremony and a medieval party, which we had to skip (will link to pics whenever, if ever, they are up).

We went to Germany: Dusserldorf (and pics en route), where we met up with Susann and her husband, then from there to Greifswald (with more pics of the drive), where we met up with Laura, and then we drove to Münster. And finally drove back home.

And we also went to Brugge, to buy chocolate at my favourite shop, The Chocolate Line, which you will know already if you read this blog often. I can’t praise this shop enough. All the chocolate is hand made in situ, and you can see the Meester Chocolatier at work through the window at the back of the shop. And visited the Sand Sculptures Exhibition. Lots of work involved in them, and all will be destroyed in a couple of weeks.

Other things accomplished during the summer: knitting (not much), spinning (two whole bobbins, still to be plied, next time I go to Belgium) – no pics of either, stash enhancement (four skeins, enough for a pair of socks and a skinny scarf, pics coming, sometime), cooking a few recipes from our database, visiting family, going out, going five(!) times to the movies (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Over the Hedge, Miami Vice, She’s the Man & Monster House), general happy living together, adopting our two little critters, going out with a bunch of friends for bowling and dinner, and much more! Oh yes, studying too.

Leaving was hard, again, very hard. And I so want to go back very soon. Plans right now are me spending my “winter break” in early December and New Years in Belgium. Meanwhile, Jan will be coming over some time in October and November!

For those of you who care about my flight back, it was okay, if it weren’t for the more than three hours of a detour. The story is, we left Brussels airport on time without problems, the flight was good and we got to Madrid at the scheduled time, but there was a huge storm with lighting that kept more than fifteen planes waiting to land. That meant we had to wait over fourty minutes to land, but we didn’t have enough fuel and detoured to Valencia to fuel there. Once the storm was over, all the detoured planes wanted to leave for Madrid at once, and we got a slot for 10pm (that’s 2.5 hours after we were supposed to land in Madrid). We finally made it to our destination at nearly 11pm, then wait for my suitcase, which luckily was one of the firsts to get out, and get a cab to go home. I got home at midnight, a whooping three hours and a half after I thought I’d be! Luckily for me, I bought the last sandwich on board, and that was all my dinner.

So that’s all, we’ll be back to the regular irregular updates of the blog after my exams and the end of summer cleaning week chez moi!

Been RAK’ed(!)

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Weeeeeeeeeeeeeh! *happy* I’ve been RAK’ed – that is, I’ve been the objet of a Random Act of Kindness. I “signed up” for this at the Knitty Board, it’s a thread where you put your wishes, and if someone can and wants, sends you some thingies. Anyway, I want to thank Amy (sorry, don’t know your site addy, if you have one, and read this, please tell me!) for all the pressies you sent me. And since we know it, here come the pics:

knitpicks yarn! peppermint patties
recipes card

Love. It. All.

Thanks so much again, Amy.

Sade

Recipe: Garlic “Naans”

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Garlic “Naans”

Garlic Naan

Yes, that is a hell of a big Naan, I was lazy and made just one. It was eaten fully during dinner anyway ;)

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup strong flour
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon yeast
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon plain yogurt
  • 2 tablespoon vegetable oil or butter (I used olive oil)
  • 1 head of garlic (or more to taste – I used nearly two)

Instructions:

  1. Warm the milk until it’s about 40°C. Mix in the yeast and let rest until foamy and creamy.
  2. Peel and mince the garlic, put in a very small bowl and cover with the oil. Microwave for 20 seconds (this will give the oil a garlic taste).
  3. Mix the salt, sugar and yogurt into the milk
  4. Put the flour in a big bowl, add the milk mix and the oil with garlic. Mix until the dough is soft and not sticky (might have to add more flour). Knead for about five minutes.
  5. Grease a bowl with more oil, form a ball with the dough and turn around in the bowl to cover with the oil. Cover, place in a warm place, and let rise until at least double.
  6. Heat oven to 180°C. Divide dough in two, and shape each one into a very flat ovoidal shape and brush with a bit more oil or ghee. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Until slightly golden, but still soft. Serve warm. Enjoy!

Note: Ghee is clarified butter.