Five Layers Of Plaster Later…

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Apparently I still need to retouch some spots on the walls. Yeah, my back is so sore I’ve been waking up at around 3-4am these past two nights from the pain. After taking a painkiller to be able to sleep. Not a happy camper.

And back from the dentist, I have no wisdom any more. That was the last wisdom teeth being pulled today. Anaesthetics make me feel crappy too.

Kthnxbye.

Been Busy

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Yeah, I told you on the previous post. Trip to London, bathroom renovation, trip to Düsseldorf. So now I’m back and it’s time to play catch up. I’ll write an entry about the trip to London soon, meanwhile you can amuse yourself with pictures. The trip to Düsseldorf was to visit our friend Laura, her husband Christian and their daughter Lumi before they move to Finland. We had fun, and we relaxed some and didn’t take pictures because we really didn’t do much tourist stuff. If you want pics, you can check last year’s tho.

And if you want to know some about the bathroom, we also created a gallery to share our progress. First day we removed all the things from the bathroom, removed the paper and fixed the wall. Then tuesday we kept on fixing the wall because the plaster was completely fucked here and there, also masked all the stuff, and painted on some primer for the tiling and started painting the walls. Wednesday saw us tiling the shower plus the sink backsplash, and painting the rest of the colors. And thursday was spent retouching the paint and grouting all the tiling area. However we were short a handfull of grout and that will be finished today. On friday before leaving to Düsseldorf, we cleaned everything like crazies, and put some accesories and our closets back in.

And because a post without pictures seems boring to most people:

bathroom bathroom

Tag, I’m it!

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Marr from Smelly Chick’s Online, a soapmakers’ resources website, tagged me for this six things about you me-me.

Da rulez:

  1. Link to the person who tagged you (see above).
  2. Post the rules on your blog (this is what you are now reading).
  3. Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
  4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them (This is only a game)
  5. Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
  6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Six Things About Me (that you couldn’t care less about)

  1. I’m a Scorpio, and it does show, sometimes, when I’m pissed.
  2. I love Linux. I loathe Windows.
  3. I’m dabbing in too many hobbies at the moment, but loving it.
  4. Paracetamol gives me trippy dreams.
  5. I lurve chocolate.
  6. I only started liking plush toys (teddies, stuffed animals and so) in my laaaate teens.

There, that’s it, Six random things about me, that you most likely don’t care about. Know me better? I doubt it :p

Da taggin’

Uhm, yes, I’m supposed to tag six people who haven’t done this lately. Lets see…Smartash, CJ, Zanne, Asa, KnittingKitty and Purlpower.

And for those who are wondering, I’m not dead or falleth off the internet, I’m just very busy. Last weekend (8th-10th August) we were on a city break to London. This week (11th-14th August), we’ll be renovating the bathroom. First stage done (everything removed and ready to tile and paint), more to come. And next weekend (15th-17th August) we’re on another city trip, this time to Düsseldorf. We have booked a weekend special at Relexa Rattingen City (10 minutes away from Düsseldorf), with a candle-light dinner, use of spa, breakfast buffet, and more things for a nice price. So yeah, I’m not much online at the moment. More about the London and Düsseldorf trips when I have time to write all the stuff down!

On knitting news, I “joined” the Ravelympics (Ravelry inside link, if you want to read you have to be a member. I joined cause they made me join). I’m knitting the Anastasia Socks, in Opal Neon 1934.

Red Berries Tofu Cake

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Today’s Jan‘s birthday. Happy Birthday!!! And since I’m a poor student and can’t buy him the gadgets I’m sure he’d love to get as pressies, I made him a cake. I also got him a movie, but it was on offer ;-)

It’s very moist here, and so it makes the 25ºC or so feel like a lot more. And really, who wants to bake for hours when the weather is so sticky. So we settled for no-bake (nearly) cheese cake, but made with tofu, because it’s a bit healthier ahem.

Red Berries Tofu Cake Slice

Ingredients:

  • For the cookie base:
    • 120 grams cookies (Graham crackers, McVities, Maria… whatever rocks your world)
    • 40 grams butter (this is about 3 tablespoons)
  • For the tofu layer:
    • 300 ml pineapple juice
    • 2 tablespoons agar-agar
    • 90 ml lemon juice
    • 5 to 6 tablespoons runny honey
    • 1 teaspoon lemon oil / essence
    • 450 grams tofu
  • For the gelled topping:
    • 100 ml red berries syrup (the kind used for cocktails)
    • 300 ml water
    • 2 tablespoons agar agar
    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
    • bunch of red currants and raspberries

Make it:

  1. Preheat the oven to 175ºC / 350 F (this is the only time you’re gonna use the oven, I promise). Whizz up the cookies in a food procesor until sandy, then add butter and whizz some more until it looks like wet sand. Line the bottom of a springform pan with baking paper, press the cookie slash wet sand into the base of the form. Bake for ten minutes until nicely golden, turn off the oven and breathe deeply.
  2. In a small saucepan, heat the pineapple juice until steamy, add the agar agar, and cook, stirring, until completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Cool for about five minutes.
  3. Using the blender of your choice, blend the tofu, the pineapple juice with the agar agar, the lemon juice, lemon essence, and honey, until smooth. Pour over baked cookie base, put in the fridge, and have an iced tea, or two. Let the tofu layer chill for at least two hours, four is even better. A few more won’t hurt.
  4. In a small saucepan (clean, please :p), heat the red berries syrup with the water and lemon juice until steamy, add the agar agar, and cook, stirring, until dissolved, about 5 minutes. Let cool as much as possible without setting. Pour over chilled tofu layer. Decorate with berries. Chill in the fridge until completely set, about 3 to 4 hours, or even better, overnight.
  5. Cut using a long sharp knife, serve yourself a generous portion, sit back, dip the spoon into the cake, and let it melt on your tongue. Or in short: Enjoy!

Yield: One 26 cm cake, 8 to 10 portions.

Wanna see the full cake before it was cut?

Red Berries Tofu Cake Slice

Samosas and Green Curry

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Friday night I set out to discharge my mother in law from cooking yet another meal for the family, since she’s doing so a lot more than when she’s working. I looked through my recipe books, and the recipes that kept calling me were Potato – Greenpeas Samosas, and Green Thai Curry, both from Vegan with a Vengeance.

Revised both recipes, hoped I could find everything, and did my shopping list. I did find everything, but I did substitute a couple of things. For instance, the Samosas call for green soy beans, not green peas. And that’s the one thing that I knew I wouldn’t find, however the recipe says green peas are a perfect substitute and actually make the samosas a bit more authentic. So green peas it was. Of course, the can of peas was too big, so the leftovers were added to the curry. We all know nearly everything goes well with curry. I also halved the recipe for the samosas, cause we’re only four for eating. I also used lime juice instead of lemon – I had to buy limes for the curry and the coconut mint chutney I served with the samosas.

The curry had little mods. Since the choice of hot peppers is very limited, I used four of what looks like Thai hot peppers, but I am not sure, because they’re not labeled as any special pepper. And used no jalapeños. I also used preserved lemongrass instead of fresh because I am lazy and it was cheaper. And black pepper instead of white cause I wasn’t going to buy a jar for 5 pepper corns. I added the leftovers peas from the samosas to the curry (hey, they’re green, so it matches!), and also added some 125grams (dried) basmati rice, cooked. Love me some rice to soak all the curry.

It was all served, and all devoured. I thought there’d be some leftovers, but apparently every body was starving on friday night. Also, I spend about 3 hours in the kitchen in total, so it was a looooong cooking session. But so worth it.

Samosas and coconut mint chutney Samosas and coconut mint chutney

Oh, I made eight samosas total, I just took the picture after serving four so I could put the sauce in the middle.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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We usually only eat chocolate chip cookies when we stop at Subway to eat when we’re out shopping in Aalst. And that happens once every two-three months. Oh, their local specialty? Veggie Pattie! Direct way to my heart, with loads of veggies, jalapeños and chipotle sauce. Then a coffee with a free chocolate chip cookie of your choice nom nom.

This week I found chocolate chips (meant to use for melting for a chocolate fondue, techincal detail) in the supermarket, and decided on baking chocolate chip cookies. LiveLoveKnit from the #knitty chat recommended me this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and I liked it. It has metric measurements 1. So off I went to make these cookies and of course I had to modify the recipe, because you all know me! The result:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

On to the modified recipe, shall we?

Chocolate Chip Cookies With Added Ooohmp

Grab the ingredients:

  • 80 grams granulated sugar
  • 10 grams vanilla sugar2
  • 100 grams light brown sugar (in this case, I used light cassonade de candi)
  • 110 grams unsalted butter, warmish but not melted, chopped in small pieces at random3
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence4
  • 1 tablespoon runny honey
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon5
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda6
  • 175 grams flour
  • pinch salt
  • 200 grams chocolate chips

Make them:

  1. With electric beaters and lots of patience, cream together butter and sugars, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Yep, that long. Add honey, cinnamon, vanilla essence and egg, and beat again till mixed properly.
  2. Shift together baking powder, salt and flour. Add to butter mixture and mix in very well, but do not overmix. Clean the beaters with a rubber spattula. You know how much dough they keep? Add chocolate chips and fold in with spattula.
  3. Stick dough in fridge for at least a couple of hours until quite firm.
  4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 150ºC / 300F, and line two or three cookie sheets with baking paper. Make balls with the dough about 4cm in diameter. Place nine per cookie sheet. Flatten if you want the thin cookies that I got, otherwise let them be round.
  5. Stick in oven for 15 to 18 minutes, until nicely golden. Remove from oven and let cool in the cookie sheet until firm, at least 10 minutes, then transfer to rack to finish cooling.
  6. Eat with delight, slightly warm even better!

Yield: approx. 30 dosis of sin.

They’re so good, even our little kiss furball (freeby from certain very famous cola drink) wanted to eat them while I was taking pics of them:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

 
 
da footnotes:

  1. this is a pet peeve of mine. I hate hate hate when a baking recipe comes in cups. Cups are for drinking not for measuring. Liquids in liters (or even fl oz) and solids in grams (or plain old oz, pounds, whatever, but not cups!). Now, I also dislike all those super fancy schmancy pantalones of baking chefs that insist baking is an exact science, and then sell all their books with measurements in cups “because otherwise no one will buy them because no one has a scale at home”. Well, maybe if you started insisting in measuring weights people would get a scale. They cost what? Fifteen bucks for a cheap one? – End of rant ↩
  2. preferabily, home made. Re-use your vanilla pods that you were going to discard after making pudding or icecream. Rinse them well, let them dry completely, and stick them in a lidded jar with granulated sugar. Best vanilla sugar ever. ↩
  3. can’t be arsed with the cut in 1cm cubes ↩
  4. nope, I don’t measure this, I just pour from the tiny bottle and eye it. ↩
  5. again, eyeball it ↩
  6. more or less, not gonna be sooo picky about it ↩

Good Pics vs. Not So Good Pics

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Living in Belgium, I’m stuck with not much natural light. Most days are over cast, or plain down pouring, and then if by any chance the sun shines without a cloud to hide it, most of that light doesn’t make it into the house. The brightest room is the bathroom (upstairs) followed closely by the hallway (upstairs), they’re the two places blessed with roof windows. The rest of the rooms have normal wall windows, and most of them are shadowed by a huge amount of ivy. That’s another thing, the never ending ivy trimming. If it was for me, I’d just tear it down, but at this point, it might be a point in the stability of certain walls where the ivy roots show inside.

To the case in point, we all know to get good pics, you need a pretty decent lighting (amongst other things, such as a decent camera, doesn’t have to be exceptional, some artistic view, and perhaps a good item to take a pic of). The solution to take pics of most still life, food that won’t get cold cause it’s already cold, or won’t melt in the heat, yarn, toys, rubber stamps, and a long etcetera, is to make a light-box, or purchase one (if you’re in for the 50 euros or more). I searched the internet for a foldable light-box, cause I didn’t want to have it taking room, and found the expensive foldable light tents, or a DIY solution that called for foamcore cardboard, tape and vellum paper. Obviously I went for the DIY option. You of course need some lamps, but I make do with what I have at home that can be moved around.

Off I went to AVA, to get the foamcore and the vellum. Since I wanted to be able to take pics of things bigger than a moddle figure, I doubled the size. Some hard work later, I got my light box made up (although I left the “roof” unattached). I set up to find the perfect place to take pictures with the new toy, and found out that our mini dinning room table was ideal. It already has one light over it, so I only need to provide the side illumination. Wanna see my setup?

Light Box Light Box

First pic there, it’s taken with flash, so you see things clearly. The tiny camera in the mini tripod is my trusty Olympus :mju mini 5.0 mpixel. It’s so small it fits in my pocket, and I don’t mind carrying it in my purse more often than not. It also takes great pictures if you take the time to get to know all its quirks. Of course, I’d love to get a dSLR, but I can’t cough the dough for it at the moment (and probably not for a few years), so I make do with what I have. The Olympus, by the way, was a present from Jan.

You’ve already seen proof of what such a small camera and a light box can do, but in case you don’t remember, let’s post the picture again, ok?

Ball of yarn

Now, what I could do with even better tools!