Asia thinks things

Hello!

Today, when I was at work I got hungry and I started thinking about what will I cook when I get back home. I thought about  lemon chicken, chinese vegetables with rice, but finally I decided to change direction into something more light and what will make that very cold day a little wormer. I thought of tapas. When you think tapas you think about the places where the weather is warm and sunny, where people have siestas, enjoy food and dolce far niente. I decided to move for a while to such a place just by making a very simple and very delicious and very simple appetizer which is Courgette with sun dried tomatoes and natural cream cheese, I’m sure you will love it!

How you do it?

Ingredients (for 2 people):

1 courgette

10 sun-dried tomatoes

natual cream cheese

freshly ground black pepper and salt

Cut courgette into thin slices, salt each slice a little and let the water go out.

Fry courgette with a very little amout of olive oil, while frying put some fresh pepper on one side on it. Fry until it gets a little tan .

When you finish frying, dry them with paper towels so that they aren’t too fat.

Put the slices next to each other and spread them with cream cheese. Put sun-dried tomatoes and wrap them, use a toothpick not to let them unwrap.

Bon appetit!

One more thing, when it comes to sun-dried tomatoes. Today when I went to the shop, I was looking for sun-dried tomatoes with olive oil but I found only those with vegetable oil. What I did was, I bought regular sun-dried tomatoes in a bag, without any oil, I put them to the bowl and poured some olive oil on them. I salted and peppered them and added some basil and squeezed one clove of garlic.

Good morning again!

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, that is because there are so many ideas to make it simple, easy and healthy.

One of my recent favs is rye flakes with yoghurt and mandarins.

It’s perfect to make during the week because it takes around 2 minutes to prepare! Besides it’s healthy. Rye includes a lot of fiber which gives you a feeling of fullness and satiety, which is especially important for people who want to loose some weight. It is also a source of magnesium and it lowers the high cholesterol levels. Of course to achieve this, you should eat it everyday and change your diet into low cholesterol one.

For those of you who want it more sweet don’t just put sugar, add some honey or maple syrup instead.

Bon appetit!

Good morning!

As promised, here comes the post about the chalk board paint. My new discovery and I will surely use it from now on to my projects (as I did with the Cable Organizer project).

I found articles about the chalk board paint about 2 weeks ago. I check it’s price in the internet and It’s way too expensive! And besides, there’s no fun i buying when you can do it yourself! So, I started looking for some recipes and I found one which is very simple on that blog: http://www.theidearoom.net/2010/09/make-chalk-rocks-and-homemade-chalk.html which is btw. a great blog, you should visit.

As you can see the recipe is very simple: buy paint – any color and kind you wish and some non-sanded tile grout (it took me a while to find it ) and that’s it! The trick is to mix it very well, I mixed around 1 tablespoon of paint and around 1 tablespoon of grout - be careful! it shouldn’t be too thick! MIX IT WELL!
Than I put some of my Chalk Board Paint on the mug. I did it twice and let it dry up, and here comes the problem with the recipe. It isn’t that good for glass or porcelain that is too smooth. After washing the mug the paint melted, so I found out a great thing: Frosted Glass Spray Paint. I ordered it online and I’m waiting for it to come to let you know how does it work.

I put the picture of my Chalk Board Mug it looks cool, but I can’t wash it

Hello there!

The post about the chalkboard paint was supposed to appear here on Tuesday, I admit, but I put it today, together with another funny idea!

Have you ever wondered about what to do with a used toilet paper roll? Or were you ever bothered by the used rolls that were lying on the floor or somewhere in your bathroom?

Here is the idea which is very ecological, cause instead of throwing away the rolls, you use them again but in an unusual manner.

And here I have to ask you another question. Do you fint most of your cables, charging devices scattered around your appartment/house?

Probably right now you are asking yourself, how the toilet paper is connected with the cables don’t worry, now I’m going to tell you.

Use your used toilet paper roll as a cable organizer!

I collected couple of rolls and painted them with the chalkboard paint that I made myself (wait for the recipe).

I wanted them to be colorful and name each of them with the name of the cable I put inside. I wrote the names with color chalks.

In the end, I decorated them with washi tapes. Washi tape is another thing that I love. Actually I have just bought it – It’s soooo hard to buy them! But that might be also another reason why I like them so much.

And here’s the result! Ecological, economic, creative and it makes you happy because you can put all of your cables together in one place and they don’t bother you anymore!

Oh, and about the chalkboard…well, let’s wait until tomorrow!!!

Hello there! I hope your weekend was/is as good as mine.

I dedicate this post to my neighbour Monika, who asked me to publish the recipe, so that she can make the Golden Rolls herself.

I found that recipe at @kwestiasmaku.com , although the stuffing I invented myself.

These rolls are very easy and fast to make + when you cut them they have very strong colors which make them a perfect choice for a winter evening.

Ingredients:

7 g of instant yeast

200 ml of warm milk

2 tablespoons of sugar

200 g of butter

450 g of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon of salt

Yeast, warm milk and sugar stir all together and put aside for 10 min.

Flour, diced butter and sugar mix all together with your hands, add milk with yeast and knead the dough.

Roll the dough into a ball and place it into refrigerator for 30 min.

Roll out the dough until it’s thin and cut it in the circles with a glass.

On one circle place about tablespoon of stuffing and put a second circle on top. Press the edges of the two dough circles together to seal.

Line a cake pan with baking paper and put the rolls on it. Heat the oven to 200°C and put the pan inside for 25 min until the rolls get perfect golden color.

Stuffing 1 – Courgette and sun dried tomatoes

1 courgette

5 sun dried tomatoes

pepper

1 teaspoon of olive oil

Shred courgette, dice tomatoes and mix everything all together.

Do NOT use salt, it will make courgette wet.

Stuffing 2 – red onion + corn

1 tin of corn

1 red onion chopped

pepper

1/2 teaspoon of curry powder

Chop the onion, add corn, pinch of pepper and curry and mix it all together.

I serve them with my yoghurt-dill sauce that I posted below with Zucchini and Carrot Pancakes.

This is one of my favourite recipes, that I invented myself. There are two reasons I love it, first of all, it’s so simple, it takes you around 20 min. to make the pancakes. Second of all, it includes zucchini and carrot, that taste sooo good together, you need to try it, to understand what I’m talking about.

Those pancakes are perfect it you need something quick and healthy. I tried some recipes that included milk, eggs, butter, etc. but I wanted them to be simple. Here we go.

Ingredients:

1 zucchini

2 carrots

4 tablespoons of flour (can be more, can be less)

3/4 teaspoon of fresh cracked black pepper

3/4 teaspoon of salt

pinch of nutmeg

Shred zucchini on the large holes into a bowl, when you do it, sprinkle it with the salt and leave for around 15 min. so that the water drains out of it. Using paper towels, blot the zucchini dry. Add shredded carrot, black pepper, salt and nutmeg. mix it all together. Add flour and mix it. I usually mix it all with my hands or with a tablespoon.

Heat the skillet over high heat and add the olive oil. Using your hands make the pancakes and put them on the skillet (I put 2-3 pancakes per a skillet). Fry the pancakes around half a minute each side.

Voila!

I serve them with a yoghurt-dill sauce

Yoghurt-dill sauce recipe

Ingredients:

1 small natural yoghurt

1 chopped garlic clove

chopped dill

salt

pepper

Put all ingredients in a bowl and stir them all together.

Bon appetit!

P.S. I will just have them for the dinner!

Actually, I planned to post it today in the morning, but as you might know from your own experience, mornings are tough in general, especially when you have to go to work and be on time.

To me, mornings are the worst in winter time, when you wake up and you cannot see the difference between the time you went to bed and you woke up because it’s so dark. Besides, it’s cold and the best solution to me seems to be staying in bed. But I have to get up, so almost everyday I try to figure out something new for breakfast that will give me energy for the rest of the day and which will be healthy (otherwise, I could just have a Red Bull).

Long story short, yesterday I made myself a smoothie. Recently I bought a lot a lot of fruits, so much of them that although I try to eat some of them everyday, there are still some left

I took one mango, one banana and two oranges. I blended it and it was delish! Besides, it looks great, cause it has this lively orange color that puts a smile on your face!

Apart of great look such a smoothie is a bomb of vitamines. Mango is full of magnesium and cellulose, thanks to high concentration of vitamines C, A, E, flavonoid and lupeol it helps in slowing down the ageing process, which is quite convincing.

I your smoothie is a bit too sweet for you, add some lime, lemon or grapefruit to make it bitter.

Bon appetit!

Hello!

Today my neighbour – Kuba sent me two pictures of my Rudolph Cupcakes to put on my blog!

Thank You Kuba!

Btw. once I have to put some of the cooking recipes of Kuba’s wife, who loves thai cuisine and all of her recipes are simply delicious. Let’s do it soon and make it a special event

Yeeey! Just few minutes ago I’ve finished my Smiling Whale Tissue Holder.

It was my first project, so we can say – mission accomplished.

How to make one?

Buy a wooden tissue holder

Buy black and turquoise paint. You should put two coats of the turquoise to make the color deeper.

The most difficult part is the tail. For that I used narrow strip of wood, and cut it with Dremel.

You can either glue the tail to the box or make a hole in it with a knife or Dremel and put it inside.

I hope you like it, cause I do!

Ok, since doing Whale Tissue Holder takes more than I thought, I will post a recipe.

Actually, it’s a Christmas recipe, but I love it, so I will post it anyway, maybe you will make a use of it for one of your carnival parties?

I call them Rudolph cupcakes.

I took the recipe from this website: http://mojewypieki.blox.pl/2011/12/Babeczki-Snickerdoodle-Rudolfy.html 

What you will need for approx. 30 cupcakes is:

3 cups of all-purpose flour

1 tbsp of baking powder

pinch of salt

1 tbsp of ground cinnamon

230 g of butter

1,5 cup of powder sugar

4 big eggs

2 tsp of vanilla extract (I used vanilla sugar and it tasted great!)

1 1/4 cup of milk (I used 2% fat milk)

Sieve flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and mix them together in a bowl.

In another bowl put butter and sugar and mix it with a mixer until soft and plain. Add eggs (while mixing) one by one, than add vanilla extract (or sugar) and mix. Add dry mixture (of flour, etc.) by turns with milk.

Pour the mixture into the cupcake forms (it should fill 3/4 of each). Put to the oven heated to 180ºC and bake it for 20 minutes.

While the cupcakes are in the oven you have time to prepare cream.

Cream

600 ml of whipping cream (36%)

250 g of mascarpone

4 tbsp o powder sugar

2 tsp of vanilla extract (again, I used vanilla sugar)

All of the products should be chilled. Pour the whipping cream in the bowl and beat until it holds soft peaks. In the end add powder sugar and beat a little more. Than and mascarpone and vanilla extract (or sugar) until plain.

And now comes the fun part – you can start decorating!

For the horns I used little pretzels, for eyes – vanilla chocolate chips. I made the black dots by melting the chocolate and putting it on vanilla chips with a toothpick. M&M’s made noses but you can also use candied cherries.

Bon appetit! Asia.