Posts Tagged ‘food’
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
The Way the Cookie Crumbles
Received big tin of home baked cookies from Paul in the post. Apparently he had baked 193 cookies altogether.* I’m not complaining, they are delicious! (*Perhaps I’m not the only one who needs to find a proper job. :P)
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Sugar Sugar
Sunday was all about cleaning and getting the flat ready for ‘The Mum Inspection’. Her flight was only an hour or so delayed, which was good.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Wait in Line
Waiting for them to ripen… gahh… patience is not one of my better virtues.
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Simmer
Chicken with almond and coconut sauce. Mmmm. Oh dear, the pictures are already turning a bit foodie…
Monday, 14 January 2008
Who’s Doing the Dishes?
Without realising I bought such posh desserts that they came in glass ramekins. Blueberry cheesecake. I have to say it was absolutely delicious!
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Rainy season
Paul is on his way from Ireland, in fact he must have landed in Tampere by now and be on the train to Helsinki (that is if he didn’t miss the train). I’m picking him up from the station in an hour. The weather couldn’t be more miserable, it’s been raining non-stop and the weather forecast provides no relief for the next days. It’s sooo depressing. Especially depressing for your first visit to Finland I would imagine. To compensate I made Paul some toffee buns. Now I’ll just have to try not eat them all before he arrives…
On Friday we’re all flying to Oulu to see Marjut. The weather doesn’t look much more sensible up there either… But still, it was about time we got our asses to Oulu! We’ve been promising to go there for the last 8 years… :D
I had something else to say the other night, but have completely forgotten what it was now. That seems to happen more and more these days… I think my mind’s going, old age and all that.
Sunday, 2 September 2007
One of those days…
This has been one of those days where nothing wants to go right. Or is it just that nothing to do with computers never goes right, or at least not the way you’ve planned it. We were on a mission to sort out my mum’s temperamental computer once and for all today. We were (maybe a bit too) eager to install her new printer and other toys, like a webcam, and were in quite high spirits when embarking on the mission. However, we never got very far since it turned out that either the CD drive on the machine is fucked or there’s some other serious hardware problem with it, which prevents you from installing pretty much anything. Despite Stu going to heroic efforts, even driving back home to burn new versions of CD’s just in case they were the problem, it just wasn’t to be. A highly frustrating waste of a day.
I can’t believe I have to go London on Tuesday already. Where the hell did the time go again?
I did manage to bake a rather nice chocolate birthday cake for Pauli though. And also, Rome pictures are finally up. They’re not in a very logical order however, as I ran out of patience half way through sorting them…
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
It’s like Christmas but with a prettier colour scheme*
I’ve been bitten by some sort of Easter (bunny) bug. I don’t usually really celebrate Easter in any special way, but this time round I just suddenly felt like making a bit of an (frivolous) effort. We also went slightly overboard with the food shopping today… I nearly had a stroke at the till when I heard what it all came up to. :O Oh well, at least we’ll have enough food to last us… at least until next week. Erm. :| Well, Susanna is on her way over right now and I guess I just wanted to make it a bit more festive for her.
I did some more midnight baking as well. :D Sooz’s flight lands at 1.35am (ooh, in like 15 minutes now!) so I had to think of something to do in the meanwhile. It was a bit of a catastrophe as far as cakes go, I don’t think banana bread is meant to go into a heart-shaped tin, at least it didn’t want to stay in there whilst in the oven. The end result was very ugly so I decided to be creative and cover it all up. :P Made for prettyish pictures at least. Not sure yet if it’s actually edible…
*and no pressies.
Monday, 2 April 2007
Being difficult
Uhh. I don’t know why this is so hard some times! Sharing or what not. At the moment I’m feeling like I’m coiled up inside myself so tight that it feels very difficult to give anything. I’m the kind of person who likes to get things straight in my head before sharing them. I hate to show unfinished work. I hate to talk about plans that I haven’t thought through completely. I hate to suggest things without investigating the matter at hand completely beforehand. I look forward to the BAM effect of showing something polished and properly prepared. The problem of course is that people very rarely like surprises, they don’t like to feel ambushed. Most people like to feel involved in the process, they enjoy the exchange of thoughts and ideas. And I do to, when it’s not my idea. I like owning my own thoughts until they are ready to share.
But yeah, there’s lots of plans and ideas and things swimming around in my head that I could talk about, but I’m finding it difficult. I think that’s why writing the wedding blog feels tricky as well. On the other hand I’d love to just list every detail of the plans and what not, but on the other hand it annoys me that then there would be no room left for that all important impact (not that any of the plans are grand or anything, but you know…) of the surprise element.
An another thing I hate is repeating myself. When I do want to share something it’s usually to a specific person at a specific time and if other people keep asking me about the same thing I’ll probably just come up with a lame standard answer. I can’t for the life of me be arsed to talk about the same thing over and over. That’s why blogs are great some times.
I have no idea what this blog entry is about now.
Moving on.
Annis and Aatos were over at the weekend. We did some work on our project (that I really don’t want to talk about yet :P) with Annis, and took a shitload of pictures – including shooting her for the Duality project. There was some midnight baking of buns involved as well. All in all a very hectic but productive weekend.
Can’t wait to have a four day break! I’ve done a little bit of Easter decorating today. And Sooz is coming over on Wednesday night. Yay.
I should be barred from eBay. I’ve bought so much shit recently (bargains, mind you!) that the lady who delivers ours post must be really cursing me for making her carry all these parcels over nearly on daily basis. But really, it’s such a miraculous place. Like, I got a veil for 99p! Get that. Not that I know if I’m actually going to wear a veil, I wasn’t even planning on wearing a wedding gown. :| But still, 99p!
Thursday, 15 February 2007
The shortest way to a (wo)man’s heart…
My flight was delayed so I didn’t quite make it home for Valentine’s Day. As it happens, Stu had also made me a cake though! :D Sooo both the S’s in my life took the cake approach this V Day, what does that say about them/me? :P I couldn’t possibly decide which one was tastier however.
Oh, and I also got a heater from Stu, cause my hands always get cold whilst working. :D
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
Happy V Day!
Sooo it’s Valentine’s Day again. How the hell is it a YEAR from the previous one… :| I’m gonna spend quite a big part of today traveling. Not sure if I’m gonna make it home whilst it still is Valentine’s Day though, my plane lands just before midnight or something. Fingers crossed.
Yesterday Susanna rose from her sickbed (she’s been ill all this time I’ve been here) to make me a V Day cake. :D I had some for breakfast today as well. Yum.
Happy Valentine’s Stu, I love you!
Hyvaa Ystavanpaivaa ystavat!
Saturday, 23 December 2006
…and relax
Well, since Christmas time is traditionally computer-free in our household, I shall bid you a farewell for a few days. I’ve finished most of my cooking, baking, cleaning and decorating – today was a busy day! I think I’ve gone a bit over the top with the amount decorations and candles this year. Perhaps I’m just compensating for the lack of a real tree. :P In any case, now I’m going to exhale, put my feet up and relax into enjoying everything. I wish you all a beautiful Christmas!
Friday, 22 December 2006
2 nights…
Oh can’t it be Christmas already! I’m getting all antsy. :D Baked a lot of pretty things today. Surely it’s allowed for me to taste them before Christmas isn’t it…
Sunday, 12 November 2006
Bake a cake…
Well, I’ve had this urge to bake something for a while now and we even just decided with Sooz that we’re gonna bake lots of stuff when she’s over during Christmas. So when Stu woke up on Saturday and declared that he felt like baking, it wasn’t too hard to win me over. So we baked. And baked. And since both of us seem to be a sandwich short of a picnic, we baked way too much. We made feta cheese & olive bread rolls, blueberry muffins and shitloads of banana cake (I think that recipe must have been for 50 or something). It was all very nice (even though the muffins were a bit flat and I left out an ingredient from the cake), but there is a limit to how much banana cake a person can consume before feeling repulsed by the sheer sight of it…
Today we looked at the piles of cakes and decided that something needed to be done to get rid of it all… So we set of to spread the joy and took some cake and muffins over to Johanna’s and later to mum’s. Oh my, Aleksi had grown so much since we last saw him at day old! He is such a smiley and chatty little man. Very much the same as Olli was a couple of years ago. – insert regulatory ‘how time flies’ sigh here. -
So yeah… a baking-filled weekend. Still, it was nice – therapeutic even – while it lasted. Oh and did I mention how much it snowed again today! It was like a winter wonderland in Järvenpää, but Espoo was a bit more on the wet and slushy side.
Monday, 28 August 2006
Finally, here I am!
Wow. I finally have a couple of minutes to myself. It is 3:48 on Sunday night, but hey, I hear it’s Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow or something. :P So what better time to try to catch up a bit.
Gosh, life seems to have been in a bit of an overdrive since coming back from England. Feels like I haven’t had any time to do any of the things I normally do. Of course the fact that I got accidentally quite addicted to playing PS2 World Poker Tour online might have something to do with it. Last week I survived at an average of 4-hours of sleep a night… :| You won’t be laughing when I make my first poker million!
I think we both have this feeling of change (for the better hopefully) upon us and in the physical world it seems to involve a lot of tidying and de-junking and cleaning and that sort of thing. Mum came to help me sort out my wardrobe on Thursday. I got rid of SO much stuff. It’s like suddenly I saw clearly that I’d been holding on to all sort of rubbish which, supposedly, had some nostalgic value but in reality was just manky. It’s really nice to have just the stuff you actually WANT to wear in your closet. Practical things like that can feel surprisingly liberating.
Today we spent most of the day organising and cleaning as well. A very productive, if a bit tiring, day. I did cook a rather lovely roast dinner to make up for it. :)
The whole wedding planning thing has started sneaking its way into our life and is in danger of expanding and exploding out of control. We never wanted (nor can afford) a big wedding and we have to just keep on reminding ourselves of that! I’ll write what’s happening in the wedding blog once I’ve gathered my thoughts (and Stu has typed up the humongous to-do-list we came up with).
Oh yes and that there yummy looking smoothie-type drink is a first in what will hopefully be a series of me experimenting with my blender and photographing the best results, with the added bonus of giving out the recipe with the pictures. So look out for more of those in the future. :D
Saturday, 15 July 2006
Today’s strange experiment
We’re back home from our trip to Tampere and decided to just chill out tonight. Tomorrow we’ll try to cram in as much last minute panicking as possible.
Got these very strange things called Nutties from the shop. Apparently they’re ‘a tasty blend of peanuts and coconut shaped into a crunchy sphere’. Catchy eh. :P They have this sort of a coconutty shell which is hollow inside apart from a nut. What I don’t understand is, how they get the peanut in there?? They taste a bit weird as well… well, a lot weird.
Anyways, I’ll write an entry about the Suzanne Vega concert a bit later/possibly tomorrow. Have a headache at the moment and just want to relax a bit.
Tuesday, 6 June 2006
My service to the community
I have now completed my task of testing this summer’s liquorice/salmiak ice cream cones and I’m happy to say I’ve found a clear winner. But before I reveal it, let’s recap.
First I tried the old classic Pingviini Lakritsi cone. It’s nice as far as ice cream cones go, but it’s not particularly ‘liquoricy’. More like vanilla ice cream with some liquorice sprinkled on top. As pleasant as it is, it doesn’t really satisfy that salmiak craving.
Next I tried the Ingman ISO Lakristi cone (which I could not find a picture of). It was alright, but suffered from the same problem as the previous one. The liquorice was way too tame and sweet and there wasn’t really enough of it. Also, I think it was a bit too big for such a bland taste. Not to mention the wafer wasn’t any good.
I had high hopes for the Jättis Salmiakki cone since it’s had such a big and flamboyant advertising campaign. At first lick/bite it seemed like a winner, but then it got all out of hand… Where as the others had been way too tame, this one is truly only for hard-core salmiak fans, and it might be too much even for them. The ice cream itself is salmiak flavoured as well (and thus an ugly grey colour), which I thought was taking it a bit too far. Especially since it is so huge (way too big) in size, I think the taste is very much too strong. If the ice cream had been vanilla the salmiak in it would have tasted a whole lot better. I actually had trouble finishing this one!
This leaves us with the winner. Just as I was almost giving up hope, I bought the Pepe Original cone. And wow, what perfection! The ice cream is a lovely rich vanilla flavour and the liquorice chunks are satisfyingly salty. The wafer was the thickest one I’ve ever come acros and absolutely scrumptious. Not to mention that the whole thing comes with a delicious liquorice icing as well. (Also, a true testament to it’s salmiakky strength was the fact that Stu had to open the car window as apparently it smelled so bad. :D) 10/10
So there you go. I dare say I’ve saved you a whole lot of trouble right there. :D
Sunday, 30 April 2006
Today’s strange experiments
Kopparberg’s Blueberry cider. It was ok I suppose. Kinda bubbly and perky and fresh, if not particularly blueberryish in any way. Plus points for the pink colour. :D
Spicy Thai (with a touch of coconut oil :|) flavoured Pringles. Very strange indeed. A bit like having a curry in the form of a crisp. Go figure.
Not entirely sure if I bought these things just cause they looked nice together. Erm.
I was supposed to go to bed early so I’d have plenty of time in the morning to get my shit together for going on the cruise tomorrow. Then I got stuck watching Saturday Night Fever and now it’s suddenly past 2am again. Oh well. The coolest opening scene ever. What could I do.
Should probably consider bed now however. But first I gotta get S transferred from the sofa.