Nothing August 17, 2008
Posted by tuimeltje in administrative, food.Tags: administrative, randomness
3 comments
No food pictures this time. Just an apology for my absence and less than speedy response to comments. With the catsitting, I’ve been away from my own computer. While my aunt’s laptop functions just fine (with the exception of her pointlessly wireless mouse, but I solved that by bringing my own USB mouse), I can’t seem to get to actually posting anything.
Strange, that.
I’ve been cooking, though. My aunt has an oven, so I made some things with it that didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped (more on that later), a microwave for making hot chocolate, and she a decent freezer I shouldn’t get too attached to (more on that later also). I’ve also had vegan haggis (another gift from Sinead), which is fun food, with baked potatoes, which are just excellent.
There’s also this green thing I had today…
Anyway, more about all of that later. With pictures, and everything.
As far as the moving goes, I’ve still not moved properly. There’s some painting that needs to be done, which requires some help as it involves a ceiling, and after that some carpet needs replaced. Uhm, and packing. Still need to do me some of that.
With all this actual responsible housekeeping and living together I’ll be doing in the near future, I figured I should be making attempts to get some sort of organised. I’ve had this urge before, but earlier attempts generally met with little success. This time, though, I’m starting an actual home management binder. One which isn’t nearly as decorated or inspirational as the ones other people have made (the closest thing to decoration so far is the highlighters I used) because I don’t really care about those bits and no matter how much other other binder people emphasise the need for beauty and inspiration, I’m not going to cave to peer pressure. I’m too lazy for all that scrapbooking stuff and to me, elaborate dainty borders on some weekly schedule printable are just a waste of ink.
I made sure to pick a pretty binder, though. The blue Rijksmuseum thing from HEMA. But that’s just fun.
While I’m not sure yet, I think this’ll work much better for me than doing everything on the computer. This binder is much more direct. This most convenient periodic table cleaning chart (PDF file) actually has me geeking out over basic cleaning!
Weird.
There’s a first for everything, I guess.
Linked August 5, 2008
Posted by tuimeltje in breakfast, food.Tags: fruit, project, randomness
9 comments
I’m rock! Apparently. Which is why Sinead thought I should have this:
Brillant, eh?
I think I’m supposed to pass it on, so here goes.
Janet, because she writes in an informative and very accessible way about Chinese (Cantonese) food which makes me want to try and make some of those things.
Tofufreak‘s blog is making me want to do all kind of sweet things to beans, which makes me happy.
Bonnie and VeggieGirl because they make me want to bake things.
Renee, because she writes about gluten-free vegan things that are proper meals, not only the sweet treats.
To continue with the linkage, a most interesting list of red, white, or Swiss foods can be found here. While I enjoyed making and eating the müesli, it looks a little boring when compared to some of the things others made. There are some truly stunning things there.
Still, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with müesli, does it? So I made it again. After all, I’ve had the oats for a while now and I’m still trying to do that pantry thing.
This time I used more oats and let them soak an entire night, which is supposed to be a good thing. And because it was meant for breakfast and I’m always rather rushed and unable to properly prioritise in the morning, I subbed a banana for the grated apple. I also added some cranberries. I had planned to use some dried coconut, but I couldn’t find it. I’m sure I still have some somewhere, though. Weird.
Picture:
While the fruit added was nice, I think I used too much water for the soaking. While it looked good, it tasted a little too diluted. I almost added some sweetener to it. Next time I’ll either soak it in less water or soak it in part water/part soyamilk. Maybe that’ll taste better.
Swiss Food July 29, 2008
Posted by tuimeltje in breakfast, food.Tags: festive, randomness, swiss
4 comments
Because August 1st is a relevant day in the life of me and I wanted to live in Geneva after visiting it just once, I thought I’d play along with Zorra’s Swiss National Day event.
Either make something Swiss, or make something red and/or white.
My knowledge of Swiss foods doesn’t extend beyond rösti, müesli, cheese, chocolate, fondue, and some mysterious dish generally referred to as “raclette” which I suspect involves cheese, but that won’t stop me.
With the recent trip and the moving and me finding out about it relatively late, this is going to be something simple. Initially I wanted to make some rösti because I love that stuff and unlike the other Swiss foods I know about, it’s vegan by default. However, when looking for some instructions, I came across this lovely recipe video mentioning something about chilling the potatoes overnight being necessary. And with the deadline being today, well, that wouldn’t have worked.
It also taught me Dutch people tend to mispronounce rösti, even when they remember the ümlaut.
So I googled for a bit, working my way through a variety of NOT VEGAN meat-and-potato-and often-also-cheese dishes before realising I’d probably best stick to some traditional Birchermüesli. While I’ve spent a good many mornings breaking my fast with something the label insisted was, in fact, müesli, or at the very least muesli or even cruesli, I don’t recall ever eating anything like the original version.
So. No time like the present, eh? And what better occasion than Swiss celebration.
While there are many variations, I figured I’d best start with the basics, which also serves the purpose of this post best.
Some of the recipes I found specified that the apples should be the sour sort. While I like my apples, I’m not sure which ones are generally seen as sour, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the Granny Smith was on that list. I just got whatever organic local kind I could find at the supermarket, which ended up a good old-fashioned jonagold.
What I made:
How I made it:
-Soaked a tablespoon of oats in three tablespoons of water and a tablespoon of (bottled, not freshly squeezed) lemon juice.
-Let it stand for a while.
-Added a tablespoon of soyamilk.
-Cut a jonagold apple, with my Swiss Army knife of course, and shredded it over the oats.
-Mixed it all up.
-Ate it, enjoyed it.
I think I may have messed up with the quantities somewhere. I ended up with a little bit of oatmeal-like stuff and a lot of grated apple.
As for some more random Swiss-ness, mixing it up with some veg*an-ness, there’s this vegetarian restaurant, Hiltl, in Zürich, which is over a hundred years old. I want to visit it.
And to mix random Swiss-ness up with some lovely piping, something I loved before I even knew about veganism, I give you this, a video of an old Swiss bagpipe.
Pinta July 6, 2008
Posted by tuimeltje in food.Tags: eta, legumes, randomness
6 comments
I think I may have actually found a bag of dried pinto beans! (I also found a random wandering irishman busking on the streets and he sang so lovely I could not resist buying the CD he was selling. Albert Niland’s YouTube channel, if you’re interested)
The exotic supermarket near my parents sells a good bunch of dried beans and one variety was labeled alubia pinta. However, just below that it goes on about haricots borlotti, which would make them pretty much the same as those rosecoco beans I’ve had laying around.
I’m so confused!
When I got home I looked up pictures, but since both are speckled and have similar colours, I couldn’t really tell the difference. I guess I’ll see when I get home. It’d be cool if they really were pintos, though. I’d love to make me some proper refried beans. Still, if they’re technically not, I’ll just cheat.
ETA: I just checked the possibly-pintos against the rosecocos, and the rosecocos, while also speckly, are a fair bit darker in their non-speckly bits, so there’s a good chance they’re different beans. Maybe.
I’ll have to see if there’s a taste difference, I suppose.
No Grape July 1, 2008
Posted by tuimeltje in dinner.Tags: gluten-free, legumes, pantry meal, project, randomness, soup
2 comments
Another soup. Pumpkin, two small onions, two wrinkly, sprouty carrots, a bunch of black-eyed peas (easy protein), and two sweet potatoes. I think they were, at least. One was properly pink inside, like the ones I’m used to, but the other one, the one I got at a toko while looking for grape jam*, while similar-looking on the outside, saw fit to be an entirely different colour under the skin. As such things confuse me, I’m no longer sure they were supposed to be the same thing.
Not that it matters much in the end, I used them the same way. Cook until soft and sic my immersion blender at them.
Food like this makes me happy I chose to buy that 5l pan recently. There’s no way I could’ve comfortable fit all of this in my small pan.
Soup:
I call it soup, but most people might not, the way it’s that thick. I added some water later on which made it more soup-like but still pretty thick and satisfying. I had it with some bread, but it’s perfectly good without if you want to avoid gluten.
And now for something completely different.
I’ve been going through my cupboard for a bit recently and decided that maybe it’s time for another pantry project. I have managed to aquire a good bit of food I simply don’t use and I still don’t have anything even approaching a meal plan, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do this again.
With some slight modifications, perhaps.
A little less strict, with me being allowed to buy some basic fruit and/or veg things necessary to make something decent out of what I already have, but still eating in a way that somehow uses food I already have rather than newly bought stuff.
This’ll probably mean eating a lot of noodly pasta things, since I have this tendency to buy that occasionally and to not eat it, but I can live with that.
And beans. I get entirely too excited about finding some cool dried beans and buy them only to be too lazy to properly soak and cook them for actual use.
Not sure when I’ll start exactly, probably later this week, perhaps next week.
*For no identifiable reason, I suddenly found myself having this bizzare craving for grape jam, something I don’t remember actually ever even eating. I’m blaming Americans for this, with their PB&J, considering the grape variety a tradtional one for the J (is this actually true? I learn this stuff by cultural osmosis, so it might be somewhat inaccurate). Around here few people seem to even know it exists, and I’ve been scowering tokos for the stuff with no luck.
No luck finding pinto beans, either. Rosecoco beans, yes, but no pintos. I should see if there’s a South American-specific toko somewhere…
Twigs and Tofu 