Spinach Pancakes

For some reason I do not fancy sweet pancakes. Somehow the batter doesn't work for me. But fill it with spinach and I'm satisfied. 

Pancake batter (5 pancakes):

• 300ml milk
• 3 eggs
• 150g flour
• a pinch of salt

Pancake filling:

• 300g frozen spinach (doesn't matter if it's leaf or chopped)
• 1 small onion
• 5 cloves of garlic 
• some oil
• salt, pepper or any other spice of choice
• 100g greek yoghurt 
• plus some cheese (I chose parmesan) for the topping

1) Heat up your frying pan and start pouring your pancakes on it. I manage to make 5 from this much. I use non-stick pan but if you don't have it, make sure you butter it before pouring your pancake in.

2) Preheat your oven to 200°C.

3) In a different pan heat up the oil and add chopped onion and garlic. When it starts to get golden color, add your frozen spinach and wait for it to melt. Stir it every once in a while. When it's done, lower the temperature and stir in the yoghurt and add as much salt and pepper as you like. 

4) Prepare your baking pan - grease it with either butter or olive oil. 

5) Take one pancake and spread one fifth of the spinach on it. Roll it and put it in your baking pan. Repeat till all the pancakes are in there. 

6) Cover it with as much cheese as you like. 

7) Bake it till it starts getting brown at the edges. (15-20 minutes)

50 Shades of Red ... part 5

You didn't think last time was actually the last time, did you? I still have a ton of products to try and compare. So, let's get this over with so that I can start using the other lipsticks I somehow acquired ;-)=

Ok, let's start. I chose them randomly, since they are all different brands. Don't look for hidden meanings in their order, okay? 

The most wine-y color from the set is Manic Panic's Black Rose. I love the shade. It's cool how it changes. One swipe of the lipstick is enough when it comes to pigmentation, so adding layers means deepening the tone. When it comes to staying power, if you have a couple of layers on then it's quite good. One layer will be eaten instantly. But if you only talk and sip some drink every now and then, then it looks still fresh for hours. Maybelline's Coral Diamonds sparkle. It looks wet all the time and the color goes to the orange-y/brown side. It's not super-pigmented but it can build up. Somehow the glittery parts in it ensure something always stay on you even if you eat so that's not bad. And the last from the first set is Rimmel's 01 from that Kate Collection. Just one layer will give you enough color to be satisfied. When you talk, it stays put. But the first drink or food will make it betray you. Since it's so pigmented, you can clearly see your pink lips showing through once you have eaten.

Next is 42 by Make Up For Ever. I like the shade which is warm-toned. The staying power is decent when one only talks and drinks but the food test will show that it can be easily eaten if you don't pay attention. Red Flame by NYC has a lot of pink shimmer in it so that it doesn't look red at all. And since it looks more like my lip color, no one notices it partially disappears when I eat. It's the most wearable color from all I'm going to mention today - I mean, I wear them all to work but for those who are afraid of loud colors, this one is for them. My Red Card by Catrice was the biggest let down from all of these. Since it wasn't the cheapest of them I thought it would hold better. It is supposed to be more luxurious line by the same company which produces Essence so I thought it would be better. But it wasn't. Twice as expensive as Essence lipsticks and absolutely no staying power. One sip of a drink at it was mostly on the glass. Even super cheap 140 (btw, I love the brick-y color) by S-he held longer than one sip!

So, that's it for today. There were definitely surprises in this, so let's take a final look at the colors indoor and outdoor while I prepare next chapter ;-)=

Banana Currant Muffins

I tried some rather healthy muffins alternative. "Healthy" being the operative word because some people say these things can never be healthy but whatever, it's what you think, not what it really is as one of my students pointed out the other day when we were talking about diets and healthy lifestyle. His contribution to the conversation was: "Look at me, I'm skinny. I only eat sugary things and junk food. And because I don't think it's bad for me I don't get fat from it." So, I think these are healthy, therefore nothing bad can happen from their consumption, right? ;-)=

You' ll need (15 muffins):

• 350g whole wheat barley flour
• 1 tea spoon soda
• 3 table spoons agave syrup
• 60g brown sugar
• 2 ripe bananas
• 60g greek yoghurt
• 1 egg
• 180ml oat milk
• 2 handfuls frozen currants

1) Preheat your oven to 180°C.

2) Mash the bananas or chop them to tiny little pieces.

3) Mix all the ingredients together. 

4) Pour it into your muffin cups to 3/4 -> soda makes them go up so count with that, you don't want them to overpour, do you? (I bought silicone muffin cups recently so I don't need to butter them, they are not sticky, but if you only have your muffin pan and don't use muffin paper cups to line them with, you better use oil or butter and some flour to prepare them prior to pouring the mixture in).

5) Bake for 20 minutes.

George R. R. Martin: Fevre Dream

So, there is this captain who knows a great deal of boats and has this dream boat in his head and no money. And there is this vampire who needs a boat but knows nothing of boats. So they meet and create quite odd friendship. Sure, the captain doesn't know what creature he is dealing with but very soon things start to fall in place. Since peole start missing and stuff like that :-)=

The story is very gripping, sometimes you feel like you are reading some local color author rather than one of the fanasy masters of our time. Even though I am not a fan of boats the passages about racing steamboats weren't boring at all. 

Vampires in this universe show their fangs and it wouldn't be Martin if there weren't some gruesome scenes (yummy baby, anyone?). However, the fight of good and evil is nicely balanced and the vampires don't come out as total heroes or total monsters. After so many romances I've read it's a refreshing story. The relationship between the captain and the vampire is very realistic and this whole "vampires are slaves to their thirst" thingy made sense. The same goes for them not trying to interfere with human lives. Not turning their human best friends no matter how painful their death may be for them.

GENRE: fantasy I guess

FANGS OUT: the people who understand traditional vampiric nature are still out there

FANGS RETRACTING: you know I don't like history

TOTAL SCORE:

Crunchy Cookies with a Soft Core

Seriously, there are cookies which are crunchy on the outside but once you get to the inside, they retain their moisture. That's a heavenly combintaion. Plus they look great with all those cracks and sugar which sparkles in the light. Wanna try? Well, here's the recipe, of course! 

You'll need (20 cookies):

• 250g flour
• 1 tea spoon baking soda
• 2 tea spoon corn starch
• 170g butter
• 250g sugar (plus some extra sugar to roll the cookies in it)
• 1 egg
• 2 tea spoon vanilla extract

1) Mix everything together (make sure you have very soft or totally melted butter).

2) Cool for about 2 hours in the fridge or make use of the winter weather and put it for a half an hour on the balcony.

3) Preheat your oven to 180°C.

4) Make balls from the dough and roll them in white sugar (I chose dark sugar and whole grain flour for the dough so I'm using white sugar to roll it in as a contrast). Put them on your baking sheet. Make sure there is distance between them, they will melt to the sides.

5) Bake them for 9 minutes. If they are not crackly and flat enough after this time, take a fork and press them down so that they are flat and have more cracks in them.

6) Then bake for 2 more minutes.

7) Let them cool on the baking sheet - don't try to remove them because they are very soft when they get out of the oven. Once they cool down they will become solid and you can move them as you like.

Anne Rice: Interview with the Vampire

When I was pre-ordering a paperback copy of Prince Lestat, the newest installment of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles no one saw coming, that imaginary bulb lit up above my head. Did I mention the beginning of Lestat’s journey on my blog? Nope. So after I thought I was done with all the primary literature from my thesis I had to recall all the stuff again. Not that going back to Rice’s world is something one can forget.

But I was disappointed with myself because Anne Rice is the reason why I speak English. When I was a kid I decided I liked vampires best from all those spooky monsters I read about. So after I read everything about them in my local library and started getting more decent pocket money, I started buying books. Internet was quite unfamiliar back then (we paid unbelievable amount of money per hour!) so from my expensive research I found out that there was this “mother” of vampires writing supposedly awesome books and from all those books only a handful was translated to Czech (like the Witching Hour which didn’t include what I wanted). So I bought the first three books in the Vampire Chronicles in English online and waited till my English was good enough to comprehend. It took the whole grammar school to finally open the books and understand but it was worth it. So, Interview with the Vampire is a very dear book to me. I just don’t see the flaws. You can’t want a bad review from me, sorry. It has sentimental value...

So, this is how it began... An author came up with the idea of bringing more “human” vampires to literature. A farewell was given to the nosferatu tradition Europeans came up with, America needed moster-heroes, not just monsters one couldn’t relate to.

And so we embarked on a journey with the most loved/hated vampire. Lestat. In this particular book he is a villain, stealing free choices from the ones around him. The story is well-build and the characters are believable -  that was the whole point, I guess. It’s a great introduction into Rice’s magnificent universe where sophisticated vampires thrive and share their stories. One can’t wonder why other authors took her portrayal of vampires and used it. But unlike her followers, Rice has something more in her books apart from great stories. There is this “je ne sais quoi”. Well, maybe I know what - the transcendence. There are moral, philosophical, and religious battles the charactes have to fight which make the book(s) outstanding. 

GENRE: gothic horror

FANGS OUT: now a classic one must read to understand the development of vampires in literature

FANGS RETRACTING: no flaws detected

TOTAL SCORE:

Red bean and chickpea burger

There are those times I avoid meat like plague. It happens time to time and it lasts from a few days to a few months. It's unpredictable and when it happens, I usually run out of food options because my local supermarket doesn't offer much variety in fruits and veggies section. So I wind up eating legumes a lot for lunch and desperately need some cool recipes to keep my appetite at bay. I came up with a resemblance of burger which is super easy to make and delicious to eat.

You will need (4 burgers):

• 1/2 cup red beans (black beans look better in it but I ran out of them, so red it is)
• 1/2 cup chickpea
• 4 buns (buy whichever you want, or make your own, it's up to you)
• 1 avocado
• 4 tea spoons sour cream
• 1 onion
• some lettuce leaves, tomatoes, cucumber
• dry garlic
• rosemary, basil, thyme, salt

1) Leave the beans and chickpeas soak in water overnight (it will reduce their softening time later).

2) Cook the beans and chickpeas in one pot (they are ready at the same time, so no need for two separate pots) till they are so soft you can mash them with a fork.

3) Mash them with a fork :-)= I prefer to leave a part of it quite intact to add nice texture to it but if you like it soft, you can even go ahead and use a food processor.

4) Add rosemary, basil, thyme (or that herbs de provence mix) and salt - this is up to you how much. I usually end up adding about two spoonfuls of the herbs and one of salt.

5) Then create a burger resembling patties and stir-fry from both sides to make a crunchy top.

6) Take a ripe avocado and again, just a fork should do. Mash till you have a nice smooth texture; add the sour cream, a bit of salt, and a pinch (or two) of dry garlic. 

7) Chop the onion, tomatoes, and cucumber. Tear the lettuce. Cut the buns in half.

8) Assembly as you like. It should go like this: bottom half of the bun-> avocado spread-> lettuce, onion, cucumber-> patty-> tomato -> avocado spread on the top half of the bun. Yum!

I went nuts

My friend and I are sitting in the living room, talking about nothing and everything as usual when I suddenly recall a thing I wanted to show her. I reach into the fruit bowl and take out a peanut which is oddly shaped and that's why I haven't eaten it yet. I want it to be famous for its deserved 15 minutes (or whatever it takes to show everyone) and then eat it...

So I hold it in front of my friend's face and say: "Look! A kiwi!"

My friend shifts uncomfortably, probably thinking I finally went over the edge. You know, that one between sanity and lunacy.

"No, really, it's a kiwi!" I say, swinging it in front of her face from a different angle so that maybe this time she can recognise the shape.

"It's a peanut." 

"No, look closely! It looks like that frickin' bird!"

"Oh, God! Yes! I thought you thought the fruit." And she realxes, probably abandoning her improptu plan how to excuse herself from our meeting and how to never see me again.