MmmmmMuffins with zucchini and cheddar

February 2013 I started eating oatmeal for breakfast. On the package of oats a recipe for (oat-)muffins is printed. It wasn't long before I tried this recipe, it was a success. I played around with the ingredients, adding (a lot) less sugar, trying different kinds of fats etc until the muffins were as tasty as possible with as little calories as possible.

Next thing, our local grocery store comes with ready-to-go muffin packages (just add egg, milk and butter), we tried them, they are nice, but not being able to control the amount of sugar bothers me. Adding suger to muffins spikes the calories through the roof, so in comes the idea of making savory muffins. 

In my home there was one zucchini laying around, begging to be made into muffins. In my head, the plan formed to cobine them with cheddar. Online I searched for zucchini-cheddar muffins, but was unable to find one that suited me. So I combined two, and improvised. 

The recipes I combined -thankyouverymuch ^^- are:
Zucchini Muffins Recipe by Janna McNeil, and
Savory Cheddar Zucchini Muffins by Pam-3BoysMama. 

So here is what I did. 

Savory Muffins with Zucchini and Cheddar 

for 12 muffins

1 Zucchini, peeled, grated

2 cups of plain flour (or use self-raising flour and forget about the yeast)

~5 grams of dried yeast

tsp. baking powder

tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup olive oil

~1/2 stick of margarine (or butter)

3/4 cup milk

Tsp. sole (you could use salt instead, but I prefer sole)

2 eggs

5 slices of cheddar cheese

Peel the zucchini and grate it above a large bowl. Add the 2 cups of flour along with the yeast and baking powder. Add a bit of nutmeg to taste. Give it all a good stir. 

Add the olive oil. Combine the margarine/butter with the milk in a cup and microwave for a minute so that the margarine is melted, and the milk is warm (not hot!), then pour it in the bowl. Give it all a good stir again. 

Now you can add the eggs and sole/salt to taste and stir it again until you feel it is a smooth batter. It should be rather fluid, like muffin batter is supposed to be. The last thing to do is add pieces of cheddar, you could also grate it, or pour the batter in the muffin cups and add cheddar on top... it's up to you basically. I made chucks of the 5 slices of cheddar and added those to te batter before pouring the muffins into the cups. 

Bake your muffins at 175°C (350 F) for 30-35 minutes. (Or as I did, 180°C for 30 minutes). 

Burning mandarins

A friend posted this image of a citrusfruit-oil-candle on facebook:

This is so amazingly simple, I had to try it out:

The cut is not as neat, and the stem is not in the middle, but hey, I have a working mandarin-candle!
Apparently the idea is from the '70s (ofcourse, hippies.). Here's a lovely how-to on instructables: http://www.instructables.com/id/Orange-Candle/. As I don't eat oranges, and enjoy smaller candles, the mandarin works just fine. As fuel, I used vegetable oil (it's cheap).
The 'amazing smell' mentioned in the first picture, but maybe it develops later, we'll see.

A happypotamus

Last week I finished my second Happypotamus. This ingenious crochet pattern by South African designer Heidi Bears is really easy to execute and makes the most happy hippo's ever. The first one I made a couple of months ago and was a birthday gift for my mother. This second one will go to my best friends' sister, who is expecting a baby boy in late January '14 (right around my own birthday).

Look at it, isn't it the cutest thing ever <3 <3.

The hippo is 53 cm long and 20 cm high, right about the size (or even slightly bigger) of a newborn baby!

I love making these hippo's, although a lot of work, they're just so beautiful when finished, and I'm sure to be making more for expecting parents!

Heidi also made many more creatures using the African flower pattern, her designs can all be found on her website: http://heidibearscreative.blogspot.nl/.

~Aimée

The discovery of steam cooking

For a long time I have had the strangest relationship with cooking. I don't particularly enjoy cooking in everyday life, however I do enjoy trying out all kinds of stuff in the kitchen. The process should be easy, quick, with maximum results. This year we got ourselves a slow (the irony - ha ha) cooker, it checks all the boxes: prep time is minimal and results are usuall great!
Inspiration for recipes I get from watching Masterchef (mainly Australia) and the 24kitchen channel. Earlier I have tried out Gary Mehigan's Osso Bucco recipe (we thought it was nice, but not spectacular), and last week got inspired by Jamie Oliver's Coconut Buns with Chicken in Hoisin sauce (presented in his 15 minute meals programme).

Even though I don't like the taste of coconut, I had to try this out: it's a new way of cooking (exciting), it's easy ánd quick - checking all the boxes! So the next day, we headed of to our nearest oriental supermarket for steaming baskets and hoisin sauce, and I found myself steaming Hoisin chicken. Jamie didn't lie, it was very tasty, and easy, and quick. So there'll be more steamed food tonight: lemon chicken. If that works out I will continue my search for more recipes. Any suggestions for steamed or slow cooked food recipes that work well are always welcome.


~Aimée

EMAG'13, Bratislava: Good food, games and a nuclear power plant

For the 3rd consecutive year (and the 4th time now) I have visited the EMAG (European Mensa Annual Gathering). An event lasting 5 days full of lectures, trips, workshops and social events. Each year another country hosts the event, making it very hard to compare them.

Bratislava, capital city of Slovakia, has not yet been discovered by tourists. I understand this, for me the city didn't bring a thrill. Sure the city center is nice, as is the Danube and the castle on the hilltop. However this all can be seen in one day. The other days were spent hanging out in a mall, outside on a terrace with a coke or playing games. The food I must say, is very tasty and affordable.

One of the high lights of the trip was visiting the Nuclear Power Plant Bohunice V2. Nuclear power has had my interest ever since I learned about it in high school. I like the view of cooling towers, I like how everyone has got an opinion on the topic, it's just overall excitement. So the option to go visit one made my whole trip to Bratislava worthwile. Even though the plant is not that spectacular. We got a one hour introduction and got to visit the new safety bunker, the part of the plant with steam turbines and the control room (which was actually awesome). We were not allowed to take any pictures but here are two I found online of the control room and the entire plant. 

Next year they will open a visitor center with options to 'control the plant' in a simulator... how cool is that!

~Aimée

Starting a blog

Obviously, as of 28 July '13 I have got a blog. For some time now I have felt that I needed a place to share all nice/crazy/silly/shitty things I encounter while browsing the internet and what other place should that be than a blog. So here it is.

As I start hardly anything without researching it first, of course I did some research on where to start a blog, I found this post to be very nice. The thought that blogger will be incorporated in google+ somehow scares me, but what is life without a thrill. I do not want to pay for extra's, so yes google, you've got me again!

~Aimée
p.s. additionally, a nice piece on fonts can be found here

Testing testing bzzzzt-over-

This is my blog, I am testing now, test test.