I'm working on two sewing projects at the moment - a 
sleeveless top and a long skirt. Both have to be finished 
tomorrow (oh wait.. it's already Saturday, so they have to 
be finished by evening), cause I want to wear them on the 
choir performance on Sunday. I started last Saturday, but 
haven't got the time to finish them this week. My kitchen 
(where I sew because of the bigger table) is a completely 
chaos - even more than my usual chaos.



Talking about chaos... remember the disaster that struck
Japan last year? They are still recovering and still need help.
A ceramic artist started a Help Japan Project last year -
that was when I got my birds. This time she starts the Help 
Japan Project 2, thus if you want to help (and get similar
birds or.. - nah, I won't reveal it here..), please take a look
at her last post how to do so.


Birds by Maki; coaster was a souvenir from a dear friend

Yesterday I went to the museum, and let me guided through
the exhibition of a forgotten artist. Her work is stunning and
her life is so sad - somehow I could feel for her.

Afterwards I went to the Cathedral - up to the tower for the
first time. The view is amazing, even if it was still cloudy
when I was up there. Here are some of the pics I took and
you could see more here.

Back home I was hungry, but didn't got anything to cook
quickly, as I planned to get my hands on soba. Thus my
hunger has to wait. Making soba is not as it looks like (I
read some instructions and watched a few videos the night
before). The mixing part is not the problem, as I am used to
kneed my noodle dough with my hands, but the rolling and
cutting parts are tricky. I tried to roll it out using the pasta
machine, but I was afraid, that it'd break, so I went back
to do it by hand. As the result my soba was all short and
thick ^_^

In my soba:

180g buckwheat flour

20g corn starch

300ml hot water (or 250ml? add little by little)

a pinch of salt (normally, it doesn't belong to soba, I think)

a pinch of matcha powder

It was time to harvest some strawberries today before the
slugs, insects and birds eat them all up.



I also pulled and picked some greens - borage and lemon
balm. My garden is full of borage. They sowed themselves.
Each year more and more, since I wasn't able to pull them
out as soon as they started to bloom - the bees & bumble-
bees love them so and I love bees & bumble-bees.



A friend was so kind to cook chicken soup and brought me
some last week. I don't want to bring the boxes empty back
to her. So I was thinking of bringing her some strawberries.
But the strawberries were not sweet at all - too much rain
and too little sunshine. So I decided to make chutney and
fill it up in glass jars.



I had the rest of the chutney for dinner with some baked
potatoes - yumm!



In the chutney:
Strawberries - cut the big ones in halves
Ginger
Onion
Chili - with the seeds
Sugar
Lemon balsamico
Cidre vinegar
Salt
Pinch of cardamom seeds
Pinch of Black caraway seeds
Pinch of dried Rosemary
Lemon balm

For the baked potatoes: mix sweet paprika, cumin, salt and
pepper with olive oil, put the potato wedges in and mix until
all well covered with the mixture. Bake them in 220°C oven
for about half an hour until they are golden.

I loved my mom's ikan pepes. She used averrhoa bilimbi
and they makes her ikan pepes so special. I miss Indonesia
a lot at the moment, especially the food (of course, my son
would say, only food in my head lol). Looking at what I
have in the fridge, I decided to do my own take on ikan 
pepes for lunch..



... and failed shamelessly! lol I don't know - either I used
too much lime (as substitute for the bilimbis) or my tongue
hasn't been able to taste everything right. I could taste the
hotness of the chilli, although it was not as hot as I expected
using two chilis, but I couldn't taste the sourness at all - only
the bitterness (the last rice cakes I ate yesterday was also
bitter instead of sweet). Weird!

But at least I had some fun with my kitchen waste while I
was waiting for the fish to cook ;-)

In the past weeks I've been eating much more meat than
I usually did. Although one bad experience with a butcher
weeks ago reminded me that it's time to reduce it again,
somehow I couldn't stop carving for meat dishes. Yet, I
am no longer willing to buy anything from that butcher
anymore. I need an alternative.

I remember, my grandma used to have vegetarian days and
eat fake meat dishes. As I was more a vegetarian than I am
now, I used to taste them too and I had to say, I liked fake
meat.


top: before and after cooking the dough
below: fake chicken in murgh badami style


After watching some videos and reading some posts about
homemade seitan, I finally tried to make my own to cook
murgh badami (or rather a murgh badami inspired dish). I
start with wheat gluten, instead of flour - it saved me time
(and water).

My homemade seitan was too chewy, especially the bigger
pieces. The smaller pieces was better (although my son was
still not convinced - he's rather a real meat lover). I need to
do some experiments to improve the texture. Isn't cooking
fun? :-)

Making (Chinese style) noodles or pasta has become a ritual
in my off-days lately, like today or on Sundays.



After trying some different recipes, today I slightly modified
her recipe and think, I finally find a mix I prefer for my pasta
- not too stiff and not too soft.

300 g wheat flour (type 450)
50 g wholemeal semolina
3 eggs (size L)
ca. 1 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt

This is the first time I made tagliatelle. I normally don't like
this kind of pasta. But after making ravioli for the my son
and his friends, I still had sauce left and somehow it was
calling out loud for tagliatelle.



Ingredients I used in the sauce (no sugar needed, if using
a lot more tomato puree, which I ran out of...):

1 garlic clove
1 onion
1 pepperoni
1 red bell pepper
1 leek
2 carrots
300 g ground meat
2 Tbsp tomato puree
690 g passata
olive oil
sugar
salt
pepper
nutmeg
paprika powder
oregano
basil

Can't tell you the amount of the spices though (it's already
a magic, that I still remember what I put in - ha!), since it's
a tasting-and-adding thing. I'd advice you to do the same.
I think, that's one of the fun part of cooking: the taste of the
food reflects the mood of the cook. And my mood today
was a good one :-)

My food today yesterday* spun around spinach and noodle.

Remember my first attempt in making fish balls? I used frozen
fish and thought that was (one of) the reason of my failing.
I took another chance today yesterday.



I used this recipe for inspiration, but I played a bit with the
amount of the cornstarch. The consistency of the balls are
not yet perfect. See those tiny loose parts in the water? I
ran out of cornstarch after I cooked the test ball and realized
it was too soft. I added a little bit of flour, but obviously still
not enough...



Nevertheless I was finally able to enjoy a meal I was longing
for since last month. Homemade egg noodles with fish balls,
shrimps, shiitake and spinach (lacking Asian greens ;-)).

The spinach I used was frozen spinach, so I still had some
left over. Luckily I remember a recipe I wanted to try for a
while: homemade ravioli (the pasta machine was still on the
table anyway).

I didn't have Ricotta, but I have milk and lemon, so I made
paneer to substitute it (made it once here). I didn't use egg
for the filling - I simply forgot to add the leftover egg white.
I mixed the flour with some wholemeal semolina, so the final
result was a bit umm... "leathery". Yet the taste: heavenly!!
- even without the sage and butter sauce.




For my son I made some ravioli only with paneer (and salt),
as he doesn't like spinach nor parmesan. He loved the ravioli
too. This dish will certainly be on our plates regularly ^_^

___
*) Typing too long and suddenly it's Monday already. Enjoy
your week! :-)

I made some samosas using this dough recipe for the second
time. As for the filling I mainly took only potato and peas.
They taste great plain, but even better with chutney... yumm!!!

When I bought the fish yesterday, it was because I wanted
to eat a bowl of noodle soup with fish balls. In the evening
I read a few beef/chicken/fish ball recipes and noodle recipes
for some ideas.

So I ground the fish this morning, mixed it with salt and pepper
and a little bit egg white, which was difficult to portion of
course and thus too much. Instead of making balls I decided to
put it in a foil, made a roll.

While the fish roll was in the steamer, I started to make the
noodle. This was the ground recipe, but I added the leftover
egg yolk, some more flour and a little bit oil. After letting the
dough rest for a while I let it through the noodle machine a few
times before I finally let it through the spaghetti cutter. The
result: the perfect egg noodles!!!



Now back to the fish. It's certainly the most boring fish thing.
Far away from the delicious fish balls I was imagining!! :(

But suddenly I had an idea what to do. I cut the fish roll in
slices and fried them. Along some Chinese cabbage and
Ramiro pepper and basted with hot vinegar sauce, I got a
Pempek inspired lunch :)



Now I need some elves to help me wash the huge pile of
pans, bowls and plates...

*

A nice source with some live music videos.

Sorry for the overload of food posts this weekend, but I
simply gotta celebrate the return of my senses :) It's so
good to be able to smell and taste again!!!


Yesterday's dinner


Tea time on Sunday (the recipe)

It's getting better. With the illness as well as with the knife.
Not really good yet, but better. There's a perspective, right?



Wishing you a lovely weekend!

polenta bread

Bound at home over the weekend because of the fever and 

running out of bread for tomorrow, I luckily still had a sachet 

of leaven. I didn't have rye flour for the recipe on the sachet, 

but I found a package of polenta and a bit of whole wheat 

flour - time for an experiment! And here's the result..

siomay

Siomay - that's how we called this dumpling in Jakarta. This
one is a non-pork version though.

Sorry, no "after" photo - they're gone too fast..

calling for spring

It feels like spring the last days. It's still cold, but the sun
has come out (living near the lake has some bright sides,
but the dark side is certainly the abundance on gray - cloudy
or foggy - days not and those only in winter). So, I guess,
it's the light I have to blame for my action in the kitchen
today.

I was preparing our lunch (turning leftovers from a raclette
day last weekend into spicy, mixed rice vermicelli), when I
suddenly had to interfere my cutting action and play with
the leek slices instead.



The shape of the leek slices (don't they look like tulips?)
and my mood because of the weather was simply calling for
spring.



Hope, you're having a lovely weekend too...

good friday

While my tulips from last week are withering, my son's
friend brought me some fresh ones as a thank.



And then they went together to pick some ramsons in the
wood. Mmm.. ramsons is one of the reasons why I love
spring :)

the next day

I should have posted this yesterday actually..

This is how the colors turned out, if I made flower
beads using the glass rods I've made on Wednesday -
the greens come out lighter.



I've used the darker green one in my Trifiori necklace
"into the ocean".




...

Guess what.. I of course couldn't ruin the arrangement
right away and look at that smiling face I've found on
the next morning...


I think, she's happy to stay there over the night ;)

And now I think, I'm going to bed early (earlier than
usual) tonight, since I feel like getting sick - headache,
muscle pain, stiff neck (which doesn't go even if I
already slept on the warm pillow last night) and
burning eyes. Well, surrounded by sick people I guess,
it was only a matter of time till I get the virus as well,
but let's hope I could keep it down.

Anyway... Happy Weekend, everyone!

being a mom

As a mom I am often in doubt, if I'm a good one. I often
asked myself, either I've been too afraid of too many
things, making my boy less confidence of himself, either
I've given him good examples not only in everyday life
(my chaos is certainly not a good one *sigh*), but also
in the value of life. Either I've been spending enough
time with him, either it's fair to let him do something,
etc. etc. I realized, many of my questions were based of
the Indonesian and German cultural diversity I've
experienced in my own life. That on top of the general
insecurity and perfectionist in me of course.

For nearly every job in the world one can learn it before
doing the job, but not for being a mom. Where is that
manual for the child?? I was so desperate sometimes.
And with the child housework suddenly turned into big
questions - e.g.: why cleaning, when it's dirty again the
next minute? Or will the mountain of laundry ever turn
into a hill? My parents had a housemaid to do the house-
work, so I never needed to do it (it's not an argument
though - my sister is very good in housework).

Or cooking! Even if we had cooking lesson alternating
with the woodworking lesson at the junior high school
(guess, which lesson I loved most..), I think, I've only
have cooked 2 or 3 times in Jakarta. I never had interest
in cooking. Only in eating :P My mom was and still is
a good cook. She must had tough times with us. Every
time she asked us, what we wanted to eat the next day,
nobody came up with an idea. If she then suggested
something, the answer was always no. Poor mom - she
often had to cook different meals to satisfy the other 4
family members! Compared to my mom I have an easy
job with my one and only boy.



Today I'm so proud of my son. He cooked some tortellini
for lunch for us and baked the foccacia for the dinner all
by himself! No help from me except for taking the hot
baking tray out of the oven. The idea came from himself
and I wasn't worry for a second or standing around to give
him advice (I was too busy ;)). Boy, he's spoilt me - what
a lucky mom I am!!!



This was the reason, why I was busy: our 'new' wall
system. It's 2nd hand from the thrift store for 83 Euro
incl. transporting and assembling. It has some scratches
and dints, but I'm so happy about it, as the living room
is full with unmatched furnitures up till now (you can see
two shelves on the glass door). And it reminds me of the
feeling as I've visited my grandpa in Holland for the first
time in the 80s.

Last not least.. you've got to watch this video. I'm crying.
It's so amazing in just every way. She is so amazing! Watch
the reactions of everybody before and after. SO touching.
Now really bedtime for me and I'm wishing you a Happy
Weekend!!

7 things

7 days have gone by since my last post. Somehow my
mind was in a quiet modus. Even if I wanted to share
many thing with you, I was not able to put it in words.

But now, 7 things to share:

1. I worked in the garden with my boy lately. We filled
3 more buckets with weeds (this time from the garden
on the back part of the house), but still no end in sight.
I should work in the garden each day to get it done, but
my old body didn't want to (I need to do more exercise!!).
I sometimes only collected the dandelions from the garden
- looking nice to the other flowers. Weed or not weed they
look beautiful to me.



Yesterday I cut rose for the first time in my life. I've
heard often about it's difficulty, so I've read a pile of
books before I started. I hope, I didn't do it wrong.
The front garden is starting to look better now :)

2. I think, I'm more relaxed lately. I let the boys made
some breads without worrying too much as I would have
done otherwise. I helped them only with the dough at
the end phase. The perfectionist in me must have gone
a little bit ;)



3. Two spontaneous speedy actions lately (got the idea
and done it within a very short time): I've moved the
furniture in my bedroom around and made a new cover
for the swivel chair. It went so fast, that I didn't even
thought of taking photo from the very beginning. I was
surprising myself!



4. I've organized my reader lately and unsubscribed
some blogs, because it became too much to read. I often
opened my reader and more than 200 posts were
waiting for me! So, I practice myself in selecting. Not so
easy.

Two of my favorite blogs lately are Zen Habits and
Goodlife Zen. I forgot, how I've stumbled upon Brian
Kim's blog, but I found it worth a read. My journey is
still going on and these blogs provide me with food for
thought.

5. Have I told you, that I love comics? First I was just
following a link in a blog, as I suddenly discover more
interesting things along Jon Klassen's site itself:

• crazy dumbsaint
• the Flight
• Copper and the-making-of

A great video, made by Jon Klassen and Dan Rodrigues.

6. If you haven't done it yet, there is still a chance to
win a bookmark from Elizabeth (she will pick the winner
today) and a Kreativlink's journal in Megan's blog
giveaway.

7. I'm going to color some egg now (my son is coming
back tomorrow :)).

Happy Easter to you, who celebrate it :)