oh garlic, i love you!

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.

dish towel salad dressing

i am a frugal person living on a budget and i just HATE seeing food go to waste. especially since i usually buy the more expensive organic version of things.

would you throw your money in the composte bin?
i wouldn't either.

so i was wondering how i could handle my "salad problem" better. i often ended up eating bigbig portions of salad because i would fear i'd have to throw out a half eaten lettuce a few days later. i had to throw out several half eaten heads of lettuce nonetheless!


thank the fsm for apartment therapy and their food section "the kitchn". i recently tried their method on how to store greens and i have to say this approach is just perfect for me.


you should check that method out too and have crisp and fresh salad all week long!

restructuring. kitchen and life.

a while back there was this problem with the plumbing behind my kitchen cabinets. i didn't realise the subtlie leakage at first but as a weird smell developed after a few weeks ... yeah, let me spare you the disgusting details. believe me, you don't want me to paint you a picture of half rotten kitchen cabinets!

so i called the people from my local bulk rubbish service to pick up half of my kitchen (i usually would not touch mould with a pole, but i just had to put on my work clothes and get this disgusting stuff out of my space), i borrowed a car, drove to IKEA and bought some new kitchen counters.

after giving my empty kitchen a good goooood gooooooood and thorough cleaning - several times - and also treating myself to a mini diswasher (the first diswasher i own! EVER!) i now can show you my brand new kitchen with optimised storage and way more space.

i have to admit it is a bit high for a short person like me but nonetheless i love my new space because i wanted open counters for like forever.


as you can see i don't have a built in oven, i just pull out my electrical appliances from underneath. i love to keep things flexible like that and cooking here also works perfectly for me.

i am so going to buy this!

the yummy kitchen community device! (via techie diva)

"Yummy is a kitchen community device. It connects the kitchen to the cooking network and food blogosphere. It recommends you a good lunch, according to your food supply, current diet and receipes from the web. Yummy is specially designed for the kitchen. No waste of space : it fits on the wall. It is designed to enhance standing interactions (fast and simple operations) in the kitchen."

it recommends recipes based on your food supply, your diet, and recipes on the web. You can update your recipes by adding comments on the blog using the touchscreen and taking pictures from the plunging camera. It can also scan bar codes on products to add them to your house stock. yummy can also access media such as podcasts, video blogs, music, webtv, and skype.


it would be totally awesome to have a tool like this in the kitchen ...

no abstinence, no soup

not that i consider that daily dose of soup as "abstinence", but since there is no fasting on sundays during lent i thought that i should also pause my soup quest on sundays. i am totally craving some sweet biscuits instead. maybe with tea? yes, i'll make myself a decent pot of earl grey tea that go with the ...

anzac biscuits (i used this recipe, here is another one)

1 cup of oatmeal
1 cup of coconut shreds
1 cup of flour
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup butter (120 g)
1 tbsp syrup (the original recipe requires golden syrup, i used agave syrup)
1 tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp water

1. mix together oatmeal, coconut shreds, flour and sugar
2. melt butter and syrup in a saucepan
   
3. mix baking powder with the water and add to the butter and syrup
4. remove the saucepan from the stove and pour the mixture over the dry ingredients
5. make flat cookies and put them on baking paper. didn't exactly know how shape them evenly so i pressed them into a cookie cutter
   
   
   
6. bake at 150° - 160° for about 20 minutes
   
7. let cool on a rack
8. store in an airtight container (or in your belly)

makes exactly 69 (small) cookies ... they all may miraculously disappear in my mouth over the next few days ...

i first though anzac was a turkish word - it sounds really turkish to me anyway - but i quickly disovered that in fact this is australias national biscuit! how cool is that - i am such a huge fan of anything remotely connected to australia or new zealand!

the anzac biscuit seems to be perfect to satisfy my itch for something sweet. i don't have any fancy ingredients in stock at the moment, so i had to go with a pretty basic recipe. they taste lovely and will be the quick fix for my cravings on lazy sundays from now on!

yes, and i finally got myself some nice little imperial tools (thank you, ikea). converting measurements back and forth all the time is just not worth the fuss ... though i prefer metric over imperial - i just can not visualize imperial units! while i never had troubles with the old kids joke "what is heavier? a kilo of bricks or a kilo of feathers?" - a kilo is a kilo is a kilo, you stupid kids! stop thinking about volumes! (and yes, i was a bit of a geeky wise ass as a kid) ... but somehow i can not visualise "cups" in front of my mind's eye - weird, huh?