Frame it all!

I used to have for many years all my earings and necklesses in a box... It was a bit of a mess each time I wanted to get something out of the box. The other downside was also that I would oversee some really really nice stuff I'd have in the very bottom corner of the box. 

A few months ago I was at a friend's place and she had some really nice frames in her bathroom where all her earings would be presented. I really liked the idea and decided to try this out. Since I love colours a lot it became a very original "painting". I know that some people do not have earings so I tested out how to use the same frames with other things. With mini pegs I could fix small pics or even my necklesses.

The frames on the picture are meant to be christmas presents for this year but I definitely need to make myself one soon too! It really doesn't take much time. I probably took 30 minutes to make one frame (I was lucky since I found the frames already painted in bright colours, so this saved me a bit of time). 

Sealed food

Winter has finally arrived and it's time to hibernate. So what is best if you want to stay for the next few months under your duvet with lots of good books and hot chocolate without going for groceries? Well of course you could simply live from the pizza delivery man, but this could get boring and also the health aspect in that case is probably not the most favourable.

Instead an option is to cook things in advance and seal them in jars and finally reopen them when you need them. I've tried it for the first time a few weeks ago and now I have tasted all of them! First thing, it is absolutely easy to make any of these.

These are the following things I've tired:

• Marinated aubergine with basil and (lots!!!) of garlic (watch your breath!)
• Feta cheese in oil with pepper and chilli (yes you can buy this all ready made in the supermarket but isn't it fun to make it yourself?)
• Apples with vanilla (a real pod please!)
• Marinated pumpkin with chilli, lemon zest and dried apricots
• Marinated carrots the Indian way

The carrots and the pumpkin are just great to have as a side dish. A bit like antipasti. The aubergine do work the same way, but I also used them already at work when I wanted to make a quick pasta lunch: just cook the pasta and then add the aubergine mixture and some of the vinegar-olive-oil-marinade for the sauce.

The apples can be eaten like pure but they are very sweet, so I put a few slices in my porridge in the morning instead and add a bit of the vanilla syrup in it for the taste. I guess those apples would go well with Greek yoghurt too. Well the feta cheese is obviously great in salads, but also pizza or pasta.

And since maybe some more people wish to hibernate this year too I will give some of the jars out and made them a bit more cute in their looks!

Happy hibernating to you!

Couscous and quinoa tartes

Quinoa Base

I recently had the chance to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair during a day which wasn't open to the main public. It was very nice to browse around. It felt a bit like a gigantic book store just without till at the end. During my visit there I developed my own little strategy to get a book or two or three or... for free (hey people gave them to me!). Three of them are cooking books. But not the common ones! One is all about veggie burgers (Thanks Peter!), another one about vegan food. But more about them another time when I'll post something from those books. Today I am writing about a French book "C'est pas de la tarte" (written by a lady who lives in Montréal(!!)) and it's all about tartes. Yeah those lovely round dishes that we French love so much! Mostly tasty, really easy to make and great if you wish to make a left over dinner. But mostly it's all about the filling of the tarte and not so much about the dough itself. However this lady dedicated the whole book on the base of the tartes. I recently made a quinoa based tarte. The filling was smoked tofu, cream and onions. It was one of those sunday evenings where nothing is left in the fridge besides weird stuff such as smoked tofu, tahini and quinoa. I'd never guessed I would find a recipe which would match those ingredients that well together!

Couscous base

Since the first result was already pretty satisfying I tried last weekend another tarte, this time with a couscous base. The filling was meant to be done with plain tofu and broccoli. Again I only had smoked tofu and not enough broccoli so I added a bit more zucchini with it. I had to blend the tofu and it was meant to be sort of smooth, the smoked one however war fairly dry. So I put a bit of cream on top just to have it a little bit more moist. Next time I'll try it with more softer tofu. It is definitely a very  unusual taste but again it was a great success.

Next time I'll try a sweet tarte with a müsli base or so.

A new beginning...

I've been trying to keep up for roughly half a year with a music blog but it was fairly hard because:
   a) I am not a particularly good writer and can hardly judge someone's art
   b) Music is not my one and only love.

I realised I could have a way more lively blog if I a show a bit more my DIY side of things. However if there is some music a really think is worth being shared, of course I will use this platform as well :o)

I know DIY-blogs are everywhere and I know I won't invent anything new... but anyway it's really hard to be a trendsetter nowadays I think. I am looking forward to your comments and suggestions and I am curious to see what new things I will be trying out no matter if it's in the kitchen, with sewing or with handcraft stuff.

The cool thing is that so many things are really not that hard to do and are really fun to do! Way more fun than buying them all ready-made from the mall!

Cheers!