Thursday 27 March 2014

A green smoothie experiment {though I have to admit, they never really look that green....}


...jep. Somehow my green smoothies never really end up looking green, so that's definitely something I'm going to work on. But for now, we're going to work with this:


Broccoli. Yes, you saw and read right.
I made myself a huge bowl of just plain slightly steamed broccoli yesterday and couldn't finish it, so instead of just eating the same thing again today, I tried to come up with something else. And why not, I thought, try and throw it in a smoothie!?
So, that's exactly what I did ;)


In the mixer went:

  • 1/2 a frozen banana (I used the unfrozen one only for the picture ;P)
  • 1 cup frozen mixed berries
  • 1 orange 
  • 2/3 of that bowl of slightly steamed broccoli
  • 1 large tablespoon non-fat Greek yogurt
  • three times the amount of vanilla-soy yogurt
  • low fat milk to make it a bit thinner
Put all of this into a blender and mix.


I have to admit that I'd probably have went for more yellow/orange-ish fruits if I had had them, but I simply used all the things I had on hand. But how about mango, oranges and banana with broccoli?! Just get creative!

And: It actually tasted really good!!! I would be lying if I didn't say I wasn't sceptical, and saying that you don't taste the broccoli at all would also be a lie, but it definitely wasn't that bad and the broccoli mixed well with the sourness of the orange and the berryness of...well the berries ;)

Go have fun mixing fruits and veggies together!! I feel like spring is just asking for that extra portion of fun, colour and health :)


Tuesday 25 March 2014

How to make pasta {a bucket list addition}

Did you know, that making your own pasta is actually super easy?! (Ok, if you have the right and proper machine. But given that it is super duper easy!!).
I spent a lot of time at my friends grandparents place recently and the whole family is obsessed with good food! Not in a crazy way, more in a really sophisticated, we-really-appreciate-good-food-way. I ate so good,  luckily I lost about two kilos while studying the month before, or I would have been a cute little stuffed piece of pasta myself.
Anyway, they don't juts eat good, they also cook and bake amazingly well, so one evening we made pasta.
People who know me better (or have read this little blog for a while) know how excited I get about everything food related. So reading and talking about all the different stuffing's we were considering putting into our ravioli...I probably would have already been satisfied doing just that.

But before we get too elaborated and into my crazy food-talk-obsession here, let's get back to the basic. The dough.
I was a little bit nervous when I ended up being the one tending to the dough and the machine (you know when you want to impress someone and you're more like "Whups,...never did this before. I guess we can cross out the impressing and just hope I don't end this in some embarrassing disastrous way!!??". That's where we were). And the dough after all, is the one crucial thing to good pasta (yeah I know. Quite obvious. So, can you feel the pressure already!?)

At the end it was just fun! (And a really good workout). So let's get started!!
For the dough you'll need:
  • 500gr flour (Typo 00 which is super important!!!)
  • 3 large eggs 
  • and 2 yolks
  • a pinch of salt
  • water for your finger tips
(Ok I hope I remembered it all right). I also did a little bit of research and just as usual, there are tons of different ways to make it. Use 6 eggs, 4 and 2 yolks, five...and so on. This is the one we used however.

Now, let's talk kneading:
  1. Built a little flour mountain. (This is probably the most fun part of the whole thing for me. It's like you get to be a kid again, building sand castles. And than everything gets awesome and messy. But maybe that's just me....yeah probably)
  2. Add the "mess". Aka eggs, yolks and salt.
  3. Now gently fold in the surrounding flour with your fingertips and start kneading.
  4. Occasionally dip your finger tips into the water and keep kneading! It will be a hard piece of work and probably seem impossible but you'll get there eventually. 
The book said to only dip your fingertips into the water (which meant: Don't add unnecessary liquid), though at the end we ended up adding quite a bit more liquid (which meant we kept dipping or fingertips into water quite often ;)) as usual in the kitchen: Just go with your guts.
Also, talking to my friends grandma while getting started, I totally forgot to add the yolks until a bit later....(cough. Talk about wanting to impress. She pretended just fine that she didn't see how I added them sheepishly later on. Thanks grandma!!).

Let the dough rest for an hour (at least) under a bowl (turned up side down).

And know you'll need the machine.

Start with the largest gap of the pasta machine and work towards the finest.
Start with a small piece, which you flatten with your fingers. Pull it through, fold it, pull it through again. When you go one way towards "finer", don't fold the pasta the first time you pull it through. Repeat ;)
I'm the officially (well, officially self-announced) pasta master now ;)

And that's about it! Now you can cut them into stripes, make lasagna with it or like, in our case, fill them with something delicious and make Ravioli! Nomnomnomnom!
(And this post got labelled "Bucket list" on a thought, because it seemed appropriate to put "Make your own pasta" on my bucket list!! ;) )

Also, I didn't take a single picture!! Bummer. I guess it was just too good to wait a single second longer until we could finally dig in. But, a friend of mine sent me his self-made pasta dinner the other day which used about the same technique and our second dinner looked pretty close to that. So you'll have to do with that ;)


To my friend: Sorry and thanks for letting me steal your picture, I hope that was ok  ;P

Have fun getting your kitchen all covered in flour!!!

Wednesday 19 March 2014

You never have too many phone cases!


It's funny how this one never made it up on the blog. But than again, it's only logical, because there were exams, and than there was life, and moods...and just about everything else that could have probably gotten into the way of me publishing this post and after all....it's not like I already have posted about a billion different mobile phone cases DIY's, right?! It just never gets boring ;)

So the procedure is the same as always, grab a plain white (blue, black, green, whatever) mobile case, this time, also grab some tape, some nail polish and get creative!!


And simple as that, you'll get another beautiful fun mobile case....


The real bummer is that meanwhile my phone died (more or less) and I got a new one...so now, I have tons of cute cases but I can't use them anymore!!! (I'm sorry, first world problems. I know. But it is kind of a bummer...so right now we're sticking to plain transparent).

Monday 10 March 2014

Update {Life after the exams}

I finally get to sit down again and write. Our exams are finally finally over and by the look of it, it wasn't even as bad as I had feared. (yay). And the last two weeks have simply been amazing, having time again to do stuff I actually like and enjoy to do. So I spent tons of time, reading, eating, watching movies, being outdoors, spending time with friends. To sum it all up I thought I might just bombared you with bits and pieces from my last weeks. So much joy and fun and laughter :)

Right on the evening, when our last exam was written, we went for a girls-sushi-night out. I just had discovered the restaurant the week before (funny was, that my friend had went there the week before that one, without me knowing that it was the same one). However, we both loved it....and went there again that night ;)
And, of course, you need Ben&Jerry's for nights like that. We might be having a serious addiction going on around here...whupsa
Having some free time on my hands also meant I got to go shopping, obviously, only for sport stuff ;)
I also started sketching again. To the frustration of my mum, only in my schedule though. Haha, sorry mum ;)
And who knew we had such a beautiful local market?!....well now I know!
And we definitely ate good
Right after the exams, we had a few nasty days (Well, the exams were over and I finally had free time!! So the weather was bound to get worse). But luckily, it only lasted for two or three days. Still, a stunning scenery...
I finally finally got to sew again ♥
And we were back to really amazing food

To compensate all that eating that was going on, we also went hiking (ok, hiking sounds too hard core. It might just have been more like a comfortable stroll...but we'll just ignore that for now ;) ). This lake was stunning and reminded me a lot of our holidays in France
There were also a few really cute chapels...
But that lake was unbeatable...look at this color!!!
And more cute houses. We also devoured a really good ice cream here, but I was too much into it to take a picture of it before it was gone (that were quite a lot of "it's"!...oh well. Let's move on)
We are all a bit hestitant to actually start believing it, but it seems as if spring has started early this year...
And because we are already looking at my shoes...I found new ones! Super cheap and comfy and light and... did I mention I'm happy?!  
Because this post lacks faces, here you go with mine ;)
Augsburg is showing itself from its best side ♥
And some last sketches
Now, I'm going to bake a cake, start organising my tons and tons of papers, folders and books that have layed abandoned during the last two weeks and keep listening to my favourite play list on spotify right now. And at the end of this week I'll be turning 21! That year, went...no, it definitely didn't went fast, but it definitely had some surprises on hand. I'm already curious what the next one will bring. And I'll also be heading home, seeing my family and friends again. I simply love my holidays :)
I'm wishing you all a wonderful start into this week :)
(And sorry for any eventual typing mistakes. My autocorrect refuses to work and I'm too lazy to go through it all again (Sorry). You'll simply have to overread them ;) )