Peppadew Chicken Stir Fry(2 persons)

• chicken breast(about 200 grams) cut into pieces
• one red onion sliced
• one garlic clove chopped finely
• small cut broccoli florets
• peppadews chopped in small pieces
• brine from the peppadew bottle
• paprika powder
• ground black pepper
• olive oil

Prepare the chicken with the paprika powder and ground black pepper. Cook the chicken with half of the chopped garlic and set aside when done. Add some more olive oil to the pan and cook the red onion and garlic a bit, add the broccoli and cook till dark green. Add the chicken, peppadews and brine and cook a few more minutes. Serve with basmati rice.

Peppadew is the brand name of sweet piquanté peppers (a breed of Capsicum baccatum) grown in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The flavour of the Peppadew fruit is sweet, with just a touch of heat. -Wikipedia

This dish is so simple you can’t go wrong with it and it’s delicious. This recipe is one added to my Moleskine recipe collection.

Then I decided what about adding peppadews to a tuna salad for a tuna sandwich. I made my salad as usual and as last added some chopped peppadews.

Tuna Sandwich

• one can of tuna in water drained
• red onion chopped in small pieces
• Hellman’s Mayonnaise, 1.5 tbps
• a sharp mustard , 1 tsp
• Heinz Hotdog Relish, 1 tbsp
• garlic powder
• ground black pepper
• peppadews chopped

Mix everything well and let chill for at least an hour.

I ate mine with grilled Turkish bread, ‘pide’ with some a lot of romaine lettuce and chips. It tasted good but next time I’ll add peppadews on top of the tuna for extra sweet taste.

I can definitely say that peppadew has replaced grilled red capsicum when making stir fried or on sandwiches. My sandwich experiment just got a little bit more tasty with the addition of peppadew.

I love sandwiches, I already eat sandwiches daily for breakfast but mostly nothing fancy. For the month of September I’ll be making sandwiches everyday for lunch(or breakfast). I’ll be starting with products I already have in my fridge with the exception of a few that I still need to buy or make.

• Thin sliced salami
• Amsterdam Old cheese
• Mushrooms
• Tomato paste
• Edam cheese
• Gouda Smoked cheese
• Sweet Chili Sauce
• Wholemeal bread
• Bacon
• Lettuce
• Tomato
• Mayonnaise
• Mustard

The purpose is to save money and to learn more sandwich recipes, trying out new things.

I’ll try to do a write up of the sandwiches that I liked most and a daily photo of each lunch sandwich. This will also push me to take early morning trips to the bakery to get different breads that sell out fast. I will also be searching for recipes and possible combination for a sandwich. Hot and cold sandwiches are game.

After Googling a lot I came across Shirt City, they have custom shirts for sale or you can design your own. After figuring out how the site works I opted to make my own Sheldon Cooper t-shirt.

I went with an olive green shirt, with Sheldon’s face on it which Shirt City offers in their design selection. For the text I used Sheldon’s familiar quote; “I’m not insane, my mother had me tested.” You only get two lines for your text, a few font choice and 3 font sizes.

The great thing about Shirt City is that you can choose from a wide range of t-shirts model, sweaters and hoodies. For this shirt I went with women fitted. The shirt feels of good quality, I have yet to wash it a few times to see how it holds. Next time I order I’ll be choosing women loose fit, the neck of the fitted one is not my style, it’s too low and not apt for colder weather.

Steamed Mussels or Moules Marinières

• 2kg of fresh mussels
• 1 small white onion finely chopped
• 1 leek stalk cut in rings, discard green leaves
• 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
• 1 carrot diced
• a handful flat parsley chopped
• unsalted butter
• olive oil
• 1 1/3 cup of white wine, preferably a Pinot Blanc

Make sure to use only mussels that are closed, rinse them in cold water and give them a good shake.

I never measure butter and olive oil, but if you are unsure there are plenty of recipes that say how much as those ingredients are standard. My motto is “don’t hold back on the butter”.

Use a deep pan, any will do as long as the mussels fit in it and there still rest some space for when they all open up.

Add butter and olive oil, add the onion, garlic, leek, carrot and cook until fragrant. Add the parsley and mix well. Add all the mussels and pour the wine over the mussels. Put the lid on the pan and let the liquids boil while steaming the mussels. Keep checking if they have opened, I had to raise the fire a bit to get the liquid steaming. Once the mussels start opening stir them with a wooden spoon, cover the pan. Repeat this 2 or three times. As soon as the mussels start opening they should be done in 5 to 8 minutes.

Serve them in deep bowls with the liquid pored over over them, serve with bread or french fries.

The new plates

While in the city shopping for last things needed for dinner I noticed that iittala has a 50% off sale. I already own four pieces of their turquoise Teema dinner plates and I’ve been wanting their deep bowl for a while but they are not exactly cheap. So when I saw that they are currently 50% off I could not pass it up.

I bought 4 pieces of the deep bowl in turquoise and 4 pieces of a small sized deep bowl in olive green. The deep bowl was perfect for serving the mussels. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a photo of the mussels served(above photo is one I got online) in my new bowls.

I’m now pretty happy with the selection of dinnerware I have. I have the complete IKEA 365+ dinnerware in white which combines nicely with the iittala dinnerware

Set in the not so distance future of 2014 we follow an U.S. Army secret test with a virus, death row inmates and a six year old girl. Soon we are taken 93 years later in a post apocalyptic world where the remaining humans live day by day while fighting of the ‘virals’.

The Passage is the first of what will be a trilogy, 700 something pages long I have to say this book felt like my personal Mount Everest.

When a book is much hyped like this one I expect it to read fast, taking me at least a week at most. A good example is the Millennium Trilogy which I read in a week and a half. Justin Cronin really takes his time to develop characters, detailing environments, relationships and so on. It’s not just a thriller and horror story, but a it has a palpable emotional storyline embedded between all of it. If you like authors like Stephen King and can handle a trilogy the size of Lord of the Rings you might like this book.

I struggled with the first 300 to 400 pages which where mostly settings of plot-lines and characters. After The Road and The Book of Eli the whole deserted towns and cities, everyone long dead gets kinda routine. It’s only after I finally got in the mind set of the characters who know almost nothing about the beginning of it all that I got pulled in the story, rooting for them trying to save humanity.

The book gets a 3 out of 5 stars from me. I admit this is not really my kind of fare but I managed to read it till the end and I would like to read the next book. But I don’t feel like the book lived up to all the hype it got.

If you read the book there will be a part about The Gulf of Mexico which will be so ironic you won’t even laugh.

I have started sporting a bit as a method to relax, I played some tennis but mostly badminton. I’m even thinking on looking for a badminton or tennis partner to play with now and then. How does one go about that when the people around you don’t play neither of them.

Not one to do nothing the rest of the time I have been reading a lot of books lately. I’ll just sum them up:

The Solitude of Prime Numbers a debut novel of Italian author Paolo Giordano. The book was well written and the characters details was extensive but the story didn’t really do much to me.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet About a genius young boy and his journey through America. I’m only a quart done with it and put it aside, lately I’m more for a book that real keeps me reading. This explains the next books I read.

The Millennium Trilogy I was really holding off to read them due to several comments on how violent the books are, but those comments must have been from people who read mild books only. While the book does have violence in it it was nothing more then other books of the same genre. I read these three books in a week and a half, they where so addicting I had trouble stopping at night to go to sleep.

After finishing them I put myself on self imposed break from reading. It lasted two weeks, I’m now half away with The Help which is currently on The New York Times fiction bestsellers list. A true literature work which reminds me of my highschool days when I only read pure literature for English class. The Help is set in 1960′s in Jackson, Mississippi which also brings back a lot that I learned during history classes.

When I’m finished with The Help I already have a next book waiting, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table. I had it on my wishlist for some time already and finally got it as an early birthday gift, together with Sh*t My Dad Says. The latter one I’m currently reading in between The Help.

Now with the World Cup on I have been reading less and watching at least a game a day. I watched some of the matches away from home with more people and the rest on the background while working online. Watching Maradona back at the World Cup scene brings back memories, I remember when just a kid I would watch him play while my father and grandfather had the game on. And now years later there he is back but my father and grandfather are no longer here. That thought real kept going in my mind on Argentina’s first match.

But brighter thoughts, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the summer weather will return again this week. It has been cold, rainy and windy these past three days, one would think it’s fall instead of almost summer. I just want to go sit somewhere outside with a cold drink and book.

I settled on the Rhodia bloc #13, the paper comes off easily, the paper quality is perfect for fountain ink. My only fountain pen the Parker Latitude with a fine nib doesn’t write smoothly on Rhodia and Moleskine paper. I finally decided to go ahead and purchase a Lamy Safari, I wanted the charcoal one but the store doesn’t have it neither did they hear of it. But they do have a white one which I hadn’t seen on JetPens so I got one with a fine nib.

Since then I have been using the Lamy Safari with Noodler’s ink and the Rhodia everyday for daily notes like grocery, budget, and other mindless information.

As for my Moleskine they are all more then two years old as I don’t use them frequently but the Noodler’s ink bleeds too much through the paper while with Rhodia paper there isn’t almost any bleeding. I hope the new special Moleskines have better paper, I want to get the Recipes Moleskine, but if the bleed is too much I would have to get a pen specially for writing in it. I’m a habit person I like having pens for special purposes.

In any case I’m sold on the Lamy Safari, the price here at the store is the same as JetPens excluding the shipping costs, they have converters and I got a chance to hold the pens and decide on the color. The Pen writes flawlessly, now I only wonder if I can take it with me in my bag or if the risk of ink spill is too great?

Every time I read the episodes reviews of Grey’s Anatomy on TV Squad I want to bang my head against my screen. First the person who reviews most of the episode has never heard of the word objective, countless of times I wanted to tell him to stop watching the show if you find it so bad. 15 million people tuned in to watch the final, it came in at Number 1 so you are better off being objective then angering your readers.

Then you have the viewers of the show who obviously have never been in a large hospital nor are familiar with many medical issues. Some comments made:

lock down doesn’t actually mean anything. different areas of the hospital are not actually locked in any way and people can freely wander from place to place.

The hospital is huge, there might be a lot of staff but never enough to lock down all corridors door. Seriously dude there is a shortage of nurses and doctors everywhere and you expect every door in that huge building to get locked?

if you’re shot and on an elevator in an incredibly busy hospital where the elevators are constantly moving… nobody will suddenly have any interest in using that elevator and you won’t be found for a while.

I have been in a large teaching hospital just like Seattle Grey’s and believe you me, even in the middle of the day there are sections in the hospital where you don’t come across a soul, I got lost once on my way to get an xray taken.

And most of all it is beside the point, it’s Television people, like make believe, not real, entertainment. People questioning every little detail they sound like Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory explaining why Superman couldn’t fly at full speed and catch Louis Lane in mid flight saving her from falling to her dead.

I guess this comes with the territory of internet, where there be open comments there will be all kinds of opinions, rational ones and just ones that make you shake your head. That’s why I never comment on big websites, there really is no point. It just bugs me big time that people expect so much realism in TV shows, isn’t life itself real enough already?

I went with only 20 euros cash to not go overboard, granted I don’t drink alcohol instead taking bottled water with me. I tasted 4 dishes(shared the hefty ones) ranging from a mix of seafood and meat, seafood and veggie, and an indo platter of rendang, and skewered pork in peanut sauce. The Indo platter was nothing wow but again I’m not a fan of Indo food.

The food I liked best was the baked fish and veggies with jasmine sauce.

And king crab with seaweed and bean sprouts sans the fried shrimp pictured.(I’m allergic to shrimp so I got mine without it.

There where also Japanese and Thai restaurants but they all had shrimps dishes so I didn’t taste them. Would have cost a fortune either way and would mean that I would have eaten way too much. See the rest of the images.

One of the restaurants also have a special until May 31, a whole lobster thermidor or lobster with parsley butter with asparagus and potatoes for 25 euros. I took a folder with me see if I’ll get a chance to go before the end of the month. I love lobster!

Today was quiet a foodie day and off course wine flowed like there was an unlimited supply. I met an acquittance who runs restaurants/cafe’s and he informed me he opened a new one so I should drop by there soon for lunch or dinner.

All in all a tasteful event.