IT'S ALL ABOUT CHOPPING

So, sometimes it happens that you get out of your office with a terrible headache because, thanks to your new frugal way of life, you're not used to heating anymore. So you're actually really happy at the thought of your 8 kilometers by bike, even though you arrived at that office that it was still night, and you're leaving and it's actually night again. Still, you're happy. You need some fresh air, so you're just happy.
You're happy because you still don't know that the fresh air you're aching for looks more like a tornado rather than a breeze. A crazy wind that blows at oh-so-many-freaking-km/hour that, going down a road with an inclination of the 20% you still have to pedal.
But then, at a certain point, you feel better 'cause yes, it's almost done, you're almost home.
And that's when you're almost run over by a men that didn't understand that the prolonged sticking out of your left arm did actually mean that you wanted to turn left. He probably thought it was some ballet exercise. Probably, though, he didn't find it gracious enough cause, first, he honks, and then he even insults you. He really didn't like it.
Have I already said that it's been raining cats and dogs all along? After you live in Belgium for more than a year you tend not to find it very remarkable anymore, but of course it was raining. A lot.
But still, you finally arrive home, really really hungry because, honestly, how can anyone have lunch in half an hour? so you just managed to drink (half of) your soup. But it was also your first day of work, and you're just so tired. So tired that, for a fraction of a second, you even whish you had powder magic soup. That tired.

And then you open the fridge and you see them: some savoy cabbage, an apple, and some nuts.
And then, thank god, it's all about chopping.

CLOSED FOR MOVING. BIG RE-OPENINGS AND FAIRY TALES.

And, yes, we are still living a sort of camping experience, getting our clothes out of boxes in the cellar and finding the baking paper in the toilette but, finally, we moved!
It all sounds like a Disney story, a good mix of magic and drama and, in our case, I would say a mix between Cinderella and SnowWhite.

So, once upon a time, there were two girls forced to endlessly clean a house (that would be us), with an evil stepmother calling every half hour to yell that they had to do it better and faster (and that would be the landlady) and, yes, we even had our own midnight magic.
Although in our case, sadly enough, there were no gigantic pumpkins in the living room, just our cat that, at midnight o'clock, gracefully peed right in the middle of our parquet.
Yes, the last evening was quite a nightmare.

And even though now we've moved to the land of Far Far Away, the evil witch is still part of our story, holding our deposit hostage since a month. So,we just baked our poisonous apple into some delicious, end of the season's apple muffins.

So, that's basically the very same recipe I used for the apple cake you've never seen. Of course with halved measure, just because this time I didn't need 45 muffins but, well, you see.
Anyway, what happened is that this time I forgot to marinate the apples in lemon juice and cinnamon.

So, pity for the lemon, but I really needed the cinnamon: so what I did was mixing some cinnamon and some sugar, and topping the muffins before baking them.
So, pros: when baked the muffins had this crunchy, sugary, cinnamony top that was just so nice.
Cons: I think the topping kinda prevented them from rising as puffy as they could have been.
Still, I would say: success.

For directions, it's seriously the very same as for this cake, but with half the ingredients. I really just wanted to publish the pics.

SURVIVAL TIMES AND WINTER SALAD

I don't know how it's going there, but here in Belgium it really feels like, after some two, whole weeks of autumn, winter has come. It's time for creamy soups, gratens, casseroles, pies, pures... All these warm, thik, consistent meals that make winter almost a joy, a good reason to cuddle up in your blanket with your mug of thick hot choccolate.

So, my recipe of today, is a salad.

Because, let's be honest, when you're spending your time reading buried in your blanket sipping hot tea, pies and casseroles are nice just if someone else is making them.
And you start to feel hungry, and you have the painful certainty that no one else is going to cook for you, and your estimate time of survival out of the pre-mentioned blanket is of about 5 minutes.

Which, luckily, is exactly the time you need to prepare this winter salad.
And a toast with melting cheese, of course.

So, what you need for this tasty version is:

- raisins + red wine vinegar
- endive
- apples
- walnuts
- gorgonzola dolce

The only real direction concerning this salad, is that the very first thing you might want to do is to put the raisins in a small cup and cover them with red wine vinegar. Just to give them the time to soak it up.

Then you just get lost in a crazy chop and mix dance, at last you add the raisins (i pour all the vinegar that might be left as well) and, done.

You might even roast the walnuts in a pan with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, but this really depends on how active you feel.

If you're indeed wondering "What about salt and pepper? Do we have to add olive oil?", here is where the wonder of this salad comes in: flavors are so well balanced that you don't even need to season it.

Now, try and say you don't love winter salads.

Apple cake, or WHY WE LOVE AUTUMN

Well well.

To keep the pace with all the people that were singing the praises of autumn long ago, when it actually arrived, I also had my 
"welcome, autumn!" 
post.

I had all these pictures of beautiful berries on the weirdest tries and in the weirdest colours taken at the weirdest times of the day. A really nice project, I have to say.

And then the disgrace happened: our camera vanished. I really prefer to believe in magic, even though obscure magic, and believe it disappeared in a glittering cloud rather then to think that someone actually stole it (which, for the boring and sad non-believers, given the circumstances, seems to be the most probable option.)

Well, that's why in this post there are no pictures. Good thing is that you don't really need to see an apple cake to imagine how fragrant and inviting it might be.

So, before starting I have to tell you a little something 'cause, if normally I'm not really precise with measures, well, this time it went even further. Apparently something went wrong during the measuring process -although I feel like saying that wrong is not at all the right word. I mean, if you planned to bake one delicious apple cake, and at the end you find yourself with a lot more, something went definitely magic, not wrong.- So, as I was saying, something went magical and, what was supposed to be one normal-size cake turned out being: 
one normal side cake,
 three mini-size-cakes, 
one overflowing muffin.

So, I suggest you carefully follow the instructions only if you're planning to eat a lot, of apple cake.

By the way, to compensate the lack of pictures, I tried to make this post visually appealing anyway. I hope you appreciate the effort. 

I could also do colours but, honestly, that really felt too much.

Here is, just in case you're not funny and you didn't like my polifontic previous version, an easier-to-read one.

Well well.

To keep the pace with all the people that were singing the praises of autumn long ago, when it actually arrived, I also had my

"welcome, autumn!"

post.

I had all these pictures of beautiful berries on the weirdest tries and in the weirdest colours taken at the weirdest times of the day. A really nice project, I have to say.

And then the disgrace happened: our camera vanished. I really prefer to believe in magic, even though obscure magic, and believe it disappeared in a glittering cloud rather then to think that someone actually stole it (which, for the boring and sad non-believers, given the circumstances, seems to be the most probable option.)

Well, that's why in this post there are no pictures. Good thing is that you don't really need to see an apple cake to imagine how fragrant and inviting it might be.

So, before starting I have to tell you a little something 'cause, if normally I'm not really precise with measures, well, this time it went even further. Apparently something went wrong during the measuring process -although I feel like saying that wrong is not at all the right word. I mean, if you planned to bake one delicious apple cake, and at the end you find yourself with a lot more, something went definitely magic, not wrong.- So, as I was saying, something went magical and, what was supposed to be one normal-size cake turned out being:

one normal side cake,

three mini-size-cakes,

one overflowing muffin.

So, I suggest you carefully follow the instructions only if you're planning to eat a lot, of apple cake.

1 + 2/3 cups flour

4 apples

1 + 1/2  cups sugar

3 eggs

75gr butter

1 glass of milk

1 + 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 lemon

1- Peel and slice the apples, then let them marinate in the juice of one lemon and a couple TBS sugar

2- In the meanwhile, beat the yolks with the sugar. In a separate bowl, beat the whites until stiff.

3- Add to the yolks-and-sugar-batter: the sifted flour, baking soda, the butter that you had previously taken out from the fridge (and that you have also reduced in small pieces) and the milk. Mix everything well and, at least, add also the yolks, paying attention in stirring them gently and from down upwards.

4- Fold in also the apples, but keep aside enough to cover the top of the cake.

5- Pour the batter in a greased an sugared form, then get creative and decorate it with the apples you kept aside.

6- Bake for some 40 minutes at 180°F

NOTE: If you make drawings with your apples, check your cake properly before taking it out from the oven: being covered might make baking times a bit longer. If you don't feel creative and you were not in the mood to draw, leave it anyway in the oven for 40 minutes. If you think the top is getting brown a little too fast, cover it with some aluminium.

THE HEALTHY BREAKFAST FOR THE LAZY DAYS - OATMEAL AND CRUNCHY APPLE BITES

So I called it “the healthy breakfastfor the lazy days”, and that’s how it looks like.

It’s healthy, it’s yummy, and it’s slow.

It feels like a personal challenge to wake up every morning a minute later than the morning before, to see if even this time I can make it, to run there before the metro arrives, to feel the thrill..

Well, it’s not, there’s no thrill but the one I feel at 10 in the morning, break coming closer, when I realize that I will finally eat - because of course I didn’t have breakfast. Therefore when I left  there was no real rush to brush (fake, I constantly am in the urge to brush, but) since there was no food to brush away, which is the explanation of me going around with a toothbrush in my pocket at work.

All of this said, let’s go back to marrier thoughts: slow breakfasts.

There is one day per week in which I go to work in the afternoon, and in this magical day I get the crazy combination of sleeping more AND having breakfast. Heaven.

So, the only day in which I can have breakfast, I want a nice one.

OATMEAL AND CRUNCHY APPLE BITES

Ingredients:

There’s not much you need for this take on oatmeal and, considerning that these are among the most autumnal ingredients I can think of, you could have it even right now.

So, here we go – for two people:

-          Oatmeal – 1 glass

-          Water – 2 glasses

-          Apples – say 1 or 2

-          Sugar – 1 TBS

-          Cinnamon – a lot

Directions:

1-      Well, really important to remember is that, exactly like rice, oatmeal is going to soak all the water you give it, basically doubling in its amount. So, after figuring for how many people you’re going to prepare breakfast –or, after deciding how many times you want to have it- put the double amount of water in a pot and start cooking it. Now, if you want a really creamy oatmeal, you might put it right away with the water and leave it there until it soaks it all, taking care of stirring it from time to time. Otherwise, wait for the water to be cooking and pour the oatmeal in just then: you’ll get a creamy oatmeal, but that still maintains its basic structure.

2-      In any case, put a spoon of sugar in the water. Of course optional, but with slightly bitter apples I could use one.

3-      For the apples, same concept as for the oatmeal: if you want them really soft, put them in the pot together with the oatmeal while it’s cooking, if you want them crunchy, just add them when the oatmeal is ready. (I did half and a half. Yum.)

4-      If you like it, add a spoon of cinnamon (seriously, if you like apples of course you also like cinnamon) and eat it!

Wish you all a happy, slow breakfast.

FIOCCHI D’AVENA (ANCHE SE L’OATMEAL RIMANE L’OATMEAL) E PEZZETTI DI MELA CROCCANTI

Ingredienti:

non c’è molto di cui avete bisogno per questa versione di oatmeal e, considerato che questi sono fra gli ingredienti più autunnali che mi vengano in mente, volendo potreste anche prepararvelo adesso.

Quindi, per 2 persone(doveva essere solo per me ma ho sbagliato le dosi, quindi):

-          Fiocchi d’avena – 1 bicchiere

-          Acqua – 2 bicchieri

-          Mele – facciamo 1 o 2

-          Zucchero – un cucchiaio grande

-          Cannella: tanta

Procedimento:

1-      Innanzitutto è importante ricordare che, esattamente come il riso, i fiocchi d’avena assorbiranno tutta l’acqua che ci metterete, diventando praticamente il doppio (io per esempio ho un po’abbondato. Troppo, abbondato). Quindi dopo aver fatto mente locale sul numero di persone per cui dovete preparare la colazione – o dopo aver deciso quante colazioni volete fare voi medesimi in quella stessa mattina – mettete una quantità doppia di acqua in una pentola e fatela bollire. Dunque, se volete un oatmeal veramente  cremoso, potete metterlo direttamente in pentola con l’acqua e lasciarcelo fino a che non l’ha assorbita tutta. Altrimenti aspettate che l’acqua bolla, e aggiungete i fiocchi d’avena solo allora: in questo modo otterrete on oatmeal cremoso, ma in cui i fiocchi mantengono la loro consistenza.

2-      In ogni caso, aggiungete un cucchiaio di zucchero all’acqua. È chiaramente opzionale ma, con delle mele un po’acidule secondo me ci stava bene.

3-      Per le mele vale la stessa idea dei fiocchi d’avena: se le volete morbide morbide, mettetele in pentola insieme ai fiocchi d’avena e lasciateli cuocere insieme altrimenti, se le volete croccanti, aggiungetele alla fine quando l’oatmeal sarà pronto. (Io ho fatto metà e metà. Yum.)

4-      Se vi piace, aggiungete un cucchiaio di cannella (seriamente, se vi piacciono le mele ovvio che vi piace anche la cannella) e magiatelo!

Buona lenta colazione.