Vacationing

{card / espresso}

{lozana}

{some great beach walks}

{dawn}

{sunrise - almost}

{finally}

{coffee I}

 {orange campari - not my cup of tea}

 {beach / mangalia}

 {m, architecture I}

  {m, architecture II}

  {m, architecture III}

 {IV}

 {V}

 {VI}

{VII}

 {corn - ridiculously expensive / a rip off}

 {coffee II/ Corsa yard}

 {loads of fast food stands everywhere}

 {Corsa - very bird friendly}

{Costinesti - long train station platform - with a view}

We've been back home for a couple of days now. The one week trip five day trip/ vacation to the sea side went well enough.

I just have a couple of notes on that:

* the beaches are crazy dirty/ there's trash everywhere you look

*the people are pretty annoying and uneducated/ loud and rude

 *our accommodation was not that amazing, I don't wanna sound like a cry baby, but I would not pay money for a week in our room. not even for a night. R kept reminding me not to have such high expectations, since it's free, and that we should enjoy it. The room was dark and felt a bit unsafe so we kind of kept the light on , a few times, while gone in the evenings. I hated our bedding. God, it was the worst. I know for a fact that the rooms had mismatched bedding, so I figured they could easily go through some second hand stores and get decent bedding, like seriously. Something with cotton. It felt like you were sleeping directly onto the mattress and then you had to cover yourself at night with this teensy one layer sheet and if would get really cold at night, you could cover yourself with the dusty old blanket they had in the closet. Disgusting. About this blanket thing; they had the same thing at Coroana 

in Brasov. We went there two years ago, late October, I think, and had the fortune to try out one of their rooms. Good space, great bathrooms, decent view. We're definitely going back there soon.

But still, the bedding. Although it was cotton and smelled way better (at Coroana), you still get the blanket. 

Oh well, maybe I'm too pretentious. Well, after the Coroana experience, having the Corsa experience was like a step down for me...

But all in all it was good. We got used to it after the first days.

We had those cards and the food isn't great there, so we  I spent most of my credit on coffee, cause they had an espresso machine and water and soda/ loads of plastic bottles--( which made it a very non-eco vacation and made me feel plenty of guilty/ but I did not find our bathroom water in any way drinkable, so we had no other choice) and on the occasional dessert/ ice cream.

We spent almost two days in Mangalia, which is at a  20 minute train ride away from Costinesti, were the beaches are better, way better. 

But there's really nothing to do there. So a week is really the perfect amount of time you want to spend at the seaside. Well, that's my opinion.

fudge popsicles/ smitten kitchen

You need to try this today! It's so easy and the ingredients are all on hand. Minus the chocolate, probably. Just use good chocolate and good cocoa powder.
 What is there more to say? I'm already planning for a new batch for the next days.

Have a nice weekend

Have a nice one! And a nice week also.
We're catching the train tonight to Bz, spending the weekend there and then we're off again towards the seaside for a week. I'm excited to see the beach and the sea and swim and spend time with R.
Here are a few links I really enjoyed and wanted to share:

enjoyed this a lot + this tip
these AM posts and the guys, :)
then and now: comedians
No Impact Man  -home tips/advice from their project 
+ no impact man blog+ here's the trailer to the movie + the book
- if you don't know about it yet. Because it's going to be that time of the year again soon. 
this guide - courtesy of Mai Bine

the low-down

{this recipe that reminded me of a certain Chinese sweet chicken recipe/just not as good}

{red roses - unintentionally}

{unknown rescued flower + need to clean the windows}

{fudge popsicles}

Buttercream frosted chocolate cake

 {cake pans prepared}

 {cooling off}

 {wrapped to keep moist}

 {filling}

 {swiss buttercream}

{frosted and garnished with sprinkles}

  

It was my first ever go at baking a proper cake, with layers. I did a bit of documentation and ended up deciding on these two: layers / frosting. Both from Smitten Kitchen, of course. I tell you, this lady knows here stuff. I have tried a lot of her recipes because she just makes them seem so easy and uncomplicated. And will continue to do so.

First and foremost I finally went and bought two proper cake layer pans, 9 inch, 22-23 cm diameter. I had thought they were useless and that you could bake a perfectly good one single cake and slice it in half and fill it out, like I did a lot of times. But it's way easier with these around, less fuss and less of a chance of destroying the layers. I'm glad I did, and will now proceed to bake cakes more often and with all special occasions. Because why not?

The layers were easy to make, they turned out really intense because of the chocolate/coffee/cocoa powder combination and similar to a good brownie. Although I may, in the future, brush them off with a little simple syrup (water and sugar - boiled down) to get it a bit of moisture. For my 9 inch pans, Deb from smitten has a note there at the end of the Chocolate Cake Layers, where she tells you exactly the measurements for a 9 inch two layer cake, so I followed that, like I follow all her instructions exactly. It was perfect.

Frosting.

Of all of the frosting recipes I had considered making, this has the least amount of butter in it. 360 grams of butter. I know it already seems a lot, and it kind of is. But I really wanted a good/proper American frosting recipe. Standard American butter cream frosting s are made with powdered sugar and butter, whipped really good. But imagine how that must taste, like eating sweetened fat. I'm not OK with that. So you have to search well, and see what you'll go for. The frosting I tried from Deb has a meringue start up, from where you start adding the butter.

And adding I began. And I was a wreck and nervous the whole time and angry because at first it wouldn't work and it began to curdle. I considered throwing it away, but then as I gave it a last go with the mixer it magically turned the right consistency. I was amazed. I thought it was like magic, like this is so unpredictable, it could go any way it wanted to...

It is a rich frosting, even with the egg whites. It was tasty with the vanilla and all, but aside that it did not have much flavor to it. I want to make a semi-sweet chocolate buttercream frosting the next time. That surely has more flavor to it.

So I started frosting it and I did a decent job, I think... And added these sprinkles I found, but was not that happy about them. I swear I did not find any proper sprinkles anywhere. I would have loved to find some similar to these. Next time the search for proper sprinkles shall be thorough.

To wrap things up, this was a big, rich cake, just like Americans like it. Cut thin slices and enjoy little by little, spread a few slices to family and friends. I did and did not.

happening over here

Finally! We have a mirror on the hallway wall. We bought it second hand and it's a bit to high the way we hanged it, but it's Ok. We used the holes that were already there because we don't have a drill. We took down the wood-board with that 'amazing' flower drawing on it and I'm not going to miss it.
R thought we didn't really needed it at first but now agrees we do. We thought for a second to hang it in our room, so it would catch and reflect a bit of sunset light, but it would have looked weird, being so slim on our large empty wall.

 {pizza dough}

 {chopping chocolate}

 {loads of it}

 {cookie on my thrift ed plate}

Cookies. Chocolate chip.
It's a recipe I found scattered all over the web, well, blogger. But also Huffigton post, New York Times...
It's developed by this guy, after interviewing several cooks, pastry chefs in New York. He came up with this recipe, which is simple, but needs time and following the exact tips stated for the final promised product: the best chocolate chip cookie ever.
I'm linking this episode of Spilled Milk, with all the info on it.
I let some of my dough rest in the fridge for up to one week and they turned out really good.

Oh yeah, Here's the recipe.

Concerning other things...
R sold his bike and is now working on his pegas. He cleaned it up, spray painted it and needs a little bit more work and it'll be good to go. We will be able to bike together pretty soon.
I kind of lost my job. They finally figured out I wasn't as good a tailor as they thought. But it's Ok.
I'll probably be job hunting after I'll be back from our trip to the seaside. But until then, I'll enjoy summer. I've been reading, cooking, cleaning around the house.
Our bathroom is a mess. We have a problem with a pipe and it's been like that for a week or so now. Hopefully this week we'll get it fixed. Plus, our light-bulb fixture in the bathroom is kind of off and needs looked at. So we've been showering and stuff with a lamp on. It's just great...
The weather is way too hot, I'm sick of it and really looking forward to autumn. Like really, really.