Cooking and food related stuff

 {salted peanut butter cookies}

{vanilla ice cream sandwich}

 {Chinese supermarket}

{miso, sambal olelek, sesame oil, bok choy, kimchi, sprouts} 

 {roasted pears}

I use cooking as a distraction from school, bad weather, bad days at school, feeling lonely.
It's gone great so far; I did a handful of recipes, new recipes.

I have to admit I'm really psyched about this Chinese market located not to far from my home. I just feel a bit intimidated, cause they have loads of stuff and ingredients and I've been trying to narrow it down to a few recipes to do.

I've mostly been cooking recipes from one of my favorite blogs out there: Orangette. Molly, the writer is awesome. I mentioned her a while back, as she has a podcast I listen to now and used to listen massively at home in Iasi. Molly has a couple of recipes there, Asian inspired, and I gave those a try. I have no photos, cause I forgot to take any but be sure they were good looking and pretty delicious. The recipes are: Soba Noodles with Peanut-Citrus Sauce ( I did not use soba noodles because I'm not a big fan, at all. They are made of buckwheat flour and have a distinct smell and taste that I just think takes over. I used regular noodles from my Chinese store) and Kimchi Fried Rice, which was deliciously garlic-y. These recipes made a couple of servings so I was able to eat them several times on weeknights and did not have to cook every time a whole new thing.

I did this cookie recipe and these roasted pears last weekend. The cookies were good, I shared them around. People were pleased.
The pears deserve a whole new paragraph. Like seriously. They were just wonderful. If you have the chance I urge you to do them as soon as possible. I was planning to cook them on a day/weekend like this: cold, rainy, miserable. But instead I did them on a sunny and breezy afternoon and they were just as good. But imagine cooking them on a lousy, cold evening. We all know pears are hard and require a fair amount of chewing, but this way of cooking makes them like pudding, so soft, so vanilla-y, caramel-y and they will make you eat them all at once. I did ten halves/ five pears and they barely made it for me to eat them the second time. Next time I'll do more of them, and maybe share them, maybe.

{natas}

{ espresso shot}

{roasted chestnuts - pretty common here}

A bit on Portuguese food habits.
Given Portugal's location and all that stuff, I was expecting people here to be eating loads of fruit and vegetables, sea food ( they do, a lot) like it's sister Mediterranean countries: Spain, Italy. But they don't really. Not that much. I mean, they do have loads more exotic fruits and veggies and sometimes a trip to the supermarket can be an exciting adventure, but at least in the house I live and at the school canteen, people are eating fat, greasy foods. What is up with that?
From what I've seen at school, I've recognized a pattern. School courses start at 8-9-10 am and at 10-10.30 they take a brake - the professors and students also. They get coffee - (they drink these petite coffee shots with sugar, which I can't understand. They are really into their coffee) and maybe a pastry and they smoke a cigarette or two, do a bit of socializing.  Then they go back to their course and at 1 pm everybody stops what they're doing and they get lunch at the canteen(some bring their lunch from home and heat it up in the microwave). The break is an hour long. They eat - pretty slow, talk, have a coffee and maybe dessert at the end and then some more smoking. Then at 2 pm everybody gets on with some more classes. And this is what I find very difficult to do. There were times when I almost fell asleep in my chair. You just slump there and try to concentrate. It's hard to pay attention after the siesta you've had.
All in all, as you've noticed, I prefer cooking my own recipes rather than trying out their stuff. At least for now.

The past two weeks

 {classroom}

 {shopping center}

 {American supermarket}

 {purchases - various chocolate bars and peanut butter chips for cookies}

 {oven light in the kitchen at night}

 {bike renting, then it started to rain}

{supply store at school}

If it were a weekday I would have been in the greatest mood to write here, because I would have other things to do for school - sketching, researching, aka homework, and so writing here would have been just the perfect distraction from that; but it's Sunday and I am lazy, I have not done anything these past two days and now posting about how my week at school went feels like reliving it all again.
As I said. I am really good at being lazy on weekends.I do nothing for school, cause I know I have Monday off and figure I can catch up on work then. All I like to do is talk with R, watch a few series episodes, cook, eat, drink coffee, sit in bed till I'm tired of it. Instagram! I really like checking it out. You can find me there, most days. I check my blog, other bloggers, recipes, make shopping lists if I find some I want to make the coming week. On Saturdays I try to get out a little, walk through the city, check out some clothing stores, take pictures.
I found a second hand store that's pretty decent and I like to browse through their clothes and find a piece or two for wearing inside the house and they have a good selection of table wear/ dish towels and things like that, which I like. I have gotten bored with my clothes, my inside clothes. I like to have loads of them and change them often. So goes with plates and cups, but I'm not gonna start buying those now.
Homework for school has started to pile up. I have loads of stuff to do at five different courses. And I need to be on board and track with everything especially since I'm going/flying home earlier.



This past week we've had courses exclusively outside school. Four days of 'field trips'. That meant getting up a lot earlier to get there on time.
First off our regular once every two weeks visit outside Porto, at the Thirso factory.
Then on Wednesday we visited a clothing firm in the center, not far from my home.
Thursday and Friday two mornings at this far away factory/firm located almost an hour away from the city on rainy weather...just a delight.

{palm trees}

{countryside}

 {pattern cutting}

 {canteen}

 {courtyard}

 {an exhibition we got to see}

 {Atelier des Createurs - they call it}

 {on the highway}

  {autumn in the countryside}

 {the factory s store}

I really don't want to get into details here. Basically we've been shown fabrics and the whole process of clothes making. From receiving an order to make a certain number of pieces from the final product, everything was explained to us in PORTUGHESE, but I did understand 80 % of it.
 I did, seriously and my colleagues do not believe me. Having to hear it every single day and nothing else, really makes you understand.You have no choice.
The people working there, at the factories are so incredibly kind and generous with their time. They always say that we can come back and if we have questions to call them and ask. They were patient and just so nice, I couldn't believe it. People are really nice here, really really nice.
I'm grateful to have this experience. Now I've started to relax more and concentrate and I realized people here are so hard working and you have more opportunities here, than back home. Here, you really do stand a chance to get a decent job in the field. I feel jealous of these girls here, my colleagues. Cause they are from here and will probably make it. I will have to get back afterwards.
I wish we had these opportunities back home.

Just bought my plane ticket...Yay!!!

Yes. It's settled! I'm coming earlier home. On the 12 December. Can't wait... But I'm also a little nervous about my exams here when I come back from my sweet Christmas holiday.

The weather has been a bitch!!! Wind, cold, rain, moist everywhere. My clothes took 4 days to dry out. I've been kind of housebound. Starting from tomorrow I'll be mostly at school, so no more of that. I'll be out in the rain, especially with these school visits coming up next.

I feel like I'm kind of going into a reading mood... I have a few new books on my nook and I would like to relax and enjoy them... But maybe on the weekend, for now.