Christmas at home

It's really been a while.
I was home for Christmas and although it was short and tiresome it was totally worth it.

 {lights on Copou}

The weather was Ok, I guess. We had a little bit of everything. Some sunny decent days and then some hardcore freezing mind numbing snowy ones.

Precious time at home was the most important.

 

 

{monkey bread}

There was coffee in our new french press almost every morning, cooking, a bit of baking, loads of dirty dishes all the time.

I finally tried monkey bread. I followed Deb's recipe, of course. It was delicious and everything you would expect, like hot miniature cinnamon doughnuts. I made them in the evening so we could enjoy them the next morning with our coffee, cause there was no way I was waiting for the dough to do it's thing in the morning. I have to admit they were better right out of the oven, still warm, as we ate the whole thing on the left right then and there and the monkey bread loaf on the right survived until the next day in the evening. Other than this I did no other baking.
We did cook a bit. I made the Soba Noodles with Peanut-Citrus Sauce recipe I was talking about here a while back, but with no soba noodles, of course. R liked it a lot, I like it too, so we made it like three time. Other than these two recipes I did not do anything else remotely special. We mostly ate at other peoples places.

  We watched the Back to the Future trilogy three nights in a row while at home at my parents' house with my sister and good pizza while it was brutally snowing outside. The movies were as awesome as I remembered, and having seen them when I was little I wanted a hover board like that.

Also while at home I had to throw away my fashion magazine collection and it was a pain in the back. Literally. R was kind enough to help me carry them to the dumpster. I did however kept a stash of magazines I really like: D/ la Repubblica delle Donne. I prefer it over any other magazine out there. But it also felt so good throwing out things you don't like anymore, and keeping just the essential things.
I went to school once or twice before Christmas hoping to meet up with some colleagues and Dna Maria. It was good revisiting the familiar sewing workshop where I'll be starting work at the end of summer, people I know from school. Sadly it was too short, all of it.

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.

Quick check in

 

I'm grateful for many things. Here are a few.

 

 {great fall proof}

 {Pupi, being this fat while I'm feeding her a stick...}

 {this belly}

 {these eyes}

 {this tongue}

 {these jars, labeled by R}

 {the climbers/ adventurers}

 {blurred one}

 {photo-bombing my photo: still life with beer and access bracelets}

 {ooouups nightfall/scary situation at this point}

 {brainstorming ideas on how to get back in the city}

We did get to Hamak, eventually. Just a bit too late. Too late to fully enjoy the place. We got there in the afternoon and by the time we had all the straps on we were told to hurry up, cause they were closing the thing because it was getting dark. I chickened out for two reasons: they supposedly had no more gloves - and you do need them, like really. And two: they don't have one or two easier tracks to get the hang on things and warm up before they make you do the harder ones: yellow, blue and the deadliest of them all: red. So R and Adra managed to do the yellow and blue ones. I am proud of them. It really was difficult. But maybe that's just me. 

It's nice, into the woods, many things to do kind of place and has an Adventure Park. Just not that great of an adventure park. Certainly not like I experienced at Brasov.

Then we had half a beer and we were off to "the station", hoping to catch a ride home. We waited and waited but then it seemed hopeless, being Sunday evening and all. Then a woman with a car offered us a ride back and we were thrilled. And we got back safe and unraped, which is awsome. Adra even went on a date afterwards.

I baked cookies, brownie and a lemon yogurt cake for R's birthday today and I packed them and delivered them to his workplace, where he had a little get together with his mates. And they all liked everything very much, and I felt so proud...almost as if I had actually invented the recipes myself.
The recipes are here / here and here. The cookies are the ones I made for a party in May, check the post here.  And they're totally worth it, even if they're crazy expensive to make. The yogurt cake is a classic around here. I just swap the grapefruit with a lemon. The brownie is also an all time favourite.
I recommend trying any of them out. Mom bloggers of America know their shit.

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.