Explanation & Farewell

Yes, this blog post is only to say that I’ve been busy and I decided to spend my free time doing more of the things I like, not writing about what I’ve already done. And about the main reason I had to start this blog (to practice English), I have a lot of alternative ways to do it.

Here you have some examples of what I’ve been doing. I don’t have pictures of handicrafts nearby, or other recipes I tried (not just desserts), but this should do.

Freixós (Galician crepes), custard with little meringues, lime cakes for my sister’s 23rd and 24th birthdays, fried spaghetti.

Funny thing, everything yellow in the pictures I had by hand.

What more can I say? Maybe some kind of advice, or more likely a wish: what I would like everybody to be able to do.

 

Breath

Smile

Be true to yourself

Help others

Do things, whatever makes you feel fulfilled

Take one step, then another

Be kind

Dream

BE HAPPY

 

2 of 5: Experiments with puff pastry

Here I am again, as I’ve promised. This time I want to show you the result of a day I decided to experiment what could I do with puff pastry, so I would know what I like best, what I would want to repeat.

This picture was taken just out of the oven:

Up: different things with some chocolate cream, not Nutella, a darker one, more intense, from Oxfam.
Down-right: pieces of puff pastry with sugar.
Down-left: pastry-in-process, see the next picture.

I filled these with some different things: 1. Goat cheese cream. 2. Goat cheese cream and chorizo. 3. Blue cheese cream. 4 Peanut butter. 5. Pâté. 6. Nocilla (chocolate cream brand, white and brown).

These are definitely something I’ll do again. I love sweet & salt things mixed like this.

And that’s all for now. Next time (3 of 5) I’ll show you a family tradition.

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

Sabela

1 of 5: Trying more muffin flavours. And happiness

It’s been a long time, I know… I’ve been really busy with a lot of different things. For example I worked for a month!! I was so excited when I started… but it only was a month…
I was upset when it finished, but I didn’t want to get depressed so I redirected my energy and enthusiasm to other opportunities. I’ve even attended to a 50h course in the medical emergency’s sector, and I loved the experience even though I didn’t find a job with it, and it was nice to meet people there.

Ok, I’ve been busy, but not only with work-related things, I tried some things in the kitchen too, of course! I have five different posts I’ve been delaying, and today I’m going to show you the first thing I did since the last time I wrote here:

Little muffins again, but this time with two different flavours: kiwi and banana

I have to improve the fruit proportions, but they were tasty… So I’ll have to bake them a few times more for both reasons!

They were tasty, right, but I won’t keep writing about them because there is something I want to say to everybody. In my opinion, the best way to be happy is to learn something essential. To be happy with the little things in every day’s life will help you to be happy in general. Just to appreciate the breeze on your face when you go for a walk, the smell (flowers, freshly cut grass, sea…), the sun or just the colour of a cloudy sky. Or something you see on TV (or anywhere) that makes you laugh or just smile for a while. Some words someone says to you. Or just to have a friend’s ear (or even eye, through the web) when you need it, and he/she don’t even has to be a friend. A book you like or even just a paragraph. Any animal playing or cuddling. Trying something new and to see you can do it. There is always something worthy, something that can unleash a wave of happiness. And little moments of happiness can lead to bigger moments of happiness.

Don’t give up, there is always another day to keep fighting for what you deserve.

Hang on to hope, to illusion, to anything with the potential to make you happy, because you deserve it!

Today I’ll end with one of my favourite quotes:

 

“Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.”   –   Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

 

A lot of Biscuits and Chestnut Delights

I did as I’ve planned: lemon biscuits, orange biscuits and cinnamon biscuits!! More than three kg of flour in total!

The cinnamon ones are the dark ones in this middle line, orange and lemon in each side. Although the lemon and orange flavour is not enough and I forgot leavening in the cinnamon ones, they are all delicious!

I tried to cover some of them, as it was Christmas Time, but I love the ones without it better.

And the 4th January I did something I decided to call “chestnut delights”, it was an improvised recipe and I don’t think I will do it again, even though they were nice. I prefer to spend my baking time with cookies and muffins, and I would love to do some cakes now and then. Moreover, I love another things you can do with chestnuts better than this!

And that’s all! All the sweet things I made this Christmas at least… I’ve been busy with a lot of things, like taking part in a parade, changing a hinge, spending time with my little cousin and my entire family, and a lot of different things.

Happy New Year!!

 

Sabela

Lumberjack Friday, Biscuits and Lime Cake

I’ve been busy lately and I couldn’t update, I even had two job interviews… without luck. But I have to update this blog today, because I did two things in the kitchen and this Christmas I’ll try to do some changes in one of the recipes, and it would be too much for a single blog post.

Why the title? Because my father and me chopped down two trees in our garden today (well, yesterday, because it’s Saturday already), even with showers. It was kind of fun… but a bit scary just seeing the hole that a big fragment left on the ground when it fell. I didn’t touch the chainsaw, I had enough with the axe and moving wood, and pulling to guide the trunks in their fall. That’s what I’ve been doing today. It’s exhausting, but it leaves me full of that kind of energy that happiness provides.

The lime cake was a sudden idea I had on Monday, at the supermarket, and it was a good idea to try it, or at least my sister asked me when will I do it again! So I guess I will have to he he

And in this other picture you can see the biscuits I did like a month ago or so. They’re very sweet, and they usually have lemon flavour… but this time the lemon wasn’t aromatic enough, so it was hardly noticed.

This Christmas I’m going to try this recipe with orange instead of lemon, and also with cinnamon… and I’ll try again with a more aromatic lemon. So I’m going to do three times this recipe!

And maybe I’ll have not only biscuit pictures next time, in a few weeks, maybe I’ll have something else… my father had an interesting idea and maybe we’ll give it a try.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Sabela

A Chance

“How am I supposed to prove myself a hero if nobody will give me a chance?”   –   Hercules (1997)

 

Yes, a quote from a Disney movie. But it is a great quote, one I could say any day… well, not literally of course, I would say: “How am I supposed to have work experience if nobody will give me a chance?”.

I just wanted to share this quote. Recruiters always ask for job experience although it’s not always needed. If you’re eager to work and learn, if you have a lot of energy and illusion, if you’re willing to help, you can achieve anything you need in a new job. At least that’s my opinion. I have all this, I am reliable, loyal, easy-going and helpful, but how can they know it? The answer is simple: They can’t, unless they give me a chance.

I’m applying to jobs I would love to do and many others, but no calls yet. I’d be happy with any of them, and I won’t give up, I’ll keep fighting for my future.

But I haven’t been only sending application letters. I’ve been riding my new-old bike and moving and piling up wood with my father (an afternoon and a morning, more than 8 hours in total). I have a lot of energy and as long as I can’t use it in a job, I’ll keep doing a lot of different things, not only trying to find a job and learning German and improving my English.

If you are in a similar situation, my advice is: do something, anything you want. It will make you feel useful, and this feeling helps a lot.

Best wishes,

Sabela

My First Cheesecake

Today I want to show you the cheesecake I made on Friday. The week before I did a cake with custard and chocolate but the result wasn’t pretty at all (it was tasty though) so I didn’t take pictures.

With the cheesecake I had a problem: the homemade jam. I tried to do it with strawberries from our garden and it was my first jam. It was too liquid… but we didn’t have more strawberries so try again was not an option.

In the end I’m happy because people really liked the cheesecake!

 

 

But that was not the only thing that has made me feel proud of myself this weekend. On Saturday, a friend persuaded me to go climbing on Sunday with them and I loved it! The landscape was awesome, and I did my best.

We started with a grade 4 route, and I loved the feeling when I was up there, thinking ‘I did it!!’. The next route… I had to give up because my arms weren’t strong enough to lift myself over a rock, but I tried and tried. And as I did my best, I’m proud of myself like I’ve just said.

It was near the dam of the Eume, I leave you here a link where you can find something about that beautiful area: http://www.turgalicia.es/blog/wilderness/fragas-do-eume-3/?lang=en

 

And that’s all! A Cheesecake and a great experience. A good weekend, right?

 

Best wishes,

 

Sabela

My bicycle

“I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there isnothing wrong with enjoying one’s self simply, like a boy.”   –   León Tolstói, Responding to criticism for learning to ride a bicycle at age 67

Today I’ll only write some lines, the picture will resume everything.
I haven’t used my bike for years, but this year I wanted to use it again. When I cleaned the bike I discovered it was rusty in some places where the paint had fallen, so I decided to bring it back to life.

I’ve sanded the whole bike and bought orange and purple paint… and after some problems (different kinds of paint, so many layers of orange paint needed, and some other problems), this is the result. It still need some touches but I’ll be able to ride it soon! I have to say in spite of all problems I’ve enjoyed the process, the challenge.

It was blue before, with some ¿brand? yellow stickers, but I wanted a change. What do you think about the colors and the design?

The inner tubes seem to be fine, I hope they really are, because I’m eager to finish and to ride my bike!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”   –   Albert Einstein

That’s what I feel, so I need to do things – whatever it is. I can’t stay with my arms crossed waiting until some company actually reads my CV and decides to give me a chance and call me to an interview. So I hope you like my posts because I’ll write a new one now and then with some things I’ll be doing!

Sabela

Muffins: This time (very) little ones

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”   –   Samuel Beckett

 

Today was not my first time with muffins (third? forth?), but every time I try something different. Last time, I tried with strawberries, this time I tried with almond… but that was not the only difference. I’ve always used paper moulds, but this time I had silicone ones… LITTLE ones. And that was a major change… so I’d have to try again!
The almond is nice, but the strawberry ones are sill my favourites!

Left to right: almond, strawberry, chocolate.

The almond ones have small pieces of almond mixed with the dough. The strawberry ones have small pieces of strawberries inside and over them. The chocolate ones have chocolate powder in the dough and a bit of dark chocolate over them. It’s my third or fourth time with the chocolate ones (it was the recipe a friend gave me some time ago), second time with the strawberry ones and, as I said, first with the almond ones.

I’ll keep doing them (not so often), and improving them, but more important: I’ll try different things. Maybe next time banana or kiwi… I’ll let you know.

See you in my next post! It will be the other major thing I’ve been doing this summer (if I don’t decide to do something else in between).

 

Sabela

Summer almost gone

“The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it.”    –   Voltaire

 

 

This summer has been a busy one for me, but not as much as I would like as I don’t have a job. I say busy because I did a lot of things. I’ve had three weddings (as much as I’d ever had until this year in all my life!), I’ve done two online courses (one in Spanish and the other in English) and I’m doing another one. I’ve helped my father to put another door in the basement (a sliding door he was making, he has been crafting things all my life and I like to help him) and I’ve helped him too with the greenhouse (he designed it too!). I’ve baked a cake, cookies and cupcakes (the strawberry ones were delicious, so I’ll make them again sooner or later and post it here). And that’s not all but the other two time-consuming things will have more space here. The first one in this post.

As a wedding gift for the last wedding I had this summer, I decided to do some air fresheners, filled with lavender from our garden. That was not my first idea, but the previous ones were too complicated for me right then (maybe I would be able now to do some of them, but not then). I knew how to sew a few things, but in order to do this, I learned how to embroider and to do hemstitch. I used ribbons too, not only as bows, I introduced them as a decoration too through hemstitch in the little air freshener. The candy-ones are to have into drawers, the bag-ones to hang in the hanging bar inside wardrobes or directly in hangers, and the small one, the linen one, maybe to hang from the rear mirror.

 

I put de air fresheners inside a cardboard box decorated with paper gift and flowers (made with blue ribbon).

 

It’s not so bad, right? I have to say I’m proud of myself, the effort worth it. It was really satisfactory to finish all this and see a good result.

And that’s all for now!

If you’ve found my blog and you’re reading this: Thanks! I hope you enjoy it!

 

Sabela