Glo's Care Package Unboxing

More than a month ago we received a care package from my godmother from Argentine, and while it arrived for my son's b-day, it wasn't strictly a b-day gift.

My godmother knows how much we miss, especially me since my son grew up in Spain, sweets and candy from Argentine. I won't say anything bad about sweet things here in Spain, instead I'll just say I could do without them... xDD

The thing I miss the most are "alfajores", the ones we have in Argentine, of course. They are the most delicious treat; and apart from alfajores she sent a few other things.

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Hace mas de un mes nos llegó una cajita llena de amor (cómo changos se traduce "care package"? xD) de parte de mi madrina desde Argentina, y si bien llegó para el cumpleaños de mi hijo, no era exactamente un regalo de cumpleaños.

Mi madrina sabe lo mucho que extrañamos, especialmente yo ya que mi hijo se crió en España, los dulces y golosinas Argentinos. No voy a tirar mierda contra las cosas dulces de España, solo diré que podría vivir sin ellas... xDD

Lo que mas extraño de todo son los alfajores, los que tenemos en Argentina, claro está. Son la golosinas mas deliciosa; y aparte de alfajores nos envió unas cuantas cositas mas.

And just because we made a video of us unboxing the package for my godmother and my grand-aunt, I also uploaded it!

Butternut Squash Cream Soup

It's been a while since I wanted to try and cook my own pumpkin cream soup, since the ones you can buy at the supermarkets are "blergh". It's a super easy recipe, but since I'm not the one that goes grocery shopping, I never got all the ingredients I wanted at once. To be honest I had to improvise, since I had more of some ingredients and less of others; but I must say that being the first time making it, it came out really good! The pumpkin wasn't actually pumpkin, it was butternut squash, and while the recipe I followed said one thing, I ended up doing it my way, since the quantity of the other ingredients was greater and I wanted butternut squash cream, not a lot of things WITH butternut squash in it. 

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Hace mucho ya que quería intentar hacer mi propia crema de calabaza, ya que la que venden en el supermercado es horrible. Es súper fácil, pero como nunca tenía todos los ingredientes que necesitaba, ya que no soy yo la que hace las compras. Para ser sincera, tuve que improvisar, ya que tenía mucho de algunos ingredientes, y poco de otros; pero debo decir que me quedó súper bien para ser la primera vez que la hago! La calabaza no era calabaza propiamente dicha, sino otra variante, y mientras que la receta que seguí decía una cosa, yo terminé adaptándola a mi gusto, ya que la cantidad del resto de los ingredientes era mayor, y yo quería crema de calabaza, y no crema de un montón de cosas CON calabaza. 

INGREDIENTS (serve 3)
 
❤ 500gr. butternut squash.
❤ 1 carrot (medium).
❤ 1 leek (the white part).
❤ 1 potato (big).
❤ 100ml. cream (I added a bit more while mixing).
❤ salt.
❤ olive oil.

INGREDIENTES (3 personas)

❤ 500gr. calabaza.
❤ 1 zanahoria (mediana). 
❤ 1 puerro (la parte blanca).
❤ 1 patata (grande). 
❤ 100ml. crema de leche (luego le fui agregando mas). 
❤ sal. 
❤ aceite de oliva.

1. Peel and cut the vegetables, then put them all in boiling water.
2. Add salt and a little of olive oil.
3. Cover the pot and let the vegetables cook until they are ready to make purée.
4. Put the vegetables in a blender and put the broth aside (yummy home-made broth!).
5. Add the cream and a little of olive oil (and salt if needed).
6. Blend until there're no traces of vegetables pieces.
7. Serve hot and decorate as you wish (you can also sprinkle grated cheese on it).

1. Pelar y cortar las verduras, y ponerlas en una olla con agua hirviendo.
2. Agregar sal y un chorrito de aceite de oliva.
3. Cubrir la olla y cejar cocer hasta que la verdura esté a punto para hacer puré.
4. Colocar las verduras en una licuadora y apartar el caldo.
5. Agregar la crema de leche y un chorrito de aceite de oliva (y sal si es necesario).
6. Licuar hasta que no haya verduras a la vista.
7. Servir muy caliente y decorar (se puede agregar queso rallado por encima).

Cinnamon Biscuits.

If you know me, you'll know I'm not a great cook, hell, if I like cooking! Mostly due to my lack of patience and being quite the defeatist (is that even a word?). And in case you're wondering, yes, I DO cook, I just don't like it and I don't do fancy things.

But sometimes I get inspired and crave for little sweet things; because even if I'd choose an olive over any sweet food, I do have cravings.

This time my inspiration came with Daria from Kittenhood, she made these coconut biscuits, and claimed it was easy; first I love coconut, and second but most important, I love easy recipes!

In the end I had to completely change the recipe, because I didn't have coconut shavings like I thought, and since cinnamon is also a favourite of mine I started looking for a recipe which also wasn't in "tbsp" since I never seem to get it right. And I found this one.

At first sight the looked like rocks, since I wanted to make them just like the "La cure gourmande" ones (which I LOVE!), but when I tried them, they were quite good, actually, with an antique feeling to them if you know what I mean.

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Si me conocen, sabrán que no soy una gran cocinera, ni siquiera me gusta! Mas que nada porque no tengo paciencia y soy un poco derrotista. Y por si se preguntan, sí, cocina, simplemente no me gusta, ni hago cosas muy complicadas.

Pero a veces me siento inspirada y tengo ganas de algo dulce, porque aunque normalmente elegiría una aceituna antes que cualquier cosa dulce, de vez en cuando tengo antojos.

Esta vez mi inspiración vino de la mano de Daria de Kittenhood, que hizo estas galletas de coco, y dijo que eran fáciles de hacer; para empezar me encanta el coco, y segundo pero mas importante, me encantan las recetas fáciles!

Al final tuve que cambiar de receta porque no tenía coco rallado, y como la canela también es de mmis favoritos, busqué una receta que no estuviese en "tbsp", porque nunca me salen bien con esa medida. Y encontré esta.

A simple vista parecían rocas, porque mi idea era que se parecieran a las de "La cure gourmande" (que las amo!), pero cuando las probé, estaban bastante bien, con un estilo antiguo, si saben a que me refiero.

INGREDIENTS
 
❤ 100gr. butter.
❤ 100gr. brown sugar (I used 200gr.)
❤ 1 egg.
❤ 3 coffee spoons of cinnamon.
❤ 300gr. flour.
❤ 1 coffee spoon of baking powder.
❤ Powdered sugar for decorating.
❤ Nutella or whatever you want for dipping.

INGREDIENTES

❤ 100gr. manteca.
❤ 100gr. azúcar moreno (Yo usé 200gr.) 
❤ 1 huevo.
❤ 3 cucharaditas de canela. 
❤ 300gr. harina. 
❤ 1 cucharadita polvos para hornear. 
❤ Azúcar impalpable (glass) para decorar. 
❤ Nutella o lo que quieran para acompañar.

Preheat the oven at 180°C. In a bowl, mix the butter with the sugar. Then add the egg and the cinnamon. Once it's all mixed sift the flour and the baking powder and mix until it becomes a non-sticky rough dough. Here, you have to put it in the fridge covered with a plastic film for about 20 minutes (which I actually didn't do, totally forgot xD).

Now do it your own way, you can do what I did, balls of around a meatball size, or shape them as you please. Cook for around 20/30 minutes at 180ºC (this in case you made meatballs, if you cut them thin, give them 10 minutes or so) et voilà!

Pre-calentar el horno a 180ºC. Mezclar la manteca con el azúcar en un bol. Agrgar el huevo y la canela. Una vez todo mezcladito, tamizar la harina y el polvo para hornear y mezclar hasta que quede una masa dura que nos e pegue en los dedos. Ahora hay que meter en la nevera cubierto por un film durante 20 minutos (yo no lo hice, me olvidé xD).

Ahora pueden darle la forma que deseen, pueden hacer como yo (mucho mas fácil y rápido xD) pelotas del tamaño de albóndigas, o amasar y darles formitas. Cocinar a 180ºC durante 20/30 minutos (en caso de que hagan las albóndigas) o 10 minutos sin son finitas. Et Voilà!

And so, with no warning, no last goodbye

♪♫ As the days of my life are but grains of sand
As they fall from your open hand
At the call of the wind's command. ♫♪



♪♫ The Eagle will Rise Again - Alan Parsons Project ♫♪

Last weekend we went skate and long-boarding, well, not me, my husband and my son, 'cause Luc wanted to try his new longboard we gave him for his 11th birthday.
Let me tell you, it's really dangerous; he still doesn't feel safe over a board after he broke his wrist last summer, so he will go step by step, baby steps.

It was a beautiful day, but both my boys were so into what they were doing that nobody took a photo of me, so I had to do it indoors after we arrived home. But before that my husband and I made some delicious cinnamon rolls I've been craving forever, and they were delicious!
Here is the recipe we used as a guide, because my husband being a cook he changed it quite a bit.

And on another note, I still have to finish my Dublin posts, but I've been very lazy this month, to be quite honest! I promise I'll do it tomorrow!

Jeans: Levi's.
Turtleneck: Zara.
Jacket: Zara.
Boots: Merkal Calzado.
Beret: Atmosphere.
Bag: lovelyshoes.net.
Scarf: Zara.
Lips: Lancôme Color Fever Gloss - 322 Pink But Not Innocent.

And here are some photos of the delicious cinnamon rolls we made.

They Draw & Cook

Like I always say, I'm not a good cook and I don't really enjoy doing it, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate fun and cute recipes like these in this site: They Draw & Cook. Here people from around the world share their recipes but in a different way; illustrated!

You can send yours too, so if you like to draw and cook you know where to go!

Seen on here

Cookies and Bread in Jars.

I've seen these photos around the net for a while now but never really wondered about what they were exactly.
And it's amazing! Imagine, for a person like me who hates cooking (and does it really bad, to be quite honest) this is fabulous!

All the dry ingredients come inside the bottle or jar, you just have to add the wet ones and tadaaa!
Yeah.., I know, you would say that I could buy the food already baked, but that takes away the cuteness of all these!
Plus the part I hate the most about baking something is weighting the ingredients.
I know, I fail as a housewife, but that's what you get for having a husband that cooks better than everyone in the town! xDD

Now, only if these were sold somewhere..

Bread in a Bottle
Cookies in a Jar

Trip Day 4: Shinjuku, Akihabara & Ginza (March 23rd)

Wooohoooo!!! xDDD
I finally decided on updating about the trip we did last March to Tokyo.
People tell me I should be happy I was there, but I can't help feeling sad about the fact I was only a week and everything went SO fast and it left this bitter-sweet flavour in my mouth; and everytime I go through the photos I cry.

My husband used to tell me: "What if you go and it disappoints you? What if it doesn't fulfil your expectation?" Now I can clearly answer that it was even more awesome than I ever thought, I was never this happy in my life!


We had to go to Shinjuku first because we had to change money at the bank, aaaaand I wanted to go to Closet Child to see if I could convince my husband to buy me some clothes.., because at this point my suitcase was still missing.. ;_;




First we went to the Golden Gai, one of the most awesome places at Shinjuku, for me, at least. Of course everything was closed, since they open at night, so my husband and I decided we wanted to go there at night another day..





As you can see, the place is all cluttered and full of little places where no more than 6 people can sit..
Many of these mini-restaurants are run by artists such as the Kokusyoku Sumire cafe. I'm not a fan of them, so I didn't actually want to go, but it would've been really funny to be served by them.. xDD


Our next stop was the Hanazono Shrine, which of course.., and to follow the tradition in this trip, was being remodelled.. xDD





I've always wanted to ring those bells and be granted a wish, and since there was something I REALLY wanted, I asked for it!
I think you can guess what I asked.. ;DD





Then we decided to fight for the BURANDO..




Of course I was the winner, I was REALLY motivated..
(you can see me wearing the same clothes I wore the first 2 days.. ;_;)



As you can see, you can't smoke on the street, except for the "vicious" or
"cancerigenous" point, which we frequented thanks to Tamar and my husband.. xPP




Some cool buildings..




Here waiting for Maka and I, we went to the bank.., remember Maka? xDDD






At this point, we had already been to Closet Child, where I bought some clothes and accessories; Donki, where I bought my Rilakkuma kigurumi and also eaten delicious ramen at the place where I change clothes.
Also, by the time I had fought with my husband because I wanted to buy a kigu for Luc, and because I was SO SELFISH to buy me clothes when I had nothing else to wear.. =_=


Then we headed to Akihabara, where I would've kill to go years ago and where I felt so embarrassed for everyone there.., too freaky for my taste..
Buuuuut there were many cool stores!





This is NOT FREAKISM! This is LOVE, pure love for EVA-01 and Ayanami.. ♥




Aa! Megamisama giant figures.., they were SO cheap and perfect for anyone's dinning room.. xDD




Tamar can't take anything serious.. xDDD




After Tamar buying all the dolls she had to buy.., (ahh, no.., sorry.., two days later she bought some more.. xDD) we decided to buy a camera.
Ahhh, the sellers drove me crazy with their 'crossed arms sign' telling me that I shouldn't buy certain cameras, a guy told I shouldn't buy Lumix (the one I wanted), to pick Sony, then another one told me "SONY NO!!!"
After going crazy thanks to these guys, we bought an Exilim. The thing was that not all had the menu in English.. XDD


Ginza was the next stop, because we wanted to go to the Vampire Cafe.
It started raining when we got out from the metro at Ginza st.




We were going to visit the Sony Building before going to the cafe.., but it was closing, so no Sony Building.. XDD
Just these cute dogs which I don't remember their names right now.., at their entrance.




Ginza is a hot, sexy, expensive and fashionable district..







Then we finally found our way to the Vampire Cafe..!




Rose petals, coffins, candles, darkness, call bells, velvet curtains, a laughing skull, maids and Rigoberto the Vampire.. xDDD
Rigoberto was our host, al geared-up in his 800000 yen cape from Moitie and vampire make-up, but English impared.. xDD




Everything was black and red and with the vampire-themed.
The dish was SO pretty, but it lacked of sugar.., it was a bit tasteless, actually.. xDD





Aaaaaaaand, the group shot!
And this time is the whole group for some people's delight.. they guy at the back is not Rigoberto de vampire.., is actually my husband!!
But, SHHHHH, don't tell him I uploaded a photo of him on the net, he'd kill me! xDDD



It was funny, because we asked Rigoberto to take the photo, and after taking it he went straight to write something at the cash register, so we thought we had to pay a plus for it.. O_O
I don't know if we had to.., but we paid more indeed because it was Wednesday.., and only Rigoberto knows why on Wednesday you have to pay a plus there.. xDDD


Back to the hotel at Ginza st. I took this photo, but I already showed it some time ago..




Once at the hotel I was expecting some notice about my suitcase, but there was nothing, and no phone calls either.. I was starting to panic!!!