Procrastinating

Work has been hounding me these past few weeks and I can say with finality that I. Am. Tired.   So even if I've been busting my butt at work, they still keep on coming!  They won't stop!  I actually have a deadline on Tuesday and I'm not nearly halfway done.  I said to myself that I'll work on it this weekend, but it's Sunday now and I only got to work on a smidge.  Sigh.

I really don't like working on weekends and to procrastinate, I made this:

A mixed berry curd torte. 

I got a tray of really cute organic eggs at SM Supermarket, expensive at Php 120/dozen - I usually get my eggs from Bounty Fresh at around Php 70/dozen - but what the hey. 

I thought a really nice dessert would do the eggs justice, and I've got a bag of walnuts and frozen mixed berries that I was itching to use, so a torte was a splendid idea.  Splendid but elaborate, with the curd, dacquoise and frosting that I needed to make. 

I didn't realize how hard it was to find a recipe for whipped cream frosting, but I think I found a keeper.  I got the recipe for stabilized whipped cream frosting from here.  It still softened like crazy outside of the fridge, but it did hold its shape for about 30 minutes.  I'll tweak the recipe a bit to suit our crazy humid weather.

Now that the torte has been tasted (yum!) and stashed in the fridge, I now have to work.  Ugh.

Redecorating

Having a job means staying out of the house for most of the day, but on the upside, having a job means having more dough to spend on house stuff. And that's exactly what I've been doing.

So after hours spent staring at the living room-turned dining room, I decide that the furniture we have just aren't cutting it, and I do need to freshen up the space a little bit since I've been having a really bad spell of undomesticity in the city. Bleck.

Little bit is an understatement. When I got my 13th month pay, we immediately went to Ortigas Home Depot to look at tables since the tables that we've looked at in the mall were either too frumpy (weird 'hip' flower designs and badly veneered wood) or too expensive (40 to 50k, which is approx. USD 1,000-1,200 - are you kidding me?!). The shopping gods smiled upon us that day because Home Depot was having a sale on furniture! We looked at this Malaysian made oval table and we instantly liked it (I actually liked a sleek looking table with metal legs at Our Home, but at 37k, I happily looked away) and the price was pretty reasonable at 17k (a little over USD 400). The surface is veneer though, but very nicely done and it doesn't have that funny sour smell from cheap veneered tables.

When we got home, we were talking about how we were gonna fix the room now that the new table is there. Idle talk is dangerous because next thing we knew, we were scheming and planning on fixing the kitchen, which led to the decision that a gas range is the next must-buy. So off we went to the mall the following weekend to get one.  I got this one:

photo from La Germania

A weekend after, we realize that the benches that we originally planned to use with the table look heavy and awkward, so naturally, I obsessed about dining chairs. I searched high and low for them until I found the perfect ones at Dimensione. I'm really liking Danish style pieces and the ones I found in Dimensione were exactly that but it did take me about a week and a half to think about buying it since each costs almost 4k. Gulp. So I started looking for chairs similar to our 2 bent plywood chairs with metal legs which cost less than half of what the Danish chairs cost, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. Them cheaper chairs were not available and the style has been phased out. Arrrgh. Having left with no other choice, I just swallowed hard and paid almost 4k EACH for the fricking Danish chairs. I must say though that those chairs are crazy comfy and look darn good too.  I got this, but in Ash:

photo from www.cafechairs-shop.com.au

Of course it's inevitable that we would need to have some kitchen shelves installed, right?  We did.  Blog entry on that coming soon.

Christmas Present

So. I got the most darling domestic gift from the husband last Christmas.  I haven't had the time to use it as often as I want, but ain't she a beaut?

photo from The Cooking Police

I'm Back

I didn't think I would muster enough time to update this blog again, but here I am, tap-tap-tapping away once more. And how I've missed this so.

Things have been mostly steady, busy-steady at work, with hardly enough time to take care of things domestic. I cringe as I type that because I really do relish my time here at home, hanging out with the hound-n-husband.

Speaking of hounds, my lil hound turns 1 today! The 10 months that we've had him were just full of joy and cuteness and shedding fur. I'm breathing in cold airconditioned air and probably a fistful of fur and dander from my adorable pooch that's blowing his summer coat. My sinuses are acting up, but I still can't resist hugging the furry bugger.

I'm thinking of getting a FURminator but I'm not sure if it works. Has anyone used this? Let me know how FURminator's working out for you.

Strawberries!

It's strawberry season once again (that is, here in the Phils.) and I just bought a kilo of big, red juicy berries from a recent Baguio trip. What should I do with them? Strawberry sponge cake? Macerate? Strawberry pie? Or just eat them as they are with cream and brown sugar? Hmmmn.

Pet Peeve

I've gone to the vet more than a handful of times since we got Negishi for his shots. Everytime I come in, I'm asked to log my name and Negishi's, the purpose of the visit and his present weight. Standard procedure is that you wait in the lobby until an attendant calls your pet's name. So, every time we're there, I cringe when it's our turn because they always shout out "NIGESHI! NIGESHI!" which annoys me no end.

Next time I visit, I'll write down "Nigeshi" instead of "Negishi" and see if they'll say it correctly.

Negishi says "Whuuuut?"

Lemon Curd Holidays

With all my spare time, I decided to make our holiday presents this year. Contrary to popular belief, handmade gifts are not necessarily cheaper than store-bought ones, but boy are they fun to make!

I made some simple, easy to make lemon curd and bottled them up in nice jars. Here's the easy-peasy lemon curd recipe I modified from the allrecipes.com site:

Lemon Curd
yield: about 2 cups

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1. Put all ingredients, except for the lemon zest, in a bowl and set over a double-boiler
2. Stir constantly until mixture is thick and leaves a trail at the back of the spoon (about 15 minutes), or until it reaches 170 degrees.

Important note: Don't let the mixture boil!

Keeps for 1 week in the fridge, and about 2 months in the freezer.