Simple dinner

After long walk I need a strong dinner.
There is no proportions and I didn't made as in a recipe, but it tasted good.
You will need:
Boiled lentils
Frozen spinach, thawed
Two garlic cloves
One onion
Curry powder (originally there was garam masala)
Salt, pepper.

Heat the oil, add spices. Add garlic, after few minutes add onion, sauté until gold and add spinach.
Finally add lentiles and cook until warm. Thats it :)
Recipe is from "Best ever curry cook book".

And just sunny apples. Yes, they don't look fresh, but I like how they look :)

Vilnius buildings

It was a perfect weather on saturday, so I made a photo trip throught the city.

Pancake day!

Today is Mardi Gras day, so i'm very happy that I can make pancakes with the reason.
I had some problems with baking them, maybe because my pan was not correct? Recipe is from TastyArt, but I changed some ingridients. They were soft and tasting chocolate....

You will need:
1 egg
200 ml milk
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp butter
50 gr dark chocolate
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp backing powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Mix egg with sugar, add milk. Melt chocolate with butter, set aside. in separate bowl mix flour, cocoa, spices and backing powder. Incorporate half of flour mixture to egg mixture, than add chocolate and mix well. Add other half of flour and it's ready!
Bake in a pan with oil, and probably you will need a pan with teflon. That's maybe the reason why mine was burning. :)

Ice churches

This year Vilnius is a culture capital, so there are going to be lots of events.
This weekend they're making sculptures of ice - baroque churches. There will be educational excursions, some plays, concert. I thought it will be big nice churches, but there will be only front parts :)
Here you can see preparation work.

Spring is coming

There is no snow anymore. The sun is shining longer and longer. And yesterday first time I catched the "spring smell". You know it? It's wet and a bit warm.
I'm waiting waiting... and with the spring the love feeling is coming too. When you feel happy to be in this beautiful rebirthing world. When you want to sing, to breathe deep.
The begining of spring is the most beautiful time in a year - there is no many power, with all palette of green colour. And it's changing while you're watching.
...few weeks and it will be here.

Sweat and calm _weekend

Winter colours

Merry Christmas!

Warm, cosy, full of dreams and magic feelings.
This year is one of the calmest Christmas. I just let them come, without huge plans. And that's it! It's the way they have to be. Not to want too much from others and do everything you can.
I was preparing the food for Christmas Eve: twelve dishes is a challenge! Then backing some cakes, decorating Christmas Tree.

I want to wish everybody to feel Christmas magic in your hearts!

Christmas fruit pie
450g butter
400g brown sugar
9 eggs
1 tsp backing powder
1 orange juice
1 lemon juice
4 cups all purpose flour
900g raisins
900g dried black currants
200g dried date-palms
200g dried figs
220g almonds
250g candied cherries
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange

Preheat oven to 160C degrees.
Dice all dried fruits and almonds.
Room temperature butter cream with sugar till white. Incorporate eggs one after another, add orange and lemon juice, put flour with backing powder and mix well. Add all dried fruits and mix.
Lay two tins with parchment paper and fill with dough.
Bake the cakes for 2h or until firm to the touch. Allow to cool slightly before removing from the tins. Wrap in parchment paper, and foil. Keep in room temperature minimum 2 weeks, maximum - 2 month.

The taste is perfect.

Recipe from here

Warm touch

Handmade presents are the best. This one I did to my mother.

Urban play

Square in Amsterdam
Nice result in 8 days and help of 100 volunteers.
Later police removed it during the night, it didn't have to happen like this.
Scott Burnham:
"It seems that the Amsterdam police were called by a resident of one of the overlooking buildings early Sunday morning to report that someone was "stealing an artwork". As the story goes, people were pocketing a few of the coins, which was also expected, but things got a bit out of hand when a resident saw this happening. So the police responded, and, in a rather bizarre instance of police efficiency, they proceeded to "secure" the artwork, by sweeping up the entire installation."

More info here
Photos here