Yelly Writes

The Reading List for 2013

Yelly

I finally have my reading list for 2013 (HURRAH!).  The goal is to read these books, and add a few more.  Although, the first book in my list is fairly ambitious, even when you factor in the fact that I do read parts of it everyday as part of my daily devotion!

This is my reading list for 2013:Stack of Library Books

  1. The Bible — yes ALL of it!
  2. The Jane Austen Miscellany by Harry Berry
  3. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
  4. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
  5. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  6. The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language by Mark Forsyth
  7. I Remember Nothing and other reflections by Nora Ephron
  8. The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
  9. Room by Emma Donoghue
  10. Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace
  11. How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
  12. French Lessons by Ellen Sussman

I wanted to make sure that I read books by authors that I’d never read before but I couldn’t resist adding a Philippa Gregory book because I love her books so much!  I’ve discovered that I love historical fiction and this was all because I started reading PG’s books.  I started with The Other Boleyn Girl and was hooked!

Some of the books on the list are already on my Kindle and have been languishing there for ages.  I haven’t had the opportunity (and if I’m honest, most of the time, the inclination to read!  Bad, I know!) to read them yet, so to encourage (read: prod me with a red-hot fireplace poker!) me to read them, I’m adding them to my list.

One book a month, except the Bible because I plan to read that everyday, although the Bible is still on my list of 12 books.  There are 1189 chapters in the Bible and 365 days in a year.  If I read 4 chapters a day, I’ll finish reading the Bible from cover to cover.  Big ask, yes, very definitely.  But I am determined to achieve this particular goal because, as a Christian, I am determined to be able to say that I’ve read the bible.  Properly!

As they say, each approaching new year prompts people into a frenzied goal-setting mindset.  My goal is simply to read more.  I’ve always loved to read.  It’s just giving my reading a little direction!

Yelly Eats

Stollen from scratch!

Yelly

So the goal for the holidays, really, was to make stollen from scratch.  I made stollen once before, but it was from a Mary Berry mix.  Everything was prepped for me so all I had to do was mix everything up.  I was determined to find a recipe I could follow that was as close to Mary Berry’s as possible.  I searched for a stollen recipe but suprisingly couldn’t find one in my numerous books (to be completely honest, I didn’t really look very far!  Ha!).  But as luck would have it, Edd Kimber’s book Say It With Cake has a wonderful recipe for stollen.

Stollen proofing

I added a little tidbit:  I soaked the dried fruits in brandy overnight.  Makes for an interesting taste.  It called for nuts in the recipe, but I didn’t have any to put in so I did without that.  And because I like my marzipan spread through out the bread instead of in a big lump in the middle, I rolled my marzipan flat so that it would be distributed throughout the loaf.

Stollen baked

I was quite surprised at the size of the stollen though.  It came out bigger than I thought!  But it did look so pretty when it was dusted with icing sugar!

Stollen dusted

I was quite pleased with how it’s turned out.  The stollen came out beautifully!  Am now not too afraid to make breads, aided of course by my Kenwood chef (obviously not paid advertisement, although, I would love it if Kenwood took notice and gave me free stuff!  Ha!).   I wanted to learn how to make stollen mostly because of my dad.  He talks about the time when his entire family lived in Vienna and stollen eventually filters into the conversation.  It has always been a dream to bake something that reminded my father of happy times with his parents and siblings.  A few more practice sessions so that I can develop my own take on stollen!  But until then, Edd Kimber’s recipe with my own tweaks to it will do me just fine!

Stollen

Yelly Eats

Turkey hash anyone?

Yelly

The turkey we bought could have easily fed 10 people (or so it says on the packaging!).  So our tiny fridge is filled to the brim with leftover turkey and the trimmings: roasted potatoes, carrots and parsnips, steamed brussel sprouts and lots of beautiful gravy (I say beautiful because all the skin and bones from the chicken thighs purchased in the past have been languishing in my freezer for the sole purpose of making amazing gravy for Christmas!  The gravy was in a word BEAUTIFUL!).  I’ve made a beautiful turkey and leek pie from the leftover stuff before but my favourite leftover standby recipe really is turkey hash.  This is definitely a no-brainer.

You simply dice the leftover turkey meat, potatoes, carrots and parsnips and slice the brussel sprouts in half.  Dice a large onion and you’re ready to go.  Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil (olive or vegetable, it doesn’t really matter) and sauté the onions until they are transluscent.  Add the turkey meat and stirfry until the meat is heated through.  Add the chopped vegetables and stirfry until the vegetables are heated through.  Add a cup of frozen peas, although this is optional.  Pour about 2 cups of gravy (if you have it, although one cup will do beautifully).  Stir until the gravy is mixed through properly.  Salt and pepper to taste.  I add a liberal sprinkling of tabasco sauce to add a kick to the hash.  I think the spicy tabasco sauce helps kickstart you the morning after a healthy helping (or two) of Christmas Day feasting.  Cook for a further 10 minutes until everything is piping hot and serve.

It might not be a pretty dish but it certainly is a tasty and brilliant way to use up leftover turkey, roasted veg and gravy!

Turkey hash

Yelly Writes

Tis the season!

Yelly

Christmas will always require celebration for me.  I grew up with my mum drumming into me how important Christmas is, how important it is to celebrate the occasion of Christ’s birth.  Growing up in church has made Christmas a more spiritual occasion.  It was all about the birth of the Saviour, the Word being made flesh.  It has always been the day of the year that reminds me most of God’s love, grace and mercy.  That’s why, no matter how small, Christmas had to be celebrated, there had to be a tree, there had to be decorations to celebrate it, there had to be presents to share and there had to be a Noche Buena at midnight!  There should always be an effort to be made for Christmas because all the gift giving and all the food preparation is part of the celebration.  It is one of , if not the most important days in the Christian calendar.

Whatever you do today, however you celebrate the season, whatever your faith, have a wonderfully happy and very blesssed Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 

 

Yelly Writes

21-12-2012

Yelly

I spent quality time with the document scanner in the office today.  I had what seemed to be a shedload of documents to put into the system!  I spent the better part of 2 hours sitting in front of the document scanner feeding document after document.  How exciting is my life!

There was a lot of discussion about what the Mayans predicted to be the end of the world.  Some people interpreted the end of the Mayan calendar to be a prediction that the Mayans made–that the world would end at 11:11AM on 21 December 2012.  Someone at work was genuinely worrying about it being the end of the world.  I don’t know the details of the prediction but there was talk that a black comet would come and strike the earth, but that no one would be able to track this particular comet because it couldn’t be seen because it was black.  There was were several news bits about this town in southern France that was supposedly safe from destruction because of the presence of aliens underneath!

I had a good giggle about it because, well, it all seemed a bit silly to me.  People were worried about the world ending, and instead of living their life as it was their last day on earth, making every second count, some people were petrified and not doing anything at all.  Now, if today was your last day on Earth and you did nothing because you were afraid, wouldn’t you want your last day to count?

I wrote to my mom tonight and told her about the Mayan prediction and was slightly surprised that she didn’t know about it.  I guess it wasn’t as featured on the news in Manila as it was here in the UK.  I said that I went on with my day, knowing that we wouldn’t know when end of times is coming.  Only God does and when that happens, I know where I’m going.  But that until then, we needed to live a life pleasing to our God.  That was what matters.

I admit, it would be good to know when the end of days is so that you are able to tie loose ends, do what you want to do, tick off things from your bucket list, tell loved ones how much they matter and all the other things you do to “prepare for the end.”  I think what we need to remember is that these are things we should be doing this everyday.  But we don’t know when the world will end or how it’ll end.  It’ll come “life a thief in the night.”  Everything is just conjecture.  All you just do is live each day to the fullest, making sure that everything you do counts.

11:11AM

Yelly Eats

Food for the gods, a Filipino tradition

Yelly

I grew up enjoying food for the gods during Christmas and I always thought that it would be such a complicated recipe because, well, at the time, you couldn’t exactly buy the ingredients from your local supermarket.  It was such a treat when people gave us a box of these lovely sweet treats and I remember when we were handed one each after dinner so that we could make it last.  This was before my Lolo Ani opened a bakery and started baking these in huge quantities and we had food for the gods on tap every Christmas!

Food for the gods are really date and walnut bars.  I don’t really know why they’re called food for the gods, maybe because they are scrummy and so wonderfully to eat!  I’ve tried several recipes and after a few tweaking exercises, I may have cracked it.

I brought this to work today so that I could share it with my officemates.  I am merely continuing the Filipino tradition of giving away food for the gods at Christmas!

Here’s my recipe:Food for the gods aka date bars

Ingredients:

150g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
225g brown sugar
125g unsalted butter, melted
150g walnuts, coarsely chopped
150g dates, coarsley chopped

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 175°C.
  2. In a mixing bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder together with a balloon whisk until well combined.  Add walnuts and dates and mix with a spatula until the dates and nuts are well-covered with the flour mixture and well-distributed within the flour mixture.  Doing this will ensure that the dates and the nuts do not sink to the bottom of the mixture.
  3. In a mixing bowl (am using a free standing mixer but you can also do this by hand with a balloon whisk), combine melted butter and sugars and beat until the mixture is smooth and almost creamy.  Add the eggs one at a time, making sure that the egg is well-combined before adding the next one.  Add the flour-date-nut mixture in quarters.  Mix until everything is well-distributed and you cannot see any flour.
  4. Spread mixture in a greased 17.5cm x 26.5cm (or thereabouts) pan lined with baking parchment (I learned that lining the baking pan with parchment is good because it makes it easy to release the cake from the pan) and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  This recipe makes up to 24 squares.
Yelly Eats

Chocolate bark

Yelly

I saw Ina Garten make this in one of her shows and I thought, “Wow that looks really easy!”

And believe me, it was really easy!  All you have to do is melt chocolate of your choice (I used half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate to balance the bitterness of the chocolate) in a heatproof bowl over boiling water, making sure that the boiling water didn’t touch the bowl.  The process might be slow but the chocolate comes out really beautiful and shiny.

Then you spread the chocolate over wax or parchment paper and sprinkle your choice of nuts and dried fruit and let it cool and become solid.  It’s important to remember that you shouldn’t put the cooling chocolate into the fridge.  Doing this will cause the chocolate to lose its sheen.  Also, if you intend to use dark chocolate (60% or higher), it might be a good idea to temper the chocolate with a heaping teaspoon of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla paste so that the bitter taste is calmed down.

Chocolate bark cooling

Once the chocolate has cooled and hardened, you can either use a sharp knife to slice the chocolate into shapes or break them apart with your hands.  I prefer the knife option though, because if you break the chocolate up with your hands, the natural heat of your hands will make you leave finger prints all over the chocolate.

You can vary the sprinkles, depending on who this is for.  I placed salted cashews, dried apricots, dried berries and dried cranberries.  This makes for a tasty goodie bag item, which I learned, is also called a “hostess giveaway”

Chocolate bark

Yelly Snaps

Frosty!

Yelly

It was quite the frosty morning this morning and Jack Frost was quite the busy boy!  It is such a trial walking to the train station in cold weather and it does take its toll on my nails and cuticles.  But as the train was passing through the frosted trees bare of their leaves and the undisturbed meadows, I couldn’t help but wonder at the beauty of it all!

When everything is undisturbed, quite and pristine, everything seems to be right in the world.

Frosted holly

Yelly Snaps

Snow

Yelly

Tonight is a night for accentuating the positives!  And I am determined to do just that.

While it did snow today and the snow created a lot of upheaval for the commuting public, the snow does look very pretty when it lays.

Snow!

Yelly Writes

Musings on the train

Yelly

On Friday, I was reading an email from Emerald Street about the Twitter folk that they follow.  One of the people they follow and they recommend their readers follow, apparently, tweets “witty and oh-so-true observations”.  So I followed the person and then read through the tweets that they had posted previously.

While reading the tweets, I sat there thinking, “Awww, I say these things too!  Why don’t I have two thousand odd followers?  I make witty-slash-pithy comments too.  Why don’t people find my comments funny and oh-so-true?”  A little voice replied to my mental whining and said, “Maybe it’s because you whine and don’t really say things matter-of-factly?”

I think I’m fairly normal and I have a fairly normal amount of self-confidence.  I like to think I have a realistic idea of how capable I am.  I think when I was younger, I used to think I was the bees’ knees.  I used to think I could do everything: sing, dance, write, speak properly publicly, perform on stage and be, generally, amazing.  I was raised to believe in myself and my abilities.  I was raised to know how to carry myself in public.  I think I was blessed to have parents who raised me in an environment that encouraged realistic self-confidence.  But there are days when I think back to when I was younger and wondered whether I thought I was better than I was?

I mean, if I was truly witty and funny (I was about two or three years old when I had a funny conversation with my grandfather.  I said to him “I love you Lolo!”–Lolo is grandfather in Filipino–to which he replied “I love you too!”  Apparently, to my grandfather’s delight, I replied “I love you three!”  He apparently thought that was very smart!), why don’t more people follow me on Twitter or follow my blog?  I made the same observations as that woman Emerald Street recommended their readers follow (albeit in a whiny and maybe annoying tone).  How come they didn’t notice me?

After this realisation, I’ve just realised that I do want attention, despite the protestations otherwise!  I love the attention I get on Twitter when people reply to or retweet my tweets.  My heart does a little dance when people follow me (and you cannot believe the crash when I realise that the person following me is a spam bot!).  I love it when people read my blog.  I smile when I see how many people follow my blog or like my blog post or even visit my blog.

I am still disappointed that not a lot of people post comments on my blog.  I sometimes still wonder why my blog doesn’t get more comments or visits?  Mind you, as soon as I start going down this narcissistic road, I tell myself, quite sternly that there are over 7 billion people in the world and there are tens of millions of bloggers out there.  I am only one drop in an ocean of bloggers and I write about the most common of blog topics: food, books and family.  I like to think I have an amazing writing style because I write like I talk and in my head I sound interesting.  But then again, that’s me, and I have a healthy sense of self appreciation (I think we should all have a healthy dose of self-respect and self-confidence, otherwise we’d all be wringing our hands pathetically all the time!).  The truth is, I may not really sound amazing or my writing style might really, really suck (oh dear!).

I think sometimes when a person is highly adaptable and seems to thrive in different environments, one forgets that adaptability doesn’t necessarily mean that when one adapts, one is amazing.  I sometimes forget that I’ve moved to England and while I speak English better than most people, I don’t necessarily converse in English in quite the same way!  I forget that my expressions aren’t necessarily British.  I may speak English but not necessarily British English, with the same nuances and the same colloquialisms.

I think I crave the attention because, like everyone else, I want validation.  Validation that my thoughts, my ideas and my values matter.  We all want that.  Validation that we matter.  I think that’s why social media has the effect that it does.  Humans want validation, however they get it.  People want to know that someone, somewhere in the world thinks the same way.

I think we forget that the people who give us the most validation are the people who love us, who care about us.  Because they listen to us, give us the time of day and even if they don’t agree with every single word that comes out of our mouths, they still respect us because what we say comes from who we are.  And they respect who we are.

I am thankful for the 229 followers that I have because somehow they provide validation (even if they might be bots or spammers anyway!) that I crave.  But the end of the day, what I appreciate the most are the people in my life who love me for me, my faults and my frailties.  They provide the validation that I need.  They make me feel that I matter.  A lot.