ivan's livejournal

In which pasta gets made

2009-12-25T02:03:54Z

Whoaaa... I just had a very fun session making pasta. Instead of fettucini I made the fine setting, and they turned out like maggi noodles or ramen.

It took me a while to get the dough right. I misread 5 egg yolks. In fact, 10 egg yolks or 5 eggs were needed. So I needed to adjust and toss in a few more eggs. Then it took a lot of kneading and turns in the pasta machine before they came out alright. They looked nice nestled in little bird's nest clumps, but I was worried they would be clumpy when cooked, so I couldn't help cooking them first to see... They turned out mostly okay. I should have dusted them a lot more with flour during the final round of pasta machine turning.

My trusty pasta maker. It's fire-engine red.

OMG It looks justs like ramen, only Italiany.

The goodness of 7 free range eggs went in there

Lunch was light, with turkey breasts served with gravy and
cranberry jelly, bread and garden salad

Dinner was creamy seafood marinara.

I was worried whether the cooked pasta would stick but I messed up the sauce. The thick bulb of onion shoots were fried in butter and olive oil and garlic. Scallops and ocean trout small fillets were added, followed by finely chopped parsley, a generous dash of semillion savignon blanc and some double cream. Pre-cooked fresh pasta was revived in boiled water then tossed through. Garnished with more parsley. My mistake was to not add parmesan cheese and insufficient cream to thicken the sauce properly. *sigh* Maybe next time I'll do it right!

Xmas Breakfast

2009-12-24T23:25:47Z

Xmas 2009 - woke up at 2.30am to watch Twilight! Then breakfast much later - French omelette with mushrooms.

Now, I have made much more complicated meals than omelette, but I'm doing a show and tell of this because I picked this up from a Youtube of Julia Childs making a simple omelette with lots of butter and vigorous shaking of the frypan. it looked like so much fun that i wanted to emulate it.

The detailed description: For two omelettes, I used 5 eggwhites and two whole eggs (egg yolks were saved for making fresh pasta later today). I seasoned with pepper and salt and added a dash of milk and chopped Italian parsley. i separately pan fried butter with sliced mushrooms, set it aside, and also made some gravy with the juice.

When the eggs were nearly done, and I've had my fun of vigorous shaking of the pan, i spooned the mushroom in the middle then folded the eggs over it.

Served with french champagne and a sprinkle of mature shredded cheese.

From 2009 xmas

In which Ivan gushes after watching Twilight and finds himself in one of the 'camps'

2009-12-24T21:59:59Z

I had thought something funny would happen when I finally dipped my foot into the Twilight movie and book franchise. Last night I managed to sleep without any TV going (which is a big hurrah) but I found myself awake on Xmas day 2.30am with an urgent need of a toilet break (which doesn’t normally happen to me either). Hence, wide awake, I finally decided to put on Twilight the movie. Before this, I had dreaded I would become entranced and run around saying that I’m Team Edward or Team Jacob. To my big shock I found myself in the Team Bella camp. I mean, does this Camp really exist? Is she so universally hated by all the gurl fan lovers that I find myself in a lonesome deserted Camp of Major Uncool?

Ten Reasons Why I’m in Team Bella

She looks so cute when she is angsty. She wears frown lines like others wear dimples.
She’s adorable when she stumbles and is a klutz.
And oh! She doesn’t like to dance / doesn’t thinks she can dance.
She is so attractive, I mean , like she has all these boys after her right from her first day at School in Forks.
She has dark hair, so not like bimbo blonde. I think it signifies that she is a deep thinker and passionate soul
She is thoughtful and caring to both of her parents even though they are separated and don’t take advantage of the situation. In fact she risked her life to save both parents on separate occasions
She is an absolute whiz with the microscope
She can look drop dead gorgeous in her prom dress even with a big ugly broken leg harness straps.
She’s not bitchy to other girls, even though she’s so superior to all of them. She soooo nice to everyone, really.
She’s not against older men. I mean, Edward is 100 years older than her. This gives so much hope for older men everywhere.

I can’t wait to read the books now and see the rest of the movies in the series (franchise is such an ugly word to use here).

Merry Xmas to all readers! Next post will be a food-related one later today.

steampunk art by www.jasonjuta.com

2009-12-06T22:42:22Z

Is this marvellous? And so Jules Verne 20,000 leagues under the sea-ish. Visit his website to see more.

Lj-cut part two

2009-12-06T04:36:24Z

If you want a bit more to show after the cut, then add this in HTML mode just before the part of your blog post you want to appear:

</lj-cut>

NOTE: <lj-cut> is the open tag, and </lj-cut> is the close tag. This is typical of HTML. For eg., italics is... <i>italian italics</i>

Using LJ-cut

2009-12-01T21:08:58Z

Some friends of mine are having trouble with lj-cut, it seemed to work fine for me.

1) switch to HTML editing mode (as opposed to Rich Text)
2) paste this line

<lj-cut text="Read more">

where you want a split. You can also cut a selected big chunk of the middle and leave the top and tail showing - but maybe one tip and a time, huh?