All posts by Walkiry

The Two Europes.

May 24, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

So, today I was reading an interview with Hans-Gert Pöttering, the prez of the European Parliament (EP), at the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. In it, he complains about the low turnout of the European Elections and the rise of the “radical” political parties.

While I was reading, I kept thinking the same thing. Does this guy live so far removed from reality, or is he simply a two-faced cynical hypocrite who’s laughing at us while he shoots his canned “woe is me” responses?

Let’s see, the European Elections have less participation every time around. Gee, would it have something to do, perhaps, with the fact that more and more these elections seem to be completely fucking pointless? Mr. Pöttering (somehow the fact that it looks so similar to “potter” makes me chuckle, and no, I’m not talking about the wizard) goes to talk about how Europeans should not thing about the EP as something far removed from their lives, or how the media is to blame too because they don’t cover things at the European level instead of just local things. He then sleazes out when asked if the politicians of the EP may have part of the blame; colour me surprised.

For a while now, the Europeans have stopped doing things with the (“the”, not “their”) Parliament. Rather, the Parliament has been doing things TO the Europeans. The current European Union has been built by the politicians, that is, Mr. Pöttinger and his cronies, for themselves and their friends/partners/accomplices (hint: it ain’t for the average “European”).

Why the hell would anyone bother voting? The last time anything important was put through a popular vote, the badly named “European Constitution” (the piece of trash that sullies the word “Constitution” with its mere existence, and yes, I’ve read it, it ain’t a freaking Constitution, not even close to one), it was merely passed by as a pantomime, and if there was a possible problem getting it through in some country, then no problem! Have it be “voted” by the country’s politicians instead, and off you go. Well done chaps! Pats on the back for everyone!

The Referendum in Spain was just fucking pathetic. It was sold (because the politicians acted like used cars salesmen, embarassingly so) as a vote to “stay in Europe” pretty much. There was a HUGE vacuum when it came to actually discussing or informing about the contents of the document or what exactly was the objective they were trying to achieve with this, a disgusting exercise in demagogy that left quite a sour taste in my mouth, and of those who bothered to try and inform themselves; for crying out loud, the campaigners offered to send information about the contents of the “constitution” and it wasn’t sent until after the day of the election! Hows that for popular vote, huh? A shame the Internet usage keeps lagging behind in Spain, at least one could get the full text from the EP website.

On a related note: Ireland, you’re our only hope! It’s freaking hilarious that, since it doesn’t seem to get through Ireland, they’ve resorted to subtle and less-than-subtle threats of what could happen if they keep refusing to accept it.

And then he is asked if having the Parliament have a clearer relationship with the Comission would help, and what does he say? Oh, but the relationship is very strong, see, the Council already “takes into account” the opinion of the Parliament, or be “influenced” by it (which is what he claims about the election of the President of the Comission, I bet you a cookie it’s gonna be Barroso no matter what). How wonderful! I always wanted democracy to work by having the politicians “being influenced” by the votes instead of actually having to abide by them. Glee!

Quite frankly, Mr. Pöttinger, the low (and dropping) participation is either a symptom of the kind of Europe that has been built at the expense of the Europeans (in which case, if you’re actually worried, you may want to take a look at all that has been done from your ranks to purposedly remove European politics as far away from the Europeans as possible), or more likely, the exact result of what your kind has been working on for years. Congratulations! You guys have won, “Europe” is yours! Just have the decency of sparing us your hypocrisy and fake concern. Thank you.

Ramblings

Read or Die?

May 23, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

Borrowing the title from Yomiko Readman’s novels/anime/whatnot, today (or, rather, this weekend) is the New Zealand Red Cross’ Book Sale. And, naturally, I was there.

I ended up with a big mix of things. I should eventually make an index, but off the top of my head:

2/3 books of Lord of the Rings (missing the Fellowship, I had this in a single-book edition that I gave away at some point).
Lots of books from Tom Clancy. I have had contact only with the Splinter Cell games, which I like a lot, so it’s worth checking how good the books are.
A bunch from Arthur C. Clarke. Hey, I think I’ve only read one book from him before.
4/6 Dune books. Same deal as the Lord of the Rings, I had them at some point, but they disappeared here or there.
Many many thriller books I’ve never heard of. A “lucky dip” kind of thing, at the price they’re going it was worth the try!
A bunch of Michael Crichton books.
A random assortment of Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels, including a handful of the Dragonlance and Star Wars novels.
A couple of cooking books, one for New Zealand dishes.
Books with pretty pictures of Australia and New Zealand 🙂

All in all, this should provide enough reading material for the rest of the year (until the next book sale!). I spent about 150 NZ$, a pittance!

Good stuff all around.

Cooking

Cookie Pie – With Real Cookies!

May 9, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

Time for something sweet! Actually, I have a few sweet things lined up, just so happens that I feel like posting this one first, as it’s the one I’m om nom nomming now!

So, Cookie Pie! Typically, this pie is made as if it were a cookie, i.e., one makes a cookie-like dough, pours it in a pie shell, and bakes it. However, I have a different take on it, what I do is I take actual cookies, and make a pie with them! To start with, the ingredients:

Eggs: 2 of them
Butter: A good chunk (about 150g or so).
White and Brown sugar (1/2 cup each).
Your favourite cookies! Choc chip in my case, you can go for a triple choc of whatever you want.
Some 100g of hazelnuts, or amonds, or walnuts, whatever you want.
A pie shell or, in my case, some sweet short pastry – whatever you feel more comfortable handling.

To start with, beat the two eggs and melt the butter (microwaves are handy for this), then add the butter to the eggs. Mix thoroughly, then add the sugar(s). Mix again.

Separately, you want to crush the nuts and the cookies, until the nuts are smaller-than-hazelnut sized, and the cookies are in similarly sized chunks. There’s no need to make them into powder! Note that this pie doesn’t require flour, that’s because we’re making it with cookies!

Once that stuff is crushed, add it to the egg-butter-sugar mix. It’ll look something like this:

Pour in the pie shell or whatever you’re using, and into the pre-heated oven it goes! I set mine to fan-bake at 150°C for 40 minutes. Times will vary (mostly, look at the pie shell you have and the type of oven, non-fan baking usually should be a bit higher, 160°C to 170°C and may take a bit longer).

The result?

Presentation may vary depending on the shell you used! Let it cool for a bit, and serve warm! If you put the unfinished pie in the fridge, heat it (or slice it first, then heat the slices) before serving, some 30s in the microwave will do.

Cooking

Lamb Roast

April 30, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

A very easy lamb roast! Lamb is kind of an institution here in New Zealand. It’s also very tasty ^_^

Here’s a very simple roast I make when I don’t have much energy to be creative (there will be more creative roasts here now that we’ve entered winter, roasted lamb is nice in these cold days, specially if just the slow cooking in the oven is enough to heat the house!)

What do we have there?

Lamb Shanks. Rather, whatever piece of lamb happened to be on offer at the supermarket 🙂
Potatoes.
Onion.
Garlic (which I apparently forgot to put in the pic).
Olive oil.
Pepper.
Paprika powder.

So, start by putting a bit of olive oil to grease the bottom of an oven tray bigh enough to fit the amount of things you want to cook without much trouble. Peel the potatoes, slice them up in thick slices, and put them at the bottom. Slice the onion in similarly thick slices, and put it on top of the potatoes. Sprinkle generously with pepper and paprika, and throw some pieces of chopped garlic on top. Then put the lamb there too.

If you want, you can do as I did there and make some cuts into the lamb, and insert some pieces of garlic into the cuts as well. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, and put the tray in. A few minutes afterwards, pour a glass of water over the lamb, so that it roasts a bit more slowly and juicily.

We’re going to take an hour to roast this, just turn the lamb after 30 minutes, and keep an eye on it. If it looks too dry, give it a bit more water.

End result? Something like this!

Yum yum! The center was still nice and pinky, but without being raw in the least. You can also use wine if you don’t want plain water.

Happy lamb eating!

Ramblings

Time Freaking Flies!

April 30, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

Has it really been a month since I last posted? Oh deary me. I seem to have been busy.

Why yes, I play videogames. They tend not to take that much time though. I happily go watch a movie, or go out for Quiz Night, or go to random places to watch native birds. And make random posts here, or any of the message boards I frequent. But City of Heroes had me sucked in pretty hard these last few weeks, it just appeals to the storyteller in me. It’s too bad I’m not that good at telling the stories even though I seem never to run out of ideas, I think I’m a bit like Ed Wood in that respect.

But I digress. More about Ed Wood on a later date.

(Eventually coming up: The third part of the website, random fiction writings! Just have to put them together in a decent-looking page)

Now that I’ve slowed down on making story arcs and planning missions and whatnot for City of Heroes (it’s been a very fun month anyway!), I’m back to posting stuff! I actually have several batches of pictures and recipes in the pipeline. I went as far as taking the pictures… And eating the food 🙂

Cooking

Cocido Leftovers: Part III

March 25, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

So! We have made a few things so far! We have made a plain cocido – with soup. And we have leftover stock we can use to make more soup in a hurry, with easy to cook pasta or parboiled 5-minute-done rice, or even ramen-style noodles. Very nice in these wintery days.

Then we made some hummus.

Then we made some old clothes.

Then we started with the croquettes. And now we finish it.

We left the croquette mix cooling down and sitting int he fridge, right? Well, this is our last stop. Whatcha need now? Just breadcrumbs and eggs really:

Getting ready for the croquette wrapping

Apart from the just-done cocido, the croquettes are my favourite part of it. Start by beating an egg or two and throwing some breadcrumbs on the tinfoil. The reason we use tinfoil is that it’s easy to cover the crowuette with crumbs if you lift one end or the other so that they pour over it, whereas with a plate it’s not so easy.

We’re gonna get that croquette mix, make some relatively big cilindrical shapes, then pass first over the egg and then over the brumbs. Make the shape with your hands (wash them very thoroughly before starting!), and use a fork to put through the egg and move over the crumbs. Don’t use the fingers for that or you’ll make a mess thanks to the egg! Once the croquette is nicely crumbed, you can use the fingers with no danger.

Now, just fry them in abundant hot oil. This is the last step in making Cocido leftovers because it rocks. You can make a ton of them and just freeze them, they freeze exceedingly well. Freeze them BEFORE you fry them, then they can go straight from the freezer to the pan.

Since the “inside” is actually already cooked, all you need to do is give it a nice toasty crispy cover.

There are 2, possibly 3 portions there. I made that many because it looks good in the picture, and because I’m taking some tomorrow for lunch as well as today’s dinner. The remaining ones went into the freezer.

And that’s it! Well, that’s mostly it. That’s like 4 days straight eating the same thing, but different. See why I made a big Cocido now?

Cooking

Cocido Leftovers: Part II

March 25, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

Next part, is using the meat for a couple of things. I’m going to do them simultaneously because I’m just that damn good.

First off, we start by chopping up all the leftover meat(s):

There are several kinds of meat there, it’s just that I haven’t mixed it yet (it’ll be more obvious in a bit). What you do is chop it up into small-ish pieces. As you can see by the tupperware, it’s been in the fridge since yesterday, they’re proper leftovers!

Now, grab a pan for each of the two things we’re going to do. One is called “Old Clothes” (“Ropa Vieja”) and the other is just croquettes.

For the croquettes:

An onion, chopped up.
Some butter/margherine (I use the latter).
Nutmeg.
Salt.
Milk.
Leftover meat and, if you want, veges from the Cocido.

For the old clothes:

Leftover anything from the cocido.
Paprika powder.
Garlic.
Onion (if you want).

So, I’ve put those two pans, and it’s pretty easy.

For the old clothes: Add the meat once the garlic’s a bit fried, and stir frequently. When the meat’s looking like it’s fried, add some paprika powder, stir till homogeneous, and serve. Easy!

For the croquettes: Wait until the onion is more or less soft, then add a couple of well full spoonfulls of flour.

Old clothes are ready, croquettes just got started.

You can see at the top what the old clothes will look like. You can probably spot the similarity with how we served the cabbage before! Yes, it’s the same principle, and if you save some cabbage for mising with the meat, it’ll go quite well.

Anyway, the croquettes. After you add the flour, stir and stir so that the flour doesn’t burn, and when it’s looking to be nice and toasty, throw in a big vase or jar or whatever you have for food processor. Then add the meat on top, and enough milk to drown it all. Then top it with some nutmeg:

Getting the mix for the croquettes ready.

Now, put it through the blender/whatever, but don’t be overzealous. You don’t want a fine grade mush, chunky is good. As you process, you may want to add more milk! Anyway, once it’s nicely mixed, throw it in the pan again:

Now.. We stir. And stir and stir some more.

How much? Until it’s getting tough to mix.

Is it getting tough? Keep cooking and mixing.

“But…”

Keep at it.

“It’s looking pretty done.”

In that case, keep at it some more. And then some.

I’m talking that the mix has to become so tough that you can sculpt stuff with it. Like clay. That kind of thing.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating slightly. But when my mom makes cheese croquettes, she always lets the mix go so tough that she cannot move the spoon inside. And she’s no wimpy girly woman, let me tell you!

Anyway, once the mix is nice and tough, throw it on a tray:

Let it sit for a few hours or a day or so. Put a cloth on top while you let it cool outside at first, then put some tinfoil and into the fridge it goes.

We will be using that later!

Cooking

Cocido Leftovers: Part I

March 25, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

Okay, so we have a huge amount of leftovers from the cocido. Usually you eat the cocido for lunch and start having the leftovers for dinner. Anyway, let’s start with the simplest stuff.

So, what’s that? That’s hummus! We had a ton and a half of chickpeas, and what’s best to do with them? Well, you can refry them and they’re pretty good, but hummus is nicer!

You need:

Leftover chickpeas from the Cocido.
Couple of cloves of garlic.
Olive oil.
Salt.
Vinegar or lemon. (I use vinegar! Nice zing).
Tahini paste (which I skip entirely, but there you go).

So, this is the simplest thing to do with the leftovers, throw all the ingredients into the blender and process until smooth. I’m putting it in a tupperware for the fridge, but you can instead serve straight away with some carrots/celery/crackers. Add some parsley and off you go.

Easy!

Hilariously, considering how it was cooked, this is quite likely the only non-vegetarian recipe for hummus you can find on the net.

Cooking

Cocido

March 25, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

Whew! It’s been quite a while without an update! Well, that’s okay, because the one coming is definitely a big big big one. Cocido.

What is Cocido? It is, quite simply, a huge dish of boiled meats and vegetables. Quite simple to describe, huh? Well, let’s take a look at what we’ll be using:

So whatcha need?

Meat. Lots of meat. Whatever is handy, but you typically need:

Some sort of pork. Bacon hocks or some hard (old) raw ham works.

Boned beef, or just a big beef bone.

Some spicy sausage and/or black pudding.

Any other meat that happens to be handy. Like chicken, lamb, venison… you name it.

Chickpeas/garbanzo beans. Better the dry ones than the tinned ones. If dry, put them in water a few hours before making the Cocido.
Cabbage.
Potatoes.
Carrots.
Any other tough vegetable (turnips, parsnips, or whatever they’re called for example) that can survive a boil.
An onion and some cloves. I put them together because a neat trick is to stab the onion with the cloves so that they don’t go all over the pot.
Garlic (not shown because we don’t need it just yet).
Paprika powder.
Pasta or rice for the soup.

Really, just throw in anything you have handy. You can’t see the boned beef or the piece of pork because they were already in the pot (whoops!).

Anyway, fill a big pot with the meat and warm/hot water, and put on the stove on high (to begin with). As the water rises in heat, you’ll see some foamy scum rising to the top. Remove it with whatever kitchen tool you have handy, it’ll do so for a few minutes until it starts really boiling.

I use the “no more foam rising” mark to know when to add the chickpeas and the onion with the cloves – and the salt if you want salt. After you add them, put on medium/low, cover, and leave it for about an hour or so.

After an hour, get the vegetables ready and, if you’re adding them, the sausages and other “softer” meats like chicken.

If you have meats, throw them in, leave for 15 minutes, then add the vegetables. Some people recommend boiling the vegetables separated from the meat, but I can’t be arsed. And they taste better if you put everything in there.

So, leave for another 20 minutes or so (until the potatoes are cooked) and take out the stuff. Serve the things separately:

The meats on one side.
The vegetables on the other.
The chickpeas by themselves.
With the remaining stock, make a soup.

So, do I really have to puit a picture of how to make the soup? Put the stock through a colander/strainer to get rid of the little bits of stuff (mostly bone splinters), then add rice or pasta and that’s it. Lemon goes very well with that soup.

Also, you may want to spice up the cabbage a bit. To do so, chop it up and throw it in a frying pan with some oil, and after a bit add some paprika powder and garlic:

Stir quickly and efficiently so that you get a very consistent red through it all.

And that’s it!

…

Actually no, that’s not it. That’s it as far as the cocido goes, but! But the best part of the Cocido is the leftovers! Which is why I made cocido enough for like 6 or 8 meals. You’ll see how I’m going to get 6 or 8 meals out of it!

Cooking

Stuffed Roasted Peppers

March 9, 2009 Walkiry Leave a comment

It sure has been a while! I have had a very busy week, with section meetings and, erm, “other” stuff (which I shall post in the near future) that basically meant lots of eating out and not being and home and, thus, little cooking.

Eventually, though, one has to go back to eating proper food at home. And so, here is the next little thing to add to the collection. We have a kind of red pepper in Spain called “Piquillo”, it’s a robust, tasty pepper that is very popular for a variety of dishes. It’s strongly flavoured, and the meat is “tough” (not tough as in chewy, but tough as in being able to take manipulation without falling apart). There are countless recipes for how to make stuffed Piquillo peppers, and here is but one of them.

In no particular order:

Pot/tin of roasted red peppers, whole.
Onion(s).
Garlic.
Prawns.
Milk.
Flour.
Butter.
Pepper.
Nutmeg.
Tomato puree/chunks.

So, to start with we’ll cook the prawns. Start by chopping up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic, then fry gently in a pan with a bit of oil. Let the onion go a bit soft, then add the chopped-up prawns.

Fry until the prawns have first released most of the water, then the water has been mostly consumed. Prawns tend to cook fast!

Now, the second step is to make a Bechamel sauce. You can even use the same pan. First chop up a bit of onion (I used an extra half), and put it in the pan with some butter/margarine. Give it a gentle fry.

When the onion’s mostly ready, add a couple of spoonfuls of flour, give it a quick stir, so that you toast it a bit. Don’t let it burn!

Afterwards, it’s a matter of adding the milk, and stirring constantly to make sure you leave no flour lumps. Add the nutmeg and pepper at this point, and salt if you want too.

In the meantime, I am making a simple creamy tomato sauce to add to the peppers later on. In a pot, fry the tomato puree/chunks on mid heat, stir every so often, and when it’s mostly done, add a bit of cream, or milk, or both, or even some Bechamel sauce. It’s up to you, I used cream.

When the Bechamel is looking halfway done – starting to feel thick -, add the mix of fried onion/prawns to it, and now stir and stir and stir more so that it won’t burn, it’ll reduce, and it’ll be homogeneous.

Now for the final touch, you cover them with the sauce (you can put it through the blender/processor if you want to make it smooth, I left it chunky as I like chunky vegetables… As I think I’ve mentioned already), and throw them in the oven, 200°C for 5-10 minutes.

Serve hot, don’t be stringy with the sauce, and let it roast a bit nicely.

There are countless variations, use your imagination! Mushrooms go well, you can have prawns + fish too (Monk Fish or Cod work well), a very popular one in Spain is calamari, usually with a dark sauce with squid-ink. You can vary the stuffing and the sauce, it’s a flexible dish!

Digital Ink

All posts by Walkiry

The Two Europes.

Read or Die?

Lamb Roast

Time Freaking Flies!

Cocido Leftovers: Part III

Cocido Leftovers: Part II

Cocido Leftovers: Part I

Cocido

Stuffed Roasted Peppers

Byte-sized Notes