How anyone could be that unorganised

No, I'm not talking about me in that title, but about IKEA.
Remember about that contest, and how I already said that they didn't think everything through? Well, I asked them in an email where I should bring my finished furniture, and got the reply that sorry, but they're no longer allowed to display the entries.
Insert eyebrow raise.
At least I'm supposed to send them pictures, so I'm still taking part in the contest.
It's actually a small blessing in disguise, because I'm not really happy with how everything turned out, so now I won't have the judges taking closer looks.

And...I just realised that I forgot to put on his bow tie (the only thing I actually liked about the whole thing). Oh well. When I'm bored and have money to spare, I'll add a few more layers of paint (you can see the streaks on the door, and the back of the arms aren't actually painted).
EDIT: And my sister just told me that I also forgot the hearts! Of course I did! Looks like I not only have a fail!whale, but also a fail!clock/shelf.

 I wanted a smooth finish, which sadly didn't work out, because that whale hates me. But he doesn't look as bad as I thought he would.

 Still thinking about making a new whale though. Don't take it personally, FrankenFailWhale.
EDIT #2: My sister also just told me that my whale looks like he has dreadlocks. Seriously, FrankenFailWhale, could you be any more of a fail?

Pimp your IKEA

So, I entered an IKEA competition 'Pimp your IKEA item' or something like that.
You send in a sketch of a customised IKEA item, and if the jury likes it, you get the item to transform.
Then your item will be put on display at IKEA, and once the competition is over, the entry the jury likes best gets 2000€ (~2700$)

So wish me luck, because two of my entries were chosen! :D
The great thing is that, even if I shouldn't get first or second place, I still get to keep both my items, which together cost 220€ (~300$). So yeah, won already!

I'm still working on everything, but here, have my sketches:

Both my Timelord and Whale lamp were chosen!
I'm making the whale out of cooked paper mache, which should get pretty sturdy, so let's hope it won't fall apart while it's on display.

I made a few changes to my Timelord, the biggest one being that I'm painting everything blue. We (my dad, my sister and I) came to that decision after lots of arguing, because my dad said it would be too much work to sand everything first. I really wanted it in brown, with the wood pattern still shining through, but oh well...

So, I have a week for everything (because the IKEA staff clearly didn't think this competition through, and most of the time have no idea what's going on themselves. I mean, I still don't even know where to bring my finished things!), which isn't that much time, really, but hopefully I'll finish everything on time.

I guess I lied again

I keep on saying that I will post regularly, but what do I do? Not post anything for months...
I'll try, I swear I'll try!
So here's another recipe post, and I'll write about my IKEA adventures tomorrow/later today.

Sometimes I find recipes, which sound good, but change them a bit, to be even better.
Sometimes I find recipes, which would sound good with other ingredients, so I change a lot.
Sometimes I cook or bake up something amazing.
Sometimes I fail completely and hate myself for wasting food.

Well, here's a recipe where I changed a lot, and loved it!
(Even my non-soup eating dad liked it! Although, with lots of white bread in it, so I guess there wasn't much soup left)

BeanBeanBean-and-other-stuff-soup

Of course I forgot to take pictures while there was still enough soup left...so here's the best I have.

These are more guidelines than an actual recipe, just throw together what you like!

1 big can white beans

1 small can kidney beans

1 small can Käferbohnen (I googled, but still don't know what they're called in English...just take any beans you like)

2 medium potatoes

2 medium onions

2 large carrots

4 garlic cloves

3 vegetable stock cubes

1 1/2 L water

1 tbsp ketchup

bacon
rosemary


Cut your bacon into small pieces, add to a large pot and cook until brown and crispy. Spoon out the bacon, leaving the grease.

Cut the potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic into small pieces and cook in the bacon grease until soft-ish.

Add the white beans (without the fluid they come in), stock cubes, ketchup, rosemary and water.
Put on a lid, and let simmer for 30 minutes.

Take your immersion blender (or pour everything into a blender) and pulse until you no longer have big chunks of vegetables floating around.

Add the other beans (also without fluid) and bacon, and let simmer for another 10 minutes.

Enjoy!
Guten Appetit!

I never meassure in cups, unless...

...they're yoghurt cups!

Have a really quick, simple and delicious yoghurt cake recipe:

1 cup yoghurt (150g)
3 yoghurt cups (300g) flour
2 yoghurt cups (300g) sugar
1 yoghurt cup (150g) oil
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs

With this recipe, you can either weight your ingredients, or just meassure them with your yoghurt cup.

 Just throw all the ingredients together.

 Mix until smooth~

 Add fruit on top.

 Tip: If you dip the fruit into flour fist, it won't sink to the bottom during baking.

 Bake at 180°C for about 30 minutes, or until you can stab the cake with a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Enjoy your cake!
Guten Appetit!

I'm watching you, Wazowski, aaalways watching.

After 12 years...there is finally...A PREQUEL!
I am talking about Monsters University, if you were wondering, but honestly, you should know from that sentence alone already.

When Pixar kept posting sneak peeks of the movie, my sister and I decided that we'd make ourselves MU shirts. I chose Oozma Kappa, because I think that's where I'd fit in best (my sister thinks that Art is my soul mate or something...I have no idea why), and my sister, always being evil villain like fond of the bad guys, chose Roar Omega Roar.
But just shirts weren't enough, oh no. My dad and I also costumized our 3D glasses. Yes, as you can see in the following pictures, even Mikey has his own pair of glasses. At this point I want to mention that my sister and I are both over twenty, and my dad past 50. And I have no idea what this 'growing up' you are talking about is. Can you eat it?

 I did the applique work on both shirts and...I have to be honest, I thought it would be way easier, since I was using my sewing machine. But nope, everything's wobbly, but at least you can't really tell here. I'll stitch a yellow line around the letters on my sister's shirt tomorrow, didn't have time for it today.
I love Roz. I don't know if you can tell, but I tried to model my 3D glasses to look like hers :D
If you're curious, I used air drying clay, and modeled directly onto the glasses, peeled it off, let it dry, glued it back on, painted it, and voila, Roz' glasses.
My dad on the other hand took a saw to his glasses and made this awesome three eyed one. The left over part was then turned into Mikey's.

 What did I tell you? Evil people, those Roar Omega Roars.
(My mum got mad at me, when I said I looked more like the Scare Pig. I would have made an amazing Scare Pig.)

My Mikey is already eleven years old! I got him when we were on vacation in England. But I didn't buy him, exactly. No, I spent all my pocket money, trying to fish him out of one of those claw machines. (You know, 'the claaaaaw - OOooooo~') He was expensive, but I was so happy when I finally got him! :D


Now, to the movie.
IT.WAS.AMAZING.
I don't want to spoil you, but that's all you need to know, really.
Baby Mike is the most adorable thing EVER, and please, can I just adopt him? How a ball with one giant eye can look that cute is beyond me.
There is a reason why Randall always has that squinting glare! And it's adorable. And the cupcakes! Also, hearts.
And Roz!

Okay, I'll stop here (because didn't I, only a few posts back, say, that's I wouldn't ramble? And look at what I'm doing).

So anyway, go watch the movie. Now.

Mixer optional #2

I love everything chocolate.

So as promised yesterday, here’s the recipe for the dessert: brownies.

These brownies are amazing. Not only because they taste delicious, but also because you can substitute pretty much everything, and they’ll still turn out amazing.

270g granulated white sugar
150g buttery spread
2tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
90g flour
70g Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2tsp baking powder
120g sour cream

You can easily substitute the cocoa with chocolate, the sour cream with either greek yoghurt or crème fraîche, the white sugar with white and brown sugar, etc, etc.  

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

 Beat the buttery spread and sugar until creamy.

 Beat in the vanilla extract and eggs.

 In another bowl, meassure together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.

 Fold the flour mixture into the buttermix.

 Stir in the sour cream.

 Butter or spray a pan, pour in the batter and smooth the top.

 Bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Guten Appetit!

Mixer optional #1

No, I am not abandoning my blog already. I had planned to have the stool I had repainted as next post, but since it’s been raining for over a week now, I couldn’t take any pictures outside.

(Now you may ask why I’m not just taking a picture inside. For these three reasons: 1. There is better lighting outside; 2. There’s not really much space in here…; and most importantly 3. I’d have to clean)

Not wanting my blog to die this early on, I decided to at least post a recipe or two in the meantime.

I love recipes for which you don’t need any electric equipment – mostly because there is less washing up for later. So here you go, one meal today, and one dessert tomorrow.

Grießnockerl

You may ask yourself 'what the heck are – is that a B?' at this point. First off, no, that is not a weird looking B, it’s ß, a sharp sounding S.
Grießnockerl, if you want to trust my translation skills, are semolina dumplings. I actually only found out today that Grieß was Semolina in English. Sounds more like a sickness to me…

Anyway, Grießnockerl are the main ingredient of Grießnockerlsuppe, or semolina dumpling soup (which sounds really weird).
I got this recipe, which is so simple, you could almost not call it a recipe, from my grandma. Who, by the way, is probably the best cook to have ever walked this earth. No, I am not kidding. She makes vegetables taste delicious, she’s magic.

100g semolina
50g butter
1 egg
salt

 I made 5 times as much, in the pictures, so I could freeze some of the dumplings.

 Beat together the semolina and the butter until it looks like bread crumbs.

 Well...sticky breadcrumbs.

 Add the egg(s) and salt (to your liking) and mix everything together to form a dough.

 If the dough looks too soft, just add some more semolina.

Now go make some soup. (I usually just use stock cubes, and maybe carrots, if I have any)

 Now back to the dumplings: You can do it like I always do, and just spoon out some dough and drop it into the hot soup. Or, if you are bored and want nicer looking dumplings, you can take two spoons and make them all uniform. My sad attempt at a nice looking one on the left, and the way I always do it, on the right.

Note #1: If you dip the spoon into the soup before plopping in dumplings, the dough won’t stick to the spoon.

 Note #2: Keep in mind that the dumplings will soak up the soup, meaning they will expand. So don’t make them too big, because they will get bigger. (who am I to say anything, just look at those things!)

After all your dumplings are in the soup, keep it on medium-high heat for some minutes, then turn it down to a low heat and let it simmer for ten more minutes.

Now the hardest part: turn off the stove and leave.
Yes, you read that right, the soup is done cooking, but you’re not allowed to eat it!

When you let the soup sit like that, the dumplings will absorb more soup, making them fluffy. If you eat them right after cooking, the center may still be firm, which doesn’t make them taste bad, but come on, fluffy is always better.

After half an hour, take a dumpling and cut it in half (or take a bite). If the center is still firm, your dumplings are probably pretty big, so maybe let them simmer a bit more, on low heat.

 Guten Appetit!