Language homework

According to the last conversation in class I have done an accurate investigation ;-P about the MELSA ( in Catalan).
Well, first, I looked for the translation in Spanish (BAZO) and after that, I founded the word in English......and this word is ..... Spleen!!!
If you want to know what exacly it is you only have to click on this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spleen

Done!!


By the way, I don't include a picture because I think it could be disgusting to see.
;-D

Sunday night baking disaster!!!

Well disaster! Or, maybe not. I'll explain.

I made Maria's Tarte Tatin recipe. An historic moment for me as it was the first time I had ever attempted making a dessert.

Everything was going well, the right amount of sugar and butter. I peeled the apples and cut them into 8 pieces each one. I put it all in my brand new baking tray, bought especially for the occasion. I happily put it on the gas for 15 minutes – no problems. I had previously heated the oven. I was so excited.

I put the mixture in the oven and went to watch a bit of TV for 15 minutes. Mistake!
There was a beautiful smell coming from the kitchen and everything was rosy. However...

...the first alarm was the appearance of thick white smoke coming from the kitchen. I ran in, opened the window and then the oven. To my horror I had lost half of my caramelized butter and sugar mixture and the oven was happily caramelizing all by itself. It was all over the oven.

Not to be put off by this awful setback, I prepared the puff pastry. Put it on top of the baking tray as Maria had instructed. The only problem was that in my innocence, I cut too much off and didn't leave enough round the sides. It consequently fell into the mixture. 10 minutes later I had a product. It looked OK. I was reasonably happy with it. I left it for 10 minutes.

I came back to turn it over and produce the fruits of my evening's labour.

The puff pastry fell off, with nothing on top. The mixture had stuck to the baking tray. Mmm. Not good. I proceeded to scrape it off from inside the tray onto the pastry. (Refer to photo). Not a pretty sight. Not a happy boy in the kitchen. (Refer to second photo).

I had to make a decision. Try it! It was actually quite nice. The only problem was that I didn't have enough left to take to class the next day and I didn't have the confidence to present it to my “Chicas F”.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Don't leave the kitchen to watch TV while you're baking.
2. The baking tray was too shallow.
3. Be careful with my oven because I can't set it to an exact temperature.
4. Don't be downhearted. Try it again. I will.

Well, I promise Tarte Tatin mark II after Easter!

Núria Duran making the bitter orange marmalade

Last week I made BITTER ORANGE MARMALADE. If you like it, I will give you one jar. Ask me please.
Here is the recipe:

! kg bitter oranges
Half a lemon
1,8 kg sugar
1,5 l water

Take the seats out of the clean oranges and lemon.
Make a parcel with the seats in a gauze and tie the parcel tighly.
Slice the fruits up and put it in a container with water. Leave it for 24 hours.
Draine the fruit and put it in a pan. Add 1,5 l of water and the seats parcel and let it simmer for about 2 hours.Put the lit on.
Add the sugar and bring to boil for about half an hour.
Pour into sterilized jars. Write the name of de marmalade and the date on a label. Stick it on the jar.

THAI FOOD FOR DINNER?

CHICKEN GREEN CURRY

Ingredients:

170 g Chicken (in smallish bite sized pieces)
250 ml. Coconut milk
115g bamboo sliced
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar
2 tablespoons green curry paste
Basilic
Red chilli

First of all cut the chicken up, then fry briefly the curry paste.
Reduce the heat and add the coconut milk slowly and continue to stir while cooking for a while.

Add the chicken, the bamboo slices, the sugar and the fish sauce (it’s very salty, they use it as we use salt)

Bring it to a boil and cook until the chicken changes colour and then adjust the basilic and the red chilli.

They serve this dish with Thai jasmine rice.

It's very easy to do and different taste!!! Just to do smomething different! I love it!

This Thai dish is spicy so I recommend you to use less green curry if you don’t want to feel your mouth hot as the hell. ;-)
Maybe you’ll have problems to find some ingredients, if you want to try to do this recipe let me know and I will tell you where you can buy all the ingredients!

Chocolate cake by Merche

Ingredients

3 eggs1
yoghurt125 ml.
oil200 g.
flour150 g.
sugar125 g.
melt chocolate
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves: 8/10 people

First of all, put the eggs and the sugar in a bowl and beat all together.Next, add the flour, the melt chocolate, the oil, the baking powder and the yoghurt and mix them in an electric robot. When you have finished it put the paste into a mould and cook it in the oven for about 40 minutes temperature 180ª.After that time your cake is ready.

It´s delicious and so simple! try to do it and invite your family and friends!

The photo I sent you was taken on July 2008. They are 8 grand children, 6 children, 5 sons and daughters in law and my husband and I. We got married 50 years ago. This is the meaning of the shirt number.

This is my family

COD OMELETT WITH PIL-PIL

Ingredients:
2 onions
4 eggs
2 cloves of garlic
2 green pappers
2 cod fillets
2 big potatoes
Olive oil

Chop potatoes and onions in shape of little cubes. Heat abundant oil in frying pan until very hot. Fry potatoes and anions and cook over high heat stirring two or three times. Drain the oil. Mix the beaten eggs and the fried potatoes and cook it in a frying pan with a little of oil until firm and lightly browned on both sides.

Fry the green pappers seeded, cutted into streeps and with thinly sliced onions in a saucepan. Cook it very slowly over low heat.

Fry the cod fillets and the cloves of garlig slightly and separate the cod slices.

Cover the omelett with cod slices and over there the fried onion and the green pepers.

This omelett could be covered with pil-pil sauce.
If you are interested in doing this sauce ask me, please. It is not easy to do it.

TARTE TATIN RECIPE

It's a French recipe , was created by Tatin sisters in 1.898 in her restaurant
in France. It's a very easy and cheap recipe. I wish you'll enjoy doing it and eating eat.

Ingredients :

1 Kg. of apples ( variety "golden apple" )
200 g. of suggar
100 g. og butter
1 puff pastry

1. Pre-heat your oven at 180º
2. Peel the apples and cut everyone in four parts.
3. Put all the suggar and the butter into a baking tin
4. Place the apples in the baking tin making circles starting from the external
part of the mould and finishing by central part.
5. Put the mould on the cooker during 15 minutes and after that put the molde into
the oven during 15 minutes more.
6. Cut a puff pastry circle larger than the mould an put it on the mould
7. Introduce the baking tin into the oven during 10 or 15 minutes .
8. Take the mould out of the oven and let rest during 10 minutes.
9. Turn over the pie and put on your serving dish. Serve the Tarte Tatin warm.
10. Enjoy yourself eating the cake.

Have you ever been in Bratislava?

This picture is a garlic soup with beans in a bread as a soup dish. It’s very typical in Slovakia, and those cold days remind me this dish.
Mmmmmmm!!!!! When you taste it you immediately feel warm…

As you can see in the picture, on the left side of the plate, there is a mint chewing gum!
Yes, it is!
It’s just because you can eat as much garlic soup as you want and when you finish there will be no problem with bad breath!!
It’s fantastic!!!
Definitely, we must try to introduce this idea in Catalonia … eating mint chewing gum after the ‘carn a la brasa amb all-i-oli’!

Anyway, Slovakia is a great place to be for a weekend, with perfect gastronomy and very good beer….

’Na zdravie’!!!!!!

Are you a shopaholic?

Are you able to go into a department store and do not buy anything?

Would you fly to Paris on a lightning trip to go shopping only?

If you went abroad and you were in the airport waiting for the plane, would you go into the airport shops looking for something to buy?

Would you go shopping when there were sales even if you did not need any specific thing to buy?

If you went travelling around an area going from place to place, would the markets the first place you were interested in?

If your answers were YES to any of the above questions the chances are that you are a shopaholic.

A shopaholic is someone addicted to buying anything without control. Many times he does not need it or he has not enough money to buy it. He gets a lot of things together without using more of them. Experts warn that the roots of this addiction are the desire to escape from difficulties such us relationship problems and stress. It seems that the shopaholic is more common among the women adults.

If you are a shopaholic make sure you only buy what you are absolutely convinced you need. Check out you have enough money to get it. Do not get into debt and have a nest egg to buy it another day. If you want a quiet life do not fritter away your money. To live beyond your means leads to a lot of problems.

Are you shopaholic?

Football Addict by Merche

Merche doesn't have an internet connection. So, here is her article:


A FOOTBALL ADDICT

Do you need to be informed about all football results?
Do you spend more than two hours per day reading football news?
Do you listen to sport radio programs?

If you answered "yes" to these questions you are probably a football addict.

The person with this addiction is someone that feels the necessity to know everything about football.He/she is constantly searching for football information in specific newspapers. He/she visits some pages on the Internet where he/she can read the lastest news about football. This person could be part of sport chats and could write articles in a football blog.The negative effects of this addiction are that you get nervous if you are not in permanent contact with football.For instance, when a football match is televised you need to be in front of the television watching the match. During those two hours the most important thing is that game and you will try to postpone other activities. You will feel very excited during the game, suffering very much and shouting words withoutbeing aware of what you are saying. If your team loses you will feel sad and maybe you won't have dinner that night.Some advice to overcome this addiction could be doing different activities like reading books, going to the cinema, listening to music... to be occupied in those moments when you feel the necessity to know something about football.

They're made out of meat (Video)

I found this video version of the story we read in class last week...

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/made_meat/

If you haven't read it yet, you could listen and read.

WORKAHOLICS

Can be work come to be an addiction? However hard to believe this may be, it seems that it is not only possible, but that it’s already happening. Psychologists have even christened it: “Work Addiction Syndrome”, commonly “workaholism”. We normally associate addiction with pleasure, whatever it may be: drink, cigarettes, chocolate, sex… Nobody in his right mind think of his work as a pleasant thing. That’s why the individuals who are excessively fond of working must be treated as a sick people.

According to experts, there is neither gender specific nor industry specific. Workaholism can affect individuals from every occupation, every position, every country… Even in ours, the nation which has contributed to the international vocabulary with two words: “fiesta” and “siesta”. There is, however, an average type of workaholic, who is the more frequent case. And this is –it couldn’t be other way- a man, middle-aged, and with a position of responsibility. In short, the type of 80’s “yuppie”, like Michael Douglas in “Wall Street”. From what specialists say, this pitiful kind of addiction presents the following symptoms: difficulty in letting go or delegating work; inability to relax or disengage from work when on vacation… It is the kind of person that one sometimes can see on the beach with the portable and the mobile phone.

It seems that there is little hope that things improve in the near future. On the contrary, everything points to them getting worse. On the other hand, there are some professions who are fortunately unlikely to suffer from workaholism, like civil servant or professors. None can imagine civil servant with stress or a professor who suffers from overworking!