Requiem For a Camera

One week ago my dearest friend, Canny Silver have finally passed away after a long term of LCD screen problems...

Thank Buddha, he didn't suffer much, he died when he was off. He was 13 years old. Yeah, he was very old [13 camera years = 80-85 human years]. But I still remember that Winter day when dad came home with a beeping little machine he just found in a shop, alone in a box, far from the other shelves... Dad just had no heart to leave him there, in that horrible dusty place...

R.I.P. Dear Canny! You were a real friend through the 13 years, gave me only great memories and snapshots. We even made animations together, remember? I couldn't made them without you! I never forget you buddy. *sniffle* I never forget your flash light, your cute lens, your… your… ok enough where is the dustbin.

Welcome Niki Purple!

Good Day!/Szép napot! ✌

Strawberry

You haven't seen my little one for a while, eh?

There she is, there she is!

Who doesn't like strawberry... ❀.(*´◡`*)❀.

Good Day!/Szép napot! *sniff sniff*

Saslik

What is the good in the Summer?

For me not much. I have serious allergy, my skin is too sensitive and I prefer pale skin more, I hate tanning. I rarely go to the Lake Balaton because I feel myself unconfortable in swimsuit and my allergy at the beach is more annoying than in town. And I rarely travel, especially to abroad because of money… 

There are only two good things in Summer for me. First my dear French cousin comes to Hungary in every July with her adorable family and we rejoice and we eat and we rejoice and go to the Balaton to eat [and swim if we have time] for a month. The second is the typical Summer dishes with various fresh salads…

I always envied those who has even just a tiny garden to have a barbecue or grill party with friends. Instead we only have a tiny kitchen… BUT that doesn't mean I can't make some yumminess in a simple oven. Only the delicious smoky taste and the 'listening the birds and watching the mackerel-sky while the food is roasting' feeling what I miss…

The popular grill dish, the skewered meat is very beloved in Hungary as well. But as every other country we like this in our own way too. We call it saslik, although our is a little bit different than the Eastern-European or Caucasian 'shashlik'. We use different spices for the marinade. We like to eat it with dill pickles or I more prefer the fresh salad.

Here is my saslik from yesterday

Hungarians usually use pork meat for saslik [rarely chicken or turkey meat, even more rarely lamb]. I made it from pork leg [I eat very few pork meat, but some Hungarian specialities require pork instead of white or red meat].

The meat was marinated overnight in sunflower oil [just in a little oil, not swimming in it], rosemary, marjoram, salt and pepper. They use a little vinegar as well, but I hate the taste and the smell of it. Commonly used spices are the parsley, thyme, bay leaf and the cumin as well. Paprika only at the end when the dish is ready, because that can easily burn.

Then I skewered on the stick some Kolozsvári smoked bacon [Best!], red onion, potato [not pre-cooked] and some garlic too. The smoked bacon would be about 1 cm wide. Other things what we like on a stick are the cherry tomato, the button mushroom, the yellow bell pepper, the cucumber, the zucchini even the apple. Or what we want. Nowadays Hungarians like to use at saslik the olive oil as well as the classic Mediterranean spices such as the basil and the oregano.

The salad is from iceberg lettuce, yellow bell pepper and red onion. For the first time I made the 'Thousand Island' dressing at home by this good recipe.

If you have only bacon and onion at home to grill, don't worry. This called 'szalonnasütés' [simply means 'bacon roasting'] and it's a common pastime in Hungary on picnics after hiking or a simple trip in the nearby forest or at the campfire. I loved it when I was little. ~Mmm sitting on a Summer evening by the fire with bacon and onion on a wooden stick I found in the forest. You are listening the crackling fire, the sizzling bacon and the owls or other animals [beside the annoying quarrelling members...]. When the bacon is done you are dripping the grease onto a slice of bread and eat it with the onion. I dreamed this or it happened once... Nowadays I skip this kind of enjoyment. I'm not go into the woods at the evening, especially alone... and if I eat only bacon and onion without anything, that cause me painful reflux... ~Yeehaw. 

Good day!/Szép napot! ✌

High School Class Reunion, Bah Humbug

I've got a call yesterday from a girl I really don't remember at all, that they are organizing our 15 years reunion...

Reunion my a**.

I was only on the first reunion, because my friend – who was my classmate as well – didn't want to go alone. So I went with her, but after 20 minutes we regretted the whole idea…

The classmate boys behaved like they were still schoolboys, just drank and talked with each other for a while then they leaved us and went to some pub, while half of the girls weren't there at all because the big famous friendship-never-ends 'spice girls' group just broke up because of some shit crapped out mobile phone business or what was the heavy cause… No joke! Mobiles are against of friendships!!!!!!

So the remained girls scolded them all evening, instead talking about what happened to everyone in those five years. Morons.

But this was then when I was somewhat social. Now? No chance for sure. As I heard some of the famous ladies got married, have kids and enough money from their husbands for shopping… I don't think I would ruin even one afternoon because of this kind of people… ever. Half of the class was a stuck-up, narrow-minded idiot. 

There were only very few good person in the class. What happened to them? They are still my friends, the best of friends, ever.  ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧ 

I'm planning to visit one of them on Budapest, because next weekend is Night of Museums!! The only festival I wait every year! [typical nerd girl…] Hahaha 

Good Day!/Szép napot! ✌

Recipe Part VI / Milk Rice-Pudding [Rizskoch]

Heyya I'm back! I've passed my exams, I have the certification Wohoo! From now on I'm a nail technician, but only on paper, I have much much to practice… But the one year stress is over thanks to Buddha or one of the Olympians or whoever else… but someone is definitely likes me up there [or down there]. I know it was not an arts faculty or else, but I just wanted to study something easy and fast course what related to handcraft things and there is always availability in it. I can't help it I'm an artistic soul who always doing something creative, I can't imagine myself as an office worker in my whole life, or being a teacher with this unique attitude of mine… All my previous studies were related with creativity or art as well, except the hateful architecture tech. school. But that was a require if I wanted to finish the historical monument protector course. Sadly I always realized that I will not find a job in my occupation when I finished the current school. I loved the graphic and web designing as well but I wasn't very fortunate with those too in the work world. But this is an oooold and long story… My dream always will be being a painting restaurator or monument renovator [beside the dream of my subconsciousness, being a hard rock star] but that dream is gone with the wind. And now you can think if you want: -Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Honestly, me neither… Just keep looking forward from now on! *flourish of trumpets*

So this time artificial nail building. Sounds strange for me and probably there will be times when I'll be bored with the whole, I don't care just no more jobless, moneyless months without proper food and self-doubt again in my life... And at home my artworks always will wait for me to cheer me up and there is business in those artificial nails and I have plans. That is enough for me now. No more dreaming… Except dreaming about being a hard rock star of course.

Well, rice.

Recently I made sushi and for the first time I made sweet sushi or 'fruit sushi' as well. I loved it!

Recipe from HERE 

And it just came to mind that I made the Hungarian milk rice-pudding such a long time ago. It's almost the same as the Japanese version, except that we use more milk and at the end we bake the whole as well. When I was kid I didn't like rice that much, except in this sweet form.

Anyhow I searched on the net I haven't found anything about the story of this cake. But this is very popular in Hungary and I found a recipe in my great-grandma's cookbook too, what is more than 100 years old. We call it 'rizsfelfújt', 'rizskók' or 'rizskoch'. Rizskoch is the oldest in wording. Koch means 'souffle' or 'puffed-up' or 'pudding' [the English-kind] in German. So probably this is another dish what came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire era [1867-1918].

Or not.

Hungarian Sweet Rice-pudding or souffle

You'll need 

1 tbsp unsalted butter

300 g short grain rice

150-200 ml cold water

a pinch of salt

About 3/4-1 l milk [I use rice milk, but you can use soy milk or any kind.]

2-3 tbsp/or personal taste amount of sugar [I use unrefined cane sugar (light brown) but you can use birch sugar or what you want. But be careful with the sweetenings, this cake must be not too sweet at the end, because they usually eat it with sweet sauce, jam, powdered sugar or fresh fruit.]

1-2 tsp fresh lemon zest

1/3 Bourbon vanilla bean [scraped out] or 1 pack vanilla sugar

3 eggs

Optional 

raisin [I skip it because I hate raisin… but some says it's good in this.]

Method to make it 

Set a larger saucepot and heat up the butter on low heat. After it melted add the washed rice and stir it for half a minute. Add the water and the salt. Turn the heat to the highest. When it starts to boil turn the heat on low and add 1/2 l milk, the vanilla, the sugar and the lemon zest. Put a lid on but stir it often. About 15 minutes later taste the rice. If it's too hard but the milk is almost boiled away add more milk. Put the lid back but also stir it often. The rice will be good when it's very soft and the milk gives a thick sauce around the rice. Taste it again and if its not enough sweet add a little more sugar. But it's good if it's not too sweet!

Add the 3 eggs and stir it into the rice mixture till the whole is yellowish from the eggs. Set a medium baking-pan and grease it out with butter and sprinkle it with flour as well. Pour the rice mixture into the pan. Preheat the oven. Bake the whole on low heat until it's golden brown on the top. Done.

You can eat it with fresh fruit, jam, marmalade, fruit sauce, chocolate sauce, vanilla sauce, powdered sugar, cinnamon, chocolate ice cream, nutella… the list is never ending like that story with the funny-faced white dragon. 

I prefer it with strawberry or pineapple-passionfruit marmalade

Enjoy it!/Jó étvágyat! ✌

It's good to be back