Comfy Food: Pork Ribs with Onions & Beer.

Slow and easy...  Slow and easy...  Slow and easy...

Today's recipe is very simple the only requirement is a long cooking time. And believe me, the beer rich, smooth flavor combined with the sweetness of onions and apple will repay your patience and gratify your palate.

Ingredients:
1kg Pork Ribs (2 max inch long) or 800gr Pork Chops
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced
Salt
3 Tbsp. Olive Oil
33cc lager beer (Try different beers in order to find the perfect bland ;P)
Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
 

In a pan brown the pork ribs until golden brown and set aside.  Keep the fat, add garlic, onions and the apple and saute for a few minutes until they are golden. Lower the heat and cover the pan, letting the onions become tender (15-20min.). Top with the brown pork ribs. Add beer and bring to a simmer. Cook * over low heat until the ribs are so tender that they melt in your mouth and the onions and apple are completely melted (I needed 3 hours).

Serve with mashed potatoes and/or green beans.

* I don't have a crock-pot but you can use one of them at this point of the cooking process.

Decluttering

It was time to make some decisions.

I just piled five bags full of old clothes near the door. This morning I told myself that I couldn't keep procrastinating the inevitable: my wardrobe needed to be cleaned. ASAP.

Why now? I don't know. I've six more months before my 40th birthday. I'm stuck at the same weight for more than a year. I hadn't a mid-life crisis. I don't plan to change my style in the near future. I feel the same. 

But I needed to free myself from my very old clothes. Now.

And just for the records, two years ago when we moved here I threw away lots of old stuff. Evidently I didn't a radical job, since this morning I discarded more small t-shits for the 90ties, old pants which style and color I'll never wear again, faded clothes, my last pair of Levis... But I'm still keeping two pairs of favorites jeans with holes. I know I should tell them goodbye but they are my favorites! I can't put them in the trash bin. Maybe I can patch them...

Perfect shades of Blue

Why did I keep all those things stuffed behind the white sliding door of my wardrobe? Dunno. It's beyond my comprehension. 

I didn't get sentimentally attached to them. I don't care about them as much as the outfit I was wearing when my husband saw me for the first time; the dress he gave to me for our first anniversary; the expensive, blue leather coat my dad got for me because he knew I was crazy about it; my beloved shantung suit 60s style... Those things are guarded in clean bags even if I'd never wear them again (I've to lose 20 pounds if I want to do it again and I'm not on a diet at the moment :/ )

So, today I finally get rid of useless outfits and my wardrobe is neat and orderly. I'm happy :-)

Engineers aren't cyborgs... We have feelings and no superpowers

As I wrote before, I'm an Engineer. A Mechanical Engineer, to be more specific. So, I'm qualified to call shenanigans if my beloved author Kristan Higgins writes such a nonsense about Tom Barlow: the hottie Brit with the killer smile and the same degree as I have; the hero in her last book:

Indeed KH gave us a hero to die for.  

Awesome inside and outside ;)

But she wrote also...

"IF TOM HAD thought he was cold before he went in the pond, that had been a fucking walk on a tropical beach, hadn’t it? Stupid, stupid Honor, going out on ice after the idiot dog (Spike aka Ratty). If it hadn’t held a five-pound dog, how the hell was it going to hold a full-grown woman?
He could feel a slight current in the water, pulling at his clothes, and did a quick calculation in the water—weight, velocity, depth, momentum, resistance—and sloshed over to where he thought the idiot animal might be.
Chances were small to nil, let’s be honest."

What?

Are You serious? Because if Tom could do it, now I know why he's so perfect... 

Tom is a cyborg! 

Wait a moment! Don't go! I'm not going to explain the principles of hydrodynamics. I want to say only one little thing. That is, if you need to estimate the position of a point (Ratty) in a moving fluid you have to use:

• complicated equations, with more than + - x / ;
• tables or an engineer manual;
• measurement instruments (At least a basic Pitot tube), because the human eye can't see the local velocity at a given point in the flow stream;

That's a Pitot Tube under an aircraft wing (Airplanes don't have penises!)

• Pencil and paper;
• AND TIME! (I'm speaking about lots of minutes, not a heartbeat ;P)

 Obviously Tom didn't get none of the above! 

 I admit that this kind of poor works (Total lack of research) frustrated me beyond measure. 

I know I'm the needle in the haystack in this situation. The other KH's gang members might complain about lack of kisses (Tom is a good kisser. No one ever gets tired of good kisses ;P) rather than about inaccuracy, right? 

But I think that her editor or one of her proof readers should have checked out those things. Knickers! They're there for that reason. 

Cheerio and God Save the Queen.

 

HEA against all odds

HEA blurb: A dark haired, good looking (GQ level), Billionaire met a feisty Redhead  in front of the organic vegetables stand at a local farm market and BANG! They have a blond, chubby baby with blue eyes.

Q.Nr.1 - Do you know that RED HAIR occurs only on approximately in 1-2% of the human population?  So, between 70 and 140 million people around the world have red hair. Aaaand Northern European countries have a greater proportion of redheads than anywhere else in the world... 

Are you wondering why I'm ranting about RED HAIR? I'm gonna tell you.

I'm too lazy to go back and count them but believe me, I read a lot of books which heroines have STRAWBERRY BLOND, GINGER, RED, FLAMING hair.

So I wandered, is the redhead troublemaker - totally cliché - appeal or Julianne Moore sex appeal that induced so many authors to go for one of the rarest female combinations?

I've no answer. Today the engineer in me took over and I'm simply looking for numbers ;)

Q.Nr.2 - Do you know how many Billionaires are there in the world?

According to Forbes there are 1426 Billionaires (Men and women) and 2/3 live in Europe or U.S. Unfortunately Forbes didn't tell us how many are male, good looking exemplars under the age of 35. I had a look at some pictures and with an optimistic approximation I'd say we can count them on the fingers of one hand, Mark Zuckerberg included. AND, even if he is supersmart I won't define him a GQ model ;) (Mark, please! Don't get angry with me and shut down my FB page).

Poor David is a simple Millionaire

If you want  to know why authors are now writing about Billionaires and not Millionaires, well my only answer is INFLATION.

Q.Nr.3 - Do you know Gregor Mendel's peas tale? 

No? What were you doing when your Science teacher was explaining the basic principles of genetics? I'm not going to explain the principles of biologic  inheritance now (Wikipedia and Google are stuffed with data) I'm going to say that there are dominant and recessive traits in our DNA and is highly improbable that our dark Billionaire and sweet Redhead have a cherubin.

Conclusion: HEA exist! But it is more credible a story about

•  a dark firefighter/lawyer/engineer that mets 
• a dark blond (with highlights ;P) nurse/teacher/librarian and that 
• the HEA couple has a chubby toddler with chestnut, curly hair and chocolate eyes ;)

The right atmosphere for a book club night

Do you want to know why a book lover dreams to find the right book club?

Here 16 good reasons about being in a book club

Now, I found my secret dream team and a few weeks ago I had a very good time dissecting our first "book of the month" with the ladies. It was so good that I'm looking forward for round two.

I don't know my pals in person or what they do for a living. Ah. I don't even know where they live (All around the globe is the best way to locate us ;p).  But we have two things in common: we love reading and we love a particular book. And that particular book bounded us.

This afternoon I was reading a food magazine when one of the ladies posted an off topic (= not related to the book of the month) message and I started dreaming of a 'book-of-the-month + only-girls-night' party.

I  wish it would be my garden

The logistic rules against us and, unless we don't  find our Scotty (You know that guy with a red shirt? "Beam me up, Scotty!" sounds a bell?), we would only meet in the WWW ^_^

Next time we're going to discuss a paranormal mystery romance (With a *touch* of humor) and drink wine. Yep. Have you read the article above? No, then go!

One of the advantage of a book club is the wine tasting. The two things are indissolubly connected. Red (our group prefer red) wine and highly witty conversation is a combination as good as raspberry and chocolate. Orgasmicntastic :D

November Mystery Paranormal Menu

 Little Bruschetta with diced tomatoes and basil

Little Bruschetta with sautéed mushrooms 

Caciotta cheese with organic Acacia Honey

Parmigiano cheese with Pear Jam

Pecoriono cheese with Tropea Red Onions confiture

 ***

My Pumpkin soup

***

Santin's Chocolate Raspberry Ganache

[Recipe will follow soon ;)]

I hope one day someone will pick up a regency romance as 'book of the month'. I never read one and I'm dreaming to organize a tea party :-)

Kickass Muffin

The Boss was playing his guitar and my little one was bouncing his head with the rhythm of The River when I put those choco muffins with a raspberry-jam heart in the oven. Their fate was signed by the music, their name carved in stone: Kickass Muffins. What else?

Follow the recipe for my Regular Muffin and add 1/2 spoon of cocoa powder to the batter for the choco taste.

Breakfast experiments

A successful breakfast experiment is this Bio*-Raspberry-Jam Muffin. 

*Aka Organic

A classic muffin with a fruity, fresh, red heart.

Muffins (12 units)

250 gr Flour

100 gr Sugar

2 Eggs

250 ml Yogurt 

80 ml Peanut oil (Sunflower oil is good as well)

1 pkg backing powder

Raspberry Jam

In a big bowl mix all dried ingredients, in an other mix the remaining things. Mix the liquid with the dry ingredients and stir energetically but briefly the batter, divide it in 12 Muffin cups and add a teaspoon of Raspberry Jam on top of each cup. The Jam will be engulfed by the rising batter in the oven. Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes.