February 23, 2015

“And the Oscar goes to...”

The Oscars came on a live broadcast last night – I had waited for it so, so much! It has become a tradition-kind-of-thing already, to watch the Oscars every year.


The Oscars always come from TV in the middle of the night because it’s live but there’s a thing to watch it in that hour. You can always watch the subtitled version on the next day, but it’s not the same thing... You concentrate way too much to the subtitles and half of the show itself goes by – since there were none, I could concentrate to the show as fully as possible. And the subtitled version is also about 45 minutes shorter for the Finnish middle-speeches during the American commercial breaks (which they don’t show in here) are cut away and to me they are a big part of the whole show!

The Red Carpet part, which comes before the actual Oscars went by a little, but not too much. When the Oscars started we popped a sparkling wine and laid back to enjoy it. The Oscars sure are one of the greatest ways to spend a whole night!



I had baked vegan almond brownies earlier on the evening and ate them while watching the Oscars. It had been on my mind for so long to try to bake vegan brownies and for my surprise they came out from the oven perfectly! It obvious which side is mine, ha.

After the Oscars ended, it felt it had gone by too fast, even though it had lasted for hours. I was so excited that it was impossible for me to go to bed right after it, so I stood up a little longer but then went to bed...

I’m already waiting for next year’s Oscars!


 

February 17, 2015

Shrovetide & Sunsets

I have never known that Shrovetide is called Shrovetide. I mean, I have always known it is called “Laskiainen” in Finnish but I have never really thought about its name in English... Oh well.

On this year Shrovetide came just after Valentine’s Day and traditionally it’s preceding Easter... I started to look up when this holiday actually was and found out that the special days of Shrovetide were on Sunday and today, on Tuesday. I personally don’t mind this because every holiday gives me another good reason to eat more, since every café and store is filled with these Shrovetide buns, which are just like regular buns, yes, but they are filled with whipped cream and jam or almond paste.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how many food additives these ready-made buns actually had and I was shocked to notice that one of them had 18 food additives – there was something in everything (in the bun, in the jam, in the cream)! I wasn’t going to buy them in the first place because I knew they contained eggs and milk as well as some food additives, but eighteen is way, way, way too much for anyone!



So I baked vegan buns at home and ate them with vegan whipped cream and raspberry jam. Yum!


I didn’t have any coarse sugar or decorating sugar so the bun might just look like a bread roll filled with jam and whipped cream. Ha! But they were actually really, really good. And I have been eating them for three days now... But I don’t mind indulging myself on holidays. 


And oh! On Sunday there were the most glorious sunset I’ve seen in this spring so far. The days have become sooo much brighter and been very beautiful overall so I hope (and believe) that there would be more pretty sunsets (and sunrises) to come... 

February 14, 2015

Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day always makes me think about the friends I have and how fortunate I am to have people in my life.

Sometimes, there’s nothing better than to spend a whole day at home, making food, eating and drinking well...



My mom had bought a box of fresh strawberries a day before Valentine’s Day and their scent was intoxicating – I haven’t eaten fresh strawberries since last summer!



After eating half a box of strawberries, where else to put the rest of them than to a pink sparkling wine?



I have proven to myself that homemade food can be as good as anything you would get from a restaurant! And as a vegan you can’t really find a variety of foods you can eat from restaurants so it can get a bit boring in the end. So, instead of going eating out, I made pita breads from scratch which I stuffed with everything vegan; vegetables, seitan kebab (also made from scratch), vegan crème fraiche and spicy tomato sauce – it couldn’t really get any yummier than that...

Have a good Valentine’s Day!


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