One Pretty Thing feature & roasted balsamic tomatoes

This happened last Saturday. My 'Ciao' coin purse was featured on last week's Flickr Friends Roundup on One Pretty Thing. I was over the moon. I always love One Pretty Thing, a really clever website that gathers inspirations and tutorials from other crafty blogs without having us to do the hard work! I'm very grateful that I found this website. I also found out that it was featured on Le Blog Friendstitch under the tutorial section, although I have only shown some photos of work on progress of that purse. I did think about doing a tutorial of this and maybe I will. On other note, Miky, my boy friend told me that his mother loves the coin purse that I've made for her. Again, I felt happy and content!

My (slightly burnt) Roasted Balsamic Tomatoes

This was my lunch today. I got the recipes from Essential magazine (UK June 09 issue). I've never felt that tomatoes can taste this good on their own.

Recipes (my own version):
8 salad tomatoes
balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt to taste
I also add some soy sauce after getting them out of the oven.

They are supposed to be slow-roast for 1 to 2 hours in the oven on gas mark 2 but I thought I didn't have the patient to wait that long so I put them on gas mark 8 instead and forgot to take them out of the oven after almost an hour hence with a few of them slightly burnt...

One Pretty Thing feature & roasted balsamic tomatoes

Food Craving & Shopping Again

Food Craving

For the last few days, I stayed over at Miky's place and I had an enormous craving for food. We went to Tong Palace (a Chinese restaurant in Leeds) for dinner on Sunday & I ordered vegetable hot & sour soup and vegetable platter, then coconut ice cream for dessert. The food was lovely and I still crave for it when I'm typing at the moment! The Chinese style dessert came with the bill which we didn't order. Then on Monday, we went to Wagamama and I ordered Yasai Chahan (I think it meant Vegetable Fried Rice in Japanese) for lunch. Miky paid for all my food consumptions and I'm really grateful for that. I hope to repay him somehow when I'm back into the work force again. I wish I know how to prepare them whenever I want.

(Above) Heart Sunglasses from New Look. Sale price: £1.50 (original price:£6)
(Below) Heart Sunglasses from Primark. Actual price: £1.00 (no kidding!)

I have this thing for heart shaped sunglasses. I think they are really cute, even though the pointy shapes of the hearts make my cheeks look squashed when I smile. Mentioning about Primark, I had watched the documentary about the store using manufacturers in India which exploit child labour... For sometime, I didn't step into a Primark store because of that but for now, it's one of the place that I can afford to buy stuff from since I have been jobless for more than 7 months. It's a long story...I never really want to mention this as I want to make this a happy place for me & others to visit...as it is those lovely blogs out there which inspires and enlightens my spirit.

Sale Goodies from Claire.

(Clockwise from top) Piggy mobile holder, Fabric Flower hair pin / brooch, brown hair clip, pink bunny hair accessories, Pink mobile sock cozy with rainbow print. All five for £5.

You can just tell that pink colour dominates my world, but the pink bunny hair accessories will be for my Blythe dolls or else I'll look pretty silly wearing them and I plan to give the pink mobile sock cozy for my 13 year old niece. I hope she'll like it as I heard from my aunt that she texts all day long.

Books: Alan Carr Biography and The Mind Gym: Give Me Time

I love Alan Carr and I think he has been one of the first British comedians that I can understand their jokes for. It took me sometime to learn the lingo here and understand the British humour and having a TV really helps with the process. At the moment, I'm reading half way through the book...my attention span for books without picture is really short and that is why I prefer reading magazines, less word and more pictures. So I must say, this is a good progress.

The other book that I bought is The Mind Gym series book. Lately I feel so overwhelmed of the things that I want to accomplish. Even the blog list on the right make me feel overwhelmed. So many things to see and do while so little time. I've read a few pages, mainly on the speed reading section but that hasn't work for me yet. I guess I need to trust the process more and that it will work. Hopefully, this book will help.

Essentials magazine (August 09 issue)

This is the second magazine that I've bought this month (Boots' Health & Beauty mag doesn't count as it's free to Boots advantage card holders). I have always like reading magazines since I was a kid and I used to dream that I'll be able to work for magazines company in the future. I think that blogs are quite similar to magazines too.

I should refrain myself from going to town and have unneccessary spendings...until next weekend. :) I felt happy that I've finished writing this post because lately, blogging seems a bit tedious to me but at the moment, I felt quite content.

Food Craving & Shopping Again

Vegetable burger at The Alamo Restaurant, Dublin

I really like the vegetable burger at The Alamo, a Mexican restaurant at Templar Bar, Dublin. I went to Dublin last year in November for my Results NLP course. During the course, I went to the restaurant a few time ordering the same food: The vegetable burger. I never knew that Portobello mushrooms with cheese & beef tomatoes, served with rocket salad in balsamic vinegar dressing are simply mouth watering. This time I managed to take a photo on my phone while been in Dublin for my master NLP course. I forgot that there's also serving of roasted peppers and paprika powder that comes with it. As you can see below, my own version of Alamo's vegetable burger:
I have to use the whole packet of rocket salad as I always forgot to finish them if I left some in the fridge. I have grown to like the taste of peppery rocket salad (washed one) and it tastes really nice with balsamic vinegar & salt. For preparing this dish, it's best to use portobello mushrooms instead of the normal big mushrooms as the taste varies between them. As for the cheese, the restaurant uses Smoked Applewood Cheese but I have no idea where to get it or even smoke it myself so I just use mozzarella cheese. I like their ideas of staking the portobello mushrooms, beef tomatoes & cheese together with a barbeque skewer. Just around 10 minutes in the oven of Gas Mark 8 and the food is ready to be served. I have been salivating as I am typing this. :)

Vegetable burger at The Alamo Restaurant, Dublin