Ravioli!

We made ravioli the other weekend.

Remember the ravioli moulds we got from eBay?

We put them to good use when we are in the mood.

It is great to have a second pair of hands in the kitchen.

It is also good to have two sets of pastry mats

and two small rolling pins.

We have two ravioli moulds from eBay

but I prefer the one that makes a dozen big ones

over the one that makes 28 small ones.

For the sauce, we could have used some pasta sauce

but we had none in the pantry so

we made some gravy using the 

Ikea Swedish meatballs copycat recipe.

Ravioli Dough (makes 48 pieces):
3 c   flour1/2 t salt2     eggs1/2 c warm water
Sift flour and salt togetherPut flour on a board and make a wellDrop eggs in well, break the yolk and beatCombine eggs and flourAdd enough water to make a stiff doughKnead until smooth (approximately 10 mins)Cover and let rest 15 minsDivide and roll out to 1/16" to 1/8" sheetsUse 1 to 1 1/2 t of fillingDry about 1 hourBoil 10 - 15 mins

Ravioli Filling
1/4 lb  ground beef1/4 lb  ground pork1 T     butter1 clove garlic1/2 c   cooked spinach, chopped1 T     flat leaf parsley2       eggs, beaten2 T     Romano cheesedash nutmeg/salt/pepper

For the gravy:2 T      unsalted butter2 T      all-purpose flour1 1/2 c beef broth1 t       Worcestershire sauce1/4 c    heavy creamsalt/pepper  2 T      chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heatAdd the flour and cook, whisking, until smooth. Whisk in the beef broth and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a simmer. Add the cream and meatballs. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer until the gravy thickens, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper. Transfer to a serving dish; sprinkle with the parsley and serve 

Twinkle, Twinkle Times 144,000

I expected it to be a busy Friday the 13th yesterday so I went to an earlier morning mass and headed for the office after.  Instead of my usual (pass through the Priceline chemist shop to get a free spritz of perfume for the day) route, I decided to go through the (let's do some sightseeing and window shopping) Queen Victoria Building route instead.  

I picked up a QVB catalog just for the heck of it and browsed it on my way to work. Naturally the catalog would have something about the Swarovski Christmas Tree that was on display.  The  huge Christmas tree which fascinated me when I first saw it in 2010 stands tall in the middle of the building, you'd be blind if you missed it.  

As I browsed the catalog, the number 144,000 stuck in my head. The tree boasted 144,000 Swarovski crystal ornaments and 60,000 twinkling lights.  Wow!  (But really the 144,000 in my mind was something like 12 squared times 1,000.  Don't ask me why but that was my thought process when I saw the number. )

Fast forward to lunchtime.  For the first time since I started work, the Group was going to have a Christmas lunch sponsored by the company.  (Nice!)  We were told this was a "sit down" lunch and we were to have the meal in the room.  In other words, we could not just get food and return to our work stations to eat.   In fact, we were advised that there would be games and prizes involved during this gathering.   Teams were assigned based on the table where one was seated.   

There was a Christmas trivia with six questions : (1) In the song "Twelve Days of Christmas", what did my true love give to me on the 3rd day of Christmas? (2) What colour is the Grinch? (3)  What are you riding while you are "dashing through the snow"? (4) Who wrote the Christmas Carol?  (5) How many ghosts visited Ebenezer Scrooge?  (6)  Who was the last ghost that visited Ebenezer Scrooge.  

(I have a feeling we would have done better at this game when we were in grade school or high school.  None of the teams got all the answers correctly.)

The second game was a guessing game.  How many Swarovski crystals are there in the QVB Christmas tree?  Clue : It is between 100,000 and 150, 000.   

(Guess whose team won that game?)  

The last game was charades where they words to be guessed were Christmas-related. There were easy ones like snowman, Christmas tree, and star. There were harder ones like wreath, milk, etc. Then there were the tough ones which people did not get like biscuits, joy, left-overs.   There were some words which my brain did not immediately comprehend as being related to Christmas such as SUMMER and SAND.

(Note to self : Wake up!  You live in Australia now.  Christmas is still in December but December is during the summertime therefore think SAND and not snow!)

Our table tied with another table for the charades game.  So there was a dance-off to break the tie.  Since we had won the previous game, the rest of the team voted for the other guy.

There was a lucky number door prize draw and a "guess how many lollies in this jar" game ... then it was back to work.

Ho!  Ho!  Ho!  Merry Christmas!

This is the tree that won our team some chocolates.

The More (Coffee) The Merrier (Christmas Planner)

I'm really not a coffee addict.  However, I do drink more coffee these days than I used to when we were back in the home country.  MacGyver and I actually have several containers of instant coffee in the house now.  We would have Nescafe like normal people do, Decaf for the times when we feel like having coffee but know we need to sleep, and the occasional date coffee such as Moccona or Nescafe Gold for the times when we want to share something special.   (We are simple folk.)

I often tell MacGyver that I prefer it when he prepares my coffee.  No, I am not being lazy about boiling water and preparing coffee.  It's just that I feel my coffee doesn't taste as nice when I make it myself. (I think he sprinkles an extra bit of love in there, making my coffee taste better than when I make my own.)

Anyway, I realised that I only really started drinking coffee in 2008 as documented in my blog post Coffee, Coffee, and that since writing Not Just Any Cup of Coffee , I have increased my coffee chain statistics as follows :

Previously ONE, currently two, or possibly even three.  I joined Sunshine and her husband at the Starbucks along Timog Avenue when we went home for Father and Mother's 50th anniversary in 2011.  We had a nice long talk. That one I know for sure.  Then back in 2010, I vaguely recall walking into a Starbucks with some of my officemates. One of them wanted to try the green tea latte.  They were a bunch of coffeeholics so I must have joined them for a cup of coffee that day. Let's call it THREE then.  I actually passed up a possible fourth when we had a mini-reunion last September. I was with two classmates from High School.  We had lunch then we walked around the city.  Before heading home, one of them offered to treat us to Starbucks.  However, since none of us were really THAT into coffee, we opted for bubble tea instead.  (It just shows where Starbucks is in our list of places to frequent.)

I have added Gloria Jean's to my coffee chains sampled. In fact, I believe I have had TWO cups of coffee from here.  The first time was with my sister-in-law when we bumped into each other at the mall and a second time with a friend who works in the same floor as I do and lives nearby.  I often see her at the church in our parish and we went for coffee one Saturday after mass. I had almost gotten a third one when the trader from Tokyo came to visit Sydney.  He wanted to meet us bearing cups of coffee but he had only ordered four.  He regularly deals with three of us and did not realise there were two other members in the team.  One of my colleagues was absent that day and since I knew the trader needed his coffee fix more than I did, I let him have the fourth cup.  

Anyway, since Christmas is fast approaching, the Starbucks Planner is a hot topic once again.  I remember former officemates in Manila going out for coffee and rejoicing when they had earned enough points to redeem a planner.   I suppose some people just really drink a LOT of coffee or some people just really WANT to get a planner.

I found these myManila infographics interesting.   They illustrate the cheapest way to get the planner/s based on the mechanics of the planner promo and the cheapest drinks on the menu. 

In summary : 

2012 -- PHP140 Short Peppermint Mocha; PHP95 Short Brewed Coffee

(Option 1) PHP 2,020 - 9 Christmas Drinks + 8 Core Beverages

(Option 2) PHP 2,185 - 23 Core Beverages

2013 -- PHP140 Short Toffee Nut Latte; PHP 85 Short Brewed Coffee

PHP 1,940 - 9 Christmas Drinks + 8 Core Beverages

2014 - PHP140 Short Gingerbread Latte; PHP 85 - Short Brewed Coffee

PHP 2,025 -  9 Christmas Drinks + 9 Core Beverages

What do we conclude?

1. Short brewed coffee was more expensive in 2012. ( I wonder if the cup was bigger then.)  
2. The selection of cheapest Christmas Drinks have changed over the years.  I don't know enough to make any comments on the popularity,  taste, size, or even the cost of these drinks.
3. Based on the additional information provided in the 2014 version, there is an increased consciousness over the calories that come with the planner.   
4. Regardless of cost, kind, or number of cups, if people want to get a planner, they will.

Fore-Edge Painting

There was a time that ad-cubes became quite popular as give-aways during Christmastime. As children whose usual source of paper was limited to school notebooks and various sizes of pad paper, the possession of an ad-cube represented an almost unimaginable wealth of paper.   (The reams of coupon bond in our supplies cabinet were reserved for "official use" only.  Those were not for drawing or playing unless one side had been used and the sheet had subsequently been declared as scratch paper.) 

One of the things we would do with ad-cubes would be to make flip books or make big drawings on the sides while the pad was slightly tilted so they sort of shrank when the pad was realigned.  I was never really good at either but it was still lots of fun.

RD knows I go for these sort of interesting things so he introduced me to fore-edge painting.  Apparently it was quite popular in the 19th century and a lot of books still exist with these secret hidden within their pages.

I wonder how they managed to work their magic during the early stages of this art.  This is how they CAN make it today.

This one shows the artist's painting skills. 


Check out this entry from Colossal which has a lot of  great samples of fore-edge painting plus some nice youtube links.

The Piano Guys

It's the First week of Advent so Christmas music is more than appropriate.

This is what happens when you have one piano and four piano guys.

Goodbye Red and White, Hello Green and Gold

KFC supports the Australian Cricket Team

and they want to show it.