Grubbs n Critters

February 14, 2015

Our Promise

Getting all lovey-dovey and being all romantic mushy crap?

Not me.

Getting all lovey-dovey, mushy crap romanticising Valentine’s Day and spending unnecessary money on over-priced presents and dinner in the name of love?

Well…just.not.me!

I have, for more than 2 decades now, boycotted V-Day and everything that has to do with it. Maybe it has stemmed from the fact that I’ve always been “one of the boys” and often over-looked next to the prettier and more popular girls in school. Those girls received flowers and gifts from secret admirers; I got flowers from shy boys asking me to give flowers to the girls they have a crush on, on their behalf.

Very normal. C’est la vie!

So. I can’t seem to get my head around the fuss behind this V-Day. It’s a day I don’t usually give two craps about and it is usually the day when I’m DYING to get away from all the cutesy giant red heart-shaped balloons and fluffy teddy-bears littered all across town.

In my books, (the wasteful show of love) THAT’S NOT normal.

There are 365 days in a year, and why oh why, do people spend their life savings on this one day to show love, when we could be showing our love not just on V-Day, but whenever and wherever we can? No need to revere this one day, but rather, shouldn’t we try to make any other day as special as we want to make it out to be?

Besides, sometimes, I think we don’t tell the people we truly love how much we love them often enough. And I know that I can be guilty of that sometimes, but that for me, is no excuse to worship yet another day marketed by Hallmark.

I think I have done enough eye-ball rolling about V-Day and the days that leading up to V-Day, cringing away in gusto at the sights of red heart fluffies, chocolates and roses sold at triple the original prices. Even my blog feeds have mostly been filled with them (sorry guys, please don’t take any offence to this and yes, I read your V-Day posts on quotes and special recipes) and I can’t seem to escape this annual epidemic.

A few days ago, both Spud and Squirt came back with a note from school for us to do 2 things:

Dress the girls in pink and the boys in red on Friday for the school’s Valentine’s Day celebration (My! They are starting young with all this lovey-dovey crap)
Write a love note for them on a heart-shaped paper that was attached to their daily report book.

Oh great. Now what do I write? Why do we even have to do this! And mind you, I already tell them I love them. Every single day.

Not wanting to be a spoil-sport and leaving my kids with the only ones with no love letters from their parents, I sighed a big sigh – mostly fretting about what to write. Then, I remembered that, coincidentally, I had read a blogpost on V-Day earlier that very morning (I told you I read your posts!) and thought that it was more than appropriate for a short note to my kids. The post had actually made me smile. (No kidding!).

Inspired by Yuvathi’s I Promise post, I crafted these…

Fast forward to yesterday, at the request of Spud for us to stay to watch her V-Day performance after the usual school drop-off, we lingered around for a bit during the kids’ morning assembly. It was a morning full of mushy songs. Great!

After their little dance performance (only love songs of course!), this was when it got a little unexpected just as we were about to leave – the teacher approached me to come forward to personally read the love letter we wrote for our kids in front of 20 other people. With a microphone no less! Yikes.

I had declined from the on-set (I needed to be at work!) thinking that the teacher could do it, but complied after much insistence. Squirt was the first to be read to, and I realised that we couldn’t quite leave until Spud had her turn, too.

I don’t know if I was imagining things, but I thought I saw a couple of parents who lingered teared-up after I was done reading to Squirt. But it could be just real – I felt a lump in my throat and teared as I stood there listening to the teacher reading the other parents’ written love letters to the kids.

I Know I Can’t Promise You

“Everything”

But One, I Can For Sure

” That I Will Always Love You..”

Always… <3

— by Yuvathi —

I then realised that somehow, it did feel a little more special that I got to be the one reading that note personally to my kids in such a spontaneous setting. Thank you for the inspiration, Yuvathi.

V-Day or not, this piece of memory would stay with me for a long, long time to come. And, while I still don’t fancy the over-rated extravaganzas associated with Valentine’s Day, this I can take…along with a small bunch of flowers from Silver Bullet and hand-made cards from the kids. *counting my blessings*

Fabulous Friday Flavour: Meatballs with Broken Yoghurt Saffron Sauce

Category: Fabulous Friday Flavours

Meatballs is something I haven’t made in a quite a while, but has certainly earned itself as one of the most versatile dishes in my repertoire.

Recently, I came across a meatball recipe that sounded so exotic that I just had to give a go at it. It has a very interesting use of ingredients; ingredients which you would not have thought tasted good together. Things like feta and pecorino cheese, orange, saffron and a mixture of some strong spices.

This is one of the most interesting meatball recipes I have come across…the flavours just exploded altogether and dance around in your mouth that would leave you craving for more!

Meatballs with Broken Yoghurt Saffron Sauce

2015-07-13 16:08:44

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Ingredients

A) For the Meatballs

500g – 800g minced beef
1/3 cup bread crumbs
3 tbsp whole milk
2 tspn orange zest or blood orange when in season, finely grated, about 1 orange
1 tspn whole cumin, crushed in a mortar and pestal
2 tspn olive oil
1 medium-sized shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 egg
1/3 cup Manchego or Pecorino as substitute cheese, grated
Salt and fresh ground pepper

B) For the Broken Yogurt Sauce

1 1/2 tspn each of ground cardamom (4-5 pieces whole cardamom) , coriander, fenugreek (5-6 pieces), nutmeg, cloves (5-6 pieces) , allspice, cinnamon, cayanne, black pepper and sea salt
1 tbsp paprika
3/4 tspn tumeric
1 onion, sliced thin, approx 1 cup
2 tspn garlic, minced
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 pinch saffron, a healthy pinch, crumbled
1 small can of tomato puree (the original used 2 tspn double concentrated tomato paste fro the tube)
1 cup whole milk yogurt
1 small pack cooking cream
Salt and white pepper
1/2 cup Feta cheese crumbled finely
Fresh mint, minced for garnish

Directions

A) For the Meatballs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl combine the milk, bread crumbs, orange zest and cumin and set aside.
In a small saute pan, set over medium heat, add the olive oil and sweat the shallot and garlic until translucent.
Season with salt and pepper remove it from the heat. Let it cool a little and then add it to the bread mixture.
Add salt and pepper, about a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and then combine ingredients in #1 the meat, egg and Pecorino.
Using your hands, mix it until the mixture becomes sticky and has absorbed all the egg.
Place parchment paper onto, or lightly oil, a sheet tray.
Roll the meatballs in your hands until they are smooth and round. Place all the meatballs onto the sheet tray and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. This can be done in advance and the meatballs can be stored, covered, in the fridge.

B) For the Broken Yogurt Sauce

To make the Ethiopian spice-mix combine all the spices, paprika and turmeric in a mixing bowl and mix to combine. This makes more than enough spice and it is a great addition to lentils and many other dishes. Remove 1 tablespoon of the mix and place the remainder in a jar with a lid and store.
Place a 10 inch saute pan over medium high heat. Add add the olive oil and onions and saute until the onions just start to brown. Add the garlic and once you start to smell the aroma of the garlic add 1 tablespoon of the Ethiopian spice mix then the saffron and tomato paste.
Stir to combine the ingredients and then add the yogurt and cream. Let it come to a boil, this should break the yogurt into tiny globules, and then add the meatballs. Stir to coat the meatballs and reduce the heat to a simmer stirring occasionally to keep the sauce from scorching on the bottom of the pan.
Simmer until the meatballs are warmed all the way through. Place the meatballs onto a warmed platter and top them with the sauce and then sprinkle with crumbled feta and mint.
Serve.

Notes

I didn’t have all the ingredients in powdered form so I used whole spices but reduced the quantity as I have stated in brackets

Grubbs n Critters https://grubbsncritters.com/

Doesn’t that look beautiful!

Original recipe can be found here

#FoodieFriDIY

#Blogging 201: The Buddy System

Category: Blogging 201

Today’s assignment is quite an interesting one where we are encouraged to find a blogging buddy. Subsequently, if appropriate, plan to publish guest posts on one another’s blog.

I feel like I’m in primary school all over again.

The part when you see other kids playing, and you are standing quietly in the corner, hoping someone would notice you and ask you if you want to play. Your eyes would light up, and in your excitement, get overtly enthusiastic about it all.

And, if you realise no one notices you, you go up to the one kid who also happens to be standing alone (or not!) in the corner, walk over, extend your hand, and with a shy smile on your face, ask in a low voice in anticipation of yes as the answer with, “Would you like to be my friend?”

Or if you are the shameless type, you’ll just walk upfront to the crowd and holler, “Who wants to play with me???”

And if there is no one to play with you, you retreat back into your corner, hang your head in disappointment because you think nobody likes you and then start playing with the little dusts that had settled around you and having conversations with yourself.

My first thought to a buddy trailed off to a good friend of mine, Estelea, who got me hooked on this Blogging University thing. I told her that of course, she could say no, but that would left me sobbing hard in despair!

This assignment, if anything, is actually out of my comfort zone, but I figured, sometimes, it really is just about that – getting out of your comfort zone. Excuse me while I cringe and shudder at myself while at this because calling out for people to be my buddy or talking to random strangers is just something I don’t do.

While scrolling through conversations wondering how other people go about this assignment, I stumbled upon several links from other bloggers who are hosting events on their site – an assignment which I decided to skip as I don’t think I have anymore bandwidth to host an event on my site.

The thing is, while trolling around these events, I found a few interesting initiatives which I thought I really like. But, somehow, along the way, forgot where I have stumbled upon them because I have been too distracted to save them all in my bookmarks and thinking that my mighty brain would remember them all. Dead wrong!

So, this is my effort to not only help me remember where those events are held, but to also spread the love so you can check them out and see if you want to participate in their events. These are a few of my favourites because they are so easy and fuss-free to take part in:

#Take a Step Thursday
#Re-Blog Wednesday
#My Expat Family
#FoodieFriDIYs
Living Intentionally Simple – Not quite an event per se, but Sereiland takes guest-post based on her blog schedule and if you think you have something that you want to write, but don’t quite fit your own blog, she’s open to featuring guest blogger. I owe her a piece and I need to get round to that!
#Show Your World

And then, there’s the bit about getting on to other blogging platform and one of the recurring to-be or not-to-be questions is getting on bloglovin. Michelle Webber one of the hosts running Blogging University gave a good run-down on what bloglovin is all about here. From something I thought that isn’t quite necessary (what?! not another platform to explore! My head is about to explode!), Michelle left me contemplating on it. Dammit.

So here’s to getting out of your comfort zone and exploring the unknown! Here’s to linking up and making new friends. May your head don’t ever explode and may the force be with you.

And oh! By the way, would you like to be my buddy….*soft, tiny voice*. I promise I won’t cry a river if you say no…:D

I don’t think I’ll host an event, but I will, however, be more than happy to link you up here or feature your posts if you would have me. All you need to do is ask. See you around!