Oven is a dangerous thing, you know. I can’t remember a lot of times when I haven’t burned myself on the upper edge while putting something in or taking something out of the oven.

Today I’ve been making raspberry pie and in addition to forgetting to buy creme fraiche (I had it in my hand but between the shelf and the cashier, it disappeared! It’s missing from the receipt so I didn’t pay for it thankfully.) and probably botching the pie dough (40 g of butter and 10 cookies is supposed to make a dough you can mold?! Yeah, right.), I managed to burn both my arms.

Right arm while putting the pie in, left arm while taking it out. I really need shoulder-length oven mittens. (Or better yet, a head-to-toe padded and insulated safety overall.)

I’ll take a picture of the pie (it’s not very interesting-looking) when it’s done.

I’m so clumsy in my kitchen anyway (emphasis on “my” because it’s just a matter of proportions — mine or the kitchen’s). The hood of the stove is above my eye-level so I’m always bumping my head into it when I cook something on the back burners. I thought of taping some yellow and black warning tape on it or attach some dangly things (beads or something) there. Also the cupboard doors are hazardous because I’m always forgetting them half-open — bruises and bumps are guaranteed when I’m unloading the dishwasher.

Anyway, here’s the pie!

It’s not burned (I had to take it out of the oven a little prematurely cause I had to leave to meet my aunt at the train station) but the cookie colour or butter seeped into the filling. It was delicious, despite the missing fraiche (I used some lemon juice as a substitute for sourness).

My bed (who cares about that) and my TV stand (!!!) finally arrived! Now I don’t have to stare at the floor while watching TV! They would’ve delivered them last Wednesday but I was 400 km away from home — at our summer cottage — so I had to postpone it to this Monday.

I assembled the thing this morning. I had received and assembled that small drawer on the right side of the TV before. First I thought I wouldn’t attach the backboards to the stand (they’re just thin panels that are nailed to the stand) but then I noticed they leave a hole in the middle for all the cords to get through — excellent! Now the cords are in an almost-manageable mess hidden behind the table.

The top drawer (under the TV) holds my remote controls, the bottom drawer is currently empty, the bigger drawers are pretty much unused (I put user manuals there for the time being). I’ll have to think what to put on those lower shelves, I don’t have enough gadgets. Maybe I’ll bring my favourite CDs there so I don’t have to get them from the bookcase whenever I need them.

Now the sofa is here (it came 45 minutes early, around 8:30 pm) and it’s lovely!! Oh la la, check it out:

(Sheesh, camera phone is bad indoors without ceiling lights…)

Only I noticed that the “legs” (little square stubs of sofa legs) are unevenly painted. There is proper, dark colour on some of the sides and lighter on others (like they’re missing a layer or two of paint). I’m going to go to the store to see if I they can send me new ones.

You know what’s unsettling? Going to reserve a time for a hair cut and see a hairdresser with horrible hair…

I’ll see tomorrow morning whether my hair will end up just as horrible. Bye bye, locks.

Finally I received a call from the furniture store (on a Sunday morning, strange) telling me that my sofa was ready and waiting in the storage. They’re delivering it on Tuesday night.

Hurraah!

The original schedule was for week 25 (it’s week 27 now) but I wasn’t awfully worried or annoyed with this furniture store. The other one is a completely different story: I should’ve gotten the rest of my stuff on May 15, then May 23 after the mess with my bed was sorted out. But I’m still waiting for the bed and the TV stand. I call them time and time again and have to leave a message for the sales person but she never calls back.

Can’t remember if I’ve told you about the bed mess. I was planning on getting a framed mattress and a whole bed frame in which case I wouldn’t need anything to put the mattress on (like you would with a regular, soft mattress or it falls through the bed frame ). At first the dimwit sales person ordered me a normal mattress with a headboard — one that should be attached to a framed mattress! I received the mattress on time (before the move) and, because I needed to sleep somewhere, I decided to keep it and opened the package. I’ve been waiting for the bed ever since.

But boy am I glad I’m getting the sofa! Now I would really like the TV stand to get the TV, set-top box, and video/DVD player off the floor. (And the bed of course, but I’m not holding my breath.)

Here’s my bookcase:

The photo is terrible because it’s really grey outside and I haven’t bought any ceiling lamps yet. Anyway, my DVDs and CDs are on the left, miscellaneous literature, dictionaries and other kinds of encyclopaedias in the middle, and Stephen King books and X-Files collection on the right. I’ve placed some souvenirs in the middle and my favourite alien toys on the right. Stephen King takes almost three full shelves — I love it!
Two of the bottom shelves are empty and once I get my bedroom/office sorted, I’ll move my dictionaries and encyclopaedias close to my computer. You may wonder the logic in that but I like keeping them close to where I work no matter how much of that same info I can find online. I’m more apt to pick up a dictionary in book-form than surf to a dictionary site.

I’m not dead. I just managed to blow something up inside my computer so I haven’t been able to use it fully for a long time. Being without a computer (at home) has been kind of refreshing.

Today I made some chocolate chip muffins a la Nigella Lawson. They don’t look very pretty because I think I put too much batter for each muffin. I have a 12-muffin pan and the recipe was supposedly for 12 but I got 12 too big and one in a coffee cup. I suppose I need to get another pan

The only one that looks like a muffin (the one in top left corner) broke in half when I tried to take it from the tray. Just my luck. Oh well, they taste nice which is the important thing.

On my name day on May 26th I made a chocolate lemon pie for work:

(The cut you see in the picture is the cook’s reserved right to pre-taste. ) It was yummy but the pie dough was kind of hard to cut and the filling could’ve been more brown (it was cooked properly, though). Anyway, I’m not the only one who liked it because it disappeared in an instant…

I haven’t been making only desserts. I’ve been cooking for a whole week every weekend. I think I’ve only had lunch from a store once when I knew I was going shopping so I didn’t want to lug the “lunch box” around town. I made a tuna-potato-smoked cheese casserole which was a huge success (for me, I didn’t feed it to anyone else) — there wasn’t much for me to screw up. Tomorrow or on Saturday I’m making another kind of fish casserole for next week.

So, what’s been going on? My new home is coming together. I assembled the bookcases with my sister and tomorrow Dad is coming to help put the doors up. I’m still waiting for a bed and a TV stand. They were supposed to arrive a month ago (!!!) but there’s been all kinds of confusion. I just wish they would arrive already! I also was supposed to get a sofa this week but I didn’t. Oh well, I’m not too worried about that yet because this was a Midsummer week and “every” Finn is on holiday tomorrow and I think Saturday is quite a quiet day, too (on the shop-front). If I don’t hear from the store on Wednesday at the latest I’m calling to ask after my dear sofa.

I’m so glad to have the bookcases finally assembled! All my closets are filled with books (and I’m not even exaggerating much) so I haven’t been able to unpack my other stuff yet. All my DVDs are still in a box, too.

I also finally got my computer off the floor. I didn’t buy a desk yet but there was an unused (?) table at home which I got until I find a better one.

Now it’s time to go watch some tv. They’re re-running Supernatural which I didn’t get to watch on the first run because it was on at the same time with a more important series. Now I can record two channels and watch a third one so those kinds of worries are practically history.

Yesterday I made some spinach macaroni casserole and realised some things…

If you’re not sure about an ingredient, google it!
The recipe included something called “ingredients for thick chicken soup” so I figured it meant some frozen vegetables that are recommended in a chicken soup. I searched the freezers at the grocery store and didn’t find anything fitting so I bought a bag of mixed veggies that I really like. While munching away on the finished casserole I decided to check what that certain ingredient really was: soup powder! That explains a lot…

Frozen spinach takes a long time to thaw.
…Especially without a microwave oven. I bought a bag of spinach cubes, put them in a bowl and let them sit on the counter. When I got around to the step where I was supposed to mix the spinach with the macaroni I poked at the cubes and realised they were still hard as bricks! I don’t have a microwave oven yet so I held the bowl over the boiling macaroni pot and finally boiled some water and submerged the bowl there. It took a while but eventually I was able to break the cubes and mix them with the macaroni.

500 g of macaroni needs a big pot to cook
I haven’t bought any pots or pans yet so all I’ve got is a medium-sized pot from home (maybe 2-3 litres). This recipe needed half a kilogram of macaroni and while I was emptying the bag in the pot, it filled up pretty quickly. I had to cook the macaroni in two batches which meant double the cooking time. A good thing I suppose, the spinach had more time to thaw…

I cannot chop onions very well.
I don’t know if I used a wrong kind of a knife but I wasn’t able to chop the onions finely enough. There weren’t huge chunks but some bigger pieces were left.

All’s good though. The food is edible (and not bad at all), just not exactly what the recipe maker intended… I may be too embarrassed to eat it at work so I’ll have many weekends’ worth of food in the freezer. When I’m done with those, I’ll have to make it again some time — with the correct ingredients.

Mother’s day is coming up and my parents are supposedly going to visit tomorrow (two unrelated events). That’s why I decided to try and bake something. I don’t have many gadgets, pots or pans yet so I chose an easy-looking recipe for semolina (I think) cake.

This is what it looks like

but I don’t know how it turned out. I poked a fork through the middle and it seems quite moist but I’m hoping the wheat absorbs some of it as it cools down. I didn’t have proper measuring spoons so I had to wing it — which I know is bad for baking.

All rights to pre-taste reserved. (Just for the safety of others.)

Semolina reminds me that I need to buy couscous. (I’ve never tried it.)

It took only two rounds to get my stuff in. I did leave some scrap behind which I will have to carry over by bus but the most important things are here.

Here’s my fancy desk:

After taking the picture I hooked up speakers and brought a box to raise the mouse pad to a better level (ergonomics are important on the floor, too). As you can see, I still have a desk to buy.

Here’s the first thing I did last night:

I had to record Californication on the hard drive (of the digital receiver) because I was missing one cable to hook up the digital receiver to the DVD/VHS recorder. (The recorder is for analog broadcasts only and we only get digital now.)

Here’s the dinner table:

It’s a bit messy so I’ll get a better photo when the dust settles (hopefully only figuratively speaking).

I don’t have many lights so I got tired quite early last night (around 11pm). Good thing I did, because the sun woke me up before 6 am. The temporary bedroom curtains are a bit translucent… (and I’m getting blinds, too)

So, here I am. Settled in, living on the floor in the middle of boxes.

You know Stephen King has written a lot, don’t you? Well, he’s written a whole lot…

That box is full of Stephen King books and nothing else. One, a pop-up book, was even left over. The bottom is covered in paperbacks and on top are the hardbacks, audio books, and a few more paperbacks.

Today Dad and I went to the apartment and assembled the dining table set. Boy does it look nice. While we were there, he took a look at the leaking sink and seemed to have fixed it. We left some water in the sink (with towels and rags underneath) to check that it holds water.

Now I should just pack, pack and pack, to my heart’s content. Two more days to go!